on your nineteenth birthday
you started keeping a smile
locked at the edges of your mouth
like a scared man hides a gun in his pocket.
it's been so long
since your brother's told you he loves you,
and you start to hate him
though you visit his grave every year.
at twenty-one you're armed
with flowers in your pockets
a foldable chair and a pack of cigarettes-
"just in case he needs me to stay the night."
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
kiss me tipsy just above ocean
where we'll make our tiptoes meet
i'll tell you how i loved you, darling
like you would never believe
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 3:01 AM UTC
each day
i fall in love
with someone new--
but it seems
i'm only falling
for different versions
of you.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 8:31 PM UTC
take me back to the days when the night sky was our only blanket; when it felt like planets colliding every time we kissed. i want to feel the way i did when you told the ocean how much it looked like me: deep and mysterious and always changing, always moving. wild enough to strengthen a storm, calm enough to sing you to sleep. you said you always wanted to drown in my abyss. nowadays, all i can think about is whether the shoreline remembers the imprint of our bodies sprawled upon it. i wonder if it misses our warmth the way i miss yours. sometimes i think about you with her: how it must feel like sunlight streaming through your veins every time you touch. i just hope, even sometimes, you still miss the rain.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 11:30 PM UTC
lately it's been a mix of cold hellos and trying to drown out the unnerving voices inside my head telling me it's the perfect day to **** off and die. mostly, it's the latter. my teacher taught me that every 10 years our skeletal system regenerates itself and we, in the literal sense, become new people again. it's been eleven since you left and i still can't get the scent of you off my skin. how long does it take for a person to forget someone who made them feel like the neon lights that led to home? the answer is twenty bottles of ***** and a stranger's body to kiss, maybe even to hold afterwards. breakup *** makeup *** **** me til i pass out *** it doesn't even feel the same without you *** just come back i miss you so much i don't know who this person is please come back *** my hands are weak and my body is shaking as if the tremors that quaked california five days ago were suddenly reincarnating as the sobs in my head. twenty bottles, eleven years, i'm still counting, still counting, still counting, still counting. i don't know what i'm waiting for.
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
another name added
to the list,
another life taken
by hands that
forget to look
before they forget
to stop.
"he was a monster"
you say.
"he was a ****
you say,
as if you've
known him
for years and years
instead of seconds,
as if you've spent
more moments with him
than the time between
you aiming the blow
and his heart stopping.
everyone knows
you can take away a life
with a gun and your hands
but no one talks about
how you've already
killed a human being
when you treat them
less than human.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 9:42 PM UTC
i want to tell you about lost poems.
about how the scars on my neck
used to tell stories of an angel
singing into my skin and every
time they burn i feel myself dying
in her arms all over again.
i want to tell you about the
endless pages and colored notes
and backs of cigarette packs i
wrote her name on, and how each one of them
ended up in my bruised fingertips
clutching her waist.
i want to tell you about the time
she set my lungs on fire with her
snow cold skin; how she blew
stardust into my nostrils and i
spiraled into dark addiction.
i want to tell you how i craved her
beauty like a dead man craved the oxygen that
once flowed through his veins-
i'll tell you how i crave her still.
i want to tell you about lost
poems, how they never really
come back to you. how all you
can do is sit on the floor and write about them
until there's nothing left but
dried ink and a hollow ache in the
parts she kissed you most.
she is my lost poem.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 6:52 AM UTC
vodka's been tasting a lot
like candy lately
my nightmares are always
your arms wrapped around me
(you ask me if i'd take
the fall for you
i will, i promise)
darling, there is but
a thin line
between 'love' and
'unhealthy'
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM UTC
you whisper
treasure maps hold stars
and kiss me with the fire
of Sirius at its peak
i watch you as though
these constellations
never made sense-
it was only you
that held the earth together
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 7:19 PM UTC