I can do one night stands,
And I can do ever afters.
But this in between you wish for
This thing you call "relationship"
Makes me cringe and shut my eyes.

There are no words
To describe the pain.

This is therefore the end of my poem.

My bed feels so empty without you in it.

Live off the earth
Eat from her bounty
Drink from her *******
Sleep on her skin
Climb up her spine
Drown in her tears
Become lovers of the land
Discover your own stardust
Bleed like a man
Breathe like a child
Cry like an infant
Live
As if this is home.

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.

What am I without you?
Am I not still a person?
Am I not still an individual
Perfectly capable
Of not just surviving
But succeeding without you?
I have tasted many lives
Before you showed your face,
And in those lives I have lived
And the lives have been grand.
Without you I am still a person.
And this person lives
And does not cease to exist
When company is not present.
But when given the choice,
Should I choose a life without you
When I am still a person,
But not nearly half the person
I am when I am with you?
Without you I am still a person whole,
But with you I am that person
And ten thousand times more.
I can live without you,
But why would I desire
To be a great person,
With the greatest part of me absent?
The part that is you
And all that you are,
Beautiful
And
Peaceful
And
Perfect.

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.

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.

They told me I am good,
But I do not wish to be good.
And I am certain
That upon reaching greatness,
I will not be satisfied with that either.
Perfection can never be achieved,
But who is to say
That it should stop being chased?

I know you never loved me.
Or if you did,
It was only ever for a moment.
Which then demands the question,
Was that even love??
Love is not short and fleeting.
Love is lasting and intentional.
You never loved me, I know.
But sometimes it is nice,
To rearrange those memories
And pretend that one of those smiles,
Meant something.

Please don't do that.
Please don't kiss me and remind me of what could be,
Visions of waking up to that kiss,
If only, if only you didn't love her.
Right as I fully dedicate
To letting my heart forget you,
There you go again.
You kissed me
"As a friend."
Some nerve you have.
Thinking you can,
Because it's on the cheek,
Therefore it's nothing.
Thinking it's nothing,
Thinking I'd think it's nothing
After you broke my heart.
Please, please don't do this.
Kiss me and walk away
With her in your arms.

It's not about what you say
How you say it,
How much you say.
It's about being next to you
When it happens.
The peace of knowing that you and I,
We breathe the same air,
For a moment.
Only a moment.
But this moment in time,
Is ever more beautiful
Because of it.

Be brave. Spark a conversation.

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.

I never intended to lose you that night.
I was wasted out of my mind--
Treating my young irresponsibilities
With more irresponsibility.
They said you left crying and in a daze.
In a certain sense,
I'm glad I didn't see you.
Not like that.
It would have broken me.
I just can't help but think,
That if I had,
Would I instead have held you through the night,
Before I let you become a victim of the night?

I'm so sorry.

She believed in love and Jupiter,
And everything in between.
Yet the earth betrayed her
In failing to give her a home.
Which is why she bared her chest
To every last element,
Hoping that the dust
Filled all of the cracks in her skin,
And praying that the moon
Tasted as sweet as she remembered.

I miss teenage romance
(Or was it lust?)
When the only end goal
Was ***.
Before the *** was ever had.
Back to a time
Before we knew
We had emotions,
Before we knew
There would be consequences.
Before we worried
About the morning after,
Before we worried
About the pieces of ourselves
We might leave in their bed.
Before we cared
About whether or not
They would hold us throughout the night,
Before we ever cared
About forever.

Because you said you loved me
And I believed it.
Silly me.

Even if nothing
Ever comes from this.
If that is all I get,
It will be nice
To remember something beautiful.
If all I ever get
Is that moment in your arms,
Then I have lived a thousand years,
And I have led a thousand lives.

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.

You said it was nothing
When you kissed her.
That a kiss doesn't mean a thing.
But I wish it did.
I wish a kiss meant everything.
I'd give anything for that reassurance
That all those times you kissed me,
That you felt everything.
That it meant something.
Or anything at all.

It's your choice.
It always has been.
I don't beg people to stay,
Nor do I stick around
Where I'm not wanted.
I just hope you know
I was ready to give you the world.
You already were mine.

To see you
Is to face the terrible fear
That you truly did give me
The best days of my life.
The fear
That that really was
The best I will ever have.
That my time is over,
That you were my only chance,
That I will never find anything
So beauitful again.
Shame.
I am still quite young
And have many more days to go.
That really can not be all,
Can it??

