You left
a white lighter
on your coffee table

so that when
we'd go back
to collect your things

from a crime scene
we had been to
countless times,

we'd know that
you died
thinking yourself

a King of Rock and Roll.

But really
you were
the prince

heir to
all the love
dad had to give,

bestowed upon
year after year
with the kind of too much faith

that only
parents
can give.

You heard
their lessons
about the world

being your oyster

but never payed
attention
to how to care

for
your
people.

You were
always
about the show,

You'd give all
the glitz
and glamour

off of your very own crown

thinking that
if love didn't sparkle
people wouldn't know it was

there.

But then
someone gave you
purple-hazed glasses

and suddenly
the world was
love in your pupils,

they flooded
your irises
with a shine

to which no amount of
family jewels
could compare.

Your eyes
had seen
radiance

and all you had
to go back to
was flaw

you saw
a life
that was hard

and surprisingly heavy
for being so
empty,

And you just
kept chasing
the smooth blues

that would never hurt your ears

or play you
the old song
of wasted potential.

Even as you wandered
popping and
repopping your ears,

our love was
dull to your
rock and roll lifestyle.

I know how much
you missed how it
was before

you got discovered by it,

eager and seething
to sink its hooks
into another good one.

Instead of
writing your own
song,

you faded
into the old
one.

And now,
I've lost word and
lyric,

melody is
ash
in my pen

because the music
wasn't in me,
dude,

it was in you.

And now the record
keeps playing
through the air,

but none
of us
want to hear it.

When you went,
you left us with
a ****** white lighter

and you took the music with you.

I have to write a paper
But I want to write a poem about you

Of course, I’ve procrastinated
On both of my tasks

It is the night before this
Deadline

Yet I still can’t come to see you
As a distraction

So I will type out
The rungs of this term paper

Queue up letter by letter
Of my passing grade

Drag my feet from thesis
To conclusion

Paying my price of admission
With time

Until I’m so close
I get hit by your flashing lights

Blue and round
Putting any barker to shame

I see them through downpour of
Pressure

And winds of
Insomnia

Knowing I’ll get there,
Get to

The Ultimate
Attraction

I hate the taste of American Spirits
But my lips crave the taste of you.

My heart was promised long ago
To a man known not by me
When I was young and he was old
and I not his Anabel Lee

I forsaken
on this path untaken
bound to wander
and Never be Free

Of the Grip I feel,
of a man who can only be half real,
to the Likes of Me.

Wherever he lay,
Deeply I pray,
He May never know of Me.

While I dream of day
And hear God say,
A Blessing and a Curse unto
Thee

To love with a love
that is more than love,
but never be allowed to utter
the treasured "we".

Glimpses of faces
Leaving the bitterest Traces
To mock and taunt the waking of me.

Searching For
the Wide Open Door
of a Home with
No Vacancy

Winter's Cold
and Summer's Scauld
Are no strangers to me.

The days drag on,
knowing this bitter song,
plays on, endlessly.

I wait for the sleep,
with a lover's cold creep,
to kiss my lips,
grab my fingertips,
and Squelch the Promise Sworn Not By Me

For I know not how long,
I can have courage and be strong
Knowing I'm not anyone's Anabel Lee

Angels feel to a devils touch,
Who could know i could feel so much,
from one so empty and dark inside?

Thought it felt so right it was truly wrong.
You entrapped me with your false love's song,
You burned away the tears I'd cry.

The imaginary love you'd give as a reward,
When I only gave and you just took more,
During our time in a fake stage of bliss.

Dying inside every lonesome day,
Pleading that it could remain this way,
Imperfectly perfect, a bittersweet kiss.

A distant memory, it only remains,
though my heart still bares the painful stains
of your loving ruse.

Now I walk away feeling stronger than before,
Ready for whatever the world has in store,
But still aware of the broken heart shaped bruise.

