THIS IS YOUR ROOM

When the air finally escapes your mouth

And the desolate moon

Fades and withers

Beneath the heavy sky

My sorrow will cling to me

And I will wish it to fall off of me

Like water

But your earthly tracks

Will make me relive our history

As I am left to empty out the rooms

Where we once made love

And small talk

On half-lit afternoons

In those blessed places

Only we would go

My darling

Would you know me as I am?

If you met me down the road

Beyond the blond hills

And cracked cement?

Even if we didn't wear our skin

Or braided stalks of silk and hemp?

In silence

I can hear you breathe

And I sit in fear

Of the day

When that air will cease

To escape your perfect mouth

In silence

The tears begin to flow

Because I know

That I'll never find

Someone as lovely as you

RED

Here's the red

The red of love

The fire that burns

Within my soul

The reddest red

I've ever known

The flame untouched

Ignited coal

Here's the red

The red of pain

That stinging pain

No one must know

The deepest red

I've ever felt

The emptiness

The mourning soul

Here's the red

The red I knew

That exalted fire

That once ignited you

The reddest red

I ever knew...

The deepest red

I ever knew...

BLACK

Turn the lights off within my heart

And never relight it with a spark

A place I've hidden inside myself

A place I dwell today

The sound of the birds flying overhead

My head hanging low as I knelt beside my bed

Was it worth it sending out my prayers

After you were taken away?

Turn my pained and dying cheek

Allow myself to feel the barbs

A hurt that I must feel by myself

A hurt that swells today

The sound of crying within my ear

A sound that I wish would disappear

Was it worth it to shed these tears?

After you have gone away?

KATHERINE

(in memory of my best friend Katie who died from

injuries sustained during a bike accident when I was 9)

Cardiac lines are like words

Foreign music to our souls

And we only hear them while in distress.

When I am an art-form

A vessel on a bed

With tubes for food

I don't want to hear that beat.

Like an earthquake

You came and went abruptly.

Nurses fought to charge your heart

Like barbed-wire

Sharp beneath the heat of your tattered clothes

When your pulse stopped

I was left here dreaming backwards.

Forced to relive old memories

But there were fewer than I had hoped.

That makes me sad...

If you could have come down from that fever

That brainlessness

Would you still have been you?

I sit in this flesh-capsule

Thinking

I never fully knew this world in which you walked upon.

What is this life of solitude?

I tried to listen to that little voice inside my mind

My consciousness

But I was just little myself at the time.

And I cried.

Forgive me, I still cry...

You were a part of my story

I can still hear your voice,

Feel your presence.

But at one point I was forced

To turn my back on my youth

I grew up.

Time is so precious now

Through inflated hearts

They try to understand the loss

Of a sister

A friend

I still try to mend this loss...

Perhaps the object of love,

Dearest Katherine

Is to love too much...

I miss you my dear friend.

LITTLE BROTHER

(in loving memory of two friends I lost to mental illness

through a murder-suicide in the Summer of 2015)

Little Brother, are you unwell?

Little Brother, have you gone through hell?

I feel like I am burning in this place with you.

My heart is empty and all that is left is this residue.

Little Brother, why did you leave?

Little Brother, how much time will I grieve?

You were too young; your life was a sky full of blue.

Please tell me why, why did you have to hurt her too?

Little Brother, we've made mistakes.

Little Brother, I feel ashamed.

I feel like I should have been there for you.

My life is hazy and I am mourning you.

Little Brother, you were unwell.

Little Brother, so this is hell.

I felt myself burning in that place with you.

My life is empty and all that's left is the thought of you.