I let Cupid carelessly aim an arrow at an apple on my head.
I never thought about how all of the targets he hit may have been accidents.
About what it would be like to pull the arrow out of my chest.
I couldn't stop the bleeding
and he didn't know how to patch it.
I realized then the dangers of putting your heart in the center of a crossfire
hoping,
hoping
the child with the arrow would spare it.
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 12:19 AM UTC
I loved you so much my heartbeat shook the heavens,
how dare you tell me I didn't love you hard enough?
This was supposed to be that soft love.
The kind that caresses your face like a light breeze.
It was enough to shake your soul
like it was rocking you to sleep.
I wanted it to soothe you
and leave you breathless
all in the same moment.
I wanted it to be as fierce as an earthquake
that shifts all of the plate tectonics back into place
as if it were fixing a puzzle.
I wanted it to be as loud as a pin drop
in a dead silent room.
I wanted silence with you.
I wanted the screams to echo through your mind
like I was standing in the middle of
mountains and valleys
yelling to God all of the love stories
I wrote about you.
I wanted you to listen with your eyes closed
and your mouth open.
I wanted to feed you gentleness on a silver spoon.
I wanted to love you.
I wanted to be enough.
But your eyes were always as big as flying saucers,
and your heart only ever the size of a needle hole.
My love was never meant for you.
Jun 11, 2016
Jun 11, 2016 at 2:03 AM UTC
I am certain I fall in love just to watch them leave.
What better way to fill a hole than through writing?
I was never much of a gardener,
everything I watered died right before my eyes.
But I learned that if I planted a seed
right in the void in the center of my chest
and watered it daily with soft love and strong words,
I could grow something bigger than he ever was to me.
This is for the ones you have to make into poetry
because it's the only part of them that stays.
Jun 11, 2016
Jun 11, 2016 at 1:52 AM UTC
Your eyes were always bigger than what your mouth could carry.
I don't know why I let you keep me clinched between your teeth.
I always loved you enough,
But for you it was too much and not quite enough
all at once.
I wonder how big I would've had to make my heart swell
Before you realized how well you could
have fit inside it before.
I dedicated my time learning to mold myself around you,
Trying to teach myself the normalcy of being intimate;
Using my best efforts at embrace.
Little did I know the tighter I squeezed you,
the looser you held.
I spent months wondering how on earth I gripped you
with all my might,
'til my skin peeled back and showed bone,
Yet you still managed to slip through the spaces between my fingers.
I guess I forgot you liked sand
because of how easily you could knock down your castles.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 4:03 AM UTC
This is what it feels like.
Scorching summer day, windows down, music blasting.
You never wore your seatbelt,
Hair always whipped around in the wind,
Teeth always reflecting off the hot summer sun.
You were always wild.
Never following rules,
Always bending them,
Always till they broke.
I admired that about you, I could never be like that.
This is what it feels like.
Fast cars in cool summer nights.
Breeze caressing our faces like a
Lost lover coming back after a long winter.
This is what it feels like.
Tires gliding on pavement.
Feeling joy kissed
And eager to be young.
This is what it feels like.
Bright lights flashing,
Horns blaring,
Tire skids.
A pain so sharp and swift like the crack of a whip.
Glass popping,
Seatbelt burns.
Black.
This is what it feels like.
"Accident on highway 610."
Static.
"One casualty. Female."
Static.
This is what it feels like.
"We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of..."
This is what it feels like.
Mourning love and loss.
This is what it feels like.
I know heaven would treat her well.
I can only imagine it smells like lavender and
The lights are so bright,
Yet so soft it makes you feel like
You're in a dream world.
I miss you.
But I know sometimes when it rains and the
Clouds part open in the most curious of ways
When the sun shines through the breaks,
It's you telling me you're alright.
I know now there's no fear of bright headlights,
Only a captivating eternal glow
Captured in the lens of forever.
And I imagine when the rain is warm and rolls off of my arms
That if you touched me,
This is what it'd feel like.
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 9:44 AM UTC
This long distance is killing me most
because I can't see the look
on your face when we speak.
I want myself branded into your mind,
leaving specks of me
scattered across your eyelids when you close them--
like you've been staring at the sun for too long.
But instead I'm like an old book;
the pages starting to tear and your patience starting to wear.
The binding's falling apart at the seams.
You start to think it as burden and rip it to shreds,
burn it to dust.
When you close your eyes,
do you see the firelight dancing on your eyelids?
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 1:14 PM UTC
Love is a fickle word.
I learned in anatomy today that the heart
isn't shaped anywhere near the way
we thought it was when we were kids.
And I've spent years trying to put bandages
on a wound that couldn't be healed
by short term romance and desperate company.
It turns out loneliness isn't an easy hole to fill.
But I still throw piles of words,
one on top of the other,
into the void;
hoping to make a poem that will take up the space.
I wonder how many times
someone can wake up beside you
and forget you're there
before you start to wonder when it was that you went missing.
Since when is it called letting go
if they were never holding on to begin with?
Here's where all the lost loves go--
hopefully they find home in one another.
•••
This is for the ones you have to make into poems
because it's the only part of them that stays.
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 6:49 AM UTC
Your love was like the Barnum Effect
and though I thought you fit me
like a glove,
I learned you'd been worn
by thousands of other lovers
who'd thought the same exact thing.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 2:41 AM UTC
When you think about someone so much,
your dreams start to smell like them.
And you have to wash your linens
because your sheets started to smell like them.
Had to get a grip because when you breathed,
it still smelled like them.
What I'm saying is:
love isn't love when you're without them.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
My best friend was my Teddy,
I would hold him every day,
And when the monsters came at night,
He’d scare them all away.
My best friend was my mother,
For she kept me safe and warm,
And while she held me close at night,
I feared no hurt or harm.
My best friend was my father,
For he always knew the way,
And though my path lay in the mists,
He never let me stray.
My best friend was my baby,
And I loved her more than life,
And in my sweetest dreams I dreamt
Of making her my wife.
My best friend was the bottle,
For it filled the hole she left.
It numbed the pain, it dulled my mind,
It helped me to forget.
My best friend was the needle,
For it tamed the beast inside,
And when the monsters came at night,
I’d run from them and hide.
My best friends all deserted me,
I struggled on my own,
I said a prayer… to empty air,
And found myself alone.
And when I found myself alone,
A cobweb on a shelf,
I knew that no one, nothing could,
Protect me from myself.
I sought a friend, a smiling face,
I made a call or two,
And always heard the same six words,
“We don’t have time for you.”
My Teddy could not save me,
For the monsters proved too strong,
My mother tried to rescue me,
But couldn’t stay for long.
My father was asleep in bed,
He did not hear my cry,
My baby left me years ago,
We’re over, she and I.
The bottle proved a fickle friend,
And when I drained it dry,
The bottom held no answers,
And I could not see the sky.
The needle proved a traitor,
And the day I turned my back,
It slipped a knife between my ribs,
And everything went black.
My best friend is the reaper,
And I yearn a coup de grace,
I feel his breath, a shot rings out,
I feel his cold embrace.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 12:05 PM UTC