Sometimes you hurt like a needle,
sometimes like a knife.
Sometimes I can't bear to look at you.
Sometimes you're all I can look at.

How many hours
spent scribbling these poems?
How many days wasted
rereading them,
nudging and prodding
each word into its proper place
until it all flowed and sounded...

still not quite right.

As a I girl, I had
a small music box,
which I played over and over.
I wound it up,
and the ballerina inside
would spin and spin,
her dance and the song
a simple embrace of youth.

There are versions of myself
that I have long since forgotten,
long since forsaken.
The rhythm will find you,
make you into someone new.
But this tune brings me back,
always,
to the little girl
who spent hours watching ballerinas dance.

The air is filled with lilacs and pine.
The summer scents stuffed into the air
overflow with old memories.

I miss my father.
I miss his smile, crooked and hard to win though it was.
I miss his love, warm and abiding.
I miss his broken nose and his gruff wisdom.

These, however, are not gone
but merely transformed.
I feel and see them everywhere.

The rain beats down harder now,
blurring my vision of the cloudy summer day around me.
I love the sound, quickening every second
until I feel like it might break the window pane
and come rushing in.
It reminds me of the day he died,
although he died in November,
and surely it couldn't have been raining...

Grief and time do strange things to the mind;
they bury some things and clarify others.

We play among the vines
of overgrown, ripe wine.
The birds fly before us,
their songs a bittersweet chorus.
Lemony drops of dew
line each fence, window, and hall.
You drop your shawl
and walk towards me, your head held tall.
I will never forget the call
of these sweet, simple Saturdays
that go by in a haze.

I walk into the room,
my coat still fresh
with the scent of tobacco.
From the corner of one eye,
I glimpse you
and you glimpse me.
I nod. You nod.

I walk forward into the store.
I could've sworn you were leaving,
but you follow me in
with a friendly hello.
How did you know?
How did you know
that I wanted to see you, too?
Talk to you, too?
Palms sweat, I fix my hair
over and over again.
I like you,
but I can't say it.
I've watched this dance before.

Oh, the games we play.

It's snowing in May.
What more is there really to say?
Droplets are drip-dropping on me
every which way.

I rush through the slippery streets,
and to my dismay,
I see a soaked-through toupee
on the head of a man having quite a bad day.

Oh, what a strange melee
is this snowy Tuesday.

Take a deep breath,
and forget about death.
Once more, I set the stick aglow.
My fingers smell of tobacco.
Oh, I wish you could know.
Tenderly I blow.
I want to let go,
let my habit lie fallow,
but I'd miss the flow.

This is precious cargo.

I wish I knew what to say.
My feelings are like clay,
they bend every which way.
I spend nearly every **** day
just trying to be okay.

Maybe this is a cliche,
a girl who fights with her padre,
I keep going astray,
my issues I always downplay.

I wish I were a blue jay;
so I could just fly away.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Maybe you should leave me alone.
Maybe you should shut the hell up.
Maybe you should stop reminding me of all my missed opportunities,
Missed friendships,
Missed loves,
Missed lives.
Maybe you should stop the judgement,
And just let the smoke float up through the air.
It’ll evaporate there.
I promise. The only one I’m hurting is myself.

Everything turns to dust -
even you,
even me,
even the bond that binds us now.

I've had many waking dreams
and a few waking nightmares,
but I don't remember most of them now.
They were lost while I was sleeping,
just like us.

Whether I lost you in my dreams
or in my nightmares,
I lost you
all the same.

We will ask the world,
Am I good?
Am I a good person?

And the world will shrug its shoulders
and shake its head.
Who's to say what good is?
Is not the pursuit enough? it will reply.

We will ask the universe,
Am I loved?
Do the ones I love, love me, too?

And the universe will shrug its shoulders
and shake its head.
Why does it matter?
Is not the act of giving love enough? it will sigh.

We will ask the infinite,
Why am I here?
What is the point of it all?

And the infinite shall remain quiet,
waiting for us to find our own
lackluster answer to a half-hearted question.

With a heightened perception,
I observe the sensation
of my thumb on my fingers
as I rub them together,
the clock ticking away at 4:45 before me...
There are blue ink marks on each finger
and the air tastes of stale coffee.

Everything feels very slow,
and I find myself,
once again,
waiting to go home,
waiting for the clock to tick to 5:00.
Everything so slow,
with nothing to do except wait.

It would be nice, yes,
To not have to think about money.
Then again,
It would be nice to not have to think
About anything.
That’s what so much of life is nowadays - not thinking.
Avoiding, at all costs, the chance that you might be forced to think about your life.
What you’ve lost, what you’ve yet to lose, and why it even matters that
You’re losing anything at all.

Where do I start?
Where do I end?
I keep thinking
my life will never begin.
I need to stop blinking
because it all hurts like hell.
I'll never see you again.
I'll never see
you
again.
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Can I say it again?
I'm sorry.

There's something about a kiss -
the way that you carry the taste
of them the whole day.
Even hours after,
it seems as though their scent
still lingers,
intermingling again and again with yours.

My consistent failure permits me no joy.
But failure does bring a certain freedom.
It frees you from expectations,
And I like that.
I liked how freeing failure felt.
In bits, it’s crushing,
But in totality, it is magic.
Entrancing,
As alluring as any man or woman.

She showed me kindness
not through words,
but with silence.
She lay in the grass
like that,
staring at me.
Effusive, complaisant, alluring.
Daring me to want her.
In her eyes was a challenge,
and I rushed to meet them.

Each morning begins
with the same sweet embrace,
your eyes distant but warm.
I peek my head
out the window
and breathe deeply
the succulent scents of spring.
The cold air fills my lungs
and I gasp, ****, swallow in more.

a single stream of light
filters through the muddy sky,
illuminating the dead and dying trees,
stripped of their leaves and color
by a harsh winter.

In every lonely winter, there's a brightness
that seems to stretch on into eternity,
and it is in this spot that beauty
infiltrates my mind and turns ageless.

I was in love with the stars
and sometimes the sea.
I was in love with the small
and the big people
who rode past me
on their dinky motorbikes
and roaring cars,
just as I also loved
the quiet nights in the mountains
where I slept alone beneath the stars.
I was in love with joy,
and I was in love with pain.

I was in love with every city,
especially those I didn't belong to
because they seemed to belong to me.

I was in love with the unknown,
but mostly,
I was in love with the great potential of it all.
Everything is sweeter from a distance.