You used to crave me like the drag of your last cigarette and with the passion of the sharp razor drawing blood from your hips and thighs.
I'm a smart girl but I'm not that wise.
You need something good for you and I'm not good enough.
You want something bad for you and I'm not bad enough.
I'm still the faint tobacco smell that still gives you headaches.
I'm the dull fishing hook in your top drawer that just won't suffice.
I never wanted to be your addiction, I wanted to be your salvation.
Neither worked out very nice.

sometimes i want to scream at the top of my lungs
the way you do in the car randomly
i bet it feels exhilarating when ya need it
but those walls were thin and these are too
so I'm forever left to sob in silence

Do you know how badly I wanted to sing you a lullaby with my body on that restless Wednesday morning, when it seemed that sleep was impossible for your tired mind?
To lightly and slowly kiss down your torso, to softly hum against you, hypnotizing your heart to decelerate and your breath to deepen and eyes grow heavy in hopes of dreaming.
But I didn't.
Not because of the fear of rejection, I'm past that.
Just the avoidance of it.

Sometimes I wish that you had chosen her.
Or I suppose, really, that she had chosen you.
So that you'd be with her, the girl that, in hindsight,
now that I'm thinking about it, probably would be really good for you.
Maybe she would take care of you, do everything for you, and not mind or complain the way I sometimes do that bothers you. I'm sorry I do that, I don't mean to make you feel like a burden, it's just heavy sometimes to carry the weight of another and I'm strong but my endurance isn't impeccable.
Maybe she would stay quiet and inside her head, the way you do, so you could both go about your day talking about how ****** the world is but never how ****** you feel, the way I try to do but sometimes can't.
Maybe she'd be okay with being passive, maybe none of her friends would tell her to be more confrontational, maybe you'd consider her courage when she tried to be regardless.
Maybe she wouldn't accuse you of anything because she had every reason to trust you and the world around her. 
Maybe you could trust her enough to let her in your head for a second. 
Maybe she'd do anything for you, like I try to do, and maybe you just might fight to do the same, not so much like you try to do with me.

I have never been held quite like that
like that day in the ocean
you held me how the ocean held me
how it let me float clung to my skin molded around us
the hold the ocean has holds up

you kept saying the waves had hands every time they crashed into us
white foam clouding the way my legs wrapped around your waist when we went too far for my toes to touch
you held me and I felt light
my heart was weightless and my head was heavy dropping back over and over again
laughing up at the sky
looking into your eyes
the setting sun glistening off your skin and turning your brown eyes golden
the way I know these days are
golden

we pressed our whole bodies on the sand right next to the water and let the waves wash up over us and laughed each time we had to resign farther and farther up the shore because they were up to our ears
we pressed our whole bodies on the floor of the tub, my back against your chest against the white ceramic and your head falling back to rest against the blue tile your brown eyes closed chin up towards the ceiling
I felt so held when we pressed our bodies flat against white fitted sheets hands on each other’s cheeks your thumbs rubbing my hair out of my face staring at each other in silence still the waves crashing over us my comforter clouding the way my legs draped over your waist
wish I could hold onto those moments forever the way you held me that day in the ocean

try not to cry while reading the words someone once wrote about you and try not to cry thinking about how they don't flow that way anymore...

all at once
that's how everything hits
But don't worry, broken bones will soon be masked by morphine

the books of poetry I’ve found on coffee tables and book shelves disappoint me
young adult white boys writing about kissing and oxygen like no ones ever had a drag of a cigarette or thought about a girl or looked at the stars before
they’ve reduced poetry to single thoughts that they pretend are important
And the twenty something year old girls who took a creative writing class congratulate them with a poem of their own
Broken into
Small stanzas
With few words
That mean
Nothing

...

The dramatics are too much.
There is more to human emotion than cliches and empty romantic lines that maybe you should just tweet out instead of, I don’t know, trying to publish a book.

But the funny thing is, oh the curious little thing is, they are published in books. Everywhere.
And where do my rants about childhood trauma or abandoned hospitals or ecstatic adventures get me?

writing poetry in private waiting for someone to ask me if I ever like to write, and I’ll say, I dabble, and never show them a word.

Why do you hurt the only people who actually care about you?
Are you too busy wallowing in self pity and misery
to study the detailed mosaic of a daughter's sympathy?
The brightly coloured tiles paint a picture for you only
yet you refuse to even acknowledge the art.
In case you didn't notice:
I was the one screaming through sobs and helplessly begging for him
to stop, even though I knew you hit him first.
I was the one trying to keep you alive when your skin sunk in
and your bones stuck out and your wrists shook with weakness.
I was the one holding your hand while you were praying to die.
I was the one helping you clean the fragments of broken mirrors off the floor
and I guess I should have known that trying to pick up the glass in your heart
would only leave me ****** and broken, too.

