“It’s not you, it’s me” they say, laced with *******, faces towards the wall, mumbled under breath and over satellite cell phone waves.
     “I wouldn’t care if it was,” to myself, a breeze to say the half-truth, shrugged shoulders, bitterness in the air
     I’ve never been the kind who cares
I’m supposed to let things go as easily as they were found.

Fate has failed me
once again
as March comes
marching back

"now's not
the time"
she says

and I am forced
to move forward
with the weight
of the past's mistakes
still on
my shoulders

the pedestal
on which he rests
remains across the lakes
atop the fruited plains
of the midwest

he is unwilling to share
with the East Coast brat;
the blonde who has made
a home in my chest

he complains, yet makes no push
to topple the boy over
and take over the nest

I ask myself now:
hundreds of miles over
four blurry years
what fight is left?

Do not give to those who only seem to take.
One day you will want something in exchange.
(They will be unable to provide.)
You'll be left stripped bare, to the bone
while they hoard what you want most,
whether it's the muscle in your chest
or your secrets that they kept.

I am a young adult.
I left behind the years of:
the same faces every day,
phone calls every night,
crawling through open windows
in the summertime.

As the years keep concluding,
each faster than the last,
I ask myself after a bottle of
cheap wine:
Would I ever go back to that time?

a joyous occasion.

don't act too much like yourself,
men might not like that.
don't approach him first,
you don't want to come off too strong.
wait patiently, but don't sit around,
have the power, but not too much of it,
don't be a pushover, but don't shout too loud.
don't text him first, don't pay for your own meal,
wait and wait some more, because if he likes you,
it's all on him.
we're powerless to make a change,
get labeled 'crazy' when we initiate things;
called a '*****' when we love to ****,
wearing no makeup makes us ugly
and wearing too much makes us *****.

what a beautiful way for society to reward us
for bearing their babies--if we want--
but wouldn't you? because women are
meant to be mothers, meant to stay at home,
meant to nourish and look pretty
while husbands are at work.

find a man who loves you,
but only if he admits it first...

I want to feel in love again,
I want the comfort of it all.
I want to rest my head in the lap
of a new man
and smile, happy that the first
was not the last.

I am the gaping hole in your heart
you pour your insecurities into
full-force, I am your canyon.

I am the one you want when
you don't know what it is you want,
and I am to the brim
with your own past

And I still come back with my
Addiction for affection because
I need to keep the void
filled until I can't remember
what my own baggage is for

when one door closes
it doesn't all the way
it is cracked open
in case you want me to
come in and stay
for now I can peek in
and see straight through
to the inner version of you
you can put on a mask
and play the part
but you're the same
as you always were
and until we push it closed
I'll peer into
the door of truth and
she will be the one who's fooled

I have more than pieces of you.

I own chunks
and hoard them among
my own demons.

You have yourself under control,
masked by a smoky layer
of ****

Yet I am a puppet of my own

I am not a dog,
do not shorten my leash.

I am not a calm blue sea,  
do not sail over me.

I am not a sidewalk,
do not step with your feet.

I am a girl
waiting for no one,
hoping for someone
to understand I am free.

There are more important things than the way I was at fifteen.

That was when I cried over sweatshirts and said obnoxious things.

The days I let you take my insecurities and throw them back at me.

Back then I'd beg and plead with you to keep me in your dreams.

Now there is nothing left but for me to understand you crushed me

And I have long since sewn up the seams.

Swimming away from me. In a sea of broken promises, endless hurt, blood and black and blue. Turn the key and lock the door, throw it to the floor. Cry some more. Towards the open ocean, towards the choice you’ve chosen. I’ll never find you, not here, not there. And I’ve nothing left to give but a bitter grin. I’ll find the color jade and make it in my own way. Sharp and jagged edge to deter anyone else from half-assed attempts to sew the pieces back together and make me whole again

Made it to the edge of the end zone and
I trip over my own insecurities
Can't get back up as the time runs out
I am a one-woman team and
he's far behind
teetering on the 50 yard line
Asking himself: Is it worth it
to try to win this one?
His own answer is in the
timer buzzing and he
forfeits the game,
leaving me back at square one
staring at the leader boards
heart drained of all fight
questioning why I couldn't
make the right plays this game.

