My surrender was a spicy-chicken sandwich. No lettuce.
I placed it on the kitchen island:
a white flag, asking for forgiveness.

There was no smile. Quiet acceptance.
My wallet would grow thin
with the make-up gifts.

If only we could have solved it
rather than masking the issues
with the scent of mediocre fast-food.

You do this every time:
she is not any more special than I.
I have your words on loose-leaf paper;
"I love you, Sara" they read.
You always say
someday you'll make it to my
favorite place.
You make
empty promises with no gain.
And I, the liar, can see
straight through your ***** tricks
I can only hope one day
your true romantic fate
will wipe the smile off her face

I keep dreaming of running my hand
along the nape of your neck
and into your hair.

I could be good for you
but you're too self-aware
of what could go wrong
when you let me back in

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.

Would it have been different if I'd changed myself for those around me?
Would I have been popular, well-liked, would I have managed
to replace my old friends with new?

Would I have wanted to?

skips on a vinyl, replayed so often
there's nothing left but broken sound.

a crinkled old photo floating
to the floor.

the continual blurring of video footage
in my brain.

the memories faded
but the feeling never went away.

I recall staying out
until the sun broke
over the foothills of
my upstate town,
at the end of a warm night
in the starlit summer.

I remember sneaking back into
the house on tip-toes,
sinking into my bed at
the time my dad
begun to wake for work.

Sometimes, I pine for that time
in teenage life.

I am only twenty-one, and
I breathe my own life
into my lungs
as I wonder where the past has gone.

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

For the past year
we have been apart
yet your long fingers
tugged my hair
reminding me that
you were still there

now to let go of your hands
and breathe in the fresh air

To think again as a child would be bliss.
The grey spring skies mean nothing but that
I have to play inside.

I may whine, but with the distraction
of character macaroni and my favorite show,
I'll survive.

I'll see with my big green eyes
puddles to jump in and
spring coming alive.

A wonderful life with no stress,
nothing but my head to rest
on my father's shoulder as I go to bed.

what did I ever do to you?

Guess you’re just a past,

from high school and the boys,

forget me and the rest.

Every new one says

“How could he do that to you?

You’re amazing, you’re great, you’re the best”

but they do the same as the last.

Someone out there who will handle my neuroses?

My jealousy, my protective, my

distrust and inability of sleeping?

For now I’ll slip into a sun-soaked summer coma

I’ll forget you and remember alcoholic nights

puffing sweet-scented smoke into clear air;

Fine with me if you don’t want to see

pink cheeks and light brown hair.

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

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

If you were here
you'd be my anti-anxiety
instead of the leaf

my medication would be
a strawberry-blonde
head of hair
nuzzling my cheek

We're sixteen again,
sneaking around at night,
pouring rain in the summertime,
quiet whispers in your teenage bed,
heavy breaths and covered mouths,
don't wake up the rents

And like I'm sixteen,
not turning twenty-two,
I don't know better than to break my addiction
and I come back again
to feel the poisoned fingers on my skin

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

I cannot cook. I do not clean.
I can talk politics and
I don't read women's magazines.
I know exactly what I want,
and I go for it, too;
I never think, I only do.
I know how to make you tick,
run my hand down your thigh;
I can blink thick with big green eyes,
lead you in and make you mine, but:
I'm not the girl you want to date,
I'm the one you wanna ****.

I am in limbo
searching for
what I need or
what I want
convinced they are
mutually exclusive

I will sit and
consider while remaining
stuck somewhere
in the middle

never once asking if
what I need and what
I want are
not separate at all
but instead,
they are one

Is it too much to ask
for your friendship
and your ***, too?

what are you scared of?

is it really me, or is it you?

there are times I want to use him
dig my nails under his skin and tear him limb to limb

the moment passes and the truth is this:
after all this time I still want
the chest I lie on to go to sleep to be his

weeks can pass and we reunite
in a grassy patch under summer moonlight
and I breathe his scent and wonder
if he's figured it out yet

you telling me you love me
through our glass phone screens
is only temporary relief
from the distance between.

the truth is you will always be
Ivy League;
I merely dream
of getting to you.

shallow is the understatement
to express your intents
towards our pseudo friendship

you are far above,
wrapped in your nonchalant cloud
your only concerns:
"will the weather be nice enough
to golf tomorrow?

are the wheels on my new car
shined well enough?"

just because you do not try
to be any deeper in life
than a kiddie pool
does not mean I should stoop down to you

August comes too close for comfort
Like a bee about to sting
So I tense up and wait
to set everybody free.

