I watch you two
Struggle for each other
In an ocean
Of self doubt
And beaten self Esteam
Can you see perfection
When it crosses your palm like a bribe
Begging not silence but speach

When I tell a young girl
she does not owe you
Then is not the time to sling
A word of empowerment and equality
At me like a slur
**** right I am a feminist
In the same way I'm a writer
And A scientist

Feminist is not an insult
It means I fight for equality
And ****** autonomy
It means that when a girl
Finds herself in your pig hands
That I want her to know
she has the right to refuse you

It means I want my future daughter
To grow up "as good as a boy"
Without anyone using that phrasing
Because it's the twenty first century
And it's about time we are equal
We've been fighting for this for centuries

When I was young
I used to read books
About girls who fought along side men
Disguised  
I loved watching them prove themselves equal
In cunning and strength
And then reveal themselves
To have breast and life giving *****

I shouldn't have to be manly
To make you respect me
I command the same respect
in a dress an makeup
As you in your suit
(Or more accurately basketball shorts)
once again it's the twenty first century
I don't need to be as strong as you
To be as valuable

And you're **** right
I'm a feminist

Have you ever been so in love
You stopped writing poetry
Gone months
without pouring yourself  onto pages
Because moments
are sweeter than poems
Or reserved writing for mornings
When you wake to early
And instead of wallowing
In insomniac day dreams of sleep
You sit up, to him sleeping beside you
And pull pen from your bedside
And think
It's been to long
since I've written him poetry
I love him so Deeply I know
There are never enough words to say
But still I'll keep trying

You
Blue eyed interpreter
Of my world weary heart

You
Pouring sleep
Into my insomniac world

You
Lending strength
To my ever ebbing self esteem

You
Telling stories
Of adventure you plan for us

You
Ever encouraging
My petty useless talents

You
I love always
Because of who you are
Even more than what you do

Cheater

a friend doesn’t let you **** up your life

that girl was not your friend.

I’m sorry to ruin that for you

the solace that you took

at least you got a friend

in the end

that girl that let your throw it away

that saw how miserable you were in the end

that girl was not your friend.

I’m not saying it was her fault

it was yours

I’m merely saying that a friend would have made sure

you would have been okay

that girl was not your friend.

And then you lied to your other friends

said that we were open

i really should not be your friend

I'm such a **** up
I've alienated most my friends
By being too honest
Or needing them too much

you would..
you would call now
telling me how you cant live without me
I used to think that I couldn't live without you
but when you hurt me
like you did
I found out
that I could

How dare you talk to me like that
I'm not your honey
anymore.
How dare you call me
tell me
you realize you did the worst possible thing
and ask for me back
how dare you
say i never loved you
if i don't take you back
I loved you way to much
I owe you nothing
not a ******* word
I spent the night
trying to make sure
you were going to be okay
that you weren't going to die
of your self loathing
I didn't sleep because
i
for some unexplainable reason
still want to help you
but i cant come back to you
we can never be again
nick
i am so sorry
but we just cant

So jon
I had a teacher once
When I had cancer
She told me to think about
What it would do for my writing
I called my ex fiancé
To ask him to send me some things
I asked why he put me through pain
He said
think about what it will do your writing
******* Nick
You never liked my writing
Now I'm heartbroken again
I'm writing a lot
But I just want you to come back
I don't care what
This pain
Will do for
my writing

In a month
Will we be okay
In a month
Will you ******* call
In a month
Will we be sad friends
With misplaced hearts
In a month
Do you start writing poetry again
In a month
Will it be for me
In a month
Will we be strangers
In a month
Will you whisper my name next to crazy
In a month
Will you regret leaving me
Breathing to fast on a floor
In a month
Do you apologize
In a month
If you do do I walk away
In a month
In a month
I'll be back in school
In a month
What exactly do I do
When in a month
I am still in love with you

