I never knew a gentle love,
Never one that didn't leave scars.
Only ones that demanded blood,
Cutting away pieces of my heart.

I thought that was what love was -
Pain and thrashing and aches,
And that only if I was shattered
Would any beauty grow in its breaks.

And then, like the sunshine,
Breaking through the darkest skies,
You came into my life to show me
That love isn't all painful cries.

That sometimes it's kindness,
Soft and sweet and innocently playful,
Sometimes it's being given;
Holding onto happiness with both hands full.

Love doesn't have to be cruel;
It doesn't have to be shown in daggers;
Sometimes love is the earth,
And in it, I can grow beautiful flowers.

In it, I can grow, and blossom,
Give back all the nourishment I'm shown;
And of all the loves I've felt,
Yours is the best I've ever known.

Some moments,
I am Atlas,
and the world is resting
snugly between my shoulder blades,
and I am set
with the determination of a thousand warriors
to never let it slip, for I become euphoric
from overcoming impossibility.

And then, some moments,
I am the Mimosa pudica,
a "Touch-Me-Not" woman, weary
of unclean hands leaving bruises on my skin,
and I am withdrawn
so tightly into the universe within my own black hole
that I can't remember how
to climb out again.

If you are to love me,
love me as both
a powerful Titan - an ancient goddess -
and
a gentle flower,
a delicate bloom:

to be respected,
to be honored,
to be valued,
but also -

to be nurtured
when the Sun has been most cruel,
for it is hard to be
both strong
and vulnerable.

So much to be said, done, written -

I am far too tired
to make sense of the universe,
of the dark energy in our veins.
I'll just sit here and trace
the constellations of leaves
on the sidewalk
and let the wind blow
the dust off my bones.

I'll just sit here
and practice the art
of breathing,
for there is a certain poetry
in being still long enough
to feel the subtle
undulating of the earth,
the quiet panting
of life.

I will love you with a soul on fire
With my spine as the wick;
I will love you as long
As my days are quick.

It is not in being heard,
but in having spoken,
in hearing your admissions -
the haunting silence broken.

Rage does nothing but wither
in the garden wall
still beating
as if it were actually alive
and not Lot's wife:
turned to salt.
My altar of anger is ash
and smoking embers,
reminders
of the heart I used to call mine
that breathed with desire
to change the tundra around it.
I was going to do so much good,
and now, look at me -
a walled garden
of dead things,
slain idols I worshiped
in my sleep,
dreams of revolution rotting
like rosy corpses
as the undertaker
wakes me up just enough
to suffocate from the dirt
of my own inaction.

I am weak-willed and nothing -
I die and live as a whisper
spoken between the grim reaper
tending my grave
and the grass growing from
my decaying soul.

It's been a long time since I've been here -
this place looks so different now.
I want to make amends to these ruins,
but my tongue isn't quite sure how.

Can we kiss the scars of time?
Heal the broken years scattered on the floor?
Can we tread softly over stained memories
and promise we will stain them no more?

This cathedral was never holy;
I have never been a righteous place -
but I swear both God and the Devil have
cast their shadows over my aging face,

and now, as I stand here, breathing,
on the same ground in which I thought I'd be buried,
I wonder if all haunted things feel like this -
broken and stubborn but proud of what they've carried.

It's been a long time since I've been here -
and I see it so much more clearly now.
I've already been forgiven by these bones -
for this is the place of loving darkness finding its ground.

I am a haunted church,
but my god, am I still standing.

Each day,
I count the highway signs
as I pass by,
hoping to follow them all
and tattoo them on my skin
with the dust of my tires.

Each day,
I drive the same route to work
and then home,
wishing,
just once,
my heart would go off-road.

Each night,
I mournfully regale the moon
with tales
of journeys great men traveled,
trips brave women blazed,
and my own bland,
listless meanderings between
work
and then home.

Each night,
the Moon beckons me
to chase the horizon
with open arms,
calls vehemently
for the chained thing
beating in my breast
to fly headfirst
into the Unknown.

