first--

my big brother came through the door, hoodie up,

L close behind--
a farm girl,
small features
warm eyes
Bean boots and rough hands,

i could smell the cigarettes and the new cash in his pocket.

he showed me the pipe he'd fashioned out of driftwood

the one thick silver band on his left pointer finger glinting warmth from the dining room light

and in a drunken haze i wondered if there was anything in the world he couldn't do.

second--

she set the canvas bag on the counter,
and out came heirloom apples,
and mittens
and fresh honeycomb in an old plastic container,
label worn and peeling from all the hours it had traveled, and i thought suddenly and strangely
of all the times it'd been placed in bags as an afterthought, left in the backseat of a golden texas-plated '95 corolla
                                                *(an alien up here)
warming between biodegradable soaps and pottery filled with sprouting seeds,
how many raindrops it had shed sitting on the front steps of an old clapboard house.

Nothing to say? Nothing to say?
Oh catch yourself on.
Since when have you
Ever had nothing to say?

Liar liar
Or so they say.
But if your words be lies
Then why do you hide it?

Loner loner
That's what I am.
You say it's untrue
Well then why didn't you notice me gone?

I have this dream of a,
blood orange sky rippling
Down through the cracked window pane,
Of this crumbling house.
The faint sigh of faded beauty
Resonates among these chipped walls.
We walk there down
the boulevard from when we were happy.
Yet all I can feel is the fleeting feeling, I felt when
your lipstick stained
my cheek for the
final time.

This is something
She cannot hide.

Love lost.
Time spent.
The rhymes of the heart spoken.

Two souls fought
To save themselves.
But were they lost
Along the way?

Scars seem healed.
Nothing but paint to cover.
Promises broken.
Trust shattered.
Left to bleed.

A tangle of fear,
Of muffled calls
And dying hope.

She couldn't sink far enough
Into the ground.

Crack
Crack
Goes the heart.

It's all he can hear.
Resented is the reaction.
He coats it
With lies.

He can hear nothing.
Nothing at all.

She's forced to sleep
With screams and cries,
For this is something
She cannot hide...

She believed.
He lied.

Hey
I’m sorry if I interrupted your class with text messages
because you hate putting your phone on silent
it’s just that I should be there with you
laughing at your confused faces during Calculus I and
staring at your look of sheer concentration during Creative Writing
You were always the poet, not me
But it’s 1pm and I’m stuck in Calculus with someone else as my partner
who doesn't get nearly as confused as you and puts me to shame
which ****** me off because you would never correct me in Calculus
and so I can’t help but wonder who your new partner is
Is she smarter
Is she funnier
Do you quote Shakespeare to her like you did to me?
Is she better than me?
There’s no doubt that a. I ******* it all up and that b. you’ll move on from me
because you were always the popular one, I was the antisocial outcast that most people barely
tolerated
For some unknown reason you decided to become my friend that faithful day in
Calculus I
and ever since then you became my 3am conversations and midnight laugh

I depended on you much more than you did on me
I cared so much more
and maybe that was my fatal flaw
because if I hadn't cared so much
then maybe I wouldn't feel like screaming and throwing my partner’s textbook
at the teacher
but I did
I cared too much; against all warnings not to and now I’m wrecked
then again, I always was in a way
I just didn't know it

You told me that it didn't matter
that they couldn't separate us; no matter what
that you would never let me go
and you kept your promise
but I can’t keep mine

The words “I’m sorry”
come to my head
but those aren't the right words
because I’m more than sorry
I’m bleeding
I’m crying
I’m devastated
I’m torn
I’m broken
and perhaps that’s why I can’t keep my
Okay?Okay promise to you
because no, I am not okay
and you deserve so much more
and this is not okay
me lying to you through a computer screen is
not okay
me putting my gashes of regret on my arm is
not okay
me making you wait only for you to find a fraction of the girl I was is
not okay

and that is why
today during Calculus I
I will finish this ****** poem
and excuse myself and go to the girls’ bathroom
and cry my eyes out after sending this to you

I should end this with a ‘goodbye’
because there’s no use giving you false hope
but I can’t bring myself to end there
so I’ll just say something
and hope that you still remember what it means

P.S. I’ll always love you

(h.l.)

and so I put my sadness into words
and listen to music too loud to drown out my feelings
and spend all day reading into a world better than my own
in hopes that i'll be able to survive until a day where
i can put my happiness into words
and listen to music for the hell of it
and spend all day writing a world that is my own

(h.l.)