She's gone.
Soon they all will be.
Another year down the drain.
At least this one was almost productive.
A week til I'm
Forcibly united with three.
Three months til I see the rest.
At least one will always be there.
My rooms is in shambles.
I've been trying to reduce it down
But it's not working.
Somehow it just seems to grow.
No assistance comes
And I sludge through what I have.
It's a long process.
Most of my possessions are still in here
Waiting to leave but not quite sure how.
This place is small and dark
But the view is nice
And the people are good.
For a week I will live out of the suitcase
I bought at Goodwill
And hope I can afford gas in my car.
But in a week I will have a home
In three months I will have a friend
And in many years I will be a success.

Odin created us, as is par for his day.
Creator, killer, poet.
Fitting, I think.
When things get hard, Loki will tempt us
With deception, floating through the air.

You were Odin and I was Thor.
You were the giant-killer and I was the storm.
I tried to stop you with thunder
But you killed my giant.
(Thank goodness).

But I think Baldr exemplifies you more.
Norse god of light and beauty
For not only are you beautiful,
But your soul brings me light.
Together, we become the shining day.

Together, we could be greater than all the gods combined.

I like to read my own poems.

Not because they're particularly beautiful
I know better than to believe that
But because they remind that I'm human.
I have emotions
I have thoughts
I have fears.

They consume me
Because they let me know I'm real.
I do exist.

Last night it was dark out
Blackness dotted by bright streetlights, put there to protect my innocence.
I heard the birds chirping their morning-song that is usually heard at my grandparent's house, early in the morning.
But it was three-thirty a..m., and not at all sunny.
It confused me.
When I was returning home, I once again heard the birds.
It was seven-thirty at night, and not at all sunny.
It confused me.
I always believed these were morning birds, singing their morning-song to my grandparents.
I guess they're constants.

I
Don't
Need
You.

A beautiful thing, really;
Security for you.
I must want you then, if I stay.
I must be there by choice.

The thing is, right now
I don't really want you either.
I know I will again soon.
I always go back to it.

But you keep pushing me farther
And I'm a quick learner.
You would be wise to remember: I am not a guarantee.

It's a delicate balance
Between clingy and distant.

It won't break my heart not to be with you tonight.
I will cry no tears, feel no pain.
But I can tell I'll think about you
And even wish you were here.

(I guess this is what normal people feel.)

I know it shouldn't matter.
I know that I'm ridiculous.
This has not been me before.
I just want to see you.

It feels strange to know that.

I fell asleep last night
Content in the knowledge that you were beside me.
Warm with your body
Comfortable with your arms.

I woke up this morning
From a sleep fraught with dreams.
The kind that consume you,
And make it so you aren't sure what's real.
But you were there when I woke
So I didn't really care if it was reality or illusion.

It seems I never want to leave you
Which is both strange and appealing.
In the morning I linger, too long
And every night I show up at your door.
The walk home is never disheartening, though
Because I'll always come back.

I'm not sure what this is
(Although I have an idea, but that won't be written)
But I don't think I'll think about it.
Whatever it is, it makes me happy.
Whatever it is, I just want to be with you.

I woke up, heart racing
And you were there.
But it was too far away to be you
So I just got more scared.

The trees turned to guns
My ear turned to blood.
They must've shot me;
Maybe I mistook shots for heartbeats.
I do that sometimes.

The bullets must've been the birds.
They can be cruel, you know
And what else could a tree shoot?
Pinecones are made for glitter
Not gunplay.

You weren't you
Because you were too far
But you were so close.

Nature usually negates my nightmares.
Guns are made of metal and fire
Not wood and birds.
You are always you
Even when I'm not exactly me.

I don't have *** dreams.
I don't get ******* in my sleep,
Much less in daylight.
but I do get a sort of
Nocturnal comfort.
I have love dreams.
Dreams where beautiful men
Men with dark eyes
Bedroom eyes
Love me
Ache for me
Chase after me
As a gentleman does.
Last night I had one.
He loved me
He wanted me
He thought I was
The epitome of feminine perfection
And beauty.

