I massaged my temples
And cursed my heart.
I loved you,
And yet the pages remained blank,
The pen still held ink.
Quick romances in coffeeshops
Always found themselves
Immortalised
But you,
My one, my only,
Could drift away forever
With no memory to tie you down.
Only a broken poet
Is unable to write about the one they love.

You are a dangerous lexicon.
Excitement and passion wrapped up in confusion;
You baffle me to the depths of my being.
You can't find your way into my poetry
Because how can I fit a poem within itself?
You may lay your head against my breast,
Press your perfect lips against my neck,
Stain my shirts with your tears,
**** my sorrows with your smiles,
But you are too pure for any of my words.

I am a poet, but my love for you is beyond the reach of poetry.

Let us walk along the creases of the Universe,
Of the wrinkles etched in Time.
Let us balance on the edge of Insanity,
Toss our worries into a supernova.

Our veins are cheap yarn;
Thrown away when tangled
                separation an impossibility.
My blood is your blood.
It is in the waves that crash along our coasts.
We can be careful or reckless,
But not both.

Broken souls lost in reverie;
We shall not fade as long as we never wake up.
They will not know who we are
When they try to identify our corpses.
John and Jane, they will call us;
The pair with matching fingerprints.

One extra glass of merlot
And you came running.

You cried out those forbidden words
And I told you that you were drunk.
“Drunken words are sober thoughts.”

I think you had forgotten by the morning.

You wrote a poem for me
And I cried.
You said I brought out the best in you.

You dreamt that you awoke to find
A figure at the foot of your bed:
An angel.

You said you longed to walk hand-in-hand,
To hold me in the darkest hours of the morning.

Where are you now?

I am held together by glue and staples and
purple construction paper.

I fear not death, but life.
I am tattered and torn,
flammable and too close to flames,
slow-roasting.

I am a never-ending *** of coffee,
a broken alarm clock,
the warm side of a pillow,
the empty tube of toothpaste,
an unsolved crossword puzzle written in pen.

I fear not death, but life without poetry.

I know you’re trying to forget
The lonely words we spilled
With no discussion of repercussions;
Phrases that clung to our skin
And dirtied our souls.

I don’t know if I regret it,
But the memory lingers.
You told me that you would kiss
My lips, my neck, my hips
And that you longed for the touch
Of my gentle fingertips.
We overwhelmed ourselves;
A ****** of desire with no way out.
We were the Apocalypse.

We retreated to our own lives,
Our own beds, our own friends.
I asked how you felt, where we stood now;
And you left me to wonder
Alone.

No matter how many showers I take,
I can’t cleanse myself
Of the hold you gained on me
With your gilded words late that night.

I know you’re trying to forget.

Eating rotisserie chicken in the passenger seat.
Cracked feet, pink thighs, windswept hair.
Specks of mascara sticking to the dark circles beneath your eyes.
Friction between your legs,
Bugs crawling through your veins,
Hot showers, cold showers,
Broken air conditioner.
Swollen fingers,
A ring that doesn’t fit,
Drops of sweat running down your spine.
Barking dogs,
Red lipstick,
Lightning bugs dying,
Fireworks.

My lord and savior,
Stuck in a world
Fifty years too late
And thousands of miles away.

Salmon flesh stuck to his legs
And his camouflage blent into his surroundings;
It was only visible by the sewed-on patch that read,
"Stop War."

Hair held back tightly,
Sitting across from me
With a look of pure fascination,
We were introduced.

My gaze consistently found him,
Eyes closed, picturing the words and only the words.
Shoulders, chest, abdomen moving to the rhythm of
Stressed and unstressed syllables,
Snapping his fingers when his body contorted the most;
He could have walked on water.

With him standing on a chair screaming Ginsberg
Like a pastor would The Bible,
My heart skipped a beat
And I found religion.

My clouded eye fills with images
Of wringing colour from the ceiling
Like a wet rag;
Of wrinkled stars in April skies
Dancing and taunting me;
Of Native hands meditating, praying;
For what, I wish I knew.

“Yes.” One word. Say it as often as you can. It’s going to hurt sometimes. But you’ll gain more experience than any textbook can show you.

