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do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me
 May 2014 kristine marie
SG Rose
I was never made with wings,
so I hadn't known a life other than
the one made of dirt.
I wanted a companion,
but I fell in love with a bird,
whom would never be happy
with the ground.
 May 2014 kristine marie
SG Rose
I’m not preoccupied with skin you see,
just what’s beneath it.
And it would be nothing more than a lie to deny
just how much I crave to be the blood
that courses through your veins.
Not to give you life or be it,
but to search and discover every inch of you
the very sun may not have kissed.
kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds
Fear
fell into
my lap like
raindrops without the splash

But when I stand
the onslaught I
adopted is
gone
Strength is the ability to move through the
storm clouds
For a brief moment
this felt more
fact than facade
 Apr 2014 kristine marie
SG Rose
I wanted you to admire the
bare bones and brush strokes
that painted me woman

So I disrobed.

But more than wanted,
I desired you to seize me
as a victor does his spoils

So I withdrew my weapons.

But more than seize me,
I craved that you’d relish me
as the chef savors his dish

So I lied and said I didn't love you.

And that’s all you needed
to eat your fill of me
Until gluttony left
nothing but skeletons in your bed.
This is for you
The past me
When I was six
It's okay
That you never told
You're not to blame
*Never was anyway
I wrote a poem called secrets.
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/398231/secrets/
It sorta goes with this.
If my hands could tell a story, they'd say how your spine always looked beautiful in the morning,
when the sun's rays created shadows that danced along your back and flirted with your neck
like they'd never meet again.
They'd say how your lips always curved upwards as if they were saying hello.
If my hands could tell a fairytale, there'd be no happy ending,
there'd be no end at all.
I wish my lips could finally part to say the right things,
because all I want to do is hear your name roll off my tongue,
in the same sentence as "you're mine".
I want them to tell the story of your lips,
red, and taunting and always mysterious.
I always got a toothache when you weren't in the room.
I think I need a root canal.
If my knees could speak they'd tell you how lovely it was
to bend to curl to your legs.
If my knees could tell a story, they'd describe the cold, hard
bitter kiss of death they shared with the pavement so many times
when I found your bags at the door.
If my knees could beg, they'd ask for forgiveness.
For being too bony, too weak,
for not being able to support your dreams.
(I'd give up anything now for that little apartment in New York
and nothing but two typewriters)
If my fingers had a chance, they'd trace the familiar lines of your collarbones
and over your shoulders, because by now they've committed them to memory.
If my fingers had a chance, they'd hold yours again.
They say to stay away from broken people but I saw you as a puzzle
just waiting for someone to put you back together again.
If my eyes could tell a story they would whisper softly of your flowing hair
and pixie-like body.
They would ask you to stay.
They would jump out of my body to give you a glimpse of how I see you.
They would show you how utterly unprecedented you are.
If I believed in heaven I would tell you that you're a miracle.
That you are something I wished upon for years as a child.
You are a star.
You are a supernova.
You are a black hole, ******* me in and twisting me about until I am nothing
but battered limbs and my broken heart.
You are God with the Devil's kiss.
If my lips could move they'd say "stay".
You were mine.
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