There is the woman
with reddened lips
her eyes are
little-black-dress-worthy
but the sequins on her jacket say
hello,
a beautiful, inebriated,
cherry-wine scented hello.

That folky
stone faced kid
makes potato-lentil soup
and he could
blow your mind
not because of the soup though,
that part tastes like dirt.

That girl wearing
a collared shirt
and thick dark glasses,
she is the human manifestation
of the other side of your pillow,
and she has no idea.

The ginger kid
understands more about
people than you
ever will,
which is how he was able
to make you shoot wine
out of your nose
that one time.

And the guy with the
scruffy beard
and the microphone
-well, he breaths funny
but the stagnation
in his voice makes
his poetry sound like
really
gentle ***,
every syllable
nibbling
at your inner thighs.  

And while you'r being whispered
into this false sense of security
theres a grumble
seeping
through the floor boards
from the guy in the shadow
with warm honey
in his voice,
and he doesn't pretend
to be free,
like the rest of us.

snowman-flesh flutters across the threshold
melting into the Jack-o-Lantern-Welcome-Mat
disappearing faster than its supposed to;
the door closes by an auto-piloted-hand
while the other tugs at tangled earbud chords
the little white knobs are dislodged, interrupting
that song she has listened to 14 times today
because when she falls in love with a song,
she falls into each note and memorizes
                                         every single breath.

When did "whats up?" become such a difficult question?

There will always be someone's pain that you don't understand.

you're the kind of man
who can take in pulp fiction
the first time around

I wish to be set ablaze and reborn from my own ashes
not only to start over, but so that the old me
can be as forgotten as the soot, lining chimney walls.
They say burning to death is the most painful way to die
yet still I fantasize about it, being encased in a pyre like cocoon.
yearning, like a caterpillar
for the solitary weeks in its own personal prison
knowing that weeks of whitewashed walls
will lead to open doors over flowing with brilliant color
But unlike a caterpillar, my current life is not black and white
I can not prepare to start over by hiding
So I look for all of the ways to ignite
I start with my outsides
the polish on my toe nails,
the perfume that leaves my skin smelling slightly
more like antiseptic than vanilla,
my hair spray coated curls -
its all flammable
But it does not work,
the new me will not be kindled by the light
reflecting on retinas of strangers or friends
So I move inward
looking for change in the bottom of a shot glass
swallowing hard, I down enough whiskey to
make a grown man cringe
my blood and even breath become combustable
but still nothing, so I try to force the flame in
Inhaling smoke, exhaling my good decisions
the capillaries in my lungs scream
but I breath deeper, pull harder, bringing the ember
on the end of the joint closer to my lips
They are still moistened by the liquor
surely there is enough alcohol to catch fire
Still my efforts leave me frozen,
So I try to submerge myself into heat
I become a heat seeking missile
desperate for a warm body to cling to
I retreat to sweat soaked basements of frat houses
pressing myself into generic nameless men
hoping that, if I can't absorb their warmth,
I can at least use them to fill up the holes in my plan  
But the friction of skin on skin, hands on thighs,
warm breath on my neck,
it still isn't enough.
The kind of heat I need can't be found
in a bottle or on the lips of a stranger
or beneath the dusty floorboards of this city.
I don't know where I will find it,
and I don't know how long it will take,
but I do know one thing,
I will be incendiary.
All it takes is a spark.

I never intended to write this poem
It sort of wrote itself
forced its way around the walls of my mind
making itself comfortable
never taking off it's shoes
leaving muddy footprints on every memory.

Salt, pure and unrefined, has been a cure for wounds for centuries.
So I will let the tears pour out like rain
I will let them wash over me
wash away every footprint
The waves of tears will wash away the evidence,
like an ocean repaving sand.
I will be new again
And in time, someone will fill your place.
The spaces between my fingers will be filled by someone
someone a lot like you,
because thats what a girl like me is supposed to do, right?
Look for my father in other men
Crave that love from someone else
And when my judgement of a real man is based on who you were,
and they break my heart too
we can just chalk it up to a text-book case of
that girl with "Daddy Issues" right?

Maybe we are meant
to have different beliefs
spice it up, baby.

brush your teeth
when he says he enjoys your company
gargle those words
extract all of the salt from them
let it do what oceans do
let them eb and flow
between your lips and the exit
and when the sun goes down,
get into your car and drive
because you don’t live here
you can’t build a rocking horse in the sand
i mean, you could
but you shouldn’t
don’t fool yourself into believing
that he can actually see you
just because he remembers
your favorite scarf
he will not see you
until he takes off her glasses
and when he pulls you closer
use his grip to contain your disappointment
do not allow resentment to cloud
the crystal through which you look
to see the inner circles of your own happiness
and when the cerulean-jay flutters your hair
pull up your socks
and step into the puddles
knowing that there will always be
someone offering you a warmer pair.

she has thumb prints from where
the I-told-you-so took hold
of the roadmaps on her hips

between the sweat and the bass
he could barely tell that her pulse
was exploding beneath her skin
and all of the closed mouth kissing
made her feel slightly less young
                         as if she could outgrow this
the salt-soaked-pillow-case-mornings
the way cheap eyeliner smudges
into a perfect 2am shadow that lasts til noon
                                as if she could outgrow
mac-n-cheese and pancakes absorbing
the residual wine that her body has learned
to hold when she can't feel her lips anymore

because not even tiger striped hips
can stifle the hope that bubbles
up to her shoulders when the guy
with strong hands and a fickle heart
and an I-told-you-so-smile
sends lightening up her spine.

I must be doing
something wrong because I know
nothing about love.

my hobbies include
counting butterfly toes and
******* lesbians.

he's got strong hands and a fickle heart
she's been waiting for him to catch up
he was all look and no leap
until the salt soaked into his lips
and he fell in love with the
taste of language
and her hair grew out
past the knobby part of her shoulders
so he couldn't lean there anymore
but if you close your right eye
and then your left,
They were pretty much the same person.

Never the knee
because god forbid
your thighs melted together
and then the men in toupees
wouldn't be able to stake their claim.

What do you write
when the what-ifs
are heavy handed
and the I-told-you-sos
taste like asphalt?

What kind of warning signs were you expecting?
     Would she pour her mistakes
         into a crystal dish
            and set them before you?
Would she hang makeup stained
    pillow cases out of her window
        each morning?
Would she break skin
     below the hem lines
        with the hope
            that you would notice?
We don't often get
    the warning signs
       that our eyes are trained to see.
We don't get warning signs at all.
     we get wake up calls
we get fists full of cold pills
seen from under the bathroom stall.
We get to make phone calls
with seconds to spare.
We get to shake so violently
that our hands forget they are hands.
We get to answer seemingly
unimportant questions
to dispatchers who hear this
       all the time.
We get to wonder
if survival instincts are real.

We get to wonder
why anyone  anywhere
would ever name their daughter
                 Rosemary.