2. Stand up. Talk to him. Ask him questions. Kiss him. Don’t cower in the corner.

3. Fall in love with everyone but don’t regret it.

4. Open your ears and shut your mouth sometimes.

5. Don’t drag him around like it’s a game. You’ll break him.

6. Take naps. They’re your friend.

7. Hold everyone close. Some you’ll let go by choice, others by force, and some not at all. Love as much as you can.

8. Sit in the grass and stare up at the stars like you’re in a Nicholas Sparks book and embrace the paranoia of bugs crawling on your legs and noises in the woods. It isn’t perfect; don’t fool yourself.

9. Materialism isn’t worth it. Only keep the things from those who have left this world. If they left you in the dust and still breathe, burn the gifts they gave you. It’s worth it in the long run.

10. Cry. It’s okay. You have nothing to prove.

Sofa to sofa,
I lie to therapists,
Sinning my way through each day.

I pin up my cheeks with safety pins,
Paint my eyelashes with tar,
Stain my cheeks with rose petals,
Comb my hair with thorns.

Climbing trees in the dead of night
Just to be closer to the moon,
I dangle precariously from the branches.

I fall in and out of love with
Every passing stranger on crooked sidewalks,
Every boy with a guitar and a broken heart,
Every man who weeps and begs for the graze of my fingertips,
Every woman with lost eyes and the spirit of a lioness,
Every stranger in
Every city, new or old, in
Every coffeeshop with clinking cups and sunshine leaking through the windows, at
Every party met with awkward glances,
Everywhere.

Baby, I think I’m drowning.

The words I want to say
Cling to the walls of my throat
Like cigarette smoke.

I am silent,
And you think that I’m distant.

I can’t breathe
But my skin isn’t wet.

Where are you now,
My averted-gaze prince?

Lost at sea,
And you’re not reaching for me anymore.

Dragon breath swirls in the shadow of a pale, clouded moon,
Fresh winter freezes the capillaries in my rosy cheeks,
Dead leaves rustle under the footsteps of a hidden creature of darkness,
The stars gaze upon me, gawking at my pathetic poetry,
The wind whistles its final tune,
And the only null to my fear rests in the assurance
That the sun will rise again in the morning.

I spilled a *** of coffee on myself at 2 in the afternoon.
I let it sizzle on my skin for a moment;
The burn told me I was alive.
It reminded me of you.

You were the oxygen I took into
My carbon dioxide lungs.
You were the long drag on the cigarette of my depression,
A choking relief.
Hopelessly addicted to you,
A ****** for your touch,
Obsessed with the pictures of you on my phone.
******* butterflies in my stomach,
Restless and destructive,
I longed for your presence every waking moment
In a bed built for two.

I made myself another *** of coffee,
Was careful not to let it spill.
I didn’t want to feel your devilish fingertips
Singeing my porcelain skin.
You left enough scars on me already.

You’re becoming ill
With thoughts of suicide
And gallons of red wine.
Your mind is full of desperate dreams
Of aliens and naked women.
Cloud your sanity with alcohol and drugs;
Drink a cocktail of desire.
Bite your fingernails until there is nothing left,
In the morning you won’t know why your hands are ******.
Shattered glasses and midnight strolls,
You are a creature of the night.
Are you losing yourself or
Are you losing your mind?

I refuse to stand by
While innocent people
Take bullets to the head,
And slit their wrists with steak knives.

I refuse to ignore the pain
Of a lover, a brother, a child lost
To hatred and to illness,
When something can be done.

I refuse to keep silent,
Pretend that if I don’t speak up
It will all go away,
Like a summer rainstorm passing through.

I refuse to believe
That mental health is unimportant,
That racism doesn’t exist,
That everyone is happy
And everything is okay.

I’ve held the knife,
I’ve heard the deadly words
That can always be left unspoken.

The fear lies in the thought
That if we stand up for what is true and just,
We will be ignored, we will be injured,
Our voices will mean nothing.

If I write for nothing else,
I write so that you hear my voice.
Now let the world hear yours.