I'll make a brilliant staving artist
In this much pain
Who ******* wants to eat

I've been trying
To drink the same cup of coffee
All ******* day
And every time it crosses my lips
It taste off
Because I think about,
You liking the way
I tasted like coffee and sweetness
When you kissed me that day
At least you said
I've lost another 5lbs
I look better in a swim suit
Than I did two weeks ago
I smelled like chlorine and beauty
And that's not even a smell
At least you said
I write poetry
I think about
How you missed my words
Needed me around so badly
At least you said
I think you might have lied
Though you promised me truth
But if truth is what you've always said
Then something has become a lie
Or you don't know what you said

It starts in my in my fingertips
A shaking offness
That spreads to my heart
It beats to fast
Pulsing drum
sickness in my stomach
Spiraling mind
I'd wish you'd call
You won't
You'll hate me forever
You won't love me
No one will love me
Not if you stoped
No one ever
They are lying
I annoy them too all lying
School
Money
Lost
Unattractive
Talentless
Worried
Failing
Everything failing
Can't breath
Won't tell
Everyone will look at me worried
Can't worry anyone
Just sit shaking
Frantic panting
Won't stop can't stop
Panicking
3 days of this
I really wish you would call
That would stop the spiral

I spent the morning
Walking the city
Writing poetry
I just wish that one ******* thing
Didn't make me think
Of at least one of you
If not both
And that I didn't cry

I half wonder
If I should go to mass
I'm not catholic
But maybe I could find peace
in the timbre of the priests speech
Or in  traditions
That I don't know
I think I could cross my chest correctly
I think I could pass
Pretend I am not bitter
for a minute
Lay aside my heavy heart
And go to mass.

Of course
They planted birch trees on the green
Peeling paper bark trees
Shading the head
And stirring the heart
Saying even nature makes paper
So write enough to fill the sky

I could fill the sky with this summers pain
But I'm not sure that I want to
I'm getting awful sick of rain.

I'm sitting on the ground
Somewhere in Charlotte
To tired and sad to move
Getting eaten by bugs
I can't identify
I just wish you would call me
So I could feel
that we were still alright

This summer's almost over
I sit in a south end coffee bar
Wondering exactly what I did
To warrant a fall this hard
I'm writing again
But it's all useless ****
I curse entirely to much
My moods these days lack wit
I'm half angry
Half broken
And two halves sad
That's too much emotion for one person
No wonder I can't sleep
No wonder I'm going mad

My mother is hard stone
She is kind hands
Tired of seeing her work
Dashed against harder rocks
I find it hard to believe
I came from her kinda strength
I don't need anyone strength
Guard your heart strength
She called me today
Knowing I was in pain
She spoke to me on a plaintive way
Asking why I let
Myself fall in love so soon
Let yet another boy
Leave my heart bereft
I told her I couldn't help it
That even my broken heart loves completely
She at first tried to talk me strong
Failing that's she said Sweetly
Summer has only 20 days left
Can you avoid another heart break
Before it ends
I told her I would try
And I still don't know if that's a lie

I can't believe
I let this happen
Twice in a summer
My sutures pulled apart
I can't believe
I let them both
Drive steaks into my heart
****
You hurt me too
My heart's such a ******* fool
I hate him
I hate you
How could you say things so cruel
Why would you
I just wanted to speak
You screamed at me
You didn't care
Didn't give a **** about me
*******
I love you
You don't treat me that way
Because you're broke and hurting
I shouldn't be
Something you just throw away
I cried for him today
For the first time in a while.
And I cried for you too
And the fact you left me hyperventilating on a closet floor
You don't help me anymore
I called to help you
******* for not letting me try
And for making me feel so small

You are a ******* tragedy
I don't care
I want to play the female lead.

I should really stop
Writing poetry at 1:43
and fantasizing about pouring alcohol in my coffee
And fantasizing about making love to you
and fantasizing.

