like the pot calling the kettle black.

door, pulling a hoodie on you smile and tell me to do the same. “come out when you’re up beautiful.” i pull on a sweater and wander clumsily through our bare single room apartment. youre sitting on the patio smoking a cigarette, listening to gods bathroom floor, i realize you’ve got breakfast laid out for only me. i sit and eat, thanking you when i finish. you tug my chair closer to you, until we’re facing one another both sitting indian style. i press my nose into yours and kiss you, smiling. we spend the day climbing trees, you allow me to climb onto your shoulders to be able to sit where you plan to, and when i push my torso upwards, you say “i’ll meet you up there!” 

these dreams are back. dreams of these inebriatingly peaceful times with a simple spirited companion. and thus, my inability to captivate comes back to me in a rush of discomfort. feeling mismatched again. the little wanderer that’s been tamed by reality. its nauseating. i see myself in makeup, accessories, coiffed hair, my work name tag. i long for my bare feet, dirty hair, tan skin, and bruised shins. since when is my reality money? since when is love what is easy? i think of where i am right now, who i’m becoming and the anxiety expands beneath my ribcage. i need adventure. i need someone to climb and smoke and shoot shit and make art with. i feel so alone surrounded by everyone, it’s miserable. id love someone to show up and just say “get in the car, lets go.” and show me new places, take me exploring. i need to discover something more than this right now. i need to stop dreaming of whoever the fuck you are, because you will never happen to someone like me.

sometimes.

that unfeeling moment that coincidentally makes you feel the most. it holds such intense momentum its as if youre watching an accident happen. you know whats taking place, because you can feel it. worst of all, you can see it. all of your senses are heightened, simultaneously, and there it is. right there. tonight it was the empty house, one thirty in the morning laying behind you while you sit and play guitar. i’m running my fingers over your ribs, pressing my palms into your hip. you stop and look down at me, looking up at you - and as much as i always like to convince myself you dont know me, you sense i’m feeling something. you lay the guitar to the side, sit indian style on the floor level with where my head lay, and look into me, waiting in the way i know you to do for me to explain myself. i shrug. “i need to get out of my own head sometimes.” i tell you, shrugging again. you ask what i mean, and without an answer i sit up and begin to write. sitting with you by my side now, i think of that expression you had while playing. peaceful, careful, and content. it had hit me right then that no other person i’ve connected with in my life has ever possessed such an expression. you have this gentle naivete about you that i did before every world i created fell apart and landed at my feet. its such an overwhelming thing when you discover that the connections between your past and present are - well, nothing. and i can admit with a heavy heart that i didnt truly realize just how much of a different breed you actually are until that moment. my nerves, frustration, hesitance; have all been in my head, all ghosts from my past warning me to not allow the past to materialize itself in the present day. i realize that i have been every version of myself to you - my former included - while you have been only one - you. i crave to hold you close and tell you i love you. you. in the simplest of ways. but realizing my mistake is harder than making it. i love you jaron amasa earle, to extents that make me beside myself with guilt for having such luck, without any gamble.

& does he drive you wild? or just mildly free?

we spend all of this time dreaming of love, longing for it, resenting time spent alone, chasing it, fighting for it tooth and nail - and once we capture it, we either tame it and settle, or it tames us, and we spend more time running away from it. i crave my partner in being perpetually untamed. i have this deep need for explanations. to me, having reasons behind your actions not only justifies but validates them entirely; in a way that no other expression could. that being said, i think having someone love you for the single reason that you love them is selfish. what is there behind it? you love me because i give you my love. i love you for every character trait, every flaw, every freckle on your nose, every bad habit. i love you for everything you are, and everything you are not. this doesnt just go for you either, it’s a broad statement. i intended to always love people how i would want to be loved, how i never felt i was loved, but lately the idea of loving someone with both feet on the ground nauseates me, especially when i see my empty hands. i ask you to cover me, and you ask how long. 

je suis mon protecteur.

lose faith. lose hope. stop loving. lose sensation. lose control. lose touch with reality. lose your mind. sell your soul, probably for more than its worth. 

