When you touch,
It is withholding.
When you moan,
It is suffering.
When you smile,
It is mercy.
When you laugh,
I am placated.
When you swoon,
I am not there.
When you vibrate,
I only witness.
When you taste,
I only imagine.
When you love,
I am unknown.

no I will never be the same after
loving you.
but I will never be stronger if I don't
let go.

i was a poet.
my words
counted
structured
organized
picked and chosen
so carefully
i stifled my heart
in the process
but i loved you --
-- silently
from the bottom of coffee cups
in the transactions of homework
[your spanish, my english]
and my phone history;
all those calls i missed
hitting the mute button
when you played piano
and you understood
you knew my words
didn't say much at all.

but i am a poet.
and fifteen months
after my words were too late
he fell for them, instead
the counting
their structure
my organization
i picked and i chose
like a calculator
starving my heart
in the process
but he loved me --
-- gullibly
from the bottom of his heart
in the middle of the night
never mind my phone history;
all those drunk calls i made
to you
feeding him pretty words
so he could love me
because he didn't understand
he didn't know my words
didn't say much at all.

Down the back alley
on the cold winter evenings
your eyes stared only at me

I didn't smoke
as my father gave up
yet i didn't dare disagree

you parted your lips
you drew in a breath
and your body relaxed in turn

exhaling slowly,
you grin and you show me
how much your body did yearn

for the taste of a cigarette
the embers and ashes
matches and lighters, causing flickering flashes

you said I didn't have to
but I said I didn't mind
that the smoke in your mouth would soon be in mine

I did not draw back
my mouth- under attack
I just had to last the duration

because I didn't smoke
the taste scorched my throat
and gave off a burning sensation

It must have felt different
as just in an insant
You stub out the cigarette with a hiss

silently relieved
and now more at ease
oh, the things that you do for a kiss

I have sharpened my teeth ready to rip and tear
like soldiers and their swords

I am listening to the sound of the rain on the roof
while you fold your clothes to sad song about madness and memories and it is quiet in the house with the same kind of finality of
a lock clicking of
a door slamming of
a finished book

like a knife slicing through a teen on a Chicago city street at 1 am
no streetlights
no police
no gunshots

just this skin
this blood on asphalt
on sidewalk
on boy
on knife

just blood on the roof of this house like a warning
something wicked resides here do not come near
something that says dangerdangerdangerdanger

Never look back.
Never look here again,
there is something about you that keeps me coming back for more
like you are selling crack ******* on the street corners and
I am an addict panhandling

I know you will leave me when I am hopelessly in love
I know I will not be able to breathe without you.

Without the weight of your body and breath on mine
you will leave me peeled and gutted, spineless.
Every dream crushed like a body thrown from the 40th floor.

You will leave me like tsunamis leave islands,
like hurricanes leave cities,
like tornadoes leave houses

utterly destroyed from the core out,
and you?

You will leave like a bird from a nest.


Weightless.

They say letting go is easier when you want to.

For 18 months I have wanted you out of my head, heart and soul.

For 18 months I have tortured myself because no matter what I did I couldn't get you out.

For 18 months I have thrown myself into boys, girls, poetry & poison - anything that will take me.

Now here I am 18 months later still wanting to let you go.

And I can only hope that in 18 months
you'll be gone.

She came upon a meadow, then she undressed;
And when she was naked, the meadow blushed.

Softly she tread, floating above the clover
Seas.  Suddenly lost, bold honey bees forgot
The scent of flowers blooming.  Iridescent wings,
Humming birds, monarchs, dragons, flying in
Procession and the mushrooming dew now rising
Began to swell, raining upwards into the mystic
Blue heavens and the trees beyond that clearing
Stood longingly amazed, so green their spying
Gaze, when all the myriad flowers loosely fell
And all the gathering of colours faintly dimmed.

She came upon a meadow, then she undressed;
And when she was naked, the meadow blushed.