you're not your hair:
you can cut it dye it curl it straighten it shave it bend it twist it;

you're not your face:
you can hide it under layers of make-up you can put on lenses you can change your face in a matter of minutes;

you're not your skin:
you can cut it draw on it bite it tear it;

you're not your body:
you can lose weight gain weight;

you're not your clothes:
strip them off;

never reduce
yourself
to
a colour
a number
an adjective
a noun

never reduce
yourself
to a simple
word

you are
the thoughts you have at 3 a.m.
the lame jokes you tell your friends
the art you create
the books you read
the pages you have dog-eared
the quotes you have highlighted
the coffee you never finished drinking
the movie you watch after midnight, wrapped in a blanket
the chocolate cake you ate that night with that girl
the slice of pizza you could've eaten but you gave to your best friend
the kiss that still burns on your lips
the cigarettes that sting in your lungs long after you smoked them
the dreams you dream
the worlds you build in your mind
the song that's stuck in your head
the moments you're in the shower
the iloveyous
the ikindaguessilikeyous
the icareforyous
the seeyoulaters
the words you say
the smiles you smile
the laughs you laugh
the loves you love
the hates you hate

you are
an entire universe:
you're stars
and planets
and galaxies
and asteroids
and comets

you are a cosmos
trapped in
a shell.

you are
a gazillion worlds
locked in
a human cage.

never think
of yourself
as of
anything
less.

It's been a while since you've written,
and it's been 3 weeks since my blankets have stopped smelling like you.
I couldn't help but notice the way my body drowns in these sheets
because you were my life vest but you were not there when i jumped in.
I looked back at the dock before my head went under
and i saw you just sitting there, watching me struggle.
I tore you apart in my head
every single strand of thread and love was separated
until every bit of silence that was woven in has been exposed.
But these strands don't hold any value when you're drowning,
what I have done is destroyed the only thing that could give me buoyancy.
Now I am left with extra weight on these shackles i bear
and water filling up my lungs like a measuring cup
to a recipe from Hell's kitchen.
In your last letter you asked "Are we okay?"
but you don't just tell someone you love them then let them drown.

You reached in
and grabbed me out of my skin.
Your hands on my waist
demolished the barriers i placed
even though i wanted to keep them there.
I have been swimming
in a sea of desyrel and prozac
and more often than not
I drown.
"There are worse things
than being alone"
I know, i know, but
i'm always at a low
ever since he had me at hello.
He told me once
he must have told me 30 times before
he's just a man
taking what he needs from the store,
and i am always serving,
giving him shelter from storms
giving him bandages for sores.
The tables are turning
and when i ask for guidence
all i get are bruises
there are no more soft kisses
no more tracing your name
into my skin.
You flip a switch so quickly
i am left terrified of your prescence.
I walk on eggshells aroud you
but they always break,
you told me i am too heavy
but i am trying to fix that.
You used to make me feel pretty,
now you only make me feel ******
and frankly i like the bruises
because they tell me i need to be stronger.
I want to fit so badly into your arms
but you are not her.
You are a replacement
until she comes back home
back to where she belongs.
I never loved you
i just love what you do to me

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and ****** and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.

good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
***
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated.
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they stand outside me
like an orange dropped from the table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide:
**** myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from?
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my *** with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see?
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.)
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
****.
present arms.
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinter
and the pair of pliers that is my hand
stops it, lifts it,
golden **** of dull temptation,
I drink and
stand there
the weather bad for cows
but my brush is ready
to stroke up
the green grass straw eye
sadness takes me all over
and I drink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on.
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966

I tricked myself into thinking
you were sunlight
and i was a flower.
I drank in your rays
until they seeped through my pores.
You turned into night
and i gazed up at you
But you are not a star
and this world is not a garden
and i am a human soul
who needs more than warmth at night
and i do not need validation
you do not keep me alive.
it took too long to know this
but i am not a flower
and you are not my sun.
you don't decide when i get loved