I must be my own top player
until someone steps up to plate

the Green-Eyed Monster,
sit down with a box of popcorn
in my mind to mentally watch
the person I truly loved
nuzzle his blonde head
into a new woman's breast

yet here I lie, in reality,
outside of my own
jealous fantasies,
with my face buried
in another man's chest

I won't call it even until I know the story's rest

I ruined you.
I touched your skin,
it burned right through.
Took from you
what you won't get back,
from the first moment
I kissed your lips in bed,
to the last fight at
the summer's end.
No one will take back
two years for you.
Dark greens sear straight through your blues
as you eye me once more
through a changed view.

Maybe you should focus less on my actions
and instead, reconsider yours.
It takes two people to **** everything up.

i don’t miss you, but i miss simplicity.
i miss being held, i miss being cared about.
nobody does that anymore,
nobody cares to make sure i’m okay.
my friends do, but it isn’t the same;
they can be there for me, but not in the same way.
for the first time i have no one but myself,
and if i want you in my life again eventually,
i’ve got to learn to take my own advice;
“sometimes, in order for someone to be in your life
later on, you have to let them go right now.”
italic i’ve never been good at listening to myself. *italic

we're teetering at the edge of a roller coaster's hill
quietly taking each other in like it's the first time we met and then

we pummel back down to the reality of earth which is:
I left you and ever since
we put up a front to forget.
filled with men who want to penetrate me,
and your girls and their flashing poisoned teeth.

it's a reality that we will not face:
perhaps it's not simple loneliness, but fate.

spring has sprung.
little tree buds stretch their arms
from a long, dead winter,
opening up to lap up the sun.

the walk to school becomes
less of a chore and
more of an excuse to be outdoors.

the grass turns as green
as it was before,
thick dark blades peeking through
dry brown dirt.

the world lives again,
under a roof of bright blue sky,
canopies of pink flowers
with the summer in mind.

do you not understand
how to crack my spine
and read me like a book?

do you not know
what words to say
to keep my emotions at bay?

are you unable to find
the time to learn my language,
and speak fluently to me?

or are you simply
an empty shell of a
human male?

numb from
years of antidepressants
and being told what to do.

I will no longer wait
for the phase to pass.

I take my pinky promises back.

Peddling backwards
up a steep hill
gets me nowhere

Instead it ends up
with me in a
heap at the bottom
gasping for air.

Shame, I think;
the weather could be nice up there.

the fear is starting from scratch
nothing from the past
eating away at me
weighing me down so
I can't be happy
I leave it behind
and close the page
what I need is
not simply a new chapter
but a whole new book
a whole new place

It is the sun in February
that reminds me to not regret
coming to this coastal city.

It is looking at a blue sky
and studying on an
old brick patio.

It is feeling warmth on my shoulders
while knowing you are in
upstate New York, covered in ice.

It is a great feeling to know
I made the right choice,
when it comes to weather;

but the wrong one
when leaving you behind.

I can give my affection to someone.
He hasn't arrived yet.
It's still the blonde hair
I dream of running my hand through.
As the year's changes stop spinning
out of control, I reflect and hope
the new 365 days
will get me over you and onto
someone new.

it began in the doorway
to a different time: where I itched
for someone whose brain worked
dissimilar to mine.

it ended on a suburban porch,
the gateway to the current day: where he
watched my taillights fade away
into an entirely separate place.

March twelfth of twenty-twelve,
when we decided to give it a try
and three years later,
it's long been left behind.

may there be many biscuits
and head pets and big fields for running
where you are now, and
may your memories live on in ours

He puts one ******* display like the Mona Lisa
their bed is the Louvre

For me I say, a new one every night,
every state quarter, I want them all as mine

The collection of men as my single bed
gives free admission to those who choose
to fill the holes of my coin book

My mission: collect all fifty states.

He'll want to be the last but I fear
she has the Wisconsin in her grasp

when you care more about
your loved one's emotions
than your own happiness
you write a cataclysm of
drunk poetry that reveals your sense of
giving too much of a ****
deep beneath the brainwaves of your
***** mind
saturate your own feelings with
their happenings
let your body leave its
chemistry and make like
you have too much Empathy
but really you're doing nothing more than
living Vicariously

he quit me cold turkey
like a pack of cigarettes

and when it did not work
he found his nicotine patch

in the form of a
grade nine math teacher

easier for him than for me
and I kicked the habit

only after months spent
suppressing cravings of

his memories

heave into
my structure
with the force
of a calamity
the clashing of
bare skin the
shaking of
metal bed,
low breathing
breaks the
silence and
meshes with
the clanking,
one last
shove before
we collapse
as if each
other is the
floor after
a long
hard day's
work

I have not felt a thing
in quite a while

but for the anger and
heartbreak caused by
my own country's betrayal

I wear my feelings proud
on emotion-stained sleeves
the clarity of mascara
trailed down my cheeks.

