This morning before
I ever lifted my head,
I turned to see
Your half of the bed.
And what a harsh reminder
Of how I'm growing old
With your side of the bed
Still unbearably cold.
Your sheets are not tossed,
Your pillow unpressed--
All lovely reminders
Of my current distress.
Was it not merely a month ago
That I was curled against your skin?
We were perfect puzzle pieces,
Your shoulder to my chin.
All day long
We would curl up and sleep
With nothing like time
And business to keep.
But what a terrible disease
Lurked inside my mind.
I never thought I could be
So selfish and unkind.
If only I had known
I was capable of such sin
I never would have let
Our cursed romance begin.
I could promise to never
Let it happen again.
I could take my pills
Like I refused to then.
I could be so much better,
My darling, please see.
If only, if only
You'd come back to me.

She was gone before the sun arose.
I don't know when she left my bed,
But I know that she was here.
For though her imprint on my mattress
Has cooled and faded,
Her lipstick stains show bright on my pillow,
Two ******, mirroring arches
On a field of snow
I clearly recall
Her icy, cold fingertips on my spine
Waking me up twice in the night
Before I found the morning
Without her there.

Allow me to love you,
To squeeze your hand without reason,
To approach you and kiss you
Completely without warning.
Allow me to love you,
To spend my waking hours by your side,
And my nights listening to your heart beat.
Allow me to love you,
To touch you without guilt,
To proclaim my adoration for you
Void of hesitations.
Allow me to love you,
To simply look at you,
To know you are mine.
Allow me to love you,
To shout it out without shame,
To love you wholly, intensely,
Without inhibitions.

Dance with me, dearest death.
Sweep me off my feet.
Dance with me, darling death.
Pull us cheek to cheek.
You take the lead, and I will follow
Matching my feet with yours.
Through the halls, into ballrooms
On a night time tour of dance floors.
Dance with me, dearest death.
Hold me by the waist.
Dance with me, darling death.
Your chest warm on my face.
See my dress flow like river water,
As you take my finger for a twirl.
In shadows of the rooms we dance
In dips and curves and curls.
Dance with me, dearest death.
Press me against your skin.
Dance with me, darling death.
Meet the flesh above my chin.
And when the night is finally over
I beg, take me home with you.
Into bed you and I will crawl
For a night I will not make through.

Walking through the town today
I thought I crossed you on the street
With your sand storm hair and empty eyes
And anxious vagabond feet.
Your pretty teeth were crooked
Like bricks forced under pressure
Your shoulders, they sagged tiredly
Your head hung with displeasure.
My heart leapt at the sight of you
And music filled my lungs
With a longing to sing with the loudest voice
All the songs 'til now left unsung.
But when your eyes met with mine,
You were just a man I did not know.
Just a man, like the man I once loved
One thousand cold Augusts ago.

One day we will live in a house
Where plates are broken
Because of accidents.
Our plates will break
Because you were helping mommy
With the dishes
When the plate slipped from your fingers.
You and I will make faces
In the sink
With all the broken pieces
And laugh at the faces laughing back at us.
One day we will live in a home
Where plates are broken
Because of accidents.
And nothing will ever be thrown.

You are finally here
My sweet, sweet child.
The closest thing to heaven
I have ever touched,
An angel sleeping in my arms.
Every part of you is beautiful.
Your eyes are beautiful.
Your nose is beautiful.
Your lips are beautiful.
Your hands the size of my thumb are beautiful.
The touch of your skin creates an ecstasy.
I could look at you all day,
Counting your fingers
And your tiny toes.
I could hold you forever,
Kissing your forehead
Every time you close your eyes.
I long to hold your skin to mine
As I have visions of the future,
You growing and calling me "Mama".
You are my miracle.
And as I watch you suckle at my breast
The thought that you depend on me
For nourishment and life
Presents itself
As the most terrifyingly beautiful thought.
Enough to make tears roll down my face
And unto your porcelain skin.

I saw the way you smiled at her
And in that moment I realized
That you and I will never be.
Not because you love her so
But because I would never allow it.
Your happiness is always first.
It is all that matters to me.
And in that moment it was clear,
She made you happier than I am ever capable of.
I watched her give you something that I can never give:
Joy upon your face.
All I have ever given you
Is my worry,
Paranoid apologies,
Desperate tears,
And the promise to love you unconditionally
Forever and ever.
But I can not make you happy
So you will never be mine.

