you know i’ve exhausted the idea of not being your friend.
remember when we were close and little girls
who thought they would cohabit when they were older
and weren’t we a mess with our sleepovers and jokes?

you know i’ve grown tired of being bitter and ashamed.
the blame game can only keep me untamed for so long.
remember when the growing pains struck, at least i did,
and our horizons were broadening on opposite sides of town?

you know i’ve gotten sick of the want to ignore.
remember how our mothers and fathers used to speak
and they didn’t stop out of anger or disdain,
so nor should we.

you know i’ve grown out of the resentment.
remember how it used to fall to the floor until i used it as a weapon
to inflict upon you the same hurt you caused me?

you know i’ve exhausted the idea of dying on this hill.
remember when we used to run down yours
or wish to sled instead,
and how the snow was streaked with brown sticks,
as we found little trinkets left behind and kept them as our own?

you know i’ve forgiven every minor error.
remember how we said we’d know each other until we were old,
forgetting kids and just spending our time together,
how we’d never be separated by the roughs of changes?

you know i’ve tired the idea of writing poems for you that you’ll never read,
knowing i’d dedicate myself to you again in a second
but being unsure if you would ever do the same.

does it take all of me
all of me
me out of all people
to realize the nakedness? that i’m
bearing my soul for the heck
of it? for some “asylum”
built for the pleasure of others?
should i stand straight up,
laugh like i’m confident,
own the naked
parts of myself,
dance for the sake
of it, blow the horn?
live like i’m sick, live like
a parasite, going from
door to door, searching for cracks
and crevices to slip under,
sniff with the nose i forget
about all the time,
live like there’s more?

i’m alone on new year’s eve,
starved of life,
been living off of fleeing thrills.
i’ve been hungry,
lacking the flavor that lingers
on my tongue.
completely distraught,
all up in my head like i owe myself a debt.
the new year’s eve moon is absent,
but i need her;
she understands the length of my despair,
and she places hope in my palm.
nothing along the horizon,
just the vague glow of the Christmas lights from the passive neighbors.
unsure of what new year dawns,
if this one
will knock me off my feet,
waltz with me until daybreak
touches my cheek,
or leave me astray on a bustling city street
where the largest emptiness isn’t even in my own twisted heart.
and perhaps this year
will taint me,
paint me multicolored,
until my own shade of individuality cannot be seen.
fragile or elusive,
a patient lover,
a reckless ******,
a kiss that stays for longer than thought.
bigger shoes to fill,
new attitudes to convey,
new deals to follow through on,
old ones that have never been finished,
losing the fears of the past ages
that burned
down towns, left them flat.
if the new year unfolds like a film reel
with an unreliable narrator,
i’ll likely fail to look up at the moon,
lose my direction,
start believing the superstitions
with all my soul.
don’t leave me stuck on a bench
at the kitchen table,
writing instead of letting the world handle the anxieties for a while.
leave me alone on the edge of
a new platform
that makes feet sink past their comforts,
ankle deep in something i cannot control or hold with both hands or penetrate.
there may be new avenues to walk down
just to turn back around again in,
kinds of sabotage that
only i know how to bring upon the only thing control can control.
and new year,
don’t leave me alone no more,
i never wanted to be afraid,
watching the moon disappear like
all good friends do,
and have a stapled tongue
so that i cannot speak for those
who wish to
be heard
by someone,
anyone.

i’ve known war-less times
or the war didn’t leave its red mark of dried blood behind,
cleaned up the evidence nice.  
i’ve known wars that only hold weight in my mind,
imaginary bullets hitting imaginary soldiers,
the war leaves the skeleton of my body
in a ditch.
the forests are chopped down,
the memories are lost entities of ourselves.
i once knew how to love,
or the quiet meaning of it,
but all i know now
is barbed wire, machines without souls
moving on their own.
how do i find peace in the silence,
in the icy wintertime of gloom?
how can i remember the shoes of the dead,
the life they never knew?
i recall something,
that stings just like a memory,
the lost joy of a child,
the ending to the bitter tragedy.
knowing the war is too much to handle
for one simple child of peace.

it’s as if
isn’t it poetic
that i keep reminding myself
of nights with you
as if they keep the pulse
jumping and skipping?
minutes go by,
regretting the way i’ve handled such careful things
with such careless hands,
bruised and uncertain.
i’ve always been friendless,
straying into homes where the welcome is hesitant and worried
the connection we had
is hanging on the clotheslines outside
letting the air feast on it
and if you offer me a world
where the status doesn’t define my existence
or linger in the ether,
i will be satisfied.
the things we give in to define us
unless we prove otherwise.
and isn’t it poetic
how i write like you’re dead
or washed upon some shoreline,
sinking into the sand, feeling the pulse of your hands
for one last time?
isn’t it pathetic
that i think you can hear this,
this desperate plea,
begging to reach you,
but getting caught up in the
much more fashionable moment?
i’d never dreamed i’d have a husband
knitting in boredom, loving in spite of the
curses and the lack of courage.
isn’t it pathetic that i think about marrying
even at a time like this,
where you are staring at a moon
i can’t seem to fathom?
and sometimes,
i lose myself in my own weaknesses
and let them define me,
would you deny me,
if i offered you my earn?
isn’t it poetic that even in the depths of despair,
i still remember who you were
and i was confused
why such lovely things
could happen to the feeble?
i might never define what it felt like,
just that it was alright,
and i feel invincible:
guess love does that after all.

i was certain i wouldn’t become someone that i didn’t recognize.
but now a new year is dawning
and i still have nightmares about exiting my own body
leaving for a discovery
yearning for a change.
there is fog in the front yard,
persistently questioning my virtues
how i stay alive in cold decembers
frozen on the window panes
i have worn out the hearts of many a person
but it’s a new year
and this, i will choose to keep them clean
to follow the hearts that beat in the nighttime hour;
follow my own.

i murdered you twice but you didn’t know
i need cities and flat screens and muses and crowds
i need death on my lips,
crime worth committing
people worth talking to
love meant confessing
i hated everyone that i thought i knew
loved those who promised things but didn’t follow through
there’s women who struck my cheek with their words
and men that made me feel unworthy of the world
and i’ve lost who i was
and found who i am
no one can tell me what i stand
for. i carve my initials in every bathroom stall,
and i ache and the pain sometimes goes away
i knock on doors, hoping for miracles
you ever hoped so much
and it came true?
well, maybe with you,
i’ll continue to do
so
i’ll light the candles, turn off the lights,
dream of the person i’ll love tonight
and if it’s you, don’t fret, don’t worry
i’ll love you like i know how to which is right.

maybe it’s true, maybe it’s true,
maybe it’s something to do with you
maybe it’s true, maybe it’s true,
that i’ll spend this year loving you
maybe i’ll laugh, maybe i’ll cry,
maybe i’ll spend a lifetime asking why
why, why, why, why?
why, why, why, why?
why not, why not?
why not i?

and there is an ache
and there is a name
never confessed,
never admitted
the world was a bit softer when held with your gaze
there is a name
it sounds awfully like yours
like a poem, like a song,
like a new earth unfolding
from hearing it spoken.
and there is a time,
there is a warning,
love me one day,
choose the yearning.  
no space or time
could make me thinner
smaller or lighter
when your love is dawning.

why is love hard when it’s all i lived off of?
the backs of the weary men,
the hands of the mothers
that don’t know the time, neither the weather
so if you wanna stay,
the longer, the better.