i'm sorry.
i'm sorry that i fell for you,
and you fell for me.
i'm sorry i try to be
someone i'm
not,
just so you won't
worry.
i'm sorry i don't
fit into your cookie cutter
format, even though
i'm dying to.
i'm sorry i don't see
myself the way you
say you do and
i'm sorry that i
will never love
myself
the way you say you
love me i'm sorry.

today my gums bled when i brushed my teeth,
and i thought of making some metaphor
about how efforts to attain purity
only result in more stains,
but no.
it was just blood.

to call a rose — or torn gums — by any other name
is to silence the initial sting,
but it still ends up hurting more in the end.
it always does.
lying always does.

and if all i have are my words,
what am i if my words are lies?

what am i if i cannot be honest?

a bad writer, perhaps.
but trying.
i am also trying.

there are some days when the blood looks
a little less like words on a page,
and simply a little more like red,
and i am hopeful.

yet still i know
that efforts to attain purity
only result in more stains,
and red is a ***** to clean out.

(a.m.)

we drink alcohol
that tastes like hell
and smoke cigarettes
that burn our throats
and take drugs
that **** our minds
just to forget for a little while

we're killing ourselves slowly
******* our lives up
and losing everybody who cares
welcome to self destruction

but he wrote a line in some novel
about love as a hair clip left behind on the dresser.
his lover coming back for it later.

i still think it could've been your bobby pin, there, on my bedside table.
however, now that i'm single,
i much prefer hair ties.

it's 4 am and i'm still up
in the city of the half-dead
alone with my racing thoughts
insomniac nights are the best