You broke me open like an egg
Ate my affections for breakfast
Threw the shell in the trash
No more use to you anymore

You are my “Former”
As in used to be
As in the past
As in it’s okay for you to date her
As in I don’t mind seeing her show back up in your life
As in I don’t wonder if she knows that I exist at all
As in it doesn’t crush me when I remember our beginning, not so far from our ending
As in I have had months to be okay with this
As in I don’t cry about could have been’s
As in I don’t feel stupid for thinking I could have held a candle to her
As in I didn’t really believe it when I said we could have a future even after the breakup
As in I haven’t picked apart every flaw that sits within me that I have no way of actually knowing are absent in her
As in I wasn’t really thinking that our post-breakup hook ups meant anything
As in I knew people don’t work like that anymore
As in my heart doesn’t break when I think about her kissing you
As in of course I know we said I love you too soon and we couldn’t have known what we were saying
As in it definitely is okay for you to go back with her
As in it’s not like it’s only her that bothers me
As in it’s cool that I knew this the whole time
As in I don’t care that I could hear it in your voice when your eyes glassed over the sound of her name
As in I really really really don’t mind
As in, sure, I’ll be fine, I didn’t mind being second best
Again.

I wish I could swallow your pain as my own
But it's still trapped in the tear that is stuck in the back of your eye.

Pull Me Back to the last weeks of summer
Where things were broken
But I was high off of the sun's rays
The ones from his smile.

Things weren't good

But they were pretty great.

You're not even at my door
and still
I've made a bed for you

Tis but a moment that we live, but an eternity that we feel.

Each tomorrow’s tomorrow will be a yesterday and

I hope for you that all the clouds of tomorrows and yesterdays turn to one thing.

And that is Love.

That love that you love as more than love.

The love that all boils down as the gift we’ve been given by no one knows what.

Some say God.
Some say Serendipity.
Some say Something Else.

Whatever you believe,

After all your tomorrows pass and you have only yesterdays to hold

It is the love you breed, here and now, that carries you into eternity.

Grab your share now, for one day, it may not be sitting there waiting for you to feel.

Love fully now.
And be loved fully forever.

For even if it is just us, the stars must be tired of destruction.

Cast love across the sky that even the sun feels dim against.

Create a love story that the moon bows to and the stars pay homage to.

Even if you believe that this is it.

Why would you not take what you can get?

If this is true, then it will be the all and only love you get.

And as for you believers, breed the love you will feel into your forever.

Create an echo of your eternal cry of “I LOVE YOU”

“You” being all.
“You” being the ones closest to your heart.

Let your heartbeats matter.
Let them create a soundtrack that will carry on, even after you’ve gone.

Believe in More or Not.

It doesn’t matter.

The only thing that you need to believe in

Is Love.

Cliché it may be.

But it is Love.

The bottom of the glass is second only to the view of your face.

The Problem with breaking your heart
is that you can't let it heal to someone else's frame.

I was not
The planet
Closest to you

No
Not even a planet

I was
A Moon,

Only
Close enough
To have been touched
By your light

You see,
As a moon
You live your life
Half in
Darkness

So you know
A super nova
When you’ve met one

The problem is
The stars that
Shine the brightest
Are the very same ones
That burn out
too soon

And now
Our atmosphere
Feels the emptiness

And we hope
That space
could create
A time warp ,

Another dimension

Where we could
Stay with you

Feel your brightness
Forever.

Please,
Starlight,

Know you were in so
Many celestial Orbits,

And we feel
Colder,
At our cores,
Without you,

Our vision
Has darkened.

You,
A constellation,
All on your own,

We have only
Your stardust memories
To hold

When our tears
Shoot like
Comets
Down our
Faces,

Thank you
For the wishes,
Starlight.

I hope to
Catch your
Light
In another sky
One day.

She turned on her speakers
And listened to her anthology
Of lovers sing through the air

Stop looking at yourself
as half of
an incomplete puzzle,

you are
your
own
*******
work of art,

indivisible,
and non depreciable.

When they asked if
We had gotten back together
I stuttered,
Unsure if I wanted to say
"I wish,"
Or
"Never Again,"

She looked in the mirror
And saw flecks of his broken soul inside herself

It was under the foggy inebriation
in which I saw you

With your cool undertones of confidence
that shaded in the new character

We spat cool fire back and forth,
relishing in the burn.

And so brought forth the
quick paced double-speak

When innocent glances linger
and Accidental contact is maintained.

It grows unignorable and

Through the Murky Starlight
You see slivers of intentions
that stab with an intoxicating sting.

Pairings that are all too clear,
Close in on a reality in which

Our Mouths are only just inches away

And

The air that sits between us is
but a fragile atmosphere

The kind that
we're convinced can be thinned
through your litter of affections.

And suddenly I find myself
rooting for Global Warming.