today i woke up with two years of bags under my eyes. like the rings on your nightstand, from that forgotten cocktail you passed out on before you got to finish, leaving behind only those little warped rings on the table to remind you of exactly what it was you were trying so hard to forget in the first place. funny how something so trivial can manage to be so daunting. i run my fingers and palms vertically over my face, pushing my filthy hair back and finally curling my fingertips underneath - allowing my elbows to meet at my nose. i sit like that for a moment, eyes closed. i breathe though my mouth and smirk. i think “sure, it would seem as if the people that “love” me are so eager to devour me…and sure…maybe its true.” then i think of all the times i’ve bound my broken wings until they mended. using my one free hand and my teeth, i’d wrap my wounds and carry on until i could fly again. or all of the times you’d killed me, i would wander in limbo until you began to feel free, and then i would be reborn in front of you, stronger than before - and continue to your dismay, to haunt you with my unfaltering convictions and passionate freewill. nearly anybody is spirited these days, and even less of us are free. so when a companion of mine mentions that maybe some resentment is involved due to my rich possession of both traits, it no longer appalls me to consider. how else could you so easily break what you created? you can break me, and i’ll allow it, every time, but don’t ever lose sight of how much stronger i continue to come back. wreck me as long as you please, because eventually, it will be my defeat and rebirth that destroys you. i will always be my own biggest support, my own best friend, my own protector. iwillalwaysbeenoughforme. it’s nearly spring, and as this nearly always occurs on cue, i’m waiting to burn - so i can blossom.

makes you feel ashamed for the hearts you stole.

my eyes focus in and out, always on silly inanimate objects in the room. a stuffed lion, a remote, a ceramic owl. i think that maybe if i look at them long enough, i’ll pass some of my emotions onto them. but then i just lose focus again. anxiety and delirium bring this loss of equilibrium, and i think of how i never believed in balance until you took a seat on my chest, and stayed a while. funny how people never seem to stick around, unless theyre getting something from it, unless you’re of use to them. i reassure, hold hands, talk off bridges, compliment, adore, appreciate, etc. i say “take off your coat, and make yourself at home.” and what i get is my empty bed. a birthday spent with an old friend. Christmas spent alone. waking up at home. dinners for one. what i get is an empty head. they rob me blind, and i’m sitting there saying “oh, no, i dont mind. go right ahead.” i’ve become the same person i was two years ago. laying in bed with maggie, staring blankly into space waiting for you to find a moment to recognize my existence. i am capable of so much more than being devoured. maybe someday, someone will give, and never ask for anything in return, as i do. and i’ll give to them, just like that, just because i want to. what a thought. someday. so now i feel alone with you laying next to me. i feel weak next to you. but i know, i know someday, it’ll be better. 

tick, tock.

like counting backwards from infinity, you know where you want to go but its intimidating to begin and hard to fathom seeing it through alive. having something in sight is better than being hopeless though. i wake up, make a cup of coffee - black, three sugars. head off to work. clock in, clock out. cook myself dinner, listen to music, read a bit, fall asleep, repeat. sometimes in the midst of my monotonous melancholic routine, you would sending me smiles from a distance. the little things have always pleased me more than inconsistent big gestures. stability means more to me than being spoiled. words are my gravitational pull to this earth, spoil me with them. and if nothing else, the little things provide me with sanity. a happily married coworker told me once to “end up with someone that loves you more than you love them.” and yet, a year later here i am clearly in the same strenuous position ive always managed to fall into. with ian, the one i was never enough for and darius, the one who could never notice me for who i was, rather than who i was not. sure, karma can catch up to them, and that idea alone mends some wounds, but how can i let go of hurting, how can i progress when you - who was supposed to be the first different one is standing here toe to toe with me, digging your words into me, avoiding eye contact, and occasionally forgetting i’m even here? i used to be so much stronger than this, and it was this strength that once intimidated you. you knew i didnt take shit, didnt avoid things, and was persistent in looking out for myself. i think that’s part of why i’m here now. you can hear in my voice and see in my eyes that i care too much to ever leave. and i cant help but become aware of how much you use it to your advantage. nothing phases you. i explain that you just simply dont comprehend the extent of my love, but there is a rather vast difference between love that is unconditional - and love that is limitless. i will love you under any condition, but there are limits. like anyone, i have my limits. and when boundaries are crossed, my care begins to fade, and as i stated earlier, its my caring too much that keeps me from leaving. when that begins to erode, what is it that is stopping me? i keep getting this feeling that you wont be satisfied until you drain me completely. so i’ll play the game for now, i’ll be naive and hope for the best with my blind faith that something will change, and the person i met then will return. but under my ribs is an hourglass you’ve turned upside down, and its only fair that the time is running out. 

