I'm not struck dumb, I'm just dumb that's all.

I called and I called and I called
to the tune of a busy signal
a note of monotony
and I couldn't take it anymore.
I sang to the beat of the ringer
imagined what we would be talking about now
if it wasn't for another voice taking my place
I could see you sitting staring at your room
and me on the other end
dancing around to the song I made up
with an accompaniment of made up beat box noises
but wait! there's a voice!

"The party you are trying to reach is busy. Try again later."

absolute shite

bs-ok-nah: found a new "love"?

I remember your whispers in my ear.
his whispers
his too
against my cheek, my neck, my chest
I could hear the exact same words caress my skin
break my heart down, to its knees
trembling in the dark
what is it to want
what is there to want
I remember the look on your face
his look
his too
when those words slipped from your lips

I can't move

the beginning

"It burns." It burns, I told myself. Over and over again. I couldn't make myself stop though. The motions, I had to go through the motions. There was no way I could stop.
"It burns." It burns, I told myself. Again. Over and over again. The motions hurt. They burned. But I couldn't stop. The motions burned. They hurt. But I couldn't stop.

"I can't." I can't. I told myself.

I told myself.

"I--"

WHAT?

Screams echoed in my skull, my head in my hands, and then I realized that my was my voice ripping out of my throat tearing tears from her eyes.

I can't believe I got mixed into this. I can't believe I'm wasting thoughts on this. I can't believe I came all the way out here for this. For this. all the way out here. What was I thinking?

Was I thinking?

"Are you listening to me?"

Everything came into focus, a rushing feeling of reality enveloping my thoughts.

"You've been mumbling to yourself this whole time. Are you listening to me? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH." she looked like she wanted to smile. Or maybe laugh. That usually made us laugh. We would laugh for hours. Oh the hours we would laugh, till we cried.

My response was to blink. It was like changing the channel. My thoughts were on a different track.

"I like your hair that color." And she was thrown off. I'd gotten good at this. She used to be impossible to shake. "It sets off your eyes. The fire. Cooled by the soft gentle icy blue that is your gaze."

Oops.

Her response was a sigh and then chewing on her lip. Just like Renee Zellweger. It was hot when Renee did that. Chewing on her lip. So subtle, so seductive. But when she did it. Whoa. Completely different effect.

"I just remembered."

And so had she.

I didn't whisper this time, my voice hiding behind my thoughts. It echoed against my back as the door swung shut behind me. "The end."

I caught you with your eyes closed

things will work out. oh yes. they will.

say good bye

I'm doing it again
before it runs out
or you away
but you wouldn't would you
my sweet little liar

or would you
and you did
but you weren't lying
I was. wasn't I.

its not so much a question
as a story I'm tired of repeating
painted photos and mistaken scents
emotions I refuse to let myself understand
I am my own. I am my own. I am my own...

I don't want to be anymore if this is it.
I can't deny. I won't.
what is there to do now?
where is there to go now?
I... I... I.
I'm just making this shit up.
day in and day out.
words everywhere
all trying to get out at once
but not just words
everything else
its all just made up

what a terrible thing for you to lose

"I'm mesmerized." I'd forgotten tears were streaming down her cheeks curling into the crease in her lips. Her hands pressed ever so softly against her forehead, her glossy curls seeming to choke the life out of her finger tips.

She hadn't heard me whisper what had escaped from my eyes. She just stared. Looking lost, her eyes closed, I thought she might be trying to wash everything away with her tears. Words were a mystery as silence consumed the breathes inbetween that moment.

Somehow my drink made it into my mouth instead of my straw finding itself up my nose. I remember the last time that happened she shot Orange soda out her nose and all over the gentleman behind me.

That was how it all began if my memory serves me right. Of late though, it hasn't. I've forgotten the right things at the wrong times and and found my lips letting loose the wrong words at the right times. It left me in a bit of a conudrum.

Back to how it began though, I was trying to cheer her up, yet again, telling her this stupid joke and that dumb rumor to try and bring that sunshine back into her smile and that blinding twinkle of curiousity and mischievousness back into her eyes. My words failed as that straw slipped up my nose ever so gracefully.

I was just trying to wet my parched throat.

As I leaned back up pulling the straw out of my nose I saw the inevitable happening so I leaned quickly to my side sending me flying out of my seat in the food court and that florescent orange soda shooting out her nose and all over the man sitting behind me.

