CloudNothing

You make maps to ceiling constellations, and I wanna lie here and trace every line, until we're lost in the dark matter of your mind. With arms cooly tucked beneath your head, you navigate an escape from nothingness. There is a brilliance spilling from your lips, as your mouth rambles on and on. You have long drifted alone with starry eyes, but now you've found a passenger.

Passerby, I see you everyday. Our paths separate yet intertwined. Eyes thoughtlessly meeting. Words never spoken. I know we've never met, but I wish I could tell you: this pattern we belong to is sometimes the only comfort I have in my quiet sea of chaos. Existing as familiar strangers, you brush by the ocean, safe from its wicked abyss.

Incisors cut into the strip Swallowing passing cars whole. The night washes over neon loneliness As liquid mercury signs flicker in repose. One last electric breath sweeps the streets Where shopping bags perform their last dance. And the city succumbs to the darkness A vacuum that knows no city limits.

You let words descend from your lips like napalm. But if you saw this village after your destruction, as the people lay silent, throats stifled by smoke-- I wonder if you would mourn your charcoal soul, and open your mouth to spill honey instead.

The steady pounding of rubber soles, occasionally screeching a tone deaf falsetto, upon the freshly waxed hardwood flooring. I recognize this familiar melody, but it doesn't command my toes to tap, it sickens my core with nostalgia, of adolescent anxiety.

She carries conviction on her back. Shoots poppies from her cupid's bow. And exudes radiance from strawberry knees, ripened red like twin blossoms in the spring. But the weight of each companion, rests heavily on her shoulders, and leaves her stranded on mortal soil. A living constellation, for sale on the city sidewalk. One day she will make the sky her stage, just as she has claimed this street corner, with neon lights casting their celestial glow, like the stars she will kiss in peaceful solace. One asphalt angel waiting to fly.

I caught you again On your voyage from the brain to the lips Searching for the right sounds to fill the gaps This passage takes you longer each trip And I'm afraid for the day You do not return to the harbor But know that I will always wait Faithful in this lighthouse

A loosened knot releases the ship, And with it a voyage fit for the brave. Serenity is a fictitious virtue at sea, A cruel lie that lures in curious minds like the beckon of a siren. And so it happens, as it will again, and has done so before, The ocean calls the voyager, Only to ensnare them in a watery grave. The waves rush over with beautiful malice, The deafening sound disguising any struggle, Engulfing her from the inside, Breaths become short and frantic, Until it is all too much to bare, And the tide outlasts the passenger. Another voyager claimed, another companion for the immortal sea.

My mind races like spinning tops occasionally colliding with one another some dizzily falter to a stop where they wait just seconds to be spun again All my focus is spent searching for the correct top so that I may take it by the stem and twirl it between my fingers in careful solitude to protect it from the blitz of warring ideas Manic patterns are carved on the hardwood table as the madness entrances me again