in_the_wake_of_lamentable_tides unhinged i love you i have for a long time long before i knew your face or your hands or your lips it was easier to go days or weeks or even at times months without talking to you when the reality of you was just your_voice for_sure i remember grad_school the coffee and the cigarettes and the even higher hoops to jump through and the hours in the library and the ulcers and the sleepless nights and the reading and the papers and the saturday observations and the sunday quartet rehearsals i didn't finish grad_school i couldn't the summer after i quit i moved back to ohio to the freakish rural/suburban hood my parents live in the only thing to keep me company as i smoked were the crickets and your_voice i quit something my father abhorred almost more than anything i quit i was a failure and your_voice like hugs as my father snored on his recliner i'm sorry too sorry i'm so needy i don't want to be the reason you go crazy that's what grad_school is for after all but i don't think either of us should be sorry for what we have meant to each other over these long years it's just that recently the reality shifted what used to be just words that somehow cushioned the longing is now like a mother being without her child (like in the puccini animation where butterfly gets her baby ripped from her and then watches the baby stolen drive away) what do you do then? what can you do then? i won't stop loving you (i don't think i could anyways) and maybe how and when has shifted over the years high tide low tide the shore where my ocean meets you always changing deep inside i am still but at the edges i tirelessly hungrily lap at you what_a_paradox and as those days of your arms and lips float farther away and other dirtier pieces are shoved in between then_and_now still if i concentrate hard enough i am bursting with it the way the memory makes my face erupt into teeth and sunshine if_only you knew what a considerable feat that really is to make me smile there was a time in my life where i didn't smile where my eyes were dead and my lips pulled always down at the corners if_only you knew what a considerable feat that really is to lift the weights from my heart and make me smile truly bittersweet now i finally know what this means bittersweet 070418 ... unhinged sweeter than bitter today flooded rain drops you the water that washes me clean sometimes it backfires the stock i hold in words sometimes i will be content that there was even one perfect moment one being better than none of_course a piece of my heart tattooed with your kisses something as common and elemental as rain like little pieces of you 070602 ... unhinged more even dirtier pieces snuffed_out the immediate reaction but_still if i concentrate hard enough i can't help but smile to think of it the lament gets sadder everyday ( biber ) 070905 ... auburn 070418 I devoured those words. 080130 ... unhinged and i have devoured these words many times myself since i poured them out here when it was all i had of him with his separate bed and separate life 080131 ... past white, sharp breakers come in off the lake. little jagged fingers grasping for the stormy sky. the higher they reach the less lake they have beneath them and the harder they fall, lamenting, lost, and shattered against the stony shore. grad_school isn't killing me. it feels like class work gets in the way of real work. it feels like i'm starting to spin aimlessly again, restless to get out, too restless to begin the ever growing pile of copies. little mistakes slip in. missed appointments. missed tests. missed citations. each moment missed is a broken wave, splintered across my days. their little cuts are harmless, but ever present. shattering against the rocks. failing to reach the sky. stormy and stony. 080201 ... unhinged baby if you knew what it meant i would give up pieces of myself to be with you (i can't stop thinking about you) 090125 ... unhinged the last time i saw you you made a comment something to the affect of 'you should be over writing sloppy love poems about me now' not the words you used they were a little more diplomatic since you went to school for diplomacy after all you were living with your girlfriend (i should have figured something like that happened) i didn't hear from you much but when i was in town we had dinner and got drunk together and i slept in the office but i wasn't really over writing sloppy love poems for you because when i met you you helped me realize the inherent goodness of myself you changed my life i was so goddamn sick i had no idea how great i was until you told me (another situation where words seem trite) i'm a little more calm now a little more zen a little more practiced at reality but i still miss you you are a pretty pivotal human being in my universe 101201 ... stork daddy you are great. 101202 ... unhinged heroin_doll #2 i still have a hard time talking to you about anything real and i realized deep in my heart last_night that so many of the things you did, said that made me cry you didn't remember you couldn't remember because for most of us you were so fucked up you couldn't remember the stilted silence when i brought up the first time we almost had sex you so fucked up on benzos you couldn't remember lately i've realized i should be angry for all the things you put me through that you couldn't remember but there was something about you then that i knew the real you was covered up by dirty_mirrors that i wouldn't let go when you tried to cut_and_run i should be pissed at all the time i spent on you wasted by the drugs drugs drugs but i know now to have faith in myself cause i'm pretty good at seeing reality that even though i didn't really know you for a long time i knew there was a real you worth knowing and slowly but surely my tongue says what i need it to slowly but surely 101202 ... unhinged i stared at your pupils tonight and realized we_never_change (even though i still hold_on to hope) 101208 ... unhinged (are you ever going to stop hurting me? am i ever going to stop letting you hurt me?) 110118 ... unhinged and then you told me that even when fucked_up you could see me and you shattered the universe i had built for us 110211 ... unhinged i decided this week that you aren't worth it anymore i don't have words for how that feels 110304 ... unhinged i'm still human even after all the wishing, hoping, dreaming i'm still human even after all the shamatha i'm still human just less innocent fuck 110322 ... unhinged i'm still human and i like my heart on my sleeve so that's where i'll keep it no matter if you see it 110419 ... r_r . 120110 ... jane he wrote me: "digesting how i feel about seeing / hearing / feeling the other side of it. *that voice from the absence i will most certainly leave in my wake.* that damage. those decisions. every time i read it, i think of so many mistakes that i've either made or am on the verge of making. or more, so many mistakes i have a chance to not make." i told him not to sacrifice the_present for the_future. 120110 ... unhinged i really miss you today today of all days i need to see myself the way you see me 120525 ... unhinged my practiced indifference fools everyone now and i dont have the strength to come out of hiding 130701 ... daf You don't fool me! Come on out of there! =) You_are_loved 130701 ... unhinged (i dont write love poems like this anymore) 150908 ... unhinged (seems_like we were always just a dream that disappeared in the living) 170807 what's it to you? who go blather from