He just so happened to be wearing a wonderfully white fur coat.

I'm not sure if it was real fur or not but his reaction made me think it was.

When I looked up at her from the floor, where I'd fallen, her eyes were squeezed shut her hands covering her nose and mouth. Squeeling laughter slipping past her fingers.

I scrambled up grabbing some napkins begging forgiveness to the surprisingly tall fashionably challenged gentleman.

"Sir this is all my fault, I can pay for the dry cleaning bill. I'm so sorry." I waited for him to reply. So far all he'd done was stand up quickly knocking his chair over. His friend was surveying the damage, helping him out of his coat.

"Man, you kids these days." Then he laughed. A booming rich molasses that soothed all my fears. "Girl, you got some distance. Did you shoot that out your nose? Daaamn, doesn't that burn? Alcohol stings more and leaves a more lasting.... well... affect I guess we'll call it. What happened that made you do that?"

We all broke down laughing till we cried. The fur coat man and his friend invited us out to a nicer lunch. They thought we were a walking bundle of laughs.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Or maybe it's me who couldn't have been more wrong.

She accepted. Normally, that's how she wasn't acting. I didn't know what to do so I just went along with it. What harm could come? HAH. What harm could come indeed.

What happened next means nothing. Not to me at least. So I'm not going to share it. Now we'll go back to the beginning. Or now I guess.

We've been sitting here for a little over five minutes now. She broke her record this time, sobs morphed into full on tears in under a minute and twelve seconds. I've learned to not ask about details. I've learned not to ask what's on her mind.

"That question, you know I hate it." she would say through her frown before her tears would fall.

Watching her eyelashes flutter, dancing in a sweeping dancing on her face, I envy whatever's in her lap. Those eyes that looked at me how I always secretly wished. I'd wait forever for her. I would take all her tears and spend them on her. She deserved what I could never giver her. So I just sat there silently, my leg causing the table to vibrate. You see. I had to pee. This always happened. It irritated her. Whenever she really needed me I really needed to pee.

Once she told me she thought it was a sign. One time she jokingly laughed and said we would never be able to have sex cause I'd have to pee.

I didn't laugh.

"Could you stop that?" She didn't look up, she couldn't even feel the table vibrating. "Just go."

So I did.

I did.

dear

so there I was driving down the road.
you know, the one all the kids in their shiny hot fast cars always speed around.
virginia is known for its wonderful windy hilly roads.
just like this one. blind curves, blind dips
and deer.
yes. deer.
see, northern virginia for some odd reason has a problem with the deer population
I think at some point in time some rabbit or some deer got confused in its lustful rage and took it out on the other species.
which is why the deer population increases as quickly as rabbits can hump each other into exhaustion
or pregnancy
plus the deer hop.
yes.
hop.
not bound.
hop.
so there I am, its almost 10 and the sun has been down for at least 2 hours and 14 minutes. this time and 3 past 2 are the times people try their hardest to stay off the roads. you can hear the sirens and see the flashing lights for miles. its almost like a rave in the fields outside the shutdown prison. its almost beautiful, the light pollution sets it off, kind of like an aurora borealis in my backyard. heh, danger in beauty. how ironic. if I had a level to measure my anxiety which I'm usually so good at keeping under wraps it would have been quickly reaching a level that would worry me. I had my high beams on despite my fear that I'd blind another driving coming from the other direction. but my fear of dear flying out in the road was much stronger.

you know those times when fear is so overpowering you want to crawl up into a ball and whimper like a baby still in your mom's womb? normally I'd fly down this road but this time I was in second gear a good ways under 3000rpm. I'm just rolling into the bottom of the hill about to climb up the next when I see a glimmer of a reflection out of the corner of my left eye and low and behold.

a deer.
standing ever so calmly on the side of the road.
I'm thinking its thinking "IF YOU SLOW DOWN I'LL JUMP INTO THE SIDE OF YOUR CAR. IF YOU SPEED UP I'LL FLY INTO THE SIDE OF THE CAR. EITHER WAY YOUR FUCKED MOTHER FUCKER!!! AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH"
I slowly creep past the deer hoping its pea sized brain doesn't malfunction or react too quickly to my lights passing by its eyes.
out of no where it JUMPS legs rearing into the air ears layed flat against its head and I'm ready to scream and break or gun it and get the fuck out of there. either way I don't want to be all up close and personal with this deer. I already feel way too close to it.

thankfully it wasn't jumping in the direction of my car. instead it went skipping
yes
skipping
back into its woods
back to its home
back to little bambi
SO IT COULD GET SHOT BUT THAT GOD DAMN HUNTER AND ALL THE LITTLE KIDS CRY IN THE THEATER BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF DEATH YET AND THEIR MOMMIE AND DADDIE ARE BIG FAT PUSSIES AND WON'T EXPLAIN IT TO THEM
I laughed.
I couldn't help it.