I'm not exactly sure what love is.
I don't know what it is supposed to feel like.
But I know this.
Every time I see you,
My palms start sweating uncontrollably
And I wonder how in hell
I am ever supposed to hold your hand
If being yards away from you
Does that to me.
When I see you,
I swear "Dream Weaver" starts playing
In my head.
Whenever I see you,
I feel like I have to puke,
And it's the best feeling ever.
Every time I am done
Spending time with you,
I have to *** right away from nervousness.
But there's not a single person
I am more comfortable around.
When I am around you,
I spend more time
Covering up the teeth I'm so insecure of
Than I do talking to you.
I don't do that around anyone else,
But then again,
No one makes me laugh as much as you do.
When I see you,
I start thinking of different cheesy quotes
From different cheesy Rom-Coms,
And pray to God
That you haven't seen those movies,
So on the one in a billion chance
That I am actually brave enough to say something,
You won't realize how unoriginal I am.
Whenever I am with you,
And you ask me if I agree with what you said,
I'm lying.
I have no idea what you've just said.
I was too busy counting the wrinkles
Around your eyes
(Because wrinkles are my favorite, you know).
When you hug me,
I feel like crying.
WHY DO I FEEL LIKE CRYING?!
I have no idea what love is.
But let me tell you,
This feels pretty **** close.

I love you.
With all of my being I love you.
To take a bullet for you,
I would not hesitate.
My only request would be
To please aim for the brain
And not the heart,
So that my heart remains in tact
To continue loving you
For as long as the sky stretches
And as deeply as the ocean rests.

The desire to be an artist,
To be a poet, to be immortal.
Knowing there's a land of words
If I can only reach the portal.
Drown in ****** and Wine
In a tub filled to the brim,
Letting France run down my throat,
Letting France run down my chin.
Words lay at the bottom
Of every bottle (or so they say)
Convincing us it's worth the *****
And the headache the next day.
Kiss goodbye the sound mind,
And enter insanity.
Welcome to the world of arts
With streets of vanity.
There stands Shakespeare on the balcony;
Kurt Cobain sits in the corner.
This place you are one
Where anywhere else you are a foreigner.
Here there is no day.
Here there is only night.
Here you sit making art
By the candle light.
But here there is no laughter,
For an artists knows no joy.
Instead here lies the dreams
Of all the dead girls and boys.
And here there is no rest,
For an artist knows no peace.
Here is the land of artists.
Is it everything you dreamed?

Such childless and clueless fools,
That it makes me fall into laughter
To think that men still search high and low
For the gold they've always been after.
And how jealous, I'm sure, they all would be
If they found that swirling in this glass
Is liquid gold that makes me one
With the writers of ages past.
Silence is golden, or so they say,
But this gold I own births words.
For one thin river down my throat
Flow out words that have never been heard.
Still the voices in my head warn of addiction.
But perhaps their thirst is great as mine.
Is not that how i started drinking gold?
I could no longer quench them with wine.
I am always alone, so it seems
So nobody sits in my path
Of things I could potentially hurt
If I have more than one glass.
So I will continue with liquid gold,
Feeding my paper with words,
Until my eyes are filled with tears
And my poems turn into lines blurred.

Why is it that every time
I come in search for you,
I find you alone on the floor
Turning black and blue?
Tell me, what does he do to you
Behind these tightly closed doors?
Or why you no longer dance with me
Because your body is always sore.
You and I, my darling, were happy
Before he ever walked in.
We'd dance barefoot in the fields,
Married to the earth and wind.
But when you told me that he loved you
I believed you and set you free.
I'd always hoped you'd find someone
Much worthier than me.
But sweetheart, why so many tears?
You wear long sleeves more and more.
What happened to the lovely summer dresses
That once upon a time you wore?
And why, sweetpea, is he never home
When I come visit during the day?
And why is it always night
That you choose to run away?
Run away again tonite.
Come knocking on my door.
I will let you in; I swear
That you will hurt no more.

You told me a story
Of mass destruction,
Then romanced the idea
Of self destruction.
You told me of a world
Filled with corruption,
Then added sugar to the taste
Of self corruption.
You told me of a people
Wrapped in infliction,
Then taught me the ways
Of self infliction.
You told me of a home
Trapped in desolation,
Then brought beauty to the thought
Of self desolation.
You told me of a family
Held back by ruination,
Then offered me a handful
Of self ruination.
So when you told me of a killer
And his tools for termination,
You suggested a simple gun:
Self termination.

Oh to drag my shaking fingers
Through the cracked Arizona ground once more,
Your dark face staring back at me
Sitting upon the land your fathers promised you,
Promising to stand beside you
As you battle the salted waters.
Oh I would give it all back to you,
My sweet love from a land beyond.
This earth that rightfully belongs to you
And the cracks upon her face,
The junipers in their genorosity,
The moon, a goddess in all her radiance.
I would give it all back in a heartbeat,
Heavy as the thunders in monsoon.
I would give it all back to tell your fathers
That you never failed them,
Even when they came to you with guns.

