you can preach to the choir but I never feel a a note
coming from your own throat.
trying teaching with your stomach instead of your hands
be a little less removed, a little less "improved" -
it's not a bridge until you build it
either start laying bricks or light the match.
if i catch you saying sticks and stones will break my bones
but words will never hurt me one more time, i might just
punch you in the gut.
that's where my words come from
that's where i feel every phrase that's real
come reeling through and keeling over
i'll share these words with you.
just cause they ain't polished don't make them less true.
stop preaching
start listening
then maybe I can, too.

You're staring out the window again
What are you looking for?
Maybe a squirrel
Maybe the first sign of sunrise
maybe you aren't sure yet
Maybe I'm looking for the same thing.

you put your head down, to the floor -
did you give up so quickly?
Is that it? Are we done
looking for something more
in you, in me, in the world?
Have you really let go of hope
Just as easily as I have?

Quit looking at me like
I have anything left to give you.
If I could tear down each wall
for you, you know I would.
But my hands are tired
so

you are staring back out the window.

The worst part of poetry
is trying to make everything rhyme.
With the amount of time I pine
bending lines to make them mine
and fine, sublime - sorry for the slants but I'm
needing to do a lot more productive ****.
...but instead I sit and craft witty
Pity-inducing stories of my worries,
of my mind. My poems.

The worst part of poetry is the vocabulary.
Should I write this like a novel
or more like a train of thought?
My brain is pumping raw ideas
my heart is thumping words I see as
honest, authentic - messy.
How do I make my feelings more appealing to a crowd,
to a person sitting in a room looking through
an online blog of poetry?

The worst part of poetry is getting stuck.
Writing a really good line and waiting...
for the next... ...good line.

The worst part of poetry is metaphors.
******* it, how many times can I liken your smile to a sunrise,
say your presence is an ice cream cone and a warm fire all at once on a mid-summer night,
or describe how many different kinds of scars
your absence leaves?

The worst part of poetry
is how it makes ideas out of people,
makes them so much bigger and so much thinner than they are,
fits their hearts into simple charts saying,
"This is her mark. This is his work. I have put it into a poem. I have made them art."
But the worst part of art is it can only get at parts -
all we can do is one point of view.
You will never paint me and I will never paint you
completely.

Reality is not poetry.
The worst part of poetry is it's just like us:
Trying
line by line
to get at least something right.

like the pencil tracing circles down the margins,
I can feel myself spiraling into your arms when
I know this can only end one of two ways:
I get exactly what I want,
Or I spend the night bleeding into my pillow,
Spilling guts and months of self-pity and doubt
Into your innocent half-dreamt up hands
The plans that I build in my brain
How the night will go
How my face and your face will do something like embrace, maybe even face
The feelings I've erased from your consciousness -
Like a pencil in the margins,
I am not worth grading.
This is not worth debating
The night will end the way you planned it
The way I never want and always get
Hot, steamy, long, and wet
my face buried in your indifference.

somedays being myself
feels like reaching for the baseball lost behind the thorn bush
needles ready and willing to ***** on my arm
or like untangling hair that's been soaked through with honey
every well-meant movement only doing more harm

what's worse is I don't know what i'm reaching for -
whether the ball is really mine
or how my hair's supposed to look
i wrote the book of my own life
about someone else.

somedays I look in the mirror and I wonder,
"How did you get here?"
as if someone else can give me that answer when
I know it's sitting in my stomach
turning when I hear an old song
or I smell a new scent
one that's meant to remind me
things can still be good
even if some things stay bad.

I try to tell people that I'm sad
and they try to tell me what I can do.
I just wonder whether you still think
I really could've helped you, too.

Somedays I try to look myself in the mirror and I tell her,
"We are going to be friends."
Even if I can't make me real,
I'll make me mine.

I'm afraid I told you not to trust anyone. My bad.

I went to visit her. I think I'd like to date her.

Gross.

I love your body. But I'm not sure I want to be with you.

The love has died.

You know, you're fun to hang out with.

Are you a lesbian?

I still look for your mom's car in the parking lot.

If you can't take care of me, I need to find someone else who will.

She's brainwashing the kids.

It's just going to drag on.

I only want you to help me.

Some day, you won't miss him.

You're just like your father.

You weren't there.

This is really important to me. I really want you to.

Take care.

Do you know how much you're asking of me?

**I don't.

they say there are two kinds of love.
the passionate kind,
like a fire unwinding your coiled up sighs
small butterflies in your gut
work their way up, down, around
into corners of emptiness you didn't think you could fill.
but the thrill of it grows still and it
becomes a bond
a post to lean on
companionate. you say,
abandon it
true love consists of
the flame that constitutes us, there's
no absolutes so base your life on
feeling
the next rush

i don't know what i'm feeling
when i look at you,
i am scared.
if you ask me my biggest fear,
it's people.
if you ask me my biggest hope,
it's people.
if you ask me what i hate the most,
it's me.
so understand
that when i look at you and you smile,
i'm not sure if my heart is glowing
or breaking.

i am always taking.
always looking for more
never sure
if one kind is enough.