Seascape

i watched through a screen
porch the pelicans
swallow fish and the summer sky

waves rushed over the shore
i breathed in the aroma
of salt
and a north carolina sunrise

shrimp boats dotted the horizon
with that ole fishing pier

kelsey and adam and i
we ran with our boogie boards tucked
in our pre-teen fingertips
across the paved street

the hot sand sunk beneath
our feet like fire
we ran and jumped into
the cold ocean floor
where we used to swallow
the sunset
annually

the first chill of the ohio winter
ices my windows and
i wonder if that place is still
the same as it
was when i was young

Ode To Autumn

Colored leaves dancing like spirits among
the treetops and swirling through
the air
huddled under warm hoodies
pulled tight around me
slim jeans worn and faded
pumpkin
spice coffee on cold mornings
and that smell of the crisp air
before you slumber and
after the sun awakens you
the smell of rain on
trampled and damp leaves
leaving you breathless
the whispers of ghosts and demonic
beings and the
fear in teenagers eyes as their
imagination takes control
the salivating tongues of kids so
desperate for their candy
and the colored leaves
dancing into our
rituals

the big bad me

show them your teeth,
she says
i turn away and run into the dark night
biting my lips until liquid
spills out

let them see your eyes,
she says
i plug my ears and take
shelter in the depths of the waxy canals

make them feel your talons,
she says
i pinch my skin to maintain
self-control until my nails meet flesh
and flesh meets blood

expose them to your true skin,
she says
i try to bury myself away
from her but
end up burying her

next to all the other secret skeletons

Andover

roseate dusk dots the
settling skyline
in flushed blossom winks
around ole andover

a town i didn’t grow up in
and know nothin’ about

the waves of the musky lake
dance to the
rocky shore, moving
with the wind

the tall trees in
the stretching distance
dive far into the
foggy horizon like the
knights of the sky;
like birds breathing in
the world underneath their
winged swords

i listen for the sound of
familiarity, but silence surrounds
me in silhouetted shadows
of the unreachable
the unobtainable
the mirrored masks of mystery
and discovery and
the pristine
memories that echo
loud like in valleys
but i’m deaf to those
‘cause this town ain’t
nothin’ i know about
and i didn’t grow up here

the seagulls sure love
to sing me their melodies
and the trees sure love
to shiver their songs
over the littered cigarette butts
caked in ash mud n’ dirt
that tell me stories
and i’ll embrace this
moment, but this moment
ain’t mine

i’ll marry the stars, here
and we’ll dance with this wind
just listen
t o                 t h e                 s u n r i s e
‘cause in the morning
i’ll be far, far away
but those blue orbs,
her skyline that i
love to fly through
they will be there
we will be there
embracing and dancing in
our own moments
in our own town

and that stretching distance
of time and memory and love,
our future,
i know nothin’ about
and i didn’t grow up there
but that moment,
it’ll be ours

Childhood

do you remember the hot
sun beating down
across the chalk-covered
pavement? ‘cause i do
the concrete cracks were
like fate’s spider webs
catching us whole
for the digestion of design

me and matt
and danny and adam
we liked to run and
pitch golden crab
apples the size of baseballs
at the stop sign
in front of my yard
and we’d watch the swarm of bees
flood out like shooting stars
across the sky
they’d chase us
and it was just a game
back then, do you remember?
‘cause i do

some days i like to watch cars
drive by, and i’d
think back to when we
would sit in lawn chairs
on the side of the road
under the heat of
the summer sun sipping
on our kool-aid and
we’d wave with screams
to honk like it
was the law or something
do you remember those days
‘cause i do

and sometimes i look
into the vast sky and watch
the lemon squeeze it’s
juice upon the earth
in it’s bright color galore
of sunrise and sunsets
and i take a taste of the
citrus memories of lemonade
daydreams, thinking back to when
we would walk around the
neighborhood with the little
red wagon and sell to the
thirsty weekend-yard-working
dads who would buy a cup
for a quarter, and we’d collect it
all in that jar that summer
that we were saving
up for a club-house.
it ended up in the
childhood digestion design
of our stomachs
‘cause those sweets
were smiling at us in
the dairymart down the road
and our pockets were
so heavy from those quarters
do you remember?
‘cause i hope i don’t forget

i like to think back to
when we’d be swallowed
by the forts we’d build
and get lost in the
digestion of design
of blankets and pillows
and those little green
armchairs
do you remember falling
asleep inside of those?
‘cause i do

sometimes i like to
let the memories consume
me for those few
moments, when the design
of my childhood’s
digestion swirls me
around, i wonder if
you remember the good
old days, ‘cause i
know i’ll never forget

