I want to, but struggle
To write about this thing called love
Relating so much more to despair
Having felt it for so long
So used to living in loneliness

I want love
or do I?
What is it I want
So long having been a shell
That I forgot what it is to be alive

So how is it
How does one express love
Using a piece of paper
It just isn't enough
When despair falls so freely

See, very few words can express love
If any
Words are not enough for love
But despair, oh despair
How you mock me
I could speak of you for eons
Despair, so infinitely defined by any word

So again I ask
How does a poet speak of love
With so much despair outside looking in

Can't prove my love
So far away
Oh God how it strips my soul

stay in their houses and caves,
scratching feverishly at the indelible print
affixed to their torsos,
praying to this god of theirs,
to absolve them of so many sins.

but god has no ears,
no eyes,
nor a mouth.
for these are primitive human afflictions,
affects for us,
who need these
tools to function.

we cannot be condemned to hell,
for we cannot truly comprehend it,
a place of judgement,
for that too is of our own hands.

yet the haunted
know full well
that god is in its personal hell
scratching feverishly at the indelible print.

I find that
Freckles seem to make the strangest shapes.

I find that I lose myself
With the connect the dots game
On your face.
I count three on your neck
Below your soft forest of hair.
A pointed constellation.
I imagine inside the freckle triangle,
It says: kiss here.
And kiss you I do.

I find that
Your freckles tell me where to travel with my lips.
I am going down down down
And now there's goosebumps.
Ah, the land is not fallow yet.
Further and further.
One dot, two dots, small dots, big dots.

I find that
My mouth is growing warm with
The taste of your pastures
Enveloping it.
I am hungry.

I find that
The land further down is bare.
A desert.
No more freckles to follow.
I look up for the first time,
And there you are,
Gasping for air.

My turn.

Syntax couldn't make him stay,
Diction just got in the way.
Figurative language failed,
And tone wouldn't have prevailed.
But my repetition worked,
And he thrashed, he gagged, he ******.
I'll keep repeating myself,
Until they question his health.
For what makes this boy so weak,
Is to repeat and repeat:
How dare you.

Falling down in the rabbit hole,
Scared to death of being alone.
Walk together inside of my soul
We laugh, we fight,
But at the end of the night,
We always moan.

It gently rocks her to sleep,
But a sleep filled with nightmares.
It sweetly drowns her lungs,
Leaving her desperate for air.
It lovingly shoves stones down her throat, making it impossible to swallow.
Finally,
It thrashes her against the jagged rocks that lie in the sea.
All she ever wanted was just a dip in the water.

Images floating in my head
like balloons turning in the wind
they soar higher and higher.

Holding hands under water
and the unbearable itch of bug bites.

Higher they soar.

Meeting a friend, and the heart-breaking cries
of a sister in her room late at night.

Colorful balloons growing smaller the higher they go.

Making love in my yard in the dusk, too quick to savior,
but urgent enough to be remembered.

I can barely see them now.

Black pupils dilating
only because we're in love.

The balloons disappeared over time
but I will always know they are there.

That's what counts.

When my daddy leaves me,
I will sleep in his button-down, collared shirt.
I will smoke one cigarette each year on his birthday.
I will always sit in the last seat of the row at the movie theaters.
I will set a pack of junior mints down on his grave religiously.
I will learn how to play 'Stairway to Heaven' on the guitar.
I will always address my waiter or waitress as Sir or Ma'am.
I will become lifelong friends with perfect strangers.
I will always keep a pack of minty gum in my car.
I will watch National Geographic documentaries on how the universe works.
I will learn how to make delicious, impeccable chicken fried rice.
I will never, ever spank my children.
When my daddy leaves me, I will remember him
With all the little things I do.