he remembers your touch but not your face
maybe if you hold on a little tighter he'll respond with a smile
he's archaic and you're a battlefield
you were never meant to touch in the first place
acute lines connecting against the laws of science
he's a geometry problem, roughness against blood vessels
his hips jut out from under his shirt
you press your thumbs against them and breathe
try not to ***** yourself on his ribcage
he'll kiss you like he means it but his eyes will cloud when you look into them
he doesn't always recognise your voice
you kiss him anyway you hold him close like maybe if your hearts beat in time for long enough he'll start to feel it
the first time he looks at you with eyes that belong to him you think your lungs might close up
he sketches you, fingers trailing like stardust over skin and jutting bone
you used to dig a knife into the palm of your hand just to make sure you would bleed like everybody else
he used to dig a knife into the upper-left side of his chest just to make sure he was really human
you cradle your scars together
LIVEDIELIVEREPEAT
the pain's more bearable with him
you hold him when he has nightmares and he holds you when you can't take living
(all that you used to know is gone;
you're all each other has left
survivors of a lost age)
life is a series of compromises
you've already made enough for one lifetime

Inside the center of her
"Now" I find my yesterself.
Blushing juvenile
Torn between nervous
And not.

1
Congratulations
on your maturation:
now our lust's "love,"
not infatuation.

2
Romantic "deficits,"
confiscatorial "trends" --
**** your "benefits" --
where's my dividends?

3
I tried to really kiss you,
not co-impregnate a tissue.

4
I must confess
I love that dress --

more or less!

5
-- I'd die for you (you said)
-- I'd mumble you in bed.

6
you  me  us  me
us-me-you  you-me-us-you-me-you
us-me-us-­meyouyou-us-youyouyou
youyou-us-me-youyouyouyouyouyouyou!
you-me-­us-us-me-me-me --
us

7
Three coins in the fountain?
Who in hell's been counting?

8
Nod, smile; I'm playing along
while they're "playing our song."

9
Monogamy
demands its peephole:
Maybe we should see
other people.

10
"The last time I saw her
she'd hired a lawyer."

Everything I know about you
I am devastated with attraction
Everything about you
Is what everyone hopes to be
How can I hold you?
How are you real?
...here?

All I know is somehow when I'm trying to live
You're always there.
Just before my last footfall
You are the end of the sidewalk
You are just around every edge
Watching from angles
Who do you thank for your halo?

Since I remember you have
Held my arm just a bit tight
Have held me so close
But gentle;
Cautious

I'm doing it too.

But since I remember,
Every time I've seen your outline in a doorway
It's the only thing not standing still.
In a world of deafening noise,
Your voice is the only thing worth listening to
You are the only person I'm quiet for just to hear
Because maybe me hearing will heal you like hearing you heals me.

Sweetie,
There are so many struggles
So many struggling
Everybody is hurt when they have to tackle their life
Most of us are scared because it's coming
Whether or not we like or we see.
I haven't been close to anybody in years,
I've lived in uncomfortable distance
Trying to squeeze happiness from safety
I want a reason to serve you
I want just one thing
I want you to know me.

I'm going to try for you.
I'm going to try so hard
I'll be your reason to endure
Because life is scary,
And nobody ever told us it would be.
Lets be the ones
To tear down the walls in the fake
Worlds we've made
Since I remember:
I want you to be the one in my arms
When those worlds crumble
I want you to be the one crying with me
And together we'll make smiles
Because in the end life's ending,
And you're worth living for.

She thinks she is the kind of beauty that many worship.
All thin figure,
All dark eyes,
All nails that leave marks on your back and
All her lip biting and soft moaning

She thinks her beauty is a set of curves
She thinks her beauty is legs
Hips
Suggestive submission
She thinks her beauty is just talent,
She thinks her beauty is just an act
She thinks she's average, and her beauty is just made up

But her beauty is her eyes after the make up has run off.
They glow the sweetest, lightest green
(Her favorite color)
When the mask of mascara melts in a scalding hot shower

Her beauty melts you the same way.

Her beauty is the way she melts into your arms.

The way she talks like she doesn't care who listens
And listens like you're the only one that ever listened to her
The way she can say two things with one word and mean both of them.
Her beauty is persistence.

