I've decided that it pays to be a pessimist
We love deeply, while not ignoring the feeling of our hearts begining to crack
This doesn't mean our hearts end up in any fewer shards
Or are any less impossible to reassemble
But at least we're not surprised when they shatter

Second chances
Are simply
Excuses
To open old wounds
And drench them
With lemons
Just for the pleasure
Of the burn

there's something about him
that makes me want to sing and dance,
something that makes those previously dormant butterflies,
whom I has begun to worry had been so neglected up they'd withered away in my gut,
awake with such fury

I don't know why it's him
who has caused such a confused flurry inside my heart and mind--
I just met him,
yet I know he's it
he's the one,
as cliché as it may sound,
if there is a one he is it
and with him I have that thing
that rare thing
that happens upon first sight

but, oh, the fear I feel
at the though that
he may not
feel this too

I try not to think about you
but as soon as I do
I can't stop
it's like
my mind
doesn't really
want me
to stop thinking
about you

my shriveled form staggers forward
with nothing but the slightest glimmer of water in the distance
fueling my weary heart
and driving my wilting frame on

my tongue lies heavy in my mouth
and as I trudge on I begin to weep
my chest heaves with each sob
but my torrid face remains untouched

Please
I ask of any god who is listening
*for once,
let that glimmer be
more than a
mirage

I stare out at the road laid before me
Stretching off into unknown places
Promising newness
And adventure
The street lamps reflect off the glazed surface
Of the slick road on which I travel

I do not know where I am going
I do not where I am
I simply follow the beckoning of the road
Trusting it to take me somewhere
Anywhere your image will not haunt me
For even as I drive you are reflected
Back to me by the road's rain-glazed surface
And I will continue to drive
Until I see your face no more

Emotion is pain
And joy
Sleepless nights
And
Tearful goodbyes
Doubt and hope
Euphoria
Absolute ecstasy
And all-consuming
Pain
                                                           ­            Apathy is      
                                                                ­       painless
                                                        ­               emotionless
                                                     ­           
                                                     ­                  Apathy is
                                                                       Empty

her olive eyes swam with desire
as she gazed at this boy
this simple boy
whom she never expected she'd fall for
but who'd worked his way into parts of her
so concealed, so guarded
not even she knew they were there

love was a foreign concept to her
her past conquests were only that:
conquests
simple boys who flitted in and out of her life
and proven themselves to be just as they appeared:
simple

she was told that when you kiss someone
you feel sparks
the earth moves beneath your feet
and you feel as if you can fly

but she had never felt this power
she was told a simple kiss could hold,
dismissed these stories as fairy tales,
and went about kissing for the fun of it
and out of her desperation to become whole



he saw the desire swimming through her olive eyes
and gently stroked her cheek
he felt so drawn to this
enigma of a girl
and oh how tirelessly he strove to solve
the puzzles she created with her glances

"Kiss me"

she loved him
and she hated that she did
for giving into desire is not as simple as it appears
in the romantic comedies
from which she'd learned everything she knew about love

giving into desire means quieting your logical mind
and logic was the only thing she knew

"Kiss me"

he looked at her with tender curiosity
observed the conflict raging in her olive eyes
and wondered why she was so hesitant to let herself go
wondered why she seemed so full of desire
yet was unable to allow it to consume her

she leaned closer to him
the simple boy who had wormed his way into her heart
and he looked at her intently
tried to solve the puzzles she laid before him

she saw her own desire echoed in the green foam of his ocean eyes

"Kiss me"


she felt sparks
the earth moved beneath her
she flew
all those fairy tales proved themselves to be true

and oh, how certain she was she loved him

I walk the path of life
Looking for an out
An obscure trail perhaps
A detour
The kind you encounter and imagine
That some hiker who came before you
Became impatient with the beaten path
And carved his own out of the
Thick tangle of branches

But the harder I search
The less defined the path underfoot becomes
And I realize
My life is not yet a path
But a forrest
And I choose the pattern
It makes in the trees

i never thought i'd want to cry.
i never thought i'd be begging those tears to fall, coaxing them out of my eyes
until my heart was ripped to shreds and replaced into my chest in the form of a pile of amorphous pulp.
and when the tears need
to fall the most
they won't
i strain so hard i nearly burst
i think of your face
your image plastered on my retinas
i let the "I love you"s,
the "forever"s ring in my ears
i remember all the things you did that made me smile
made me feel like the luckiest human being on earth...

but no tears fall.
no lump forms in my throat.
i am numb.
i was paralyzed the moment i stormed into your house and found her.
that night my world fell apart.
that night your mask fell away.
that night the man that I loved died and was replaced
by a monster
a savage

i believed you.
i believed everything.
i believed the "I love you"s.
i believed the sweet kisses.
i believed the tender looks and the gentle caresses.
But i do not know you anymore,
you are no longer anything to me but a vile egocentric
thing.

yet i cannot morn
no tears will fall
you've left me paralyzed
your venom courses through my veins

the happiest I've been in my life is in your arms,
in those short-lived moments
when i turn my face to yours
and your lips curl into a smile as you
gaze back at me,
when you stroke my cheek
lightly with your finger
before kissing my forehead softly, sweetly...

the worst pain i've felt is in each and every
moment i am awake without you
you... my love, my drug, my weakeness
the incessant yearning to see that tight-lipped smile spread across your face as my eyes meet yours
it's in these moments I know
you're going
to
break my
heart

this city makes me want to write poems
on little paper napkins,
damp with rings of condensation in cafes
like I imagine all my favorite writers did
                                 Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski
                                      all scrawling their thoughts on little paper napkins,
                                      cigarette in hand,
                                     coffee (no doubt Irish) before them...