I should really stop
Spending too long online
and going to sleep 2 hours before my family wakes
and going to sleep (just to wake up a few hours later)
and not sleeping

I should really stop
reading Cummings late
and pouring over Byron late
and pouring over Burns late
and late night poetry readings

I should really stop
listening to death cab sleepy
and listening to brand new sleepy
and listening to la dispute sleepy
And listening to perfect lyrics sleepy

I should really stop
dreaming about love
and dreaming about those who don't love me
And dreaming about those who might love me
And dreaming about you loving me

I should really stop
but I cant seem to stop
any of it

I should really drink
Because then the next time we speak
I'll have some excuse for my slurred speech
Besides the intoxication of hearing your voice
and saying your name

If this is soul mates
I sorta hope ill forget
find someone without "leaving"
marring their kiss
conversely
i sorta hope
that this is soul mates
That when this ends
perhaps
our paths will cross again
That we will intersect
forever
the ropes of an inescapable net
I could spend a life time
bumping into you
And maybe next time
you wont leave when we do.

I want you to stop hurting
i want to take your pain
i want to hold you close
you ask me to refrain
i know that you are coping
i know you are afraid
i'm left here waiting hoping
that you will be okay

Why I no longer lie or change:

I loved a strong man
he made me feel weak
He choked my songs
my voice ceased to sing
I loved a hero
but he zapped my strengths
Took my strong words
broke them beneath his feet
My words for him were love
his were hate
all my insecurities
he said he was trying to push away
until the day
he decided I had changed too much
Because I had changed too much
Changed by every word he said
He decided to break his promise
forget the ring I wore
And take another girl to bed.


There are no good memories of you:

I hate that I can remember being loved by you
The look in your eyes the first time we slept together
it was a January morning you wore a green sweater
I remember how you said our names all mixed together
I don’t know when we changed
but your oh ****, your ending phrase
your truth turned lie
blew back over everything
I have no good memories left of you
they are all tainted by hatred and pain
now I hate the way you said my name
how it was not as safe on your lips as I believed
And I hate what you had made of me
by the end
I hate what we could have been.
I do not hate that we are not
I am glad that you are gone
I only wish that you had thought
to leave my heart alone.


Your bookshelf was too small:

Though your suggestions were good, though you read every classic, though you knew every (over-spoken) line, you knew too narrow a scope. Though I agree that very little remains unspoken after the classic works. Your shelf of scarcely over seven books, and the fact I never saw you read one, should have conveyed to me a point of disaster that I somehow did not see coming. I have drunk in the words of others since I was a child. I have dived in bargain bins and raided library discards for one more book to read. You could have afforded a library beyond what I could have imagined, and your greatest concerns would have been what people thought of the books you kept and if their spines all matched. I have read almost every book on my shelves. I think they number in the hundreds and I have read so many more besides. And you, you disdained new work. Your pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectual paths fooled even me, until I believed that maybe you, with your little shelf, could offer me something I had not yet discovered. I think you thought so too. But my honest thoughts on you loving a writer are that you, with your little shelf and your boxes and your preconceived notions of what people should be, had no way of knowing how to love someone as open as a writer; someone who can turn their whims with the setting of the sun, who can live in worlds you have never seen and longs only to share them. You with your little boxes and your little shelf never deserved my mind or my stories in your life. I am glad my books never found homes on your shelves.

Cancer didn't make me Cry:
I have not cried
Except when I think of leaving you
When I look at all the wonderful
Perfect moments that life has been
All strung together like a melody
The only true crime I could think of
That heaven could raise against us
Though heaven could commit not crime
But if life were to
Then it would be asking me to leave you now
I could no more die
In this moment than I could stop loving you
Than I could have stopped from loving you in the first
The reality is
That all the melodies bleed together
Into one simple symphony
One short desperate sonnet
And that is the necessity of loving you


