Dysfunction

The anxiety isn't just in my mind anymore.
It's in my throat, choking me, cutting off the air
and I can't breathe.

It's in my lungs, diseasing them,
filling me with the poison that lives in my head,
not just outside,
and I still can't breathe.

It's in my heart, constricting blood flow,
and I still can't breathe.

Left Behind

Fading sunlight jumps from puddle to puddle
chasing clouds
The girl on the train watches
unable to catch up

Not My Last Letter

To He Who Was Briefly My Lover,

You will never read this,
and here I am,
with all the things I will never tell you.

I won't admit I cried myself to sleep
from missing you,
or that I wanted to call
when I stranded myself at the train station.

I won't say that I miss the way you smelled
like coffee,
or the movies we played
but never watched because we were too busy
with each other.


And I won't tell you I've moved on,
that I'm into someone new. 
We were lovers so briefly
before you were gone.
And now I will be too.

From Someone Briefly Loved

Sinners

My first thought
is of the sheer quantity of people
gathered to make an unpopular point.
We walk.

As we walk, I see my present
juxtaposed over my past
moving into my future.
Temple spires reach
toward a god I no longer believe in.
That god damned me for my decisions,
condemned me for my friends,
judged me for my lack of belief.

We reach the end of our march,
the top of a hill.
I can see more from up here. 
The journey is far from over,
but we have made it this far.
We won't stop now.

Criminal

I watch him scrape the ice off the railings,
boredom the only excuse for his crime.
I want to scream out at him to
Stop. Don't destroy the beautiful things.
They will end in their own time.
But I don't.
I let him have his destruction
and silently mourn what's been lost.

Yesterday I cut my hair.
I can't shed my lifestyle as easily as I discarded
those strands of myself,
watching the inches fall to the ground.
And Abby sweeps them up, throws them away,
never to be part of me again.

Ghost

Confusion,
comfort,
chest to back,
head to shoulder,
breath down spine,
against skin,
the smell of laundry
old houses
faded cologne
and marijuana
oddly comforting.

Shift in bed,
fear and uncertainty
the state of my sanity.

Not wrong,
but familiar.

Haunting.

Walk

          tread carefully
            over the bodies 

                     of the dead

     if you listen too hard 

    they may convince you
they are better off that way

                                or that you 

                               would be too