it seems i cant outsmart all of my ghosts.

i’m preparing to get off work. i see  you’re waiting for me at a table in the foyer outside smoking a cigarette. i turn away after waving to you to finish locking the door, and when i turn back around i expected you to be standing behind me so we could make our way to the car; but to my surprise you’re still sitting, taking a drag from the same cigarette, very slowly with this new half smile that instantly makes me smile. “come here.” you demand. i seem to gravitate towards you, stopping where my thighs meet your knees. you pull me down by my waist, onto a knee. i laugh, and we joke about my size when i call you “smooth” and you reply “only because you’re as light as a feather!” you finish your cigarette, and reach for a lighter to light the one between my lips. you pull it out from between them momentarily to give me a single peck in the midst of me smiling, this makes you smile, and we both laugh and smile in that overjoyed completely borderline embarrassing way you do when you haven’t seen someone in a long time. and that explains it. we come home, i throw my things down, and we spend five hours just listening to music, discussing films, debating the up and coming election. you’re stubborn, just like old times. and i’m sarcastic, just like id always been. we’re laying horizontal across my bed, heads dangling at ninety degree angles off the edge of the mattress. i close my eyes and sing “we have some promises to keep.” you start to speak and i immediately feel embarrassed that i had let the melody escape me. “youre that one beautiful bird that never sings because its voice could break anyones heart…there’s so much pain in it.” i shrug and look away trying to stop tears from welling up in my eyes. its all so overwhelming. i turn back, looking down in hopes you wont notice. you say “hey, hey….look at me.” and when i do, you brush my hair behind my ear. “never let them make you love yourself any less.” i nod, and you nod back, we both smile, and my eyes begin to release single streams of tears one by one. “okay?” “okay.” i reply, nodding again and laughing, pushing the tears away with my palms from the corners of my eyes. you were the person i never woke up from dreaming about, because you were real. i lost sight of that, that you’re real, because dreams dont hurt and you dont actually die in dreams. the things that are real, escape me. the things that are safe, remain. its unfortunate that safe doesn’t always mean happy. and then again, maybe the real things always seem real, because they’re always escaping one another. 

pardonnez moi mon peu agneau. je suis disparaissant.

radiation.

i never really thought about the phrase “soul searching” in depth until today. i always thought the intention of soul searching, was to discover parts of yourself; to decipher what ultimately matters in a chaotic world. in my head; (either out of naivete or my habit to romanticized grueling tasks) - i thought the phrase in the simplest terms meant searching for soulfulness. then, today i considered - what if one doesnt already posess a soul? perhaps it has gone astray. then what does it mean? could it truly mean the quest to recover one’s lost soul? and i get to thinking, maybe this quest is intended to be the ultimate punishment for losing it to begin with. it’s that train of thought i stop on, for it seems all too real. could this be where i am? am i standing in my own shoes - glaring at myself? maybe i lost it when the only living thing i had that summer watched me leave through the window.  or when i said “thanks for the free drugs,” and closed the car door behind me. maybe it was all the “i love you’s” ive said insincerely with no intention of ever meaning them, or forcing myself not to love the first thing i ever did. maybe it happened then. 

even here, even now.

my grace is especially lacking today. my inspiration for characters, and tales of hearts seems to not exist anymore. and here i am, longing for a past that had left me without a future. its really funny how that can work. plenty of hands were in view when i was drowning then, but none reaching towards me, instead they all steadily waved in a nonchalant manner as if to suggest the gesture itself were some entirely ridiculous and tedious task. nevertheless, i swam to shore pulling my body out of the water, using my bruised knuckles for support. “we’ll  both love again,” i had said when i caught myself avoiding thoughts of you alongside another. “it just wont be with each other.” i would say to ease the sting. like a film directed by oliver stone, it seems like the only trait of my former- and far better self that partially remains is my completely irrationally scattered mind. it all trails together though, in some sort of collective chaotic harmony. and thats whats bullshit; even my insanity is organized and color coordinated to induce minimal inspiration these days. but just now, i get a glimmer of hope that somehow i’ll escape - i’m rubbing my eyes infront of the mirror in my granny panties and an exboyfriends tshirt in my infamous “fuck it, time to face the music and look at  yourself allee” posture. i gaze into myself, peering at my blotchy naked face, my healing tattoo, and then i realize it, my hair is growing. the hair i cut off nearly two years ago has finally grown. its to my collar bones, and my beautiful waves are finally there again. im seeing myself all over again. im thinking of how i felt then, when i shed it all, like i lost a part of myself. i did it only do it to look like her, afterall. and here i am - now, looking at that part of me growing back. and i sit there, and think. am i finally healing? this thought amplifies the here and now, and i pace in circles;  repetitive - they begin and end in the same place, but somehow seem to be particularly aimless. i start to realize one by one that i have made all the same mistakes with you. i wander away and collapse into bed with maggie. and for what seems like a millenium, i hesitate to answer as many times as i ask it “am i truly happy?” happiness to me before you meant the occasional loneliness, mended by a good film, and a tub of mint chocolate chip. sadness cured by maggie’s snuggles and snores in the morning. happiness was found in a good meal, and better music. or a bubble bath with the lights off and a candle burning. getting lost is only getting lost, if there is no one to find you. and i’m starting to think maybe i want to get lost…