I think I get these beautiful dreams
Instead of wet dreams
Because I don't know what an ****** is
But I do know
Exactly
What love is.

More diagnoses.
More pills.

More reasons to
barely
exist.

(I wish I wasn't the only one broken.)

Surrounded by noise
People who think
They're better than they are.
They don't stop.
Thisthisthis
Blahblahblah
Unending racket
Awkward sounds
Grating noises
Scraping away at the last of my sanity
And the last of my humanity.

Soon all my compassion will be deteriorated
By the force of your sound.
Then, the world will live in fear.

hands too soft
lips too hesitant
him, any him any one- never enough

push me grab me bite me
anything

anything to make me feel
something
again

You use eye contact as a challenge
A stare as a dare.
Your deep,deep voice
Comes from deep,deep within.
I can feel the rumbles where they start.
You keep the conversation focused on others
Or maybe that's just me.
You know
And you see through me
In a way that makes me feel
Both empty and full
Invisible and obvious.

Franzia oh Franzia!
You are my savior.
With just a box
You clean my slate.
I have no problems!
And no insecurities
I fill up on you
So I don't devour gallons of ice cream.

You save me
From the person I could be
And you raise me
Closer to who I want to become.

Curly, blondish wild hair!
Crown upon my head!
Forever you will be there
Even when I'm dead.
My soul will leave my carcass
But you will still live on.
In the depths of San Marcos
You can weave my life a song.
You will be my jester
And my throne-side sword as well.
If I'm sent back to years of yester
Or if I'm in hell.

Your puffy shirts and Jerry curls
Haunted the dreams of many girls.
All leather pants and ***** mustache
Caused their ******* to turn to trash.
But now that you have left your prime
Your daughter takes most TV time.
Now you're left with the remembrance of fame
All that's left is your last name.

One day soon the eighties will return
Then their carnal desires will burn.
For you their ******* will once again dampen
And their cooch you can put your stamp in.

Paycheck, oh paycheck!
How you are missed!
This MoneyNetwork card
Will soon eat my fist.

No proof of deposit
No numbers I can see.
It is all a plot
To cause my insanity.

I cannot prove
That I have been paid.
I can only hope
I can find a hearing aid.

Only verbal knowledge
I now possess.
I thought I got paid
But alas, I regress.

I yearn for my paycheck
That ink-splattered slip
To know I have money
To know I won't have to strip.

So you like solitude too?
We seem like similar souls.
I bet you’re uncomfortable with your body
And you feel you aren’t living up to your potential
And you like to read books that make you look smart.
I want to go ask you,
To see if you want to share your serenity
But that would debase both of our natures.
I wonder what you’re reading,
And why you’re in your swimsuit in the shade.
Do you adore the feel of the breeze and sun and earth on your skin too?
I think we’re the same.
Too bad I can’t ask.

Dinosaur, o dinosaur
Noblest of creatures!
Why must you have been struck down
With your graceful features?
Perhaps you are still around
And you are just in hiding.
Perhaps you are just waiting,
Your time you are biding.
One day soon I hope we'll meet
And with prowess you will thrill me
Because I feel sure that
We are one, and you will not **** me.

I used to dream of Greece.
I guess I still do.
It seemed like such a
Romanticized country.
I envisioned beautiful people
Floating through the streets
Hair curled from the sea
Skin rough from the sun.
Draped in soft fabric
With sexuality oozing through every pore.

I saw beauty
And nature
And freedom in one's skin.

Apparently there's a lot more to it than that.
Bombs tend to ruin it all.

I  understand.
It's my goal in life actually,
To understand people like you.
I've said that we're all a little crazy
And that I still believe.
But you are a special case.
You need to learn how to let out your disappointment.
You don't want the life you have
But it's what you've got.
You don't mean to take it out
On those you secretly love
But you can't help it.
You need to learn.
Just like I did.

