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A poet wants...
    Someone who adores everything they've ever written
    (because it means they adore us)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who's honest, who tells us when it's not our best work
      (because it makes the good work even more special)
A poet wants...
    Someone to hold close every night. Someone who loves to have poems breathed into their collarbone while they sleep
     (because it inspires long love poems)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who spends a few nights away. Someone who forgets to call occasionally
       (because it inspires real poems)
A poet wants...
    Everything to be perfect. To be able to edit and rewrite life as it happens, so we never have to feel pain
    (because then we wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about the unshared poems in our journals)
But a poet needs...
    Pain. Imperfection. Mistakes. Life.
     (because it allows us to write to feel to forgive to learn. To bleed out our heartbreak with ink and parchment. To reach out to each other with words)
All because a poet thrives on the difference between *want
and **need
Silence is the sound of wisdom
And as the wind died down
And nature slept
I listened
Silence spoke

Do not mistake the
verbose for intelligent
and do not be quick
to break the quietness.
For quiet often
what is missed
is that which lies
between the noises.


And I was quick
To apologize to Silence
Telling it
*You're all to often
Mistaken as awkward
He told me he likes Bukowski.
That was the first sign.
You see, boys who like Bukowski and me
Don’t get along.
You see, Bukowski and me
Don’t get along.
I’m a Sylvia.
I’m an Anne.
A Maya and a Virginia.
You see, I am well versed
In death and silence.
You see, I have no interest in
Alcohol and misogyny.

He told me he likes The Smiths.
Now The Smiths
In and of themselves are great.
I’ve always been a fan of melancholy,
Of heartbreak.
Now The Smiths
Who have been morphed into this
Pseudo intellectual mirror are not my thing.
You see, boys pin me to a pedestal
For merely knowing who Morrissey is.
You see, I don’t care if
Dying by my side is such a heavenly way to die.
You see, I don’t plan on dying with him.

He told me he drinks his coffee black.
That would explain
Why when he kissed me
I tasted nothing but bitterness.
That should have been a warning.
You see, I need a little sweetness.

He told me he smokes cigarettes.
You see, cigarettes remind me of my father.

He told me I’m not like other girls.
As if other girls are a disease.
As if I am this magical creature.
This manic pixie dream girl with wings.
You see, there is nothing special about me.
I am me. Simple.

I told him he was a sad boy.
A boy who pretends like he’s wrapped in barbed wire
But is really a caged petting zoo animal.
A boy who will smile like he has a secret
But really has nothing to share.
You see, sad boys drink whiskey.
To me, whiskey tastes like listerine without the mint.
You see, he tasted like whiskey.
You see, he reads Bukowski.
You see, he listens to The Smiths.
You see, he drinks his coffee black every morning
And smokes a cigarette on his balcony
While reading the newspaper
And listening to a vinyl record.
You see he doesn’t love me.
He loves the idea of me.
He loves the idea of sad girl.
You see, there’s nothing romantic
About a boy who thinks romance is a Hemingway novel.
You see, I hate Hemingway.
You see, sad boys and me don’t get along.
**** me platonically.
Measure the distance between your fingers and the synapse in my brain.
Check the amplitude across my breastplate and The absence of love marks semblance covering it.
Detach your hips from mine and run away from Me faster.
Look along the purlieu of my heart and shake me Harder with subliminal messages between Glances.
Touch my versification to your mouth and do not Stop your flickering eyes from studying the genial Eulogies between every line.
Sir, you cannot touch antique pieces of marrow And bone.
This blood is obsolete.
How anachronistic to have a heart pumping Inside of a dead soul.
Please tell me a story, the side I could never see.
As you read this you are traveling 220 kilometers per second across the galaxy and I cannot stop thinking about the fact that ninety percent of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not "you."

Which explains why your eyes likely originated from the belly of a star.

There is always a light at the end of every tunnel and if there isn't you should consider screaming until your voice echoes across the galaxies tucked within your irises.

I wonder if the trees know they must die every year for their leaves to become new again. Wounds line your heart like sticky notes left in the sun and the origin of you has been faded.

Black is the color of death but to your funeral I will wear white.

I will celebrate the death of everything trembling inside of you and stitch together funeral dresses for every version of you I watched leave without a goodbye.

I will wear white to your funeral to celebrate your rebirth soon to come.

Many hands will tie your old self to a chair and set the line between real and ideal on fire but only time can turn a flame into embers.

Most of the cells in your body are just empty space and skin is only a burial ground for old versions of yourself to die.

Your fingernails are only tiny shovels digging up a bed of dirt to plant new pieces of your DNA in.

I will cover my best dress in dirt and stain every white hem in celebration of the death of the fear inside of you and the birth of hope.
have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?
 Dec 2014 Indigo Morrison
bones
Please will
you pull
all my poems
apart
whichever way
you think
is best
I don't care
if you pull
at them gently
or hard
I just
want to be
undressed
I crave emotion like I crave pizza
But I can't have it
I can't let myself devour every ounce of love that comes my way
I can't become dependent on the infamous L word that has broken me
I'm emotionally anorexic,
But sometimes I'm bulimic
Sometimes I'll hunt down my prey, and **** them dry of their love
I'll crave it until I'm stuffed full, and then I'll purge it out
I'll tell them I hate them,
I'll tell them to leave forever
I'll push them away until I'm broken and sad and alone
And anorexic again
Until I'm back where I belong, in the corner of my room
Crying, sobbing, craving affection, but not letting myself have it
Because I don't want to be fat with lust
I can't gain a single pound because if I do
I'll be weak.
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