You are the only one
Who knows the secrets of my youth.
You were the only one
Who I could tell the truth.
You know all my shame
But this isn't love.
You are the only one
Who can touch me in that way.
You were the only one
Who I did not push away.
You know his name
But this isn't love.
You are the only one
Who can kiss me in the rain.
You were the only one
Whose kiss did not cause pain.
You know I was framed
But this isn't love.
You are the only one
Who can hold me in bed.
You were the only one
Whose touch I did not dread.
You know who's to blame
But this isn't love.
You are the only one
Who seems to understand.
You were the only one
Who could ever hold my hand.
You know what he claimed
But this isn't love.
You are the only one
Who came close to "together".
You were the only one
Who I could see forever.
You felt the same
But it wasn't love.

I have no recollection of what attracted me to you
Nor do I remember knowing it then.
There stood no physical attraction--
My stomach did not flutter in your presence
Nor did I long for your skin.
But only heaven knows
What I would have given
To remain there forever with you
Listening to your voice
Speaking of what used to be.
How I longed to fall asleep
On that Arizona ground
To the deep cadence of your voice.
But alas the day closed,
And the car pulled away.
With every second
I saw you shrink further away,
The car forcing us worlds apart
As you remained in yours
And I returned to mine.

I loved you
Beyond our fleshly passions.
But it only took a second,
When I looked away
For me to lose you
In the sun.

Oh you treated me kindly
And provided me my every need.
You gave me schooling, education,
And my daily drinks and feeds.
And though you never meant to hurt,
If only you could see how
The marriage between the two of you
Still affects me even now.
Oh I live a happy life,
A beautiful child to keep me whole,
My husband with a workers hand
And a tender, loving soul.
Yet any accidental crash,
From somewhere in my home
Leaves me with the horrid thought
That I may end up alone.
It is silly, father, mother,
That a fallen lamp has me believing
That someone whom I love so much
Really could be leaving.
Yes you loved me, and you cared.
You never left me on my own.
But oh how you ruined the concept
Of a safe and secure home.

I just love him so much.
Is there even a poem to write??
Are there even words to say??
When I am with him,
I can't stop smiling.
And when we are apart,
I feel like crying.
I'm so happy.
For the first time ever,
I am so happy.
I know none of you needed to know that,
But I couldn't keep it in
Any longer.
I love him so much.

Please do not write me
And remind me how we were in love.
We were never in love.
We were merely kids
Who knew not the first thing about love.
We were simply victims
Of the seduction of other's words
Who loved to tell us
How beautiful we were,
And to two young, naive, foolish artists
(Who knew nothing of the world)
Nothing was more important than beauty
Whether it be true
Or whether it be false.

The sound of the wind chime      
Is enough to break a tired soul,  
With its ringing so lonesome and low--
Cold.            
Like the floor you slept upon
While you were becoming a man,
With the radio
Somewhere in the distance
Humming songs about the river
And the promise you made to him
To love his daughter.

I was missing you again,
Regretting that you are not here.
It's been a year,
But my heart has not healed
From losing you.
I was looking through old pictures
Of you
Of us
And found the one
Where I'm looking up at you
Smiling.
And you're looking at the camera
Smiling.
But when I see your smile
In this photograph,
I now see the tears behind the smile,
The pain you held inside,
How you were breaking at the seams,
And the heartbreak you felt.
I look at this picture
Of you and I
With you so beautiful in black and white.
I wonder how any of us
Could have been so blind
To not see the pain you held inside.

Today I will visit your grave.
I'll kiss your name in concrete.
I'll try to stay strong
Like you would want me to.
Like I wish you had.
But in the end I know
I'll break down
And be there until sunset
Weeping and weeping
Whispering your name
And one hundred times
"I'm sorry"
"I'm sorry"
"I'm so sorry".

The night time brings upon
A nectar to the earth
Sweet like the honey tears
Of the black-eyed Susans,
And cool to the touch
Like the springs in August.
I know,
For I have walked it myself.
Barefoot and naked,
Into the woods
In search of a song
Gone silent from my youth.

Where do we stand??
Where do we stand??
You tell me.
For we both know
That a single kiss
Can mean everything,
And a single kiss
Can mean nothing at all.
So you tell me,
My dear,
Which was ours??