I've written three poems in this same box
In the last five minutes.
All on the topic of your words
And your mind
And mine, in comparison.
One mimicked your style
Another, dissected your phrase.
The other, not even worth mentioning.
My words never came out right
Especially since I was comparing them to yours.
I don't know you. You are an imaginary human
On the other end of a fictional wire.
But I stumbled upon your poems
And was blinded by the flame.
My hands press the keys reluctantly
Knowing that it is fruitless
My brain has been destroyed
And I can no longer understand any sensations to transcribe.
Your skill frightens me
In that it shows me who else is out there
And how I measure up
And, as usual, I am a foot short.
I hope you never stop
Because if you continue leaking like you do
Maybe one day I can soak up a bit of your radioactive words
And gain some super powers of my own.

An open invitation-
Bring me the warmth of your skin
The vibrations of your voice.
Bring me your heart, pounding in my ear.
Bring me my release and my comfort.
Let me fall into you, into me.

The heat of a body is better than the sun
It is a sun, indeed
For why else would I feel these flares?
A black hole of comfort and contentment-
I want it to swallow me whole.
I want to fall into it
And be consumed, completely.

Perhaps inside the sun,
The black hole sings with fire.
Intangible, unknowable fire.
Perhaps inside a black hole,
I can be as hot coals.
Perhaps I can become whole.

I shrunk down
To be an equal of one of those little green army men.
Not one of the weaponized ones.
That one with the Walkie-Talkie
Everyone made fun of for being useless.

I stole his walkie-talkie, actually.
I was scaling your mountain
So I needed some sort of communication.

From the sheets, I rose.
Carefully, clumsily climbed up you
Mount Olympus for mortals.

I almost fell
I almost dropped my radio
I almost got lost in you.
But I prevailed.

And when I reached the top
I said "I claim this"
But I couldn't really claim it
Because I didn't have a flag
And how do you claim something without a flag?

And in a way I don't think I should be able to claim you
Because claim is a word for lesser mountains.
You cannot claim what wasn't created by you
Or name it.

But I was two inches tall
With a tiny green radio
That just kept squawking
"Are you there, C? It's me, Ego!"
So I tried my best.

I don't know what kind of flower you are
But I like how you landed in my hair.

Dry, and therefore you must be lifeless
But saturated, vibrant, brilliant.
How can you be both?

I like your contrast
And I like how smooth the limbs you grow on are.
I like how you got trapped in me
And didn't really mind.
I didn't mind.

They say a flower in the hair makes a girl prettier
But you made me feel like more than a girl.
Natural
As in, part of nature.

Maybe your limbs were once a woman, too.

It's kind of funny when things fall apart
Especially since that's supposed to be an idiom.
But you were a ****** builder, so all my foundations are shaking.

A father is supposed to be something strong, stable
Consistent and comfortable.
Maybe that's why you had the sign-
"Anyone can be a father
It takes someone special to be a daddy".
Turns out you aren't really either of those.

You never wanted me and I never wanted you
At least, that's what I'll tell myself.
It'll make my life easier
And apparently easier is always better, in your eyes.

I want to burn that desk you bought me.
It doesn't hold my computer anyway
And now I think it's ugly, not classy.
Just like you.

You built this bed and you fixed my car and you taught me about computers and for years, for years I just wanted to be enough.
I wonder if she'll be enough.
But apparently you've ****** her up too.

I wish I could understand what kind of person you are
And I wish that there wasn't proof
And I wish, I wish, I wish when you said you were going fishing
You would actually go fishing.

My ceiling has asbestos
And my tiles are moldy
And my wood floors are rotting, falling apart.

You shouldn't have even tried.

Perhaps I have not been careful enough.

Perhaps I wanted you to consume me.
Perhaps I wanted to consume you.

Yes, I love you.
Yes, I want you.
But reality's setting in
And the sunspots are clearing from my eyes.
The solar inferno weakens.

I had built you a statue of emeralds and golden thread
But it's been crumbling.
The emeralds are turning out to be moss-covered stones
The golden thread, stiff hay.

I knew you were only human.
Maybe I didn't believe it.
I did not love you because you were immortal.
I did not believe
-With him, with him, I shall love forever
  With him, I shall touch the moon.
   We shall be created and destroyed, created and destroyed
   Forever, and together.
   Beginnings and ends in two become one.
Perhaps I thought it
But I did not believe it.
Don't worry.

