Soft and firm, gentle and fierce,
A parting breath smothers on skin.
Wild and wanting, surrendered and stroking,
Fingers are searching and home.

Quiet, now listening, anticipating, wishing
Until the spell breaks beneath lips -
Blushing it comes, blooming it bursts
Against symphonies and rhapsodies
With melodies heaving, heavy, unheard.

Gasping for life, holding more tight
To another so fragile, human, finite
Stealing, giving, alternately taking
An appetite destructive, delicious,
Desiring, raging;
Flesh upon flesh, ragged, receiving.

Twisting, bones resisting,
A common ground with no space between
Reaching and holding, pressing and pulling,
Synchronized in silent sweet rhythms of time
Warm, willing, fantasies thrilling, perspire
Lovely and lucid, writhing, conducive
As dancing flames to the fire.

Thoughts are melting to muddle
Into puddled pools of passion
Dripping, swirling, flooding, licking
The innermost walls of the cowering mind
Bodies and hearts are pulsing, repeating,
Beating and bruising, until each breath
Is ******, divine.

I never asked you to touch me.
My limbs were heavy with sleep as you moved over me,
Doing things that I wouldn’t let you do earlier, when we were awake.
My first slumber party with a college boy took a turn at 3 AM
My eyes rolling back in my head,
And I felt your hands pulling the tops of my jeans down over my legs
Sleeping, I must be sleeping, dreaming, I must be dreaming…

Did you kiss me? I don’t remember
What did you do to me?
I don’t remember. Did I say yes, no, maybe, please?
I don’t remember.

But in the morning, I was staring at the ceiling while you slept, thinking
About my friend
Whose boyfriend pushed her down onto the bed
Calling her a tease and saying that if they were going to stay together
She was going to have to fulfill all of his needs…

And my Christian friend, who saw that cute guy at a party
And all night he kept complimenting her, bringing her drinks,
Until they slipped away into one of the back rooms,
And he forced her down to the floor, on her knees.
She called me the next morning, crying
Asking if I could please go pick up something for her.
“What?”
“God, this is so embarrassing… ok… I need a Plan B”.

And now I’m thinking about my ex, who had asked
His crush over to hangout and watch some Netflix
And
He was never sure what exactly happened, but
First they were kissing, then things escalated and
She took charge of his body, his hands and
A few days later he was standing in line to get an STD test.

I remember enough, though, enough from last night to know that
We didn’t have ***.
So.
Things could always be worse, I tell myself.
Things could always be worse… I guess.

On the best days, I can see:
Diamonds in the pavement,
Birds proudly singing, red-breasted and ***** in the trees.
I taste the beauty all around me slurping a juicy, lip-dripping peach
While waterfalls come tumbling down mountainside echoes rumbling
As we slip on soft rocks and wade
Into crystal running streams,
Where minnows glide and waterbugs slide
On the surface while
Wet rocks rest
In the sunlight sparkling.

On these days, I don't have to think
"If I want to be happy"...

I can just be.

I want a man whose heart is so full -
Rainwater dripping from the pitcher on the drizzled grey of yesterday,
A soft sound in the great symphony of the wet garden,
Bejeweled and glistening,
Pianoforte drops
Upon the wet leaves
Falling.

I will know him by the way he writes, the kindness in his eyes -
Flashes of him in my professor,
In myself, caught laughing like a child,
In the quiet teenager who is becoming an
Unlikely philosopher, frontal cortex in heat,
With the implications of existence
(He’s awake in the early dawn, a furious Jacob,
wrestling with his God)

And he will be a Seeker of Beauty:
“There is no medium unworthy”
He will tell me, but never in words,
Crouching for perfection’s grace among leaves and dirt
Like a widow beneath rainbow fractals
At early morning’s mass.

He will be effortless, like the unspoken love
Between two old friends, bookends
Scattering crumbs of baguettes in the park
To clicking beaks, and dancing pigeon feet.

Burying himself in pages, when he thinks no one sees
(Was that you there, on the subway?
Dark eyes, fixated on the lines,
Crinkling with understanding?)

Both of us adventurous spirits -
“Let’s run away, you and me” and we will
Melt with ease into cityscapes, so transparent, adaptive,
Young and free,
Like the wood moths becoming one
With the aspen in its serenity,
We light upon
France, Spain… Italy.

