both of them
have the same tattoo

it's not that I like my boys
broken
but rather men who know
that they can break
and put themselves back together again

I made it that far
did not reach out
stretching further all the time
I'm getting better
bit by bit
giving up your drug
hit by hit

French fries with mayonnaise
Taking off shoes just to put them on again
Listening to the Cure
Wondering where that girl went

I keep going the wrong way
am I too far gone to change direction jimmying locks, trying doors
more closed than open now

Close enough
Is close enough
Enough?

Fresh page, fresh year
I've scrolled down to a white screen
Fingers on keys
Ready to strike
Can't wait to see what happens next

they're nice boys
don't mean me any harm
I'm probably the not nice one
offering something I never intend to give
something I don't even think I have
maybe they know I don't have it
see the emptiness in my eyes
hear it in my voice
maybe we're both hoping we can find it
somewhere in there
help me dig

There are worse things
than a broken heart
but to a romantic
to a poet soul
it's fuel, it's fodder
we keep scratching the scab off
and fingerpainting in the pool of our own blood

Easing in
Slow and deliberate
I know where I'm going
Familiar place but foreign
I don't speak the language
But I get by
Exploring the terrain with my eyes and hands and mouth
I relax into the slow and steady pace 
I can see the perfection through the haze and smoke
Determined, I continue to my destination
I'm coming

I text him at 5:50 in the morning to tell him a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.
Because it is.
And because I'd looked that up, having had the feeling that I'm full of an army of butterflies all trying to free themselves.
I worry that if I'm not vigilant enough they'll get free and I'll just scatter, not be anymore.
Maybe we're all that way, made up entirely of unruly butterflies.
I wonder if everyone else is just a better butterfly wrangler than I am.

Anger
With an underlying impotence
Fists clenched but nowhere to throw the punch
Turning it inward
Darkness growing like an oil spill

If it's that fragile
then let it break

I've been accused of witchcraft
by others, you're not the first
as if there has to be something magical
otherwordly
about what I do to you..
because how could it be
simply
that I make you happy?

I love when it's sweaty and hot and heated
and I can taste it on your lips
when skin slips and moves against skin like it's not even skin but a slippery eel of a person
like it's not the outside of both sliding against each other but the insides, the good stuff, the real stuff
slipping and slapping against the other as it tries to metamorphose and become the one thing it's always wanted to be
not the separate thing that keeps being separate and slipping away

Do you want me there, every time you turn over in bed, every room you walk out of and into, in your spot on the sofa, with your remote in my hand?
Do you need a minute?
I'm not sure why people do that, I'm not sure why I want that, if I want that.
Am I being selfish, not wanting to share my space?
But also wanting to share my space.
You invade it, slide into it, spill over my rough edges and then I notice you there, how long have you been there?
I'll share my morning hair, coffee breath and bad singing because I've decided missing you is worse.

Every word has a price tag,
every discussion a receipt

I'm not sure I'm ready to pay what I might have to pay to say what I say but it needs said.

I take a deep breath then I look at your face
are you my opponent or my friend
sometimes I can't tell.

One of us has to come out on top
one is paying and one is collecting and
today
I'm not ready to pay.

I've misbehaved
Bruised and muddy
Forcing life to fit my plan
Always a fight 
I'm taking you down with me
I've learned how this works
I know your weaknesses
I know where you hurt
So lie back and be still
You know you can't run
And you don't even want to
I won't be alone
you're the thing that I want
And I take what I want
You seem to like that
I'm taking you down with me

can't sleep
my head full of him again
so I pull up the link
hear you quietly singing Molly into my ear
strumming your guitar
and it makes me smile
I think you might be the answer
at least you might
and that's enough for now

I remember that night
mouth dry, my stomach a lava lamp
the words bubbling up to my mouth
I asked you to marry me
and you said yes
but on further reflection
it turned into no

I reach for your hand first
Said I love you first
But I always do
Life is complicated
and we're not 22

so I keep coming by
complicate me to uncomplicate you
hoping you'll finally see what I do

so hot you're almost steaming
dark and brooding
I love how you fill my mouth
as you tickle the back of my throat
you taste a little sweet
and a little spicy if I'm honest
that flavor that I've never found anywhere else
I hold you in my hands
I feel your heat, your possibility
I wrap my body around you
and take you in

It sounds silly and like a teenage crush

you're Sweet Valley High paperbacks
and Sassy magazine

you're 12 free cassettes and the journal under my bed
The Cure and everlasting days at the community pool

you're all the things my heart invented late one afternoon
at the end of summer
when everything is baked and brown and you think things will always be that way

You're the way things change when you don't want them to

Have you taken my robe from the hanger
my lotion from the bedside table
my toothbrush from the cabinet
the owl mug, things that were mine
things that remind you
have you erased me
yet
or do you remember
bodies intertwined
laughter
you sitting across from me in the hospital lobby
my hair in your hands

When it ignited, the sky exploded with the brightness, everything illuminated orange and reds.

Light and heat, color and texture

Almost too much, but never enough

We barely left the fire, throwing our bodies into it willingly, licking our wounds

The burns got deeper, leaving scars but still.. we cautiously kept thrusting into the flames,

I watched your eyes and saw no fear, no flinching
it made me brave.

I kiss lips
and lips
and lips
I touch bodies
and bodies
and bodies
and I'm still empty
even you couldn't fill me

I must be self service

I was sure of you, sure of this and now it's a past thing
a thing that isn't my now or my tomorrow.

My tomorrow is wavering ahead of me in the distance
like a hot highway melting into the sun.