j.

ive been known to sleep with ghosts. occasionally though, when a suitor catches my eye, or captures an untapped nerve in my heart, i begin to breathe my life into them. i do it little by little of course - handing off my limbs one by one, chunks of flesh bit by bit until the tables are turned, and i’m the ghost. i always know when its happened, even if it does take place subconsciously. i get into this hazy morose state, where i feel nothing, and i assure myself nothing else feels. i systematically desensitize myself to everything. becoming unfazed, and uninterested. the strangest thing is; one would think coming into this person would make purging of it’s creator easier, but it does the complete opposite. its like i’m in this drained, cynical, spiteful sleepwalk trying to strangle the life out of what was supposed to be MY ghost, to give back to myself. and eventually i sit there afterword, failing to recycle my feelings with my head in my hands, and i remember that i can always recreate, but i can never relive. and just like that, i tuck myself into bed, and fall asleep with myself. you weren’t supposed to be one of them. i still have hope you arent. you arent darius, yet you make me hurt like him, leaving me feeling unneeded. you arent ian, yet i never feel good enough. come home, my love. please. i love you so.

find these posts on here, everything you’re forgetting, and everything you need to know are in them.

-naked as we came.
-id like to meet someone
-theories theorized by a theoretical theorist.
-‘you tell me you love me, but there’s hate in your eyes.’
-there’s a ghosts that lives inside of my head.
-am i the only one?
-this feeling is organic.
-the consequences of owning a tongue.
-home is where you hang yourself.
-everyones running for that finish line.
-somedays i just want to sell everything i own and
-you’re not good at goodbyes.
-nice things.

naked as we came.

i’m big on instinct. i mean its only natural, and we’re all just animals at the end of the day, arent we? i knew it from the first moment i was face to face with you under the empty night sky that it’d lead me somewhere better than where i had been left. and it has. sometimes i sit and think about how this isnt reality, it simply cant be. it transcends common concepts of space, time, and gravity. we are simply “we,” and we are here. or there. or wherever it is we find ourselves at the time. and in some strange way daily life has become this endless cycle between when i’m with you, and when we’re apart, and everything in the middle takes place in this warped and entirely mediocre passing state until you’re at my side again. i feel disconnected without you. i never knew it could feel this human, to feel so inhuman. every ounce of discouragement, or disapproval i’ve found in my habits or flaws, you embrace. “your scars are gorgeous,” you tell me after you sat in bed with me running your fingers lovingly over all of them, looking at me in an effort to make sure i didnt notice you noticing them. you’re delicate with me. but you dont treat me as such. you can handle my crude, dry humor, and bitter, cynical sarcasm, and my completely messy vulnerability. you’ve never stepped back or faltered, even when i threw everything i could grab in your direction. i can find something wrong with anyone, but i cant find a single fucking trivial thing about you that i dont completely adore. i love you down to every last hair on your head, and its that complete, nonsensical insanity that makes this what it is. makes us what we are. you are everything beautiful in the entire world, and every dream ive ever had crammed into one gorgeous green eyed boy. this is what i get for carrying on. i swear i never knew a single thing about love until we found one another. my entire past is nonexistent, and nobody remains to be seen. i suppose this is what its like to be reborn. the only person that’s ever made me love me, you’re what it means to be a man. a friend. a companion. a freespirit. i am in awe. let me stay in a daze with you forever?