The rise and fall of our music seemed to synthesize into the light of the room. Our voices seemed to grow inside of us, padded with memories and laughter, growing full with the alcoholic nourishment, until all at once, it would bubble over into a crescendo. It was sharp and soft, harsh and tender, filling our ears with colors we had forgotten to remember in the corpse of the last few days. The staccato bite of reality brought the symphonies down to piano sobs that lulled the night into its dream. The room had a haze, golden in its familiarity, but the tune on the books was not quite right, the time signature gone. The rhythm was unsure; even the conductor pacing wildly about, looking up only to hear the echo of a waltz he once danced to in jubilee, with the promise of a life ahead. The music was now faded, on a greyscale, just like the wedding album. Only he could hear the melodies that had pulled him beyond the brink of love, under the threshold of its great fortissimi. He was content to have it play as the score to his remaining years, muffled and muddled, refusing to rest in his harmonious love affair. Unfamiliar with his own melody, his voice was shy, shaking, and broken. The audience sat, waiting to hear the sounds that could come from the maestro, straining in a beg to hear hope.

I went to pour out your bottle,
but found you had emptied it into your throat.

We sit down
At the Bar

You remark on
My posture

We order
Your favorite

Jack and
Coke

We sling
Them back

Double Shots
Burning my belly

Your eyes fill
With disbelief

I can see
The photographs flash

In front of
You

School Pictures
Prom Photos

Graduation
Shots

All Stacked up
Underneath this very

Bar-
Stool

My eyes roll
Away from sentimentality

Laughing it
Off


I order
Two more

I can hear you
Tell me to

Slow
Down

As if
Recorded into

A Broken
Record

Even now
I’m still

Your Baby
Sister

As My
Vision Doubles

Your Smile
Remains

As One

Though
your voice

Seems to grow
Faint

My throat begins
To burn

Feeling myself
Crying out

Over a space
Much more vast

Than the distance
Between

Our two
Barstools

Before I misplace
Myself Completely

You
Catch me

Your other Half
Your little twin

I will
Not be

Doubled
Over

We are
Celebrating

This
Birthday

As I blink
To see you

Through
My blear

I see you
Preparing

To
go

Mirroring my moves
To put me at ease

But your
Cheeks

Have lost
Dimension

Your color
No longer

Changes in
The light

You pull your
Hands away

Not wanting to
Make me

Cold

Insisting I’m
Warm

My clammy
Palms

Push
Forward

Just in
Time

To
Catch

That
Paper

Wafting
Down

I ****** it
Up

Staring at
Your smile

That always
Did

Photograph
Well

Flipping it
Over

I tried to
Remember

When you had
Signed

This photo
You could never

Have known
About

I refuse
The answer

Wary of the lies
You will believe  

When you
Split drinks

With A Memory.

I think I need to work on my
Enunciation
Because every time I say
“I Love You”
It seems to come out as
“Good Bye”

Every Second Away From You

is

Time Wasted.

Don't worry about making excuses,
I've already done it for you.

Today I went on a treasure hunt.
Not in search of one-eyed *****
Or
A new life for myself,
But rather
The old one.
Not for the sake of nostalgia
Was my search,
But for a poem.
The words of someone else
That you thoroughly believed
Carried your heart
Into my own ears.
But I was deaf back then.
Before I developed my selective hearing,
Insisting on my revelation miracle.
Until I
Limited my ears
Only to hear
Your lamentations and tongue-lashings;
Before I chose to
Blind myself
To the
Kindness
Hidden behind your fear.
In our prehistory,
You sent me
A piece of your heart,
Still sopping with heartbreak
Beating with rejection.
You sent me
Someone else’s poem
And now I wonder,
If you knew
You were planting a seed
That when watered,
With months of silence and
Countless looks that passed right through,
Would grow into a beanstalk
That I would climb
To reach back into
Our
Brothers Grimm Love Affair.
With no happy ending in sight
I stepped higher,
Knowing what turmoil I had left
Above.
I awaited the curses we cast
And the wishes we wasted
And I was poised for war;
With my armor coated,
Repellent of
Sarcasm and aggression,
I marched back to look at our battlefield
Ready as any warrior.
I was not ready, though, for memories
That looked as appealing
As Prince Charming,
With the face of
A queen.
No, my love
We did not have a
Happily ever after
But, our
Once upon a time
Wasn't half so wretched.
We were the
Fairytale in reverse.
Meeting at the ball,
In all our glory.
Leaving breadcrumbs
Back to the life that was familiar;
The ones that we didn't realize
We were running away from.
But at the ball,
Looking more beautiful
Than any princess in all of the land,
I met you
On your throne,
Refusing to Rise
In all your queen-like splendor,
Hearing from my
Little bird
That you would request
My presence.
I, your humble maiden,
Approached with
The caution of
A girl who only had
One shoe,
Breaking under the weight of memory.
And while you
Were offering me riches,
I was playing
Goldilocks,
Trying to find the home
That was just right
To rest my heart.
Little did I know
That I had bumped into Rumpelstiltskin,
Thinking he was gold
Luring me away
With me thinking
My heart was sold.
Only now
After I found
That gold weighs
Far too heavy
On someone
Who's only just grown wings
Is it that I find the moral of this story.
And so,
As I gaze at you,
With your now fair maiden
I say a solemn
“Thank you”,
For sending
Your love letter
In another's handwriting,
Because,
Although I never struck it rich,
I realize that the treasure was not in the
Happily ever after,
After all,
But all the magic
In Between.

