Can you hear me smiling?
Can you touch my kiss?
Can you see me talking?
Can you smell my thoughts?
Can you taste me dreaming?
I think you missed the best of me

I step a little too close to the edge
Ignore the blaring horns
and the memory of your lectures.
Because maybe today
I want to be a little reckless

Ponder over the uncontrollable.
My fertility
My instability
I can easily be replaced if I don't work
The way you want me to

Take your health in your hands.
Your  curves are sweet,
but they won't be attractive in bed.
So I'll cut the calories today
and have you spoon feed me
My flaws.

I need you to tell me
what I did wrong
So dig up every gnawing fear of mine
and give it life inside
my shrinking shell

Squeeze me
Just a little too tight
and tell me:

"Hold your head up high babe"

*but just don't forget
who owns you

i dont wear bras

          my **** will look great when im old

i gave up on makeup

          unless its a special occasion or my friends are convincing

my fingernails and toenails are clean

              nail polish prevents your nails from breathing

ive outgrown my asthma

       my lungs rise and fall

          so deeply, so freely

since i was 15

   there has always been a boy in my life

          i intend to cross that off the list too

Its those moments


                          when we try our hardest


                                               not to fall  

that we begin to


                          C R U M B L E



B.oF

I hate you.

The blissfulness of our slow beginning made me curious about you, about anything I may one day come to feel for you. I had never experienced something so kind, and gentle. To me, the ease of our relationship came from a mutual feeling of being hurt too many times before but finally finding peace in the other's energy. I was broken when you first met me, believe me my dear, I could tell you were too. I saw kindness in your smile though, so even if I wasn't sure, I agreed to our first date... And our second... And our third. Until finally I realized, I was too broken, too damaged and the fact I saw the same in you made me scared. I was scared to once again become engulfed in saving another man from his own self destruction; losing myself by pouring the light of my heart to fill the cracks made in yours. I did not hurt you and you did not damage me so I made a choice for us, I simply walked away. I knew there was nothing we could offer one another at that time but for some reason I knew, I would come to know you again.

My time apart from you was a mental and spiritual rehabilitation. I regained the light I had once lost and I felt secure enough to finally reach out to you; and without indifference, you accepted. Of course you knew, my walls were still up, high and strong but I feel you found my defensive streak challenging and everyone knows that if it's easy, it's not worth it. You wanted me in every way a man could want a woman but there was always something off. I always felt you were telling me only half of the story, you were only giving me half of you.

Nonetheless, regardless of what you said, my dear you were dating a writer. I found strength in the tone of your voice, I saw pain in your glare, in your smile I found faint hope, and in your walk I saw a worn fighter; in your laughter however, I heard a joy that seemed to have escaped you but found its way back with me. I took what I could from you and ultimately learned from you. Without even trying you taught me more things than anyone has been able to in such a short amount of time. That short time was worth it, those short months that Fall, were worth it.

You ruined us, you ruined the potential we once held. Granted I don't know if that potential was an allusion of an ignorant blissfulness but what I know for sure, you ruined us the moment you decided to go back to her. In all your confusion you knew I was the best for you but she held a spot in your heart that I could not touch, she was the other part of you. The way you asked for another chance from me made me carry a heavy heart because I cared so deeply for you and in the hurt of it all, I couldn't bare to lose you, not yet.

As the season changed and winter blew in, the warm embrace of your arms only felt like a trap to me. I was trapped in what I felt for you and what I knew to be the truth. You were never going to let her go, not then nor now but still I wanted you. Soon enough, you made a choice, to let me go from your embrace. And just like that, you took every short lived memory and feeling of us away from me.

I hate you for loving her.

I’ve tattooed a line across
the veins of my wrist
and marked a down stroke
for every time
“you can’t wear red lipstick”
made me believe
I never wanted to in the first place.

for every time instead
I’ve stained my lips with cherries
learning how to tie the stems
so I can slip forget-me-knots
to the back of your throat—
do you feel my restriction now?

the razors that fly off my tongue
perk thorns on my skin,
another down stroke on my wrist
will teach me that
you were right,
shyness is a virtue.

no need to speak,
go spend one hundred dollars
and some percent for tax
to cover up,
even though I’m sure your mother told you
that cotton stains.

so make it black.
get your hair stuck
in the zipper of that sundress
and pray as you pull it out
that it will lose its pigmentation
in the process
mark a down stroke
for killing two flowers
for one bouquet.

hold it
close your eyes and throw it back,
I know we shouldn’t be wearing white anyway
but tradition can take a lot out of you
like what you really think—
don’t say **** in public.

instead drag your first impressions
all the way to the altar
and dress in your Sunday best
a flower on your lapel
clear on your lips
a stroke for the neat decline
of the son

I tattooed a line across
the veins of my wrist
and marked a down stroke
for every time
my image
was my fault.