I get a little bit sick to my stomach
Each time I see that repulsive blue heart.
Who else will be holding hands now,
Swapping kisses for hours,
Making love in the darkness?
I seem to be the odd one out
When double dates are planned.
Everyone says they haven’t seen me in forever,
Everyone says that they miss me,
Everyone says that I’m too beautiful to be alone.
Nobody seems to realize
That I’m always around,
Sitting in coffeeshop corners,
Or in the backs of cinemas,
Relationship status: single.

I bid you all a fond farewell
As these bones turn to dust in capitalist shackles.
No more will my voice be silenced
By gender roles and repression.
My foremothers gave me my rights nearly a century ago
And you still act like it’s pocket change.
No more.

I will rise above this consumerist nation
And be heard.
Feminism means equality, not women over men.
Don’t take offense when I lock my car doors.
You’ve proven yourselves untrustworthy.
“Not all men.”
But enough men.

I am not backing down; I am not giving in.
I am breaking free of conformity,
Barely comfortable in the skin you told me was imperfect.
Flip-flopping your beliefs; I am never good enough for you.
But I will always be good enough for myself.

Stop.
Don’t speak.
Just listen.

The galaxies are in your eyes,
And they’re making me question everything.
I’m so small compared to the cosmos that is you.

Do you see me,
Tinier than a speck of dust in your beautiful, terrifying world?
Am I anything?

Many have sent their prying spaceships and caressing fingers,
Searching for the Fountain from which your beauty emits.
I don’t want to touch,
I just want to look.

I don’t believe in God,
But nothing else could create something so marvelous.

He told me I was beautiful.
Now I am nothing more than a faded picture in a dusty picture frame,
Forgotten in his bedside drawer.
Flittering like flames past, I wait,
Lipstick on his cheek and collar,
Winter river air blushing my cheeks.
We rowed across the river that day in his grandfather’s rickety dory,
The tranquility of squawking birds and gentle breezes
Numbing to his lips upon my neck.
He told me I deserved better,
But I deserved him.

These times are changing,
And yet I feel the same.
Sickness wracks my body,
Drugs run through my veins.
I drink coffee at three in the morning
Because I can’t tell the sunlight from the dark.
I guess I should be getting home now,
But it seems I’ve forgotten where I parked.

I loved and was in love,
Heartaches and stomach turns.
I was hurt and I hurt back,
Words like daggers and freezer burn.
You know, if you’ve ever felt
The dark caress of careful hands.
You know, if you’ve ever made
Stupid excuses and cancelled plans.
That love isn’t as easy
As romance films once claimed.
Loneliness is kinder;
Betrayal remains unnamed.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Has nobody realised that it can drive a man insane?
Wasting your life away watching the rotating hands.
Daylight Savings just seems like a cruel joke.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
For Christ’s sake, make it stop.
A constant reminder that we’re dying.
Drinking too much alcohol and writing lazy poems.
We’re young now but it will watch us grow old.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
No more.

Rip it from the wall,
Torture a confession out of it,
Leave it broken on the floor,
Shattered like the hearts of feeble lovers who let it **** them.

We shall overcome.

I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be,
In the absinthe eyes of a perfect stranger.
Beautiful people in beautiful cities;
Where do I fit in?
I want to fix his coffee each morning,
Fix his tea each night.
I want to bake him pastries that he will crave when I’m not around,
Because the bakery down the street isn’t me.
I want to be the one to caress his back,
Run my fingers through his hair
When he wakes up afraid in the middle of the night.
I’ll give anything to be his safe haven.
The things we do for love, eh?
If only he would look at me
As I pass him on the crowded sidewalk.

I see their faces among the stars,
People I’ve loved and people I’ve lost.
I see them in the headlights of passing cars,
And the crystalline structure of winter frost.
I catch their shadows out of the corner of my eye,
I hear their voices at the end of the line.
I can’t remember ever saying goodbye.
So pass me by, and I’ll be fine.
I just need time.
Please give me time.

The man with a banana in each hand.
The elderly twin women with greying hair and stoic faces.
“Simon, Simon. Simon’s a ****.”
The man with the piercing blue eyes, loose tie, and nervous glances,
Hiding in the collar of his wool coat.
The woman with short blonde hair sitting halfway on a stool,
Dunking her bagel into a cup of coffee.
A small French boy begging his father for attention.
A French father absorbed in the screen of his smartphone.