I feel I go in slow motion
Until
My brain has
Fast Forwarded
myself into
beyond the end of my life.
The eternity that haunts
my beating heart.

I just can't fathom the idea that one day's "Just not in a talking mood" expanded into two weeks of heartbroken silence

As I remember how her lips felt as they plowed through the barriers of my insisted claims of heterosexuality I cannot help but think,
without falter...

wow

okay,
but this isn't why I'm a feminist.

My attachment to her,
my fellow female,
member of my legion,
has nothing to do with
my squinting eyes
at the
blinking neon signs of
inequality
that hangs about all of our heads every day

As I see your texts flash across my scene,
I notice how those letters
don’t look like they’re holding up your world.
They don’t look like they’re trapped on a single page of a hometown small atlas,
far away from any oceans.
As the first leashed fish I’ve ever seen,
I can see you tearing at your shrinking collar,
never having needed claws before.
Finding yourself belly up,
Accustomed to suffocating
On behalf of the guppies running from
Their own sharks.
I wonder if they know that they put their blood on you,
Making you smell like a prime target
For demons and sharks alike.
Hoping if you swim this way
And that
You’ll create a whirlpool,
Big enough, small enough,
Enough,
In your longer than expected attention span,
Hoping that the funnel might drag away their sharks,
But now you find it was not the demons,
But they who didn’t know how to swim,
And you
Struggling to teach what is innate to you,
Finding you’ve made your own endless funnel,
Drowning in the water that taught you to breathe.

Everything that once was so simple, now all seems so lost to me.
Lost to the world that fought me.
I feel my words blurring together with a broken jaw type of numbness.
It feels like my thoughts were beaten from my lips from the inside out.
I can still feel the burns of thoughts unsaid. I miss when times were tangible and things were nailed down.
But now my life feels like water.
Violent like the tides, dragging me out into a place where I don’t know how to swim.
It’s the words that I don’t know how to place that fill my lungs with every choking breath.
I’m in life too deep to get out now.
I’m imbedded, addicted.
Fastened to this current.
Like the van der waals force of my heart beating.
My lips tragically crave the taste of air and my heart painfully keeps the rhythm.
Step Step Step Step.
“Let’s go on,” my feet say in agreement with my heart.
The tears drag down and even they demand to be felt.
No parts of me want to go, but they all beat down on me demanding that I supply them with more energy to live.
I grow weak and hobble at my knees and wonder, “When will this addiction end?
When will I get some rest?” and just like that I’m gone.  
Not fighting the current, just floating.
Not swimming, just floating.
Not quite drowning,
but still,
only floating.

My heart breaks
Quietly
Miles away
As you fall asleep
Without me

Yesterday was your birthday

All day, my hands weighed me down

With the itch to text you to wish you a good day
With the need to grip a steering wheel, navigating me to your house
With the idleness feeling sinful as I wasn’t baking you confetti cake
With the feeling of being misplaced against anything that wasn’t your skin

To keep my hands busy I piled memory into a grinder
And
Ground
Ground
Ground

Turned the parts as if I was winding up a music box
Because this sound was full
In comparison to
The pit of my stomach that was still waiting to
Share your birthday cupcakes with you

When the flashbacks filtered into my brain
The high was pulled lower still
By the weight of my hands
So that all I could do was cross them
And pray a prayer worth all of the birthday gifts I’ve ever given

“Please, God, on this day make him forget himself.

