It’s the fact that you know
And it changed nothing

It’s the fact that your eyes
Will hold mine for just too long

It’s the fact that I am so in love
And all we will ever be is friends

It’s the fact that you see me for the fraud I am
And know that the apathy is only pretense

It’s the fact that I am alone
And I see you in togetherness

And I am alone

Wishing that the sun were green
So that maybe it wouldn’t
Burn so bright and give your eyes that sheen

Wishing that the sky weren’t blue
So that everyime I see it
I wouldn’t think of you

Wishing that the grass was grey
So that maybe- just maybe-
I could forget that day

Wishing that the moon weren’t white
So that I should hope
To see you in a different light

I gave my virginity to a stranger
And when it was over
I told myself this was the best day
Of my entire life
I’d become a woman
I’d make my own decisions
But as I sit here alone,
Drinking too-bitter coffee
I watch gentle held hands
I think of setting myself on fire
Maybe then I’d feel clean
And be rid of this sin

I hate how my eyes gravitate towards you
Like you are some sort of magnet
I hate that I get butterflies at the thought of you
Like you are some kind of sickness
I hate that I always think about you
Like you have infected my brain cells
I hate how you can make me smile
When it’s the last thing I want to do

You have coffe brown eyes
That glow like embers in the sun
You have one of those rare and wonderful smiles
That light up the room
You have the most wonderful heart
You are good
And you are enough
So don’t tell me that
“It would just be easier”
You have a life to live
So go live it

Why don’t we give flowers to boys?
Is it not masculine for them to enjoy
The delicate curve of petals,
So very like lips?
Why don’t they get Teddy bears
And soft stuffed things
To cuddle like a lover,
So very like girls do?
Why don’t we give them
Mushy little love notes,
Just like we expect?
Things go both way my friends.

You can hear the stars
If you just listen closely
And they say that they

Are lonely like you
Floating, lost in the darkness
Of the soft abyss

I stand alone
In a green meadow
The silence of the birds
As heavy as my heart

Across the way
I see a lone figure
Standing in a grey glen
Decorated with vulture’s cries

For once lay one clearing
But now there are two
Parted through the middle
By a single salty stream

The stream begins nowhere
And ends before the wood
In the middle a solitary stone
Causing the water to ripple

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The satellite carves a path through the stars
As the silent universe streams on

There is a certain kind of chaos
That I genuinely crave in my bones
The kind of chaos that reaps no destruction
The eases out in puddles and in eddies
That builds love in the grass
And grows trees in the night
That empties itself into the stars
And spills onto the moon,
Nesting around the sun
And warming the hearts of the young

He
does
Not look
like
I
Thought he
would
Death
I thought it was a skull
He should be a scythe
Ah! The glorious scythe
Curved and gleaming
But
      where
       is
it
That vicious scythe
Notherenotherenothere
Where
Why
       is
He
     beautiful
kind
          funny
  wrong
Shouldn’t be
Should be
hideous
But he is wonderful
With eyes bluer than the sea
And skin turned copper in the sun
no gleaming bone
no grinning skull
His only weapon:
the beautiful lies that escape his lips and drip down my ears,
so very like honey
And they’re mine
I accept his embrace

Something burned between them
Like an un-ignited spark
The shadow of a flame
That was never lit

How can love be so selfish an emotion
Yet so selfless simultaneously?
Where’s the sense?

Sometimes I wish I was made of paper
To be one and the same with the trees
So that someday if it rained
I would fold myself into a paper boat
And sail along down the drains
The raging little river to wash away
My printers ink perfume
And wilt me way to silt.

“If I washed your feet with my tears
And dried them with my hair,
Would you forgive me then?”

“Never, my love.”

”If I fell to my knees,
Clung to your robe, and begged,
Would you for give me then?”

“Never, my love.”

“If I offered you tithes,
Gave you everything I have,
Would you forgive me the?”

“Never, my love.”

“What, then, must I do,
To earn forgiveness, tell me and I will,
Would you forgive me then?”

“All you must do is ask, my love.”

What if every person
Titled each poem
With the line it contained
That they found to be the most
Meaningful?