One night
I will listen.

We set the room on fire,
Slow dancing in its flames.
The sparks that set it ablaze -
Softly whispering each other's names.

I wonder, now, what was more scandalous,
To those looking on wordlessly -
The way I was looking at her,
Or the way she was looking at me.

I am the granddaughter
of all the women
you burned
for refusing to kneel
before weak men.

I am the granddaughter
of all the warriors
slain on the battlefield
for the children they birthed
to breathe free air.

I am the granddaughter
of all the goddesses
sacrificed on the altar
of history, called "Unknown",
yet leaving their fingerprints
on the face of the Earth.

Be careful
when you see the glint
of a fire
in my irises;
we learned to consume
the flames
meant to **** us.

Your grief barks at faces
That aren’t there
And you do nothing
To stop it
As it bares its teeth
And bites back into the past;
Memories bleeding
And you do nothing
To stop them
As their blood pools
And stains your feet;
You walk through the years
Leaving tracks
Leading from things that happened
That never have healed
And still,
Your grief is barking
And biting
And still,
You do nothing
To stop it.

Aren’t you tired of hurting?

With scarlet-stained hands
and tear-streaked eyes,
I begged the Day to stitch
my soul to the sunrise

so I would cease to know
this cruel darkness within
for there are no stars here -
only howling without end.

The Day responded gently,
"You don't need me for light.
You are a child of the Moon -
this darkness is your birthright."

I could never tell
if it scared
or comforted me
every time I looked at you
and thought to myself,
I could so easily love you
forever.

Now, I know
it was both
fear
and warmth
simultaneously.
Love rarely speaks
the word
or.

I’ve tried to discover secrets
But I am not tall enough to swim
In some parts of my heart
And the universe is under construction
But they won’t say when it opens
And the most radical things I have found
That I can possibly say to you are:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying.

A mantra, a chant, a benediction?
Definitions are only important for the dictionary
Tomorrow checks out of the library,
Because the Present cannot read
So it does not care for words written
On spongy walls in the dead of night.
The present cares about the decorations
Of space called actions and whether
They match the aesthetic
And I don’t know if mine do but:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying

If you hear echoes and they are the same hue
As you knew me to be, and you wonder
If they are shockwaves from the time
I jumped headfirst into the shallow end
Of a sunny day trying to find words
That would mean something to you,
I hope they have not been distorted beyond
The ability to make out
My heart desperately beating in its staccato:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying

Because I am weak
I am small
I am struggling
And many days
I am dying,
But
I love you,
I’m sorry,
And I’m trying.

I crawl into worlds of words
to escape the one world to which I'm bound,
burrowing deep inside pages
that carry me away from this cursed ground.
I'm sorry, darling, truly,
that I still run away into these places unknown,
and that I leave you, here,
to face the flames of this burning house alone.

I know that we both thought
our love would give me reason enough to stay,
but my god, I've never learned
to rely on only my spine for support each day.
Forgive me, love, I do not mean
to retreat into the forest growing in the library from you,
but without these daydreams, these
intricate mansions of imagination, I don't know what I'd do.

You can always come with me,
or you can find a heart that does not roam
to the fields beyond reality -
one not used to calling inked castles their home.
Know that when I'm absent, I am
peacefully swimming with the papyrus' tides,
or building a fire of hardback covers -
but I will always return when you call me to your side.

I’d fall from heaven a thousand times
If I knew you were wishing on me like a shooting star

And I think there’s a name for that -

When you’re willing to run headfirst
Into the worst pain you’ve ever felt
So the person on the other side
Sees fireworks and believes even for a moment
That everything is beautiful.

I’d crush myself into a fine powder and sprinkle it on a windowsill
If it made you believe in pixie dust and laughing sprites
And filled you with the spirit that you were young and free and innocent.

