I am the in between
The middle
The line
The bridge
The limbo
The paleness
The fence
The open
The link
The connection
The break
I am the in between

The first to be forgotten
The last to be seen

Please
Don't humor me with empty promises of
   I'm in town
                  I'd love to meet up
           You are amazing
                          I love you
When everyone knows
You pity me more
Than you could ever
Love
        me

Lace covers his tongue
That tastes like oxygenated copper,
The sand caught in his lashes
Looks so harsh against warm brown eyes.
I want to unwrap him, unbind him;
He used to be glorious in his vanity--
Now he is drowning in concern.
Wanting to be everyone's favorite
Has never been an easy game.

A smudge
appears in the corner
of the eye,
of the view,
of sight.
Wipe away
the tear-less dripping drop.
Amethyst coated
fingers nervously working
to achieve perfection,
hoping that no one payed attention
to the flaw,
the flaw that is one among many,
the flawed that is one among many.

Maybe her make-up is smudged,
maybe she sees herself as one.

Maybe I'm not the one who threw rocks at windows
Maybe I just laughed drunkenly at the sound of shattering
Maybe I'm not the one who wrote or changed the law
Maybe I'm just the one who blindly defied or followed
Maybe I'm not crazy or an insomniac or dangerous
Maybe I just told myself was so I could have excuses
Maybe I really ****** everything up
Maybe I don't have to anymore

My consumption is somehow sinful but in a fabricated way that makes honey seem like cyanide, or perhaps just the opposite (, I'm not sure in truth). Delight is suppressed by my self-skepticism working to root out my faithful and trusting naivete. Somehow skepticism gets lost in my incessant wanderings and wonderings and surely in my pensive ponderings. I debate what your truth is and if you have seen the same paintings that hang in my walls and in my memories. It must be acknowledged, the chance that you have forgotten and remembered the entire Nothing. My only prayer is that you might have insomnia.

When I look out and see the Boston skyline

I whisper like you're still here next to me
     I whisper like you can here me
          I whisper like you never left
               I whisper like I'll be okay
                    I whisper like it won't bring a tear

And sometimes you whisper back.

Perhaps it's absurd to be this concerned
yet I fret I won't see you again.
And I know it's alright
and just one more night,
but in your eyes I see our end.
The end of your mom's teasing
and your laugh as you shrug her off;
the end of John's timid delight
as we play our noise through the night
in a cautiously curious sound;
the end of your father and me
jeering to hockey --
a sight already rare to be found.
I don't want to miss
the joy and the bliss
in moments you are around.
Call me a child,
immature, naive, or too mild
but your smile is too captivating for rhyme.

Whisper
Whisper
Whisper
She sings the sea calls to me
But I can hear the wind that howls
Unfurling above her sea

I know this isn't a poem, so don't comment that, okay?

Love, love, love,
                          W. Hope

Who is she
What is she like
She is dark
They call her consumer of hearts
She lives like a chess game
She doesn't mean to
But every move she makes
She cruelly calculates
She loves the games she plays
But I think it's because
That's the only way she knows
How to trust
How to not get hurt
She pulls on heart strings
And she tugs at synapses
Biting free connections

She sinks her teeth into their souls
She watches what color they bleed
Delightedly she tears them apart

Her heart is gone
She can't remember if it was taken
Or if it was simply one of her own victims

Forgive me father for I have sinned
I threw my soul away
I rejected the gifts given me
Because I didn't believe in happiness

He asked me if I loved him
I told him yes because
I liked the heat of his breath
I told him yes because
I thought that I'd be too happy if he left

She told me this was what love was
I nodded my head because
She smelled nice and
Made my headaches stop
I didn't know that
She'd make me question everything

I told myself that I wasn't depressed
My life became an Icon For Hire song
I was a happy girl that's what
My parents told the psychiatrist back
When I still showed them my sketch book

They told me that I had friends and
I thought that that's what the bottles were
They told me that it was okay
And I thought that's what I was
But we were all wrong

Finally I tried to stop the questions
The ones I couldn't answer
That all echoed in my head
So I tied some knots outside
To match the ones inside
And tried to say goodbye