You came without warning,
Your feet held no footsteps.
You entered in
And tied our hands behind our backs
With thick, sweet lies
And a false sense of security.
You locked the door behind you
And made us hostages,
Trapped by a thousand impossible promises.
You stole our peace at night,
Replacing them with terror
With the very same hands
That tucked us into bed.
You mentally ***** us
With your cowardly threats
And mind shifting chants.
We were left victims
And you were left victor.
Yet we wish not for our freedom
Nor our innocence back
(Though countless are the hours
We would fight to taste these again).
We only wish
That you had not broken our ankles
So that we may warn the others
Before you break down the door.

I suppose you were always part of my life,
Standing somewhere in the background.
But I never truly
Paid you any mind.
Until one day.
Without warning or without noticing why,
We fell into a companionship like no other.
By your touch I was healed
Of a life long illness,
Vanished like the snow.
Thankful, I let you into my home.
Through keeping our distances
We became closer than expected.
But past your ability to heal,
You had the power to cast a sickness upon me
That still follows me,
Even after all these years.
No matter.
I loved the sickness
And I loved the pain.

You're angry again.
You came home again,
The smell of whiskey and frustration
On your breath,
Ready to remind me
Of everything I do wrong.
You start with the yelling.
But the yelling I can take.
It's when you start to throw things--
The lamp, the plates, the chairs--
That my heart begins to ache.
I never fear you hurting me--
Nothing you've ever thrown has striked.
But it's the way you throw things
Without a care
Of which items you toss and break,
But never once
Do you let go
Of the bottle in your hand.
Objects fly across the room,
But you never loosen your grip
On the neck of your bottle.
You hold it and never let it go,
The same way you promised
You would do to me
When I was still young and beautiful.
You promised.
You said you'd hold me
And never let me go.
I envy your bottle,
And long to once again
Be the one between your fingers.
But you will never love me as much
As you love that glass and whiskey.

Never again will I ever write
A single love poem for you.
Never again will a paper or a thought
Be dedicated to you.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Never again will I hear "forever"
And follow with a thought of you.
Never again will I paint lovers in rain
And picture them me and you.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Never again when the phone rings
Will I hope that it is you.
Never again will I close my eyes
And sleep with dreams of you.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Never again will I ever love
The way that I loved you.
Never again will I ever want
Anyone but you.
I loved you.

Nothing shouted louder
Than the words we left unspoken.
Nothing hurt more
Than the bones we left unbroken.

The deeper I fell in love with you,
The quicker I came to realize
How much of a devil in disguise
You really were.
But you promised a healing
From the sickness you gave me.
And though I assured you I needed it,
You convinced me I would regret
Holding on to this disease.
So I allowed you your touch,
And like that, you were forgiven.
But you failed to tell me
That the fever had me tainted
Forever.

Peace and self justification
Is all I seek
Amongst the racket
Of this corpse house--
But all I find is noise.
I could shoot myself
For second guessing this all,
But what's worst is knowing
That it's not a guess.
I know
That I will only ever
Be your heat.
Who's to stop me?
I hate the taste,
But I love the buzz.

I know not what love is,
For my heart instead is one of pain,
If not anger and regret.
I knew nothing of tenderness
Until you took me strongly in your arms.

In your arms I am safe,
Hidden behind a steel gate,
Safe from the bombardment
Of thought, of doubt, of loneliness.

And yet in your strength
I find a certain soft something,
Sweet like honey and salted like tears.
It is the thing that moves me
To return this tenderness.
To hold you like a child in my arms,
To kiss your forehead,
And give you what is left
Of this tired, bleeding heart--
A pathetic offering, but sincere
As all I have to give.

Jon, my love, there is peace and perfection here
To see you sleeping by my side
And to know if I have ever loved
I have loved you.
Wholly,
And with all of my being.

I'm hanging by a thread.
I have no fight left in me.
Turn over your shoulder
And you will no longer find
The man willing to stand for himself.
Instead, in his place,
You will find a small child
Weeping at your feet,
Begging you not to cut the thread
That's keeping my heart beating
Slow, like a heavy dripping faucet.

I know the rules.
We don't talk about the morning after,
And we never mention the night before.
I know he didn't love me,
And in a certain sense,
It doesn't matter.
I no longer ask to be loved.
I'm pretty sure love isn't real anyhow.
But it would just be nice
To not wake up alone
For once.