I will adjust to your humanity
And I will build you a snowman, not a statue.
A snowangel, maybe.
But I am done trying to turn myself to silver.
I am done trying to become an inferno.

Yes, I love you.
Hopefully love is enough.

I cannot do enough for you, my love.
Or if I can, teach me how!
I know not how to calm the fires they light
Or how to cleanse your mind of their unjust words.
I desire, I CRAVE
To bring you happiness, and protect your soul.
I was never taught how to cure this malaise.
You are so kind, so sweet, so selfless
And the world only exploits your soft heart.
You are my opposite, and I am brought to you like a magnet
But science does not bring me the answer to this problem.
They are cruel to you, they do not respect you.
They don't understand your ways or your dreams.
You deserve a far better life than you have been given
And I desperately hope that one day
I can give you the care that is worthy of you.

He asks you
To lie down, naked on his bed
And when you try to cover yourself
To hide what you perceive as flaws
He prevents it.
He holds your hands
And looks in your eyes
And tells you
Exactly
What he's going to do.

He starts at your feet
(So he can end with your mind)
And travels up your flesh.
At each point, he kisses
And looks in your eyes
And tells you
Exactly
Why it's perfect.

At your most insecure
Your stomach, your hips, your *******
He takes the most time.
Your stomach is perfect; soft and warm.
Your hips are beautiful; he loves to watch them sway.
Your ******* are the most sensuous creation; he could live between your mounds.

He continues up your body
Tenderly tracing your curves with his mouth
With his fingers
With his eyes.
Trying to preserve your frame in his mind
To recreate when you leave
Because he never wants you to go.
And if all he can have is the memory of your body
He will remember it in perfection.

But he does not neglect your eyes, your heart, your mind.
Once he reaches them
He tells you that your eyes are the most beautiful stars
He has ever seen
And he would travel to Jupiter if it meant he could find their equal
But he knows he could never find better.
He says your heart holds the most rare liquid in the world
The blood of a goddess
For what goddess before you has been human?
He says your mind is the most confoundedly beautiful maze
He has ever traveled.
And he doesn't really want to ever solve it
Because the path is so wonderful.

As he finishes memorizing every last part of you
And every last part of your soul
He looks in your eyes
And tells you
Exactly
How much he loves you.

I wonder if they were ever in love.

I've seen one picture of them, together
Before me.
It's their wedding.
Yes, they look happy.
Did they know what they were getting into?

I bet she did.
I wouldn't be surprised if she had planned it all.
I don't blame her, judge her, admonish her.
She needed a way out; away from meaner men
A home for her children.
I think most of it was for them.

But he didn't know.
I'm sure he didn't know.
He wanted to be in love, I think.
He still wants to be.
I hope she didn't trick him.
I hope she did it honestly.

I hope they were in love, once.
I hope they thought this was forever.
I want to believe that they believed
Because there's nothing shameful about that.
I just don't know if I can.

Eight years ago my grandparents had their 50th anniversary.
All curled hair and black velvet
I danced on my uncle's toes.
He's been married more times than I know.

I know they were happy, sometimes.
I'm sure of it.
But I don't know if they were ever as they wanted.
I don't know if they were ever in it for real.

Don't get mad.
Don't get mad.
Don't get mad.
Immaturity knows not what it says.

It doesn't realize.
It doesn't realize the enormity of being a drain on society.
It doesn't realize the hypocrisy
In criticizing me.

I'm the one with a job.
I'm the one with a home.

I'm not the one who's willing to drop mad cash
For a cyber unreality, used as
Avoidance behavior
For two days
And then thrown away.

Immaturity needs to grow up
And learn from me.
Not the other way around.

Don't worry.

I
Will
Get
Over
It.

Everything is temporary.
Even when it feels like it's not.

sometimes it's really nice
to feel i matter
and to see that people sometimes notice me
occasionally even remember me
and maybe even want to see me again.
the alcohol helps, of course
but it still counts.

sometimes all i need
is a
really
good
night

It feels strange when I don't write
But stranger when I have nothing to write about.

I could write about new starts
And how I'm feeling near-adult these days
Or about how nothing's the same as it was two months ago.
But writing about events always feels wrong to me.
Forced.
Artificial.
Desperate.