You wouldn’t even have to know it was my heart
laying on the ground at the door,
there to wipe off all the dirt from the roads
you’ve been forced to travel alone,
before you stepped into the future

And I think there’s a name for that -

I just want to make your eyes sparkle
like remnants of the first volcanic eruption
that gave birth to the cliffs we’ve danced upon
like edges aren’t permanent
And our bodies aren’t temporary -

I just want to be a thing that makes this heavy world you wear like a fashionable coat
And not the strait jacket it feels like to me,
A little lighter, a little easier;

I want to be a thing with my back pushed against the walls
Straining to keep them even an inch further away
So that life is a little more spacious for you,
And you have the room to take deeper breaths -

And I do not mind if you don’t know it’s me who’s falling from great heights
To be your shooting star,
because it’s not about me at all -

It’s about giving your wishes a chance to come true,
And the willingness to crash and burn and do it again and again
Until the universe takes pity and starts listening and makes it happen.

And I think there’s a name for that -

This is me with my heart in the chamber
And my lips on the trigger
Giving you my best shot.
I hope you see me falling across the sky
Just for you
And I hope you make a wish on me
And I hope I figure out
By the time I hit the ground
How to make your wish come true.

And I think there’s a name for that-

And if it’s not
What I think it’s called,
It’s still yours regardless.

Here is the place of death and ash;
Here is the slumbering beast of vileness past.
Look at these barbed wire rows
Guarding scarlet stained poppies birthed in woes.

It’s Sunday,
and I call my mother.
I spend an hour picking shards out of my teeth
From whatever broke her.
It’s an art I’ve practiced since childhood:
Smiling with gums bleeding.

You’d only hear the grimace in my voice
If you listened to me like I was a person.
Listened
As if I was not a reflection
Or an extension.

It’s Sunday,
and my mother answers
Without the slightest hint
That by the time I finished
dialing her number
The first aid kit had already been opened.

My fiancée’s fingers hover over an
“Are you alright?” text
Poised to hit send
When she hears the grimace -

Because she hears the grimace.

It’s Sunday,
And I do not call my mother.
My birthday visited yesterday
And echos greeted me
In her place -

Fractures that had been growing
unspoken,
We fell into headfirst.

My gums aren’t bleeding
But my teeth still ache.

My body is not beautiful -
it shows every row of dirt plowed,
every callous axe handle held
irreverently between the hands
that are swollen and cold;
my fingers, the puffy soldiers who smoked
one too many cigars in the
valleys of their webbed hills.

My body is not beautiful -
it is pitted with dirt entrenched in my pores
and craters of microorganisms
embedded in my flesh,
sending red fires into neutral skin,
a war beneath the surface
with smoothness being a casualty.

My body is not beautiful -
it has hair growing in places I hate,
thick layers of clinging calories
and expanded fat cells that
refuse to expire no matter how many
suicides I run or deaths I die
daily in an attempt to flatten them.

My body is not beautiful -
it is strong as hell.

My shoulders, firm and balanced,
tauntingly mock Atlas for complaining
of holding the world on his -
what he calls a tragedy, they call Monday.
My back has always carried whatever
burden I laid on it,
and though it's strained and torn
has yet to break beneath the weight
of the sorrow and the memories
living has given to me.

My legs, short and wide,
have lunged with mountains
by their sides,
moving forward through infernos
I can only describe as
"liquid fire as heavy as lead,"
traversing continents
and rushing rivers
knowing they were not going to give.

My arms are atlases,
traversed for countless miles
by vein-y highways
that lead to the ghost towns
I've gotten tattooed on my skin
to remind me that my
vagabond blood is pure
and my bones are made
of wanderlust.

No, my body is not beautiful,
but it is strong;
it has been places,
seen and done things.
It allows the universe
to make its home in my spinal
chord,
midnight to seep into my pores
and sing my heart to sleep
with starry melodies,
to leave behind the cement parking lot
I was born and raised in
and chase the horizon
no matter where it leads.

My body is not beautiful,
but it still deserves respect
for all it's done,
and all it holds,
regardless of my cellulite
or fat rolls.