Morning Ritual

Can you hear that, too?

            the tick-tock of a heart beat speeding as the
alarm clock screams

the drip-drop of  warm water pelting flesh
in a morning ritual

the sizzling of bacon grease on a skillet
shushing the nighttime away

the swishing of saliva swirling
around the morning mouth of chomping teeth like
a Merry-Go-Round full of dancing children

the gulp of coffee burning down the throat and
the yelp, “OW!” as it settles in the stomach

Can you smell that, too?

the after rain scent and the crystallized bulbs of dew
attaching to the blades of grass like
children in the arms of mothers

the fresh shampooed hair and
soap-scrubbed skin

the bacon and coffee collecting
in the air welcoming the morning in around the house

Can you see that, too?

the sheer look of terror in
those voids of sight as they surrender sleep

the soul-smiling gaze as pondering
thoughts transpire in a calm, morning baptism

the bacon sizzling on the stove
and the coffee boiling in the pot

the de-stressing smile of satisfaction
as the coffee drizzles down the throat and

the impression of pain as it burns
its way down but a smile of contentment soon after

and the de-smiling look of realization
that it’s Monday morning and work is calling names

and the reddish-orange and yellow sunrise

with purple tints and blue shading around the clouds

making the dread of work somehow okay

I Would

Sometimes I wish that I could just drive far, far away. And not to run away. Not to any specific destination. Just drive and keep driving wherever the road takes me. Some days I just want to leave the suburbs and get lost in the world, only the stars as my guide. Can you imagine what that would be like? Leaving the city, abandoning the roots of your life for an adventure? If only life could be lived like that.

I would take the 7 seas
in the stars and sail
across them until the moon
calls me home 

I would drive down
the empty trails
that lead to nowhere
and everywhere I’ve ever dreamed of

I would abandon myself
at the house of my youth
and explore the stars in
wonder, listening to their stories

I would run through the forested 
plains, and jump through the 
rivered valleys, skipping stones
that dance on a rippling surface

I would breathe in the words of God
and this world. I would love, I would dance, 
I would live, and I would learn to 
actually see what I left behind 

26th Sunset of February

Dance with me under
the blue moonlit canopy

of stars, our souls glide

through those marshmallow

mountaintops our souls linger
in perfect rhythm

with every planet
pulled in by the gravity

of our beating hearts

a true melody
in violin promises
a summer smile,

unceasing passion
in perpetual motion
of three syllables

oh, we’ll run to the
endless edges of the world
and chase the sunset

So run, run, my love
into the great big ocean
I’ll swim in your eyes

And let’s paint the sky
every sunset that’s caught us

on fire, my love

We’ll walk through the flames
in silhouetted starlight

our footprints ceaseless 

Bloody Mary

"the darkest wombs exit the heart,"

she said

i listened to her somber voice

like a ghost

in my blood

the moon was swelling

the sweetest melody

in cricket violins 

and the wind

as she screamed

murder, murder

i laid atoned 

in my own blood

the mirror telling no lies

bloody mary, bloody mary,

bloody mary

DISCOVER part III (seeds of death: a metamorphosis)

i  a m the echo of rain
on cracked blacktop
and the cracked blacktop painted
over with middle school designs
in powdered chalk
all in a beautiful array of
sky blue   strawberry red   tangerine orange
hot pink  and white
and the cracks in the
chalk of hopscotch   foursquare  and
four fingered families on the playground
over at echo hills on
stow rd 

i  a m the silhouette of stretching shadows
in the eyes of God
and porn stars
the darkness of death in
every pink sunset and
p e r i p h e r a l   sunrise

cutting through the milky
cotton ball puffs like
the beauty of birth inside
every carcass in graveyard wombs 

they are wrapped in linen under six
feet of  f o r e v e r  providing
nutrients for the soil  and the worms  and
the dust from the dust
beneath the new roots of the grass and
the old roots of that ancient maple
over on 91 that stands guard
with the pearlescent moon
against the coyotes of the night