Please, God, let him find a sweet tooth for things other than the melancholic poison he puts in his coffee

Please, God, let him not remember the time when he broke open too wide and let me slip out of him

Please, God, allow him to feel something, on this birthday, even if it’s just his birthday candle blisters

Please, God, give him his heart back, as it is buried in the past that I was never gifted to know

Please, God, let me not weigh him down with a guilt seed that would root him to a chapter in his life that he wishes he could rewrite

Please, God, let me stop dreaming of him.
I know what it means when I dream of someone.
I know it’s your way of wordlessly telling me I’m being thought of.
Do not let him think of me.


Please, God, fill the parts of him that his worker’s hands have carved out of himself so cleanly.

Visit the wounds that sit in his posture
Will his veins to carry his soul back to his heart

Remind him that his sadness is his own special brew
That he continues to sip at his leisure

Help him understand that feeling lonely
Comes from his own brain that remembers isolation better than love

Please, God, give him
A better year.
A good year.
A year when his time won’t be stolen by someone so insignificant
That he has to translate her words into the language of gibberish,
Until they mean nothing at all anymore.

Please, let him find someone.
Please, let that person captivate him.
Please, let that person know him.
Please, let that person sit in bed with him and feel their good fortune in their bones.
Please, let that person see the moon in his fingertips and realize that they can control the tides, if he wants them too.
Please, let him smile at this person, in ways that would be ugly in pictures, but beautiful in my memory.

Please, God, let that person be HIM.

Please, God, if you won’t cut the ribbon to the start of his new life, at least give him the scissors.

He will say “No, Thank you.”
He will say he does not need your help, because he knows the power of his paint brush,
and that he is too busy washing color out of his brushes to take hold of the harsh metal,
And then he will make confetti of your offer.
He will shred every pleasant thought that comes his way.
He will cut himself open and gaze at every beautiful thing, insisting he sees the wonder.
He will not see the wonder.
He will say he understands the things that live inside himself.
But he will turn their volume down
And tune deeply into the metallic music of sorrowful hollowness
He will go to extreme efforts to ignore the starting line that sits just outside of his comfort zone.

But, God, Please,
Send the trees to trip him
Make the animals chase him
Let him
Throw tantrums that are disguised as the silent treatment

But wrap him up in his ribbon, so that the only way he can move
Is forward.
Remind him that the scissors are always in his hand,
And he needs to learn that
They need not destroy.

Make the clouds rain on his new life,
And remind him that he has a knack for watercolors.

Lure him with oils
Guide him with spraypaint

This Year, show him the paint that
Will reteach color to him.

This year, let him understand that colors are bright,
But not the enemy.

Let him not fear red from the times that he bled,
Let him not cast away yellow, because the sun got in his eyes,
Let him not hate blue, because he almost drowned.

Build in him a reservoir for happiness, that could sustain him through this life that has already been too tragic.

God, on his birthday, please indulge these heavy hands so that they may not cross the fingers for his return,

Because God, it was not I who was born today,
And it was not me who was stiffed on birthday cake.

And though this prayer is selfish,
It is the only thing I can give him,
That he cannot refuse.”

And as I looked down to see my clasped hands, I couldn’t help remember
When one of them was yours.

And for my final birthday wish to you ,
I hoped that only your sleep
Could be relieved of the white knuckle tensions of restlessness

So that you may sleep, and know the peace that I felt,
When I slept next to you.



Happy Birthday,
I miss you.
Happy Birthday,
I’m sorry.
Happy Birthday,
This is selfish,
But Happy Birthday,
So were you.

We knew it wasn’t over
Because our eyes
Always found
Eachother’s
Before they hid
In the cinderblock
Across the room.

I was trying to teach you how to feel again,
But you just taught me how to be numb.

People say I've lost weight
but it's just that
I'm only hungry for
You

I just don’t know how to be alone.
All I find comfort in seems to be that too clear liquid
that smells
too much like rubbing alcohol,
but tastes
like relief in a bottle.
It burns down my throat
but it feels like a heaven
I didn’t have to die to get to.
It’s peace in a place of chaos.
A pool in the midst of summer’s fire.

