Emotional Secession

When I have days where I wonder why I fell so hard for you,
I let your Southern drawl lull me back into sleep.
It's only been hours since I last let your sweet talk
draw me into a false sense of security, but even now,
I am wise enough to realize that even the Devil can quote scripture.

I want to ask God if the fact that you consider me a charity case
can count towards your tithes, because your kisses taxed my lips of moisture
and I can do nothing but thirst for an emotional connection to something
other than your Stonewall irises that are too pigheaded
to reflect upon how you make me feel.

We have come to the point where we pit camaraderie against camaraderie,
but this isn't our first Bull Run, and even your imminent defeat
isn't enough to justify compromise. I have become fatigued by this battle;
lost all respect for your Southern civility towards those of us marginalized
by your faith, and to this day, I still don't understand how someone can call
themselves country and not understand the poignancy of Hank Williams.

Dorm 12

I have nights where I pace the corridors alone,
staring up at slapboards and wondering
if you will ever find the strength in your heart
to love someone. Burn and death are both tomorrow;
it makes me wonder if the reds were self-aware
when they scheduled the day for stack to fall.

Perhaps I will see you as I pace the grounds
of elephant walk, tracing past my steps that I followed
in the same way I learned to embrace camaraderie,
because it is not easy being the bastard child of Bonfire.
I have spent the past lifetime wide eyed, eagerly
learning about chivalry, brotherhood, and bonds
that I am never truly a part of.

Maybe that is why you find it difficult to summon
the strength to look into my inquisitive doe brown eyes
and tell me why you cannot care for someone as broken as I am;
why your hands shook like trembling sails holding onto
maelstrom lovers as she wailed out her soul onto your masts,
but you are full of hot air, and thus, you will never fly.
It makes me wonder why you pretend to give a shit about chivalry.

Job 6:11-17

To this day, the only Bible I keep with me at all times
has been a Catholic one. Occasionally, I find it ironic
that its verses haunt me like original sin and inherent guilt.

Your professions flow like excuses
through the membranes of my valley,
but your love has worn me down
by draining past in an evanescent flash.

I am tired of being tried; exhausted
by the silt carried in your undertow
sanding down my soul and willpower
as if you were never taught the virtue of patience,
because you always show up ten minutes early for intolerance.

You locked your lips to mine
amidst gravel that bit angrily at my elbows and your kneecaps;
pebbles that we kicked off the roofs of buildings to stone the infidels
of our past sins and the heretical nature of your emotional repression,
but there is no calf I can cast out of brassy gold or bronze
in order to redeem you as an idol for my faith's foundation.

too face(d)

I have days where I wonder if you read my poetry;
if the lines that grace your eyes and crease my forehead
mystify you equally with their roots and future intentions,
but I wrote about you in past tense before I ever met you.

You smeared your tongue sloppily
like an emollient on my cheekbones,
but the acerbic nature of your calcified karst topography
grates at the edges of my being

and makes me wonder about your purpose in God's plan
as if I am privy to plans from a higher Being.

We had moments where I traced
the arch of your nose gently with my lips
leading downwards in a spiral like figurative imagery,
but I have found that pulse beating so gently in your jugular
is too weak to sustain me.

Job 1:21 (the part the bible never mentioned)

Sometimes I think that God is all I have,
but I thank God all the time for what I have.

He blessed me with your flaws;
the same ones that I wake up to every morning
when we gaze out from my window at early dawn.
You bestowed upon me a renewed sense of faith,
and I kiss the lips of devout nature personified
because I found my blue moon standards
dwelling within your irises.

It makes me wish our night could last forever,
but I cannot stop a sunrise in the same way
that I cannot fight inevitability or comprehend eternity.

I find that my favorite place to incubate my kisses
is at the base of your spine, where I move to extract a sample
of the venom implanted deep within your soul like a spinal tap.
There are days when I press my lips to your forehead
and worry that the fever is rising; times when I can feel
the virus coursing through your veins like a death sentence,
but we always had an expiration date stamped firmly on our faces.

Sometimes I feel the velvet of your tongue
run over my cracked and dried lips as if I thirst for salvation
you are far too close(d) off to ever bring me.

Senior Boots

Sometimes, you look at me with mismatched eyes,
because God was unsure what expression you needed
to bestow upon me at that moment in time

but we content ourselves to kicking gravel off of buildings carelessly,
because we perched ourselves so high above the ground
the Heavens grazed the bottoms of our feet.

Someday, you will slide past those arches in your boots;
I will not be standing by your side to watch. I avoid it,
but I can't help but have days I count down until sapphires
become once-in-a-blue-moon irises I will not be able to afford to gaze into.
Meanwhile, all I can do is content myself to sleepless nights.

2:42 AM

We loved the 12th man before we even knew what the hell it was.
We wake up at 5:30 for camaraderie and we march on towards the woods
until our feet grow so sore from the brush that we pluck at the skies
for comfort and fallen trees. I will miss tradition.

While I confess to not knowing intimately the feel of an axe handle
next to my fingertips, burn is engraved in the backs of my irises
as firmly as the War Hymn, in the same way that carrying logs
with strangers builds character as much as connections.

The clock is ticking down to the time that those red brick arches
close down around our future like renovated memorials.
I'm scared of the bulldozers; watched them tear down concrete
as if those iron jaws gripped graduations, commissions, and my future
but I will summon the strength in myself to walk past the remains of ol' Army.

I have moments where I grasp desperately at a spirit slipping away from me,
juxtaposed between innovation and respect for those who came before;
but I hope that it remains difficult for my alma mater to completely forget
the angels that were caught between a fallen stack that clipped their wings.

No amount of candlelight vigils will send those souls
back to their hometowns in those portals, but we remember.

slowly learning how to be happy

It's hard to bring myself to write about happiness,
because I spent so much time sifting through bitterness
that I forgot what it felt like to care about someone until I fell so hard
in front of a red brick building that I completely forgot how to hurt.

It's been ages since I've been able to walk past
Academic building with a smile on my face
when I see Sully and think of camaraderie.

I admit that I still have moments
where I find myself worried that
I have forgotten how to be happy

but there is a contentedness that I am able to detect
when I am just vulnerable enough to let you hold me.

I lost myself picking stars out of the gleam in your eyes
somewhere between acoustic guitar chords
and lying peacefully in country hillsides
just far away enough from the glare of city lights
to see you bathed in the aura of the moon.

We climbed the ladders of the fire escapes while interlocking fingers
and for once, I didn't have to worry about falling for someone.
I fell backwards into space amidst the gravel on the top of Doherty,
and found that contemplating my day by myself was overrated
when I was finally caught by you and entangled myself in your arms.
Rocks bit at our elbows, but I didn't mind running my fingers
through pebbles to caress the side of your face.

Although it's difficult to admit, I find that companionship
on top of buildings has served me well, because perching alone
under the Century tree has only served to deter my fate.