She asked me if the mushrooms made me think of her

So I tell her;

I think of you on the train

The one that runs between sleep and awake

I stare out the foggy windows and wonder.

I think of you as I’m switching lanes

Making that hazy merge back into consciousness.

I tell myself that no matter what we did,

it would only ruin it.

But somewhere deep down

I do wonder what we would have found

If time coincided with feelings and feelings were spoken true

It’ll always be a question mark

What would have happen between me and you.

The bell dings as he walks through the door.

A burst of wind follows him in, as if it too, were trying to escape the frost.

Inside the dark saloon only a few people look up. dull conversations stopping briefly, only to be taken up again.

The smell of spilled beer sticks to the floors.

Some People kiss their glasses of bourbon with yearning. Some, with disinterest.

He approaches the bar and the barkeep gives him a brief raised eyebrow, before swinging warm whisky into a glass, at his request.

Some people steal glances. They know there is something off about him, yet they cannot make it out.

“Not from around here”, they settle on, and move on.

He does Certainly look the part, or at least, close enough. Dirty working man clothes. Boots worn through just like everyone else.

He sits his hat on the bar and takes a welcomed drink.

He still feels their eyes on him sometimes, or at least he thinks he does. the sideways glances have became less and less with the years.

Too many times he was thrown through a door, out of sad places like this. Too many times denied drink he had money to pay for.

Too many times he was mocked, or treated like a freak.

Once too many times had his body been violated by men who did not think him whole, or true, or right.

Yes, He had paid a high price for this seat.

But now, he seemed to fit in.

He had long since left behind the act of dresses and corsets. It’d been a Long time since he had stopped playing dress up to please the people who had never once said please.

The ones who’d only taken what they thought belonged to them because he, after all, had been born property.

But not anymore. He sat in the saloon, just like every other man. He dared anybody to challenge him now. His revolver displayed on his hip. and the anger,which still swam deep from years suppressed, sat ready to draw if ever provoked.

But he wasn’t.

He sat and he sipped.

He too, kissed his glass of bourbon.

He threw three coins on the bar and then quietly, and unceremoniously, set his hat back atop his head, and headed out the door.

When the earth shakes

And the streets ripple

The dusty bones in deep graveyards

Will shake awake

They’ll break out of wooden coffins

And move closer to the moon

Away from the same gravity that made them old and dead.

And when they open my fancy box

After all the rumble clears

And the dust settles

It’ll be empty, except for a note

Scratched with dirty fingernails

That reads

“Too quiet. Left to find good music.”

It was barely ever more than a date

But it was something, and it stuck with me in a warm way/ Like the first sunny day after a harsh winter/ Defrosting a little part of me that I thought I’d lost

It was laughing like I was drunk even when I was hungover

You were definitely something/ But that something was never mine

I don’t like owning people anyway

I just wish you would have been a little bit more with me/ here

You made me feel like perhaps one day it could be
But I don’t think it really ever could have been

I was a stepping stone for you
But my heart was wet concrete
And damn did you step hard.

I’m angry that I never told you/ the possibility that it may have made a difference has chained itself to my thoughts like a kid on a hunger strike and I am starving to know/ I want the certainty that only you are responsible for how things never flourished/ That if I had said something, things wouldn’t be different/ The ‘If’ always stays/ heavy with the question mark like an upside down fishing hook in my mouth, keeping me above sleep/

But what a ride it’s been to get here.

So here I am again, And I still haven’t figured out the art of not racing in the rain.

The nights can be so full of chaos

Like during the day the sky feels endless

but at night, it feels close and heavy.

Confining Like a low ceiling in a crowded room.

The nights come too soon and I know it’s too early to sleep but sometimes the space in my bed feels like the only safe place.

That or the space behind my eyes after I’ve had too many drinks.

Drinks to make the sky seem blurry, and further away.

Less like heavy, dark, wrap around glass and more like a place you can still fly out to.

I won’t say that I am scared of the dark

But I am scared of myself when it gets dark.

Isn’t a promise. It’s a confession.

like Childish Gambino said, it’s Tuesday afternoon and I ain’t got shit to do but fall in love with you. Like let’s not tell the world because it’ll ruin it, as it does most great things. Like swimming towards where the sky meets the ocean and falling off, but way less cliche. Like filling our lungs with air and diving deep till we can’t see light above. even if we have to come up for air eventually. let’s pretend that we know. Know the secret/ and have the key/ and hold the tune/ and know the words. Maybe when you kiss me, it’ll be last time so do it as if it is. Like a meteor might be coming for us as we sleep.

The marks left on your body were never a sign of ownership, but a bread crum to bring me back, a sign that it actually happened. like a dream within a dream. like the raven that flew in our window took in it’s beak the key, but we did hold it in our fingers for a moment. Like we’ve forgotten the tune but our vocal cords still remember singing it. Like the secret was locked away in a safe, that was dropped off a cliff, but we do remember that there was something to remember . Like perhaps we never knew the words but we were damn good at improvising and I’m getting ahead of myself, as I tend to do but I like to be prepared. One can only free fall so many times without eventually packing a parachute, and a dictionary in the language to the city where you’ll land, lost but knowing that the drop was worth it.