Changes:
I know he loved my ringlets
Their lengths wrapping around him
Like the sheets we tangle around us
But now he calls me his little flapper
His hands wrapping in the short strands
The ones he knows will fall away
I know he loved my ethic
The way I worked everyday to be perfect
But now when I can do nothing to stay thin
He tells me to eat so I can get better
I know he loved the carefree
The way he didn't have to worry about me
But still he stays beside me
And something about that
Makes me think he loves me

I woke up this morning still covered in watercolors,
but I wish it was your sent
not paint which covered my skin.
as the colors splash across the page
washed and faded
I can't forget your vibrancy
with out you so far
everything is watercolor
suggested hues
waiting on a dry brush
to fill them in
and make them glow
yes there is still beauty in the brush strokes
still the eb and flow and nuance
but the moments that shine the brightest
are with you
I need you
you are acrylics to my watercolors

looking back
the stars have been there all along
they watched over as I cried
and they hurled themselves down
until they were burned up
by the atmosphere
and they almost stopped falling
before  I chose to open my eyes
to open up the atmosphere
and let the bright lights
start a fire

Talking to you,
it’s like drawing breath
like waking up to soft sunlight
and stretching out
feeling for what’s familiar
but different
for what's changed
while I was sleeping
the danger of waking up
is that suddenly
I depend on the sun
even though its been there all the time
its the realization
that its vital
that it warms my limbs
as they stretch hesitantly
into the new morning air
the danger of opening my eyes
is that suddenly i am vulnerable
no longer in sleep-safe dreams  
where all can be experienced
without feeling pain
but with open eyes
I take the risk
I put my heart out
and suddenly nothing’s certain
and I feel like a child
begging the day not to break me
hoping that the dream exist
that you’ll keep feeling the same
even now that I’m awake.

you sleep in darkness my dear,
but don’t you hear my voice
its begging you to open up
to push away the lies
its begging you to feel for me
to throw the shutters wide
and just take the chance
and free fall once
cause you’re drowning in your fear
and as the waves crash over you
don’t you feel the sun draw near
its falling on your face
through the window
clear and bright
but you’ve lived so long in the dark
it seems to burn your eyes
but cant you feel it in your veins?
the way your blood heats up?
its telling you there is beauty here
to open your eyes back up
please open them back up.
I know some of this was my fault
and when you do you won’t be blinded
though maybe still afraid
but you wont regret the choice
to step out into the day
you wont regret the choice
to again look my way

I've got whole worlds shaking
a rush of feeling
moving the plates of the planets in my mind
if worlds really exists in there
their denizens are dying
by the thousands
my brain is scrambled and askew
I can't tell truths
I've forbidden lies
I’m left with omissions that rend my insides

I feel consistently unwanted
Always afraid
That I’m really worth only
The time someone pays
And when they stop giving
My worth plummets down
I know this is flawed
But it makes a deafening sound
Like so much screaming
Like midnight fights
I’m left in the foray
In the dark of the night
I hate being lonely
I hate how my mind
Turns against me in dreams
How good days it grinds
With one lost moment
It ruins good pace
And I go crazy
Seeing things out of place

If you establish it with me first
i can be anything
from one night stand to summer fling
(about this I
am a liar but you wont know)
if i like you enough
if you are a good enough friend
i’ll put my heart on a high shelf for something temporary
but if those three words cross your lips
you better clarify how you mean them
and if you really love me
you better know what that actually means
I am crazy
i have worlds in my brain
and more often than not
i cannot stop myself from speaking in flowering phrases
and poetry
my tongue is a fountain of those things
if you find them pretentious
do not cross my path
do not make a blind grab for a heart you cannot hold
without breaking
i have precious little confidence in myself
i do not need another
to tell me that what i am doing is less than beautiful.
a warning
The beginning is always spinning wonder
but you must realize there are stages to love
at some point we will grow tired
and confused i need you to find yourself with me not without me
loving me means fighting
without tearing me down.
I also warn you that i am clingy
i do not like being alone
so unless you want to spend every minute of your time with me
make sure i keep my friends
and take me out to meet yours.
another warning
i am fragile
i am easily disrupted and destroyed
so unless your strong hands
build more than they break
unless you create more than you take
do not touch me
i am tired of being loved
by a man that has no idea how to love me.
I have a friend i could refer you to
he knows how to love me
despite that he does not  romantically
but he knows my body
like a musician knows their violin
and my mind
like the favorite forest paths of childhood
he reads me like a script he needs
to commit to memory
savoring every word
he gives me leave to be
whatever i need to be
he asks me for no apologies for who i am
unless you can do that and love me as well
and love me like i am everything,
because i will love you like you are,
then you have no business loving me.
but if you know you can do those things
by all means try, i invite you to love me