I need to go...

do you remember what I looked like
my hair pressed up against your pillow
a maze of twists and turns
and my eyes taking you all in
hands and lips and something else

it's impossible

So I listened to that song
the one that I thought maybe
it could be you and I,
us
that song that whispered and cooed
bass and beats
melodies and harmonies
words and emotions evoked
feelings of this, that, everything, and love
I listened to that song and sang it in a different key, as if it was a different tune
I listened to that song and realized it was a different one
not of us
you and I
but of you without me
me without you
and freedom to heal
I listened to that song and heard the hidden message
the one I didn't see out of the corner of your eye
instead of pressing rewind again
shift+delete
and you're no longer an electronic memory
easily replayed on my broken heart
thank you.
goodbye.

home sweet home

how many times do I have to say goodbye before I let go
how many times do I have to say hello before I open my eyes
how many times do I have to say yes before I can finally say no
how many times do I have to say no before you know I mean yes

I'm not the same without you
I wasn't the same with you
at least the quiet is what it is now
and no longer what it was

...at least..

feedback

on and on and on
I'll see you tomorrow
along the way
we'll make something up
a story to tell
a wish to dream
and tomorrow we'll see
along the way
on and on
we'll go
always forward, a glance back
and along the way on and on
tomorrow will be that dream we wished
on and on into tomorrow
a glance at this story
we've made of yesterday and today
on and on we'll go

love, its not so hard

"Tonight." and I saw a smile behind his words, "I'm going to kiss her. Tonight."

It was something of a reflex. I first noticed it when a fluke in the lighting dimmed and brightened when she walked into the room. Like a cloud floated infront of the sun, a shadow over cast and then sun rays danced in his eyes. Oh but you should have seen that smile on his face and the way I noticed his breath quickened when she looked his way, our way. It would take him the second time to actually whisper a word to her. From across the room she wouldn't have been able to read what swept off his lips along the breeze. I heard it against my shoulder as he watched her float around the room. "Beauty, your fingers drift along my spine and I fall with words I cannot utter to your mind wandering from room to room. If only and if only, love, I knew how to approach, I knew how to sing your song in my heart so that I might capture your essence in my being and we would. Oh we would be."

My heart fluttered hidden behind my painted smile. 'Later on...' I would think and thoughts would tumble as I played conversations we would have after the fact, in the future. I would write a story to outshine the beautiful lost love the two never had.

That time though, instead of circling the room like she did the first time, the crowd parted for her and the red seas of envy and jealousy splashed against those seething. This time though she didn't put on a little show for him to see and lose his heart before he even knew he had one. She didn't exactly say hi with her voice. A look in her eyes, a sway in her step, and I knew that was my cue to mingle with a stranger.

I didn't get far though. Something reached out and held me to staying. From where I started to lose myself I saw him take off in flight, his heart in his hands trying to jump down her throat. I shouldn't have had expectations but I did. Maybe they were secret hopes. He didn't stumble over his words or his tongue. He did what I always told him to do when he didn't know what else to do. He was himself, he took his time because to him time had stopped. Eternity was and he never wanted it to end.

This wasn't the same, I realized after I forgot I was holding my breath. I wanted to run screaming and crying from the room. I wanted to trip and fall landing in his embrace because it was mine. It was always mine, it always had been. Ever since the first time a bully tried to pull my hair on the playground. He ripped my locks out of the bully's hand--and out of my skull--and pushed the punk. All the kids laughed at the bully as he tumbled sliding down the tube slide landing in a bawling mess in a puddle of wood chips and water.

I knew when I turned--moments after she first came into his bubble and burst it--that it was too late, I needed to hang up what I was hung up on and had no right to be. I saw his shadow fading and a door closing. I didn't even know I had the key.