There’s a language in your eyes
I want to know like my native tongue;
Teach me how to speak to you
And feel your essence fill my lungs;
Run your fingers over me
And wherever you touch, I’ll be clean.

Heaven is the space where my hand
Wraps around yours,
And hell is every time you say goodbye
And I watch you walk out the door.

I’ve heard the whispers of saints in your laugh
and god sits on the corners of your lips.
I want to learn the art of devotion on my knees,
Deliver to me my salvation with your kiss.

I’m all yours, and although I’m a sinner,
I believe in your quiet footsteps
Like church bells sounding out
The truths I’ve been searching for, and yet -

They tell me the divine ones
Live on parchment
or locked behind heavenly doors,
But you’re right here sipping coffee
Next to me
on the floor.

She scraped the splattered soul
from the inside of my bones
and baked a cake for her new lover
with its still-sweet flavor.
There is nothing of me left
but my cynical, cyanide-tainted breath;
I have nothing to cry over, nothing to share,
and no tears left even if I cared.

Don't worry, love,
I know those gates of stone
stand firmly
to guard the most precious parts
of your soul.

I am not here like the others;
not as a warrior
planning a siege
or a strategist
plotting to knock them down.

I respect your walls too much.

You have fought in more wars
than most;
you have been betrayed by more loves
than most could survive -
your walls are the result
of your scars.

So here I stand before you,
my weapons laid down,
my intentions spread out before the Sun,
with nothing in my hands
but open palms,
asking you
to let me in.

Show me, love,
all those terrible,
beautiful
wild flowers
growing in your garden -
I want to do nothing
but paint them to remember,
and carry their fallen petals
safely in my heart.

Open up to me, please,
my love -
I am already yours.

A brokenness is in us
Like a window
Never closed;
Drafty and meddlesome
When it rains,
But at least the sun
Always finds its way in
And least we remember
That we are more
Than our flaws -
We are also the light
That shines through them.

There is a howling ghost haunting my ribcage,
And she refuses to let me sleep.

She's been set alight so many times,
But her will to survive runs deep.

There's something, something important,
She writes on the insides of my bones, her walls -

"Never let them fool you: a queen is still only human,
But the difference is that she rises as the darkness falls."

There’s something powerful about a storm -
Transformative and destructive and cleansing.
Like a lover that kisses in passion’s throes -
All lips and teeth and bruises.
It’s beautiful in its orchestrated chaos -
Nature’s screaming catharsis.

There’s something powerful about the silence
That settles after the storm has left;
The petrichor that smells like a balm -
A tender touch, apologizing and soothing;
The calm stillness that descends and frets
Over the pretty things that stayed behind,
Petals dripping.

There’s something brave about the land after,
These survivors turning chaos into blooms,
Saying, “See us? Aren’t we the strong?
For in our delicacy, our tenderness,
Do we not grow from thunder?”

I am learning to love the me I am now
In the aftermath of you.
Your bruises have faded and I bloom;
I am learning there is something powerful
About my own petrichor,
About my own defiant petals dripping.

You were powerful, but transient.
Now, I am the pretty thing that stays and survives-
Firm and rooted and beautiful,
Taking every powerful and painful storm,
And turning lightning into art.

We never spoke of love.

We spoke of cosmic miseries;
we spoke of falling statues;
we spoke of unsolved mysteries,
of the prevailing cultural attitudes.

We spoke of miscommunication
and Comedy and Tragedy as brothers;
we spoke of being lost and broken,
yet healed at the hearths of others.

We spoke of Winter's silent war
and how the Sun scared us both;
we spoke of wanderlust and bars
and how our lives were the funniest jokes.

We spoke of possibility,
in coded symbols and allegories,
of all the universes we wish we could be,
of all the things we'd do with wings.

We never spoke of love,
and yet,
somehow,
it's all we ever
talked about.

Some things we trust,
Because we simply must -

The sun and stars will dance again
Though they disappear from sight;
The moon is there, singing her song,
Even when clouds hide her at night.

