Sleep Until It Stops Raining

And everything hurts in all the cracks where daylight stopped shining three years ago. Because you were left here with nothing but a bad taste in your mouth and a nauseous stomach. You were left with creased skin and hollow arms and ghosts touching your bones. So you slept until November stopped raining and you wished for sun. But when it came it burned your skin and you swore never again until tomorrow when you went looking for fire. And your bones ache for someone next to you in bed just breathing because sometimes you're scared you'll stop breathing. And you carry on like this and you try to breathe through the animals clawing at your stomach and the sadness. The sadness that is an anchor tied to both of your ankles and you're scared of deep water. The sadness that is cold when your skin is burning and November in the middle of summer. And you close your eyes and dream of sharp objects and being loved until her eyes are razor blades and her skin burns to touch. Because what is the difference between your masochistic tendencies and loving someone you will never have. So you fall asleep hollow and hurting and lie on the floor until you're barely a whisper of sweet nothings and you talk yourself down again and you're okay and the tears don't hurt.

Two Hundred Feet Below

And she looks at me and her face is creased in that way it gets when sleep is sound

I wish I remembered what that felt like

Anyways she looks at me with her rumpled skin and her hair like it went through

The wrong washing cycle

And her eyes are blurred edges and grey areas

She’s holding a cup of coffee and the steam curls around her nose and tickles the

Sand of her freckles

And I scratch sand out of my ear

There’s salt in my hair and salt on our skin

Sunburned

So she looks at me with her rumpled skin and frayed hair and grey eyes and coffee

And her lips are chapped from windburn

Or salt kisses

And she speaks softly like waves lapping my edges

Her voice is thick like salt water and rough like sunburned skin

“It’s just how close it is, you know? The end of it all.

We’re just so close.

Just peering over the edge.”

And I know

I’m staring down into her ocean

Two hundred feet below

Fear

I guess it’s always going to be a struggle, the fear. The fear that everything’s going to end, at some point. It’s inevitable, you know. We’re walking along this bridge and the sun is slipping below the horizon and our feet are balanced precariously on the tightrope above the ocean. The fall is lethal, the waves rigid like cement. We’re so close to death, yet we have no inkling of what lies after. It’s just a big empty nothingness, a black hole that is all at once void of everything, a never-ending expanse, and full of crushing everythingness. But I guess it’s all in what we choose to do with this struggle, the fear of being blown overboard by the smallest gush of wind. We can collapse beneath the weight of being scared, stay nestled beneath the safe comfort of our kingdoms, plan out or days to annihilate any space for mishaps. We can choose not to breathe a word outside what is expected for fear of unacceptance. We can succumb to the crushingness.

 Or we can say fuck it. We’re given one world, one heart, one set of lungs to breathe in every molecule of life this world has to offer. It’s right there, lying before you. It’s stretched out and its arms are open. It’s not too scary, either. It won’t hurt you, not too badly. Not in any way you can’t handle. Not in any way that’s not meant to be. Not spitefully. We can choose to explore every corner of this beautiful planet; meet as many people with as many beaming smiles as we can. Because screw fear. It’s only going to keep you walking the same route home; it’s only going to keep you filled with longing. And eventually it’s going to eat you up. It’ll consume you as you get older and you live longer because you’re safe and you’re home and you’re swaddled in regret. And your hair greys and maybe you think of that missed chance you had with that one person that you were too scared to take. Maybe you wish you had taken that flight, made that move. But I promise you, if you succumb to the fear, if you do not use it as fuel to burn you, to propel you ahead, you will die empty. You will have fallen off the bridge anyway like everybody else but you will not be pulling your memories down with you. You will have nothing, and your empty-handed tumble into nothingness will be unnoticed. Don’t be unnoticed.

Diamonds

The sun is bright like a meteor shower
Playing diamonds across our backs
We've been starved for light all this time
Chasing tendrils of sunlight like a kite in the darkness
We ran blindfolded by sheets of rain
Until summer's arms held us close
It breathed light into all the hollow places
Where chasing feeling left marks
We were numb like November
And dying like September
I needed you like a blanket
Of sand and waves that
Wash over me now
I'm not scared of waves
Only the depths of winter

Awake

There is something so profoundly sad in those hours after the night ends and before morning arrives. All the lonely people searching for togetherness in the rips and frays of empty sheets and the way the redness of the alarm clock penetrating the pitch black resembles your eyes burned from crying because you danced too close to the heat. There's a light coming from the kitchen and maybe it finds its way into your bed. And no one's awake except for the anonymous cars that send the sound of ignition through your window panes. And you think of calling but you know that they're already sleeping. So you tell yourself that soon it will be morning but everything is harder to rationalize when ghosts fill your bones and there's no one there to reach out to in the darkness. So you curl around the emptiness and tell yourself again that you'll be okay. But you're starting not to believe yourself anymore. Your back aches and your lungs ache and the world is sleeping without you. There's a profound sadness in those hours as three turns to four and you're still lonely. And you're always awake.