Nothing takes shape, it's all liquid and shifting images

I lay traps and you hit the trip wires 
bare skin, bare sin, radiating heat
I want to rage, slam my fists against your chest, backspace it out, anything
But there's no going back now.

I wanted to hurt, deserved it
bad
only good for ***
that cure song on replay in my head..useless and ugly, useless and ugly a ******* waste..
I couldn't stop myself from saying it under my breath.

You mention her too much to mean nothing,
I hear her name and it's like running my tongue over a split lip, a good hurt, I can't make myself leave it alone .

Why don't you go, why are you here?

the roots reaching down for water
blindly seeking it out in the dark
the sprouts reaching up for light
stretching toward it as it moves
I am reaching, stretching
in the dark and the light
and it feels so good

She popped another into her mouth and closed her eyes.
The chocolate melted into an explosion of warm sweetness and it was another step away from him.
She knew he liked her hardness, where she was close to the skin, her shoulders and hips.
His hands almost never ventured to the softness.
He'd told her he didn't like lush women, soft women.
He'd met her at a particularly not soft time in her life but he didn't seem to understand it was temporary.
She was built on hedonistic passions, sensory excess, too much of every single good thing.
She wasn't going to change any of that.

I'm a human hole, a whole human.
Maybe we're all these holes, big gaping holes of want and need
We can't fill it so we hide it, under clothes, under beds, wherever we can fit it
It's always empty, always yawning, always wanting more
But hidden we can put on a big smile, keep your attention elsewhere           
  look up here
                                                         no over there
don't look right at me

It would be good, I think, if we could show each other our holes
poke a finger in, see what it feels like, push our bodies through, see if we can all fill each other up and be un holey
holy
complete

strange creature, this hope
it creeps up behind you
and tickles your spine
you swat it away
but like a determined cat
it winds around your ankles
demanding your attention

I bought two porch chairs
When I only needed one
Hope springs eternal

Floating in and swimming out
begging the tide to do its thing
afraid it just might

I just realized
I can't remember the sound
of your ******

you say I'm forward
as opposed to backward I suppose
upside down, right side up
but I just need to get lost

not think about to do lists
and appointments
and IEPs
and solving the mental health riddles
of these people I've created

I want to feel like I'm normal

so let me get lost, forward and backward
in your bed or my bed, your skin and my skin
I need to not think about tomorrow
tonight

You say "I love you"
I say baby, I'm lonely
Lost in translation

I'm a self flagellator with a long
memory
I collect my whips carefully
with painful precision
I love you like a poet
you love me like a mathematician

I check the weather
you wonder why I feel this way
it's not that I'm unhappy but more that I'm empty
like a vanilla pod scraped clean

there are those days
when you feel like you're holding on
to the cold metal rail on a merry go round
like the ones from an old playground
someone pushing it faster and faster
and you feel like you could let go and just fly away
but you hold on
because flying away is scary
who knows where you'll land
so you hold on, laughing and screaming
like it's actually fun and not terrifying

I want the first months back when we couldn't keep any plans we'd make.. after that first kiss hello we'd end up in bed for hours, the evening just sliding through our fingers like skin

Yesterday I asked you if I do anything that makes you feel that bliss I feel when you run your fingers through my hair

and you said no
not that you could think of

Where's your head at
(song stuck in my head)
Where my head is at
is
this rabbit hole of upside down thinking
What does it feel like to go crazy?
Do we get warnings or just ****** through
like the air we're made of
this tenuous hold on reality, on normal
how close we are to being un, ab

I think I finally understand
walls

I can't know how your mind works any more than I can read it
We learned lessons, that love is this ownership
this “you are mine” *******
but no one is anyone's
we are beings, being, existing, trying to get through this life
and we bump into each other
sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn't

I can't make you be a thing for my use
to give me what I want, to make me feel what I want to feel
those are my responsibilities alone
alone
I guess that's where it comes back to
but I don't need you to raise babies
we're past that
biologically there's no reason for us to hold on to just each other
And you can't be here whenever I need you, you're there when you can be
you are not mine, and I am not yours

do I want that other
ruled by the heart like me
would that be better, one with the words like mine and the thoughts like mine
would I feel less different, less odd, less trouble?
Would I miss that dark pinch somewhere inside when the edges rub together
and they don't mesh
and it's more like sandpaper than silk
that thing that makes me try harder, live in the pain more, be everything good at 3 am
would I grow bored if he had all the right words
is the trying for the words that don't come more intoxicating than the ready flow?

For future reference, so I remember
we were standing in the middle of the room, your hands at the small of my back, flat palms pulling my body into you
you kissed me and there was nothing else but you and I
and I thought.. marry me.

But I step forward and you step back, you step forward, I step back.. we've got this dance down
neither of us willing to risk standing still when the other comes forward.

you were an education
that I'm still paying for

I don't know where you are right now
but I can see your face, the way you push your hair back
I love your face
and I don't know
maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should be trying to forget
and I will later today
try I mean
and try to forget that tonight I should be wrapped in your arms, in your bed
but right now I'm thinking of your face and how lovely you are

full disclosure
I hold some secrets
full disclosure
I don't think I'm ready for this.

But your ghost ship
tempts me beyond all reason
and I have permission to board

“You’re perfect
You’re perfect
You’re perfect
You’re not”
All these beautiful things negated by complications
I need to be worth the skinned knees and bloodied lips it takes to get to me, I didn’t ask to be up this steep incline, I’m sorry for the trip, I’m sorry it’s hard