why am i hurt by the fact that she sings in tune to your melodies?
you might not love me, i do not love you,
but why is it that i am hurt by you
dancing hand in hand with some woman or man?
there is no allegiance
yet my heart coils and burns
when i see you with her
and for that,
i wish i could punish myself.
i have no strength to bear,
no commitment to show,
but i am paralyzed by everything you do.
i don’t wish to sing in tune,
i don’t pine to harmonize
with your wavering melodies
hanging on my lips like a jungle vine.
i don’t wish to love you
for the image that you represent,
i don’t wish to love you with the power i have left in me.
why am i so powerless now when all that shot through my veins before
was strength?
why do i allow myself to submit to
an idea that isn’t even alive,
cannot come to fruition?
why must i try to align myself for a man who’ll never attempt to know me
for more than just what lies outside?
but i am hollow, and he must know,
can sense it from a mile away.  
why do i let the chance strangle me,
tame me, multiply until it is unable to be fought?
i have fists the size of my anger;
watch me be more than just my humanistic desires.
watch me burn this entire village down
just so the music cannot be heard.
watch me discover that the fire is warmer than your touch and so
i will shake in indignation
and swallow myself up in the flames of my rage.
i do not love you,
i love the way your ashes look on the ground: lifeless and shriveled.

lying here broken; fix me up.

summer of melancholy
stuck between my teeth.
sunburnt legs, unrequited emotions.
your grip like a hot furnace,
my skin melting into a glassy form.

(why ‘your’, it’s my poem isn’t it? my words frozen solid on the page—how dare you haunt me?)

shake my body dry
after swimming in a pool of your nothingness
i understand the word love
makes you quiver,
you make me want to shake all of you out like a wet dog.

(and it’s back to ‘you’ and only ‘i’ when it pertains to you. i live on the horizon of your greatness; i miss my own sunsets to watch yours.)

as they sit in a room
and turn into one,
i wonder if you hear my voice
bouncing off the walls.
i wonder if you’ve ever loved
something that did not touch you,
that could not offer a part of
themselves up for you,
but only came as it did.

shake my body free of you,
lean into the ‘me.’
come as i am,
leave with empty hands.
i am vacant
but i am unburdened.

BUT I’M DYING BECAUSE MY ARMS CAN’T HOLD THE CORPSES AND MY EYES ARE WELLING UP WHEN I KNEW IT WAS BOUND TO MAIM ME.
I KNEW IT WAS BOUND TO **** ME
WITHOUT CARING WITHOUT REMORSE
I KNEW THE TEARS WOULD SINK INTO MY CHEEKS AND MAKE THEM SOGGY
BUT I’M DYING IN MY OWN ARMS, MY OWN HANDS THE ONLY WITNESS TO THIS WRECKAGE
YOU’D THINK I’D LEARN BY NOW;
I HAD LEARNED, BUT I REVERTED BACK
TO WHO I WAS WHEN I BELIEVED IN LOVE AND I DO NOT ANYMORE.
I AM JADED NOW
BUT WHO AM I TO TOUCH THE WOUND
AND FEEL NOTHING?
AND I AM DYING FOR A CAUSE I CANNOT MEND
TEARING OPEN MY STITCHES,
WHO WAS I BEFORE THE TORNADO,
BEFORE THE GUNFIRE?
YOU’D THINK I’D LEARN BY NOW,
YOU’D THINK I’D STOP DYING
FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEONE ELSE.

and what if you’re the one that got away?
what if i wasted all those months hopelessly in denial,
swimming in my passivity?
those records play
my head spins
favorite friend;
you’re sick of me, i have a sneaking suspicion.
what if i’m still hanging onto your diction,
every party waiting for the way you crinkle your face when you laugh?
don’t be bitter, i didn’t understand the feelings when they were all that was floating around.
forgive my cluelessness.
i’ve been chasing immovable objects,
bodies that dance like fireflies,
bodies that fail to understand why everything has significance.
i cannot prove this to you;
i’ve run out of all my blood
and now the mosquitos have nothing to take from me.

i’ll find you one day,
dripping peach juice from your chewing mouth.
perhaps you’ll learn to resent me,
learn to forget the mark i left on your spine.
suddenly,
i’m searching for your approval.
i’m finding ways to wind up in your bedroom.
i’m looking for circumstances where we run into each other
and lock eyes in a way only we know how.
i’ll find you one day.
if we cannot have everything,
i’ll at least capture the summer sun in a jar
and give it to you as a symbol of my heart.
suddenly,
i’m creating stories where we see each other on a desert highway
and recall the nights that we danced with forever,
but somehow that wasn’t long enough.
i’ll write poetry that sticks to the back of your throat,
coat my sheets with your memories.
i’ll find you one day,
not searching for me,
content in a lifetime where our lives fail to align.
i’ll find you one day with someone,
and i’ll remember how close i came to being someone to you.
i wonder if she means anything
or if she just represents what you feel you lack.
i’ll find you one day,
at the edge of a bridge,
pretending to fly as you cannonball into the river.
i wish you had loved me with all you were capable of.

i wish you would love me with all you are capable of.

need to stop replaying the memory
why does it live under my skin?
at the bus station,
i’m watching these moments
pass by my head
i’m starting to wish i was her
but i don’t want his body nor his recklessness.
i’ll never be a girl you need
but then why did you tell me
all those falsities?
for me to keep them still
in the cavities of my chest,
to not dare release them
from their ribcage prisons?
there i go,
back to the memory,
back to the arms that weren’t ashamed to hold me
back to the rhythm of what seemed to matter
but now it just fades
and i’m expected to let it dissipate.
can you blame me for wanting to resuscitate it?

you shrink yourself down to someone else
create an image that might only work for a couple months
i hope you and him hate each other after all this
i hope you split his heart in half
i hope his knuckles get soft and his eyeballs rot
i hope you freak out when he’s beside you
i hope i echo like a freight train
in your brain
i hope the lies that you told attempt to sing you lullabies on your sleepless nights, but only conjure up nightmares
i hope you grip them hard in your palms and make him sob.
i hope your remembrance of me strikes you guilty,
i hope the circumstances make you wither,
but then i hope you don’t have to live with yourself any longer
and i hope you change
and stop worshipping yourself.
i hope this charade ends with you,
ashamed and sunken,
realizing that your ego will always crack
leaving only you and its remnants.
i hope you want it all back
but as you can see,
it is dead and buried.
i hope your body abandons your mind
 and finds a new host.
i hope you never go back to your scheming,
i hope you change
and never revert back to who you were.


i apologize; i am only a little spiteful.