Alone*
          **I watched the midnight fires
                   consume the madmen and liars.

I hardly have my eyes
open while I'm driving
anymore.
I will not swerve,

baby, I swear,
I will serve you.

I need you
at the day's end,
pull back the
pavement for you.

Goin' down

tail end.

Not a statement
concerning you.

*You said you like to make love in the dark 'cause it's a lost art and you told me to calm down, to relax, you told me that it's okay to explain things the same way 'cause being too original used to get you killed, and you fed me jazz and you licked my lips,
you drew two hearts, one on my car, and one on my hip.

Smoking out of your roommates' hookah,
we blow smoke rings into the center of the room as our heads press into the backs of couches.

Drinking out of plastic cups and writing "**** LYFE" on our knuckles
we dabble in the witchcraft of half-truths.
I feel beautiful in this moment.

Wearing combat boots, torn tights and a cardigan
I stomp through your living room not giving two *****.
I flirt with the table,
the chairs
and even your brother.

Tonight is about me.

I had woken up this morning with a ****** piercing and curls stuck to my neck,
my fists balled up in soft blankets.

Doubting everything,
I tried running through my thoughts with my eyes shut,
only picking up fragments of sentences and bad music.

A full moon
and a monroe
the only tangible proof that last night even happened.

I have grown accustomed to holding my own hand in public,
taking up the place that I had reserved for you.

With our lunch date canceled, I'm free to go dancing with poets and *** heads.
Twist my fingers into the hem of the skirts that tickle my knee caps,
I laugh as loud as my lungs will allow.

If you looked at the back of my throat you might see the words I am saving for a much anticipated stranger.
A beautiful doe-eyed stranger who drinks me in like his favorite liquor.

*"You can never have too much of a good thing, babe."

and maybe you don't want me here.
and maybe I don't want you to want me here
and maybe I want you to want me so much that your heart hiccups

and maybe I drink to summon the courage to say it
and maybe I drink to find it

and maybe I loved you
and maybe I still do

and maybe I don't want you to see me broken
and maybe I want you to feel the shattered glass of my fingertips

and maybe we're doomed
and maybe we're destined

and maybe last night was different
and maybe we'll never change

and maybe we love like cancer

and maybe we walk like Egyptians

and maybe we just need time
and maybe we've had enough for tonight

and maybe we make bonfires on bunk beds

and maybe you turned your back to me
and maybe I left

and maybe you love the hawk with brown tipped wings

and maybe common sense isn't so common

and maybe we're newcomers
and maybe we never got there

and maybe those weren't tears, but stray raindrops

and maybe all my words are lyrical
and maybe my pen is tapping out my heartbeat

and maybe I watch you watch me

and maybe we jive like honey bees
and maybe I dream of daffodils and popcorn

and maybe we've lost faith in God and gravity and poetry

and maybe I ride my bike down the narrow streets downtown
and maybe I sunbathe on park benches
and maybe I fell from my tree house

and maybe I flew
and maybe our hands don't fit quite right
and maybe I tried to recreate snowflakes

and maybe I dance to the songs you hate
and maybe you know every word from my favorite poem

and maybe I cry when I think too much
and maybe I smile at every hair on your body

and maybe I loved you
then again, maybe not.

Afraid to lie in the beds I've made,
I seek comfort in your sheets

Your morning sighs,
my springtime breeze

Curls brush my shoulder blades
reminding me of your fingertips

so I cut them down

to one word texts
and a dozen missed calls

I wade into tidal waves,
my hands full of dandelions

humbled by the sun
choked up over comets
I’ve given up on sunsets

you are a supernova clad only in my bed sheets
I make a wish every time your chest falls

****** lungs full of anxiety
My mouth tastes like an ashtray
filled with the buts of things i forgot to say
washed down by things i wish i hadn't

Still tripping over shoe laces,
I search for poetry in *** holes.
Forgiveness in pillowcases
my eyes have trouble resting these days

So, why aren't we dancing?

Following the rhythm of our mismatched heartbeats
I clumsily waltz through misleading conversations

a brown-eyed susan deflowered in the unmade bed of a bleary eyed boy
she ***** her fists into ocean blue sheets,
she feels as if her roots are about to give
with clumsy hands, he caresses her spine

he calls her beautiful

she is awoken by a gentle beam of sunlight that sneaks through his curtains
and kisses her eyelids
her delicate petals litter the floor

she tip-toes around them

and sees herself out.