 i  a m the slaughtered pigs
crying in the puke of
the vegetarians  and i am the
smiling rose on the casket
and the moaning dogs of
sherwood acres
and i am the ghost of
that old slide that burned
down a few years ago
in sherwood acres park
only the dogs can hear
my cries

i  a m the decomposing deer
in the woods over in
sherwood acres park
staring through an empty
window  and i am
the gathering flies and the
animals that devour the
remnants of the deer

i  a m the first frost of winter
and the last leaf of fall
and i am the milk inside
every maternal breast
and the honey inside every hive

i  a m the life and death
between dreams and wake
discovering the world between
fiction and reality
and i am the ghost
of the robin hood over
on east main street
they say you can still hear
the hums of the local bar bands

in the wind

i  a m the thin strawberry
blonde girl with skinny jeans
and a plaid winter coat
purple lips curled in
an evasive smile
walking towards the 12 story
library in risman plaza

i  a m the smell of turkey
in the oven and the
image of the gray smoke pouring
out and curling as it hits
the ceiling

i  a m the beautiful girl chasing
the  o h i o  sunset
and the boy
watching the  o h i o  sunset
whose drawing pictures in
his mind's playground
caked with cracked chalk
of future sunsets

i  a m the smiling fat
cat in the photographs on
the wall  and the paw prints
unsmiling  and i am the
halt of the engine
at the stop light  and the
bench at fred fueller park
where the young man sits
listening  and the writhing
worms under the rock
and i am the black pen set in motion

i  a m the freckle on the fly
in the doorway of the
student center  and the cigarette
butt on the ground before
satterfield  and i am the stars
that twinkle in the vast horizon
of a poets eye swallowing
the depth of  o c e a n s  
and i am their mmms and ohs
intoxicated with the staggering
drunkenness of words
and none of that watered down shit

i  a m every song ever bled
and swallowed in and out of key
in green hymnals and white ipod buds and
static radio airwaves and marching bands
and i am the seed inside every blooming smile  and the smile
in every teardrop echoing against blacktop 
and i am the garden metamorphosing into every color
and i am the scarlet rose on the
mahogany casket in the garden my
soul has been reaping

DISCOVER part II (ode to the earth)

m u c h  like the silver moon
glimmers in the meadow
and the starry night
dances in twilight’s gleam
painting ancient pictures
on an ancient canvas
of heroes and myths

m u c h  like the golden sun
sets fire to the ocean
and the life with in
to the painted sky
and the ancient birds
dominions and kings of the clouds
all in reddish galore
an explosion of terrifically
beautiful color
and to those ancient birds
humming their ancient tunes
with the trees

m u c h  like the fuzzy bumble bee
pollinates from a golden sunflower
and collects the nectar for her young
and to that golden sunflower
that glimmers in the silver meadow
and catches fire under
the blooming sunrise
and as the winter approaches
begins to deteriorate and fall back
to her mother’s womb

like the sun every night
and the lifeless body of
every beautiful carcass
plant animal human

m u c h  like the drift of an autumn leaf
and the snow of a dandelion seed
soaring through the silver meadow
so is the discovery of life and death

DISCOVER part I (i was there)

i   w a s   t h e r e
when little 7 year-old jacob andrews
looked up to the esteemed, autumn sky

painted blue on a canvas

of the harvested earth

the sun a golden flame shimmering

with waves of red and orange

the emerald grass, blades cutting through

the cracks of the ancient design

the trees, mahogany tall and thick in their splendor

speaking in their ancient tongue

whispering fictitious tales to each other

he smiled at his old grandpa-pa

with his little lit-up 7 year-old piercing blue eyes

that made even the damnedest souls 

dance in spiritual galore

he smiled back with that half-smile

his old soul dancing in birth
and decay

they stood on solid ground

on the green grass that stretched

for miles on an empty field

the blades of grass weaving and waving

in patterns of puzzles: unsolved

discovering un-discovery 

i   w a s   t h e r e

when little jacob andrews and his

old grandpa-pa stood among

the old trees just listening 

they got down on their knees

and began to dig deep

little jacob andrews held in

his tiny hand a red acorn

and dropped it in the hole

planting a seed of discovery 

i   w a s   t h e r e

when little jacob andrews
watched the little red oak tree grow into 

something not-so-little 

something tremendous and alien

a monster of beauty in form

the branches like arms stretching

towards heaven

he saw his face in that tree
his aspirations, the branches

his heart, the roots

his soul, the autumn leaves

he watched those leaves for many moons

following the reddish-orange fires spread

and float all around the fields

the earth pulling them back towards her

back to the womb from where they came, 

their gravestones will read

he caught one in mid-drift making a wish, 

his eyes piercing into the decaying beauty:
the veins were like a map of the living 