Time hadn't stopped just then for her and him. My breath caught in my throat, my heart in mid beat, in mid crack, and that was when I wanted to speak out. I wanted to say what I had alawys been so afraid to say. You know that saying? "You never realize the love you had for something or someone until you've lost them." Its true, oh irony its true.

Eventually I smiled. For a time I was reclusively introspective and cried reality into my dreams and wishes. His happiness in the end made my happiness all the more. She was more than I ever could be for him and that made our friendship blossom into something even better than this first kiss he was going to bestow upon her lips of pale pink baby's breath.

"Tonight is going to end if you don't go steal her heart now mister cassanova." It was purely meant in jest, just a little nudge and a wink to set his stalled heart in motion. "Go where your heart already is. I'll be here when you get back." I laughed at the startled look that flashed across his face and smiled when it was quickly smothered by determination. "Write me what you whispered that first time she came into your senses and I'll develop it into a photograph to frame, a little love on your shelf in your mind. God damn its beautiful." That smile when he walked away would normally have pained me to a puddle of misery and self loathing but I made a promise to myself. I'd let go to hold on.

"You'll make it."


will you though?

Thank you

keep singing and we'll say
say and we'll hear hear and we'll know
I saw you speak
your words curling around your tongue
sliding along your lips
floating off on your breath
"you should see her..."
and I laughed because you made me
go back, turn around, and do it again

I left you blind. my eyes in yours
your hands in mine my heart
you know where you are.

please keep singing

sweet scents
soft touches
brazillian brown of feathers
silk and at the bottom of the big blue sea
I'm there with you till I'm gone
a voice waiting to be heard
it's too late to say "I'm sorry"
love so far
so far its love
its love so far

why did you do what you did?

and now... let's be introspective.
thoughts questioning thoughts
questions spurring thoughts
thoughts thinking why question

you say its refreshing
it keeps the mind sharp
it clears out the old
makes room for the new
always thinking
thoughts always flowing
questions always morphing

always morphing
adapting...
for the same situation
in a different light
for the same light
in a different situation
always adapting.
morphing.
the same question.
for the same situation.
the same circumstance.

and you
from across the floor in borders
or barnes and noble
or a mom and pop coffee shop slash bookstore slash bistro slash night club when their kids are incharge and you're out of town learning how to make a cup of coffee cost more and be more addictive so your customers will come back next time and spend even more. hooray for consumer whore-ism...well promoting it at least, encouraging it.

...we're getting off topic here though.
who is we? I ask.
who are you? you ask.
who am I? they ask.

and this cycle repeats.
when does it end?
when did it start?
how do we stop it?
do we want to?

shuffle shuffle shuffle
I felt your eyes from around the corner
after my smile flashed across your face
eyes of confused, consumed blue looking else where
to the sky, to the butt ridden earth, to the headache inducing bass pouring... no, pounding out of static speakers.

she can't talk over this new noise you just got from the best buy that was "closed"... she's been meaning to tell you this for a while now. time never seemed... right. nothing ever seemed right. when the light shined in her eyes the other night, when those words flipped that switch and she finally knew how to ..."fix"... it. whatever it is. something of a feeling, an unease consumed you because it consumed her. you had both gotten to that point where you could feel what she couldn't say. you saw her eyes flutter a little too fast, noticed her hand flinch back, her smile shine a little less when those words passed from your lips and you looked at her with a different emotion.

but how? but why? but when? but what? but where?

and the cycle repeats.
life. repeats.
we read the stories;
the happily ever afters
the dramas
the tragedies
the comedies
and we wish we were our own tv show, our own movie, our own manga, our own novel, our own epic poem
we wish and dream
some of us, our lives away
some of us, our lives into

and you ask yourself
what am I doing?

I want you to know

I hope this isn't a passing stage
and I asked you
"you know what its like to play with fire?"
its days like this
or maybe nights and brunches
parties and you stepped on my skirt
until it nearly came off, me
in your embrace, eyes from across a parking lot
and lights and honking horns
I gave you something to hold onto
you gave me something I can keep

I never thanked you

you know
if I could hold you
those moments you feel
yourself letting go I would hold you
tighter than the earth holds the moon
in such a tender embrace
if I could trade feelings
I would wash myself in your sadness
so as not to see the pain in your eyes
it terrifies me knowing you are a way
and there is so little I can do to help
I'm so sorry I can't be there with you now
I'm so sorry...