Someday a man will look me in the eyes
and I will not see myself reflected in his pupils,
but the best version of myself.

The tangled parts of me I’ve kept buried
deep within coursing veins,
pieces even I don’t understand
but can be unraveled by his hands only.

My ******* will not be symbols of my ability to ****
but will offer warmth and support,
a nuzzling ground fit for only his temples
and the warm wet mouths of our children.

My hips won’t just offer smooth curves
of lust and temptation,
but will prove strong enough to survive
all the wrong paths I took in finding him.

My *** won’t be bragged about in locker rooms
nor silenced by sharp thrusts and stabbing bites.

It will be real.

That thing they call love with entangle us
together in unison and we will be
equals,
making love to pouring rain
dancing barefoot through emotional hallways of our future.

Someday a man will look me in the eyes
And see me as I truly am.

This poem is an ashtray
grey, round, and chipped on the rim
***** and wasted from your countless cigarettes
whose burning embers were smothered
into its swollen belly.

This poem is an ashtray
broken, tired, and scratched all over
who sat on your patio
used to fulfill filthy habits
in times when stress and emptiness conquered you.

This poem is an ashtray
abused, weak, and out of place
a secret kept from parents and friends
something you ran to when there was no one else
to take you inside and turn you upside-down.

I’ve decided to stop.

Stop looking.
Stop searching.
Stop hoping.

I’ve been dreaming away
wasting my days,
lost
in thought.

Submerged in a silly idea
that you and I exist together
in this world.
That somewhere
you’re waiting for me to complete you,
to make you whole.

That someday
in this life,
I might actually feel at home.

Maybe on another planet
you and I
have found each other.

And maybe you fixed my heart
and sewed it back together.

And maybe
we dance in our underwear to songs of yesterday
in cozy nooks
where nobody ever goes to sleep

alone.

I didn’t know you were that kind of guy
I’m not really that kind of girl
I just liked how you made me feel
I could be myself and I was happy and I felt free
I haven’t felt like that with many guys before
and as you pressed your lips to mine
I thought maybe we shouldn’t do this
because your heart was broken last week
and mine’s too heavy for anyone to carry anyways
but they felt good against mine
and I’ve wanted to be yours for so long
when you unzipped my dress
and took off my sweater
I started to cry
they were just little tears that swam in my eyes
but you didn’t notice
I told you to stop
because you were thinking of her
I could feel it in your lips
you said sorry and got frustrated with yourself
and I said it was okay it happens
you started to talk about her again
and how you miss her
and I started to wish that I had someone to love me like that
maybe we should just keep this between ourselves
you said.

She only comes
in quiet moments when
no one is listening looking
into honey colored corenas
where traffic lanes give way
to memories tucked away
firm hands on her **** breast
her knees fall
slowly into his gentle whispers
and she comes to know
his smile made raindrops on
hot blacktop summers

Our love is a green summer
A plastic city
Filled with windowless smiles
And breakfast lullabies
If I close my eyes and drift away
I see you kissing my knees
In the backs of cars
Playing with my toes
Under café tables
Twisting my untamed hair
Around calloused fingers
I find myself trying to float away
Like a red balloon
Just a gypsy girl and hat backwards boy
I listened to your decaying maybes
As you zipped up our memories
And gave away midnight
I was half past happy
Dancing through pink darkness
Hoping for an earthquake
With nights of claustrophobic feet

As quiet as owls.

You made a map
A map of me
A map of me to remind you of my love
I laughed as you traced the mountains with your fingertips
Carefully remembering each peak
Painting pictures in your mind
Through my landscape of endless fields
You ventured down the valley of my back
A smooth river of time
Climbed over blissful hills
And immersed yourself in ecstasy
You traveled across my stomach
Feeling each curve of nature
Each mark of remembrance
And found my eyes
Filled with puddles of questions
Answers to your misguided reasons
A passion feared to be lost
As time and distance separate us
So I let you draw my map
A map of my imperfections
A map of my beauty
A map to keep you close to me
After you’ve gone so very far away

I remember how heavy you were;
you left footprints in the grass
and on my chest.

I remember your eyes;
glazed crimson
dripping sweat on my *******,
clenched beneath white knuckles
and stained cotton sheets.

I remember the birthmark on your left hip;
its ugly face smirking
past greasy thrusts.

Your breath a heavy whiskey drowning my lungs;
whispered in my ear
hot sticky grunts.

An ink splotched lion tattooed on your thigh
grinded into me,
twisted itself into my heart
ate away at my preserved innocence.
I’d saved myself for long.

And then there was nothing left after that.
“Have fun in college.”

A closed door.  

