cigarette duet,
alcohol waltz,
in each other’s wounds
we toss handfuls of salt.

the sandcastles
we build alone are regal,
but together our
ocean waves are lethal.

in the pills we find thrills,
in broken hearts we find art.

we scar our skin
and stain our teeth
so we can feel
somewhat complete.

drink my poison
and I’ll down yours,
so we can live with a
temporary cure.

we are each other’s downfall,
the source of all our pain,
but we’ll keep returning to each other
again and again.

with him the world
doesn’t spin so fast,
though he still manages
to make my head dizzy.
I’m constantly at war
with myself but he
brings so much peace
into the troubled waters
in my heart.
I would kiss the dimples
off his cheeks,
and let him take the light
from my eyes if it only
meant one more day
of happiness for him.
his words tickle beneath
my skin making me grin
for no reason at all.
his laughter is the breath
in my lungs.
he’s a mistake I hope to make,
a lesson learned in time.
just so I can have a moment or two
where his heart beats with mine.

I want to curl up in warm laundry or in someone’s arms,
I want to travel to far off places with out of date maps
so I can see how much the world has changed.

I want to make up lyrics to classical music,
write letters to dear old friends and
dream up the perfect goodbyes to them.

I never ever want to send those letters.

I want to cry at concerts and not care who sees,
I want to stay up late to watch British period dramas.
I want to fix up old cars and build houses,
I want to fix broken hearts and build bridges.

I want to learn to hope again.

I want to make art; I want to make people uncomfortable.
I want to shatter my soul and give the pieces to each of you to protect.

I want to jump on the couch and blast pop punk until my neighbors hate me.
I want to pig out on all the food they said would prevent me from being “beautiful.”
I want to fall in love with someone who as cynical as me so we can change each other for the better.

I want to be Tom Riddle or Anakin Skywalker who still had a chance to change their fate.
I don’t want to be destined to become Lord Voldemort or Darth Vader.

I want to walk the bottom of the ocean and skim the top of your desires.
I want to live in a house of cards that never falls, a castle of chocolate that never melts.
I want to eat spider webs so even my insides will be a wondrous work of art,
and I want to set fire to the past and blaze a path for the future.

I want to hear you say my name just one last time.
Où es-tu mon amour? Je te veux dans mon cœur.

Buy the cheapest train ticket to a town you’ve never heard of.
Get off at the fourth stop and go to the nearest bar.
Flirt with the unattainable and fight the unbeatable.
Once you’re kicked out, head to the nearest gas station.
Stock up on Skittles, Starbucks frappuccino, powdered donuts and sour gummy worms.
Talk to the guy behind the register about how much you love your friends, tolerate your mom but definitely not about how much you hate yourself.
On your way out buy a cheap Polaroid camera and head to the local park.
Ask people to take pictures of you in front of the fountain, weird trees, sitting on benches or laying in the grass.
Look through the photos and smile, because this is you at your finest.
Go to the movies and throw popcorn at every love scene.
Visit a cathedral, sit in the last pew and just look up.
I can guarantee the most breathtaking paintings will be up there, so drink it all in.
Mail yourself a letter back home about all the little things that make you happy.
Call your first love from a payphone and pour your heart out, even if it goes to voicemail.
Go to a playground and swing until your feet touch the sky.
Buy a homeless man a Happy Meal and listen to his life story.
Invite the girl you met at the bar to a picnic under the stars.
Ask her about forgotten dreams and do not go home with her.
Visit the local library and write uplifting lyrics on Post-It Notes and stick them in your favorite books.
Go find a lake or a river, a creek or whatever and look at your reflection.
This is you, beautiful, talented, confident, one-of-a-kind you.
Do as you please now.
Swim, cry, or skip rocks.
Then go home and forget everything you did, but remember everything you felt.

It’ll be one of those lonely nights
where I’m sipping flat soda and watching That 70’s Show, one of those episodes where Foreman almost loses Donna
and suddenly you will come to mind and I will punch in
the numbers I know by heart.
It will only just register in my head that you
might actually pick up and as soon as I decide
to hang up, the tranquil voice I have yearned to hear will come on the line.
Hello? Hello?
I remember your caller I.D. is busted
and thank the Lord.
Hello? HELLO?
I can almost see your cheeks coloring in frustration
but every insecurity I had when we were together
seizes my throat with a cold, relentless grip
and all I can muster is a weak choking sound.
You try one last desperate greeting before clicking the phone shut,
and the hand loosens its grip to let me breathe,
but only for a moment.
Our relationship was eerily similar to that phone call.
I was the one drowning in sorrow, begging for you to rescue me
but I refused to learn how to swim, so you gave up and I never blamed you.
I still don’t.
With newfound determination I will quickly call back,
but when a high pitched voice filled with
nauseating optimism answers on the second ring,
I’ll remember that I was always the turbulent sea rocking our boat off course,
but I’ll be glad you found a shining lighthouse to lead you safely home.
I will hang up without a word.

