I'm falling for you
so much faster
than I could climb.

And for some
God-forsaken reason,
you keep calling me back to bed,
back to a time
when the ocean air was as warm
as the beers in our hands.

That was the night I thought
all things were
possible,
and for the first time
in a long time,
it felt good to feel that
hope.

I hadn't yet tasted you,
not the salt-sting
of your tongue,
and the bitterness
of your cigarette-laden
mouth.

You treated mine like
an ashtray,
giving me your embers,
flakes and burnt-out ends,
but only in the chill
of January air.

I was never allowed inside
to warm,
but watched from
the porch,
cold and hard,
listening to your laughter
bounce off ceiling beams
and floor tiles.

And even now,
when a lifetime
stands between
you and
me
and that beach,
I can't help but think
that those sandy shores
are more comfortable
than my own mattress.

Everything tastes like whiskey,
that Tennessee sour mash,
80 proof,
barrel-aged,
leather seats,
and cherried cigarettes underneath
the wet August sky.

You're playing something Brand New,
or something about promises,
and jetpacks,
but all I can hear
is the creak of those
old wooden rocking chairs
where you kissed my forehead
and allowed me to be ****** up.

It was the first time I'd had the courage to cry
and drink wine
straight from the bottle,
no glass,
and it hurt
more than trying to put out a match
with wet fingers,
and missing.

And it's nights like those
that make me think
how your shoelaces
can't stay tied
when we're dancing,
and how the switch to
your ******* bathroom light
sits behind the door,
and ****** me off
at 2:30 in the morning
when I'm more liquor
than woman.

But you still wake up
next to me
in the morning,
and you still want to
touch my cheeks
and kiss my *******
like you're going to lose me
even though my intials
are etched on the tree
outside your bedroom
window
and my shoes
are by the door.

I want to carve my initials into the parabolas of your fingertips.
I want the etchings of your ribs caged against your flesh tattooed on the back of my hand.
I want to study the Braille of your tongue with my mouth, reading my name over and over and over.
I want to kiss your spine,
read books about your heroics and cowardice, write poems about the curve of your hair,
- stop
right there, I want to sketch you,
stretch your smile on a canvas,
capture your blinks, bends, and the Cupid's bow of your lips softly,softly,softly in pencil,
shhhh.
Let the cursive of your sleeping body tell me to stay,
nestled in the dip of an l,
the stout roundness of an o,
eternity, forever,
v's sharp trajectory calculating the distance to the moon and back, remember?
And the way two e's lock together,
pinkie swear, with all my heart,
I promise to love you
everyday, and twice on Sundays,
And only like you on Tuesdays,
but when the calendar becomes a measure of affection,
Who's to say what happens in a year's time?

My knees always
get the brunt of it all.
Between bed corners,
light poles,
and the even sometimes
the gum-y underside of tables,
there’s a passport
of popped blood vessels
sitting on my skin.

And while the pre-chewed
peppermint smell and
sticky residue fade,
the bruises linger
like a supermarket peach.

Soft with warm skin,
darkened from
tumbles of truck beds
and clumsy stockers alike.

Still sweet, but
visibly damaged
from hands too unkind
to put me back on the shelf.

Maybe I’ll get chosen anyway.
Or maybe I’ll rot
in this ******* Georgia heat.
But I guess
I have to be patient.
After all,
the season
is just getting started.

You used to be my favorite novel,
but now when I read your pages
I get paper cuts.

Press your palms against mine,
do you feel that?
That's you
warming me up
and me cooling
you down.

That's the keys of
your fingerprints
unlocking the chest
of my ribcage.

That's me leaving my coat
at the door,
and you
wrapping your arms around me,
because you are
the most comfortable thing
I have ever worn.

That's the crescent C of my body
nestling into the cat's cradle
of yours,
my claws grazing
your two-day-old whiskers.

That's the flecks
of your freckle-covered shoulders
jumping ship
to make me captain
of the vast oceans
that roar and toss within you.

You are a lion,
beautiful and proud,
fierce with your tongue,
and strong in your gait.
King of the jungle
that lies within this dark heart,
and my stubborn head

Which constantly buts against yours,
but only so that my eyelashes
can kiss the apples of your cheeks,
because I can never
get enough of your sweetness,
no matter how hard I try.

When you’re seventeen
and drunk off of
poetry and
peonies
and promises,
you start to give
pieces of yourself away.

