We're taught to move on,
To be strong!
Shake it off, champ!
You'll get 'em next time!

Except this isn't a ******* baseball game is it?

These losses aren't ephemeral,
And loving the ghost of someone,
Is like dragging a cinder block
Tied around your neck

Your delicate skin chafes, tears and bleeds,
And as you gag,
Perhaps you wish you'd find yourself
In a lake with that cinder block

Gurgling, staring eyes wide
At the block to do something!
Haven't you loved it so?
Bubbles rise.

Fade to black and remember
Your thankless love,
Remember how you held this torch,
And became a martyr for no one

Bury me,
Strike my name from the records,
Pretend this never happened

We never ******, or kissed,
Held hands or met

In this new world,
You are untouched, unharmed,
I was never there to hurt you,
I was never there to love you

Blacklist me from this life,
And cast me into oblivion,
Where I was never even born

I want to fall into your gravitational field,
Feel you grab me until
I sink into your essence
And our flesh becomes one

You once wrote me,
"This might be a really bad idea or a brilliant one."
Isn't it funny how it turned out to be both?

I shovel my feelings into the furnace,
To keep warm,
In the winter of your absence

You're the virus
that will live dormant in me
forever

Check out my picture perfect life on Facebook,
Smiling faces, likes and comments,
I hope you don't find out,
My life is anything but

Let me write you poetry,
Let me plumb the depths of my heart,
To find the words,
To describe your elegance,
And your beauty,
Your poise,
Your humor,
And your strength,
Let me weave you soliloquies,
About the shape of your smile,
Or that shade of blue in your eyes,
That seemingly changes at your whim,
Let me pen you my memoirs,
And tell you it's ok,
Tell you that you were the best thing,
That ever happened to me.

I am a fool,
Designed to crave forbidden fruit,
Made to flagellate myself,
Over and over,
Until my skin tears,
And rivulets of blood seep down my back,
I am a victim of my own folly,
A prisoner in my self imposed prison,
Praying for another day,
Where I can taste the sun on my skin

You swept through
Like a forest fire,
Burning everything in sight.
Wanton devastation,
Reckless and cruel,
Leaving only ashes
And smoke
Rising in pretty curlicues,
The last sign of beauty extinguished.

You are a delicate car crash,
A gentle forest fire,
An elegant apocalypse.

All that's left of you and I,
Is the past tense.
You and I are
A handful of photographs,
Old emails,
A single boarding pass to Toronto and
Hazy memories,
Fraying at the edges
More and more every day.
I miss you.
I wish you and I could be any other tense.
I wish the thought of you and I mattered.

You were the tornado
I never wanted to disappear,
You left my heart
Without a home,
Dazed and stumbling
From one dead end to the next,
And I still wander,
Late at night,
Looking for a light,
To guide me *home

A derelict house stands,
Bereft of purpose,
A cold gust blows,
As faded shutters clap
 
Plaster cracks,
And wood rots,
Pipes freeze,
Burst and rust

The wind persists,
Making the house moan,
As though mourning
The death of hope

The house shudders and falls,
Its poor bones giving in,
(Or giving up,)
And somewhere a bell solemnly knells

I will love you,
But be warned,
It will stain

Kissing you tastes like nothing,
But aborted dreams and
Could have beens

Imagine licking a Tootsie Pop,
And being unsure if the center,
Will taste like *regret

Plotting a breakup,
Plotting a ******,
Both leave a body,
Marked for the coroner.

I'm sorry.

Love struck me upside the head once before,
Leaving me bleeding in an alleyway

It took my wallet, my keys, my heart,
My sanity, my trust, it tore me apart

And now it returns to the scene of the crime,
Maybe back to finish me off for good

A femme fatale clad in stilettos,
Heel poised to pierce hearts

Maybe I'm asking for it,
A glutton for pain

I've been sick so long,
Just give me my medicine

We plant roots so that a tree may grow,
A symbol of time and devotion

And if a bushfire comes,
Will our efforts be for naught?

You make me nervous,
You see, I'm not good with pretty girls
I feel like I'm disarming a bomb,
That can detonate at any second

Which wire should I cut?
The red or the green?
*The red or the green?

Lay back, baby
You fit so nice in the crook
Between my shoulder and my chest
Like a jigsaw finally fitting,
After so many failures

Go on and love your ghosts,
And imagine them requiting it

Spend your days pining,
For a corpse long buried

Waste away the hours,
While they love another

Awaken from your delusional stupor,
Find a beating heart and love anew

Think of all the kisses at airports,
Hearts rejoicing,
Tearful goodbyes,

These kisses are flavored,
Some sorrow, some joy,
But each one is savored

My stomach's in knots,
Thanks to a pretty blonde girl,
I'm enveloped in nerves,
And I hope I don't hurl

She was an earthquake,
Leaving death in her wake

She was a hurricane,
I swore I'd contain

She was a blizzard,
And I inexplicably miss her

A kiss so potent,
To speak of it is verboten

I want to explore the sensual map that is your body,
My hands and mouth the tools of discovery,
Caressing, licking your precious land,
Until your sighs become moans

A network of nerve endings,
Electrified
Mapping your ecstasy
Until you're aglow

A body erupting with passion,
A land erupting volcanically,
Molten magma flowing,
Scorching euphoria

I want to explore the sensual map that is your body,
My hands and mouth the tools of discovery,
Caressing, licking your precious land,
Until your sighs become moans...

