Dance in the rain again
Felt like a kid
Free and fresh
With a smile on my face

   Chances are always there
   Whether you like it or not
   Sooner or later the time will come
   One day you'll have to decide

Maybe you're not even ready
Maybe you're well prepared
Maybe you'll love it
Maybe you'll hate it

Saturday
think I'll lay here for a while to
'gather myself'

oh god!
'gather myself?'
where did that come from?

Grandma used to say that, but she was ancient,
a Victorian Lancastrian.

I can't be her age already
that wouldn't be cricket
and not British either,

Keeping a stiff upper lip
keeping the rest of things private.

i love you,
and to prove it,
i need to end myself?
it's not  that I'm scared,
but i would die,
not knowing,
if you smiled,
when you knew,
i loved you more than myself

Three bright figures stretch
across the night sky -
a pinpoint delivery
attracting
my restless eye
before I dare go to sleep

An absence of her presence
always leaves me feeling less
Companionless, friendless,
loveless and defenceless
Much, much, less than me

I ran from demons
across my life,
through the forest
of my dreams,
down a path
which had no end,
or at least it never seemed

I walked,
I ran,
I swam,
I rowed,
across a sea
I never owned.

A wall appeared,
forever each way.
No forward,
no back,
I turned to face my prey.

My hands
began to shake.
My breathing
stopped.
Eyes shut tight  
and opened once again.
To my knees,
I began to fall
only to face
a broken mirror on the wall

On the rails
flatter than the globe
fewer rats burrowing in the rocks

the third rail doesn't shock as strong

Further than ever
A promise to break
A river lit silver
A heart left to ache
To sink or to swim
To run or to stay
I’ll sleep through November
Awake me in May

I like it
when the world is
calm

stable,
as nature is

with direction and purpose
no confusion
in the air

i wondered where 
paradise could be;

ancient scriptures said 
in the Garden of Eden
or behind the gates of heaven,
so i concluded, paradise is a place.

and then you showed me 
where paradise exactly is;
it is between your embrace and kisses,
your love and existence.

scriptures taught me 
paradise is a place, 
while you taught me that 
paradise could just be you.

listen, in this family you never show any signs of weakness; you close your door and close your heart and keep your **** mouth shut.

ivy cried in her sleep and cut her wrists open in a desperate last attempt to ask for help but all i was able to offer her was advil and a wavering smile. the truth is, my mother’s first boyfriend taught us how to fix a flat tire but he never explained how to ask for help or what love was even good for in the first place. and ivy never meant to hurt anyone but while trying to **** her sadness, she accidentally killed herself;

she was made up of choppy syllables and not enough, and i think it is important to note that not all little girls come from cherry lollipops, that some of us have eaten cereal from the box while hiding in the basement from a man with rough hands and angry eyes.

mum is made of a steady voice that she uses to tell me that my shirt bleeds neon, a color associated with nightclubs and drugs. she is made of secret sabotages and the palpable disappointment in her eyes when she whispers that donuts have 195 calories and she’ll quit smoking when i stop starving myself; she has excellent timing because whenever she asks this of me, i happen to be in recovery. she is made of jealousy and manipulation and the disease that shakes her bones and forces her to rotate through cycles of boyfriends and therapists.

richard was not ivan’s biological dad but he is the only father ivan has ever known and i do not say that as a good thing. some boys are made of skinny jeans and sharp jawlines and ivan is the kind of guy that is now a little deader than he was before he claimed his first girlfriend took his breath away. and when they talk about guys who use girls for *** and enjoy emotional manipulation they’re talking about ivan and his cloudy eyes; it is important to note that some boys have touched more thighs than textbooks and that ivan is going to spend the rest of his life making love as if he could gain it back. my best friend in kindergarten used to call our teacher “daddy” as if he could replace the one she truly needed, and ivan will never admit that he misses his father as much as she did. it should be noted that some boys are more sad than angry, and when ivan was twelve he started skateboarding because it was easier to fall on the pavement and feel pain than it was to inflict it upon himself with shaky hands.

we found what we loved and now it is killing us.

this family is hostage to blank silence and bleached walls, there are words we will never say carved into our throats and i know no one gets it but listen, when i was seven i watered my mother’s favorite plant until it drowned because i never knew when to stop giving, and i cannot grasp sanity or love in these decaying bones and i was never good at being honest with anyone, least of myself, but let me tell you.

if you wander here looking for validation or nourishment i feel sorrier for you than i do for myself, because you sure as hell won’t find either in this house with it’s crumbling ceiling and chained doors.

Missing you
Is missing me
Love’s simplicity
Is life’s greatest complexity

I pen a poem
about
a beautiful
flower,
and think that maybe
it is about a woman instead.

in disgust,
i throw it away.

not that i hate her,
the contrary,
but to me,
it seems,
a flower cannot be a flower
and a woman
cannot be a woman.

It takes a special kind to love
unapologetically, knowing
the letdown is already there,
just unseen.
Love this kind back
in equal measure,
and equally unapologetically.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall."
Has been my experience that the bigger they are
the harder it is to make them fall.

His face
The sight brings a smile to yours
His eyes
You can stare into them forever
His lips
You wish you can kiss them
His hands
You wish you can intertwine them with yours
His mind
It intrigues you
His soul
You can love it for eternity
His heart
It doesn't belong to you

you're right there,
just waiting for me
i know you are,
you put it so plainly,
and i can clearly see
you're so sweet
and
i'm so tempted
as i stand here screaming out your name,
i know i can't have you
why must you do this to me, torture me so?
i love you, but you don't love me back
yes, you give me more,
but not what i want,
won't you cut me some slack? is this always going to be this way?
"no, it won't, one day things will be different,"
i hope to hear you say.

There I am avoiding
every looming, towering glance.
While my thrown away lover
Keeps trying to intercept morse code
And the SOS I keep sending
As a girl is vying for your touch.
I wish I could drown myself in every drink
I want to run myself into oblivion.
I am nothing wilting away
Nothing.
We are slow dancing in a burning room
It really is your bathroom
But the fires are all around us.
Soon there won't be enough left of me
To burn into ash.
You tell me you'd chase
after me if I ever left
Your side. The truth is,
I ran away hours ago, maybe weeks ago
And I haven't seen you since.
All I wanted was you.

never have i loved anybody the way i had loved you

Poetry is a
    garden of wild
    flowers
I've yet come to
    admire

when you’re the one
that has done the hurting
it takes time to heal too

it takes time to accept your faults
the pain you contributed to
the ending of it all

even if they hurt you too
even if they forgive you
the guilt inside you lives on

you might spend your life
hoping your sorrow
can be felt by them

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

you never asked to read my poetry
maybe that was the sign.
i told you i wrote for fun,
you shrugged and moved on.

Let my silence teach you

what my words

did not