HE GRABBED HER FACE AND
PULLED HER IN LIKE SHE WAS
HIS ONLY REMAINING SOURCE
OF LIVING, LIKE SHE WAS THE
GRAVITY KEEPING HIM ON EARTH

A poet wants...
    Someone who adores everything they've ever written
    (because it means they adore us)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who's honest, who tells us when it's not our best work
      (because it makes the good work even more special)
A poet wants...
    Someone to hold close every night. Someone who loves to have poems breathed into their collarbone while they sleep
     (because it inspires long love poems)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who spends a few nights away. Someone who forgets to call occasionally
       (because it inspires real poems)
A poet wants...
    Everything to be perfect. To be able to edit and rewrite life as it happens, so we never have to feel pain
    (because then we wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about the unshared poems in our journals)
But a poet needs...
    Pain. Imperfection. Mistakes. Life.
     (because it allows us to write to feel to forgive to learn. To bleed out our heartbreak with ink and parchment. To reach out to each other with words)
All because a poet thrives on the difference between *want and **need

You kissed me with your eyes open
because you said you could only believe
what could be seen.
I kissed you with my eyes closed
because I told you that sight does
not come from the eyes but with
knowledge from the heart.

Borrow me your eyes
So I can see what you see
When you look at me

Do you see the monster
Inside of me?
Do you see the darkness
Consuming me?

Or do you just recognise the person
You want me to be?

- Christina Rosa A.

She cries.
She whispers her pain into my ear.
She lays down on her bed of roses.
She sobs.
She covers her face with the pillow.
She says your name and breaks down.
She curls up like a child.
She looks out her window.
She silently weeps.
She wipes her tears.
She pretends she isn't hurt.
She's stronger than us all.