he is a perfect mirror,

since there is nobody there.

we’re constantly rerouting between what is and what was. once is always twice more, and when i push, this time you push back. i fall. i wouldnt kill for any new perspective- besides yours. but isnt that what “they” always say? we want what it is we cant have ourselves? so i’m dressed for a funeral, when you tell me there’s a wedding. i make a toast anyways, thinking of how you told me “technically, we’re all dying anyways.” i see the feelings here, they’re organic from the others. i watch patiently as they dance in, through, and around you; unmatched, and untouched, given back to me in a fluster of excuses and fear. my over analytical mind pins them on something - everything else, and as much as you refute i cant help but protest your claims. i’ve run with the hunted, dined with heaps of thieves, and danced in the arms of a muse but i’m not misguided by my faithfulness to creative spirit - i’m misguided by the ones that are up in arms when mine are open. i cant find any fulfillment in the obstacles or see any love in your eyes. so if your disposition lay in me, and with the words i’ve given that i know may never be received, i hope you know, my lazarus; that i’m trying with no ill will to be patient until you can find a home in me. it’s always been that way after all, that only by sacrificing yourself, can you give life to another. lately i cant help but wonder as to whom will be there to revive me when my legs give out from all the weight. can you promise me that someday you’ll give back to me what i’m giving to you? because it seems my habits came back with the cloud that your distance has brought on me, and when it rains, i can only hope i still have the strength to keep dry. id ask you to take away the parts that hurt, and let the rest remain but how can you pick and choose when you cant feel yourself? “i’m just a simple boy looking for meaning in this ludicrous world,” you told me. i had bit my tongue in the midst of replying “it seems your search is over, because you already mean it all to me.” instead i told you, you weren’t alone and held my breath. i’m still holding, in hopes you’ll provide a breath and a tiny space for my feet next to yours. life has become existence again, and as the holidays near; dreary days become my numbing inspiration to howl at the moon, and consider the idea that maybe i really am meant to sleep with ghosts for the rest of my days. maybe this is how i pay for the things ive broken and thrown away without any empathy. i mean, you break it, you buy it, right? my blind faith remains, the most human condition. to believe that, no matter what becomes of us, there will always be something bright laying in the wake of it all. i only wish this could be as cosmically beautiful as i know it could be, if you’d just see it too. instead i’m inches from letting go, only this time, from the highest ledge. but at least this time i got to see the whole world on my way down, no?

honey and milk.

i was trumped by my past today. i cover my eyes, and i still see you. i sit in the candle light, rubbing the back of my neck and cracking my ankles waiting on the words that have not previously escaped me to arrive in a flourish, to explain it all. tears hit my knees, and wiping them away as if their soot i sit back and wonder why i said the things i did. i wonder as to why i even spoke at all. when i was told as a child that love should take your breath away, i didnt know it meant that you might never breathe with ease again. ive maintained such a hellbent strength this year, holding my heart between my teeth with passionate conviction. ive had what i felt was everything, and lost it. and then there i was, being reborn under the moonlight in your arms; the first time since i knew for sure that my heart still possessed another function besides simply keeping me alive. i am the keeper of secrets, i have perfected the craft. so who am i to test you for keeping them? i see it all, page after page. i think of my writing here, my wounds fresh and exposed for the world’s salt, plenty of my misfortune, misadventures, all the people i’ve mislead. some are full of him, sure. but its not empty of you. sitting in the passenger seat gasping for air from all the nervous cigarettes and anxiety that’s running its course, tightly bound in my chest, i manage to say “i need all of you…..or nothing..” and when you reply “you have all of me,” your eyes tie any loose ends in my mind. i look down at our fingers intertwined. i think of how nice it is that at least you hold my hand while im drowning.

could you see a home in me? the differences might be lost on me, but i’m pushing this hard waiting for you to pull me towards you. gravity gets a hold of me in the form of reality. reality was falling asleep in your arms, realizing that comfort was only an inn before you arrived. happily grounded, my filthy feet lay at rest. the escapist in me has come face to face with a better heart. my wanderlust spirit is alive with a companion, who is content to stay the same as such. i trace my fingers around your jaw, kissing you with my eyes closed tight. i will hold on through the current, i will tread the water until my legs go out. just because it hurts, doesnt mean its wrong. maybe you’ve just got to hurt until you get it right. i am superimposed in my own heart, how could i expect any less?