You were something to do
like cracking peanuts or chewing gum
(Hands and mouths,
not hearts and minds)
But shells are messy,
and flavor is easily lost
You must sweep up
and spit out

We are obsessed with our own vanity
That is why closets bulge
as stomachs growl

You sin me sideways and repent
by skimming your hands down my body
Taking your time taking me,
every whispered word a prayer
My body your holy grail
You found me while many could not
I wasn't hiding hard, I wanted to be found
Wanted to be touched like I was made of the most precious metal,
Beheld like silver

You see not the flicker,
only the flame
But I am so close to burning out;
                A waterfall of wax
                slipping through
                your fingers

I'm flexing a muscle that no one can see
Put your hand to my chest,
you'll feel its strain

So much change,
Not enough growth

Hearts
     The secrets they hold can break their neighbors'
     The secrets they hold are kept in hardwood floors

Stranger-friend, how are you? Where are you?
Stranger yet, I hardly cry anymore
Just at those videos where people who are deaf hear for the first time
Or one I saw today where orphaned children were adopted

I am sensitive to that which I am removed from
(tabs on computer screens)

What are we but what we are not?

It's projection

you will never ask the question I yearn to hear, this I know
but I am certain my answer would be yes
yes yes yes
yes vehemently shouted
yes breathlessly whispered
yes, just yes
over and over again

A new you, I need.
Yoda, do I think I am?
Stuck, so stuck, am I.

"I think you're really beautiful and I feel really warm when I'm around you and my tongue swells up."

I think you're really handsome and I feel strangely flushed when I'm around you and my heart swells up.

Are we going to be like
the dinosaurs one day?
I hope they find my bones
next to yours.

Another broken clock
Not a metaphor

I'm trying to keep our breaths in sync
but yours aren't deep enough

In a collision of
pasts and presents,
I think my lips would
remember yours

Confessed and unrequited love
Who am I to deny?
Still, I will sleep sound

Maps so often fail to reflect
the little places that have
left trails along our hearts
Like the hill—the hill where
he rested his head in my lap

forever going out on a limb
only to have the branch break
beneath my size six and a half feet

Stream of consciousness ... Go—
The best days are ahead,
I know.
I think?
I hope.
But I want to be happy now.
And these highs and lows
are neither high nor low.
Everything is sustained by
nothing more than a monotone
heart rate while inside a voice cries
"static is suicide."

And I don't know if I am relieved
or offended that you didn't
think I was a cheerleader.
And I don't know why it even matters.
And my best friend let me down,
but I don't want to talk about it.
And how can someone get to know
me when I don't yet know myself?
And mom and dad,
there has been no drought. Consistently watered, my deeply rooted insecurities have only grown.
And most days I just want to go home, yet that very thought
is what drives me mad.

Give me something that
gets me out of bed.
I don't care if it cools my lungs
or burns my throat, just give it to me.
My hands are greedy,
my heart overeager.
Because even though Jack Kerouac
said that it is dreams that unite
all humans beings
and although I melt at that
beauty of that thought,
I want to be kissed in this life.
I want to be kissed today.
I wanted to be kissed yesterday.
How do you be an active participant
in your fate yet still let Destiny
do it's thing?

I don't want to live in cottony
allusions that are spun from
slumber and made into the
burdening burgundy sweater
I must put on to go outside.
My dreams don't release me—
they make me sad and sentimental.

Give me a life worth dreaming about.
A life to inspire dreams—
not a life lived with eyelids shut.

I'd shave a few days to shed a few pounds,
I say to my friends
We laugh out of habit?
(Weight is heavy, let's make light)
Jokes are truths and truths are rocks
&
This is why We need feminism

Tuesdays remind me of you
because Tuesdays are arguably
the most insignificant day of the week
And that's how you make me feel

You twist my wrists and bunch my covers,
and you my leave my heart in tangles

You call me sweet and it makes me bitter,
and I don't think I love you

But I have love for you
And I am always sad to see you,
because I am always sad to see you go

You kissed me,
I felt it.

You left me,
I melted.

You do, I feel.
You stand and I kneel.

And when your action is no more,
when all your games are played
Here I'll be as I was before,
waiting for you-
r memory to fade.

You are a sincere tornado.
You are kinetic energy.
You are a crystal hanging heavy from my neck.
You charge in leaving my covers in a bunch and my heart in a tangle.
(And where's my ******* blanket?)

But this is not your bed to make.
It is mine.
I gave you permission to coax my ears with your talks of adventure
                                       auras
                                               and hemp.
I also gave you my popsicle -- the one I'd been saving for days
(An intended treat for myself)
I offered, you accepted.
But I still wanted so we shared.
You liked the cherry, I the lemon.

Funny how that was probably
the closest I'll ever come to
kissing you again
And ironic how there was
no joke on the stick,
like maybe all of this
isn't actually that
funny.

But we (can i say we?) laugh.
We laugh so we don't cry.
And I still run my fingers through your hair.
It is so long now.


2:24 a.m. The sun will be rising soon
And you will be with her
And all I know is
she isn't me
and
I am not her

You breathed your words into me
You shook all you, we, couldn't say
If a hug could speak it would have said,
*"Sometimes, there are no words."

Feelings—
*fickle
frustrating
fragile

I don't know how to say what I want
because I don't yet know what it is I want to say

People make your world
Your world is a mirage of moments
Moments are what **** you

Let sadness be your ink

What a time to be alive
as September gives way to October

Don't.
Because you can.