I am a contradiction
of serious and carefree,
and what isn't on you
is always on me.

I will continue to
kiss stars goodnight
remembering we share
the same dark sky.

While you hide in your head
forgetting to see
the beauty in things,
and in you, and in me.

I gave it up when I said, "I don't care to be used"
and you responded with "Well-What do you think this is?"

Upon the words I realized the fire we'd started was smoldering
waiting to be doused.

The intimate way you'd look at me
was replaced with something else.

You'd become a ravenous tiger waiting to pounce.
You wanted my taste on your tongue. My blood on your teeth.

I gave one last sweet, innocent
kiss on your lips before finally walking out.

March, meek, bends its head
half-heartedly mumbles "I'm back"
with an admirably early gust of
mild spring wind
and I wish for it to pass
until summer can take grasp
and the grey clouds spread to reveal
the sky bluer than I have ever seen before

Warning label says:
"Do not leave alone for
too long" because she will
climb into her own brain,
shutting the door behind her
and if you want her back
you must go in and
wiggle the latch
pull her out and
remind her who she is
if her thoughts consume her
you may never get her back

I feel the dizzy poetry
coming on
and the American Spirits
box brags about recycling
as if it gives a ****
that the environment is
crumbling

Feel the drunk room spinning
sloshed in *****
as I stumble up the stairs
attempting to make it
to the bathroom

instead my guts empty everywhere

October ends graceless,
blackout drunk,
singing goodbye in lucid tongues

the season Goddess
greets her favored
November
with a swift kiss

and the leaves begin to drop
to their knees
and beg and plead:  
let November
bring us inner peace

I swim through seas of salty flesh looking for the best.
The waves of goosebumps crawling up the crest.
The crash that fills my chest.
I want to be carried to the shore
to make my rest.

today is the twenty-third birthday
of the first boy I fell for.
I can remember his seventeenth
like it was yesterday.
A sweet goodnight kiss
in a bitter winter's cold,
on the porch of my parent's house
after a high school formal dance.
In my gut then I knew
he would be the one to wreck me,
ruin my future's self-esteem,
but in my fifteen year's naivety
I ignored my brain
until he was gone and through.

I changed  since the March
when I was eighteen looking for a thing

(Anything)

At the time
your problems became mine

My life's complacency
was overtaking me

This year around I

Decided I'd let the dusty ruins build up
in the palms of my hands far too long

and I blew them into the cold night air

It's the new found March
where I'll find out who I am

I need someone like me
aimlessly floating
half-hoping to bump into
love's open door
yet in an attempt to
find their soul again
they miss
and it's back to square one
wandering with no path
a shattered heart lost in the abyss
wondering what went wrong
until they care less and less
yes, a bitter flower
rough to the touch
one I can get to open up
is exactly what I want

let me raise square one over my head like a battle flag. back in the same place I was as a single *******. nothing more and nothing less. don't look at me here, forget I'm there, driven by a desire to fill the dark abyss.

I measure my latest life in a series of cliches
and obsessive compulsions,
convinced I'll be alone forever if I keep going
loneliness disguised as self-love
every minute awake another piece of me decays
but I muster up and put on the face
fill my voids in the usual ways
and shove down the parts of me I hate

every time
I drive away from you
with your scent lingering on my
clothes and skin, a tease,

I feel the smile creep up involuntarily

instantly regretting that I could feel
any amount of happiness from you

I loathe your power for a moment
shaking your perfect kiss out of my mind
like a wet dog shakes dry

I cannot think that we might be
happy because in a matter of a split second
it will fall apart

Did I miss something?
Four years ago I'd beg
for you to come back to me,
and reconvene into the faithful
pet boyfriend on a leash

Now the chemistry is clear;
yet the feelings disappeared

A shame, I think;
we could have grown up
to have something stronger
than the whirlwind love
we had as teens.