They say there's only two emotions:
Love and fear,
So believe me when I say
Love can be so afraid.

How can anybody
Doubt
The beauty in your flaws?

She sat and held my hands,
Promising she would always be there.
But she wasn't.
No one ever is until they understand the hurt
The stabbing I feel in my chest
The chest that extends beyond the surface he craves
To a heart no bitter friendship could ever mend

In bottles of Prada perfume,
I am with you.
In the symptoms in my body
That will only confuse my mind,
I am with you.
In a shady grove littered with stones,
I am with you.
Sugar and Cola and never growing old,
I am with you.

I am made of moon shine,
Blue eyes, and mountain crests.
There is a warm, thick fog
Cleaner than stained glass,
The brilliance of an omniscient night,
An advocate for a better life.

Card tricks.
They're easy: create a diversion, hide something behind your thumb, snap your fingers.

I’ve always been easy. It's not hard to manipulate a girl by a slight of hand. Put her heart out from behind her ear. Tell her she's worth something, just to create a distraction so you can get what you really want.

But you, you were different. Your hands made things disappear: rings and cards and twenty five cent coins,

And things like the way I always felt used and the way I always felt like I was never good enough and the way I always felt insane for wanting something more than distraction.

You weren't a diversion. You were the real thing.

I'm ready
Hands shaking
Blood racing
Unmistakably steady

I knew this was the beginning
Of a manic love story.
I tasted you in my mouth.
I had to touch you
I had to be with you
I missed you so much
All my systems got sick.
I had to see that angel face

I will awaken your nightmares.
I will be kind
I will be gentle
I will be the human touch that awakens your dreams

You're going to feel loved.
You're going to feel needed
You're going to become addicted
To the tight jeans and pale skin that takes you over
You're going to fall in love with my naked body and my naked soul
You're going to feel things

I'm going to make you feel better
And when I have to go
I will awaken your nightmares.

I showed you the dream box
My brother gave me for Christmas
I cried talking about the note he had written
I cried telling you about the maps he had hand glued inside
To remind me wherever I go,
My family would be with me
I thought about the rivers and roads
The valleys and mountain tops
The blue papers described
I pointed with my finger where my sisters belonged,
Where my mother lived,
Where I could find my brother
I realized there were no actual pinpoints,
That my father could move anywhere on the map,
And that there were things on the map I hadn't given a name to quite yet
I want to put you there,
Pin you down,
Give you a name the same way I'd given one to the rest of my family
I guess I'm writing this to ask you a question
I'm asking you to stay

I want to be all the love
          Your heart pumps
Though open drains
          And pipes
I want to be the one
          To keep you up at night

He's my everyday love.
He meets me at the brink of Maybe
And carries me back to Certainty.
He is enlightening,
He is lightning.

He's my tomorrow.
The time evaporates,
Leaving nothing but soft yellow light -
Slow dancing, shadowy silhouettes on my skin,
Dappled warmth,
Lightning.

In hushed breaths
He tells me I am safe,
And I am.

Her hips were poetry 
When she walked,
Leaving the room hushed
And breathless;
Gazing in awe

Her lips were poetry 
When she sang;
Clearer than the birds
And prettier than the stars
And bolder than the moon
And softer than the night 

Her eyes were poetry
When her brows crinkled
In delight
And her lids fluttered
In fatigue
And her irises sparkled
In passion

And the way she spoke
And the way she did
And the way she was,
It was all poetry to me.

I hate that my pain
Is so easy for you to dig
Your hands into
I hate that I write poetry
To spread as much good
As hurt you've given me
I hate that you can preach
About forgiveness
When you know more
About my body
Than Christianity
I hate that my life
Will always be a reoccurring nightmare
I hate that I cannot silence you
Because you are still
The blood inside my mouth

I used to end all my prose in exclamations.

When I was a kid,
I would clench my fists
And tighten my jaw so hard,
the veins in my neck would buldge And sore by morning.
If I could close my eyes tight enough,
I could pretend I didn't hear the screams from down the hallway.

I don't want to end my prose in exclamations.
I want sprinkles of rain on my nose,
Not hail.
I want to lay in a field of grass and never once check my watch
And while were making requests,
I want to breathe in pine and lilacs,
I want to recall but not remember the bruises on my back.