I didn't believe in happiness
So I thought that I'd just die

tell me i'm being a dramatic brat
because i'm the one
who turned you down
i threw you away

you have saved my life
too many times to count
i tried to give you space
these long years
six years ago
you met me
and i was a doll
and you were a bird
and now i am nothing

i expected to be your last
pick as it's been
for the past years after
she told you no as always
i actually expected that
i'm such a *****

but she said yes
she told you yes

i remember
when we were thirteen
back when we were thirteen
and now you're and adult
and i'm not far behind
and you said she'd be with him
and in my head i added that
you'd be with me
you'd be with me
it seems i've always been
a presumptuous little *****

i can't believe
i'm crying over you
you always made me cry
more than anyone
even back when i was twelve
do you remember when
we were twelve
and you told your instructor about
how you gave me my insomnia
you were the start
of the problem that still
haunts me at late hours
but you were the start
you were the start of me
of so much good
you are the only one who knows
the secret i won't tell a soul
not another soul
just us alone
you are the first one
the first one i loved selflessly

i tried to give you space
i know i came back a few times
but i tried to forget you
in other men
because you proved to me
not all men were
*** driven pigs
utter *******
like i grew up with

and i asked last year
i asked why not me
what with all our chemistry and how
you're the only one
i have ever let touch me
with out panicking
you are the only one
i asked why
and you gave me the reason
the one thing i cannot change
and i weep over it bitterly
that the only thing keeping me from you
is perhaps
the thing i love most about you

and i wanted one night to feed
my craving for all the nights
but she took it from me
the sweet girl
who has the one thing
i do not
the sweet girl
you met a year before me
and you fell in love with
seven years ago
a year before i fell for you
i love you

i just wanted that one night
one night
a girl who is devastated
over one night of her life
tell me i'm being a dramatic brat
because i threw you away first
and you haven't given me
a second chance i don't deserve
~

I miss you
But I can't miss you
If I miss you
You win
Or I lose
Or something
And I keep losing
I keep breaking
I'm tired
So very tired
I wish I could sleep
But insomniacs don't sleep
When they throw away their
Lullabies

Time for a puppet show
It's been a few months
But still remember
How to play your strings

Home wrecker
Home wrecker
Is that what I am
Or are rumors just rumors

Slutty flirt
Slutty flirt
Is that what I am
Or am I just self absorbed

Your enemy
Your enemy
Is that what I am
Or did I have nothing to do with it

I am the new Icarus
I am the naive youth
Believing in vain
That heading old advice
Is a waste of time

Hair
Downy Feathers
Nails
Slivers Of  Perfect Moons
Eyes
Icicles Falling

                                                        ­                    Smiling
                                     ­             Smashed China Plates
                                                          ­                Walking
           Nonchalant Juxtaposed To My Erratic Heart
                                                           ­               Running
              Time Standing Still As You Sail Through It

(maybe i'm a mistake)
mistake
mistakes happen all the time

just erase them and they'll be gone
erase the mistake
erase it
erase her
(erase me)

i wonder what being erased feels like
to feel nothing
but not in this way
this poisonous way
this painful way
of feeling nothing

i wonder what it feels like to be nothing
but not dirt nothing
not sludge nothing
not this nothing that stings

i wonder where the nothings go
where the mistakes go
when they're erased

i have to stop running
i run from the right things
and to the wrong thing
or is it to the right things
and away from the wrong things

it's hard to tell
when everything is in motion

can't we press pause
someone press pause
please
someone just press pause

i am spinning and falling
but i don't hit the ground
the dirt
(i am the dirt)

i just keep spinning
and i flip over and over
without touching anything
without stopping
without pausing
(someone stop me)

i keep running
(make me stop
make me sit tight
and stay in one place
make me fixed
not a mistake)

(erase me
erase me and replace me)

replace (me) with the correct thing
the right thing
the finally-makes-sense thing
the feels-right thing
the safe thing
the not-so-crazy thing
the stable thing

(erase me
and send me
to the place the nothings go.)

The loneliness set in
When I couldn't fall asleep
I had grown accustomed to
Steadying my mind
With thoughts of you

I laid awake
wandering my conscious
Dragging myself away from you
No, not dragging, walking

Away from something
I once needed
But can no longer stand
No longer rest my head on
When the loneliness sets in

I'm afraid to ask
for fear of disappointment
but do you remember
what you meant to me
you pervert
in the back of the room
all the ***** jokes
they changed
into prayers
not too sure which
I miss more
dancing in the bowling alley
your contacts traded for
glasses that are a turn on
the beach
with me wearing
your pants
on the subway home
no flashlights in the dark
tripping into each other
on through the orchard
my cheek brushing
your unshaven face
me clasped tight
not wanting to let go
do you remember
the conversations we had
how could you
just let go so easily
and start a new life
when you're the only one I ever had

wrap this rubber band
around and around you hand

until it snaps or slices clean through

the tension a saw pressing deeper
the band longing for itself
wanting to be joined
but you've wrapped it so tightly
it won't come off

