Before you take this first glance
Look at my other poem
Where I grab the Grim Reapers
Bare hands and ask her
If I can have this first dance.

As I lay here in my bed
I'm happy finally, and then
All these thoughts come
Rushing through my head.

It was like they were there
Waiting at my feet
I got comfortable
Creeping up my body
And once again admitted defeat.

She says on her wall of sorrow
"If only you could un-meet a person"
"A magic button is what I need"
Well go for it push me out of your life
Do as you please!

Because all I have done
Is accept your decisions
And I'm on my way to healing
This huge incision.

And why do I lay here
With these thoughts that are feeding
All I want to do is
Cut my losses and stop the bleeding.

Let me say again if I dare
This was once again the Grim Reaper
A deadly stare
Kind, faint-hearted, and long blonde hair.

But please remember
Because some of this work is for you
Our dreams on that page eraser dust flew.

I was there when no one wasn't
I was there at your lows
And I'm actually relieved
Your heart didn't glow.

Even though I don't see you no more
I still put work in
But this time my work is written
I'm glad the games we played.

Have now become fiction.

But remember..

You can be a king or a street-sweeper
but everybody...
dances with the Grim Reaper...

If you see him
Tell him I've moved on
Tell him that the tambourine in my chest plays a new beat
But if I were to see him, yes, he'd still shake me
If you see him
Tell him I've reached new heights
Tell him that the snow on the mountains is nothing more than eraser shavings
From the memories I've had wiped from my mind
There's little of him I'll remember
If you see him
Tell him I've learned to swim
Tell him he can find me where the currents start
Where the water won't be salted any more
Because the oceans of my eyes will be salted enough
If you see him
Tell him that night was his fault
Tell him that the moon is his fault
But it's the only memory I've kept of him
I'll be out walking the highway
And I know he doesn't drive this way
But if I see him
I'll tell him
That the tambourine in my chest still shakes to his beat
And the oceans in my eyes are ready for him to weep
I'll tell him
That his name is carved across the surface of my heart
So that my pulse will always kiss him
That the tin soldiers in my toes
Were and still are the only thing driving me forward
If I see him
I'll tell him
He's an ass
But I wouldn't have it any other way

Let me tell you...

These are the scars I now have to bare
She was kind, faint-hearted, long blonde hair
In my heart burst flaire, and in hers...
the Grim Reapers stare.

You can be a king or a street-sweeper
but everybody...
dances with the Grim Reaper.

Every day my heart drew cold
Our dreams were the eraser dust I blew off this page
Feelings faded into the dark abyss
But I was addicted to the Grim Reapers kiss.

You can be a king or a street-sweeper
but everybody...
dances with the Grim Reaper.

Now I'll leave it here
Because there's not alot to show
The rest of me I now have to re-build
Your'e never going to know...

Now this heart will heal in time
But let me tell you, mine will always shine

Read this poem again. But this time, read between the lines

A poem short and straight
A few space and phrase
Mistakes, need not be afraid.
I can undone the done.

I am a piece of crumpled up notebook paper
folded, torn, written on
a collection of drawings
by people who's faces I'm beginning to forget
drawn in what I used to think was Sharpie
permanant
I could feel the ink bleeding through my skin
staining my blood a strange shade
of lonesome
but you handed me an eraser
and showed me that this rainbow artwork
was nothing but graphite
grey
temporary
and though the pencil left indentations
between the little blue lines,
and smudges remain
that no eraser could fully remove,
you helped me find my handwriting
with the cursive f's
and now I can give my words
to you

Hello, old friend,
whose semi-permanent smile
laces my vision like toxic ranks of pearly whites.

Hello, old friend,
whose sparkling eyes blaze
like the funeral pyre of my pride and prejudice.

Hello, old friend,
whose apparent ineptitude melts like happiness
as your name burns in black on that page.

You signed my yearbook like a death certificate,
wrote an affectionate note in the shape of nothing
worth knowing.
The lines bleed, multiply, crackle and shine
in the dull light of this most tiring expanse of computers.
Their brains function better than mine.

Hello, old friend,
whose pen now swirls across the work you were assigned,
work you pursue less like a lion
and more like a cougar,
if you get my message.
(There’s no taking the jungle out of you, Amazon.)

Hello, old friend.
Keep snapping pictures with your iPhone,
like it’s New Years and you just kissed DiCaprio in Times Square,
wearing a dress with all the greens of envy
splattered across the fabric.

Hello, old friend.
Keep telling me you hate it when I act like this,
when your eyes turn to four points and your skin to letters
from colleges begging like a forgotten lover
for you to take them and make them home.
The home you’re leaving for next month.

Hello, old friend.
Today is now solemn in so many new ways.
You achieved higher than the skyscrapers in the photograph
next to your eight-line submission.

Hello, old friend.
No.
Revision time.
Revision like the backspace key and the scribbled lines
over inadequate things I wrote
to try and climb your Olympian pedestal.

Revision like the eraser on the pen,
revision like the keys thumping as though this machine
had a heart,
as though mine wasn’t broken
because I’m never good enough for anybody.
I write my best poetry when I’m angry.

Ironic that poetry made me angry.
I can taste the paradox spinning like the clock hands
that tick, tick, tick until the day when you sit in a car
on top of a thousand suitcases
and a few well-wishes from your confederates in college.
I can taste it like a toxin.

And now,
now you’re going
and there’s only time to say:
good-bye, old friend.

Genius comes with revision
Like the way the best line in a poem delivers an emotional punch
That can't be described, only recreated
By other poets with their sharply focused emotions filtered through words like a camera lens.
Take your poem and photoshop it. Add in blurred edges for
Vagueness. Adjust for context.
Revise, revise again.
I want to revise the way I feel about you
Put it aside like a short story and return in a month with a red pen to make corrections
Love is for people who can't focus
Love is for people with bad photoshop skills
Who keep moving the eraser tool over and over your picture but can't seem to make you fade away
And the images are saved to a permanent file in my heart's hard drive
I want to delete the way I feel about you
It's the wrong extension, and a more experienced photographer would know not to make this kind of stupid mistake
Don't let your emotions get in the way of a good picture
Don't let a good picture get in the way of a major revision
Hold the pen in your hand and deliver an emotional punch
I want to punch the way I feel about you
Crossing you out in every stanza
Until revision makes me a genius
A poem with red lines over my heart.

If we want to get metaphorical,
Lets say you're an eraser.
You go around chasing and erasing
Things that you don't like;
Things that don't fit in.
Things that shine more bright
Then you. It gets under your skin.
Well guess what, eraser?
I'm what they call a pen.
And you can chase me,
But you'll never erase me.
Scrape me
But you'll never break me.
You can try to
Rearrange me.
But you will never
Change me.
From now on you
May twice think
Before you do battle
With permanent ink.

The world is not black and white
Unlike my pages
I cannot box you in
I cannot figure you out
Not a game of loss and win
Only confusing actions I doubt

Simplicity was never an option
Illusions to take comfort
Colours spill from all directions
No eraser for permanent lines
So I can just try
To bottle my confessions
So no one can ever know
Of the many marks you left
Hidden- I dare not show