I'm embarrassed to admit I miss you.
I'm embarrassed to admit I love you.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I see your face in people everywhere.
I'm embarrassed to admit I'd gamble my life on the ability to grow up with you.
I'm embarrassed to admit I'll never be the right lover.
I'm embarrassed to admit I need you.

I grow weary of crafting words that are spun together
feeling as if there is a beauty spurting from my pain
because the words are still marching from your wellspring
and they're saturated in your sticky intoxication
It forces me to taste the sour fact that
the fire you set to my life still burns
and decimates ties strewn out of feeble love attempts
No matter the count of the condemnations of our life
you still dwell inside of my every word
and all of my metaphors
My vocabulary is limited to you and
you drag me below the pool of new words waiting on the surface
So I rewrite the same sentiments that play between
self loathing
heartbreak
and love

Write where you want me.

Up at 2 AM
After hours of a sleep with no rest
Because even in my dreams
I can hear the absence of you

She took my voice and split it in half
Found the the closest body and laid my
Template over someone else's chords,

So now,

When I roar laughter at good timing
She is fed only half of her fill

She looks away quickly
She turns away hungry

You'll never say
"I love you"
Just like
I'll never say
"I'm Happy."

Because our words are bullets
And
Neither of us
Can handle
The recoil

What if
Our lives
Aren't
Bulletproof

These thoughts
Will rip through
Their centers

Exploding
Outward
Downward

Shattering our Foundations

Making us fragile

And we will fall.

Our best hope
Being that the wind
Blows us
Into each other

Standing

Ambivalent
From
Death

But the winds
Are breaths
Of
Our demons

And they
Only
Breath for destruction

They are
Dragons of Warfare

So we sit
In our
Ceasefire

Wondering
How long
We can
Hold down
The fort

Treading on
Unmarked territory

We try
To watch
For ***** traps,
But they lay on
Places most beautiful

And I can't help
But aid the
Enemy,

Revealing
The chinks
In my armour
As I attempt
To nuzzle my way
Into yours.

But it is in
The dead of night
That your enemies
Come,

Monsters
Filter your dreams
To darken
Even the
Lightest peace.

Your demons know
How to
Push you
Past
Where you thought
You could go
To a place
That looks
Too much
Like a haven.

They can
Turn your
Own words
On you

And make you
Feel like
you are on
A suicide mission

Their voices
Whisper
So clearly

"What am I even fighting for?"

And suddenly
No cause
Seems worthy enough

And you
Lay down your arms
Because

This is not your first time at war.

You know these trenches.

You feel the shrapnel
Ringing out
Through your bones

And in these
last moments
Of
Utter Defeat

You think
To yourself
How you would
Give
your
life

To go back
And
Release the Trigger

Because
How could
This fight
Be worth
The limbs
And
Hearts
You've broken?

So I stand
Before you

At
full attention
Swallowing
My bullets.

I
Am
Not
Scared
Of
War,

But yours
Is a casualty
I cannot dismiss.

And though
I believe myself
A Revolutionary

I am
Choosing
To
Pick my battles,

Which proves
To be
My civil war

Defying myself
For my
Adopted Cause.

Before,
I could not decide
If I was
A lover
Or
A soldier

And now
I've found
You've
made
me
Both

A paradox
Similar enough
To

I'm not happy
Like
You don't love me

It’s my fault
I shouldn’t have found meaning in anything
I shouldn’t have believed any of your words that could implant hope
I shouldn’t have thought that you driving two hours to pick me up meant anything
I shouldn’t have seen any significance in your kiss
I shouldn’t have believed that sleeping together meant something
I shouldn’t have thought that you holding my hand meant anything
I shouldn’t have thought your telling me a happy ending to a story similar to ours meant love.
I shouldn’t have hoped that you would defy the world around us
I shouldn’t have trusted your words that said I was the only one you wanted to see
I shouldn’t have believed your honest eyes
I shouldn’t have thought you meant it when you said you missed me
I shouldn’t have been surprised when you ignored me
I shouldn’t have done any of these things
And I knew better
But it doesn’t change that my heart is breaking worthy of the Richter scale
And I shouldn’t let my world crumble before me, but
This feels like a force of nature under which I will be crushed.