Do not tell me "pretty girls don't cry"
I'm not a pretty girl.
And I'm allowed to cry when I feel hurt.
Take your superficial ******* injected phrases and shove them up your ***.
I bet pretty girls don't say **** like that either.

part of me hated the kids who called me a lesbian before I knew I was one, part of me applauded them for seeing beneath the surface when I couldn’t
they turned the light on before my eyes could adjust and I turned it off just as quick before I knew it made sense

I'm not afraid to throw away the past few years for the sake of the next
I'll never truly know how I feel or how you do
or if the choice I made was the best
Sometimes it's so easy to say those words in my head
All I know is sometimes I know I won't settle for less
Other times I just deal with what I got handed
and hope you don't feel the same way

Don't question why it's four A.M. and I'm chugging
beer and wine and whisky.
It was the only thing keeping me from crying on your floor
while she guiltily tried to kiss me.
Don't question why I kissed her back through my confusion.
It was the only way to avert my eyes and maintain the illusion.
I couldn't bear to see the way your palms might look upon her skin.
Don't question my wide eyed numb limbed giggling pretense.
And how dare you call it salty or bitter or
anything other than exactly what it was.
Don't question my sad stumbling walk when you know I've got a buzz.

It's not poetry unless it's spilling out of your mouth.
The only words I wanna read are the ones your hands wrote.
The only mind I want to be taught by is the one inside of you.

A pair of reading glasses I've never seen before sit perched on the counter, singing with that angelic voice I've heard before.
The coffee in my mug starts to swirl.
I have to set it down.
I have to take my flannel off.
I have to look away.

Suicide doesn't sound like the bullet that escapes the barrel.
It doesn't sound like the tiny pills hitting the floor.
It doesn't sound like the tightening of the rope or
the chair falling over or the gurgle of water in the throat
or the crushed bones against the concrete.
Suicide sounds like the sigh of relief.
It sort of sounds like hope.

I'm dipping my paint brushes in my flower's water hoping the natural beauty will leak onto the canvas in the form of your wilting lashes and withering affection
because as tortuous as it is for me to watch the slow growth of your apathy, watching the spread of stems, sunflowers and red little buds that I'm not sure the name of, sitting in a mason jar on my coffee table, somehow manages to  romanticize it enough for me to look at the roots being planted and see the leaves come autumn. If only I could use these tiny tips accurately to articulate how I feel in detail, so that I didn't have to use this tiny voice who always uses the wrong tone to convey how I feel to you. Maybe then you could read the painting instead of my face to know that I'm decaying too.

But perhaps I'm not the flower, I'm the vase that holds it.
Or the "not-quite-a-vase-but-it's-the-only-thing-I-could find" that holds on to you.

there are always those people that you can never abandon your affinity for, the very first poem I was proud enough of to share with people is about the same person i'm writing about tonight.
the one soul I was so close to learning and yet, never got the chance to.
I don't think I'll ever stop trying, however, these days I hear from you on days far and in between.
and that's the way it will be and it's the way it's always been and now it has to be that way but i never wanted it to be.

Begging to be heard by the deaf.
Begging for warmth in the winter.
Begging for recognition by the blind.
Don't you remember?
I'm autumn.
You're the leaves.
I'm the reason you fall.

the muchness of people only starts to bother me when I don’t feel like enough
And I wish I could honestly say it was all your fault the way I sometimes act like it is
but I know my agression and annoyance is only a response to the emptiness
A need to feel something and it comes out as attacking and I belittle you and make you feel small knowing it won’t make me feel bigger or better only more bitter at the way
that you love.
The way that you look at me through soft eyes when I’m ******* you
The way you feed me when I take and take and purge it all back up and say it’s not good enough to appease me
Your patience when I’ve pushed you away with rolled eyes and locked jaws
I can hear you silently standing up for yourself
Knowing you deserve better
Kinder
Softer

I know my soul does too

These clenched teeth have snarled and growled
I hope I’ve never bitten you
But your hands are so giving
and so forgiving
So long and gracious and always outstretched towards my cheek
as you turn the other one
away from me

The sweet Venus fly trap of life

in these words I hope you find wings
or tenderness
I would open my jaws and set you free if you ever asked
but you are the sweet flypaper in my life and if the roles were reversed,
I wouldn’t have a reason for leaving

I'm so ******* tired of chasing after you
My feet hurt
Run to me

I bought a new typewriter today
found it sitting on a table made of plywood at our local flea market
the case is falling apart
and it doesn't actually work
but it was cheap
and its an antique and I guess the rust gives it character

The irony is that even if it did work,
I still wouldn't have any words.