It’s easy at first,
parcelling out knees
and elbows, and
all the bits of you
the world has
taken for itself
on playground sidewalks
and crashed bicycles.

But when someone wants
not the spaces
in between your fingers
but the one in between
your legs,
wait.

Not for marriage
or God or
even the perfect person
to come along
because they never will.
And that’s okay.

Wait for yourself to grow
and to love someone
like candle fire,
a slow, bright burn
that makes the
darkness of night
seem less
frightening.

You’ll fall
in love
with people
like broken glass
that gleam under
streetlights
and cut your
hands
as soon as
you touch them.

You’ll sleep
next to lions
and cowards
and drug addicts,
some too scared
to touch you.

And some promise
to never leave
you in morning’s light
without a new scar.

Because they don’t
understand that you are
yours,
and yours
alone.

But remember
no matter
if your secret places
were found
or taken,
your light will
return to you
one day
when you least
expect it.

To your fingers, for holding what they couldn't keep.
To the eyelashes I peeled off your cheeks wishing for something better.
To your lungs, for caging a red sparrow with clipped wings.
To the fingernails that tried to scratch off the chips on my shoulders.
To your lungs, for making them forget what air tastes like.
And to you, for only giving you ash in exchange for cigarettes.

I'm not sure
if I love very many things,
but here are the few
that I can remember:

I love the taste of dark chocolate
in November

I love the silver of the sky
just before it rains

I love first sips of coffee
from new mugs

I love the taste of oysters,
but not as much as pesto

I love that one song you'd play for me,
about the boat sinking

I love the kind of soft sadness
that reminds you of who you used to be.

Can't you see her standing there in a white dress
that stops right under the pit of her arm?
Its white lace stark against her dark figure,
looking so inviting, so tempting,
so much so, that you want to put her on your tongue,
and taste her.

So you put her up to your lips
head first, and taste the sweet
bitterness on your mouth .
While she's resting on your pout,
you strike a match,
and light the end of her pretty, pretty gown,
breathe in deep,
take her in,
crave her like nicotine.

You're hooked,
on her and her white dresses, and the way she takes on your stress,
and makes it her own.
You puff and puff on her until she is close enough to warm your fingernails,
but carefully, you wrap her in another white gown,
before she goes out,
so the bright cherry heels on her feet
keep on dancing.

There aren't many things
I get right in this life.
I light cigarettes just to watch
them burn,
and drink liquors
that taste like gasoline
to watch them burn through me.

I've never been someone
to love someone else
without loving
how they make me feel first.

And all the men and boys
and drug users
and *** addicts
call me a *****
and call me cold
because I can't love them more
than they love
the valleys of my ribs
and the lavender that grows
in them.

But the truth is,
that I don't think
I'll ever be able to
love someone else,
not like I love
sitting on the porch
of a chilly morning
or the crimson color
of paper cuts
from the $2 tattered novels
I buy from junk stores.

There aren't many things
I get to keep in this life,
other than my own scars,
dreams, and vices.
And I'd rather them consume me,
turn me into ash,
then be the dust
that sits on top of
books unread.

Why is it
every time I try to write about you
my mind
blanks,
and the typewriter
resets
to the next page?

More often than not,
I find myself face down
on the floor
in some fit,
some tantrum,
some quarter-life
crisis
that eats up at my soul
and makes me feel everything
I never wanted to in the first place.

It's not one of those
fall down seven times
get up
eight
*******
Sunday morning service
motivational pat on the backs
that your dad gives you
when you fall off your bike
and scrape your knee.

No.
This is the fall where you
cover your head
to protect yourself
from your boyfriend's
fists
who don't mean it.

Where you wipe your nose
and mouth
and spit blood
in the bathroom sink
because you have dinner with
his parents
in an hour.

This is where
you get carpet burn
on your knees
and stomach acid in your
throat
as you try to drown everything
that tries to drown you,
night in
and night out
wondering why God can't
let you be.

There's a dog barking
outside,
and a chill in the air
that I can't put my finger on.
I can't see the moon,
and I wonder if she's okay.

I wonder where she is,
and if her boyfriend is
treating her right.
And even though it isn't
enough,
I sure hope he is.

I wanted to write a poem
to tell you exactly what I felt,
but somehow the page stayed
empty,
and I couldn't have described it better.