Trains In The Trossachs

when i sit on the train i stare at the other passengers,

making up the details of their lives as i please.

i convince myself that i am correct,

that all the individuals i am creating are real; i am playing god.

she pricks her fingers with needles to feel alive,

he would do anything for the man that he loves.

where is my happy ending? he asks.

no such thing, she replies.

the small thing is crying.

he won’t amount to anything at all.

that one over there though,

he might.

time will tell.

time will open blisters and fill with the salt of the sun,

and you will open your pretty brown eyes

and you will look the hell around,

and you will be sad. just like me.

pain, just like me.

eventually you’ll know everything and tell nothing, like me.

only me.

they say,

keep fighting the good fight

and everything will fall into place.

i can only think of a few things that are worth fighting for,

and they’re not even real.

About A Boy

You held my right arm as Tyler pulled my
shoe off. The bone had just snapped moments before,
and moments before that I had just told you off,
told you that I wish I'd seen your S10 wrapped around a tree

the previous night; I begged and implored and slapped
you in the face but you drove off dizzy regardless.
I'd driven dizzy for you before though, too (the lines on
the street blurring together, smiling at the fuzziness and

being trapped in your gangly limbs that could wrap around
us both twice, and you did it). The bubbly lime on my
lips, fresh like the Bowling Green air that night, you
keeping Coop from getting his ass kicked: he's "from the streets."

And then there was that kid trying to break down Beth's door
so I just hid and you soon joined, but I never asked you to.
The only thing I ever asked you to do you didn't; you
enjoy cement shoes in the white trash halo of Ohio, and in

the morning Brandon gave me that look, a look that
perpetuated my happiness and haunts my memory, just
like your taillights did, dizzy and drunk and driving into the
darkness, while the bone just ends up snapping and I'm just 400 miles away.

A Pleasant Discovery

not wanting to speak
too soon,
i will still say that then,
i found you.

Lines For Later

when the voices of boys scream you to sleep, when the foreign sun sheds light on your familiar disaster, when you look out his window and see what you won't admit, when you crawl back into bed and pretend to be proud, when high school romances come back to haunt you, when you pull out the coat that is that much thicker than the one before, the one you bought over there, when you were happy (?), when you’re back, when you were happy (?), when the wood on the porch cries out in pain and everything stops making sense, as if it ever did, when you were somewhere different last year with someone else, when the cigarette smoke spells out your name in the crisp ohio sky, when they roll their eyes, when you make them disappear, when you remember back in the day, scooting away, the monte carlo, sheltered and desperate, whips of sensation in places you’ve never been, when you make the executive decision to never turn back, when you simultaneously waste your breath and lose it, when you stop remembering and stop forgetting, when you stop being young, when you never stop growing up.

as a side note // people don't write enough about their pets, the things they did that they are ashamed of, and you know what? i don't think we write enough about broken hearts. i don't think we could ever write enough about broken hearts. about broken hearts. broken, broken hearts.

as a side note // though i am utterly terrified of them, i would much like to be a part of some secret society. moreover, i would much like to be something.

Duties

through the creaking
drops the egg; let's hope not.
i tire of cleaning up mess,
so come get your stupid cat
(if you want to).
through the shaking
drops the egg; let's hope not.
i feel omnipotent when i open
the drapes for your stupid cat,
come get her
(if you want to).
through the gripping
drops the egg; let's hope not.
the cat calls your name,
and i tell her you're never coming
back, but the stupid cat won't listen
(and you don't want to).
and through the crying
drops the egg, and we hoped not,
so it didn't,
and your only responsibility,
now,
is your stupid cat.

Mozart

i should stop being so ambiguous.

class started yesterday. and so it begins,
now,
again,
and for the last time, i think.

[can't stop, addicted to the shindig]

again with the white on black, black on white, except this time they are slender slabs of a latent talent which i dream about possessing. CDE, FGAB. marvelous, marvelous.

i like the ones that get away. i like the hunt, i like the aftermath. i like forgiving people you should not forgive, i like holding grudges forever. why did you stop talking to me? well, i to you and you to i, remember? it was all okay, because we were both in love with someone else. it was all okay, because we were both in love with someone else. an octave higher, an octave lower, but it was all okay.

then, give or take some. back behind a table, feeling like i'm doing something with my life, lying very loudly to your face, my fake dreams and ambitions rattling around against your eardrums, but shit, you got so much faith in me, don't you?

and so,
inception. commencement. chapter one.
we were never really good at goodbyes anyhow.

The Slush

is everywhere, here. cars slide by on muddy snow, the sound rhyming with the crunching of metal and the pounding of hearts and being home for the holidays. i'd be safe and warm [if i was in L.A.].

arms extended at my side, letting my fingers hang as long as the bones will go, air wrapping around them, thinking that if my arms extended but a few inches more i'd scrape the pavement, dusted orange by the streetlights.

and i stand there, with arms that are too long,
scrape, scrape, scrape,
on the cool, wet pavement,
and as the ice freezes on the windshield,
i wonder if this is how it's supposed to be.

arms still down, tilting my head back, shoulders becoming a rest, the sky is so quiet, my personality so insipid, i think: motivation needs a point and an issue implores enthusiasm. oh, hey, last chance.