and the dead, 

the wind was like a compass

for the souls

i   w a s   t h e r e
as the tree stood taller than

any tree for miles

in the fall as the furry brown squirrels
stole the red acorns and collected
them for the approaching winter

in the winter, when the white snow

buried the thick, tall oak 

in a blanket of crystalline white

making it look nothing extraordinary

just ordinary like every
snow-covered tree

in the spring when the hummingbird 

discovered the tree and when the 

dandelion seed heads sprouted
up around it, 

when jacob andrews pulled 

one from the ground and blew on it

watching the cotton-like fluff
spread the seeds of dandelion snow

near the big hill in the backyard

that overlooks the little lake

with a small, forested island in it

and a month later when 

the dandelions bloomed, 

jacob andrews uprooted one,
twisting the stem around his finger

pinching the flower with his thumb

and sang momma had a baby and its

head popped off and laughed
as the flower was de-headed by his

prepubescent humor
and when his grandpa-pa

yelled at him for uprooting 

the dandelions because they were 

mother nature’s reminder of

the beautiful mundane things this 

world has to offer

and in the summer jacob andrews

wanted to explore the forested island
so old grandpa-pa

and jacob andrews went on a little

hike carrying wood up that
dandelion-covered hill like jesus christ

carried his cross up mount calvary 

they carried it to that little lake
as little old grandpa-pa was heaving,

his joints aching, his gray hair balding,

with the little life in him,
he wanted to explore with jacob andrews

his brow was dripping with sweat

as he pounded and hammered away

starting a bridge

he stopped, looking at his 

grandson square in the eyes

piercing blue into  piercing

blue, and he told him that

they were selling 3/4ths of the land

that their home was to become

a graveyard

i  w a s  t h e r e 

when jacob andrews threw a fit
and when grandpa-pa smacked

him in the face
and kissed him where he smacked him

saying, “son, graves are homes for
our bodies, and bodies are vessels
for our souls…”
his voice was calm and collect
almost like a song in tune
with the world at this moment
as the sun was spotlighting him

he continued
“sometimes the world brings
gray clouds that turn to thunderstorms

and if you look at the world with gray eyes, 

you will only see it in
shades of gray and you’ll never
see the rainbow in the thunderstorm
because son, sometimes the rain
brings on the blooming”

i  w a s  t h e r e

when grandpa-pa, got up
leaving his work unfinished
and walked over to the tree
kneeling beside it
whispering to it

with his last breath

i  w a s  t h e r e 

when the ancestors and brothers
of the oak tree were dug up
and sacrificed
when the grass become not
just grass but “hair of graves”

and when that oak tree became
haunted with ghosts and lonely,
somber melodies hummed in the wind

i  w a s  t h e r e
when that unfinished bridge
became broken from years
of decay and rotting wood
when jacob andrews’s grandson
jacob andrew the III discovered the
lake, and the tree, and the grass,
and the dandelion

the tree housed many ghosts
that night, as jacob andrews the
I listened to it
but he, magnificent oak,
wasn’t screaming

wasn’t crying
he was laughing

and when jacob andrews
sat down against the tree
he watched it dance naked
under the harvest moon,
stripping red yellow and orange
he listened to him speak old-wives
tales about the dead

and even though jacob andrews
gray hair was sprouting out
of their grave and his eyes cold and
dead, they were still piercing
blue sapphires painting pictures
of a well-lived life

he whispered to the tree
like his grandpa-pa with his last
breath and a leaf unattached itself
like a detached soul soaring through
the stars and heavens and
i  w a s  t h e r e

he was buried at the base of the tree
his gravestone read
back to the womb from where he came

jacob andrews the III grew older,
like the tree,
his body ancient
and the graveyard became
over-crowded
and lively with death

they cut down the old oak tree
and jacob andrews the III and
his grandson bought the wood

i  w a s  t h e r e

when they carried the
wood stained with memories
over the hill to the lake
and built the bridge

that carried them to the other side

discovering un-discovery

Money (an ode to my cat)

