i want to connect the freckles
on your faceneckshoulderschestarmslegsback
because maybe then i'll know
what love looks like.

If we make it through tonight
we have made it through the war.

20 days
Of wishing you missed me;
Of wishing I didn’t miss you.

20 days
That’s how long it took for me to cave;
For me to ask to come see you.

20 days
Since I’ve felt any emotions;
Since I felt like I had reason to breathe.

20 days
The longest days I’ve ever lived
And you haven’t even kept count.

20 days
Because we were both too busy;
Because I don’t want you to know I love you.

20 days
Since I thought we might become something
And realized that’s not what you wanted.

1 hour
Since you held me like you loved me;
Since you told me I couldn’t stay.

1 minute**
That’s all it took to break my heart.
Better you than anyone else I suppose.

i wake up with dried tears on the side of my face

i went to sleep smiling,
i thought
i dreamt of you,
as i remember

but i woke up with dried tears on the side of my face

perhaps my eyes see something
that my brain has not yet processed

they see your eyes trail off
when I'm enthused about my day
they see the way your body
is always slightly turned away

my brain gushes about the
sweet text you sent last week
and the future that could lie ahead

but my eyes are the realists
and don't ignore what my brain blocks
they notice the other girls
listed in your inbox

and my eyes know that
they've seen this all before
and the visions in my head
don't align with what you have in store

so my brain might be behind
and take some time understand
that these tears i wake up with
are not a deformity of my lacrimal gland

instead they are trying to fill me in
on what i am trying to ignore
and all these poems i waste on you
i will soon learn to deplore

i don't want to wake up with
dried tears on my face anymore.

sat in your driver's passenger seat
your dad's porsche
I thought it was cool

a little drunk after a night in Royal Oak
we're on the freeway now
little lights from this mini Tokyo
illuminate and flirt with the car interior

they flash on your face

some Rihanna song on the ipod radio
cars and cars and cars drive by
I look at your face. I look down at my shoes on the floormat

*Maybe we'll get stuck in traffic

Do you ever glance over your shoulder
when you visit our favorite coffee shop?
It didn't seem so far down the road when our hands were interlaced
now it seems an impossible distance to make
one lonely Tuesday night mid-May.
I sit at the table closest to the window
just in case
you happened to pass by and realize you loved me
but I've never been very realistic.
The room never seemed so smokey
when your eyes met mine across the table
but those very same eyes now watch the counter
and hope to hear a quiet voice order a chai latte.
I haven't heard it in a while
maybe you've found a new location;
a new girl with set of pale legs
and wide eyes.
I'm hardly a poet
and I can't stand rhymes enough to try
but I never had the chance to articulate
how deeply I've fallen
into your words
and your crooked smile
to prove to you that
I pushed you away
when you were the one I needed closest.
And I lied when I said
I didn't love you.