What if writing was just a summer's phase?
A passing fancy
Disempowered with the start of fall
Disempowered by my attempts at improvement.

Maybe I only had enough poet in me for these three hundred.
Maybe I've used myself up.

Maybe I'm just not letting myself be inspired.

You sicken me.
That wasn't even a real compliment.
She said you did a job well
That a monkey could do just as well.
You are pathetic.
Don't get that disgusting
Gleam
In your eye
Just because of a positive acknowledgement.
You are like a puppy
Whose master called it a good boy
For finding a stick in an empty yard.
You are reliant.
Desperate.
Pathetic.

You don't deserve anything.

I like most to feel your skin on my skin
Flesh to flesh- a holy palmer's kiss, but body to body.
I like next to feel your heartbeat connecting to mine.
An iron rod, bringing me to you.

*** is not, when your body heat is missing
Or when your breath isn't in my ear
Or giving me goosebumps.
I need your eyes, my eyes, locked together
Like a Chinese finger trap.

Sure, vibrations are nice
But I prefer to get them from your voice
Not from batteries.
Batteries are cold, but your voice can burn me.
And when the heat waves and sound waves combine
What other vibration is needed?

I need your warm, your hard
Strong, insistent, wanting.
Or I need your soft, your kiss, your love.
Either way,
I do not need my plastic
When you allow me that.

You don't have his eyes memorized.
You know they're green, sometimes
But they're elusive when you try to draw them with your fingers.
You aren't confidantes with every last cell in his hands
Or know the moons of his fingernails.
And you can't taste his lips when he's not there.

You don't know him yet, and that's fine.
But you need to remember that.
I think if you had his minutiae immortalized in your mind
And you could already sculpt his eyes out of air
You would be in far too deep
Far too soon.

It's true that when the moon glows brightest
Incidents of ****** rise.
But when you can't see the stars out here
You have to take some risks.

Modern-day Rippers can catch me if they like.
I'll be too distracted by the bright hole in the sky.
You know when you look through a paper towel roll
And it's all black
And there's just that bright circle of escaping light at the end?
Maybe the moon is our escape.

Like I said, I'd lie down and stare at the stars
But the lights here make that difficult
And who knows when the sprinklers will go off.

Instead I'll pretend I'm an astronaut
The Argonauts and I, haha.
We'll find out what's beyond our paper towel tube existence
Via slingshots and arrows.

A lunar eclipse is a beautiful thing
Except that it covers the escape portal.
We must ask the gods:
How will we get out
When you put your hands over it?
How will we seek greater things?

There are no stars here.
No pinpricks have penetrated this world
Pins pricked so the gods can have a peepshow
And don't all have to share the window.

Maybe the ****** rates go up
To entertain them.

Do I hope to get anything from this?
Besides a catharsis
Besides an outlet for my words.

Am I expecting something?

Maybe I secretly hope that someone will like it
And maybe show other people
And maybe I could have an effect one someone.

But surely I know that's improbable.

I guess I should not think about it
And just let my writing take care of me
And I will take care of her
And we will float on like the castaways we are.

No sweet sleep, let me linger a little longer!
You are the gas station I need to loiter in
For in you, I'm with him.
Let me stay, let me see his face, let me feel his eyes
False as they may be.
You are my sweet savior; why do you choose to torture me so?
Torture me with dreams of love and desire
Dreams of magnetic attraction and tiger-sharp want.
But what delicious torture it is.

If it is Chinese water torture, the water is the nectar of strawberries
And it drips down to my lips,
Allowing a desperate and fevered taste
But gone so quickly.

Sleep, why did you leave me so?
He was about to fulfill me
About to say he loved me
About to break that tension that was filling my fictional home so  
completely.
About to be a dream I could dream again.

Don't do this to me, sandman.
Let me return to that dream,
If only for long enough to get one
Sweet strawberry drop.
Long enough to hear him say it
To hear him show it:
He cares for me.

I don't know the terrain  of my soul.
Am I a desert or a mountain?
Do rivers run through me?