Money

is my cat, golden brown,
white, and mahogany 

she walks through brown-carpeted halls

her kingdom, her terrain,

fat and looking for week-old crumbs

on the un-swept kitchen floor

too lazy to crawl downstairs
and consume her cat food 

Money slurps up the water

from the empty bathtub

she prowls around the house

chasing her shadow on walls

and sees me watching her,

she meows, meows and meows

until I walk over and give her

her everyday fifteen minutes of fame

Money is a beautiful, annoying beast
she tries to distract me when 

I watch T.V. and read and study

jumping up on my lap

her brown eyes beg me please

please pet me

when my door is cracked open 

while I sleep, Money knows

she must have some kind of

kevin’s-door-is-cracked-open-

must-go-wake-him-up radar

I let her jump into my arms

and I pet her before I let my dreams

seize me from my wake

she licks my face, and I kick her out

her clawless paws pound on the door

Money hurts her leg and

she prefers not to walk much

we move her food and water bowl

and litter box upstairs

her leg heals, and she goes about 

her business consuming crumbs
her fur clumpy, meowing at her domain
a paper box in a paper world

Money loses a lot of weight

our other cat, the skinny white one

becomes the fat one

Money stops meowing

and her decaying flesh

starts rotting inside of my heart

her eyes grow very tired and sad

Money, my cat, can barely walk

her back legs become paralyzed

my thoughts become paralyzed

hope becomes paralyzed as she

refuses to eat, my brother and I 

take turns holding her in our arms

and we march like a funeral parade

out of the door Friday, November 18th

Money looks so beautiful

cuddled into my arms

rain falling from my eyes

her rotting flesh, dirty fur,

painful eyes are so grotesque

in the most beautiful kind-of way

her brown eyes beg me please

please pet me

but I kiss her head and

don’t even hold her

I run for the empty house

not looking back, too afraid

everything will turn to salt

and dust gathers on the walls

that used to display shadows

of life, they crumble dead onto me

I leave my door cracked slightly open

but nothing wakes me

12 hours until I sell my soul to NaNoWriMo

Well folks, this is it. My end has finally approached near. I have approximately 12 hours left with you, but goodbyes are not necessary. Good riddance is not required. And for the love of God, please do not start singing so long, farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, adieu.

Dead? No. More like face down, bloody, burnt, and rotting from the inside out, 6 feet under the dirt in the depths of Hell. Is that how I should describe it? Nah, this next month is just going to be a very exciting, yet extremely challenging experience for me. It'll be heaven minus the eaven with a bunch of ell o-v-e. 

For those of you who are lost wandering the river Styx of this entry, I'm surprised you are with me so far. Starting the first day of November I am doing this thing called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I don't want to enthrall you with the details, so here is my own personal brief synopsis of it. Nanowrimo is a nonprofit organization, where every year in the month of november you dedicate and dictate that month strictly for writing. You write about 2,000 words a day so by the end of the month you have 50,000 words. You accomplish this by doing no editing whatsoever. You just keep writing. And there's deadlines. The deadlines are what is going to kill me, you see. I am really bad at deadlines, and I've never been able to finish something I've started. So this will be a real challenge for me. I don't care if I don't win the competition, I'm basically doing this for myself so I can actually finish writing a novel. 

Details for nanowrimo: http://nanowrimo.org/ 

I guess you can wikipedia it as well. 

So for the next month, I am going to be balancing out school (studying, homework, etc) and work with writing 2,000 words a day--let's not mention the new band I am called Play Onwards where we have 2 shows in november and need a few originals by then. I feel like this is going to be really hard.

And let's not forget, I have to write poetry practically everyday. Now, I'm not saying that's a problem, I am just saying this is going to be a lot of writing. 

I'm extremely excited for this, despite all of the stress. Despite the lack of the sleep and the hours spent cooped away in my room, isolated from my friends. This will be a new thing for me. A challenge. I am really excited to stay up late hours of the night typing away on my computer (I wish it was a typewriter). 

My novel is a rather complicated one. I don't want to give away too much on here for fear someone might steal the idea, but I will give a very brief synopsis. 

