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Light invades my eyes and colors emit their voice,
inflections from the speech mount the beings in my dreams.
These statues sing,
they dance,
the effigies howl and weep.
An invocation to a cosmos from some chasm in the deep.

I listen in the morning when the sun has met the sky,
I listen in the evening when the moon has paled the sea.

I never can conceive,
but always can surmise,
the words which echo through my thoughts like starlight in the black.

Look at me,
within my shade,
at eyes who can believe,
a day will come when I
concede if purpose swims within these words so rapt in bemused secrecy.

Until that day,
I'll place these words, within your hands.

Which cascade through my gaping mouth and whisper through my yearning pen.

If perchance they shroud and haunt,
to crux the statues in your mind,
I'll hang them like a portrait,
by your fireplace,
where they're always yours to find.
I'm still just standing in my own ashes
the debris in which I've burned,
night after night for you

learning there are no breaths
deep enough

& I can't tell if the whiskey is helping
then again
neither is the screaming

try shaking off
what's been chained to you;
pulling skin from bone
shouldn't feel like home
and a big bowl of
whatever it is you want from me

you see, I keep having this dream
where you are
so
happy to see me
& now I can't seem to
appreciate mornings

it's been
a hundred days of bleeding
in need of
something unkeepable
something my arms can't possibly
reach for

when
all my
words
I keep warm for you
straight through my
frozen throat
a broken chest plate
just in case
you need them to save you
I'm inside of the d*** on purpose;
the last couple of plates you've dropped
& kept eating from, and I wish you'd just be careful.

I only wanted for the grass on this side to stay green, but I certainly wouldn't have minded if you sat down.

I don't like trying to squeeze between your ribs but I know I left something good there.
Like, how I should have been less than a stranger the longer we kissed until it backfired and now it's the mouth making all of my decisions while your hand covers my heart.

& It was never about bodies /
I wouldn't know how to worship anything
& peace of mind has never been very gently priced so I'll overpay in the form of self destructive predicaments and overused adjectives, pretending everything's okay when I can't hear any of the rhymes anymore.
lately
I've stayed inside;
being reminded that
even the grass is
loud sometimes
& I'm
desperate for silence

something to stop my
grinding teeth when
I can't scream the answer

while
everyone's dying to feel
better &
I just want to feel less
but
Gravity gets the best of us &
I'm doing everything I can
to
deny the pressure
Sober, am I really sober?

My mind has become idle
Even in this sobriety
That’s been gifted in pain
These hands have been worked
And my flesh is shedding
Along with the trees this fall
I’ve been sober for a while
But I’ve adopted a new high
A detrimental self-determined
Deterioration of myself
Trying to escape the reality
Of the life I’ve carved
In the midst of this whirlwind
I can only cling to the purity
That lingers in the silence
Before I shut my eyes for rest
When I’m lying in my bed
Beneath the lies I had told
With all the truth I painted blue
I can see the sober mind
That's sitting still in my head
With all the regrets  I long to toss
Into the pile of bones I buried
With the past I hope to forget
But I am shaped by this all
I am the product of a history
That was written by plenty
Only to be lived by one

In this sober body I call mine
I am sober, by definition.
she chewed through my ribs
& attached me to wings

subsistent, pretending
I don't need a thing

she pushed through my body
propelling a shriek

her hand fits me close
& her sleep fit my sheets

but I'm done with she's perfect
I'm shrinking in blinks
& I'm sick of this
balancing stilts built on dreams

& I've stopped all this tripping
my shoes are on tight
but I'll  
fall asleep
hoping
you slept good tonight
>|< Julie Butler
I like to
sit with it in days
that way
I'm not driven insane

& you're so easy to remember
the way I love you like winter
you're early November

but those are only seasons
and seasons
they pass
& I'm sad but
so grateful
slow memories last

I won't bash or
be hateful
I like what we had

You held
my hand and my head
& I'm okay with that
>|< Julie Butler
I only felt that way waking up with her
& I've shared my bed plenty
it's nothing I can pin point either
[at this point]
it's like,
a knife is a knife
I guess she's just that type of woman
so stunning, her stubborn beauty
demanding love
& me, one of the ones drowning for it
>|< Julie Butler
when I was eight
I saw it
sat on it's swings
mother in the shops
only when
we tried to find it again
it wasn't there
or maybe
it just got lost
amidst
the concrete labyrinth
of the city

------

walking back
through there
waiting to vanish
along with it
like chalk dust
cappuccino in my hand
years later
I saw the ghost
of myself
so clearly
as if I could
reach out & touch her

------

better we had stayed ghosts
than ever entered the present
I won't have you
always busy
not even evening calls
I remember the name of your sister
I've got no pride to exclaim us
I assume you to care less
you're heavier than tomorrow
I submit the same paper
professing how my skin went with you
you move away from me with a sword behind you
what are you so afraid of
believing
you're good
how can you bare to admit it?
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