The thing about love, she thought
Is that it is not a thing, it cannot be bought
It is an unseen truth
Like helium in a balloon,
Or a blind lie
Like eyes bound in silk tie
My worthless heart too easily torn apart
My shoulder I would gift if only his weight I could lift
The only thing to possess
In this flesh colored mess
Is this jagged spine
Once perfectly aligned
Now crooked and broken
Not much of a token
But the thing about thoughts
Is they too can't be bought
Or held and consoled
Defined truths untold
Can circles be misled?
I think I made you up inside my head


I think I made you up, she said
Like helium....inside my head.

You wouldn’t have heard it anyway
All the words I tried to say
Came instead like stocking knees
Protected from the slightest breeze
Someday
You would let me know
You said
Perhaps even words get bruised in your bed
The lie, the love, the flattened mind
I once believed in kind

Kneeling on the stocking knee
Was just another way you deafened me

I do not even know you anymore.
Yet, I believe every stranger that bears your name
Is you.

She turns each page
Slow
Like smoke rising from
An old flame
It is a borrowed book,
Every word she wishes were her own
It is quiet
The only sound
her fingers on the page
Every word. Every page
Turning so slow
She is reading by the light of fireflies
Seeing what she wants
Flashes like matches quickly burning out
Slow, like the smoke rising,
She turns each page
Story unfinished

Another of his cigarettes burns out.
He ignites again.
As if he is helping
As if the burning
Smoking
Burning
Are what she wants
The Book
The Words
They should be the fire
not
His
lips

Finally
You found beauty
A constellation of words
(Whispered screams)
Shattered against the wall
Broken glass
Reflecting
- mirror embedded in
Time
Though this
This is not me.
You are still not sure
Of the stars post stamped
you found beauty
Finally

I was late for you
You feigned as though
I asked you to make the sun rise early
The truth, as he said
Is that it will always rise
With rays so bright
I cannot wait to dip
My words in their brilliant colors
And paint for you
I was late and
moon
for you.

I want you,
I want you to take in
My words like never before
Taste them like chocolate
Let them caress your tongue as they melt
In your mouth
Swallow
Cocoon them.
Keep them warm as they make their way
To butterflies in your stomach
Let them play.
Allow them,
Pieces of me
Inside of you,
Part of you
Touching you

Folded on a bruised plea
Pain defined by agony
It does not matter what you love
But who are you when push becomes shove
Lettered on a paper bag
Empty when vowels lack
Reality in memories
Nothing but hypocrisy
Truth is not in thoughts alone
The past will never be full grown
Today is just played pretend
Tomorrow not your time to lend
Yesterday a foreign word my
              Recollected
              Reminiscing
              Realistic
Friend deferred.

Diamond pitched dark to black
The milky way is never exact
Paper smiles and fielded dreams
The stars will need the moon it seems
Cap shifted left to block the ray
Heat hits the hand all the same
One, two, and three make home
All the Angels feel alone
The Devil sits upon the mound
Shoulder sore from pleasing the crowd
Nine a measure of lined up time
Not long enough when the score unties.

She can write but she can't edit
Every word she regrets
Every word she regrets
So she writes more and more
She writes more and more
To cover the trail of scores and
Sores and sores and scores
More and more
Every letter spelled regret
Every letter spelled regret
She can write but she can't edit


She can't regret it

When you speak
your words float down to me,
like feathers
I am collecting them, you know-
Building wings

Sometimes I wish you would just email me
so I could have the pleasure of deleting you
Although-
Not before printing and making origami

Maybe you don't think much of me
to you, I am only what you see
but bodies that lie under covers
still have thoughts to be discovered
Maybe I am worth another look
A not to be put down book

or maybe I am not so novel.

You are what ifs, whys, and how's.
A coiled exclamation point on my heart.

Everyday of the weak, I lose my ability to speak
All of the mind's gifts of kind are put away, wrapped with twine
Absorbed into a cactus plant, no need to water, living on can't
Rooted to a fault line, only the cracks and breaks are mine
Flaws and positivity caused the blood to leak from me
When the weak end comes again there won't be strength left to begin

Snow falls photo white on black
Lace buggies for the charm we lack
The wind howls mournful though not weak
The way a tiny puppy speaks
With fortitude the storm swells
Tissue deep in frozen spells

Pained by Promise
Pained by Promise of nothing
how can a Promise of nothing exist?
how can a Promise of nothing exist if it exists in you?
Inside of you.
Inside of you, I see everything.
Everything,
and there is nothing.
Nothing but a promise.