I have Scratched your name
into my Calendar

Your name sits on the lined of my diary
poised for consistent use

At what point did you become
so natural to me

So that when I said your name,
it tasted like nostalgia and hope

and the Cool Fire of our words
warms me to contentment

It wasn't until you spoke and
I smiled

That I knew I missed you when you
were gone

But how can I miss you
When you're only an hour away

Still
I'm regretting the wasted July Mornings

When my nerves swallowed up the sentiments that said
that I think of you sometime, even when you aren't around

It sounds frivolous to say that I'd hope for events
that would draw your lens near

But now I'm budgeting you into my time
and Just hope that it's not wasted

The effort it takes to write these sentiments down is
Nearly incomparable to that effort which must be taken

to Remind the heart on my Sleeve to stay put
and not seep into that vein that will Surely carry dreams across my body

The word that I could entitle
Perfect

And since that word is unattainable here

I'll only say all the others  

You're that feeling right after a pull
And you feel yourself slip under the friendly drowse

You're that feeling when you feel a set of eyes on your
blushing cheeks

You're the laughter of
a clever retort

You're a Melody thats gives spirit to my word

You're that fire that burns with
a bravery that you cannot see

You're that ticking clock, there to remind me
that Time is Precious

and Soon I hate that circled square on the
Calendar
&
I pray that that circle does not act as a deadline
for when your heart can be
mine

Because I like the sweetness of our fresh beginnings
And I do hope I may call it a beginning

Instead of a short story.

I'm all over the clock,
Yearning for more firsts with you

But even still, hoping for a second or 12.

And some first that could count
in a way that didn't get chalked up to

Naive Sentiments

Meaning I want you too much
And My head is rushing

Hours into this Instant.

Fast Forwarding to our Next Kiss

Sending me on a Clockwise Whirlwind
to times that may not even exist

But I still hope and Gamble
for More hours to play

Procrastinating the Seconds into convincing us all

That It's Casual

It is not Casual, to me.

I wonder if when Thomas Jefferson scrawled out the Declaration he could see the world that I have come to know.

I wonder if he would understand the nation that would blossom from under his inflammatory words.

Would he know that the world would never be so simple as black and white if only because a racial lawsuit might come from it?

Would he see the world burn up in a digital fire that no nostalgia would ever be able to quench?

Would he know the society that would simultaneously spew rantings of "You're special" and "You are never going to be right enough to live here"?

How about that war that taught the people that it's okay to hate those who fight so that you can love another day?

Or even the world that has severed so deeply within its own walls that you can only hold on to you hearts and hope that might not be severed too?

I wonder what this man could have been declaring so seriously that he would send men to war for it, just to have the papers he and his dear friends were writing on be the shield that politicians might use to prevent their fallout.

Freedom is not objective. And Subjectively speaking, this freedom we've been given comes with about ten thousand terms and conditions that none of us are going to read anyway because this is Amurica and we don't do that here.

There was a tale of three.

A he, a she, and a me.

He had eyes,
Projector screens,
Reflecting the films you play in your head.

She, a Hollywood queen,
Hair as gold as her heart,
A sucker for romance,
Caught by his flashbulb smile.

Me, the screenwriter,
Knowing the business enough
To recognize the mechanics
Behind the greatest actor
In the world.

Award winning half truths
That I could swear were written by me
Find their other halves
Written in starlight
Shooting from the mouth of he,

The lifetime achievement of
She
Limited to their happily ever after.

Me, playing back over footage
Replaying the scene unfolding between them,
Trying to hear a romantic score,

But rather being bored
By the actor's lazy gestures,
Me, being deafened by the silence
Of this pantomime.

She, while skilled at book work,
Had simply been miscast
By he, who had not yet planned his end scene.

There is a temptation within Me,
To write myself into her part,
But I know,
This show is not about me.

She was not the wrong actress,
Just simply playing a part
Diverting from action.

She froze the plot,
So they existed as pictures,
Perfect in pixels,
Worth a thousand words,

Only no one would ever speak them,
Potential untapped.

I gaze at the screen,
Drifting to sleep in boredom

Being woken at any sign
of the screen going
Dark,

Only to have their starlight,
Lull me back
Into the writer's dream.

I struggle writing poems of admiration
because every man has stung me
with his loving hand.

Do not stay with anyone
who makes you feel like
anything less than a
cataclysm
of the most beautiful
natural disasters
to ever occur.