The irony is writing a poem about writers block.

The irony is that I already have one that does work, I just hoped that maybe the previous hands would have left a message on the keys that would inspire me to make my own.

But today I am the broken keys and the missing ribbon.

Yes I'm angry
And it's eating me alive
Because I want to be the one who makes you happy
But the only time I ever see you smiling is when you're talking to her, or about her, or listening to her spanish music on the radio
I'm so angry that I can't be enough for you
I'm so angry
I'm never angry
I'm so ******* angry I can't see straight

Train cars are just mobile gallery walls
Telling urban stories of silent voices
Shouting out that someone!
Someone! Is here! Is alive!
The tracks rattle and the crossing arm lowers
Sit back and watch as the colors shift and change into a kaleidoscope of existence
Someone is here and knows you’ve been here, too.

I just want your smile.
Why must you give it to Her?

Maybe I've always had trouble trusting others because I couldn't trust myself. I always claimed to have good intentions but it's my nature to be a traitor and most of the time I will ******* over. But I swear to whoever that I'll always be your most caring lover. my actions will never illustrate my words and I wonder if that means I don't mean them. I feel the words so intensely in my bones, but you would never know. Expression has never been my forte. I can't understand my thoughts and I'm even worse at comprehending my own feelings. I'm the monster. I'm the numb and cold lover. I wish I would have found out who I was before I found out who you were. I wouldn't have let you get so ******* in someone who undoubtedly would hurt you. But what does that say about me? god what does all of this say about me? who am I now? what are morals and values and respect and love and genuine tenderness? I can't remember but I want to.

I try to be good to you, especially when I cannot be to myself.
I will try to love you most in the times that I cannot feel it.

some nights i have dreams of ventriloquist dummies leaking ink and tsunamis washing over me and some nights i have dreams of you leaving me and sometimes i wake up crying hysterically but never because of the dolls or waves

I'm not sure what it means but I notice the difference in how we used to fall asleep together smiling and open our eyes in the morning like our faces never moved throughout the night, compared to the now cold backs against each other and restless sighs when we see the sunlight.
I'm not sure what it means

I DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS ABOUT YOU
OR ME
OR US
OR WHATEVER IT IS
THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE MILLIONS OF PIECES OF MATTER IN THE UNIVERSE HAVE EACH OF MY HANDS TUGGING IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS WHEN IM AWAY FROM YOU
LIKE IM IN MULTI PARALLEL WORLDS
LIKE ITS TRYING TO TELL ME TO GIVE YOU SOME SPACE
AND ITS NOT LETTING ME FATHOM WHAT ON EARTH THAT EVEN IS
LIKE NO OTHER LIFE EXISTS OUTSIDE OF THIS WORLD -
OUR WORLD
LIKE YOU LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE I DONT
HELLO
I AM ALIVE
I AM HERE
AND I NEED YOU HERE TOO
AND I DONT KNOW WHY
BUT I DO
CAN YOU HEAR ME

Why is it so easy to find reasons to hate yourself but so impossible to find those that make you love yourself?
I look back on all of the mistakes I’ve made and decisions I should not have chosen and I feel like those parts of me dictate the kind of person I am today, regardless of how much I’ve changed.
It’s not so easy conjuring memories of all of the nice things I’ve done for others and for myself or all of the redeeming qualities that I know I have but refuse to remember.
I can never be sorry enough
I am so sorry
I wish I could take it all back
And be better
Better

My whole life I’ve been striving for better

We can't ever snap on beat
We started drinking chianti
I've been having beautiful dreams
And today snow filled our Louisiana streets
We're on the upbeat of swings
And there are people I want to meet
and things I want to see
"And miles to go before I sleep"
And love to give before I leave

"I can't look at a sunset and not think of you."
If there's ever a sunset when I'm not by your side, know that you're on my mind every glance I catch of the sky.

