Perhaps,
you will not understand
what it's like to give
a valedictory speech,
or what it's like to get
a college degree,

but I will never be,
whatever I might be
if you weren't there for me.

My mind runs empty
for the words that I
wish to whisper
into you unhearing ears

Yet, I do not need
words to give you
comfort in your nights
when your enemy is your mind

I only need to hold you
with the tremble of
my calloused fingertips

I haven’t written you
poems in days,
and I feel as if
my bones are going
to break, with
all the soul I carry
within my chest

I miss you.

harder than you
would’ve thought

even when I shouldn’t
even when I haven’t gone
even when I have kept
you within the confines
of this prison cell,
held back by
a bony cage of ribs

I miss you.

and I do not know what to do
with my hands, because
you are the only thing
they want

is you, is you, is you
– it has always been

my life has always been defined
by your person, and it
has been built around you

missing you comes like
the cold gust of a November wind

…like the way coffee smells at three
in the morning, warm and comforting
but never, never enough
and missing you is like the way
my voice breaks when I tell you
i love all of you to
unhearing, useless ears

I have tried to love you,
while you loved
another.

I’ve tried making
peace, with the fact
that I will always,
always fall second
in your heart.

We are not a cliche.
We are a vicious cycle.

We fall in a dance,
that we never speak of.

I wait for you at night.
You stumble in my arms,
drunk and desperate.

We sleep through
hurried whispers in
the darkness,
fleeting fingertips
shaking terribly over
white-hot heat of skin
touching against skin, slow-dancing
with silence in lieu of music,
the sharp angles of your
hipbones and the dip
where your collarbone
meets your sternum

– all these and more,
on my lips and the way
you tear through my flesh

– only to run out
my bed when the morning
comes, to run in his arms

And he’ll meet you at the door
smelling of fresh showers
and mint toothpaste,
and summery aftershave.

He’ll ask you where you’ve been
and you’ll conjure a lie or two
about how you’ve spent the night
and the day before with your sister
or how you’ve spent the night
on your friend’s couch…

…but I am not your friend,
and you certainly didn’t spend
the night on my couch.

And in the afternoon,
I’ll see you with him, his hands
on the small of your back,
exactly just as where my
hands had been, just hours ago.

The sun sets, the night falls
and I’ll wait for you
to run to me again.

And you always do.

We’re not a cliche
We’re poison meant to ****
each other, and we’re not
supposed to mesh at all.
We’re an incurable sickness
that we both know we cannot
live without.

We’re lies and lies and lies.
Topped off with lies again and again.

We are not
empty wineglasses
left on the floor
to pick up dust or
to shatter to pieces, but we are
more of an unfinished novel
dog-eared and thrown
a thousand times across the floor
both in frustration and in anger.

We both keep
picking it up and re-reading
over and over again
even though we already know
how
   this
      story
           ends.

And **** if it isn’t my favorite.

The attic still reeks
of your sandalwood scent
and the broken floors
still groan with
your name between their
creases and their grit.

The windows still
cradle your shadows
and the walls still
whisper of your name
in the silence
of the moon’s silver light

House, is not a home.
And what are four walls, anyway?

They are as good,
as the hearts that live
inside of them.

And what if…what if,
your home that keeps your heart warm
becomes some stranger’s arms?

I once knew a girl,
who held fire in her hands
and wore her heart
upon her cheek

she closes her eyes
and sees the world in light
she dances to the silence
and there’s a glimmer in her smile

I once held her,
but she’s burning,
burning and burning
like she swallowed
the stars and the sun
and kept them
inside her chest

I once knew a girl,
who held fire in her hands
she burned my heart
and burned my hands
she cast magic spells
and burned all my lands

you’re getting married
in less than twenty-four hours

yet, here you are --
saying hello on my doorstep,
rocking on the ***** of your heels,
nervously clutching your floral skirt
like the way you did
when you're still on
first dates and first bases
sipping ***** instead
of swallowing the shots down

you talk about the towns
that you had driven through
the past two hours --
just so you could see me

but I don't
think,

that you're here
just to say hello
and talk about
the towns you've
driven by

we sit, on the flagstone
mezzanine, idle talks
flowing through pretentious lips
but always dancing, always skirting
past the things we both
know we want to talk about

but we never mention
them out loud

we eat the gravel and grit
and ashes of burnt-out loves
fill our mouths

we are both dying
to say,
what we are both dying
to hear.

it's already late,
later than I would have
allowed myself to
let you stay,

but we open a few more
bottles of beer
you still swirl your
drink in your cup,
let it slosh before you sip
on it -- you still
like to pretend it's *****
when it's just cheap beer

when the moon finally shines
over the ridge of Sierra del Fuego,
an orange coin someone
had hung in the midst
of a blackberry sky,
it beckons you to leave
for home, and you heed
the call

I wish that you hadn't,
because as much as much
as I want you for myself I,
also wish for you to be happy,
and I want you to be free
of me, of what I am -- a liability,
a constant reminder
that you must be responsible
for whatever consequence we
might bring to each other

so I remain silent,

let myself choke on the words
I would have wanted
you to hear, and I
wath you as you
drive away in a Ford,
dust exploding in a
flurry of clouds behind your tires
as it tears through the
gravel pathway that traverses
in front of my house
for the northern highway
where the thorn bush
with the pink flowers
had managed
to bloom, despite the harshness
of the soil that reside there

oh, I watch as the sun
as it travels back to the east
where it belongs!

without words, without
that grandiose score
that cues the end of the world
and the start of the apocalypse,
the world still turns and turns,
heedless of a petty heart breaking

Silence.

and the sound is loudest
when it is not heard.