keep treading water like this you're bound to tire out keep trusting someone will save you you’re bound to drown i only give one good chance and then I miss someone won’t hold grudges but I don’t forgive easily i could forget if my gut would stop reminding me are you ever genuine? i might stop looking behind closed doors for your intentions if you’d stop shutting them i’ll stop hiding under blankets if you stop scaring me with shadow games i’ll stop running up the stairs if you stop chasing me can we be honest? do we know the meaning? if your insecurities would stop screaming you might hear what I’m saying you always beat around the bush saying a whole lot of nothing but your talking doesn’t stop your mouth is moving but I can’t make out a damn thing you say and I wish for a second you could stop and I could stop and we could look at one another step over the pile of shit we’ve been tossing all our faults in and hold on to each other until we can stop holding onto who is right and who is wrong if this is all we have let's leave it here let it live in this space let it spin around in its own dust storm you brushed it off like a change in personality should have been expected like maybe you knew it was coming i sure didn’t the carousel we rode, a teasing rotation made it too easy to jump on and off you know I love you though i know you love me too we almost love too much to be angry love too much to turn our backs i thought maybe that was the case but I think you just told me your version of goodbye could we just say what we mean? do we know how? i still can’t imagine life without you even when you make it too intense and your wordiness too complicated i’d like to simplify with you i don’t know where to begin i drove around today looking for you with no intention of finding you anywhere and no idea what to do with you if I did i might try to embrace it all away do you think we could hold on long enough to forget? straight through awkward touches dig ourselves out of the hole of ill intentions passed the first kiss the unraveling confessions the premature devotion our future gave us more comfort then the present moment we had catching up to do i drove around today i like the feeling of leaving and heading somewhere better thoughts come out when the coast is clear when I was kid, long car rides meant we were going somewhere leaving the house of terrors behind at least for a little while my aunt always said driving was the greatest privilege she said you can get in your car and go anywhere i always imagined I would be grateful for it too reminded myself to remember where it can take me what it can save me from watching closely memorizing what foot pressed what pedals what direction to turn the keys R meant reverse D meant drive i wanted to make sure I knew what to do when I had the privilege funny, I didn’t trust anyone would teach me my body doesn’t know how to do things without caution spent most of my life in two gears safe on land or drowning i learned early on how to handle dangerous situations head down, quiet, stay unheard, unseen but l i s t e n listen scrupulously are you staying? are you with me? or have you drifted off somewhere I can’t see has the current taken you the winds too strong for you to paddle through the moon not bright enough the sky not clear enough i’m afraid of the hole that might be left in your absence like a flower ripped out of the ground roots dangling and ragged your body will take you in the direction you set your eyes are looking at me? are you looking?
hunted
we walked around mountain tops
we stood at the edge of the world
i didn’t hold your hand
i grasped at the life I could see but never feel
i was tasting it
you were there
maybe you were somewhere else
it didn’t matter to me after a while
i was a hunter
i was hungry
i had my bow and arrow
i had aim
i walked on mountain tops
i stood at the edge of the world
i was scared
i was hopeful
i couldn’t go back
one giant leap in front of the other
limbs scared stiff
we smelled of red dirt
and hot sun
we wore the earth on our faces
and heaviness in our hearts
narcissism doesn’t have tact
doesn’t pay attention to social cues
there’s never a good time to be emotionally unstable
empty canyons
filed up with overlapping disappointment
wiser now
you don’t offer up how you’ve been
you don’t ask about me
still walking through ice cold rivers
unmarked trails
i still have too much compassion for you
couldn’t get out of our own way
better at mapping out the roads we never should have traveled
masters of web making
technicians of blame
our fingers always pointing in the wrong direction
we knew where we were going
we never had the courage to say it out loud
can we say it now
i was always up there
looking down
watching like a hawk
i was a hunter
you, an impersonator
both of us screaming for silence
i was waiting
for peace
for defeat
a discoverer
i had it in me
i just didn’t want to use it