The ocean keeps its deepest secrets
And never ceases with its whispers;
The sky paints itself anew each day
And never finds itself running out of colors.

The grass will kiss the tips of flowers,
And the trees will wave hello and goodbye-
And we will one day love again,
Before our times on earth draw nigh.

Sometimes,
fingertips become haunted,
and bodies are filled with ghosts,
when people are forced to lose the loves
that they loved the very most.

Sometimes,
memories become poisonous,
and beautiful pictures can cause pain,
and even the letters of the alphabet hurt
when they arrange to spell a certain name.

But sometimes,
the sunshine walks up to you,
and the moon brings you coffee,
and the shadows no longer scare you
because the stars take you dancing.

Sometimes,
when you're sure you'll never smile
the way you did before your heart was crushed,
without expecting it, the universe brings you
someone who's never made you laugh so much.

Sometimes,
love walks right up to you,
when you're sure that it was dead,
and plants flowers in your smile
and a never-dying garden in your head.

And while you never know
which sometimes you're in right now,
one thing is for certain:
you'll live through them all, without a doubt -

and that makes it all worth it, somehow.

I dipped my pen in Midnight's well,
but still, my quill remained dry.
I chased fallen stars to the Moon's mournful waterfalls,
and still, I had no tears to cry.
I followed the paths carved throughout my soul's forest,
but still, could not find where I'd let my dreams lie.
Finally, I crawled through the gates of every hell and saw
the trail leading to the grave where I'd let myself die.

The silence followed me everywhere I went;
that dreadful nothingness ringing in my ears would not relent.
No words, no words, no words could I invent
to relieve the pain caused by this constant, quiet torment.

I'm nothing. Nothing I dreamed I'd be.
I'm shipwrecked driftwood in this mighty sea,
tossed to and fro without understanding or control.
I've lost too much to ever dream of being whole.

Then, one day, an old artist told me,
"Never cover over your imperfections;
never hide the flaws beneath the perceived perfection,
because the truest beauty lies in being able to see
all the madness and chaos that birthed the masterpiece."

So I won't hide from my shadows anymore;
I won't run from the demons sleeping underneath my pillows.
I will not shrink in the light of the golden Sphinx's baleful eye;
I won't keep myself chained to never-arriving Tomorrow's.

I will face my silence until my ears are bleeding,
and from that blood will I find the words to write,
and from the river of those crimson words flooding,
perhaps I'll find the picture of what my masterpiece will look like.

Cruel lover,
did you know
that when you raked your nails
across my skin,
they were searing my soul -
every touch
became a burning trail
that lead to my heart,
beating to the rhythm
of your pulsating starlight?

Cruel lover,
did you know
that when you spoke my name
you cast a curse,
so that now when it is spoken,
it leaves a taste
of blood and ash,
of love and loss,
and sounds like the howling moonlight?

Cruel lover,
did you know
that when you reached for me
as the darkness was calling for you,
that your cries bound me
to the forest
filled with the shadows of your love,
never letting me leave
so you'd be able to always find me?

Cruel lover,
tell me this -
did you know
your love
would destroy?
And if you did,
why did you let me burn?

It's all too much.

I don't know how to say it better
than saying it like that, because -

How do I wrap all the ends
of the universe
into a napkin
and pass it over to you
without spilling something?

How do I scoop the depths
of humanity's depravity
into an ice-cream
that won't melt
down the sides
or crack from the pressure?

How do I tell you
how terribly awful
it must be
to have to argue
with people
about whether
mutilating the genitals
of 5-8 year old children
is right or wrong?

How do I tell you
about the terror that seizes you
when you talk to someone you love
who honestly believes
that pigmentation,
geographical location,
religious affiliation,
****** orientation,
are reasons
to be killed,
beaten,
detained,
condemned?

