Anhedonia has never seemed to me like a state of being. Not something that comes from my own mood swings. Maybe it's the name, but I've always personified it as a girl in black. Someone who knocks at my door and comes in without asking. Always there with me. In the corner of my eye. (I never see her eyes. She only looks at the floor.) She doesn't speak. But everyone else is scared of her anyway. They come to visit but they never stay long.

Getting Better

Sometime last winter. Let's call it December.
Your collarbone casts a shadow.
You press your fingers under the point of
your jaw. Your carotid artery leaps out at them.
Eagerly. Your body is lines on a grid.
Impatience drove you here. But now
you are patient. Infinitely so.
In the mirror, your eyes are submerged.
Your mouth is stone. You wait
for the skin to split. You keep your secrets
above your heart. They become tools.
They cut the lines to the anchors that bind you down.

That was months ago. You're just now waking up.
Fingers lie in the shadow of your collarbone.
Your secrets can't hide. Vanish now.
You press your hand to her back
and hold her against you. You wait
for the skin to stick. Her head lies heavy
over your heart. Weights you.
Keeps your feet on the ground.

I'M TUMBLING

only-the-clouds.tumblr.com

PEACE BLOGSPOT, IT'S BEEN REAL

Wet Paper Bag

Some nights I stare at the wall and try to stop thinking of you.
It backfires, obviously. Because now the wall reminds me of
how I can't stop thinking of you. The time has gone like
sea-trash with high tide. Faded like knee-scrapes into skin.
It's been long enough so that I have to pause to name years.
Yet still I feel like an animal in a wet paper bag.
Trapped in a tiny stagnant space. Smothered and still.
The walls are easily broken but I don't know
if I have the strength to wade through
the weight of this atmosphere. It hangs in my lungs
like cigarillo smoke. (You only smoked one once.
It was New Year's Eve and snowing. I slipped on the breakwater
and scraped my knee. You threw the butt at the surf
as the tide was coming in.)

Family

Father needs laughter.
Mother needs peace.
Brother needs something to care about.

"tell me about father and mother."

Father likes to sing.
Mother likes to draw.
They both like to dance.
They are curlicue peals of light.
But they are thin.

"tell me about brother."

Brother's name was not always Brother.
Brother has so much caring.
But Brother has nowhere to put it.
So Brother yells his caring out.
To everyone else, it sounds far away.
But when it roars, it is louder than a thousand jet engines.
But when it flies, it is faster than a comet in space.

"what about sister?"

Who told you about Sister?
I don't know Sister.
Where is Sister?

current events

a little noose in the boathouse,
already shrunken, already low.
a fray-haired girl drinking innocence
and drawing crosses on her ankles to make a shield.
a windy soul whose intents
begin to blow through the cracks.
poison clutching this house from the second floor.
"just make things easier for me!"

the soul of the woman i love
got put inside a madman
and now i can't grow up,
and i want to find some way
to express the mass of regret
drawn over my heart and shoulder,
but instead i just stab and slash
and catch him when he falls and
leave and fracture and embrace.

Nothing of Cities

Fingers pressing on my chest
like holding onto a kite string to draw back the tension.
My ears are asleep behind carnival tents
but the flaps draw back just in the nick of time.
A dozen voices rise in rejoicing
while my raw throat sputters and sits on its hands.
Music notes like an eskimo kiss
and I wonder if that's all I'll ever need,
and I already know the answer.