My bathroom reeks of cigarettes,
My sink is filled with wine,
My kitchen table, a stack of bills
And overdue book fines.
This isolation is my poison,
This quiet is my hell.
I thrive on dreams of suicide
And other habits I can't tell.
The life of an artist, you see,
Is a life of sacrifice.
And though we did not choose this fate,
We still must pay the price.
People think we simply see
Hidden beauty in the world.
But we also see the demons at night
Seducing young boys and girls.
They're tempted by money and other things
The world tries to force in our minds.
And all the artist can do is sit, watch
And hope they come out alive.
For an artist already knows how it is
To live in a world where you choke
On poison and blood and *** and wine
And in the end, they still come out broke.
Yet we still live with a foolish hope
That one day when we're dead and gone,
Perhaps our art and perhaps our words
Will somehow carry on.
We believe once we're immortal
Everything will somehow be alright.
And I plan to be there someday--
If I can make it through the night.

I hate every last bit of this.
All I want is to love you,
But you have no interest in being loved.
Sweetheart,
I am so tired of these games.
This party has grown old,
These lies have turned stale.
Tell me honestly how old are we??
I do not wish to throw accusations at you.
You are as free as you wish to be.
Your decisions are your own.
But tell me now that you do not love me,
So I can try all I can to walk away,
To move on,
Without you.
Without you.
I know you do not love me,
But my foolish heart remains hopeful.
So please tell me,
That I might lay this foolish heart to rest.

*I will always love you.

He wakes every morning 
To stare into the mirror 
And wonder when his face 
Turned like elephant skin;
For all his mind recalls
Is a memory of a laughing girl
Who pulled the ribbons from her hair,
Until one day she stole his sheers
To carpet the floor 
With black raven wings,
All because she longed to drink
From the basket of life,
But in his animal-instinct weakness
He cut the cord
From the source 
To her lips.

I do not mean to be so difficult.
I do not mean to be irrational.
I do not mean to hide away from you,
And lie when you ask about my feelings.
It's not me.
It's you.
It's entirely you.
Because all I care about is you.
I pray for your well being
Far beyond my own.
You are my every waking thought.
You are my every peaceful dream.
You are every light I have ever seen
Since the day you vanished my darkness.
You are every perfect lovely thing
That not even in a hundred years
Could all the finest poets think up.
You are peace and perfection
And beauty incarnate.
You are my world.
But you are also every worry
That I have ever had.
You are every tear
That has ever fallen from my eye.
You are every heartache
I have ever endured.
You are every sleepless night
That has ever plagued me.
And yet I can not let you go.
For how could I let
Heaven's most beautiful creation
Slip through my fingers
As if I did not know what I had??
As if I did not know
That you are the miracle I saught.
As if I did not know
That I am blessed beyond all blessings.

We take this ride in silence.
Not a word,
Not a cough,
Not a single glance.
I wonder why we go visit your mother
When it only ever upsets you,
And I know that for the next three days
I will only hear five or six words from you.
I wonder when this became us:
Sharing everything from bathroom to bed,
Yet as close to strangers as we could be.
I wonder when you stopped smiling,
And if I thought hard could I place a date.
My mind runs back to the day
I bought you that Lewis Carroll book.
You had tears in your eyes,
As you pressed the open pages to your chest
But I had never see you smile brighter.
I wonder why we never mention your father
And why you feel you have to fight so hard
For your mother's approval.
I wonder what happened that night
When you pushed me onto the bed
And started drowning me in cigarette kisses.
But the moment I placed my hands on your frail body
You pushed me away,
"I don't need your help,
I can undress myself."
I wonder what I did
That turned you into a widow
In a bride's body.
I wonder if this Jericho between us
Will ever shatter
If we yell loud enough.
And as we take this ride in silence,
Your body turned away from me,
Staring out the window,
Your eyes slowly closing,
I wonder how much longer we will last.

Angel dust
And angel lust
Sleeping with false hopes
Of trust
Like coming down
From ecstasy
While the mother
Fades off next to me.
Finger nails
And powder trails
Forgetting about Larry's
Cautionary tails,
Of summers of bare chests
And teenage ***,
Of young flowers
Hung around our necks.
Getting wasted
Being tasted
Growing up so rushed
And hasted.
Like selling out
Our souls to space
Innocence gone
Without a trace.

You tell me that you love me.
And I believe you.
But you only love me
As much as you have to.
You only love me
As much as is expected of you.

Sometimes I am jealous
Of my own love for you.
I wonder what it must be like
To be loved that much.
To have someone willing
To not only die for you
But to live for you.

I wish I could love you less.
I wish our love could be equal.
But instead your lack of love for me
Is matched by my undying love for you.
There is no balance between us,
Only one parched and dry
And the other overflowing with love.

