Instead of trying
to stigmatize
perhaps you should
prioritize
and realize that
everyone flinches from
pain and for some people
life hurts so ******* much
that flinching out of existence
seems to be the only option
and instead of trying
to minimize
perhaps you should be trying
to sympathize
and it doesn't matter
if nobody was there
for you during the
bad times
that you pretend didn't
happen
because withholding
your compassion from
those who need it most
is the worst sort of death
you can inflict
and there's no
justifying it.

A universally known rule of science states that if you heat something up, if you get it hot enough, it will melt. The same goes for the heart. Once it tastes love, tastes the sweet burning of passion, it will begin to crack and change it's shape. You poured over my heart, smothering it in burning love, dousing it in simmering care, heating it further than I ever imagined it could go. My heart melted, all my walls and insecurities, my doubts and worries melting with it. And then you were gone. You were gone and you took everything with you, leaving a mangled, deformed shape covered in soot and sorrow, barely reminiscent of a heart behind. You burned hot and fast, and you left a path of destruction in your wake. You destroyed my heart with your fire. You melted me beyond recognition. But if you melted me with the inferno that is your being, does that mean if I grow cold, if I freeze my heart, it will reform? If I coat it in ice, will it stop hurting? If I cover it in stone will it finally remain whole? If I bury it miles beneath soil and mountain, will it ever be found again? I don't know. But I'm ok with not knowing because I don't know if I ever want it to be found again anyways.

Waking up
to the taste of blood
and a shooting pain
in my side
which is now the norm
and I dont know what's
coming next since
I hadn't planned
to have made it this
far
but
things are going pretty well.

Some things in my life
will never be transferred
to poetry
because they were
only pain
and nothing more.

Don't write home about
me
I can never live up to
the expectations
put forth in abstract
poetry.
How do you expect me
to be a waterfall
when I can barely
get out of bed some
mornings?
I don't move mountains.
I am not a mountain.
I am not what you need
me to be.
I am only that which
will enable me to survive.

She was the kind of woman
who would light
candles
only to blow them out
because she knew that the
wafting smoke
made her look mysterious
and I
a fool
who likes concepts
more than dealing with people
allowed myself to be enveloped
until the secondhand smoke
made it hard to breathe
and I couldn't see anything
anymore
and all I could hear
was the flick flick
of a lighter that
had run out of fuel.

We took turns
placing headphones
on each other and
plugging them into
our hearts in hopes
that we would be able
to hear all the things
we should have said

She is a beam
of light
whose radiance
strikes my eyes
and wakes me up
in the morning
and being awake next to her
is much more exciting
than being ensconced
in my dreams.

It’s 1:22 am
and I’m sitting on the
patio furniture
of the restaurant above
which I live
and I can see a bar
down the road with
a regal sounding name
and we’re nearing
bar time
when all dreams end
and a lady comes out
stumbling
and loudly yelling to her friend
points at me
“What’s he doing?”
“What are you doing?”
and I wave and say
“Come over here!
I’ll write you a poem!”
and she hesitates
for a split second
and decides that
a buzzed ride home
would be less dangerous
than a conversation with
a stranger in the middle
of the night and a free
poem
but all poetry is free
and maybe she knew this
and I had fooled myself
by assuming my
words
would enrich her night.