#ghostexpressions

It is a sea of blue and pink. Feathers touch and move along with the wind, the sound of soaring, the rush of ascent. Soft like floating through airy cotton and morning sighs or dark where things hide like the sun, resting in the night.

I want to see what flies see

when it sees me it is no longer free

One or two claps and a smack or two

Is all it takes for the flys life to end too.

Two lives end as my soul descends

When it’s guilt you have, you can’t pretend

It’s not a sickness, or something you can fix

Meals of bisquick and kix as a kid

You turn back in time and the mystery ends

I wonder why history bends, back and further

As you yell far, but no farther

You dip your hand in and reach for your father

Sitting in the therapist’s chair

It all becomes so clear

The fly is small and can’t see well

You nudge your glasses and touch your cell

It loves bright lights, particularly blue

You wear long sleeves to protect from bites too

You swear it’s just one fly

But that’s just one big lie

You kill one fly and another flies by

one day i will rise above the ground

give my body to the soil

and fail to lower my head at the slightest sound

i can’t catch my breath though it’s like the rain

heavy head and wet on the brain

it forgot how to breathe and now i’m tumbling down

i’m down down down in the pit of my bed like the

tree wood to a bonfire

like the deepest part of a swamp

i’m like stuck on it i’m stuck

i can feel my chest pull every apparatus towards it

every soft cushion

every possible comfort

anything i pull close to my chest

in an attempt to be one with the warm feeling that i’ll

feel it on the inside i can’t

seem to find the source of my heartbeat anymore it

feels like it’s in my head.

i wanna fucking scream it feels like my head is in a pool

i’ve detached from my body it’s like i see myself above water but i feel like i’m drowning

i want to swim my way out

but i don’t have any limbs

and so it’s easier to just sink

i just want to vanish completely like a blimp in the sky

the kite u thought was a bird

it would be easier to disappear in space

never tired

never rests

until my heart beat is too tired to ring in my head

i can’t help but feel so so small

not small enough

small like a mosquito

you’re supposed to be here too

you’re supposed to be love

this is a personification of the vomit i have to keep neatly below my throat because i feel

the bile and the hurt and the

tears and it’s all so

much and tidily in my chest

i want to pass out because it’s better than struggling to breathe but i am engulfed

engulfed in flames

my tears my tears they are

trying to settle the plates the

tectonic plates are moving shattering i want them to hit me—

there is no sound just silence

i hear silence but i feel screams

ugly, scratching, clawing

ripping up my lungs, charging up and down my throat

i thought i would be better i thought i would be better.

shrill screams, ringing, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

why aren’t you running

you can’t detach your head from your leg you can’t write without your head you

bend your leg down

and can’t

the appendages cling closely to your chest and yet

no living thing wonders what you work so hard to protect

your hand perched like a dangerous bird on your chest

watching protecting as your arms try to act as a cocoon your

legs your only defense

otherwise you are helpless helpless to the thoughts

to the yelling to the voices

that keep telling you

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

it makes you gag at the thought it makes your stomach flip over

indication of horrible happenings

unshakable shakes

more like earthquakes

and suddenly you realize

i ate the cheese cake off the floor

so you won’t have to worry no more

i’m not a mess since i can dress and decorate my face

but it’s not crime sometimes i can’t handle my own space

people itchin for the front seat but i’m hoping for the back

i ain’t got no time for the spotlight i’m tryna shine it back

it’s horrible i’ve run out of songs to sing

but i can’t figure out the beginning

i wait an hour for the train but i can’t complain

the suns out but new york ain’t the same

I remember how bored I was with life. I couldn’t bare to think that life was just walking to school while half awake in the morning. The big pink house I lived in didn’t feel like enough while I was there. Now it is a plane that only exists in my dreams. The layout is so clear to me; the living room with its boxy TV; the den changing with the years, with the mood. Drawings scotch-taped to walls fluttered away to reveal newer ones. It was a library of my past, one I could not touch.

I saw myself in the attic, the smell of wood and old bags of clothing, toys as well. I could smell the years, I could hear the fireworks from the window. I watched as me and my mother sat on the roof on the fourth of July, peering over other pointed roofs the best we could.

There are ways of immortalizing these extinct worlds, whether in big or small ways. I remember the other worlds I created between those walls, between those sheets. My dreams drove my hand, my pencil. It ran until it wanted to escape. I ran until I realized there was no where else to run to.

A situation like your parents not having citizenship makes certain people you knew change and warp. They become enemies, paranoia erupters, energy gulpers. My dreams became closer to the daytime and soon, it became hard to realize what was real. How would I know what memories happened? I wanted to escape. But where to?

I had been afraid of the attic, yes, but I had been terrified of the basement. I remember hiding there in the dead of night. And then we did laundry.

One day we will sing songs that you wrote 20 years ago

You were an artist yesterday and you will be today

Picking at our food when our bodies slow down

As time passes quicker than we speak

Love has multiple spines

Break her once or twice and soon she will collapse

Don’t just watch her with a glance

Carefully peer into her bones

She was starving when they’d met

“Star-crossed lovers bore me” said them all

And soon she was fed

Stumbling curiously down paths no one knew, unalone

One day she will go to bed and wake up

Realize her hands have turned to prune

And her eyes have put in their two weeks notice

She wants to wake up to you.

She is love, she is happiness, she is good

She is dying she is beauty she is imminence

Wild the winds grow by her open window

They will embrace your soul.

They will make sure you are warm

They will make sure you are peace

Here they come--the bright rays of summer

It has started again.

Today youth spends up their smiles

They have an unlimited supply

Just how it should be as they walk together

Hands not yet divided, and eyes shy.

And once the years come and have their feast