I know I will find him
In my own verse.
Will discover him
In pages that I’ve turned.
Will recite his thoughts back to him, and will
Love him like poetry.
I will know him by heart.

Sometimes I think my loneliness is just a mold
Made to fit the shape of you.

Loneliness eats me
Like an orange.
Fingernails carving away my skin,
To **** out that juicy pulp of hope
From the outside in.

He called me delicious, but that was lifetimes ago,
Words turning so sweet
They rotted.

I never should have believed him - “I’m
Not just a fruit to be eaten” - that's
I should have told him,
Before these cravings were cultivated. The ones that crawl in
Through the chasms of solitude
Like worms into the pores of my skin.

Because now all I want
Is to be squeezed out
By stronger hands
That make me feel delicious and
Turn my desires
Into the most mouthwatering of juices again.

I almost bought you flowers,
And I almost wrote a poem.
I almost stopped to ask you earlier
If you needed a ride home?

But I didn’t buy those flowers.
And I didn’t write that poem.
Instead, I sat in silence, and thought about you
That whole lonely ride back home.

Kool-aid, fried chicken, potatoes and gravy.
We’re all gonna die from the sugar inside those diabetic cookies
And rows of donuts, danishes, plastic plates, sweet tea & lemonade beverages,
So much of it that it makes me sick to see the trash bins
Full of half-eaten food, dropped by lazy hands,
Now everyone lifts their hands during worship and
I feel foolish, I don’t understand, because their smiles are fake and
I know the way they will talk about me when I go walking away,
Will hear them whispering later about each other, and oh my God,
There’s something so sinister here…
I know it because I don’t hear about demons, or evil, or hell, or pain, or fear
Anywhere else but inside of these walls with no windows, where
I am told I will burn for my questions, and she goes up to the altar again, and so does he
They do this, the same ones, every single week
Because deep down, they don’t believe anything they’re hearing -
Their soul keeps vomiting up these spoon-fed ideologies - so there must be
Something wrong, some sin in their *******, that beats them senseless and
Makes them ignorant, childish victims that need to be rescued
Over. And over. And over again.

The music is repetitive, reminding us we are helpless. Broken. Our own minds are not to be
Trusted. Here comes a fat white man, who opens his mouth and reads a line
From the equally fat little white book in his hand. Here comes that same twisted sort of rhetoric -
Sin, shame, death, isolation, separation, judgment, sin, sin, sin.
Who is this Jesus, who is always different in every sermon?
Sh. Just listen. You are loved - unconditionally.
So you better worship. Or be tortured for an eternity.
Now, no more questions -
The man is sweating under stage lights, asking, “do you know where you’re going? Well, do you?”
Repeat after me, sheep, and you will be free! Grazing forever in paradise
Where those infinite, rolling pastures are always green.

But for all that they’re selling, there’s a **** ton of food outside in that dumpster smelling
And pesticides in the river, and a homeless man shivering, his socks soaking,
And my youth pastor friend is ******* after church, he’s addicted to *******, ashamed
Of his totally natural and ****** needs, and my sister is crying, she
Tried to rush into a marriage to please the church family, who promised the joys of monogamy,
And my mother is trying to undo her years of religion-induced trauma in therapy,
And I am sitting alone in the bathroom after the service, crying
Because no matter how badly they want to save my soul,
Not a single **** one of these people ever actually cared about me.

My mother is the reason why I obsessively buy books
But never read them.
She taught me to value learning, to seek knowledge and truth.
This afternoon she comes in carrying “Botany In A Day”
While all of the great classics of history sit dusty on the shelves.
(Speaking of shelves, and dusty, unopened things)
I bought her a sandy pink candle for her birthday.
She loves candles. But never buys them, never burns them.
One night I lit the flame - she came over to me:
“Why did you do that? The smell is going to give me a headache”
But you love candles, I say, if you love them why don’t you light them?
“I’m saving them.” For what? I ask, when is this special candle day?
“Angela, just leave the candle in the drawer, please.”
And I think that sentence sums up her entire relationship with me.

They say I need healing
But what could they mean?
Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?
Walking alone down this road, planting seeds
Of myself into this poetry and
Watching it grow.
Maybe one day, it will start flowering, and they will see.