As I stare at these oceans and cities
And vast complexities,
I think
I know these algorithms create the pathways in your brain.
I know your mind can create space
I know that nebulas and galaxies
Are the day to day functions of the fusions in your mind
You are something so much greater than you settled for.

You stir the oceans inside me.
We just got settled into a dream,
And we keep falling deeper,
Deeper into the sound waves
As we play telephone through the wavelengths
Of our consciousness
I want to be the one to open your insides
And make them glow with the patterns of light
In my eyes
When we wake up,
I'll tell you the dreams that I dreamt
You tell me the hopes that you've kept
We will lay motionless until dawn

I can still remember the smell of your hair
Juniper and cypress
I loved you to death

I'll sneak around as much as I have to
I'll break my back and bury my bones in the backyard
So long as yours are buried there too.
When I was a kid I thought love was this empty thing
I'm letting the words come to my page as quickly as I think them
Not pausing to be rational
Or plan my escape like I always do
I don't freaking want to go anywhere
I want to freaking be with you

I heard you passing out sincere apologies
Hoping one of them would get around to me
I lie awake at night
Without you on my mind
But I have four years worth of excuses
If you would say sorry
I might find a place to store them

I want to feel
Something
Without feeling
You

It's the way he walks, I think:
Always on his tip toes, like a child.
I remember the first time I saw him,
Sometime in the spring
In New York City,
I remember the lights in his eyes when the curtains raised
Our first time seeing Broadway.
I remember hearing his little gasps during the show,
And throughout the rest of my life,
I spent my whole life dying to hear his sighs.

Does it send shivers down your spine
When I tell you I feel purpose
Bleeding from the hand you use
To cling to mine?

Do you memorize the sky's particular shade of dusty blue
The cracks in the cement beneath your high top shoes,

Do you know how much I feel when I look at you?

I want to live inside your velvet dreams
I want to conquer you,
Unravel your seams
I want pillow fights and pillow talks
I want to open your eyes,
Provoke your thoughts

If I could write everything I'm feeling
On the tops of the walls in acrylic paints,
Would the words drip down the wallpaper
In silence,
Reminding me that emptiness
Is only relative,
That whatever magazine cut outs
And indie band posters I've hung over the years
Can dissolve into the vastness
Of my memory?
That somewhere in my organs,
There's pictures of you drenched in
opera house pinks,
Van Gough sunflowers,
Georgia dirt reds?
That the paint ran down the walls
As quickly as you ran to me,
A four minute mile of I Love Yous,
Paint dribbled bursts of joy
concaving over the stillness of the pavement,
Blissful evenings where the wallpaper
Was hardly a bother,
Just white noise blurring the rest of the world so I could focus
Focus on nothing but you

Tucked in quiet corners,
I'll keep you locked in spaces
My mind makes up
To convince me to go to sleep.

You were mine, mine, mine.
I found you with hope zipping about,
Your eyes had energy,
A soar flare before departure.

I gave you the stars and hoped you knew
How to use them.

It has been eighteen months since your
Wandering eyes found change,
And your hands met electricity.

When I left you,
Your stars had disappeared.
You looked at the world with cold and bitter eyes.
Still, the moon eclipsed the sun,
And I was the only one.

Drink it in
While the though of his lips
Still makes you drunk

My words don't sound half hearted
When they come from my hands.
When I want to make everything better,
I'll write to you.
Just promise you'll be okay

Chesapeake Ocean waves thump
In my newly-beating chest.
Above the madness of my memories,
I think I can hear them swaying
To and fro,
Like my steady heartbeat.

Damp winds untangle the curls behind my ears.
My thoughts steady on September,
Where I picture brick walls,
Sitting nicely in a plaid dress,
My mousy blonde braid
The only consistent twist or turn.

I am the only one without a ticket
to the cinema.
I am a hologram;
A mirage
Thinning in and out of old reruns.
Which blank window panes
Share any foggy truth?

I'm sure leather messenger bags
And nice wool skirts have their place
Somewhere in the anatomy of the past,
But for now my wristwatch
Ticks and tocks
And waits for a time
When my skin is not the same shade
As the dates on my radio:

A new person passing anxiously through her old life.

