I don’t think I sleep anymore
There is a time between awake and awake
Eyes closed
In bed even
But I never remember

I think of the last time you touched me
Fear the next
When?
Ever?

Restless, aching, inside and out
I don’t want to rest my eyes
And yet
There is no solace anywhere else.

Who knew
That even now, 4 years later
Dates, states, kisses, mistakes later
You’d still have my heart

Be with me.  
Love me because we match.  
I’m crazy and you know everything.  
I have holes and so do you, we can fill them.  
Strip away my ignorance, replace it with knowledge.  
My brain craves it, the rest of me just wants someone to be by.
I’m unhealthily infatuated with you, a sick obsession.  
I cannot not think of you because you fascinate me too much.  
Who are you and what have you done with me?
Captured some part of me that makes me not care about myself or state of mind.  
It’s making me crazy.  
Did you know you could do that?  
That you have the power to drive someone up a wall.  
And I should be canonized for the crap I put up with, I make miracles everyday.  
I want to be with you just to talk to you all the time and discuss music and everything that is wrong with the world.  
And even the things that are right, on occasion.  
My mind can’t keep up with you,
You’re one too many.
You give me headaches.

Sometimes I want to hate you
I was leaving
But you were the one who left
How you kept me wanting
Even when I was gone

Now I’m uncertain
Fearful
Guarded
You ask why
And I can’t remember

How do we fall in love?
Easily
But it takes so much courage
To say it
Aloud

I can be without you
Until the emptiness
Creeps in
And reminds me
How you made me full

“I could kiss you”
“Why do you say this”
You don’t respond

I wish it was okay
For me to want to kiss you
But I fear
The judgment
Stop it.

Stop it
Because you don’t even know you’re doing it
Doing what?
Make me fall
In love with you

I can’t stand to be alone
But I need my solitude
This feeling chills me to the bone

How does it feel?
To be in love.
Is wonderful, fiery, frustrating

Where do we go?
When we can’t be a part of it
We sit enviously, staring

The emptiness consumes me
The pain never ends
You don’t understand, you can’t understand

The burning, the aching
How I can’t decide
Leaving me in silence

It pains me to know
How I hurt your heart
But mine too is bruised

How can it be fixed?
Will it ever be fixed?
We just don’t know

So we jump
Take the risk
Hanging by a thread
Fearful, crying, screaming
Hoping,
Praying
For Release

Back and sometimes forth
Mirrors, thoughts reflect as well
Stories of my life

I don't believe in soul mates.  
He doesn't have to be perfect
or make me perfect.  
He doesn't have to say he loves me everyday
or bring me chocolate
or sing to me.
He just has to be real and honest,
and not even all the time,
just be a ****** person.
It is most important
because you appreciate being
and recognize, notice it.
I like to think I know who I am.
Together we make two people
who like to be together
and be apart,
but you don't have to text me
every morning and night.  
I know you're there, alive,
Out doing things,
to make yourself more of a person.
You’re not my everything,
but you’re beautiful being everything you.

No matter how long I’ve been next to you
I say hi
you’re a wonderful person to say hello to

I adore the phrase
The shape of my mouth when I say it,
with final 't's in a hushed tone

All I imagine from it
I want to write poems
Sing songs
Dance
Take photos
Make love

Vulnerable
Colored leaves, cracked
Holding fiercely onto a tree
Autumn

Delicate hand holding
Of the elderly couple
See the lines, wrinkles,
Years of pain; happiness too

Frail
As her wrists and her limbs, lithe
Yet the quiet grace as she moves

Dainty fingernails and toenails
Of an infant
Silent, asleep, innocent

Brittle as the windows
Of the past.

Sometimes you set me on fire
But it’s not burning, it a small tea light candle
But it pokes me and prods me
Hurts my fingertips
In the best kind of way
I worry I like you more than you like me
And that’s not a bad thing
But I don’t think it’s a good thing
Because I like you in all the ways
That people think I should love you
But is that love?
What is love?
And is that something I want?
If you care about me more than I can feel
Or say
Is that enough?
What is enough?
Enough kisses? Hugs?
Enough time holding hands?
Enough times waking up with you,
falling asleep too?
We tip toe around the word
And I don’t mind
Should I mind?
What does it mean to care about someone?
Or to care for someone?
I’m deeply in like with you
And I know this because
I feel completely free with you,
Free to talk, laugh, dance
I cannot explain how much I like that you dance with me
Even if it’s for a quick moment.
I don’t think straight sometimes
You make me think of everything
I want your honesty and mind
Thoughts, and I so want you to be a person
Because I think that’s all I really want in life
(Isn’t that all everyone wants?)
To be a person but with another person?
Because we all are looking for something, usually someone
To be ourselves with

Memory—a picture not taken.