What's the point of keeping on?
A few glasses of wine will open up your eyes sometimes
It did mine.
I used to believe the dark days would dim my life for decades, and it did for two of them. After that, I started to see the light.
The light in everything,
In people around me, in their sheepish smiles when they push their buggees past me,
and their drunk texts at 2am when they're up way past their bed time and sleep is singing their favorite soothing tunes, Yet the story in their minds is too specialized to pass up
Like if I don't say it now it will expire and lose its significance in the morning
and that significance is significant
Enough to keep me up past my bed time

The smell of wine at night and coffee in the morning to cure the hangover
The headaches hurt but the memories make me feel alive

The spontaneous conversations that occur every three years when you run into an old friend and thoughts spill like the drinks when you've had too much

Mimosas in the morning and toast with peanut butter and bananas

Alcohol makes living a little easier to be frank

But apart from that

The sound of piano keys is magical
And the sunsets are enough to keep me alive at least for the next few hours

The potential of falling in love, the opportunity to travel the world, to hear Crane Your Neck for the first time again, in a different set of notes

The feeling of fingers through your hair and a plate made for you of your favorite Italian food
And the plate washed because you're tired from the wine
That's what I live for

And if you don't have these reasons yet
You will soon
You will someday
You have to believe that

"I can't look at a sunset and not think of you"
"Well that's too bad"

When my father looked down at me,
half-jokingly asked if he'd be
checking me into rehab
within the next few years,
a part of me I didn't know I harbored
hit the back of my throat,
wanted me to
bark back remarks that
I hadn't known would ever grow
from years of watching him destroy his body
from tears from watching him,
his eyes half-closed, his head half-nodding,
half-listening to the stories of a little girl
who wanted not to be forgotten
who wanted one less memory of a door
ripped half way off the hinges
who wanted one more memory of
the stillness of a mug on our glass table
not earthquakes in louisiana and
heartbreak from ceramic shards laying in
coffee and powdered xanax
How I wished the word rehab
wouldn't have made you more mad
would have crossed your mind
would have been a solution to
the problem you never thought we would find
out about you kept your secret hidden
at the expense of her image
We burned her name to keep you lifted
you never apologized you never got help
you did it all by yourself
after years of watching you destroy your body,
how dare you look at me and question
if my glass of wine is too full
if my bottles are piling up
I think my organs are fine, thank you,
it runs in our family not to want help.


Of course, that side of me stayed silent,
and will never be exposed,
at least not face to face,
only in anonymously written prose.

So I laughed and not knowing what to say
masking the feelings I wouldn't show,
I looked at him in his tired run down eyes
and I half-jokingly replied with "No."

I know I don't tell you ever so I know I don't say it nearly enough,
but the way you touch me is unlike any other being has or could-
the softness your hands hold make me feel like a flower, and you're the bee, stopping by for a quick moment to kiss me.
I wish you wouldn't fly away in the evening and I didn't have to wait until the morning to be kissed goodbye.

in dreams we hold hands like we know better this time but the lines in our palms will never change
I have to keep reminding myself of that

I tell myself I'm done until you say that you are not

It's so easy to slip back into old patterns,
like the floral quilt your grandma sewed that's hanging on your wall with nails or thumbtacks, next to the painted tulips much like the ones I searched many meadows
(grocery aisles) for.
It's so easy to forget the memories.
Block out the bad ones and reminisce on the lovely walks through the patch of woods between your brothers house and the street you ran down, the street I always promised to run down with you, the street I picked flowers from the ditches instead for you.
It's so easy to name the songs you always got stuck in your head.
Which ones you thought sounded prettier on piano and which ones you liked to strum to.
The ones that made me believe in angels because there sat one, on the bench directly in front of me.
It makes it easy to get stuck in my head.
It makes it easy to skip breakfast,
and lunch. And dinner...
And to slice yellow bananas for my peanut butter toast,
only to skip breakfast again...
It's easy to smoke a cigarette and think of the dock by the pond and how I never wanted to taste the smoke on your lips or the **** in your lungs and how I can no longer go a full day without the numb buzz in my brain.
It's hard to forget the memories.
Of swings and soft songs and snowballs and sunflowers.
Of screams and scary dreams and starry storms and ****** showers.

Please remember.
Don't you ever forget.
The sun shone brightly from behind your lids, and even when you cried, there were rainbows in the sky.
It's was never easy to love you but it was even harder not to.
It's hard to look back at and smile, but sometimes I don't even have to try.

When I was younger, my dream was to make it to Australia, move there and build a life. I always thought this small Louisiana town was where I was born, but not where I belonged; Canberra was where my real heart and home was.
I met someone.
But that person sneezes and coughs the polluted air around here too.
Lately, it seems the 17 hour time difference isn't far enough from this dusty place I still haven't gotten away from.
Maybe if we could travel light-years, we'd finally be home.
I know he gets close sometimes, in his head.
I can see the distance and I can imagine the world he's built, with waves and petals and jasper, and you can feel the clean and rhythmic pulsing of the atmosphere and the creatures there all roam free and take care of others in need,
the words never linger on the tip of tongues, rather they spill out in poetic truth and your head was always feather-like and the all knowing man in the sky was the one inside your own vessel, and you worried not about what you had to do to keep your pockets full but the simplest form of survival and the currency was smiles
and it didn't matter if there was a slight gap in your teeth or if you ever had morning breath, because it is all so beautiful, so perfect.
It is a dream.