Waterfalls flow. They remind me of places I could go.
Of places I’ve been. Of things I know.
Of the loves that I’ve lost. Of the things I still hope.

If he were to come to me, what would I do?
Who have I been becoming? She
Is stronger, more capable than
Any other version of me.
But she is darker, harder, than I know that I truly should be.

I loved him with the best parts of myself.
I loved him like art. Like beauty itself
As down the mountains and silent Alps it fell
We sat together, his hand I held, sharing secrets I still can’t tell,
I felt as I had never felt, as if our souls were bound in a spell
To ever love and to ever impale
The quietest recesses of my most private self
I trusted him with my life, my love, my soul itself
And so, of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised when, he failed.

I was so young. So alive. So sure of myself.
So trusting, naive.

We worked together in the garden, pulling weeds
And churned yogurt and nuts in the kitchen, making muesli
We lay beneath the bright stars at night with a bottle of wine
Giggling together, talking, kissing, we
Were immortal then, impervious to doubts or fears, insecurities or death itself.

Every cell in my body, every fiber in my being, every thought and word and deed
Was vibrating for you, was alive to follow you, wherever you would choose to lead me.
Ah, so young, so drunk on possibilities, so naive.

Nobody else has these memories I keep locked inside of me.
I thought that we would be married.
I thought you were the one for me.
I wanted to give you my future, my everything.
So I did. And I lost myself, then.

I’m so scared, now. I don’t want that to ever happen again.

Because now I can’t see you. I can’t feel you.
You are nothingness to me.
You are worse than death, because that, at least, I could grieve.
You are non-entity, you are a gaping wound of anti-matter heavy inside of me.
You are thick poison, metallic in my bloodstream, slowing my movements, slowly killing me.

You are the haunting nobody else can see.
You are the reason I wake up everyday, fighting.
And I am so tired. So angry. So broken. Untrusting.
You wrecked the feminine inside of me, she’s run, gone from me.
Leaving nothing but furious warrior energy.
And he is determined to protect her from everyone and everything.
I can’t cry anymore. I don’t have that within me. Tenderness, vulnerability?
There is no part of me now that is weak. Diamond is my core.
Hard, tortured, unmoving, compacted into impregnable density.
Beautiful, but terrifying.

They say I need healing. But that means that I would have to be a living, feeling, growing thing.

And yet… Nothing lasts forever.
So, I suppose its just a matter of time,
Until maybe one day  I will encounter a love so bright
It melts down that diamond inside of me, transmuting me
Into something warmer, more brilliant, than this current version of me.

Why do I love people
That cannot love me back?

"You used to be much muchier"
And why is it that
Some people never feel those attacks?
Is there such a thing as strength?
Do I always have to be that?

I thought there was a “braver” ***
So why am I always saving them?
Taking care of them,
Playing pretend
In their little sandbox of existence?

No. The goddess within
Demands
More than I can
Ever seem to attract.

We were all loved so imperfectly,
it's hard not to hate those that weren't.
The ones who don't flinch when they think about the past, but laugh.
And I've been trying to repaint the pictures hanging in those frames, soft from memory
Trying to find new shades and
Trying to admire the ways
That they are unique. They are mine. They're worth keeping.

I've considered suicide. She's attempted it four times. That could be our battle cry - "we never asked to be alive"
But now we're here
And what do we do?
In a place where there's no pity for ****-ups or pale scars on wrists or empty bowls burning from final embers, their lungs inhaling it so beautifully.

I never smoked it, but I'm in love with the silver dragons that swirl in the air all around it. I could watch it pour from their lips for hours, could soak in the sweet stench for days, could count away everything else until I count down to nothing.
Nothing. But here.

No more worries or chores or judgments or wondering what people think of me or caring too much or trying too hard and failing, failing.
He tells me that he's changed. Of course I still love him.
But it will never be the same.

You will say: “You’ve been holding out on me!” -
and that will be the day when this landslide of poetry
Finally comes spilling from my lips, because I can no longer withhold it -
And you will awake in the gardens that I’ve been growing here,
Looking at me with brand new eyes, like you’ve never really known me before,
Or seen me, or felt me, and we will roll together
Among these soft petals of imageries, fingernails like lilies
As you lift the pages, see them turning, these little white leaves,
Changing with the different seasons of visions and daydreams,
Thousands of hours passing in your eyes blinking, reading,
A living river of emotions flowing into those irises, of
All the things I cannot speak or explain or convey
When you are sitting here in silence, gazing deeply into me,
And I am leaning into your warm shoulder, wondering,
How I can turn these precious moments
Into the best kind of poetry.