I carry you in every moment.
My hands pressed firm against his abdomens
as he tries to make love to me,
I wait for that lion to reach out and
scratch my face velvet.

I wait for the pain and the shudder of his pleasure
As it ripples through his shoulders and he presses into me.

I wait for it to be over
So I can bury your face back down into blankets.

I wait for him to smile and kiss my temple before he drifts to sleep
And then I shower to scrub you off of me and out of me.

But I’m never clean enough
I walk around with your dirt caked around my core
I’m branded by you,
I’m drifting to sleep and my fall awakes me to your snarling neck.

I remember hearing that now you’re a youth pastor,
a true saint.
you’re working in South America with empty children
and hopeless mothers
you’re building homes for the homeless
and saving lives
you’re teaching the lost
all about God’s reining love for us

but guess what baby—
I’ll never forget the night you ****** me.

This poem is a crumpled note
written quickly
and then smashed into a small careless ball
tossed angrily into a black trashcan
never to be read by any pair of eyes.
It was a note for you,
the man who makes my palms sweat
and my heart twitch between my ribcage
but who barely glances in my direction
as we cross paths every morning at 8:56 am.

it was like an earthquake.

the memory of him
rattles in me like a teacup
scratching at the surface of
chipped porcelain.

it seems like he was here just yesterday.

quiet hands cupped
on fidgety kneecaps
i spilt my tea
into his lap.

it looks so easy to disapear.

one day he was here
tracing my fingers with his fingers
taking photographs of flowers
and then he was gone.

it is so hard to feel him now.

a face in the crowd looks like yours
and for a moment i feel light
perhaps it was dream
and maybe you're alive.

Since you’ve left
My pillows are lonely
They ask me over and over
When you’ll be back
And find my response
In the tears that stain the plush of their fabric

Since you’ve left
My sheets are tundra’s of empty landscape
Searching for traces of your body
Moaning for your touch
They ask me why you’re gone
And find the answer
In my sleepless nights
Tossing and turning in your dreamland

Since you’ve left
My blankets are useless
No point in masking my features
When no one is home to appreciate the sculpture
They question what I did to make you disappear
And find the reasons
As I smother myself beneath their arms
Hiding from what I don’t want to know

Since you’ve left
My bed is cold
Swollen with absence
And strained memories
If a love we once shared
Now forever lost in an ocean of sleep

My hands quivered like morning stems
unable to control myself
I hid behind my fears
untouchable.

He couldn’t stand tall enough
to steal a peak at me.
I wanted him to climb,
waited for eager eyes to
undress me, greet
my lips with the
deep green voice of the moon.

But no. Still cold.
I sit alone. Untouched,
desired but locked up
in too eager breaths and
words that cut through skin.
I tuck her into hopeless
pockets, and pray she
won’t look up again.

It was that feeling
you experience when falling down
the drop
of a rollercoaster.

I’d lost my breath
as it escaped my ribs
hand in hand with my voice
and in that moment everything went silent.

An old fashioned film played slowly
in the back of my head
as we staggered between
two vehicles of fatality,
deaths forewarning tapping mockingly
on my shoulder.

Blank eyes
on calloused hands
my fate sealed as I pressed
myself into his body.

Our sins
smoking off his tires
evidence through charcoaled black lines
on glistening pavement

my heart stops being for an instant

and I finally know the truth.

My flower yearns for you
in quiet moments, folded
beneath journals of misguided truth.

My life spins by in fast forward
I look down upon myself
and I tremble,
one feel so alone on October nights.

I remember your lips
tainted with coffee and cigarettes,
I’ve never been a smoker
but I liked the taste
and now I crave it through photographs
swollen with lust.

I’m crying in the bathroom and
I wish I could tell him everything fogging my thoughts,
keeping me pinned down from reality.

I find myself slipping away
more often than less and
my daydreams yield more satisfying than
theory lectures and structured papers
how does one make themselves noticed
in a world of so much corruption?

Hidden under fields of lilacs
is the truth—
my truth.

Wrapped up in twine and buried in the deep blue earth are
my memories silenced by songbirds.

This poem is a train ticket
purchased with leftover savings on New Year’s Day
held tightly to my *******
as I avoid lingering stares from a man who smells like ***
and the group of pubescent boys hovering next to me in line.

This poem is an empty seat
next to a window in the back of the cart
the perfect nest to pour out my pestering thoughts
onto coffee cups and jelly stained napkins
in hopes of suffocating the drumming noise inside my head.

This poem is the rattling isles
that shake my core and mix the worry
deep into the churning of my stomach
isles full of agonizing questions and peering eyes
analyzing my every step.

This poem is my journey home
away from his pretentious kisses
from his callous grins
and guilt ridden sorry’s
back to the girl who could ride on trains alone.