warrior by day and writer by night
the machinations of your mind
be my heart’s delight
so give me eloquence if you wish to ****** me
reticence should you wish to repel
for a lover with smart sweet words
is keen to put me under his spell.

you can find my head in the clouds if you look up the residences of bored angels who have made us pawns in their games

you can find my heart under the faucet, i've rinsed it already and it's nearly done drying if not for the occasional drip here and there,
but hush your mouth because it's progress, it's migrated from the hamper where you tossed your sweater after you realized you wanted to get "that piece of dirt" off your sleeve

you can find my soul when you shut your eyes and take a walk through the city in your mind, tracing our ghostly footsteps,
the pedometer refuses to start on the grounds of how impossible that number seems

you can find the rest of me every time you break off eye contact because you don't really want to have that tedious conversation,
in old letters
in music
in lonely 2 ams
in frustrations
in the leftover spaces your distractions and routines don't quite fill.

it's ok because i'm sure i'll reach out for you too somehow,
there has to be a yellowpages lying around my house somewhere.

while waiting for the next girl in barnes & noble you can pull out an anatomy book and trace my bones like you wish you could have done before when it was still a viable option
you inched her name into our conversations because it tasted like honey and devil's food cake on your tongue, looked away when i begged for answers
left me writing you letters you never read and calling your name and wishing you good morning like the good girl i wanted to be even though i’d grown so weak
behind your frames who did you see when you saw me? i want to know, i want to know if the guy before saw the same wide-eyed half-smiling half-crying picture of naivety
i hate sensing patterns
you knew
you knew
you knew
but you did it anyway
i knew
i knew
i knew
the ending very well
and i let it happen anyway as if i didn’t know any better
i kept waiting for the broken traffic light to change.
i shivered because my cardigan was too thin,
high-low chiffon skirt pulling an unwanted marilyn and sending chills as i stepped onto the platform,
phone in my hand at 63%, got texts from everybody but you
body trembling on the walk home under the moonless sky.
from now on trusting is going to feel like an olympic sport
i've never been that athletically adept but i'll learn to pole vault the hell away next time when i see the signs loud and flagrant.
third time's the charm right?

I'm just your regular girl
I grow tired every now and then
Sometimes I get up when I've fallen
Sometimes I stay down and play pretend

A little game of forced smiles
And holding in the things they've said
A little game of hide and seek
Between my itching skin
And the monsters in my head

I'm always used to this
C'mon now, I play this everyday
But no matter how many times I've tried
I always lose
And, Losers get a hold of the blade

Funny isn't it?
How you thought you could enjoy such games
Lose or win, I get to play the survivor
With a couple of overlapping scars and spaces
And chances of playing another game
Of Pretend

n.j.

The truth of it is-

he's not going to fix you

she's not going to make you forget
the way your father would hit you

He is not going to make your collarbones sprout roses
He will not make you forget how to need

The truth of it is-

She is not a savior
She is not able to fight off the demons in your dreams

He will not make you forget the way your mother left
The bloodstains in the bathtub will still be there

The truth of it is-
This is your life
This is not a movie

No one is going to swoop in and save you

You will have to grow your own wings if you want to fly away

"God is love."
Is He?
Because according to God,
the love I feel is a sin.
It's wrong to feel so loved.
Is God love when I write love poems for another woman?
When she holds my hand,
is He love then?
An understanding God accepts all love.
Is God love?