I often wonder if my idea of the place he'd rather be is anything like the one he actually desires.
I wonder if he'd take me with him to this Utopia, had he had the chance to go.
I wonder if, in this perfect paradise, it would be my hand in his.

"Have you ever experienced writers block? And if so, how did you overcome it?"

"Well, you know, I used to write about things that made me happy, basically my reasons to live. I had so many words, so many reasons.
And then I got depressed, and you know, I couldn't write anything.
I thought to myself, how do I find the words? What did I write about before? And so I started writing about all of the reasons I wanted to die.
And everyone saw it as poetic."

And everyone saw it as poetic.

Some nights I can’t cope with the fact that one day
I
And everyone I love
Will someday
Die

There is no way to put it nicely, the sobbing that comes from the already mourning of the soon to be skeletons walking and hugging and loving

I can’t sleep at night knowing one day I won’t wake up
I can’t breathe when I think about it and sometimes that makes me think I’ll be taking my last one gasping for air
Which makes the air even harder to catch

I can’t believe there were days where I wanted nothing more than to just not wake up
And today that fear is what keeps me up

I forgot to tell my mother goodnight before I retreated back to my bedroom and I don’t think I checked to make sure the back door was locked

Who created an existence so fragile
So miserable
Who gives us the pleasure of feeling such intense emotions and love for others and is okay with ripping that all away in an instant for some and allowing the grief for everyone else to linger until another loss distracts them

I don’t ever want to pick out funeral flowers for my father.

when you bump me in the kitchen I want to cry at your touch
and I don't even know what I want when you look me in the eyes
I watch your back as you walk past me, tears welling while you grab another beer
I wish I could make you laugh but frankly I hate the sound of it now, knowing I only hear it booming from rooms I'm not in
I sit in the dark rooms of this unfamiliar home waiting for you to turn the light on, open the blinds, to sit next to me.
Maybe just us this time,
maybe just my words filling your time.
Is it wrong to crave hands, any hands, any eyes, wanting to be on mine?

Lately I feel
Tethered
Tethered to the things that distract my thoughts like twiddling and texting and

T
E
T
H
E
R
E
D

To the time it takes for you to get home
The hands on the clock rotating round and round day after day, waiting for the sun to set and the headlights to shine through the blinds of my bedroom
Tethered
to the springs inside my mattress
Bouncing back and forth with each toss and turn like a ball on a string
The momentum slowing as it winds down but
Never once touching
The ground

I told you that everything you touched turn to ash.
I saw layers forming, soot, embers, and flurries burying all of the things I treasured.
I was afraid I'd get buried beneath them, too.
I blamed you for the tightness in my chest, my inability to breathe, my crawling skin, and scattered mind.

but a few equations and excavated truths later,
I realized all along it was me.
Like a slow leak, going mostly unnoticed, except for a few small signs, that eventually would lead to an explosion that would take thousands of years to recover from,
I spread this, this disease, seeped into your lungs and skin,
stole your good days and pleasant thoughts,
filled them with my fears and malice that I didn't know were possible to feel anymore,
didn't know were hiding, fragile and waiting to be triggered, inside of me.

if we're talking Chernobyl, maybe you're the fire but I'm the core.

some places beg to be written about
the lighthouse at what feels to be the edge of the world
has always been one of those places.
the desolate trees stretching up to a gray sky, a birds nest resting, teetering at the top of a bare branch
the clouded water revealing nothing of its depths
the fog so heavy - it doesn't linger, it lives there
forcing quiet introspection
demanding stillness
from those who squint through the gloom

at other times, astonishingly, the landscape transforms
monarch butterflies migrate en masse and flutter on the milkweeds
the sun sets, a tangerine looming over the saltwater marsh
tiny ***** dart into their holes in the sand and slowly poke their way back out when the coast is clear

In my memories of this place
I am always looking down at myself, on my bike,
small,
coasting down the winding road that leads to the tower for miles,
keeping up with the kid on his rollerblades weaving across dotted yellow lines
All-seeing, in the act of storytelling,
As if I'm one of the woodpeckers perched in the pines