Little Steps. Tiny Steps.

Little steps
Tiny steps
One handed
Right of course
Left out for about 30
Home for about only 8
Bones healing
Amongst other things
Talk all day
Talk but once a month
Heart pitter-patters 
Every time
Love from the start
Just on pause
Who knows
Unconcerned though
It was nice to meet you
Again

Tugging Away

This was some years ago, when we overlapped each other,
When she slipped her fingers in between the bone and the skin of my right hand.
Our nerves braided themselves together, our bones fused, our skin graft.
Joined together we roamed the tiny area we called home, making the locals jealous.
In time, in step, in love.
Inside though, I always wondered about the inevitable pain we'd have to deal with, and alone.
Nearly a half decade went by with us joined at the wrist.
Until all of sudden a constant tugging began.
At first it was manageable, the resistance was there but hardly anything to worry about.
I worried though.
We were being torn apart at the seams.
My skin would burn with pain, as I hoped my nerve endings were the only ones to feel it.
While she slept one night I tinkered with the wiring in our hands. I never wanted her to feel the pain.
We ended up slow dancing for months after, tip toes shuffling around the issue at hand. Our hands.
I recall perfectly the night I lost the top layer of skin off of my right hand.
I packed a car all while I ignored my wounds, being sure to lick hers.
It was some years ago, since we tore our hands apart, ripping the skin, severing the nerves.
Our bones broke, just loud enough to drown out the sound of our hearts breaking in the background. 
The healing process for such an injury has no timeline. I've been dealing with it ever since.
Every so often I'll experience what the medical world calls a ghost limb, but I know what it really is.
When she's lonely she'll grab for anything and each time my right hand feels her tugging away.
I will never be the same again, and I'm positive that I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Shrinking Ships

Pile on top and get comfortable with the rest of them, cause that's where you'll stay now.
You voluntarily jumped ship expecting a rescue raft to be thrown your way.
Has panic sunk in yet, as you watch the ship sail away?
It will become tiny, like the way you've been making me feel lately.
Your Plan B doesn't show face around here so who's to help you?
There was once a fleet that would kill at your will and I was lead.
Thank goodness you know how to swim though.
Cause there's no ladder or secret password to get back on board.
You're on your own once you jumped.
There is no getting used to that.

Voluntarily Insane

Like a surgeon with a scalpel
I'll take you apart just to see what happens
Put you back together, lose some pieces
To change the way your heart was beating

But there's something shaky about these hands
When I pick up the knife to begin
They always seem to turn the blade
Away from your heart, and toward my brain

It's like each time I split your chest
Something goes missing inside my head
A chunk of heart, for a slab of brain
The price I pay, voluntarily insane

Family Friends

I drove to her house trying to remember what her voice sounded like.
I've heard it a few times before but I wasn't wrapped into like I was now.
I forgot to wear cologne.
Her town, I know it well, was a bit bigger than mine, but mostly on paper.
You could walk from one end to the other without ruining your nice shoes.
I wore my nice shoes.
"You sure you don't want me to drive?", the first thing she said to me.
All-wheel drive just makes more sense in the snow.
I refused, as you'd expect.
The words left her lips but I did not recognize the tone. It was raspier than I'd remembered.
In fact, I don't remember it being raspy at all.
She laughed to herself and got into my car. She trusted something about me.
Our night began and ended on a positive note.
In fact, it didn't end at all actually.
Morning was comforting too. No hangover, no awkwardness, just two people wrapped up.
In fact, we were wrapped up, tangled, intertwined.
She couldn't stop giggling because of the six degrees of separation that hardly separated us.
"Girl, we gotta go, you're gonna be late."
"Boy, hit the snooze alarm one more time."
She buried her head into my chest, curls in my face, feet freezing.
We were shaking but we luckily had the open window to blame. 