Basically it's about these 3 friends who are attending this college. They are part of this bigger group of friends that always hangs out, go to concerts, study and eat together, until something happens that tears apart the group. The main three friends last together but watch as their friends fall apart. Until the main character falls off the deep end and starts hanging out with another girl who they've never met. Things happen, and the main character discovers something HUGE that changes the entire novel. Another thing happens, even bigger than before, that puts her in danger of her life. Something that unites the big group of friends back together. They discover secret journals that the main character kept hidden and have to figure out what they mean, who this other girl is, and what she discovered in order to save her life. 

So, there's...wow, now 11 hours and 20 minutes left until the writing begins. I'm ready for the coffee and the coffee stains, the notebooks filled with ideas, and the hours of literary abandon. Let's not forget the carpal tunnel I'll probably receive from this. Wish me luck!

Compass To My Heart

Follow the compass to my heart.

Will you get lost,

like I do everyday? Do you lack direction like

my feet that run and walk
and glide on roads
not even written in maps?

Some days we take the wrong
battered and beaten path,
dusty and worn or
clean and barren, and end

up in places we never intended

that were made for us, alone

Follow the footprints in

the sand on the shores of my soul

before the ocean swallows the

memories. 

Sometimes the miles

we travel over time

can never

compare to the

distance in each other's 

hearts

through uncharted waters, dark blue
and deep and damned in god-knows-what,

and burned bridges—black like the
ashen faces of every heart
we once loved—
follow into the depths

the golden compass to my poor heart

let the northern wind

guide you, and the southern

sea swallow you

and let the eastern sunrise

consume you

and the western sunset

take you home

because some men will never

stop to ask for directions,

but most women will 

Chapter 5

PRE-PRELUDE
* I hate poems about break ups *

PRELUDE
July 20^th:
The plot is thickening, like
my blood pumping in my veins, my
heart under siege. Milky flags fly up like 

clouds in my blue eyes that begin to 

overcast a 99% chance of scattered
showers. Have you looked outside,
yet? (I can hear them ask) It’s beautiful. 

But I can

barely see through these
clouds of gray.

I’ve sewn the seeds, reaped
for four months, now these
weeds have uprooted out of
nowhere, it seems.
Today I say what I’ve always
said, and thought I would always
say, but hours of silence I
have received.

Kevin, we need to talk

I swallow back vomit and the
thousand tears I thought
we’d share.

CHAPTER 1
March 12th:
Fingers interlocked, we
skip out during intermission

and speed home. I smile at the
sad smile in your eyes. Something
I figured I’d never be
able to fix, not that I
even wanted to. Some how

in the silence,

our lips lock for the first

time. Your eyes, brilliant brown,

avoid mine. I wonder why.
I notice your smile,

half-hearted, beautiful, the best.
I make a goal right there,
to make your hate of everything

disperse.

That night I change my relationship

status on Facebook.

March 16^th:

Celebrating for the 20^th
time, the day I came out

of my mother, crying, coated in
blood.
They say birth is a beautiful thing.

Those brown eyes, engaged
in their own world,
stare right through mine.

You follow the path to
my soul with such precision;

no one’s ever made it there before.

And you hand to me a home-made 

crafted cake, with a painted face
of my favorite band. Let’s face it, 

everyone knows you
can’t bake, but you

perfected it.

CHAPTER 2

April:

The days roll on, as
does our feelings. Our friends
have become friends, somehow, 

someway. By chance? By Fate? By 

God? My heart wants to rush

to say those forbidden words,

but as a hopeless romantic,

I know better. And you lecture me:

when the time is right, we will know.

We’ve slipped so many times on these 

slopes. Sometimes I just want to slide 

into the uncharted depths below to the 

center of your heart, and let
fate pull me down.
April 12^th:
I’ve come to respect the little
things in life: the bugs, the trees, the
wind, the days.
Happy one month.

CHAPTER 3
May:
Your brown eyes, brilliant, always
searching for meaning, I have
fallen in love with.
The way you write and word
everything with your witty remarks,
I love that. Your progressing novel.
It’s the way you say my
name, and smile when I kiss you.
It’s the way you grin when
you speak out of the side of your
mouth. I love that.
I want to say it. I am ready to say it.

Exams. We both are scared.
You have no reason to be. You’re 

brilliant.

May 12^th:
Happy Two Months, I love you.

CHAPTER 4
June:
Enjoying summer with you, everyday it 

seems. In a couple of weeks I
am taking summer classes at Kent.

