Don't ever fall in love with a poet
because they will indeed admire and watch your every move
they will write about how the pen marks on the side of your palm when you write
don't ever because they will trace
every single freckle you have on your face and
write about the color of each and every one of them and
describe how they smile so brightly under the sunlight
they will want you to want to know every little thing about them
even if it's just what hand they write with and want you
to be wondering why they write with that specific hand when in
reality it doesn't even matter

the poet will watch the way you dig
your eyes onto that book and your small quick remarks onto the 26 letters all crumpled together and will know that everyday at 5:28 p.m. you smile

they will look deeply into your eyes
to see if they can at least take a little
peak of your soul and they will write
about you like if you were the only
thing they see good in this world

they will want to know what you think
about when you look at them and
see if you also count each and
every freckle and hope and write  
that you do but they will
love you endlessly and they will
show you that they love you and only you

but don't date a poet if you aren't
capable to watch them and
admire their imperfections
when they sleep late at night
beside you.

j.f

I would in that sweet ***** be
(O sweet it is and fair it is!)
Where no rude wind might visit me.
Because of sad austerities
I would in that sweet ***** be.

I would be ever in that heart
(O soft I knock and soft entreat her!)
Where only peace might be my part.
Austerities were all the sweeter
So I were ever in that heart.

My sadness is mediocre
My words are bland
The thoughts I think were thought before me, I don't understand.
I don't understand why I feel the way I do
But that's supposed to be okay because neither do you..
or you,
...or you.

I'm sorry but I don't want to be like you, though.
I don't want to be a piece of the pie.
I want to be the pan that the pie shapes itself after.
I want to be a blade, a shepherd, and an imprint in time.

My hair is curly, brown, with bronze streaks.
My mood is fairly down with sullen words my world sinks.
Her hair was dark, eyes containing broken earth and lullabies.
My love was true, the only thing not mediocre and that isn't a lie.

Let's dance on a table in a diner full of orphans, and try not to be slaves
to our loneliness.
...Do you love me?
Yes.
...Oh, okay.

Sometimes I want to die so ******* badly, it's hilarious.
I can't **** myself in case she comes back. How amazing.
I can't cut myself because I don't want to scar my flesh because if I do
it may decrease my chances of getting her back.
Even my motivation is mediocre, and my tolerance so strong it could be
mistaken as pathetic.

Put me in a silver chair from across the room she'll stare. My love will go nowhere and I swear to God we are eternal. And you and I infinite, and the world is the wind behind our feet as we run into the inaudible where the world is mute and where our love is loud, in and on my lips you trace the words you did imprint and from lightning you strike the lettered indents you did or did not meant. I cannot decide.

My mouth tastes of chocolate milk, 1993, and 1996.

Insomnia stains my eyes. I can't go to sleep because I see you.

That was so mediocre.

When are you coming back?

Upon the stale wind, her body flails again
I came walking through the field
to learn about compassion
She was blonde and the last heart in town
The moon bathed her from within
What a loveless dream from that tree
touching God's skin.

Her feet above my head, painted in mud and above the sugarcane
And if I didn't love her so, I'd be able to walk from this pain
But I recall her warm breath the last time we kissed
The air tasted of a broken soul that I failed to fix

Blood under her nails, scratching freedom too slow
If she was yelling for my name, then I'd rather not know
It might as well been me who hung her above the stars
I did not give her enough of me and it will haunt me for years

Arms tight,
grabbing fistfuls of t-shirt,
your mascara wet on his shoulder.
This is the hug you give
when something is falling apart.

This is the hug you give your ex boyfriend
when you promise you will still be there for him,
this is the hug you give him
when he wishes to stop existing,
this is the hug you give him
when you tell him you love him,
this is the hug you give him
when he doesn't believe you,

these embraces will break your heart,
they will make your ribs curl in on themselves,
they are apologies for the harm you have caused,
they are guilt for the scars you have left,
they are acknowledging that
terrible things happen to beautiful people,
they are the realization that
you are not a beautiful person,
you are a terrible thing.

Nothing has ever broken my heart more
than feeling yours beating
*and knowing you wanted it to stop.

Ridding the Dark Shadows that lie,
Deep adumbrations of the past;
That lurk within close quarters
Is an ever present cynical task.
By this, I mean, the scoundrels will always be near.
But not to live within us, nor to cause us fear.
Their presence simply affirms that we're living in the light;
Because Shadows are never visible in the dark of night.

A whisper
So faint
So near
It came right up next to my ear
It said come with me, I need to show you something
What do you have to show me? I ask

I stood at the edge
It was a dark beautiful waterfall

I was so amazed
come near. it whispered

I came closer
closer it said

I came so near that my ear almost touched the water
Then I noticed there was no sound of the waterfall

It whispered
A sound so faint and small
But what it said was loud
My worst nightmares and my darkest thoughts that were forcefully unfinished, they were whispered in my ear
Word for word I could not stop listening
It whispered welcome to immortality

That is my whisper of darkness

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

The promise
of tonight
stirs within

Let it
soon
begin