I want to see the deserts I could be.
Climb the mountains and see if I'm there,
Sitting on the peak.
I want to swim the rivers
And see if I'm underneath those rapids.
How else could I know my geography?
How will I know what I'm made of?

Yes, I may be made of hills and cedar trees
But I might want to be an aurora borealis.
I might want to be more than dry dirt
Or at least be able to try to be.

There is too much, too many possibilities.
Highlands, valleys, oceans, skies.
Open, open skies...
I want to see it, I want to see it all.
I will be satisfied with no less.

I want to know: What do I see
When I am reflected in the Thames?
Or the Yangtze River or the Mediterranean?
Would the Nile show me my insides,
As an X-Ray machine from the gods?
That girl in the Arctic ice-
Can she get out?

The breath of the wind through these trees-
These beautiful, strange trees
Seeming unstable, but older than either of us-
Is inspiring, yes.
But not as much as your breath in my ear.

I could write sonnets to this cave, this grotto
Overflowing with purity and so empty,
So full of possibility
But I prefer the tangled depths of your eyes.
They're full of vines, you know.
They're full of a different possibility.

Mountains and valleys create the geography of this place
And a beautiful scene it is.
Eons have been hard at work here
But it is external, and therefore less.

You are quite the archaeologist.

Here mom.
I got you this gift.
I tried to think of what you need
What you could use
What you would want
And what would say the right thing.
I wanted it to say "I support you."
Or maybe "Good luck!"
But I know what you're going to hear.
"I'm mocking you"
"You're not good enough"
"I don't care about you".
I wish everyone would interpret life
As I do.

I understand
That you are going through a change
And you just want to have fun.
I understand
That your self-confidence is low
And you want to hear someone tell you you're pretty.
I understand
That you feel lousy
And you want to talk about yourself.
But please
Just this once
Could you please care about me?

I need to get out of this funk.
I am consumed by thoughts of my own inadequacy
When really I'm just another
Slightly ****** up
Human.
We're all the same, basically.
So there's no reason for me to
Obsess
Over my idiosyncrasies.
We all have them.
So I am now over it
For the next thirty days.
If I get over it
Maybe
Since we're all the same
Everyone else will
And then the world will continue spinning
The sun will continue burning
And I will continue loving.

Broken down from the inside out
She tells me about him.
Emotionally cruel
Manipulative
Verbally abusive
She doesn't say in so many words
But the message gets across.

He has made her need him.
Rely on him for her validation
For her existence.
Now he is all she has.

A grown woman breaks down at work
In front of strangers, employees.
He is hurting her
On the inside.

She told me a lot more, too.
But what can I do?

Why would she tell me?

You words make me feel
Like I am an ethereal being
Both above and below
Made of nothing and all.

They fill me
Cover me
Take hold of my soul
And take it to beautiful places
Where words are the air
And verses are the trees.
And these trees are more beautiful
Than anyone can imagine.

Your writing takes hold of me
Softly alters my world
And makes me believe again.

The pain is separate
From the person.
She acknowledges it
Accepts it
Enjoys it
But it is separate.
It barely even exists
Even though it is consuming a part of her brain.

The pain proves she still exists
Even if it's only a part of being.

You're snoring now.
That means you're asleep.
I wonder how drunk you were.
Do you remember
Blaming your first-born daughter
For the mistakes of you and yours?
Do you remember
Calling your first-born son
An alcoholic mental patient?
Do you remember making your children cry?
This never happens.
Maybe this is why you never drink.

My toenails are metallic blue.
My feet are scrubbed and soft.
An older Asian woman with leathery skin
And crazy soft hands
has polished them to perfection.
She told me about eHarmony
Her ****-clothes
Her elderly boyfriend.
In an accent I could barely understand
She told me about her life.
She rubbed my calves with lime green
Exfoliants
And lotioned my legs
With cream-colored juice.
Her nails were French-tipped
And long.
She flicked off the excess polish with them.

She does this dozens of times a day.
Dozens of pairs of feet.
I wonder how many people have heard her story
And know about her rich boyfriend.
How many people have felt those soft hands
On their toes.
I wonder where else those hands have been
On her old boyfriend.