Hundreds of faces and averted glances.
I’ve fallen in love with dozens of strangers,
Embarking on their dream journeys,
Their honeymoons, and simple business trips.
I don’t know where they are going,
And I will forget them by the morning.

In the morning
We put band-aids on the wounds we inflicted.
Wrap our bodies in fresh cotton gauze
That we will stain with regrets and bad memories.
Mother’s kiss on every scrape,
And one more for the forehead.
“Hold me,” you beg,
Then flinch when my fingertips meet your skin.
It’s going to take some time for us to heal.
Our words cut like daggers
In the night.

I wish that I could say
That I’ve moved on, that I’m okay,
But we both know
That you’re the one who walked away.

I wish that I could see
What it is you used to mean to me,
But I think I know,
And I think that you would agree.

I wish that I could touch,
Standing tall, not as your crutch.
But I think you know
That we’ve lost too much.

I wish that I could give in,
Feel the love we had again,
But we both know now
It was only sacred sin.

twenty-one years ago

the man’s body 
became a 
corpse.

sentence by sentence,

line by line,

hundreds of poems 
lost

to the waste bins of editors

and abysmal post offices.

no carbon copies.

gone forever.

he would type it up again

and again

and again

until it lost all sentiment.

twenty-one years ago

he pushed us all away,

and still we run.
and still we hunt.

He spoke precisely, with pinpoint accuracy, stressing each syllable perfectly, pronouncing every letter as needed. It seemed as though the dictionary flowed from his tongue. It frightened people, it intrigued others. He stood with broad shoulders and recited 18th century poetry and spoke with such confidence, never second-guessing, never pausing. The first time he laid his eyes upon her, language in all sense of the word was void from his body. His tongue shriveled up and died before he could even think to move it. His shoulders slumped. Only then did he know that he needed her.

I don’t love you anymore.

I love hot cups of coffee, and cold cups as well. I love feeling summer grass between my toes. I love long showers. I love curling my hair until it frames my face with red vines of ivy. I love my bed in the morning, before the sun peeks through my curtains. I love petting dogs as I pass them in sidewalks. I love eye contact with pretty strangers in coffeeshops and bookstores. I love the echo of an acoustic guitar in a small room. I love trying new food that my mother didn’t cook when I was a kid. I love the one dress that makes me feel beautiful. I love the voice of the skinny English kid in the concert venue. I love fireflies in the summer. I love fireplaces and afghans and good books. I love red lipstick. I love the dozens of empty notebooks stockpiled in my house. I love maps and I love globes. I love doing kind things for strangers to see them smile. I love comfortable sweaters. I love baking desserts. I love drinking more coffee.

I don’t love you anymore.

As soon as I think that I don’t love you anymore
You come to me with shaking hands,
Begging to be held,
And I always, always give in.

In blackened pictures, you lie in bed alone
And then that is when you think of me.
It is only when she has gone
And you are out of options
That my image comes to mind.

And by the time I realize that
I will never be your first choice,
By the time I pack up my heart
And buy it a plane ticket,
You come crawling back
And I cancel my reservations.

By the time I stop thinking
About your lips on my lips
And your hands around my waist
And the way my stomach flutters
When you say my name,
You say it again
And I am at your mercy,
Wrapped around your finger a little too
Tightly.

By the time you leave me again
And I have to force myself to unwind from you,
My imprint does not linger long
Before I disappear from your skin
And from your mind.

As soon as I straighten myself out again,
As soon as I pick up the pieces
And reassemble the puzzle of my identity
And vow to never answer another message,
You discover that you are missing a piece of your own puzzle

And call to ask if I have it.

Scarred hands of a
Tired, underpaid worker
Shake while he
Picks the beans.

Tired, underpaid worker
Sighs at the routine as he
Picks the beans
And carries them out the door.

Sighs at the routine as he
Orders the same things again
And carries them out the door.
I watch him as I sip my coffee.

As a child
I knew not
Of death and despair and
The tragedy of life.