I am wilting flowers on the living room
table that you just can’t throw away.
I am laughter held far too long and
the lake you wish to swim but not drown in.
I am in the background of every tourist’s photos
and in the foreground of nobody’s thoughts.
I am the bird that forgot to migrate and
will freeze to death without ever knowing why.
I am pants that never fit quite right.
I am tearful 2 am apologies and stepped on toes
while learning to dance.
I am the alarm that never wakes you from nightmares.

You are a warm bed on a cold winter morning,
the first to be chosen and the last to be forgotten.
You are the chocolate placed on a hotel bed’s pillow,
stolen kisses in the dark and hand holding in the light.
You are Colorado sunrises and Pennsylvania sunsets.
You are hit radio singles and dusty vinyl records,
premium cigars, silk bowties and overflowing picnic baskets.
You are Disney movies and handwritten letters,
and you are the city lights peeking over the horizon.
Truth is, you are mine to keep and I am yours to bear.

Separated by gravel roads
burning rubber tires
and airport runways,
I am alone.
A blue lit up screen
is not the same as
feeling your breath
on my cheek.
A gust of wind brings
the smell of pinecones
and cigarettes—
I am choking
on your memory.
I glance at a window
and I think I see your face,
shimmering, glowing,
but it’s just a reflection of what could be—
what could have been.
Misery chills my bones
and freezes my heart
but I remember porch swings
and handwritten letters,
catching snowflakes
and counting stars
and the promises we made
fills me with a glowing fire.
I remember you and I remember us,
and the ocean waves could not drown
the life we breathe into our love.

I wanted to collect your ocean tears
in a flask and get drunk on your misery.
I wanted to be the earthquakes that
deepened the fault lines in your heart.
I wanted to take your soul piece by piece
by means of soft hands and even softer lips.
I wanted to destroy you more than I wanted
to allow myself to love you,
but all you did was paint the galaxies in my palms,
giving me the universe when I didn’t
even deserve a chance.

I see myself in a bar on a Wednesday night
making love to a gin and tonic
with smeared lipstick and blurred vision.
I see myself selling my soul to typewriter dreams
and guitar chord nightmares,
praying somebody will just listen.

I see myself packing my bags in eleven minutes flat
and taking the 6:00 train to a neighboring town
before he even knows I left.
That night the walls will receive the bruises
that were specially saved for me.
I see myself smelling her perfume on his
couch pillows and wondering if I made a mistake.

I see myself joining the 27 club up in heaven,
and asking Janis Joplin how she did her hair
and sharing a drag with Kurt Cobain.
I am seventeen years old,
and I'm trying to make a path for my future,
but I'm scared I won't be able to take a single step.

She grew up accepting the backhanded slap
of her mother’s words and the weight of her father’s silence.
When she turned 16 she got her first pair of red heels,
a gift from her parents to send her out into the world
they had envisioned for her.
She wore them to her prom, graduation,
and her first job interview at her father’s large corporation.
She even wore them to her almost wedding
before slipping through the back door.
Years later when she finally accepted
a date from the sweet boy who had lived
down the street her whole childhood life,
she wore her infamous red heels.
He smiled a bit when she entered his truck but didn’t say a word.
He drove her down to his favorite bayou.
She stared at him in awe but he didn’t say a
word as he stopped the truck and opened the
car door for her.
She hesitated before throwing the shoes and
running barefoot into her first taste of freedom.
The red heels turned black with mud as they
sank into the depths of the Earth.

If a cigarette bloomed like a rose,

would you breathe it in the same way?

If the pills you have to take created

moths and spider eggs in your tummy,

would you still take them?

If your demons sang you lullabies,

would you still ignore them?

My home is a pretty little country girl
with absolutely no fears in the world.
Home is how she plays the harp softly at night,
her angelic fingers nimbly moving in the moonlight.
You know how ballerinas have poised vulnerability,
well that is how she always acts around me.
Home is her tight embrace and radiant face,
and my darling was born to compromise,
but I don’t want that, doesn’t she realize?
I want her spirit flowing through my veins,
and her charm to capture my soul in chains.
I want my voice to echo off her stone walls
as I find her beauty in the crumbling downfall.
Home is how my pen will never run out of praise
for the girl who chased all my demons away.
Home is the roses blooming from her fingertips,
as breathtaking as the dress that matches her lips.
Although cool to the touch, she is a fire,
glowing in the darkest corners of desire.
My home is a pretty little country girl
with nothing but love for me in this world.

