in my dreams

i like your voice and your smiles
and your words and your crashing guitars.
let's sit and look out for miles
over oceans of quaking stars.

part of a song i wrote while listening to Brand New, the first part being "in which i manufacture nightmares"

i hate to remember my leering face
when i watched the young wives pass;
and i would hate to return to that place,
but i'm slipping back much too fast;

take your hands to this sinking boat
and point its nose toward land;
for once in my life, i'd like it to float
and escape the sea bed sand;

i wish i could protect you, dear,
from this raging red typhoon,
but i want to see your face when you hear
that every one of us is doomed.

one day i'll stop nailing you up to my wall.
one day i'll give you love you can endure.
one day i'll touch you without taking it all.
and one day i will find you the cure.

so rip the sinner out of me.
so close my eyes and tell me when.
you'd better lock me up and swallow down the key,
because i swear, i swear i'll do it again.

save me from these venomous spies.
there are dead men watching me in the sky.
they all seem surprised that they are dead,
just like when they were shot in the backs of their heads,

I'LL STAB ALL THE DEAD MEN AND SAVOR THEIR MOANS.

this place is dirty

be my veins, baby, be my veins.
envelopped in white lines, a wayward blow
clipping my mouth; i won't be sane,
not for you, baby, no, no, no.

when the boy says his brothers were the wayward ones
but he was still grinning when the young wives passed;
when the moon casts a shadow that obscures the sun,
when things fall into place so fast, so fast, so fast;

i left home drugged and dizzy and came back alive,
a champion of rats, a wayward king without a crown;
i told you, baby, i told you we'd survive,
but this hole in the earth just goes down, down down.

i lost my way when i let my veins breathe the dirty air.
but baby, why are you so quiet sitting there?

in which i manufacture nightmares

whitewashed down the shoreline
until I crashed upon the rocks;
a breakwater like a giant's spine,
swallows fleeing in flocks;

a house where no one lives now,
a chessboard empty of men;
the crush of the water that drags me down
and the ocean of devils I've been;

the dreams that crash inside my head,
that hang my body on hooks;
and no one cries, "take me instead!"
in the places where no one looks;

echoing groans and splintering bones.
I guess tonight I'm sleeping alone.

my friends made this list with me

Jack
Damien

the paper is an officious shade of yellow.
the top is uneven,
but the right side is straight and sure, though both
are torn.

Blake
Riley

i'm trying not to focus on the names.
they mean too much; they're too Cameron

Elliott
Miles

i really, really can't take it.
torn at the top is now torn through the middle
and the names are still there.

Zack

shit. just —

Brandon

shit.

a bunch of stupid quotes. first in a series, probably.

"barely recognizable."
what is my favorite quote?
"every scar is a bridge."
what words would you use to describe me?

i think a plus sign is just a minus sign that's
collided with its very confused twin.
"a pushover."
so is it a good thing or a bad thing?
am I right or are they just confused?

"fit for kings."
that's kind of you, really.
kind like a dovecote. kind like june.
kind like a solitary afternoon.

too sweet? too sorry?
"don't ever let them take you down."
I never thought highly of kissing and making up
but the idea is growing on me.

I'll start looking up again, I swear.
Until then, will you condescend
to hold my hand?

whitecaps

That day when he hadn't slept, the boy,
when he held your hand to keep
from drifting off, because the rip tide
in his brain is sure to pull him under —

That day he rubbed his mouth,
when he wanted to be close
to you, but he is no Moses, he
could not part the seas that separate you —

That day he descended the stairs alone,
without your hand, without, without —

The seas are in his brain —

A hurricane —

He is drowning —

well goddamn

the world is turning backwards.
a particularly odd frame of mind —
over-the-top over heels and down the stairs
toppled crate after crate of florida oranges;

bloodsucking monsters have become my friends
recently, through a series of pictures
that flash over and over and put me in
a particularly odd frame of mind —

a coiled wire strikes at my neck
the best whiskey in the world couldn't save me now;
superman seems to have partaken of it, and now he's in
a particularly odd frame of mind —

the noise blasting at my brain, at
a particularly odd frame of mind —
an earthquake of IQ 150 cackles like a wicked witch
a sea of green, a sea of green, a sea of green;

rows and rows of god only knows
boxes and boxes of the hounds and the foxes
years and years of sedentary fears
a particularly odd frame of mind —