Heartbreak sets you on fire,
So you emerge hardened steel

Music always was an escape for me,
Until you came and went,
And stole it all from me

Tegan and Sara, blink-182
Seether, Jimmy Eat World
and Aerosmith too

Every song was a dagger,
That I masochistically plunged,
Until I was drained, haggard

I have my songs back,
But you've stained them,
Forever marked black

Pull the trigger,
Do it,
Set in motion this cascade of events

Lock and load,
**** the hammer,
This firing pin demands action

BOOM!

Muzzle flash,
Smoke,
A bullet case innocently falls

Tear through bone and flesh,
A maelstrom of destruction,
Who will be your next target?

I was always starved for your kiss,

Once you playfully held back,
A harmless betrayal

I remember doing the same thing to a girl after you,
The balance of power obvious

Woe betide whoever craves their lover's kiss more

In my head,
Your grave plot is beautiful,
And I visit it every. single. day.

Do you know about the silence?
The silence that becomes deafening at night,
When you're trying to cling to the warm embrace of sleep?

Listen!

You can hear it from over 3,000 miles away,
It's the mutual silence perpetuated by two parties,
Wracked with guilt and pride.

It's the silence of damaged egos,
The silence of perceived slights,
And all despite burning thoughts of each other,

It creeps up in your ear,
When you're cradling your lover,
It hisses like a snake and breeds doubt

It's the silence that screams,
And leaves your ears ringing for ages,
Leaving you begging, "PLEASE STOP!"

It subsides,
You fill the absence with white noise,
Relationships, infatuations

But it can always find you,
Slithering into the crevices of your thoughts,
When you take a moment to breathe

When I met you, my butterflies kicked like elephants,
Nausea the defining factor in our fledgling relationship

With time, they subsided,
Fluttering from time to time

Suddenly, a cold gust,
A foreboding omen of changing seasons

My butterflies had all died,
Killed by grief and the thought of a cold, lonely winter ahead

You let me hold you one last night,
One last night to sleep away this misery

You softly asked,
"Mike? Do you think I'm pretty?"

I gently kissed your back,
"I think you're gorgeous"

I remember every single kiss we shared,
From the boat below deck at 1 am, to the shore beneath the stars

I remember every embrace,
And how warm you felt

I remember every handhold,
How you complained that your fingers were shorter than mine

I remember our phone calls till 2 am,
About nothing and everything

I remember every argument,
How obstinate I was, how sad you were

I remember you dragging me out to a beautiful lake,
Just to break my heart

I remember feeling a cold emptiness take me,
As shock set in

I remember you driving me to the airport,
And Taylor Swift coming on the radio

We are never, ever, getting back together
You're a ******* prophet, Taylor

I remember holding you one last time at the airport,
My arms felt like melting wax

I remember you calling me drunk on your birthday,
Telling me about the guy at the bar who stuck his tongue down your throat

I remember you calling me sober the next day,
Repeating the same ******* story

I remember you asking me to come over that same night,
And me telling you that I wish I could

I remember writing you letters,
Pleading, desperate, insane

I remember you ignoring it all,
Silence still a harrowing novelty at the time

I remember the 2 years that followed,
And how far I've come, how far I haven't

I remember you falling asleep in my arms,
And how I've never been so happy

I remember you,
And sometimes I wish I didn't

I remember your scent well,
Of all things, coconut.

My clothes, my pillow,
It all smelled like you.

I clung to that scent and I knew it was fading,
"Please don't go."

You even sent me a letter smelling of you,
So your scent would be always be near.

And for months after, that scent made me recoil,
As all the memories came flooding back.

And now the scent is once again benign,
A gentle reminder of a love now lost.

I bit off more than I could chew,
When I said I wanted you

You were a mess of scars,
****** by awful men
And I was a boy,
Trying to lick your wounds

"I wanted to fix you," I said
Foolish boy,
You can't fix people

I should have called it quits
But your kiss left me breathless
And I was at wit's end

You ****** me too,
And when you were through,
I was no longer a boy,
But a shattered man

Now I've got a scar or two,
But what does it prove?
That I've learned my lesson?
Or that I'm ready to **** up again?

Every word I write about you,
Drives you deeper and deeper into the earth

Your blood spills on these pages,
Stained crimson for all to witness

A grotesque reminder,
Of all the seeping wounds so long ago

I'll never see you,
And I think I know how the sun must feel about the moon

You live on in my head,
Like a tumor I cannot excise.
Or refuse to.
I can't tell anymore.

Funny how nobody ever truly leaves,
They become ghosts,
Animated by regret, goodwill, love, jealousy, pettiness
Muffled by distractions, dates, girlfriends, ***.

Please, just let me be.

Reckless
Impulsive
Awful
Irresponsible
Frantic
Love

Sometimes we hand love as willingly,
As hostages with Stockholm syndrome,
As if it was just a foregone conclusion.

“Here, take my heart,” you’ll say.
“Look how delicately it beats.”
You hope they cradle it, treat it with care.

“Please be careful,” you’ll say.
“It’s yours now. And ******* it, I need to trust you.”
Love can be irresponsible.

“Please don’t make me regret this.”