there’s a ghost in my attic,
she comes out when i am away
and plays with my stuff
and dances on my bed
happy to finally be alone
but when i come home
she runs away to hide
in her sad and dark places
grieving solitude lost
and i wonder what she looks like
but she will not show her face
though i hear her heart beating
late in the night
and it sends me to sleep
with its dark rhythm
and we speak in dreams

sometimes i close my eyes
and hold my breath
when i pass by a mirror
like going past a cemetery,
do not look at the dead –
superstition

i don’t recognize the face
that stares back at me
he’s not what he once was
and i wonder if others
miss the face that once
looked back at them
the way i do sometimes,
if they want a me
that is no longer he
or maybe never was

but i’m who i’ve always been
my thoughts are his thoughts
my wants and loves and appetites
are all as they were
and my eyes, these eyes
looked at mamma from the crib
saw the blood from the face
of that jackass i pounded
when i was 12 years old
and beheld newborn love
three times over
the same blue eyes that looked into hers
and got lost willingly forever

they’re the same damn eyes
hiding the same damn thoughts
just a few more for the road
how cruel is time to leave us intact
how cruel is time to corrode us

i wanna be
who i’ve been
but every time i try
i become more of who i am
instead

how does a guy
grab hold of the boy inside
and pull him out
when he’s hiding
afraid of what light might do
to his shadow softened skin

i guess i gotta take now
and make it as good as then
because really it’s better
than it has ever been

I looked out the window
Saw the world far below
And, for a moment, was grateful
For it’s existence
For the high blue sky
For the light white golden horizon
That ran as a band around it all
And the rippling grey-blue surface
Witnessed only by me
And silver white daytime moon
Whose gaze was fixed forever
Proving it and I and my love beside me
Is all real
Everything is real
In this place
High above it all

Ice

You can see from these heights
That the world has become ice
As if it wants to kill it’s children
To freeze them out of existence
So cold the air appears to have crystallized
And fallen in failure to the ground
But we persist like a plague
A disease without a cure
A parasitic relationship to be sure
We will not be chilled
We will not be killed
By heat or drought or desperation
We are the ones who end all things
We are the unstoppable apocalypse
9 billion and counting
And our hearts pound the drum beats
That sound the depths to which we’ll go
Having found no bottom yet

We are drinking Proseco
And gliding over the ocean
Soft lamplit skin in golden hues
Buoyed by memories and alcohol
Blended with the salt air wind
As we talk beneath this darkened sky
Reminded on Saint Valentine’s Day
Of why we love and the way we do
Thankful that the well has not run dry
Through days of drought and desperation
Having been filled in times of bounty

We are drinking Proseco
And gliding over the ocean
And gliding through time
Together entwined by memories
That cannot be erased

You can take a word
And make it mean a thousand things
As long as it doesn’t mean
What is hoped for
What is wanted and expected
And it’s only a small weight to bear
Over and over and over again…
How heavy can the weight become?

Now it’s time to see
There’s a world we can greet
With some sense of strength
And maybe even hope
Move a little farther
From the end of your rope;
It’s OK to find your happy
In the present imperfect
To know that two broken images
Can come to beautifully intersect
And rail against the idea
That joy is undeserved and must be fought
That happiness is a thing to be bought
With torn pieces of a lonely soul
Bleeding pieces of that you stole

Playlist for Eternity

Prologue: I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, Taylor Swift
Prologue II: Take a Walk on the Wild Side, The Velvet Underground
For Family: Take Me On (acoustic), Aha
For Family II: You’ll Miss Me,  Grimes
For Friends: Closing Time,  Semisonic
For the Unmentioned: Fear and Loathing, Marina
For Matthew: Run to the Hills,  Iron Maiden
For Caleb: Immigrant Song,  Led Zepplin
For Itsy: The Architect,  Casey Musgraves
For Me: Teen Idle, Marina
For Me II: Just Like Heaven,  The Cure
For Me III: Prese,  Please, Please, The Smiths
For Megan: Delete Forever,  Grimes
For Megan II: Captain Wedderburn,  Great Big Sea
For Us: Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen
For Us II: The Book of Love, The Magnetic Fields
Epilogue: Belly of the Beat, Grimes
Epilogue II: Sunflower, Post Malone
Epilogue III: Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

The sun sets
And the cloud tops are aflame
In orange and firey gold
The last bastions of light
In a darkening world
Until it plunges into the waters
And is extinguished until tomorrow
While the sea is a premonition of night
Waves dark and moody with absence
Roaring at the possibility of loneliness
Spraying salt tears upon the deck
As it waits for the stars to emerge
To keep it company through the evening

The sea is dressed in blue
To match the painted skies
To match my mum’s eyes
Now golden for the sun
The sea is grey
The sea is white
To compliment the clouds
That drift overhead
Forever out of reach
The sea is dark and deep
To match the one riding its surface
The sea is me and I am the sea
Mimicking the world around us
Reflecting the best and the worst
Taking the shape of whatever holds it
Wanting simply to be