Strawberry lips, capable, voluptuous
Shapely hips, body sumptuous
Vanilla cream skin, soft, inviting
Fingers squeezing, feeling, igniting
Tongue flicking, teeth biting
Blood pumping, flesh writhing
Tangled bodies, spirits, lives
Pleading, teasing, seducing eyes
Limbs reaching, groping, pleasing
Panting faster, shallow breathing
Oh God, don't stop!
Screams, gasps, ecstasy, pop

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?

What if I ran when you told me to?
What if I hadn’t said no?
What if I had left you the way you left me?

And what if you weren’t the first girl?
Would I have loved you the same?
Would I still be bound and chained by this addiction?

I grew closer to you than anyone,
I sang to you on the phone before your surgery,
I straightened your hair when you couldn’t lift your shoulder

How do you reconcile this?
How do you rationalize it?
Or discard it?

I couldn’t always be there for you,
But I always tried,
Despite the distance,
I always tried

She was the only lighthouse in a roiling sea of black

My rowboat upended
As the waves enveloped my screams

Gasping, reaching
As the foamy pitch swallowed me whole

CLANG mourned the lighthouse
Her yellow beam helplessly revolving

CLANG  *CLANG

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.

We’re quick to blame those that break our hearts,
Railing against lovers for our misfortunes,
Consigning them to hell and so forth,

When in reality,
Our oft exhausted and defeated transgressors
Serve merely as the catalyst for the internal destruction that follows

For no one impacts your emotional wellbeing as much as you,
And you birth your demons, your pain,
After ‘us’ is no more,
There is just you and your head,
An entity far more dangerous than any borne of flesh and blood

Do not judge those that hurt you,
For they are as foolish and human as you,
And remember that though
Love may linger and torment,
It is a reminder of what your heart can do,
When it’s met its match

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

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

There is a lifetime to hold this woe,
To process and reframe,
But never let go

And I'll visit whatever vestiges I've left,
Because you still hold my heart,
An inconceivable theft

Serendipity begets bad luck,
In a loop with no meaning,
And nothing worth gleaning,
Leaving us all at the mercy,
Of careless Luck's whimsy

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

shower (n.): a place to practice the words you'll never say

I hear your echoes in every bottle,
It's all I can do to reach for the cork
I need this, I need this, I hate this
Please, please, please
Leave it, just leave it, at ease

Such pride, such vanity
Such dignity, chin up, love

It's over but does it ever really end?

These poems are an extension of me,
A pressure valve to keep my mind from exploding,
These poems are sieves catching grotesqueries
To be turned into something palatable

Poetry somehow doesn't pop without pain,
Somehow inadequate without lurking demons
Fueling passion and longing and fury

These cataclysms are documented and catalogued,
These emotions and stories memorialized,
Their existence in the world a fossil record
Of memories too precious to lose

One might call us star crossed,
Two lovers doomed by distance,
But that's a half truth

You and I were an exothermic reaction past its prime
You and I were a failed blend of oil and water

You and I were the product of the most passionate intersection of two souls
Two strangers willing to bare their secrets
And form a bond meant to stand the test of time,
But whose links simply rusted as though entropy was having a sick laugh

When our hands joined, there was an electricity,
It could power this city forever,
If only the plug wasn't pulled,
If only the lights had stayed on

I can still remember your voice,
Fragmented as though refracted through a prism
I remember pressing delete on the last voicemail you ever sent me,
You called to thank me for the flowers,
You called me thoughtful, sweet,
You were tripping over your words with joy,
And I couldn't handle it after you left,
Because your voice reminds me of symphonies and plane crashes
And oh God, how it still echoes sometimes,
Like the sound of a child's laughter ringing across an abandoned playground,
Your voice resonated with the frequencies of my heart strings,
And now I fear it would only cause earthquakes

Whisper me sweet nothings of time melting away these regrets
Or how time itself melted away all these months and years apart
Assure me that the years have dulled these memories, diluted their potency
Lie to me and tell me these memories have faded or that time heals all

Time, the biggest liar of all,
Taking memories and simply aging them in oak barrels to be sampled like a fine whiskey with a cigar or a side of regret

Time doesn't heal a **** thing,
It makes tragedy tolerable,
Like soldiers desensitized to the smell of death and rot

Time can't heal a story whose happy ending can never be written as intended,
It can only lend itself so that the story may be rewritten.

Your genitals were in my mouth
You gasped and you groaned
Your genitals were in my mouth
Pulling my hair as you moaned

Your genitals were in my mouth
But I'll never speak to you again
I've been taught well to
Dissociate readily with a grin

A silhouette of trees,
Spindly branchlets reaching skyward,
Yearning to pierce the very clouds they merely obscure

Why did you have to pull me in like this?
Why couldn't you be like every other girl?
Benign? Impermanent?

You were untraditional, unorthodox,
You became air where there was none,
Water where there was only dust

And then you told me that you were sick,
And nothing brings two people in like illness,
All of a sudden everything changed

I've never felt like much of a father figure,
But ******* you made me care like one,
Probably why it's still so agonizing

And I'm still tasked with laughable ideas
Like "letting go" and "moving on"
And I know that there's no alternative

There is no room for me in your life,
You've set sail for new waters,
And I'm simply left to drown

Erosive process
Your relentless memory
Worn walls, weakened heart

I am thankful for:
Every beautiful woman I've ever met,
Every one who laid in my bed,
Every woman who let me care,
Every burden they let me bear,
I'm thankful for every lesson learned
Thankful for every scar earned
I'm thankful for my only love,
A divine happenstance from above,
Who helped realize a burgeoning poet,
Who, criminally, didn't even know it

Do you talk to your mother
about me when you drink?
Do whispering thoughts undulate
from your subconscious,
yearning to be heard?

Go on and carry me as your burden
I won't say a word and
I'll breathe in this sulfurous shame
And suffer the same
As I have for so long

Sometimes I wonder if you’ve gone through what I have,
Dating other people as a narcotic to numb the pain of missing an extension of your heart,
We’re all creatures fixated on the now,
And short term memory and the immediacy of ******* prevail enough
So that Mrs. Right Now will do,
And maybe she’ll become Mrs. Right in time,
Maybe she’ll steal your heart,
Or maybe she never will
Maybe the heart can only be stolen in that first glance at feral eyes flashing with desire

All I do is explore mouths looking for answers,
Searching flesh for relief, however ephemeral
Oh how I hope you find this repugnant and foul,
How I hope you treasured each man like he was the last drop of water on Earth,
Of course I’m not naïve,
But I hope I meant as much as you made me believe

Trust
Is the
First
To rust
Before
It all
C   o   l   l   a   p   s    e    s

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...

Snow falls and coats this ugly world in a coat of white,
Clean, fresh, untouched
Bury it all
Smother this sadness with alabaster beauty
And when spring comes, maybe hope will follow

Hatred, agony in your wake
You'll repent upon the stake
Flames licking clean your crime
Your memory forevermore in grime

Bite your tongue
Your song is sung
******* villain
Your guts are spilling

I'm still choking on the ashes of your disappointment,
And I'm still reenacting scenes from the grave,
And I wish I could take a step into your mind
To fathom what firing synapses are urging you to consider

What do you think about on late nights?
Do you think about airports and silent drives?
Do you think about beautiful lakes and perfect heartache?

I've been digging graves for every single "I love you"
And I'm running out of eulogies

lips (pl. n.): another word for home
*(see: familiarity, beauty)

A kiss dissected,
A gentle worship of your mouth,
That warm place my lips called home

Loving her was like chasing a sunset,
Each day, a new opportunity
To despair