There’s something about you that
makes me want to write
        bad poetry
and half-assed short stories.  

Something about you that
makes me want to take all my
unspoken words and turn them
into something beautiful,
something worthwhile.

You make me want to be an artist
like Van Gogh or Sylvia Plath;
you make me want to create.

Maybe it’s that blue wave
that crashes down like
an incoming tide on the beach—
        your eyes
when you look at me in
a certain way, in
a certain light.

Or maybe it’s
the way that you say
my name and then say all
those horrible things that make
me want to rip something
        open.

Those words that rip me open.

You make beautiful stanzas get stuck in my
head like lyrics to a bad pop song;
I can’t erase them and the
only way I can think of to cope with it
is to write them down like a schoolgirl
with a well worn diary.

I think I might as well have hypergraphia.

I am an unprofessional
medical doctor with
a pen, paper, and
Word Document
suffering from a form of
verbal ***** because I
can’t possibly think of a way to
        speak my mind.

I think I would make a very good mute.

I wish I lacked a voice box
because then I wouldn’t have to
be the one that has to
say all the right, comforting things
at the all the right times
and all the right places.

Sometimes it feels as if I’m
being eaten from the inside out
by some sort of paratrophic organism
that sits atop my frontal lobe and
dictates my life and fluctuates my
anxiety and I can’t even think about
some things anymore because of this
nervous clench I get in my gut when
I let my thoughts get too jumbled.

But you—you make me want to write
the most heartfelt and sappy sentences
and you make me want to
be more than just ordinary.

You make me want to be extraordinary.  

I guess that what I’m writing is
an apology in the shape of
a few stanzas and a few metaphors.

And this is an “I forgive you” for that night
that we spent outside your house
arguing over the stupidest of things,
so stupid that I can hardly
remember a single word I said to you.

Nothing gratifying is ever
painless to obtain
and I want to be a fighter like
Hercules or Alexander the Great.

I want to be extraordinary with you.

i started popping pills when i was twelve and
pretended they would save me until i couldn't
feel them anymore, and i'm scared that i'll only ever
love you like that, because i'm beginning to feel
numb when you're around, but i get headaches
when you're gone. &when; the time comes that you
have to leave, i want to be able to let you go gracefully

(i'll spend the next three months whispering your name,
trying to remember what it felt like to want to say it instead of
to need to)

The pressure from reality, I have given it all up
the feeling of wondering where all my dreams will go
we will kiss in heaven.
Thoughts swirl in my head like fire
tempests are widespread
solitude and epoch sadly
become my only choice to escape this world.
Water from the sky and tranquility is what
i seek from your eyes
everything feels like a lie
the words dripping off his lips tantalized
my soul where I have lost feeling.

I am only left with tears
and the nostalgic embrace of his touch
why was his heart so cold to mine?
He honestly never loved me the way I could ever dream of
romance feels like seven knives put through my soul
never to realize that nothing was ever as real as it seems.
His tattoos hissed at me whenever I would compliment him on his smile
but how, he was so inviting he was so devious.

My tender heart may have not been the right combination
in touch with his fiery spirit, im pretty sure my heart would collapse
if I ever said another word to him.
He abused me and took every bit of love I had to offer
without so much as a thank you.

My time has been whittled away by the tiny fragments in everyday life
how do I get past these dark days?
Why must I be so lonely to the extent of pain
do I deserve anything, shambles
of the grind have led me to another place where I cannot escape.
My heart is heavy, my lung feel compressed
can you remove this poison from my veins?
Every thought of you has my mind warped
stringing me along your little games never picking me to be on your team.
So why am I so attached to you, you are so mean to me.
I couldn't come to gather my emotions before you would take your pitchfork
and swallow them whole.

How many times must I be broken before I can walk
my hands have turned to tiny weapons where I only hurt myself
every sting, the pinching of my heart you would
tease me to no end.

My coffee's too bitter and
The thunder and locus
Weave a song,
Dissonant to my professor's  
Charlie-Brown teachings.
I should pay attention,
But the lightning illuminates my doubts.
I look around,
And I love the rain,
But I fear my peers and I
Are unharmonious.
I fear they cannot hear the storm.

Once
I built a sandcastle
and showed it to
the ocean.
I had made sure
that every detail was
perfect—
working as hard as I could
to keep it safe,
because all I ever wanted was
for it to last long.

The waters hardly noticed,
they were far too concerned
with their own purposes
to even bother
with my effort.
When they crashed at my feet,
it sent the best kind of chills up my spine—
but that only happened
if it was convenient for them.
They'd never go out of their way
just to find their way
to me.

Sometimes I would try
to go out to them,
wanting the seafoam
to rush over my toes
and the cold spray
to splash into me.

But sometimes they didn't come.

The waves went back out
and wanted nothing to do with me.

The next day
I returned to the ocean.
What I found was that
in a matter of hours,
the waves I had
loved so much
had taken the chance
to destroy.
The sandcastle that
I'd worked so *******
was completely gone,
without a trace,
nothing to show for it.
You wouldn't even know that I'd
tried in the first place.

You and the ocean have a lot in common.

For all the months we spent together, you only kissed me once. You tasted like spearmint gum, and like the burst of laughter you held back between our lips, and it was a "to be continued" kind of kiss. Every time after that we were picking up where we left off—extensions of that first kiss in March, extra pages to extra chapters to extra volumes in the story of you and me. You were a library book, one I hadn't read before. And in the back of my mind I knew you wouldn't be mine forever. But you were new and you were exciting and I couldn't wait for the next time I could open you up and be reminded how much I loved the taste of spearmint.

But sooner or later it was going to have to end. I knew this, I knew it, I really did; I just told myself if I didn't think about it it wouldn't happen. It did happen though. Sure enough, the due date to my library book came around—way too fast. I was almost sure that I had you for much longer, and for that reason I didn't even get to read the ending of the story. But I had to return all of the kisses and the laughter and the gum…as well as giving up all of the ones I hadn't gotten to yet, because I had had no idea when the words "the end" were going to be coming up.

And so the next time you kissed me, our second official kiss, I hadn't expected so much of a plot twist. I had finally renewed my library book, but my favorite character died, and the villain turned himself in, and the hero and the girl he loved were falling apart. You had stopped chewing spearmint gum, and the laughter was gone—replaced with the bitter taste of self-doubt and uncertainty. I pulled away faster than I expected, suddenly nervous and not sure why. I closed the book and handed it back to you, with the ending I had wished so desperately to be able to read, but not the one I had expected at all.

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone
Bosomed in yon green hills, alone,
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And ****** feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet.