WONDERLEMON

To believe in every syllable 

you breathe as I weep

could be my only miracle 

ever. After getting to sleep

thanks to you. Dreaming’s possible.

My body belongs to your name.

Love gets lost, frame by frame. 

Here lies the peroxide I became.

That hatred clings on to me

despite what you say or see…

No promises in “We” finding lovely. 

Clearly this concept

of a full nights sleep

is either a secret the charmed have kept

or an idealists’ hope to keep.

Because it feels 

like half the world can’t compete

with winding wheels

and pillows stuffed with steel. 

Sometimes I don’t know that I’ve been pacing.

The lights are as low as they go. 

But it all just feel like whitened out double spacing. 

Mozart, wine, smoke. 

Just what the doctor ordered. 

Though I choke 

with the unknown of which personality is bordered.

I suppose I broke 

down half way through the one way corridor,

cursed with no center of gravity. 

Stumbled to skip.

My buzz, this love, the city.

Startled at I trip. 

No room left for pity,

just pages to whimsically rip. 

Go with it, get on it, go for it. 

But don’t miss out on Thank You. 

Filled my lashes with wit

as they line my lips with glue.

So I’ll sit.

Just remember this is my avenue. 

Therapy, sex, sleep.

Quite the daily routine

as they can’t look before I leap.

I mean what I mean.

No secrets to keep.

Hand me the iv filled with nicotine. 

Nights made of napping

feel like entrapment.

The pulse of my nightmare is snapping,

awoken to be bent

and there’s no happy ending, 

Only melodic dreams there to sing 

out the letters in terror of sending. 

Even the cotton can sting.

No vision without cold sweat,

just tossing at the pretense. 

The usual bet, 

my the restless commence. 

Unconscious in bursts,

an irreverent curse.

Eyes half closed at my pessimist last and first.

Just let me sleep, it’ll only get worse. 

To wake in frenzy strikes my chest heavy, especially when sleep was unsolved. Tossed and turned, unconscious yet still very much between thoughts. The irony stands that I may very still nap all day.

But the 8am present, falling back under is prohibited by way of chest pains and bubbles behind manic waves. The part that actually hurts is that the 48 hour scribbles and train ride and wandering has faded to shaky memory. 

Midnight can now mean sound asleep, yet the habits persist. Drained and a little insane, a full night is with one by my side and lone shut eyes just to pass the time. Although, in an a refusal to admit beautiful dependency, the “reality” is mainly locked up insomnia attempting to breathe. 

I beg for my nights back in my own grasp, but that seems improbably under suffocated attack.  A television set and a cocktail drowned in medicated tea, I’d just like to simply sleep. An overused “Honest” goodnight would mean everything.

Never have I ever

driven to drink.

I cannot forgive her,

the me that’s forgotten to think

for herself,

for the better.

There’s no ventricular wealth,

just a fortress of sweaters.

I can’t sleep or eat or walk

without counting the seconds.

Curled up the block

of Broadway and Bond.

It’s a struggle for all

with no my sympathy

and I can’t breathe. Just fall

and nobody can see.

But it’s okay,

tomorrow isn’t too far from today. 

Waking up inside his grasp is like remembering sunshine.  I have pushed and ran, pretended and raged in tangled terror for too long.  But every dawn with him is like sunday morning, dusk like Christmas Eve. Nothing is perfect, a slowly accepted cliche…but this has its moments.  

We tumble and collapse, a pillow to the other and I can swear this is forever.  However “now” it is, there is no escape from him, kisses have been boiled under skin.   With faded labels of tragic or toasts for tomorrow, it is what it is. And it is beautiful.  

We can’t help it.  Divided by metro-north, yet conquered with urgency.  That breath is a blanket, this chest is branded.  A butterfly is born under my ribcage with each Hello, and with some 350 plus days under our tugged belts. Magic.

When his side is empty and my smoke compensates for my lungs, I wander into uncertainty.  Curling up and pacing around in misplaced haze. For self-respect’s sake, it is not dependency.  Nor loneliness or romantics. Just a piece I’ve come to know I’ll need.  Not by way of willing injection, a curse worth honorable mention.  It’s a fusion of organs and echoed understanding that has lead me to sunshine.  And today he is mine. Our teeth wont grind until it’s time. 

It’s like the moment dreamless eyes become cement, I produce toxic tap water yet again.  Nicotine comes before the greed of natural needs as simple as sleep.  Pried, pealed as to not drown in my meticulous strain of lemonade. More kindly, my beloved yet dangerous “sunshine bed”. Beautifully cloudesque, but empty with the exception of tossing out the ghosts that have crept in to disturb.  

This is a diagnosis no longer. Just restless smoke rings vibrating up to a low ceiling.

 I pace to avoid the blank space, drugged as prescribed but walking dead by night.  I’d dial a number if words would be strung, so turning to pages and pens for ineligible comprehension is a black swan song unsung. 

Once, I’d die to squeeze the eyelids until the sun. Or, at the very hopeful least, until sometime past three in the morning.  Unconsciousness does come in waves, but it never stays.  perhaps out of fear for approaching day.  If only the blinds would shut, I’d see blackness, though mid-nighttime remains a distracting grey.

Wishing my ink would dissolve into a dream, I wake thrice nightly for a reminder there’s still room to breathe.  Just don’t diagnose me. Please. 

My veins get so wound up that they forget

how to sting boiling blood with chardonnay.

It’s no fault of my heart’s, yet there is debt

this medicine hopes to dissolve someday.

My spine unwinds so absentmindedly,

yet it’s very existence stands flighty.

I whisper wisdom meticulously 

just to faint at foreshadowed gravity.

There is a tunnel behind this forehead…

lost memories, flooded with remedy. 

When his scent’s left thread, bottles come to bed.

To get some sleep, I burst to melody.

I don’t blame the moon for summoning fear,

midnight just appears safer when love is here. 

force my thoughts to bed 

tuck them in, drain my visions of their red

too many worries behind a forhead

so recently kissed

and every pleasantry I’ve dismissed

could have waned a little wist

there’s a lingering possibility 

that gagged honesty

could destroy me

but clenched with “just breathe”

it’s rainy with a chance of sanity

I might plea for patience

but a snap of sense

has left the other pillow with a distinct dent

so tonight

I will drink and I will write

lonesome with a loss of flight

but I’m holding on to letting go

rest may follow

solace to swallow

I can reject expectations of sorrow

without or without a promise of some tomorrow

I know I can be a menace to rest

tossing and turning over burning breaths

pouring the words conjured for the helpless

I just can’t bear the thought of being your bed’s safe bet

however, do attempt to not forget

how we move at our best

alarm clock’s broken but the sunshine’s set

a kiss to validate a nightmare’s end

a wake up call in a three legged sentence 

beyond restless, 

this is beautifully blessed. 

I can’t understand why I humor the haze

a periwinkle pill to compliment an aimless, naked gaze

the majority of days,

are spent skipping through my city’s maze

but every night,

I’m armed for battle, a fistful of fears waiting to take flight

I’m fine under sunshine

generally buzzed, but those lazy demons are mine

dusk is something else’s property

I whisper out my window for someone to love me

because it exists a transit away from this remedy

I’ve been known to sing into bottles of whiskey

and these skyscrapers swallowing stars

make rest appear so far

it gets dark after dark

so I giggle into a receiver as my senses are scarred and my lungs fill with tar