Milk Carton.

in every split end on this mop atop my head afixed to scalp shreds of which remain long after i've left perhaps for good this time tangled and remembering this and us as it was just called off for inclement weather and sometime far into never maybe i will stop and bend and smell the scents of others again and find pleasure in some plan brand new and then you won't be any better or worse off i know now that fairweather friends and foes i chose to keep close in spite of ties to my better brain matter advising me against those who rose for no occasion of mine

and posed alone in photos while i shivered from the wind blowing right through my ears and you could not care less for what i whispered years of how alone it feels to be so hoarse from shouting all the worst of me and what i fear the most is that this and us and we and all we appear to be is here by sheer chance and subject to strong winds and circumstance like changing tides and storms that subside only to find you missing from my inner tube when i float on alone the other side of my cries for help i cannot find an answer from your deaf ears that waves of woes and words of mine keep crashing into in some crescendo-like fashion they remind me of us

like swells and swollen flesh and rising just to ebb again you never know what time is high noon although the moon is full and so are you of lies and self defeating nooses tied around your neck and i buy into you and all you never said was for sale but still i might make you an offer that strikes you as better than nothing just maybe you like me too and then ever and after and starfish dismembered get up like i did this morning before you felt me move and they slowly grow into back together again i dropped your hand as you fight back what friends try not to hide and write it in the sky instead of in the sand where words get tossed back out to sea with things that crash like waves and me and we wash them away with what happened today and you will scrub me away i picture your shower in the future for years perhaps i am gone within the hour but maybe i linger just a little too long for your liking i gathered as much in these last few minutes like lifetimes

i spent being quiet enough to hear echoes enough of them my own voice throwing me upon you and symantics and syntax and rhythm and meter seem scattered and sliced up replaced with what may be easier for some to swallow like fruit that gets tossed into a blender and poured into something as juice and less pulp perhaps but also less guts are what this new format has. but i understand that you lack the stuff you would need to stomach more than just fluff and bleached blondes and heartfelt apologies for what, i can't say but i bet it had less to do with any mess that was made of your sheets and your lovenest and more to do with reality checking in at someone else's request and you called for this best-case scenario i keep telling myself as i force down the feet from your sweat and i point my head up and hope to god that the rest will catch up or follow suit at least long enough to find me free of your worst-kept secret

i wish it were not so true as this but you made us what is and i wound up in a blender with knots in my hair and fistfuls of what came loose in how many lines you choked on while i waited for you to choose dare and what your face looked like was what i will remember long after this when i dared you to tell me the truth and you could have just shared a smile with me and we could have just left it at that and your balcony maybe keeps better secrets than you could that night with just what i saw on the wall and your face the writing and what was scrawled just beyond this and tonight and last night there was Us but all at once it seems i realized your silence screamed all this time back at me to just look carefully at the timeline of nonsense that surrounds this busted love triangle perhaps

i knew all along the words to this static noise song and maybe still i could be wrong but i can't hope for what was not thrown under the bus of what was something i made up for the thing that sprung from you and me and i dubbed Us and look to the left outside the margins i never noticed but we have no more lines left to write song lyrics in now that summer left us more alone than before and how could it be august already when still my head is spinning from what i went hoarse over and all that you carelessly tossed back out to sea as if i were broken bits of seashells maybe, or else just articles of clothing from pirates and such callous uncurious wandering limbs as yours could just boomerang particles of driftwood right back at me as easily as strong breezes come calling for people like you and featherweight things that make gypsies seem stagnant and cities seem smaller than they should when you make me see you still even now, in reflections of standing pools of water and whenever i hear certain chords strummed together i gather what i have together and blow you some kind of kiss from inside me i wonder sometimes if you got any of these postmarked undeliverable

but still i keep trying to reach you despite what your eyes give away when i turn and you flinch ever so slightly i know i can't fight you on this or what is and what might be a piece to some other puzzle jammed into mine just because it looked nice in some types of light i think- but by now we all know and have to admit that you just don't fit within this lattice i prize as my own and i watch your chest rise and fall as i climb out of your grip and trip over lies i wish you cared enough to spit but never did until i cried over winter it's coming and when it arrives it means jars of fireflies and

fourth of july fireworks shows we hiked up to see that time are just more of what lies behind and gets archived or tossed into boxes of good times and past lives and snapshots of contrived smiles i despise but sometimes pose for in spite of myself and what teeth fell out last year and what will die between deaf ears and flecks of color that dance on irises blue like the waves that slam into high tide pools of spilled milk and whatever else i cried for might hide inside corners of your eyes

i always find myself searching for center in me and your moving target of a heart that keeps on beating despite how sure i've become that i am dying without you to lean on these days and on colder nights to come with tight lipped smiles and eraser marks give me away and all i try not to advertise but just like you read ahead in books you know that i write to keep from blowing through things like you and the fight between what is and what just won't fit is rising like swells announced by seagulls and brought on by the pull of twighlight i swallow back pride and put left before right and i close my eyes as your door creaks closed behind me one final time.