I don't even care what I look like anymore
The only thing I've grown to care for
Is the way your fingertips trace my face
The way they glide down to my waist
When you tell me my skin is soft
Breathe out

I held the deepest sigh when you kissed me
It's been a long time since I've thought
Hey let's make love
Let's do it right until the moon is gone tonight
When you put your fingers somewhere raw
Breathe in

It's like a gasp I can't control it
Your skin on mine
Your bed we roll up in it
The smell of fruit and marijuana
When you kiss my tongue
Breathe out

I wrote this one for you
Because every time you say you hate yourself
I hate myself a little more too
I've grown to care for absolutely nothing
Except the way you smile when we're touching
Breathe in

"I don't want to be forgotten."
"I don't want to forget you."

*It's too bad things change.

How captivating it is
To watch the sun who was told she must love the sky, to defy, because despite the questions why, she knows it feels right, so she kisses with all her might, with all in sight, the earth every single night.

when you catch yourself staring out the window

eyes tracking snowflakes. counting the seconds.

searching for meaning in seasonal change

looking for patterns spiraling in any direction but
                                                                ­                                down

seeing the sky’s just ******* hallmark card covers

when it’s half past one and you’re

wishing
wishing
wishing for

that snow

to bury

the campus. the people. the ******* assignments.

in something so cold it stings your fingers into feeling
enough to dig out of self-inflicted snow drifts

in something so bright and white that it
washes the grey stains from your eyes

when you let it go let it go let it go
and sit on the slushy side walk – only frozen
but without the ******* feel-good Disney songs
that happily work out ever after
in the happiest place on earth
when you don’t even care enough to finish the poem.

don’t.

i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.

but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.

I wanted you to pick apart my brain
With a fork and a serrated knife
A dinner plate the size of my broken skull
I only wanted you
To digest my recurring self-doubt
It was a futile notion

I wanted you to sift through the debris
Popped joints and dislocated jaws
A hammer crashing against my temple in a daydream
I only wanted you
To feast on my self-apathy
That would be enough

A ******-up boy dealing trash
With his tongue in my cheek
Fists clenching tufts of hair
Bodies intertwined and crash
I only wanted you
To bruise and break my skin
Was that all too much?

I wanted you to push your fingers
Into the soft fleshy parts of my head that made me see the world so differently
Maybe if I let you play with it like putty
You'd mold my mind correctly

I don't mind being forgotten.
In fact I've grown so used to it I do it myself.
I no longer remember the touch of any past lover.
And I'm happy with that.
I'm glad that I was finally able to shut that door to my past.

But today I walked in my room and on an impulse I guess.
I walked over to the little nightstand beside my bed.
I opened that top drawer and pushed the clutter out of the way.
And carefully I took out the little orange and white origami flower ball that was so carefully made just for me all those years ago.
And I smile.
And I put it back.
That's enough memories for one day.

focus needle sharp and glowing
piercing the rare white winter calm
of my mind at rest
like a ray of too bright to see sunlight
too hot to do anything but set
the edges of conscious thought ablaze
where they blacken and burn fast
curling inwards with steady flames
roiling over ashen fingers grasping at
the long forgotten Morpheus's throat
prying wide the sleeping god's eyes
fastened open by Prometheus's chains
Hades, Tartarus, eternal penance,
for bringing inspiration into this
dark human world
the price I paid in sleep for grades

she had the sky in her eyes
the grass in her hair
and blood on her wrists

do not fall in love with a poet
unless you can accept flickering candles at obscene hours
and ink stains that cover their fingers and clothes
and constant eye bags that they may need you to kiss

do not fall in love with a poet
unless you handle them dropping all and suddenly
composing
and then shutting you out in frustration of imperfection
sometimes words just do not do the things that they want

do not fall in love with a poet
if you do not appreciate paragraphs about your eyes
or if you do not have very beautiful prose
your simplicity will scare; they will simply hide their heart

do not fall in love with a poet
and solely be swept away by their mesmerizing verses
they will take you and transfix you in the dead of the night
leaving you breathless
but they'll be gone by morning

*k.c.