A Sucker Throwing a Sucker Punch

Fitting, wouldn't you agree? A fool acting foolish, a sucker throwing a sucker punch.
Rest assured that neither her and I nor anyone else were shocked.
A clumsy turn of the corner, the stomping of your bulky feet-  just as the bell around the neck of the village idiot.
Declaring, "I'm here all! I'm here!"
The issue with that though is you put me on the map, put my dot on the radar.
You tossed the drunken spotlight that normally engulfs only you around the two of us.
Because I am an immediate threat, a force that could barrel through you. And you are aware.
It was a boy interacting with a man, and the man setting an example as the child pounded his balled up fists to his chest.
You are aware of my strengths and I am fully aware of your weaknesses, as are most others.
The effort level on my behalf is low solely out of respect, but respect that is slipping through your fingers due to your undeniable disgust towards me, undignified behavior, and childish antics.
I can spell 'chump' using just two letters and I can teach them all how to also.

Absolutely No Middle Ground

I've got one of those faces.
You know, the kind where there's no middle demographic.
People either see my face and want to break my eye socket,
or they see my face and want to sit on it.
Blessed with a full beard but less than perfect eyesight,
I've one dimple, two scars..that you can see, and a healthy head of hair.
People either see me and want to fight or they see me and want to fuck.
There's no middle ground to stand on with me.

The Title Is All We'd Know

I want to meet a girl that works at a bookstore but hates reading.
And I want her to lie about it to everyone but me.
She would have a favorite book picked out that she's never read,
quotes memorized just to make it that much more believable.
We would pretend we were the characters of a book we've never even skimmed through.
Each new day, another new book to fake. The title is all we'd know.

Dizzy

The clock held its hands low for the night
While the time difference was just an excuse
I pictured you smiling anyway

Bottled up love, bottle it up love
Let it brew and seep through the cracks
Bottled up love, bottle it up love
Let it brew and seep through the cracks

The rain is a hoax for just a few nights
Just the ones we choose, just as an excuse
Just surround yourself but keep smiling anyway
Just surround yourself but keep smiling anyway
Just surround yourself but keep that pretty face smiling 

Dizzy cause we're spun, spun or tangled
They're one in the same for the foolish
They're the same damn thing for the foolish

Don't fall down Dizzy - without taking me down too
Don't fall down Dizzy - without taking your fool

Fuzzy

I looked at her but there was something unclear.
She seemed blurry, even when I wiped the fingerprints from my glasses.
We had always just been so fuzzy.
It's like the picture we were drawing together curled at the edges.
And our lines never seemed to line up properly.
My left hand dragged across the paper and smeared each line she drew.
Once my hand finally settled and I began to draw,
she would unconsciously swat at it to change it's direction.
Without even knowing it though, we drew in opposite directions,
always promising to meet up somewhere down the line.
We're liars now. She lied to me. I lied to her.
We lied to maintain pace.
Next time I see her my eyes will try to adjust.
My pupils will expand grasping violently at the light she gives off.
Inside the nerves will sting the back of my eyelids.
But my eyelashes will become dislodged and float delicately into my line of view.
They know better. It's a defense mechanism.
A different type of discomfort to take my mind off the pain receptors that lead directly toward my chest.

At the knees

I sat down to write something beautiful, something profound and meaningful, but I noticed my shadow being projected on my new walls instead. My body hunched over a keyboard created the stencil of a defeated man. My fingers were waiting for my brain to make the call but I couldn't stop myself from thinking about your skin and bones. I mean, the way they fit so well on top of each other, I always marveled at the combination of the two. Both serving a different purpose while completely relying on the other, impossible to do alone. I remember the particular way that you would bend at the knees but not at the waist. Your skin would move ever so gracefully over your bones. I watched each time and each time I became envious. I wanted to move like that with you. Seamlessly, connected but on a different level. When people saw us move together they would feel as I felt when I watched your body work flawlessly..in complete amazement. We were much the same some time ago. I relied on you to keep my instabilities stable and I relied on you to be my anchor so I would not float away. And I was anything you needed, your lungs, a hand, a polite reminder so you remember that not everything is going to work as easily as we had hoped. This wanderers life I've been leading brings me in circles and to places that are sometimes terrifying but amazing. Each time though, that I'm standing there shaking out of fear and buzzing with excitement, I think of you and how I would have loved to be standing there frightened, frozen, and eager with you. I can't remember what was meant to be written here at the start, I just remember feeling like I was supposed to write some wrongs, or right some wrongs. I don't even know any longer. I sat down to write something beautiful, but I forgotten how to do things like that.