If you didn't love me, you shouldn't have said it
I can't take it back, I can't regret it.
I am not a liar, there really was a fire. The cat really did talk back, and so did its hat, you can't blame me for that.
But it would be nice to hear the truth, if only once, straight from you. I miss all the secrets that we had. Now you tell me, was it all bad?
Bad enough you felt the need to ride away on your steed? The knight I thought you could have been, was just a shadow created by my pen. The ghost of all that is yet to be, and I was blinded by debauchery.
I would not wish my sight to come back, if you would just admit all that. The only light that is lit, is the cigarette between your lips. It's clouded and it's dark, and I am longing for that spark - but, I think it may have been your pants on fire, rather than your heart's desire

To print these thoughts in black and white only poses an oversight. Screaming in red, yellow, and blue will you know I'm thinking of you? Words alone only travel through air, not heavy enough to feel the care. Continue to whisper in broken prose, it is only the poet whom no one knows. Knee sinks into solid ground, remind what it is I found. Are you there? Are you still around? Elbow bent towards waste L shaped, always extra room on this plate.

Something you said
Today
Years ago
That makes me smile
Until I remember
Years ago
Today
Something you said

So here we are in the rain, again. Rain drops falling so hard, the rhythm catches me. Controls me. Like one of those bubble gum pop songs that won't leave your head and washes through your veins, takes over the space.
Such a dark and heavy pulse, but I just feel empty now. I tie myself to a string, and hand it you. I bend over backwards to cover you.
It wasn't enough, or maybe too much, the ways in which I contorted myself. I put myself down, onto wet ground, and let you walk all over me.
Even though I'm washed out from rain drops and doubt. I much prefer the sound of your shoe pressed against my spine to that stupid rain that drives me insane like a bubble gum pop song.

Holding my watch up to the light,
wonder if it's worth the fight. Digging, scratching the blade deep beneath
the two and six
trying to get a tiny fix
following the vein to the heart, the sun, the light.
The time is never right.
(I'll cut deeper to the left)
This time sharp below the one
Back to lack, back to fun
Coming now, falling down
Lace melting on our tongue
From two to three and back to one.
Lift it up between my lips, pain erased by timely sips.
No thought, no mind, so little time.
No thought, no mind.
All about time.
A broken watch reflects the light just the same as one wound tight.
Hold my wrist against the wall, pounded hard still no alarm will call.
Keep cutting deep to the heart of me. You never know what is meant be.

The definition of a word has no meaning
You can speak emotions without any feeling
Actions are not so deceiving
Only your hug will keep me believing

I thought you said I couldn't, so I decided I wouldn't.
I think I knew I could, but didn't know I should.
If you had said I could, I probably would have misunderstood.
But then, I thought you said I couldn't, but maybe I said I wouldn't.
If only you understood. If only you would.
If only I could

When given a word, a letter, a spell
It is never enough and no one will tell
The lines another paragraph breeds
Are just the cause of dubious deeds
My friend a lie without a beat
My heart the truth suffers defeat
The script goes on written-
producing a show
Still no one can tell and no one will know

Awoken by the thought of you, the type of dream you cannot sleep through. Words you spoke float all around. Rearranged and hauntingly loud. I feel your hand wrap over mine. Distant, but in the same star shine. Perfectly sized to hold my place. Another night. Another waist. Of dreams you just cannot sleep through when awoken by the thought of you.

Once upon a faerie's wing, there was a frog that tried to sing
He croaked through a sweet love ballad, and leapt away feeling quite pallid
A mermaid had heard beauty in his words, swam to surface to find who she heard. Just as her head broke through the waves, that is when the frog leapt away. Now the the mermaid believes it is beauty she lacked that caused the frog to never turn back.
She should not have sat so quietly, he should not have given up so easily.
The frog is a prince with something to say, and the mermaid is girl with her heart on display.
Let there be a lesson learned, go after what your heart does yearn. Never should you give up on it, just because you feel you're too unfit.

She's been working for weeks on painting a dream onto a canvas, never to be seen.
He stands over her at the top of the stairs, points to the stars, and says you missed that spot there.
He is correct, she's left out the moon. Her dreams always ended much too soon.
Even in her sub-conscience mind she doesn't deserve such a beautiful man. He will never take her hand and begin forming plans. He'll tell her she's not worth his precious time. He'll say she is not pretty or special or kind.
Yet here they are, and so unaware. He's still standing there at the top of the stairs. Never a soul will she share, the painted canvas where the moon is bare. How did he know she didn't include it? Because he knows her heart though he'll never pursue it.
He believes his path is simple and set. The man in the moon knows he is incorrect.
No one said it would be easy to be misunderstood, but sometimes there is better for you than just plain good.
Her heart, none the less, remains in the stars, she makes no attempts to push him too far.
The canvas won't hang on a gallery wall. He will continue to make her feel ever so small.
The biggest decisions are clearly the hardest, but what is life without the moon to guide us?

The truth from me to you is a four letter word
Living with the O.
Never the i.
Truth from you to me is a four letter word
Living without an O.
Strong I, mis-taken U.
Taken  u.
Taken u.
Never i.