My favorite time of day is

when you and I sit out

on your porch and read. Just read.

I love sneaking peaks over there,

you in your chair, stretched back,

your eyes pondering the pages, painting

profound pictures in your brilliant mind.

You are quite the artist, dear.

I love your family. Your brother. Your 

mother and father. We dance out under

the moonlight with our lack of

rhythm. You call me white. (You can
say that again.)

You take me to the lake in your 

neighborhood. I think it’s going to be 

some poetic place full of pretty scenery.

I stare at feces of geese floating on

murky water.

We talk about the future. You 

say your if’s, and I say my when’s.
I know what my heart wants.

June 12^th:
Happy Three Months, darling,
I love you. So much.

CHAPTER 5:

 July 4^th:

You seem so happy. Always smiling

with that disarming charm of yours.

We sit out in your half brothers back 

yard, watching the neighborhood

ignited in patterns and colors
from the house across the street.
We all sit in a circle, on those white, 

hard plastic chairs, sitting around a well-

lit fire. Staring up into the sky, watching 

the neighbors, as you guys do every 

year. You are holding my arm,

smiling. I’ve never seen you so happy.

In the company of your family, of your
lover. I smile because you are smiling.

July 12^th:
You invite me over. I give you
that hardcover copy of the Jonas 

Brothers On Tour since you are
so obsessed with them.
I take you out, despite you
begging me not to.

You give me a mint.

Happy Four Months, babe, I love you.

July 19^th:

Today is the first time

you get mad at me. I talk about how
I am sad to watch Borders go,

you say that I am too afraid of change

and “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Two attempts in, I’m

questioning your motives. Today
you are someone I’ve never
met before. What’s your name?
Attempt three.

My eyes are sleepy, my heart

heavy. I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow. (A cold chill
runs down my spine).

That night I choke back the
imagination of my mind

in liquid chapters. My eyes tell
the story through the storms

of gray, suffocating the blue.

July 20^th:

Good morning, I love you.

The morning is new, the heat 

unbearable. Beautiful blue skies,
puffy white clouds, I

smile waiting for your reply.

Hours later. Babe?

A plague of some sort begins to
spread through my blood

into my heart, poisoning

my perception. I can hear

the clock.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The story unfolds in the deafening
silence. Chapter after chapter,
scene by scene. I’m sipping on coffee,
trembling over thoughts that tear

through my heart.

Three hours.

This silence speaks for itself:
chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

Kevin, we need to talk

That night I sit in chills, while

people complain about the heat.

Silence. Darkness. Damnation.

Kevin Pees went from being in a 

relationship, to single.

EPILOGUE

August

September

I run into you on campus. Your 

complexion is godly, you smile, bringing
a thousand tears to my eyes. Those 

brown crystal bulbs still the same.
The gods call it paradise

I call it paradise lost

The Subject Of My Subtle Sorrow (lyrics)

I trace the memories with my fingers in the clouds

The faces of your heart, my heart fade to the ground

With your brown crystal bulbs, staring holes in the pavement

You can save it, your tongue-tied nots knitting my noose and

These leftover feelings left inside, burned to a core, a corpse

Where I hoard these past thoughts, that rot to the floor

A valentine, that could never be mine

A somber song, sober at the core, drunk in it's words

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

Shut off your TV, I can still hear the static

In the racket of our heart beats, you're so melodramatic

You flood to your past, the comfort of the arc

Of a crooked smile, that can break two hearts

There's no comfort in color when it's cold in the 50's

but these autumn leaves have never looked so pretty

In this city of scars and broken hearts so hurt, you

you can't say break up without the breakdown first

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

No matter how poetic, my tongue still stutters

When I say you and I, I know we could never be lovers

To hell, to hell with what you think

You sell your soul for all those cliques

And click they don't, you're on the brink

of a breakdown, so let's break it down

One more sunrise that our eyes can never offer

Two more hearts, buried in the slaughter

Three more tears drowning memories in the water

Four more weeks, and I still want her

So to hell, to hell with what you think

You sell your soul, to dreams in faded ink

The love you waive, you wave goodbye

So here's to all that could have been, has now died

Blue turns to gray, and gray turns to black

These flowers I gave you, you will never give back

No matter how poetic, my tongue still stutters

When I say you and I, I know we could never be lovers