today my gums bled when i brushed my teeth,
and i thought of making some metaphor
about how efforts to attain purity
only result in more stains,
but no.
it was just blood.

to call a rose — or torn gums — by any other name
is to silence the initial sting,
but it still ends up hurting more in the end.
it always does.
lying always does.

and if all i have are my words,
what am i if my words are lies?

what am i if i cannot be honest?

a bad writer, perhaps.
but trying.
i am also trying.

there are some days when the blood looks
a little less like words on a page,
and simply a little more like red,
and i am hopeful.

yet still i know
that efforts to attain purity
only result in more stains,
and red is a ***** to clean out.

(a.m.)

i.

your love is like that
of romeo and juliet.
you fit perfectly,
like puzzle pieces,
and despite the raging seas,
you both man the sails
of your eager ship.

ii.

the night sky
is empty,
for all the stars are now in your eyes.
and you have all the blueprints planned out
as though you've forgotten that life
is not a house.

you keep on running,
as though you've forgotten that life
is not a track.

you keep on loving,
as though you've forgotten that life
spares no one

(not romeo, not juliet).


iii.**

and just like romeo,
and his dear juliet,
in the end,
you will both come crashing down.

(a.m.)

i will watch you fly,
like a migrating bird,
and i will pretend
that i didn't see a smile of relief
upon your face
or a new spark of freedom
in your eyes.

i will watch you soar,
like a roaring jet,
and i will pretend
that i didn't see the way you looked at him
or the downwards shift
in your disposition
when you realized that you were still mine.

i will watch you leap,
like a grown frog,
and i will pretend
that you are still a tadpole,
and always will be,
and will never leave.

i will watch you fly,
and i will pretend
that i have stopped loving you.

(a.m.)

it’s interesting to think about all the right people who might’ve come into your life at the wrong time.
but then again,
i often wonder if time could’ve saved or wrecked us at all.
maybe from the start, we were destined to be nothing more than strangers.
even if i had been weighed down, glued to one spot,
nomadic tensions silenced,
it seems likely that, still, our friendly smiles and cordial jokes would’ve been
limited, somehow,
by unseen barriers,
by the cruel overseer that is fate.

i think i meant something to you, once.
not a lot, but something.
and now,
now i’m just there.
a solid. something that takes up space.
you still sit close to me,
but not as close as you did when we first met.

and i wonder, sometimes, if i did something wrong,
if there was something i could’ve done, or not done, to change things,
to make things better,
to stop us from drifting silently onto the end of the growing list of tragedies my life’s friendships have been.

but maybe there was nothing i could do.
that thought, while terrifying, is perhaps the most comforting one.
after all, it is better to be left helpless from the start than to be burdened with the knowledge that the stones you threw became part of the landslide.

i hope, maybe, that we can salvage what’s left,
perhaps even grow it into something better.
but somewhere inside, i know that’s fool’s talk.
i doubt i ever meant much to you, anyway.
i always was, and always will be, just another shadow,
another stranger,
another change of season.
i suppose i was your winter —
a barrage of snow and ice that danced in clumsily,
not bothering to think about what would happen once spring came.

i hope you’ll remember me when i’m gone.
even now, it’s nice to think that i cross your mind as much as you cross mine.
but my hopes seldom match my reality.

so, still, i am just another.
watching.
waiting.
being.
i am nothing, and in being nothing i suppose that i, too, am everything.

but i will never be your everything.

and i could say that i regret that,
but perhaps i’m still holding onto that last bit of hope.

always the optimist,
and yet even more so the pessimist.

i thought you might be both, too.
i thought we might find a way to complete one another,
much like how the land completes the sea.

but i suppose i am left the earth without its ocean,
the ground without its rain.

it’s a horrible thing, detachment.
my roots never quite find what they’re looking for in the soil.

i had just hoped you would be different.

(a.m.)

no.
no.
no.

i want to tell myself
that it's not love,
that it's not happening
all over again.

but what other explanation is there?

when you're near,
my heart skips a beat,
jumping up
like a newly rigged boat,
riding on opal waves.

when you leave,
my heart sinks
like a defeated ship
in the middle of your hurricane.

when we talk,
i am a sailor,
and you,
you are a siren,
luring me in with your captivating songs.

dangerous,
yet beautiful.

but i'll never be the one for you.

no.

instead,
i will always be the hopeful ship
that you inevitably sink.

instead,
those opal waves
will always turn
to black tides
ripping through the sands
of my heart.

instead,
your words will be my addiction,
my high,
my rush,
and
my eventual downfall.

instead,
i will admire you from afar,
after having been hurt once
by your songs.

dangerous,
yet beautiful.

i guess, my dear,
that's why they say
to stay away from sirens.

(a.m.)

When it's raining
I can't decide
If it's the sky
Screaming out in agony,
With broken roars of thunder
And brilliant, crashing streaks of lightning
Or
If it's the sky
Releasing all it has to offer
In gentle tears of rain
Filled with all the sorrows
And regrets
Of its blue wonderland.

Maybe the sky
Is never sure how
To release all its anger,
All its sadness,
All its confusion.
And so on some days
It rains,
Crying softly.
And on others,
It screams
And shouts
With thunder.

Maybe we
Are like the sky.

