when organizing my makeup collection
became the most complicated game of tetris
I'd ever played, I knew I was in trouble.
Organizing letters on a Wednesday afternoon
is the highlight of my week now,
and it's scary because I used to roam streets
like the wheels on a decade old Cadillac
begging for new rims and a paint job,
like a poor man begs for money on
city street corners. I am the cup he holds out
for the sympathetic woman to drop her
spare change into. I am only a fragment of
something greater that has not yet been reached.
I am sitting on porch steps waiting for the rain to fall,
because at least then I'll feel something, even if it is cold and damp and unforgiving. It will be better than
the emptiness of my head that has become clouded
over with Italian food, and even more Italian wine
I am a ******* statistic, a number.
I am mommy's one mistake that she didn't erase
from the page that is her life
she didn't plan for me,
so she didn't plan the escape route.
She loves me, but not because she wanted to.

I tell myself I'm wiser than all these women.
A soothsayer with a mind of diamonds, crafted by pressure.
Until I realize my mistake, a mistake you inspired.
I thought you were my only regret; only I don't regret you.
I regret how I blame what I have become on you.
Do you feel an invisible weight, or the noose that connects us?
Delusions pile up to create the pillars of my empire.
A crown of thorns, and a belt of testosterone.
I carry these keepsakes like a trophy, or fingers to a serial killer.
They are proof I have won this war, it is a war that festers only in my mind.
I have sacrificed my flesh so you can never claim the pride of doing it yourself.
I lay in sheets with my head spinning, the smell of sweat and **** nestled in the pillows.
I smirked as I repeated these words to myself, "Here's to you, love."
My body became accustomed to these ritualistic sacrifices, and revenge vanished leaving only a bittersweet taste in my mouth.
I long for the day my body surrenders my heart, when my soul and body finally meld and my thoughts don't stray to you.
For the day my lips utter a name reverently instead of an empty moan.
Eventually all I can hope is for this man to cover these scars like a tattoo; a tattoo of ivy twisting until they reach the depth of my soul.

my pianos a deaf mute
doesn't care when I smash the keys
I tell it anyways, listen here, you miracle, you conversation piece, I'm going to play you without plugging you in because 1) who makes electronic pianos and 2) I can hear the sounds in my head, just like old times old times old times
I map out a Beatles song I hate because I really just want you to hold my hand
I never take my foot off the soft pedal because it should always be gentle and I should always be gentle to you and God knows you're the only one listening so listen here and listen close
i know im not really alone because we are attached by the red string of fate or friendship or car crash and I know this because you're the only one I can say these things to without getting myself committed
if you want me I'll be in the bar buying you drinks you'll never be thirsty enough to let touch your tongue and what is all of this shaking for
who first felt this feeling and said **** I'm in love or **** I Might be dying because my chest kind of feels like the monkey bars after rain we all fall off of because we're too ******* stubborn to wait a while
what is it about instant gratification that has everyone around me filling up their gas tanks because "it's not gonna get this low again for a long time" and how I wish I could say the same for myself or
how I wish I could say the same for you
I don't know if this poem is a piano or if this poem is you or if this poem is drunk and wanting to call someone who will pick up or listen or want to
But
I once said to someone "I think I really need to talk about this" and I shouldn't have been surprised when I was handed a hotline but maybe you have always been answering the phone "tell me where it hurts, and then tell me again"

I hope she knows what she's getting herself into.
I hope she knows what your heart sounds like after a night of
comparisons between her handwriting and mine.                                                                                                                                      
I want you to know that I am through with dumbing
myself down to fit inside your god complexed hands.

Don't tell me I never tried to save us.
I wrote you songs with knives on my palms
and your ears were anything but listening.

I had a dream about you every night since you told me
you didn't know how to love anything with a heartbeat and hope.
I started sleeping again when you came back, and oh when you came back...                                                                                                                          

I am not sorry that my temper is as short as the lifespan of us.
I am not sorry that your smile is the only one that ever made me
want to wake up in the morning.
I am all pain and long long longing and she has always been
a storm with a heart dead set on your stillness.
Our problem is that I never stop shaking long enough for the dust to settle.

I've been writing with the same pen for four years and
you still only recognize my words when she plays them back.

Let it not be confused, foggy or incomprehensible-
you were the one.
Until the one became none and I stopped being a number when you stopped counting miles.

I hope she loves harder than a woman with dementia, relearning parts of you every morning
in the places you reserved with my first and your last- maybe next time.

Maybe next time, maybe next life will be different.
Maybe I'll be patient, stronger, I'll stop covering my smile. You'll stop pretending to be in love.
I will stop shaking and the dust will settle and her poetry will make you sick.
Her poetry will sprout evening primroses and she won't know that you always fall asleep before midnight
or that you're allergic to flowers that bloom when the sun is down.