Take me out
Please, with your quiver full
Big words, show off vocabulary
Air of superiority, the way you strut about
I love it when you tell me
How to solve my in war
What the answers are to the questions
I never asked

You just shot me in the chest.

i am breathing, breathing
breathe in and out
get your head outta the clouds
someone get me down

got myself stuck
looking for an easy way out

disappear, disappear
just let me float away
held my heel, held my weakness
immortalize my brain

got myself exposed
looking for an easy way out

half ghost and half wannabe
cross the border
let go of a piece of me
chaos, disorder

got myself severed
looking for an easier way out
just an easy way out

half ghost and half wannabe (breathing, breathing)
cross the border (in and out)
let go of a piece of me (get out, get out)
chaos, disorder (someone please get me down)
chaos, disorder (get me down)
chaos, disorder (easy way out)

just cross the border

we circled each other like strange, timid animals of prey
you’d never seen me crazy
but you’d never given me a reason to try
so discarded you mark me
shelf me as that little girl who’ll never understand



now here we are parked in your car
the orchard is quiet tonight
echoing the silence we are disrupting
before you can take my hand and preach your lies
I pop the door and take off

you sigh believing me to still be a child
until you get out to fetch me
and in the dark you see my top before you
do you question what’s underneath me
like you do what’s under the rest of my clothes

no where in sight is the little girl you once knew
intuitively you head toward the pond
contemplating new baptisms
or finally cleaning off layered dust to find reality
wondering what tragedies I’ll bring you this time

do I still make you feel like a young boy as I jump
in the water covered by mere splashes and starlight
are you surprised by the me I am here
that the me you barely knew was fraud
or rather only a mask as painted as your own

How do you breathe so silent?
I grow more and more
labored in each breath.
I remember the days
you told me to never be like you.
Well I’m not. I’m certainly different,

possibly worse.

We have the same hands;
Or at least they're similar.
I've noticed before,
But I forgot until today....
What your hands look like,
It says a lot about you.


Mine are the hands of a pianist:
Long and slender fingers.
Mine are mostly soft and gentle and afraid --
Yet callused where I hold my pen.
Mine are seemingly smooth and fair,
Unless you look close and see the freckles and scars...
                 (My faults on display like tiny decorative stars)

When you exhale,
Your breath forms a cloud.
I wish your intent
Was as clear to visualize.

These silhouettes we cast on the wall,
A fading echo of who we are now;
The only reminder you leave with me
Is the smell of you waning on my sheets.

Don't tell me your sins
I'm not your confessor
Don't tell me you're sorry
I'm not too forgiving
Don't feed me words
Like I'm starving for verbs
When it's authenticity
I've been deprived of

It's not a game of give and take
When all you can say is, "I didn't mean it"
Who do you pretend that you are
That you can stand here and ask me
"Do you believe in soul mates?"
"Will you take me home with you?"

We're far from a clean state
By now you and I are old fools
Who never get tired of this slow dance
Where I make myself the victim
And you get to hold the knife

Run run run
Run away if you can
Stay stay stay
You've never done
You're the one with the trigger
But I'm at the end of the gun

Put myself in your line of fire
I want to bleed
Have you cut me so I blame you
I've sown my seed
Now you are the reaper
(Though it's my greed...)

I remember learning Augustana's Boston
Because you made my keys alive with it
As Luck ran about your legs
Luck died and we did too, in a way

I am the undead, and you are the ghost
In wisps you appear, in whispers you speak
You haunt in place of love

I prefer to devour hearts
I cry out for help, but no one can hear me
My lips are sown shut but they forgot my eyes

I've forgotten how to play Boston
So I guess that means you won't
                           Come home

If I were newspaper,
And you fire;
Your flames, consuming me,
Would burn higher.

You eating up my words,
I'd go on unheard
As you read over me,
A decent fuel, finally.

Lipstick stains
The windowpane,
A burst of color
When you look out.

The glass does frost
As you feel lost;
Your lipstick stain
Is all that remains
Since you left me.

I'm waiting for you
To return, stay true;
Dear girl, who used to be me.

One month.
I'm still waiting
For myself
To find a way
To **** this up.

When you burn paper
It curls in
From the edges
Getting smaller
I am the opposite

Burning
Brightly unfurling
Growing
A mess
Carelessness at it's best

call me something outside
outside of myself
beyond these walls
lined with my past
my tears and fears papering the ghost underneath them
call me something outside
and let the inside fade away
we can make it fake and flawless
this person i will become
call me something outside
forget where i was born
that i've been born
take me outside
let me see the dawn

There is this boy
I know he didn't like me much
But that was five months ago

Now I'm this girl
I love him as my tattered heart bursts
For a month ago he started mending it