I envy you
How you so eloquently manipulate words
The brilliant vocabulary you have
I wish I could
Instead, I pour over your thoughts
Wondering how you do it
How it is so natural
Then again
They are just words
And I still don’t know a **** thing about you

There are two things that comfort
Let’s see if you figure it out
They consume me, lock me in
It’s terrifying

They are both the darkness and the light
It makes me come alive and is safe
It traps me, drowns me
I’m not scared

It’s full of ecstasy, gasping for air
It can fill up any space
There is some panic
It subsides

Feel the rain, feel the beat
The screams, sounds
The clean, the cold
Comfortable

I’m not sure why it fills me
I’m drowning in it all
I just take the leap
Let it happen

It’s freeing, gets rid of all the pain
The kind that no one can see
Washes out the night
All that remains is melody

Somewhere in the distance
I see you standing there
You’re laughing
I wish I were laughing too

Your smile takes my breath
Away I’ll go
And inside I’m screaming
But you won’t hear it

Under the lakes and rivers
Are the silent sounds
The aches are drowned out
The rest is perfect noise

Because underwater
You can’t see the tears I’ve cried
Or hear the screams I hide
But just you wait

Til I breathe
To sing out the words
That I always need to say
The ones I keep hidden

You’ll hear them, someday
When the storm is gone
And the air is clear
Listen

All I needed
Was for you
To
Listen

There is such a lack,
an incredible lack
of words to describe
how you make me feel

There is not a word for

shared annoyance
of errors,
rules of the English language.
reading a sentence that makes little sense
to confirm someone doesn’t know how to grammar

staying up ’til 3, 4, 5
to discuss simplicities and complexities,
they felt like the most important things.
Sleep is not an important thing.

joy of seeing you with a smile
rushed banters
sarcasm, conditions, laughter, and silly faces.
Silent promise to see you later

inability to walk and tell you something
at the same time.
Here is my brain, make of it what you will.
Thank you for trusting me with yours.

spaces between sleep
and getting up for the day.
Time, (what is time?)
holding, tickling, touching, skin

pretending to leave,
only to crawl back in
to your embrace, warm,
watching you rest.

your hands
that I can’t not touch.
Not because you need it,
but I do.  I hope that’s okay.  

hugs I don’t want to end,
silent or not. Close,
being next to you is the safest,
most comfortable, peaceful place to be

spontaneity and uncertainty
kiss you good-bye?
or just wink, either is fine
it’s not complacent

I don’t have to write
because I can say the words to you.
I have the words
to be a person,
with you

If you find words for all these,
I don’t I want them
I’d rather have to fully describe them and,
even then,
it would not be enough
to define the noticings and pieces
I like about you

You cause
a break inside my organs
Pointing out my flaws
our differences.
You are at peace.
I sit jittering, worrying
what everyone will think
of when I didn’t care
you made me laugh at
everything
Changes.  You’re not right for me
Nor I for you, but I can’t help
Thinking
What if?  Then I remember
you’re not what nor
Everything I want.

You are an intellectual snob you
have a depth about you
I would love to delve in,
a psychological study
that even the best critics would praise,
but I don’t want anyone else to have been there
or ever go there.
I cannot hold on to you
tear me away while
You’re haphazardly gluing us together
We’re a kindergarten art project
messy, trying to see
Beauty within the confusion,
unfinished    

You asked me
Where am I most at peace
4 years old.      
I could be anything
No fears
I hadn’t been ripped apart.
I was the girl that said everything,
until I felt the need to screen my thoughts,
like the filter you use to make your coffee
each morning.  I wish that’s where I was,
having you tell me
that you like your women like your coffee
Dark and bitter.

I can look past your chauvinistic ways,
not giving a **** about anyone.
You’re not really closed minded
You just act like it,
which annoys the hell out of me
Sometimes.  I wish life was simple.    
But then
I would never know your complexities nor
Feel the things you help me feel,
like hate for train whistles
or the burn of gin hitting my throat.
Music      
you introduce me to
offstage trumpets, bad movies.  Your politics,
your brown eyes      
and how you can hear frequencies
that most everyone else can’t.  I worry
that you hear
the fear in my voice and heartbreak
With every word I speak.

When were you going to tell me?
Or was that your plan all along?
To throw me out
like yesterday’s coffee grounds
or cut up scraps
Used and unwanted.
I wish I could tell you
to tell her you don’t want her
but me instead,
you don’t, I don’t want you to.
I want holding hands, laughter
comfort, personality, humor, intellect.
You want that plus things
I can’t give
But you always take.

You are your coffee
disgusting, caffeinated,
addicting
the only patch that helps is
comforting words you never spoke.
We had many conversations
of your desires, lusts, mistakes,
but I was burned,
by lies, distrust.
You left, like always,
a harsh, acidic aftertaste
on my tongue.