When I picture my own funeral,
I see a young person in a box.
She is never old.
And though I am sure my family is there,
I forget to paint them in.
I see other young people
Sad, but mostly occupied
By whispering of my newly exposed secrets.
And the people I truly care about,
The only ones with nice things to say--
Simeon the ice cream man,
Ronny the busker,
Adam the hobo,
Maria the dream and Maria the ghost,
Hoodie Man the hero,
And Chris the ****** addict,
Are nowhere to be found,
For how could they have heard the news?
And a few years later,
When they realize I have not made an appearance
In quite some time
They will wonder what happened
To that girl they called solitude
And smile because they can only assume
That most likely I finally left the country
To follow my dream
And try to be happy.
And they will live the rest of their lives
Completely unaware
That my grave longs to be pressed on
By their feet
And my flowers watered
By their tears.

I always loved that movie,
Particularly the part
When he asks her
Why the city has no walls
And therefore how can it shield itself?
She answers readily by explaining to him
That most of the dangers
The city will ever face
Come from the inside.
It is the same sort of dangers
I feel a safety from
While in your arms.
Inside of the fold of your arms
I find safety.
Not from any outside threat
That may be lurking,
But a quiet safety from the constant war
Inside of my own mind.
When I am within your arms
The war grows calm and silent,
In a way it never does.
The feeling like I can never catch a breath
Disappears at the touch of your hand,
And for once I can breathe.
Inside of your arms,
I can do what should come naturally,
But I can never seem to accomplish.
I can breathe.
I can breathe.
With you
I can just be.

I need a midnight walk,
With foggy air,
Rock and roll,
And cigarettes.
I was so young.
I don't know why
I did any of those things.
Something about wanting to feel something.
Anything.
But looking back,
I had never felt anything more beautiful.
I need a ride from a stranger,
I need the hope of an out,
Street lights,
Cracked lips and tears,
Anything to feel alive again.

He spies her in the crowd,
The girl he had hoped to forget.
Her bones are still as delicate
And her breathing
Just as shallow
As when he saw her last.
At night
She is most beautiful,
For she always raises her eyebrows
A bit higher
Once the moon shows face.

I miss your thumb gently brushing my breast
Soft gentle strokes
Making goosebumps rise and prickle my body,
My spine curl with shivers.
I miss breathing in air as you whispered
"Anything. Anything to feel your heartbeat
On my hands."

I accidentally walked in front of a car
Today.
I was walking slowly,
With my head down
And forgot to watch where I was going.
"What are you, crazy?!"
The driver shouted,
After swerving to avoid me.
I stared back at him.
There he was:
An important looking man
In his brand new car
Shiny and fast
In a hurry
Because he was going somewhere.
He was going somewhere.
I stared down at my worn out shoes,
The canvas sagging with lack of purpose,
And answered him,
"Yeah, probably."

I hope that when I die,
They find every letter
I ever wrote you,
Every poem
I penned for you,
Every recording of every song
I ever sang for you,
And every day,
Every memory,
I recorded on paper with pen
So that they may know for certain
How much I always loved you
And how much I always will.

Come to the cemetery once again
And read poetry with me.
The only place where we have found
The slightest bit of peace.
The world outside is far too loud
And too terribly unkind.
So sit here on this tombstone with me
And find something we might find.
The crows all sing their shrieking songs
To the dead souls resting here.
And we, their only breathing guests,
We read Whitman and Shakespeare.
The stones we labor are cold and hard
Just like the world outside we see.
So come to the cemetery once again
And read poetry with me.

Run away with me.
Place your mitten-hand in mine
And discover what it is like
To be children of the wind.
Run away with me,
To a dream of a field
Where angels play at snowy dawn,
Clueless of where we are really going
Yet hopeful nonetheless.
Run away with me
Far from this world
Of rust and stormy hollows
That only ages our hearts
And wishes to turn us into orphans.
Run away with me.
Lace up your boots,
Kiss your mother goodbye.
Meet me by the river
Where we will run away
If only to sit under a tree,
Knee to knee,
Foreheads pressed together,
Staring into each other's eyes
And grinning with our baby teeth,
Thankful that for a moment,
"We are here,
We are here,
And we are not there."

Because, really, who were we to think
That you and I could trick love??
Who were we to think us smarter
Than the gods who rule above??
To think that we could outrun fate
To think we would be missed.
To ignore the warnings of those much wiser
To reach for that first kiss.
To think that we were more than stars
To think of our wisdom like jewels.
Really, who were we, my darling??
You and I were fools.

Beads of sweat ,
Breath down necks,
And the prayer
That this is destiny
For more than a few minutes.
Perhaps at least two of us
Will outlive our teenage lust
And find out what it means to love.
The rest of us
Will all stay stuck
And marry some pretty face
Belonging to a person
We will never know.