I knew not
Where my soul resides.
The tragedy of life
Meant nothing to me.

Where my soul resides
Is in the callous palms of another, but that
Meant nothing to me
As a child.

Engulfed by the fiery licks of our argument,
You twist my words into something
Unrecognisable.
Our fragile spirits battle,
Anger prevailing over love.
I back away, take a breath,
And you do the same.

Maybe we should just sleep it off,
Let aquamarine dreams overcome us,
Let zen grow on our bodies like moss.
We can start again in the morning.

The ashes of youth spill like coffee,
Sweet and angry in the Garden of Age.
The kiss of emeralds corrupts,
The whiteflowing gossamer gown stains
With the blood of magenta flowers.
Drunk off of Death’s sting,
His marble words coat his blade with deception;
She fades into darkness, into wilted rosebuds and incense,
In the fields of June.

When daisies sprout from your palms,
Do not take clippers to them.
Do not tear them out with rage and disgust,
For they are beautiful.

You see only their imperfections,
The quiet reflections of you.

I will tend to them for you,
If you cannot bear to look.
I will water them with care, not with tears.
I will feed them with my love, not poison.
I will support them until they are strong enough to stand up on their own.
We mustn’t let them wilt.

June will come,
And I’ll be gone.

The rest is up to you.

She conceals herself in the faded corner booth of a C+ coffeeshop. Bobbed brown hair frames her face as if it were a Van Gogh original. Ruby red lips stand out against the ivory backsplash of her skin. She doesn’t feel beautiful. She draws pictures of strangers in her notebook, stares at them for far too long trying to figure them out. What they don’t realise, what she doesn’t realise, is that she’s only trying to figure herself out.

I do not remember love. I do not remember the way his fingertips graced my skin. I do not remember the gentility of his lips on my cheek. I do not remember the light in his Atlantic eyes. I do not remember the butterflies hatching in my stomach when he said my name. I do not remember his arms wrapped tightly around me. I do not remember the way my hands quivered so violently against him. I do not remember the tears in my eyes that night. I do not remember love.

He sits on a rusted red park bench beside a pond in the middle of an unfamiliar city and watches the pigeons bicker. He thinks back to the way her voice would break as she was about to cry, and how he spent far too much money dry cleaning the shirts stained by her running mascara. He finds a small corner bakery, buys a small loaf of the finest bread. He catches a glimpse of his reflection in a window, tweed hat casting a shadow over his hardened face, orange beard developing its own personality. His eyes close. When he returns to his bench, the pigeons remain, screaming and squawking. He picks off a piece of bread and throws it between them. He doesn’t think they’ve ever known about the finer things in life.

The world has been falling apart around me, but I can only muster the courage to lift my coffee cup. I give my belongings away to strangers because materialism is vain. Money is an object, nothing more. I’ve been burning pages of my diary, filled and blank, because the past has passed and the future is futile. I leave my soul to the stars in the hope that I will awaken among them. A cursed sigh escapes when the sun rises and my demons slip through the cracks in the wall. I do not know why I drink coffee in such a large quantity when slumber is the final escape. I have simply stopped believing.

I have not eaten in days, but I am not hungry. I stood knee-deep in the snow just to feel something. I didn’t feel anything. I wrapped my hands around the coffee *** to feel it burn. My palms reddened and blistered but felt nothing. I wrap my bones in sweaters but I do not feel warm, nor do I feel cold. I fell in love with a stranger on the train to see if my heart could break. It cannot.

I have shown the world
What is inside of me.
I have prayed to every god,
I have cursed every savior.
I have knelt at the feet of one
Who could not save me.
I have kissed the hands
Of those who choked me.
I have repented for my sins,
The sins that define me.
I have lost my faith.

I ask the stars to watch me sleep.
I ask the moon to envelop me.
I ask the sun to keep me safe.
I ask the wind to sooth me.
I ask the trees to guide my path.
I ask the ground to hold me.

One day I will meet my maker,
Not God nor anyone else.
I will meet the insects, the worms, the dirt,
Six feet under this earth.

The man in the waiting room,
Black briefcase,
Clad in grey.
Why are you here?
Fly on the wall,
I see the fear in your eyes.
You must not like needles.
Neither do I.