He could never be quite certain
Whether she belonged to him
Or to the sky
This girl with tiger blood
And lazy hair,
For though she slept beside him,
He heard her voice in her sleep
Speaking to all the skeletons of her past
Explaining to them
That nothing caged can fly
And hoping they understand.

I don't know if I'll ever see her again,
This one I trusted to be my forever.
This is not forever.
This is a day and days without her.
She doesn't want to be bothered.
She doesn't want to be better.
I hate myself for respecting it.
She's gone somewhere far away,
But never more than a phone call away.
I pray her face never fades from my mind
As I may never see her again.
Still, even now, all I can recall
Is the snow covered bridge she sat upon,
The snow soaking into her jeans
And an icy storm in the water below.
She stared so deeply into that storm.
She used to say, "Home."
She always whispered, "Home."
She doesn't want to be bothered.
She doesn't want to be alone.

If it happens I shall die tonite,
As it seems to me, and I fear I might,
I pray that you remember me
As the artist I had hoped to be.

If in my sleep my last breath
Succumbs to the call of death
Please remember all the love I made
And do not be shy to remember the hate.

If tonite I shall die while in my bed
(Though I wish I could stay and not be dead)
See my blue lips and remember Adam's song.
With the words under my sheets so you may sing along.

Every morning,
When he takes a moment to recall her,
Two memories hold all the memories:
The way she would laugh at things
That had never before seemed extraordinary,
And the way she would cry
Over things he never knew were sad
Until she started to cry.

The air here smells like cigarettes,
The water tastes like wine,
The rooms reek of asphyxiation,
But everyone is fine.
In the bathroom is a bathtub,
Adorned with a ring of blood,
The walls, decorated with a yellow stain,
From an unattended flood.
The food inside the kitchen,
Is no more than butts and ash,
The pantry, filled with Sylvia's books,
The sink, a pile of trash.
The dark of the room is passion,
Anger and beauty and romance,
One moment there is weeping,
Then fighting, then time to dance.
"Where are we?" you may ask?
This is the artists' home.
Evidence of painting together,
And poetry written alone.
You thought it might be beauitful,
With color and sun and flowers.
You had no plan at all to find
Men self-sabotaging for hours.
Oh, you thought the walls would show
Van Gogh, not evidence of mourners.
Yes, well, Vincent is still here:
He is the man bleeding in the corner.

I long to be beside you again.
You with your waist-long hair,
Black as the Arizona night sky
You slept under,
Showing me just exactly
Where the mountains mourn your people.
You taught me
How to speak to the moon
So she can hear me.
You said,
"This earth is our mother.
Let her cradle you,
Hold you close to her breast.
Love her back.
Because too many never did."

It's how the greatest stories all begin.
But someone usually dies.

I'm jealous of the person I am when I am with you.

I pity these dead moths
And their foolish minds.
They lie in rest
Under the very same street light
That they died for.
I can not help but to think
That if only these moths
Could aquire some wisdom,
They could learn to desire the light
The same way I desire you:
Knowing that the second I touch
I get burned,
Yet remaining as close as possible,
So that I may experience
The beauty
Of your warmth and radiance
Without ever truly touching.

I wake up
To the mist of his breath
On the back of my neck,
The smell of alcohol still lingering.
I roll away
From the grip of his arm
And sit up in the bed.
I might be the only one awake,
Which gives me a good chance to leave
Before I have to make an effort.
I step out of bed
And head for the door.
But as I walk away,
I look back at him once more.
He was a nice guy,
Wasn't pushy
Or aggressive.
He might even be worth
Trying to make something work.
A tingling hint of guilt
Dances in my stomach,
Then flees just as quickly
As I see him sleeping so peacefully.
Sure,
He was a nice guy.
But for once,
It will be nice
To be the one who leaves
And not the one
Who gets left in bed.

I'm not asking for your word,
And you don't need to fear commitment,
Because I do not ask for that either.
You can use me all you like--
I promise I can be
Just like a little doll.
I ask for no promises before,
No duties after,
And everything in between
Is all on your terms.
All I ask,
Is that you hold me
For just a few minutes after.
Hold me as if I were yours.
Because sometimes it's nice to pretend.