(a.m.)

i.
hearing your name still fills me with a certain intoxicating sweetness.

ii.
i hate you. god, i hate you so much. but i love you. please come back.

iii.
i'm sorry that it had to end up like this. i don't think you care, though.

iv.
it's okay if you've lost your innocence. i've lost mine, too. life will do that to people.

v.
i was often happiest when you said my name like maybe i meant something to you.

vi.
i am stuck between wanting to forget you and wanting to crawl back to you.

vii.
most of my poems are still about you, even now.

viii.
i hope you're doing okay.

ix.
please don't forget me.

x.**
thank you.

grow back what he took from you;

you lie at depths he will never be able to fully reach.

(a.m.)

The light shines down
On your pale face
And outlines your vulnerable lips
With a heavenly glow,
And bathes your pleading eyes
With pure light.

You look away,
Afraid,
Because you know that the light
Has always revealed your scars,
Your flaws,
Your imperfections.

But I simply laugh
And think
How lucky the sun is
To be so close to someone like you.

(a.m.)

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that if the phrase “adding insult to injury” had a feeling,
that would be it.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it sounds like “hands up, don’t shoot,” like “i can’t breathe,”
like blood hitting a pavement that seems as though it was built
to catch those droplets.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it tastes like skittles and arizona tea,
four years old but still carrying the fresh sting of a wound just opened.
i imagine that it tastes 
like history repeating itself,
like seeing your son or daughter recycled each week
on every news report, on every tv station.
each time it is a different body, 
but it is always the same hand pulling the trigger,
the same black blood being spilled,
the same cries left unheard;
we shout “black lives matter”
and yet, still,
they cut them too short.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it looks like a web of lies too thick to cut through — 
every strand another weapon that he did or did not have,
another order that he did or did not follow,
another sin that he did or did not commit;
the only black they care about
is the color of the ink they use
to draw your angel-headed boy
a set of horns.
i imagine that it looks like evidence hidden,
like sparknotes-type skim-throughs labeled “thorough investigations,”
like another unindicted officer walking freely atop the cries of those 
who charged into a battle they knew they would, but hoped they would not, lose.
a battle they have fought too many times before.
i imagine that it looks
like an empty chair at the dinner table,
like cold-blooded ****** disguised as justice
with the help of a blue hat and a badge.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but if you listen closely enough,
you can hear it
in every cautious goodbye she says to her children whenever they leave the house,
or in the silence that those goodbyes used to fill.

can you hear it?
you will have to push past the shouts
of the big bold letters that they want you to believe.

somewhere,
somewhere in there,
a black mother’s heart is crying.
it is a gentle, hushed cry 
that the world does not want to hear.

but the tears are still just as wet.

(a.m.)

i can't help but laugh at the fact
that you're wasting your life away
on something so
very terribly evanescent.

(a.m.)

I asked,
Begged,
Pleaded
For you to stop.
But the truth of the matter was
You were a train without brakes;
You couldn't be stopped
Until you ran out of tracks to guide you.
And even then,
You would go on,
Soaring recklessly until you,
Inevitably,
Crashed and burned
And lost all the wonder you once had.

And the day I realized this
Was the same day
I stopped asking,
Stopped begging,
Stopped pleading
For you to stop.

Because this was the day
I realized
That a broken, unsteady,
Out of control train like you
Stops for no one.

(a.m.)

it's nice to know that you think of me sometimes.
that my name forms on the tip of your tongue.
that i cross your mind.

it's nice to know that sometimes you might see something that reminds you of me.
it's nice to know that i'm still there,
that i haven't disappeared or gone silent in your head.

it's nice to know that i still matter,
even if it's only in the slightest bit.

after all, that's all i ever wanted.

(a.m.)

i find it hard now to make excuses for why i haven't let you go.
mere words are tripwires.
(how can i call you a piece of my past when you are still so very present?).
i am no longer as eloquent as i used to be.

i find it hard now to make excuses for why i still stand at your door.
it has been four months, and just as soon, twelve.
(each morning i wake with hopes that your grip will have loosened).
i am no longer as strong as i used to be.

but perhaps it does take a strange type of strength to be so hopeful,
to think that someday,
even after all this,
you might see in me even a fraction of what i see in you.

truthfully, that is all i ever wanted.

but often, the things we want require change we cannot bring.

i have spent so long trying to make my valleys into mountains,
but sometimes the earth does not want to be moved.

//

i have given up on excuses;
i will drag you along and wait.
someday i will tire of holding your hand so tightly.

(a.m.)

I THOUGHT I WAS OVER YOU BUT IT'S SO OBVIOUS THAT I'M NOT BECAUSE EVERY TIME I SEE YOUR FACE AND YOUR LIPS AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL EYES MY CHEST STARTS TO HURT AND I IMAGINE THAT I AM DROWNING IN MY OWN BLOOD, AND I BEGIN TO GET BUTTERFLIES BUT NOT THE ONES FROM FIRST GRADE WHEN LOVE WAS JUST AN ILLUSION, BECAUSE THESE BUTTERFLIES ARE TEARING MY HEART APART STRING BY STRING, YET I AM COMPLETELY FINE WITH IT BECAUSE IT'S ALL FOR YOU.

perhaps i make
too many metaphors
about the ocean.

but i can't help
but compare you to a wave,

for each time i've almost got you,
you recede back to whence you came,

into the tide.

(a.m.)