Please don’t call me beautiful
when your hands are between my legs,
and god forbid you say it as a seg-way
between you’re so hot
and my caution, your response
you’re sure you don’t want to?
I’m pretty sure the way my body looks,
nineteen and stress-infused with an Oreo belly
isn’t really what you pictured beneath my blouse,
and I’m positive you didn’t listen
to the story about my dad and the bad prom dress
because you cared. It was just sentiment. You said it was beautiful,
but really you wanted me to believe the act
like a description in the Playbill
and ride that trust all the way until the curtain dropped.
Please don’t call me beautiful
when the word ******* is before it
or if we are ******* because making love
is for married couples and you don’t even want me
sticking around for the ****** sunrise that peers
underneath your shade every morning.

Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m crying—
crack me open and watch the colors bleed
like a painting that hasn’t dried. Admire
the light that peaks through the clear parts
like a windowpane, no blinds.
Tell me I’m beautiful when I’m laughing,
when I’m reading my favorite part of a book,
when I’m stuffing my face with peanut-butter
pretzel bites and I haven’t washed my sheets in weeks,
and I’ll know you can’t be lying
because I’ve listened to the waves your heart makes
when you’re sleeping and I’ve called your smile
to the surface many times when you’ve tried
to deflect it back inside. You’ll know that
and you’ll know I’m beautiful.  
Call me beautiful
when you’re not even trying.
Call me beautiful when you’re by yourself
and the smell of my hair is still on your pillow,
or the memory of how dumb I sounded
singing my favorite song breaks your heart back
to the best little pieces.

The tiniest gift
wrapped in wrinkled skin
eyes closed, softly breathing.

Fragile fingers grasp mine tightly, forming bonds and sealing pacts.

My heart leaps at the sight of your button nose.Your blossom cheeks, velvet soft, draw kisses from my lips with ease.

I gaze at your brow and wonder at your dreams.
There is no purer love than this.

Her stolen heart was left unannounced at my door step
I know  the last place she would like to look for it, is this.
Yet I kept it warm and safe, with in the flannel of love
still wet with the tears she once shed,  but tattered a lot;
I'll keep it like times before, till she has the presence of mind,  
to retrace the steps to my door step, she could never forget.

This being the usual place to find her discarded heart
many come knocking my door, inquire what is it's state
plain curious they are, more of a usual ritual, familiar
"You do cradle it far too long, isn't it still a child, refusing to grow?"
I pretend ignorance, loyal to her, the heart that was once mine alone,
I'll never let down my split love,sell or barter what is left in that love
only wait for her without rancor till the tired foot fall of hers
echoes after the pale moon has risen, climbed high up in the sky,
hesitantly at last she will come to my door, find, it's again discarded,
as ever I am the only one,  her last resort, though she hates to accept.

Then she weeps leaning on my chest, grief haunts her without fail
far a while, she cries, as she limps back with her brooding heart
I go to sleep, thinking how a love once moved  mountains,
                                               ­                                              had gone waste