I have to be naturally beautiful and cultured
and funny and sweet but I can’t be too demanding
and I can’t prove him wrong or else I’ll be deemed
crazy.
I can graduate top of my class and have a PhD,
but I will still make less money than men.
I’m a **** for sleeping with him and I’m a *****
if I don’t, I’m a doormat if I don’t speak up for myself
but I’m a ***** if I do. I’m a nag if I ask questions,
but I’m a good wife if I don’t.
I cannot walk down the street without fear of
being attacked, I can’t like rock bands or math
without proving my eternal dedication to them.
They get mad when we fight for women’s rights
saying they’ve given us enough, but being able
to vote for men who will not even let us
control our own bodies isn’t going to cut it.
Being a woman today is a battle but we will
defend our worth going down swinging.

I love that time between sleep and reality
because that’s where I’ll always find him.
The world is frozen in amber and I’m always
wearing white with a blue ribbon in my hair.
He comes to me in pink fog with his tie undone
because his father left before he could learn how.
My fingers fumble as I help him but when I’m done
he always grabs my hand and we waltz together.
No music plays but we’ll two-step and twirl
to the sounds of September rain and his car
speeding away, we’ll dip and spin to the noise
of me ripping his love letters and then hastily
taping them back together.
The sound of his car returning to my driveway
perfectly ends our choreographed number.
He takes me on adventures to pull the curtain
over the sun and play catch with the stars,
We whisper extraordinary tales in sleeping
people’s ears because that is how we dream.
We play in traffic lights and violin attics,
shower drains and teacup drawers.
He always places me gently back in my bed,
and as he whispers in my ear I dream of
cotton candy meadows and his green eyes.
When life decides to let me go please dress
me in white with a blue ribbon in my hair,
and I’ll dance with my beloved forever.

I once loved a boy
who let me hold my breath
until I turned blue
waiting for him to say
three simple words
but he set me free with
three words of his own:
“You’re not her.”

I once befriended a girl
who went apple picking
with her family every fall
and swam with the jellyfish
every summer.
Now she spends every Christmas
and New Year’s with men who will
run their hands up her thighs
but cannot remember the color of her eyes.

I now dream of boys with
colorful tattoos and smoky hair
who let me rest my head on their
broad shoulders and take my cares away.

I am now like the girls who prefer
to dance and sleep alone.
I love the girls with broken hearts
because maybe we can gather our shards
together and create something beautiful.

This is my home.

You enter through the front door and
immediately take off your shoes,
although the carpet is permanently
stained from muddy sneakers
and Coke Zero spills,
and the one time she brought out
a knife screaming at him to get out
and all he left were three blood stains.

But welcome to my home.

Here you have the living room
with the sunken in couches
and the television that only plays
five good channels on a good day.

We go into the kitchen and find
every electronic cooking instrument
known to man.
Blender, microwave, coffee maker,
toaster, George Forman grill, waffle maker
and not to mention my Easy Bake Oven.

I lead you up fourteen stairs
to my sanctuary.
My childhood bedroom that I
used to share with my sister now
belongs to me and every wretched demon
my mind has created.

My bed is soft and warm,
and I invite you to lay down with me
to count how many glow in the dark
stars I pasted on my ceiling at age seven,
but you refuse.  

The last place I show you is the bathroom,
where I ripped the medicine cabinet off the wall
trying to find Wonderland but God knows I was
no Alice.
I collapse on the cool tiles like I have so many
times before, and you finally kneel down with me.

My home is two thousand-two hundred and fifty square feet,
and there’s still no room to breathe.

I found my confidence in the peeling
floral wallpaper of cheap motel rooms.
We ate with paper plates and napkins
and though my paper heart was easily torn
she always taped the pieces back together.

She promised that we'd live somewhere warm
where nobody could tell us who we should be.
Her Chevy pickup was the only place I felt safe,
and slow dancing with her to Johnny Cash
at that old Texas bar is where I felt most at home.

She was a cool summer breeze and
I was a cold winter's night, but together
we could stop the world.
I was a poet and dreamer, and she fueled
every shining star in the night sky,
every wish I ever made.

I spent my whole life with clenched fists
and gritted teeth until she kissed my knuckles
and relieved my grief.
I never needed the midnight drives,
the sunset dreams or the crackling stereo,
but she made me want those things.

She made me want to live to love,
and love to live.

He lived a rock and roll lifestyle
with one foot in the grave,
a true American boy from the land
of Levi’s jeans and apple pie
until he became a wounded veteran
sitting at the bar yearning for the bombs to flash,
the guns to sound and the music of the mountains
to drown out the pounding in his ears.
The glass bottle would collect his tears,
trading its liquid love for his aching soul,
and the bar could erupt into a fight or explode,
taking every shrapnel of him with it,
but all he would see in his glassy red eyes
is the image of a wailing baby of whom
he never saw take her first breath
but knew would see his dying one.