All the boys talk about her
In the locker room.
They talk about her body,
And her lips,
And they all have different stories.
Sometimes I think I've seen a different girl.
The girl I see at school
Seems much different
From the girl in all the stories.
She seems shy
And sad faced daily.
I can't picture her doing all these things.
I can't even picture her at a party.
I ran into her in the hallway once.
She was coming out of the bathroom,
And it looked like she'd been crying.
I smiled at her,
But she turned her face away.
I've never even heard her speak.
But these guys tell a different story.
They love her,
They say,
They love her,
Because she'll try anything once
If you ask her.

She smells like the summers of India,
Heat radiating from her skin,
Her eyes two green planets on our own.
I can see her through the window,
Wrapping paper thin Egyptian cotton
Tightly around her *******.
I know not to stare,
But her beauty wraps its fingers around my neck.
When she is finished she will stand back,
Gaze at herself in the mirror.
She just might cry,
Like I have seen her do nights before.
In early morning
She will step onto the balcony.
Rising before the dew touches the earth.
I know not the first thing about her,
Save the glory of her beauty.
Perhaps I shall never know more.
No,
I know not the first thing about her,
But she loves to watch the sun rise.

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 used to yell
And fight back.
Until I realized
That you hate it much more
When I remain silent
And perfectly still.

Like a statue.

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.

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.

Does it so much matter
Who we are
As it matters that we are.
That we are at all,
Anything at all??
For I am content,
With a blind existence,
As long as I can see you
Existing along side me.
In darkness I know
Not what we are,
But I feel you breathe beside me,
And that alone fills me up.

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.

What hurts me most
Is not knowing
Your heart has no desire for me.
What hurts me most
Is not the knowledge
That I will never have you.
What hurts me most
Is knowing
That the one who has you
Will never truly love you
Just for who you are.
Oh I know she will love your beautiful parts.
She will laugh at your jokes,
She will live for your body,
She will smile at your crazy, carefree antics.
But she will never love your ugly parts.
The parts you hide away from her.
The parts of you I know.
What hurts me most
Is knowing
That she will grow irritated
By your bizarre, obsessive habits.
What hurts me most
Is the knowledge
That she will learn to hate
Your shaking, angry lip.
What hurts me most
Is knowing
That there will be nights
When you fall asleep
With the person beside you
Never telling you
That she loves
Every dark part,
Every lovely part,
Every strange part,
Every joyous part,
Every monstrous part,
Every part of you that makes up you.
Every part of you
That I love
(And I love,
And I love,
And I love)
Behind my silence
And pleasant facade.

Every ounce of your beauty
I have touched,
For you display it
And give it away so freely.
But, darling, what I would do
To touch the darkest parts of you,
To finally know you complete,
To taste the stories that you hide away.
You say that there is nothing
But beauty and love and joy.
But, baby, I see it in your eyes,
The darkest parts of your nights
When you sit alone and cry
With no one but the moon watching.

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.

Logically, we knew it would fail,
But who thinks logically when in love?
The possibility that we might **** each other
Was not what we were thinking of.
We were warned, yes, countless times
That two artists could not be lovers.
But you fit me, and I fit you
When we hid underneath the covers.
Both obsessed and both with tempers,
You and I competed with our passions.
Both with desires to be more perfect,
Our love was but a distraction.
Our fights would end with kisses,
Our kisses would end with fights.
We went from loving to shouting
Switching out every other night.
Our last fight, do you remember?
We scattered garbage across the floor.
You slapped my cheek, I hit your chest,
And you headed for the door.
But before you made it to the street,
You turned around and grabbed my face.
You kissed my mouth, just once, but hard,
Then were gone without a trace.
Logically, we knew it would fail,
But we did it anyway.
We thought we could trick love,
Be the ones to get away.
Escape the fate that beheld us,
Be the exception to reality.
All the pain we could have spared us
If we had managed to think logically.

I have seen artists
At the highest of highs
And I have seen artists
At the lowest of lows.
I have found
That at these lowest of lows
There are days
When the artist finds no other reason
To carry on
Save the fact that they feel
They have not created enough.
And this thought leaves them
With the fear and assurance
That if they die
They will remain dead
Forever and the day after.
And for this they carry on:
Waking and creating,
Waking and creating.
Until the day
When it is finally enough.