Almost nothing last forever,
prepare yourself without ruining present moment.
Love yourself a tiny bit more than you love them.

People flee but the feelings settle
in the space they left,
like dust on a bookshelf.

Don't be surprised when a breeze comes through
and you begin to count all the things
that could have made them laugh.
Doesn't mean you need them,
just means you did love them once.
But it's over,
it will never be the same,
how could it be?

I feel like an old poet;
soul and face in a ship wreck like state.
Into the ocean my beauty
over the rocks my wish to create
and no longer relevant
are the things my heart yearns to convey.

The kids, they used to love me,
man I used to be so cool!
As the crow's feet leave their mark
this broken heart just
makes me look like a god ****** fool.

No one to turn to,
no one read these wounded rhymes,
too much responsibility to just give up;
I'm left wanting to
but not actually drinking wine.

Like an old poet, these shaky hands
just want to love
to touch someone and to be touched.
Like an old poet I wish to never need to write a-gain
because the only feeling I know to express
is the deepest pain.

My birthday is in five days
and for the first time ever
it's not that I want to be alone,
it's just that I am.

I think about calling you

when I’m alone Friday nights,

I imagine you all alone too.

You’re probably watching action movies

and eating frozen dinners.

I think about all the things I would say like,

I’m sorry,

or I was wrong,

and would you like to **** me,

or can I have my record player back at least?


P.S. Have you seen my pea coat?

There is a tree in my room.
It sheds leaves
that look like everything I have ever lost.
I put them in bags and
take them outside to burn,
as if it would stop the leaves
from falling all together,
but I know they’ll be back.

You are the ghost of all the people
I have loved
and been loved by,
that feeling I get when I remember
what it felt like to be touched by someone
who meant it.

You are the fear
when I realize I destroy
most things I touch
and am unworthy of ever
learning to say your name.

You are a poem that my weary hands
have yet to learn how to write.
They tremble with so many words
wanting to bleed out.

You are the empty spot
in my bed
when there is so much room
that it aches.

You are a planet full of
beautiful things
I have never seen,
so many light years away
that I could not possibly
scale or comprehend the distance.

I am tired.
My heart can’t trace your shadow
for much longer.

You must be near?

I.
My mother keeps my letters to Santa
in a drawer by her bed,
and my father keeps my baby teeth
like a handful of tiny ghost  
of the innocence that has been lost.  

II.
I used to be 6 once,
I WAS MAGNIFICENT.
With arms outstretched
I could fly if I willed it;
now I barely move
without trembling.

III.
I smoked my first cigarette
when when I was 12,
and  it wasn't until I was 16
that a boy named Frank told me
I had to inhale.
I blame him for my addiction.

IV.
When I was 18
someone took something from me
that I could never get back.
I hope they keep it safe,
and sharp in their memory
so they do not forget
the tone of my voice when
I let go of my Gods
and said,
"yes."

V.
This week  someone hurt me
and I took it as punishment
for the time I cheated on my boyfriend
when I was 21;
like any former catholic,
I always have to remind myself
that I don't believe in God.

VI.
Last night I went to a party,
and a man told me
I was pretty,
I believed it for the first time in a long time.
I laid my head on his shoulder
and told him I was tired.

Do you remember when we
danced beneath street lights
that bowed
in the presence
of our youth,
to that hum
from power lines
that can only be heard
early in the morning
or late at night?

Lately,
much like the power lines,
I hum
but only
when no one
is listening.

I keep these feelings
like water in cupped hands;
desperate to convey them
but they slip,
drop by drop,
through my fingers
and never completely
make it to you.

People always look more beautiful when they
are departing by train or any other engined vehicle,

You watch them from a tiny window
and you mourn them as they slowly go away.

OH the BEAUTY, OH the TRAGEDY… oh puhlease!

Just try living with them for 5 years,
and having them *** on your toilet seat,

or hate all your friends or,

make fun of you when you're hungover and
rub all the embarrassing things you did in your face or,

hogging the TV to watch a Lakers game
when The New Girl is on and
everybody knows they are going to lose
then he's going to be all mopey all night.

Ugh, talk to me then!

Yeah, Jeremy, I'm talking to you.

The black hole heart ***** everyone in sight inside.
Gravity is not real,
for it were,
I would not be in heaven.
The side show is over,
go home,
face the music,
and go to bed.
No one ever died trying,
unless they were trying to die.

Never tell me to never change
Cause next thing you know
Ten or twenty years from now
You’ll look me up and I’ll be
337 pounds with a career in
Painting houses purple.
I’ll carry an umbrella with me everywhere I go.
There will be a warrant for my arrest out in a country I don’t visit anymore.
I won’t have any lovers—not a one.
I’ll have given them up for my causes:
The cause of the Open Windows and Rooted Bird Feet and Medicinal Marijuana.
And then I’ll fall in love again.
This time for keeps.
And our kids will be just crazy because we’ll live in a place without video games.
I’ll be a violent pacifist, or a passive violinist,
And all the world will have never heard of me.
Then he’ll die, or I’ll die, or we’ll get to live until we’re old and we can go to **** beaches ****-naked and revel in the joy of squeamish young people.
And if I’m not the one to die, then I’ll get angry all over again about the state the world is in.
These sort of things don’t fade with age.
Maybe I’ll try to fix things, or maybe I’ll just accept the things I can’t change.
Maybe I'll be changed by the fixed things I have so much trouble accepting.   
Maybe I’ll have enough friends (you included?) to take care of me if I hit rock bottom.
Maybe I’ll be strong enough to take care of friends (maybe you?) that have reached the end of their rope.
So be appalled with what may be, or live in denial for what there was, or choose to embrace a bigger me.