do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

We talked again for the first time in over a year.
My heart raced as I pulled up to your small house near the busy freeway.
We talked and sat in silence, all while we chain smoked.

Not even a month later, texting you made my stomach churn,
and not even in a good way.

Your depression didn't mix well with my own.
We should have learned the first time.

I'm sorry for leaving you, I just couldn't be around you anymore.

It's gonna be okay, it's just rain.
Because i don't want to get wet.
I always keep dry under my umbrella.

Anonymous. 12/14/2015.
©2015 Trevon S. Haywood.

I wrote a perfect poem once. I scribbled it down on the back of a half used napkin. It wasn't short and is wasn't long. The lipstick laced food marks couldn't taint what was already perfect. There was no love and no sadness in the words. It embodied only emptiness - it's most pure form. Nothing left wanting, no thirst unquenched.

In a moment of clear sight, I knew only the right words were forming. In that moment the half empty bar around me sunk, drowned, imploded and combusted - for all I cared. I had just written a masterpiece.