A trail of pity they will
leave behind for me

I hear a young one
asleep in a bed next to me
At five, she breathes so evenly
Untarnished yet from the world to come
All sweet dreams except for some
While my half grown head explodes with thoughts
Of a dark future ahead

Loneliness comes in many forms.
For me, it's a raging stream,
trying to pull me underneath.
It's a pillow I sleep with
that suffocates my lungs.
It's the sound of laughter
filling the room while I stand outside the door.
It's a devil on my shoulder, daring me
to cry some more.
It's a weight pressing on my chest
And no one is there to save me.
It's staring at the empty bed
and wondering when
someone will fill the space again.

“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

her last love found a new one
as she tried to have it all
became a career woman and
got married to the law

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

The scent of a summer long ago
Wafts through my open window

Pretzel-legged on the blacktop driveway
A bit past midnight on my eighteenth birthday

The sour taste of a grape Black and Mild
Sits on my tongue

White stars in a black sky
Engulfed by the feel of it all

it is insane to me
how life exists
at four o'clock in the
******* morning
lungs still breathe



(c) SEA 2016

find me here.

against a car door.

a tilt of the chin.

but nothing more.

strawberry blonde.

a dark brunette.

blue and green eyes.

meshed and matched.

eight-hundred miles,

here it’s nineteen.

a train-wreck

i am waiting to see.

“I’m sorry.” The words were mumbled under minty breath, barely a plea in their delivery.

Eyes diverted to the ground, avoiding contact with his. He stood his ground while her left foot pushed out and tapped the toe of his shoe gently.

For a moment she appeared to be a puppy with her tail between her legs, getting a scolding for ******* on the living room rug again. Her dark hair hung around her shoulders, limp, like sad dog ears sagging against her head.

Allowing her voice to sink in, he tilted her chin up with one hand, forcing their gaze to meet.

One moment was all that was needed to know she didn’t mean it.  She would do it again.

The choice was his.
Torture himself, or abandon ship.

I used to get pleasure from so many tiny little things

Wrapping a boy’s sweatshirt around me, a zip up, or a pullover, sleeves slightly over the length of my own arms.

Inhaling the scent like a drug, the days before the marijuana and the reek of *** soaked sheets and

this was it.

A hoodie, doused in cheap body spray, Axe maybe?

I thought I was floating on a ******* cloud
Cheers from a homecoming football game and
The scent and warmth of cotton fibers and
it filled me.

Joy out of everything minute

Under the identical night sky as yours,
I fill my lungs with the sweet smoke,
knowing you're doing the same thing
miles away.
you, the need to fit in,
me, wishing to forget my sins
you, a sense of belonging with your friends,
me, alone, wondering who I became.

through the haze, I see your face.

Yes,
project onto me like I'm a movie screen
trapped emotions for your last lover
with a quiet "I love you" in a beer-drenched stupor
as eyes gloss over and you forgot who
you're speaking to;
blind to the dark hair, the
subtle differences and I know:
those words aren't meant for me
and they won't ever be

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

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

Overwhelmed by how
understated you are

My thoughts aren't
over-thought and instead

I am simply, for once,
content

I have not felt a thing
in quite a while

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

Our cold hands are grasped
as I rest my hungover head
on your shoulder.

I watch you drive
the salt-covered streets
of my hometown.

I smile gently at myself,
as I coat you with lies,
daydreams about our future.

Reminding myself that in a few days
I must leave again,
and it cannot be like this:

Normal.

I lost it all a year ago:
not a lover, but
a friend,
one after another,
in domino effect.

And as this year
takes its final
curtain call,
I’ve been left
(almost nearly)
on my own
to greet
the year of
2017

As the loneliness creeps in

allow me to note:
I cannot give anyone
one hundred percent
when I'm still learning
that I must give myself my all
before I hand it off
to anyone else.

October arrived with the force of a hurricane.
I am left with nothing but a cold bed
and the crunch of the first fallen leaf.
No one to give warmth but I,
as 2015 eagerly waits
at the alter
to be given away.

I cannot deal with
excessive positivity
when I am the most
Negative Nancy
of the 21st Century

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

"To each her own"
I say to my friends
who are insisting
they need to lose weight,
As I choke on a
piece of pizza
I ate too quick