How could anybody
Doubt
The beauty
In your flaws

Sometimes I think if we were to hug close enough,
we'd melt into rose petals
that cover the dusty ground and
await the day eternity
feels more like a memory

sticky mess
sticky mess
we've gotten ourselves into.
raw arms
sick stomachs
bright red
peeling off
don't bring these things back.

when your sinking thoughts drag you down,
i want to be the one to wipe the tears
from your cheeks

Tell me how pretty I look
In my little red dress.
Tell me I am as bold and brilliant
As the Crimson on my skin.

Tell me you think about me at 2 p.m.,
When your shift is almost up
And you want to make plans.

Tell me the greatest sight
You ever hope to see
Is a small bump
Developing above my hips.

I don't want to play pretend

she's off limits
but im easy
that's why you want her
that's why you touch me.
it almost worked.
Don't pressure me.

Being told I'm pretty
Has ceased to be a compliment to me.
I've gotten it a thousand times.
I know, I know.
It's been told by his fingertips
As they dance along my stomach,
As they trace my hips:
Holding and keeping,
Grasping firmly,
Not letting go.
I know that I am pretty.
Trust me,
I know.

The first of April;
The epitome of spring.
I see the life unfold around me,
I feel the dewy green below.

For a moment
There's a skip in the tape,
And I see scraggly branches
Break up the sky like cracks in the pavement;
White, twiggy claws
Scratch at the Celestial,
Begging for air.

I feel the oxygen seep out
Through my dry, wintry skin.
I become the branches,
Scratching for life.

The first of April.
A raindrop greets me at my nose.
My eyes turn up to the Celestial,
I see the life unfold around me,
I feel the dewy green below.

And oh, the leaves on the trees
And oh, the leaves on the trees
I feel myself breathe,
And oh, the leaves on the trees

My heart is our hands
Tied in a knot; intertwined
Your hand in mine

My soul ached
For his skin and bones
And all the beating somethings in between-
That nothing,
Perhaps not even time,
Could revoke the hormone-driven,
Empty-souled desire I had
For every participle of his being
To deluge me through my core
And past every withering remain
Of sanity or stability
I so feebly clung to.

I am the parts of me nobody sees.
I am sleepy eyes
And little words I try to make sense of,
I am trying to make sense of God
I am late nights
I am alone

My
    Wrists
Are
     Not
A
          Canvas

As my chest rides and falls
I see the reflection of a clock
On the wall,
Haunting me for my beating heart
And God above is watching it all.

If I gave you myself,
I'd get parts of you in return:
Your breath in my ear
Your hand on the small of my back
Your heartbeat in sync with my own

Only difference is,
I'd still love you in the morning

Breaking clocks
That's what it feels like
Even when I'm with you,
I wish it were still seven am so I could curl under blankets and feel comforted and weak
I like flying kites
I like picking wildflowers in varying shades of mustard hues
I like resting on the pavement of a church parking lot
I like being with you
But my body feels old and tired
Even wintry kisses and hot chocolate runs
Fill me with dread
I'm afraid of the changing seasons,
Sacred of old cafes giving up and becoming shimmery, glistening electric complexes
I'm afraid of Virginia,
Afraid of everything that isn't the great Tetons
Or old faithful
I'm afraid of being alone
Being without you
Being with you
Being anywhere but hiding on my bathroom floor
As the thunder shakes the ground I rest on,
I wish I were running freely under open skies
I don't know how to do anything but rest

I'm looking at a photo of me.
I am thirteen.
I have never been kissed,
Never been touched,
Never known love.
My hair is bleached blonde
And I know nothing of sorrow.

I'm looking at a photo of me.
I am sixteen.
His lips have kissed every part of me;
Every inch of my skin has been touched.
I have never known love.
My hair is bleached blonde,
And now I know sorrow.

I am looking at my face in the mirror.
I am eighteen.
My skin has been kissed by the sun.
I now touch only to show affection,
Because I know it now;
I know love.
I'm letting my roots grow out;
I know nothing of sorrow.

The lines I write in my head make sense
Until my tears smear the ink
And muddle all my musings.
I let them bleed out of my fingertips
Til I'm left with ink blots and a tired heart

I want to be yours.
I want to be the light that makes you bloom at the end of the day.
I want to be the sunflowers on your bed sheets I want you to know that it's easy for me to love you
Did you know that?
Did you know that the only thing grey about us is the growing roots in our hair?

I'll teach you to drive
You teach me to paint lilies
We'll learn about stars