I read the Surgeon General's Warning
As I inhale my sorrows
And exhale all troubles
And a slight tinge of worry crawls up my spine
I replaced relationships with cigarettes
Poison with poison
As I sigh and allow the guilt to melt away
Letting it drip into the deepening pool at the bottom of my conscience
I allow myself the small comfort of knowing
At least the cancer sticks
Come with a warning label

The wall I built was one of unimaginable beauty
As I laid the final brick I wiped my hands on my jeans and took a step back
I gazed at the wall in all of its fortified glory
Each brick laid with painstaking care and carefully cemented in place
I looked at my wall with an empty smile I had plastered across my face as carefully as the cement I now watched drying
Not a thing could breach my lovely barrier
Not a single ****** thing

I turned my back on my creation and began to let my new found tranquility wash over me
Then there was a sound
A crack, a thud
A slight whisper of impending horrors
I turned and watched as my wall
My beautiful, impermeable wall  
Crumbled
Becoming a wretched pile of rubble
A pile you stood behind, your eyes piercing mine
A satisfied smirk stretched across your face
You wiped your rubble-dusted hands together
Took a step back
And gazed at your destruction

It's funny how
that one drunken slip of the tongue
that led to slurred confessions
so drastically altered my life,
altered me.
It was the ***
that gave me the courage to tell you
how lovely you are

As sloppily as they had dripped from my tongue,
my words started a fire,
and before I knew it I was falling deeply in love
with every piece of your fragile being.
You fanned the flames and ran
not turning back to look upon the blaze as it ravaged me

I just find it ironic
that *** started this hellish blaze
that is tearing through my heart,
and with ***
I now make inane attempts
to put it out

there is nothing more
distressing than
the heartbreak
of a poet

I love to watch you sleep.
Your lips curled ever so slightly into a subconscious smile...
I like to imagine that you're dreaming of me.
I memorize your jawline with my fingertips,
unable to close my eyes for the fear that with the next blink you'll be gone,
and I can't miss a single moment of you
as I know that one day
another will be lying in your place,
and I'll be wishing he was you.

Time stood still around her as
she wove her chain of clover flowers
tying every delicate knot with care
She ignored them at first as they became brown
so sundried and wilted
that even her delicate
knots
failed
Her fingers were sore
And she was becoming weary
Of staring at her wilted chain of clover flowers
Stretching for miles into the distance
And taunting her with its crisp and shriveled form
So as she continued to weave her clover flowers
She let her mind remain blank
She thought of nothing with every delicate knot she tied
Nothing as she plucked each flower from the ground
Nothing as she stared at the withered length of chain
And nothing as she finally laid it down

I see you in the parking lot
Sitting in your car with your eyes shut, head bobbing
As your music rattles your windows
And you explore the cavern of your mind

I want so badly to offer you a light

You feel me watching, feel reality encompass you
You awake from your trance
And you put on your mask

You are so sure that this mask will keep away the pain
But I see your demons clawing at it, begging to be set free

I've seen you
The you behind the mask
You have shed it before me many times
But as soon as I glimpse your naked face
And you see it reflected in my eyes
Vulnerable
Broken
You don your mask again and ask me never to speak of what I've seen

Everywhere I turn I encounter folks who seem to have it figured out
(Whatever "it" exactly is)
They appear to know who they are
Oh how lovely that must feel
For I am just a wanderer
I am excellent at nothing but acceptable at most
And that is a confusing state to be in
For how, then, do you find something to be passionate about?
Those who seem so comfortable
Who seem to have it figured out
I envy them, and oh how I long, how I strive to be them
But the more desperately I clutch at the emptiness around me
The further I get from discovering my passion
And the further I sink into loneliness

If the eyes are the windows to the soul
Then your windows must be awfully dity
For I've peered in many a time
Pressed my nose up to the glass
And tried my best to clear my vision
But I still cannot see but a foggy silhouette of what lies
Behind those soiled window panes

Open present
Smile appreciatively
Repeat
We're disgusting
Spoiled
Wretches
We receive gift upon meaningless
Gift
Every **** holiday
And every **** birthday
We write lists
Put in requests
And throw fits if
We do not get
Exactly
What we want
We are spoiled wretches
Greedy animals
We take without a
Second thought
With smiles
Of polite appreciation
Plastered upon our
Ungrateful faces

it's 3am and
I miss you so much
I can hardly breathe

the shirt you gave me to sleep in
still smells like you
but every day it smells a little less like you
and a little more like me
and I fear for the day the smell of you is gone completely

because you'll just feel that much further away

Emotions
Not people
Write the most
Beautiful
Poetry

Every day my cat paws at the back door, yowling to be let out
Every day like clockwork he does this
And every day we let him out

I always find him crouching where the porch meets the grass
Staring out into the distance
He'll do this for hours
Sit at the porch's edge until his wanderlust is quelled
I think he wants to run
I think he wants to leave this place that is all too familiar,
All too comfortable for his wandering heart
I know how he feels
Yearning to run
But not wanting to ***** his paws

In a way I believe it's my own fault that I feel this sinking
Feeling as I sit here now bleeding salty tears
Into my cup of morning coffee
With your image swirling through the foam