You have turned me into a romance novelist
Thinking up these sappy fantasies
Forcing me to finally have a heart
Daydreaming of you and me.

You saw through my cold, hard wall
And knew that it was merely glass.
You tore it down with the things that you do
Making it a shadow of the past.

You have turned me into a late-night musician
Putting Sir Elton John to shame
Awake into the wee hours of the morning
Writing love songs titled in your name.

You did not believe a word I said
When I said I did not believe in love
You swept me away with all that you are
Leaving the angels smiling above.

You have turned me into a believer of miracles
Smiling at how my life has changed.
Making me believe you were heaven-sent
A wondrous marvel unexplained.

You are my half that I never foresaw
The epilogue I skipped in my ignorance.
But you have made me new with the way that you breathe
And you, my love, have made every difference.

I wish you weren't sober
The day that you died,
Because I know there was sincerity
In every tear that you cried.
No pills in your stomach
That you used to use.
Nothing to blame
For you tying the noose.
It was not the *****
Distorting your mind
Just you being sure
That you wanted to die.
Nothing to numb
All the hurt in your heart
Just every raw feeling
Before you could depart.
When I think of the pain
Your mind gave to yourself
I know that before heaven
You went through a hell.
I wish you weren't sober
The day that you died.
I wish I had saved you.
I'm sorry. I tried.

All I want
Is to be with you forever
But I know
My commitment skills
Are filthy and nearly nonexistent.
Not that I would ever
Be unfaithful to you
With another man--
That you never need to fear--
But I know
There will be days
When you feel more alone
Than before you were with me,
Because in being consumed
By the need to make art,
I will forget you exist.
There will be days
When I wake up
With nothing on my mind
But words and paint,
Leaving you in bed
Only to roll over and find sheets
Where your mate promised to be
Every morning.
There will be days,
When you spy me
With ink and paint on my fingers
And distracted by my own hands,
And the hope that they will make,
I will forget
To touch your own.
There will be days
When you experience
The coldest loneliness,
While I destroy the house,
Trying to shake myself
Of creative drought.
With me,
You will know true loneliness,
And how it does not come
From an empty house,
But from the distance you feel
From the person
Who vowed to love you the most.

And for this, I say goodbye.

Two a.m.
And I stare up towards the ceiling
At a moth circling my light bulb.
I wonder what is so attractive
About my tiny glass sun
And am curious to know
Where the moth will go
When the sun burns out.
And as I stare at this moth
Hypnotized, determined in love,
I debate whether or not I lied to you,
As I slip my hand into my pillowcase
Searching for a sleeping pill
The same size and shape
As Manhattan.

My heart is breaking
Because today,
You, my sweet angel,
Saw me break.
I, who am supposed to be
Your rock,
Showed you that I indeed
Am so weak.
You were not supposed to see me
In such an awful state.
I did not know you were watching
And heard my pathetic cry.
My heart is breaking,
My sweet angel,
Because
I had hoped to raise you
The way I wish I had been:
Happy and naive
Clueless to the truth of the lie
That adults never cry.

I remember seeing you stand there. Underneath the streetlight, right? Remember how you used to hold your breath every time a car would drive by, praying to God that they wouldn't stop. You weren't one of them. "Hey pretty baby, you lost?" Yes. Yes. Yes you were. But they weren't out at night to hand out directions. You wish. Remember how there was always at least one kind lady? "Honey, there's a shelter near by. Just down the road from here. Why don't you just go stay there instead?" Sure. Over your dead body. You were not one of them. You were not. I saw you. I remember. You started to rub your hands on the rust of the streetlight pole. You were getting nervous. You were getting nervous and afraid that you were running out of time. But for what? Right. Nowhere to be.

The turning of a leaf
Brought upon a turn in our friendship.
On that cold August day,
My lips found out just how warm,
Soft, and inviting
Your lips happened to be.
So I dove deep.
But your lips were deceitful.
For the inside of your mouth
Was as cold and hard as ice.
I retreated from the kiss
And vowed
Never to go down that road again.
But no later did I find
You and I clutching each other in bed
Whispering to each other sweet words of heaven
And scalding words of hell.
It was a night I never should have touched.
I know.
But we did. Together.