The trouble with Hello Poetry
Is that I fall in love daily
Held under so many captivating spells
moulded and crafted by all walks of life
I find myself longing for all of you
the broken, the fallen, the bruised
the saints, the sinners
the righteous, the dispossessed
the holy, the unholy
all meet here
to speak of life
as they feel it
as only we know it.
Onwards, upwards
Downward spirals
kindness, cruelty
crashing through boundaries
bounding across oceans
carried on wistful sighs and broken dreams
The trouble with Hello Poetry
Is that it breaks my heart
Then brings me back to love again
All within an hour.

Even if all the signs point to no
Everyone tells me to let it go
Even if it's written in the skies
Or it's ridden with goodbyes
If it's separated by space
If it's in an unfamiliar place
Even if our love was never true
I still can't forget you

I JUST ALWAYS FELT SO*   *small   **COMPARED TO YOU

The tree house, the swings, the memories
You built it, and you need to tear it down
To make way for a new pool deck
But by you tearing it down
You're just reassuring me of the fact
That my childhood has almost past
I remember so many times being up there
Sleeping up there
Doing homework
Swinging
Rolling around in sleeping bags
Laughing and enjoying life
I would rather it not go
I love its presence, always reminding me
That however old I get, there is always magic
There is some place to go and hide
Even if there are bees, I could still go up there and escape
I could sit, all bundled up in my Eskimo snow suit in winter
And witness the stillness of the new fallen snow
I whittled names into its support wood
So it would always remember
I guess I'm being selfish not wanting to share my own piece of childhood
But we all have that thing that we don't want to give up
Even if we outgrow it in a sense
But I will be happy in the sense that another child may climb up on the steps
Look out from the top and imagine they are the top of the world
For all the time that they can

My petals have all been picked off, my strings have been pulled taught
By constant "He Loves Me's" and "He Loves Me Nots"
Can't you see, you've left me in distress?
But, "It Doesn't Matter," seems to be how you digress

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.