How selfless of us to call it sunset,


when the sun does not move.


How strange of us to call it riverbed,


*when rivers do not sleep.

You do not know pain
I repeat
You do not know pain
Not until you have watched the words "I do not care"
Fall out of the lips of the person you hold most dear
You do not know pain
Not until they look at you and smile
While you fall apart
You do not know pain
Not until they act as if the world is well
As yours comes crumbling around your feet
You do not know pain
Not until they have nothing left to say
Letting you pour yourself into apologies you have no right saying
You do not know pain
Not until they ignore your very presence
As you walk around turning into the ghost they want you to be
You do not know pain
Not until your love and your heart belong to such a cold soul
A cold soul that once warmed your insides and reminded you of hope
You do not know pain
Not until they steal your last ray of sun
And give it to someone who once meant nothing when you meant the world
You do not know pain
You do not know Pain

so I brought my writer wife
(prominently pregnant)
to the hospital
and on her bed, she screamed:
"weren't" "hasn't" "couldn't" "shan't"
"aint" "hadn't" "you're" "isn't"
"aren't" "didn't" "wasn't"
"who's?" "what's?" "he's" "she's"

The doctors were confounded
and they turned to me and they said:
"What the hell is she doing?"

And I replied with double speed
and a violent sense of urgency:
*"Don't you know?
She's having contractions -
she's a writer"

you hold a knife
—pointed at me
but I come closer
and closer
I’m bleeding and it hurts
but I still hold you tight

ask anyone i know:
i have a tendency to forget things.

i forgot moose's middle name
my password
what day i have to go to the dentist
what i did yesterday
if i ate this morning
what year i stopped talking to ryan
the words to my favorite moldy peaches song
the name of a childhood friend
the book that i was supposed to return
the movie i was supposed to bring
the cookies i was supposed to bake
the smile i was supposed to smile
the words i was supposed to say

but this is only lately.
i used to remember everything

i thought my tactic of not thinking about the bad things
made the bad things not real

but it only makes me
forgetful

Love, the real kind, is never simple.
It is the one thing that makes life worth it in the end,
and something that wonderful and sought-after is never going to be easy to get.
You have to work for it.
Blood, sweat, and tears.
So if it’s easy, yeah maybe you won’t get broken.
But you won’t be truly happy, either.
You’ll be settling.
Don’t get me wrong,
There are lots of things in life that are totally acceptable to settle on.
Sure, Harvard was your dream school.
But you know what?
Going to your state school because its more affordable
Will still get you where you want to be in life.
And I know the hairdresser couldn't match the color you showed her,
But you are beautiful and can rock it anyway, so don’t worry.
But love?
Settling in love is like buying a pair of shoes that are a size too small,
Just because you thought they were pretty.
They may look nice,
But you are dying on the inside. I
f you had just held out a bit longer,
You would have found a pair just as beautiful that fit well, too.
Maybe that nice guy looks good on paper,
But if he doesn’t give you butterflies whenever he looks at you,
Don’t be with him.
You want someone who makes you fall for them every day,
Not just once.

I wanted to eat you alive with my heart,
Disseminate my love for you,
soul coughing a Heimlich dance routine
that struggled to keep us one.

You were to busy ignoring the coward
that kept me alive
to see the bravery fighting chance
and drawing curtains against fate

There was feeling in these young bones
where the medicine was make believe,
all sugar coated fiery tales to drive us to the well,
wishers of hope forgot that love is an effort.

Liars will tell you that there is just one,
and that one and one is one, and I too,
will lie to you but only to keep the placebos
sweet jesus if you knew the truth.

There's a colourful cobweb
I tangled round us
And yeah, I'd take the floor away,
if it would keep you falling for me.

There is not a thing I wouldn't do
to keep the demons from your door
And the wolves in docile dream states
Nodding yes to your every request.

But Memory lane is no place to build a future,
Lets move past all the haunted houses
and build the home from more than cards
glued together with coffee stains.

Fits of laughter and pits of passion
litter landscapes of love in foreign places
where speaking in tongues
becomes common language.

Blissfully aware of our ignorance
We turned a blind eye to status chorus,
breathing freeform jazz into
independent harmonies,

Shards of Shotgun Showers
Add bass to blissful dreams,
A sense of the real, reeling us in,
A foundation shaken in eternal sin,

As the sax plays us out,
its a standing ovulation,
that keeps us on course,
encores are for failures, and things that... stop.

Since I could remember
My heart has balanced
Along such a thin line
Of right and wrong
Love and hate.
The line already stretched
To the extremes.
Taught with fear and uncertainty.

Tension reached its maximum
When that day came 'round.
Ever since that day
When I learned the truth.
The day my eyes were forcefully
Peeled open by dull razors.
That day the line faded
And the tight rope snapped.

With no line to follow
My heart fell.
Now concussed,
Delirious and confused.
My heart wanders between worlds.
Never certain of who it is
Where it was or
How it should be.

-Kevin Robert Rose