Ten Thousand Hours and Counting

She

On fertile soil,
she still stumbles

The Night

The night was young
It always was

The way the world
threw itself
beneath the covers

The way everything
felt closer

Yet, I could move
like smoke
like children
on a playground

The moon
lit up like a lantern
that held me up

The sun, 
a watchdog resting
This is the freedom
the stars dream of

This is a freedom
to hold
to grow young
to attack
and release
calmly

Windows
were never
meant
to look
out,
but
to look
within

Docked

When the dead leaves collapse
underneath the weight on
your shoulders,
when the dry twigs break
like the spine
keeping your head upright

When the trees grow
too tall and too wide
to see anything outside
from where your broken bones
left you

Will it hurt that no one
comes running?

That remembering you
hurts more than the scars
you left behind,
that every whisper
your mouth uttered
is an empty freight car
humming to itself
on a journey
to a haunted junkyard?

Does it hurt
that your shadows
were the deepest
thoughts of yours
I ever knew?

Does it hurt
that you haven’t
found the key to 
your own inner lockbox,
and that when you find it,
you’ll hate everything inside?

When your voice
takes a deep breathe
of the clean air around you
and when you try
to send it off yourself,
is failure just a thought to you?

Or have you decided
that broken people
are dying anyways
and that the sailboat
bursting from your chest
isn’t going anywhere
because you won’t
let go of the rope?

(inside) out

YOU

found yourself
among the rain,
strong as tongues.

WILL

your beer bottle
soul stomach
the very opium
you grow
in your backyard
It took me
this long
to

FIND

the worst in
you
Every crack
in the ceiling
creaking
a warning sign

NOTHING

but every
dictionary word
that is contrary to
happy
I hope your
bottle cracks
so your message
drowns
No one wants to 
see it

Can you even
read it

ANYMORE

Believe this

Songs are not
sung for men
who die young

Octaves

The serenade
of buildings
collapsing,
a joint performance
by a tornado

The wind section
blows a faint 
octave higher
than you
would dare
to hear

Here lies
four walls
that don’t do
what they should
Here, lies
broke down
this house

Here cries
a collection of hearts
pumping
leftover blood
forging a window
from the iron
in their lungs

We cry as one
trying to die
in a place
better
than this one