Coffee?

It does not run through our veins;

We see it only in our wounds.

We think of love and we find it,

Vibrant and terrifying and beautiful. 



It seems as though we see love as simply that:

An open wound
;
Spilled blood
Exposed to another’s oxygen.

I sold my soul for a small coffee, French vanilla. I asked for them to let me stay for a little while. “I’ll be gone by close,” I assure. I left my life behind in a building just down the road, and I cannot turn back. This is my final stop. I’m lonely and I’m sorry and I don’t know where to go now. I sold my soul for this small coffee, and the cup is empty.

If we’re tired,
Let’s sleep.

Crimson skylines hold no beauty
Through my fogged eyeglasses.
Playing connect-the-dots with the stars
Until the puzzle has been solved.
There is nothing left.

Drunken zombies on ***** sidewalks,
Silver tongues on beautiful men,
False reality, inescapable.

I haven’t seen you smile in years.
The candle was snuffed long ago.
Burning love letters,
Staining sheets with tears and lipstick,
Ripping out grass in handfuls,
Shattering mirrors for the bad luck.

If we’re tired,
Let’s sleep.

“I like you for your intelligence and beauty.”
2. “I’m not saying I have doubts. I don’t.”
3. “You can trust me.”
4. “I’m sorry.”
5. “You’re beautiful.”
6. “We should take it slow.”
7. “I’m sorry that I keep leaving you.”
8. “I appreciate you.”
9. “I’m sorry.”
10. “Just be you.”
11. “I just really want this to work.”
12. “I’m sorry.”
13. “I’m glad that you’re happy.”
14. “Did I say something wrong?”
15. “I just need my little piece of freedom.”
16. “See you tomorrow, my love.”
17. “I wish I was there for you.”
18. “I really enjoy holding your hand.”
19. “You looked really pretty today.”
20. “Today I accidentally wrote your name when I was supposed to be writing about something else.”
21. “I just feel constricted, that’s all.”
22. “I got your back.”
23. “I want you to do what makes you happy.”
24. “I can’t wait to see you.”
25. “I love your smile. I love your eyes. I love your face.”
26. “If it moves quickly, everything will crash and burn.”
27. “I’m sorry.”
28. “Good morning, beautiful.”
29. “I wish I had more time off for you.”
30. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
31. “I’m sorry.”
32. “I just don’t want to lose you.”
33. “If you need me, I’m here.”
34. “I wish I could be with you right now so I could hold you in my arms.”
35. “You’re a good person.”
36. “I don’t know. All I know is that I love you.”
37. “Tell me what you’re afraid of. Please.”
38. “My heart races just thinking about you. I feel amazing around you, even though I may not seem like it. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s the way you make me feel when I am with you.”
39. “I want to be there for you when you need me.”
40. “Cheer up, sweetie.”
41. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”
42. “I miss you.”
43. “I’m sorry, my darling.”
44. “Is breá liom tú.”
45. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
46. “I’m sorry.”
47. “Do you ever have a good day?”
48. “I just lost interest after a while.”
49. “I’m sorry.”
50. “I’m so sorry.”

Yank the flowers from my skin,
Pluck their petals one by one
Until they tell you that I don’t love you anymore.

You fed the grass that grew on me
With your honeyed words that stung like bees
That pollinate me.

Irises bloom in my eyes,
Gentle ferns sprout from my scalp,
Branches grow from me like limbs,
Sunlight emanates from every inch.

You brought frost and darkness to this world,
And you held me so that I wouldn’t feel it.

She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me…

She loves you not.

I’m sorry if I cry when I smell whiskey on your breath.
It’s a natural habit, you see.

All the times she kissed my forehead,
Her lips engraving the need for sobriety in my brain,
I smelled it.

In all the bruised knees and torn curtains,
The cigarette smoke and shattered glasses,
The broken doors and scratched paint,
Her dried blood and my adolescent tears,
I smelled it.

I turned my lights out so she wouldn’t know I was awake.
I’m sorry if I cry when I smell whiskey on your breath.
It’s a natural habit, you see.