we circled each other like strange, timid animals of prey
you’d never seen me crazy
but you’d never given me a reason to try
so discarded you mark me
shelf me as that little girl who’ll never understand



now here we are parked in your car
the orchard is quiet tonight
echoing the silence we are disrupting
before you can take my hand and preach your lies
I pop the door and take off

you sigh believing me to still be a child
until you get out to fetch me
and in the dark you see my top before you
do you question what’s underneath me
like you do what’s under the rest of my clothes

no where in sight is the little girl you once knew
intuitively you head toward the pond
contemplating new baptisms
or finally cleaning off layered dust to find reality
wondering what tragedies I’ll bring you this time

do I still make you feel like a young boy as I jump
in the water covered by mere splashes and starlight
are you surprised by the me I am here
that the me you barely knew was fraud
or rather only a mask as painted as your own

We have the same hands;
Or at least they're similar.
I've noticed before,
But I forgot until today....
What your hands look like,
It says a lot about you.


Mine are the hands of a pianist:
Long and slender fingers.
Mine are mostly soft and gentle and afraid --
Yet callused where I hold my pen.
Mine are seemingly smooth and fair,
Unless you look close and see the freckles and scars...
                 (My faults on display like tiny decorative stars)

Don't tell me your sins
I'm not your confessor
Don't tell me you're sorry
I'm not too forgiving
Don't feed me words
Like I'm starving for verbs
When it's authenticity
I've been deprived of

It's not a game of give and take
When all you can say is, "I didn't mean it"
Who do you pretend that you are
That you can stand here and ask me
"Do you believe in soul mates?"
"Will you take me home with you?"

We're far from a clean state
By now you and I are old fools
Who never get tired of this slow dance
Where I make myself the victim
And you get to hold the knife

There is this boy
I know he didn't like me much
But that was five months ago

Now I'm this girl
I love him as my tattered heart bursts
For a month ago he started mending it

"Don't you feel flattered?"
she inquired, confused --
in more ways than one,
though she didn't know it.

"People compliment you,
and you are so unappreciative."*
That is what she told me,
believing I needed a scolding.

Maybe I'm just tired of
people only caring about
how 'nice' my *** looks;
maybe I want more to matter.

You and I,
We got high
together at the seven eleven at seventeen,
and listened to Fall Out Boy as he sang ironic one liners.
And we'd argue about what it would mean; too high to believe
the other was right, and then laughed at passing cars.

We stumbled to the graveyard and told ghost stories with wine,
and whiled away the hours dreaming of knights and dragons
in crystal towers far away across fable and time. I'd lift my proverbial flagon,
and you'd ****** it away, and whisper
"What am I
to you?" So sudden, and I was too high to answer it right at the time.
I stumbled. I mumbled. My words were all jumbled, and all that came out was:
"Thou art mine friend." Kind of lame, that word at the end. But I ended the sentence
With a laugh. I didn't know you were serious...
But...
I should have cut a word from the statement. Because if I was being serious too,
I'd have whispered back "Thou art mine."

In my mind, I relive the moment over again and again,
before you left and stumbled off into the dark,
I say "You are my princess, I'm your knight."
I say "When it's all ****** up, you make it all right."
I say all the right things and it culminates in a kiss by starlight,
but I mumbled,
words jumbled,
And you took the bottle of wine with you as you stumbled
alone into the dark till it took you away from my sight.

That night I sat alone and soliloquised what I didn't say right.

If you were a coloring book,
I would be mad,
That after opening the cover,
There's no spaces left for me to color.

If you were water,
I would freeze you,
Immobile,
And gently stroke my fingers across your surface.

If you were wooden,
You'd be the finest sculpture,
That I would burn with every touch in every crease,
And leave ashen.

If you were an egg,
I'd take the utmost care to not drop you,
And the only place I would break your shell,
Is at the bottom where I'd fit perfectly.

If you were a string,
I'd tie you up tightly around me,
So that you could never leave me,
And I could always feel you on my skin.

If you were lava,
I would gladly burn off my flesh,
And I wouldn't hesitate to go inside you,
Because I'm used to feeling you down to my bones.

If I were a coloring book,
*          would you color in the lines?

If I were water,
          would you let me be still?

If I were wooden,
          would you light me on fire?

If I were an egg,
          would you crack me, boil me?

If I were a string,
          would you tangle me, knot me?

If I were lava,
          would you try to swim?

What scares me the most?
The moment you let go.