You deserve to shine -
That's why
My heart is hammering, handing you roses,
Obliterated by the joy radiating from your smile in surprise
My hands shaking, heart racing, mouth so dry
As you reach out and embrace me, I’ve never felt so certain that
Everything is gonna be fine.

Lets talk. Get out of the drive-
Way, go inside, lean against the counter
You’re looking at me now with brand new eyes,
I’m probably blushing, you wanna hang out?
Yeah - now we go walking outside.

Under tall, dark pines, you and I
Sneakers slide on the overcast hues in the sky
Whatever you want to tell me, I’ll just keep listening,
Math class and kingfishers, eels and anime,
Weekends and hiking, improv and rock climbing,
Your childhood memories, skipping stones
You didn’t even laugh when I made a horrible throw,
But said it was stylish and when I had to go,
Held out my jacket for me.

Sitting next to you by the lake today, was everything.
There were no words necessary. So.
This poem is for you, and let me get this off of my chest:
I think that you deserve happiness.

My only crime is that I
Have way too good of an imagination, because
In my mind
We’ve been talking now for quite awhile and
You finally realize
That you want to be with me, only me, and I
Am not sitting here alone, lonely, wondering
What you’re doing, where you are, or what you’re thinking.

Its true - I always wear my heart too openly, smile too widely,
I decide what I want, then pursue it with everything inside of me, and
It’s embarrassing, because clearly you either haven’t been noticing
Or… you just don’t really care.

Life is never going to be fair, they should have told us that
In tv, books and movies, there is no happy ending
There is only rocky beginnings, twisting middle grounds
And inconclusive endings.
It’s been four days now, and you still haven’t said anything.
You have my poetry, my hopes,
While I am left here, alone, with nothing.

No phone calls, no texts, just empty, deflated imaginings.
In my defense, if you were to call me out on it, I wouldn't lie about it either. I've had you stuck - for days and weeks - inside my head.
It's true, your Honor. I apologize. Proclaim me guilty for this crime.
Because I just
Have way too good of
An imagination, I guess.

You are the bright city lights of places I’ve never been.
And when I make way there, to those distances,
You are the sugar sweet cinnamon in cafes
Chasing down the coffee on my lips.
How do I explain you?

You… you’re laughter in the waiting room
And I find myself snorting with derision when
The other patients look over frowning, their eyes vacant.
Because you’re the inside joke no one else seems to get.
Oh, yes. You.

You’re the wind on the top of the mountain
And I spread my arms wide like wings
While the wind whips my hair around my face and
When I close my eyes, I can hear you sing
Across the mountain ranges
In hues of distant lavenders and blues.
I want to get lost in you.

You are the warm blanket fireside, where
Others are asking to join me and wrap themselves in.
You are a Great Lake, hidden
And I walked for miles to trace the edges
With blistered heels, chapped hands
Crouching down to send ripples across
Such a pure and clear surface
Reflecting the beauty of the glorious heavens.

Oh, yes. You.
Are a melody of metaphors beyond all reason or explanation.

you and me, we are
backstrokes in the never-ending river
splashing and laughing as it carries us along.
We are on fire, we are sparkling diamonds in God's eyes
we are pleasure, rapture, pain and desire,
shining brighter than the stars overhead at night
here now in the raindrops' glisten, stop and listen
the soft sound of water paws leaping to the ground,
we are a flicker, we are a fancy, we are a fleeting
song carried along by shameless tongues and now
your mouth against mine
is the closest I've come to tasting the divine
so all I have to say is: lover, when we die
may it be just as poetic as this fraction of pulsating life.

Little white pills
Little white pills.

Thank you all for everything.
I am so sorry.

Hands shaking.
You saw me calling.
You didn’t answer.

Now one. Two. Three.
Little white pills.
Little white pills.

These lungs stop breathing
These eyes stop crying.
This heart stops beating.

Little white pills.

If you were so lonely,
Why did you leave me?

Alone. With
No more
Little white pills.