They said:
"If you don't have anything nice to say,
don't say anything,
at all."

     And yet,
I only ever had nice things to say
     (so I thought)
and you wanted silence.

I can't help but recognize
the best in everybody.
Under the impression
that everyone wanted 
affirmation of achievements -
No matter how small.

Evidenced by lack of ego,
it seemed necessary
to remind you
(whenever possible)
just how much
you can do;
     have done.

How can I resist
when your hair falls
madly on your shoulders?
Or when the sun illuminates
the freckles in your eyes?

Skin on skin on sand on skin:
No doubt left in my mind
that as it rained through the waves,
I was in the presence
     of something;
          of you.

Though your smile could sink ships,
you lamented the look of your thighs that day:
Only stupid thing I've ever heard you say.

Someone told me after:
"I expected nothing less from her."
Effortless.
As usual.

You are still so unaware of 
the qualities you possess -
You can not accept
a simple compliment.
    Brush it off.

I like the way you speak.
I like your hair.
I like you.
Shit.

My laugh is grating,
                                  shrill,
                                            vexatious.

What a shame
that I should find 
everything in life
SO SO SO
hilarious.

It spurts past my lips
as gracefully
as a boiling k e  t   t    l     e
or the braying
of a stubborn mule.

I should hope
to someday outgrow it.
Like pants so easily replaced
when they are ripped at the seams
from someone's bottom growing ever so large.

If I should be so lucky.

Until then,
a vow of silence?
Solitary confinement, perhaps?
Just the thought
is making my lips curl skywards
and my eyelids crinkle
at the absurdity.
Ha.

Whatever double entendres
remained in my thoughts
(surpassing whichever cathartic realizations
I was meant to have 
on metaphorical peaks)
were soon eclipsed
by the melodic shuffling through
of Stith and Sufjan philosophies.

More can be said about
the oxymoronic act
of "empty" sex
in dirty hotel rooms
than can be said
of climbing up mountains,
climbing down.

Existing as a dichotomy:
ledgers of achievement
and failures,
which is the better measure
of self-worth?

I tried to balance books.

It was easier to smuggle bones across the border
of three different countries than it was to get a 
straight answer when I needed one.



If questions were bones -
they could be finite;
measurable and classifiable.
Adapted only
for the most specific of purposes.

They would ossify at their ends,
maybe even to a point
in which they might become
unrecognizable.

It would be possible
to forget they were there at all.
Until they become brittle -
or until they grind together.

External pressures and forces
cause them to break and snap and fracture.
So would sticks and stones, they say.
Or just a trip up.

Perhaps,
constant calcification in tissues
would mean that bones weren't finite at all.
And if questions were bones,
they would just get harder
with time.

Wouldn't it be something 
to have a conversation
that wasn't deafened by the sounds
of a brass choir
and guitar harmonics?

Could you talk to me 
about something - anything really - 
besides the thoughts of other people
or the words you haven't wrote?

Let's pretend for a second
that curiosity doesn't kill cats
and independent thoughts
have not fallen by the wayside.

There was anger on your breath,

there was sadness on your skin,

I wasn't thinking.


Repeat.

I had taken it upon myself to carry the weight of the world.

It became so heavy I had to leave it behind.

We used to dream of jumping
off buildings,
              bridges,
                    cliffs.

Each 
time 
we'd 
explode
into 
thousands 
of 
pages 
filled 
with 
the 
heaviest 
words 
we 
knew.

We fell no faster.

I would have paid
to see your mind 
on movie screens

while my mind degraded
due to exposure.

I am here and there and then nowhere -

and then floating,

flying;

around your brain and back

and then forth through your limbs.



Human touch is delicate,

and yet we flinch and fight and hesitate

(all from a distance).



Who was wrong

 to have been that deliberate...



The world acknowledges movement

and the poor attempts at emanicipation

creates pseudo-spaces that scream and silence us.

It brings us closer to the beginning and the end.


Only until I am thrown again to the current

or forced to try again.

Those prairie winds blow through my hair

and I know I am not free.