i dream about you
when i'm standing up
waiting in line at the grocery store
your freckles are there
dancing circles around my pupils
your laugh echoing
down the ethnic food aisle
& when i get to the checkout
i've subconsciously slipped
a small bag of your favorite candy
into my basket
& it's like the other day
when a ladybug landed
on my enormous ugly nose
& the projector in my head
coughed up your windowsill
covered in those tiny spotted
good luck charms
& my drive that morning
was dedicated to other memories of ours...
barreling down the highway
with your singing voice
spilling from the speakers
& driving blind
with your smile stretched
across the windshield,
billboards blasting past
plastered with ads
about your ankles
as i travel through the tunnels
you are flowing through my veins
& work is worse
oh look
this customer's pinky toe
is about the same size as yours
oh & her name!
it starts with the same letter as yours!
wow what are the odds
you've got ahold of my whole heart
each of the four chambers
is labeled with the letters
of your last name
i'm ******* losing it.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 11:42 PM UTC
essentially
i am nothing
in the morning
a yawning representation
of a person pretending to be
facing out a window
sipping on a bitter cup
gripping onto the unraveling sanity
that is last night's dreams
you were there
some smiling
spinning
short blur of long hair & happiness
you flowed past me like water
& i was damp with sweat
when i awoke
without you
we are nothing
you keep telling me
we'll never be anything because we can't be
you keep saying
with so much emphasis
on the can't
your jaw clicks like
when you're having those nightmares
i wonder if i'm in them
while you thrash
beside me
i wonder who else
you're trying not to love
right now
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 1:32 AM UTC
i just don't understand
how such a tiny
lil
dainty thing
like
you
could take up SO MUCH space
inside my mind & even come
flooding clumsily into my ugly heart...
your ringed
fingers forming bridges
across the tread marks
left behind
by earlier attempts to find you
((by other women i mistook for you)),
tiny smoldering campsites
& a persistent rhythm
marking the remnants of relationships
that your eyes help me forget...
yes
when i stretch out on your retinas
the others don't exist
yeah
when i fixate on your freckles
there's no echo o o
in my head.
you've filled it up entirely &
my eyelids keep the image in....
imagine what the ending is
if the beginning blows my mind like this!
we are simply freckles
on the face
of god
& you won't stick around for long
so i'll just be yours until you're gone.
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 10:15 PM UTC
two months ago
when i tried to kiss you
under the street lamp
like we were under a spotlight
on a stage
the center of the universe
you & i
you wiggled away
to the next scene so swiftly
you left me bathing
in the breath you left behind
& i swear the light followed you
as i lingered
trying to remember
if that was in the script
last month
after some awkward costume changes
another act with a background adjustment
new years eve
we're confessing to our characters
on a side stage
how long we've longed for the other
the inevitable intimacy we equally ache for
& i SAY:
(that line i always forget)
but this time you lean into me
& i don't wiggle
i don't waver
i've been waiting
& it's better than the dress rehearsals
my lips wet from yours
& the rain
anxious to unravel your costume
& bowing for an audience
we never meant to entertain
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC
listen.
just so you know,
i know that you're not alone
in those pictures you post
((a table decorated
by two half-empty
glasses in a bar
in the city where we met))
as it slides past my screen
amongst other photos i don't care about.
because you never did anything alone,
really.
not like me
the man you met,
((who went to movies alone
long before he loved you,
who spent nights scribbling
over a tiny desk
in a sex-soaked bedroom))
the man you changed
& then wondered aloud
what the hell happened to him...
& yeah you don't tag anyone
& yeah there's no one even in the photo
but i know
you know
he ******* probably knows
exactly what you're trying to say
((he paid for
the whole thing))
with the dim lighting
& tablecloths
& glasses that aren't mason jars,
this is how you deserve to be treated,
right?