So many drafts
So much to write
And so very little
To say

I let my fantasy take hold
I left it in power for far too long
I convinced myself it was the truth
For me as much as you
I let myself believe
That everything done
Was done for two
I let myself ignore the truth
For the beauty of fantasy
Floating in ecstasy
Made up a hope in my mind

But as always
You were there
You looked me in the eye
Took my fantasy from my hands
And ripped it to shreds
I didn’t say a word, I knew
I knew this was coming
The things I once found sweet
Now seem ugly and in vain
As the you I made up in my mind
Faded into truth

I’m sorry
Because my ******* distract you
I’m sorry I do it on purpose,
Because I find it flattering
I’m sorry I can’t help when my pencil
Draws your face
The way my eyes draw it on the back of my lids
I’m sorry that I stare
I’m sorry that I smile, involuntarily,
Whenever I think of you
I’m sorry that you look
Far too undescretely
I’m sorry for the little fantasies
That pop up in my mind
But mostly I’m just sorry you aren’t mine

You would think
Even as I lay here crying
I would feel something
But I don’t
I don’t feel anything
I’m empty

As I sit on the rooftop
Listening to angels sing
The lights on the street
Make it to bright to see
Those stars, so beloved to me
But the lights on the ground
Reflect in the snow
Stars on the earth
And I hear the angels
Welcome me home

I poured to you
                         My heart and soul
                                                        and this is the thanks I get
                                    For my love
I can’t do this, I must
Leave

I kissed you in a dream
And you were cold like a corpse

You can see see it in the sun rise
You can see it in the stars
You can see it when the moon
Lines up with mars

You can see it in the shadows,
In the dark and in the light
You can see it in the beauty
And in the existential might

You can see it when the rain falls,
When the ground is soft with snow
You can see it by the ocean
And in the undertow

You can see in in the earth
In the gentle brown soil
You can see it in the plants
In the sun where they toil

What is it to you?
This thing that makes the sky so blue
What is it to you?
This thing that lifts birds wings, if they flew

There’s a three way war
Waging in my head
My mind, heart, and body
Throwing gauntlets
And clashing swords
Quietly screaming
And ripping my soul apart
My mind wants one
My heart another
My body wants the third
My friend called me lucky,
That I’m able to love so much
I call it a curse,
To hurt so many people.

Reading the words of others
Filling my heart soul with
The thoughts I couldn’t
Make sense of myself
And writing the things I can
It’s time to come home
Loneliness like a disease fills me up
To be a part of something again
To try and make sense of this agony
I’m coming home

Oh suff’ring Savior
Come to me
Come spread that shadow o’er me
Hands and feet been pierced by nails
Wrap your arms around me
Kneel with me in sorrowed prayer
As yonder comes the mor-ning

The suff’ring Savior
Cant you see?
He’s waiting there before thee
Your eyes may yet be filled with tears
He’ll wipe them so that you may see
Ask and he shall hear your plea
As yonder breaks the mor-ning

I was so terrified
At my first kiss
I was his first too
He told me I was terrible

The second I only prefer
Not to mention
So sweet
What a shame

So when it came to you
I was petrified
The first time
Our lips touched

So deathly afraid
That I wouldn’t be
Enough/ good enough for you to stay
No one else did,

No one but you

I’d rather see the good in 1000 people
And be wrong 999 times
Than to see the bad in 1000 people
And right every single time

My heart belongs to the boy
With the sun in his eyes
The moon in his smile
And the stars in his soul

If he read the things I wrote for him
Would he think I’d lost my mind?

Every time I think of him
I’m reminded of his scars.

Yet all I see are stars
And the glory that is him.

If I fell up into the stars
Would time be wasted there?

There is something different
About the grief you feel
For what could have been
The first kiss that won’t be had
The tomorrow that won’t be lived
I never even touched you
But oh,
     The things
            that could
    have been

Missing someone
Who isn’t gone
Is like having
A hungry soul

Loving someone
Who cannot return it
Is like having
An empty heart

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray your arms my dreams to keep
And if the nightmares make me wake
I pray to you my peace to take
If I should rise before the day
I pray for you to guard my way

Love, to you I pray
You stood beside me for the day
I am safe with you in sight
Perhaps I may dream tonight
You’re my light, my life you bless
You thought me hopefulness
In your arms you hold me tight
So now to you I say goodnight.

I collect broken people
I put the cracked shells on a shelf
And try and try to fix them
But I keep cutting them
On the broken pieces of myself

Girls dressed in petals
Decorated in stars
Enveloped in night
Moving like music

She wasn’t an “easy” woman
But she had an easy heart
And people saw her kindness as weakness
Her meekness as pathetic
She fell in love with every man she met
And
         one
                by one
                          they
                                 Broke
                                            Her
           ­                                         Heart.

My body is a temple
And it’s made of glass,
Adorned by that by
Which it was made

He called me beautiful
And I wouldn’t have believed him if not
For the hurt in his eyes when I laughed in his face

your gentle hands
warming up
my Cold and Glittering Heart

God forgive me for what I’ve done
I never meant to hurt anyone
My heart seems to be made of tin
Crushed so many times
The broken edges are sharp enough to cut
The tips of your gentle fingers open
Leaving trailing lines of red
Everywhere your hands touch me
Staining my cheeks and lips with rouge
Covering my lids, letting me see
Just as you do; through a rose tinted haze
Ignoring the pain I put you in,
So that you could ease mine.
With your heart of solid gold
That outshines my little tin heart
Every single time