There are ticket stubs to quiet towns
and cigarette boxes litter the ground.


The TV is nothing but static,

the out of date maps are enigmatic.


A Bible is yellowed and battered,

a lipstick stained mirror is shattered.


The guitar on the bed is out of tune
next to paper plates and silver spoons.


37 text messages go unanswered,

love letters written to poets and dancers.


Peeling wallpaper and flickering lights
would make any sane person take flight.


But in the midst of chaos and decay

The wandering poet will always stay.

I want a boy
who can drink and fight
with the devil inside him
in such a way that
drinking a fifth
and smoking an eighth
is as pure as Sunday Brunch.

What scared you the most,
was it the shadows or the ghost?
The voices invited you in,
and that’s when it all began.
The flashing lights in my eyes
distracted you from the truth:
I am nothing like you.
I know what brought you here,
and I know what made you leave,
But tell me darling,
what made you stay so long?
You stayed when I showed you
the darkest places of my mind,
and played the voices in my head for you
like some sick, thrilling symphony.
You stayed after running your fingers
across my deepest scars
and reading my black ink secrets.
You even stayed after my sharp tongue
left you wounded, and my acid words
left you trembling.
We knew that it was finally time
for you to leave when you had
to battle the worst ghosts for me.
Even though you’re gone now,
I’m glad that you ever came.
Because now the bitterest of voices
and the most vicious of demons
just seem so mildly tame.

I confess that I curse the sunlight
because the rays of the moon warm me
more than the sun ever could.
I dream of dancing with skeletons,
and sinking to the bottom of the Dead Sea.
I want to streak naked and
sing from the mountaintops
because the Earth down below
will never be enough.
I need to run to a place where
the sidewalk begins and I can end.
I will destroy all clocks so time is but a myth,
and I will plant seeds of hope so my dreams can grow.

I once had a friend who had a simple dream:
She wanted to be as beautiful as the girl in the magazine.

So she shattered every mirror, threw every plate,
until she became as empty as the food she never ate.

She grew deaf and blind to all she didn’t want to know,
how her beautiful soul had lost its radiant glow.

I would wrap my arms around her and just couldn’t take
how with such little pressure, her fragile bones could break.

I once had a friend who had a simple dream:
to rid herself of the nightmares of girls in magazines.

I am so unfamiliar
with this simple kind of joy
that I was actually scared I had relapsed
into some kind of twisted sadness again.
But I feel this silly kind of happy where
I want to try on every piece of clothing
in my closet at once, put on the music my parents
listened to when they were falling in love
and call my friends to sing along badly to them.
They’ll laugh and stay on the line for seventeen
minutes too long because they love me that much.
I feel the kind of joy where I could just float up
into the night sky, fish for stars and nap on the moon.
I had grown weary of hurricane love and am
so lucky to have found a calming ocean affection.
My stomach used to be filled with dying moths
but now the most stunning and restless butterflies
fill me with joy and I won’t ever let them fly away.

There's nothing romantic
about true love fading,
there's nothing beautiful about
the memories we so passionately wrote
being harshly erased by the hands of time
and the feet of distance between us.

I will be lost in as sea of your past lovers
that made you drown in their affection,
but know that you were an oasis
in my desert of loneliness.

I've loved and lost,
but you were my gravity
and now I'm floating in a space
of confusion and nostalgia.

Please bring me back to Earth
and back to you.

I've never written a suicide note,

but I imagine it would be a love letter

that just had your name written over and over

until I run out of space and out of breath.

I love nothing more than being afraid,
because when you showed up on my doorstep
after countless sunrises and sunsets,
fear of losing you again caused me to utter the truth:

“You are mine, and I am yours.”

You wore a suit covered in stamps from
all the places you’d been in search of finding
someone who was everything and nothing like me.

You’d been passed around from place to place,
person to person, like a gold coin that began to lack its luster, as too many rough fingers and not enough soft hands handled its delicate texture.

But you are still priceless to me.

I invited you in and unwrapped your layers
of packaging, all your burdens and fears
until I saw you, vulnerable, beautiful you.

I love nothing more than being afraid
because fear of falling in love
drove you away from me,
but also drove you right back
in to my open arms.

I know you didn’t believe me when I said
my scars didn’t have a story or that I never
cried because of nightmares or that not speaking
to my father was the best decision I’ve made.
But would you believe me if I said that
listening to the songs we sang along to
gives me chills in the best kind of way,
or reading the letters you wrote me puts the
summer we fell in love back into my heart?
Would you believe that when I’m weakest
the words you whispered in my ear as we laid
beneath the stars pick me right back up again?
I was never one to believe in fairytales
until you became my happily ever after.