How do I describe that
sickening feeling
that I feel
when I'm going about
my coffee-cup flavored,
pill-prescribed diet,
acting like the day is normal,
when I know:
people are being bombed,
sleeping on the streets,
set on fire,
beheaded,
******,
dying,
for doing
or being
the same things
I am going to do and be today
right after I finish my latte?

How do I live with that
knowledge
that girls are kidnapped
for going to school;
that four-year-olds
are holding assault rifles
when they should be
holding dolls;
that five-year-olds
are being trained as soldiers
when they should be
playing with toy soldiers;
that children
are giving birth to children;
that every 9 seconds
in the United States,
a woman is beaten
or *****;
that I have an iPhone
that can do a billion things
and there are
food riots in India,
that -

That I could keep writing
until my fingers were whittled
down to bone
and I wouldn't finish
that list?

How do I describe that,
all of that,
except by saying,

it's all too much?

Do you ever fall in love with echoes?
See dying embers and find yourself transfixed,
gazing upon them desperately,
for reasons you do not know?

Have you fallen in love with a starry night?
Knowing the stars are long expired but still feeling
a gravitational pull towards
those long dead lights?

I do -

I have fallen in love with far too many
weathered headstones,
lain my heart like flowers at the feet of corpses.
I have dared to speak
with the breath of ghosts roaming
galleries and libraries.

*Can you hear them singing, too?

I want to claw at the sky,
see what masterpiece that Sun sneaks away
to paint behind its pale blue canvas,
see the backdrop of the moon's dress rehearsal.

I want to rip the seam of the horizon,
open the cage door of this illusion called reality
that we ceaselessly beat our wings against,
open the fabric and discover what lies beyond the known.

I want to climb to the tip of man's reach,
running far away from the land where right and wrong
are the boundary markers, instead
running to the secret caves in the atmosphere of ambiguity.

Essentially,
take me anywhere
no one's ever been
and everywhere
no one should go.

I would let you hurt me,
Just because I knew you'd
Heal the same wounds.

I just wanted you to touch me -
It didn't matter if it
Left blood or a bruise.

I believed in you,
and now I believe in nothing but:
The honesty of a thunderstorm -
And the promises in a roses thorns -
And the whispers from the moon at midnight -
Nothing haunted ends up being “just alright.”

We take the blood and make it art -
From broken glass, a mosaic of shards
And present it to the world and ask,
“Will you see the depths in me at last?
Can you see me in these jagged pieces?
I’m somewhere in the truth of this mess.”

You don’t always get an answer
But the asking makes you braver,
And you grit your teeth until your gums bleed,
Turning a profit from your tragedies,
And pretend it was all worth it -
Say you’d do it all again.

But I look away from the pretty face
At the other end of the bar.
I’m not gonna chase my ghosts
To the backseat of her car.
I don’t want to make
Another showcase from my heartbreak -
I’ve lost too much blood to bleed
All over a stranger’s sheets.

So I’ll just drink my amber peace and leave,
Because I believed in you and now I believe in nothing,
But the scars you left
And the words you said
And the places I now can’t go.

There are some aspects of poetry
I wish I didn’t know.

Some mothers give their daughters:
Rose petal hands
And bouquets for smiles;
Laughter like Aphrodite
And the lips of a pianist;
A mind like sunshine;
The poise and elegance of a princess,
And the graceful gaze of a queen,

And surely,
These are valuable, lovely things.

But my mother gave me
Only that which she had
Fought and earned for herself:

Swords for fingers;
Guns for lips,
and arrows for eyes;
Armor for skin
And a mind sharp as knives;
How to create
A bouquet out of flames;
How to invite my demons
For afternoon tea;
And in the darkness,
She taught me how to sing.

And surely,
These are also valuable, lovely things.

Darling -

It has been said
that our final death
happens
the last time
our name is spoken.

I do not know
who will be the one
to **** you
in a breath
of infinite finality

but it will not be me,
it will not be me,
it will not be me
who delivers that final blow.

Even in death,
even in darkness,
staring down the void,
yours will be
the only name
my tongue will still know.