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 3:45 PM UTC
i'm in love with
the air inside your lungs
& the taste buds on your tongue
& the redness of your blood
& a ton of other stuff
but your brain just isn't one.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 9:40 PM UTC
i'm sorry you find it necessary
to put other people's body parts
inside your mouth
like you're some teething mental infant,
or maybe you're trying to take the place
of the baby we're pretending never happened…
…fuck. i need a moment. .. …. …
ok.
anyway,
******* got you into this
so you think ******* will get you out?
it's ******* funny i have to flee the ******* country
to get free from your fingers' guilty grip
on a sad mind that can't ******* forgive himself,
on a mind muddied with so many mistakes
i get light-headed every ******* morning trying to decide
which regret to let ruin my day today,
but thank god you've always been there to remind me.
i thank that great guy in the sky
that you're always there
willing & ready
to rub it in.
maybe i just loved you too much,
i guess,
& you loved me just enough
so i'd still do favors for you
& god isn't that what Shakespeare was talking about?
we were rarely a well-written romance
but we ******* NAILED tragedy.
& i told you that first night
as we talked over
some movie i didn't care about
in some language i'll never learn,
that i ******* hated musicals….well
you must've read my subtitles
because you still sing inside my head sometimes.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 2:45 PM UTC
now i know why twenty-seven
is the age where
people bleed out in bathtubs,
or asphyxiate in the attic
swaying from an angry beam
with a face as blue as
the gown their mother wore
when she introduced them to misery
in a hospital,
or put a bullet to their busy brain
leaving a red Rorschach reminder
of their final moments
on the hotel room wall
that will only be seen
by a 42 year old maid
amidst a guilty type of jealousy
she doesn't understand,
or standing with shaky hands in a kitchen
emptying a bottle of aspirin on the counter
& greedily swallowing the little white teeth
following by gulps of water that feel like boulders
tumbling down a throat
with nothing left to say,
or even spreading their arms wide
like jesus on the cross or like a relative
at the airport waiting for a delayed hug
& jumping from the highest bridge or building
they can find so they can feel weightless,
once.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 2:06 PM UTC
it's funny how you pretend i was never there
so quickly...
i was a transparent terror
in the tale of your existence.
a dog-eared page stained
with paper-cut streaks of blood
& smeared ink between quotation marks.
once you made it to
the back cover you tossed it
into the fireplace like it was a bookshelf,
like it was always meant to be there.
but i hope it turned to smoke so quickly
& found a new home in your lungs
& i hope you coughed those little bursts
that i fell in love with at the beginning of every summer
when your allergies kicked in.
i want to write another book
with you.
no sequels. this is not a trilogy.
a brand new branching plot where we
just love relentlessly & forget religiously
those other volumes us young authors
hastily rushed to print.
we know what people want to read now
& we can be best sellers.
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 11:25 AM UTC
so you've got a heartache in your belly.
& as you casually told me
" it's about the size of a thumbnail
right now "
i looked down & realized
i needed to clip mine.
your eyes dimmed like theatre lights
when i closed the curtain
on your monologue
about motherhood
to tell you we couldn't keep it.
& i probably never loved you more
than those days where we would sit
in silence,
thinking about how empty we were about to become --
you literally,
& me….desperately.
& we went to that sterile building
with the bulletproof glass windows
& the chubby old woman,
using a blue blouse as a veil to cover the layers of
stress & years underneath.
she spoke to us through an echoing intercom
in a grave attempt to keep her distance
from our fingernail problem.
we got buzzed in & we waited &
we sat close but god you were so far away
& i reached out & grabbed your hand to pull you back in
& you looked over at me --
overpassed me --
& the ghost of a smile haunted your lips for a second….
they called your name, well
not your name…not the name i call you,
but the one your dad gave you,
& they told me i couldn't go back there with you
& i said i understood but i never will.
the waiting room filled with somber souls,
& we all pretended like it was just a normal doctor's office
but it was obvious who the better actors were
as some randomly burst into tears
like confetti poppers at a birthday party.
we all knew we were at a funeral but
they turned up the volume on the TV
like the quiche that Rachel Ray was baking
would make us forget the mistakes we were burying
& i remembered the picture you showed me
that looked like an x-ray of a jelly bean & said
" that's it.
that's what it looks like. "
& you stared at my face like you were trying to
memorize my expression in that exact moment
so you could dig it up whenever you needed to hate me again,
but then you came out of that door holding your belly
& i knew you wouldn't need to dig that up
because you would have no problem hating me
anymore.
Jun 27, 2012
Jun 27, 2012 at 3:04 PM UTC