Why is it never the right time? You are favorite forest paths of childhood. You are deepest desires of heart and mind. You are fire pure and true, and yet, I never get burned by you. You've gotten so cold, I've gotten so warm. You've gone from ocean to stone, I cannot stir you though I am still storm. I might as well be silent for all the difference I make. I know I am light but you wont let me, we are always out of sync. Our hearts always cry at different times. And now you refuse to love. And it was my doing it was i that broke your heart, and your pride let you decide you didn't want to love someone how you loved me again. Listen to your favorite song you know the name that you put with love. I do too, I hate that its always the wrong time with you.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I hope you are not my soul mate. I hope your anchor line is not tethered to the ship in my chest. I love you, but in the way that I want take tape and glue and show you how to reconstruct a heart from all the broken bits.I want to kiss your salt stained lips and leach away the pain. I want to wander with you a while in the pouring rain. I adore you, but in the way that I like to watch the light play across your face and imagine what you could be. I like the look in your face when your looks meet with mine. I like the way we can watch the interplay of our minds. But I know you cannot be in love with me and that is okay too, because, at least for now, I don’t want to be in love with you. I just want to wander for a while content in this, in being who we are, which is what the other needs, and enjoying the occasional kiss.

This is all lies. This is all half truths. This is all I swore I wouldn't do. Especially falling in love with you, I am happy but I am lying, it kills me each time to think that with summers ending you go away.   I don't want to be in love with you, because it will hurt, unfortunately I already am.

If I found those same six songs
If I played them over and over, then,
Would that heal your pain
Could you love me again.
How could you get over me
you who loved me most
finally let go
and I in love
and about to be
pledged to another
as he left
I woke up
uncovered
I never got away from wishing you would be
still in love with me
and when I see you
dearest friend
I still cant breathe.

You know how people say they love poetry? How they can quote the classics and elicit a response of admiration from those surrounding them? I can quote very little poetry. I know so few lines by heart. But I love poetry in that I could bury myself in it. And despite that some of my own words fall flat on the paper, I love the play of the lines. Poetry is the cure for the sadness in muly soul. Good writing is better than alcohol and I like to drink in both. I watch hin smoke his cigarettes, a few a day. The way he lazily holds them in fingers and lips. I rarely smoke, but I hold words in that same lazy way and with that same desperate need.

People seem to have this thing where they want to be the one that leaves. I don’t know if it’s because being left is painful or if it is because being left seems to carry some shame with it. I have no interest in leaving first. I never have. I will leave if I have to but I feel no shame at being left. People seem to think leaving means you won; it means you arose victorious over this relationship. You got out before it dragged you down. In most cases I see the opposite. You see I won the argument that most relationships are famous for: I stayed, I loved you more. When all your words turned to lies in your mouth I stood unwavering in what I said and what I felt. It’s not a pride thing, it’s a me thing. I have no interest in winning by leaving, none in self-preservation, or in dodging pain. I only endeavor to pursue love. As a writer I know there is truth to the idea that love is the driving force of story. I do not seek to cut it short, to lesson my pain or theirs. Whether it’s between friends or lovers, I know it’s going to hurt, I simply do not care.