She would rather **** Superman than marry him
And I have no doubt that she could do either if she wanted to.

Her beauty is paying rent when she is already gone.
Her beauty is talking to the new guy when nobody else does, just to make sure he has someone to talk to.
Her beauty isn't in wanting to come in, but in her want to stay.
Her beauty is freedom seeking a place to tie itself down,
Her beauty is love for the sake of healing,
Even when the love isn't there.

Her beauty is the way she gives her faith to every good thing that comes her way.
The way she loves her dog.
More so, it's the way her dog loves her back.

The way her grandmother loves her back.
The way her friends love her.
The way a complete stranger can feel warm for days,
Just by meeting her for minutes.
The way nice guys have a real chance.
The way that she gives seconds chances to everybody,
The way anybody would risk humiliation to have one.

Her beauty is so deep that people can't climb back out once they've fallen in.

She thinks it's her ability to make love that's beautiful.
But I want her to know,
So desperately,
It's much simpler than that.

She is beautiful because it's so **** easy to love her.

listen to me, you are going to be loved.
more importantly, you are going to love.

you’re scared because you’re older now
and you’re still all alone,
but i promise you,
you will be loved harder than most.
because you waited
and because you are made entirely of longing.

you’re not going to get the practice,
the dry runs that everyone else gets,
you’re going to get thrown into it
like a wave crashing on you
and you won’t know up from down.

you are going to be so lucky.
you are going to fumble through all of it at first,
you’re going to throw yourself out of every window imaginable
before you find your feet and your head.

you are controlled by your heart and that is okay.
you are lonely and you’ve been waiting so, so, so long.
but it’s coming
and you aren’t going to be ready for it;
people like us are never going to be ready for it
but that is why we will be okay,
because our mistakes will feel like the end of the world
and there is nothing better than feeling the ground crumble beneath you
and there is nothing better than finding out there is a surface underneath it.

you are going to love hard and probably too much
and you will be loved back so fiercely
you will want to crawl out of your own skin and float away,
but you won’t
you will stay
and you will learn to accept it.
you are going to be happy
and you are going to be scared shitless.
you are going to change.
that’s what i think love is,
when you can’t remember who you were before
and who you are after it
but it’s all okay (k.w)

I thank the universe each night for the stars
because I know you will always be under them
at the exact moment i find myself
laying awake beneath them
wishing you were here to share my blanket
but no
I would hate for you to see me crying

The sun would bow at your command,
The stars to freeze in your presence.
For you I'd find a way
To spend a night up in the heavens
Along with the moon and its impish grin.

*To the man I'd yet to meet:
Strangers

Inspiring is
  the perfection of her approaching form
By every measure
  the epitome of classic beauty

Beguiling is
  her countenance so fair
Thousands of ships
  launch in her wake

Captivating is
  the outline of her femininity
Every line and curve
  arousing in me unquenchable desires

Overwhelming is
  the appearance of one so lovely
My senses and spirit
  soar to her grace

For when my eyes behold her physical image
  it conveys to me the essence I recognize to be her

He looks at me
in that way that men are supposed to look at women
my eyes sparkle for him
they are stage lights, they dazzle him
blinding him
to the fact that he is not the one
I wish he was
I wish he wouldn't fall in love with me
my heart can't be healed by him
because it's no longer in my chest
it's been taken away
I hear him whisper the words
I pretend to fall asleep in his arms
no reply
then one day my pulse quickens just a little
my eyes sparkle without me telling them too
my laugh is real
he has not healed my heart
but I feel the emptiness less
maybe if I let him
he can make me real again

i’m 19 years old
and i’ve never written a love poem that didn’t taste like loneliness or regret
i was born with a sad mouth
the kind that holds nothing but tempesteous storms of gray
the kind that curses god, doesn’t believe in fate, and kisses lips more crooked than my own
you see
it took me 21 days to squeeze the ink for this poem out of my pen for you
because i’ve never written a love poem for someone
and because i can’t put you into words
but i’m going to try

1. you are the run on sentence that leaves me nothing but breathless
when you speak, i see colors i never even knew existed
i would lift my head to you if you said my name even with a broken neck
i couldn’t sleep the first week we met
because i knew the empty space in my bed was meant to be filled with the curve of your back
and that your smile was the only sunrise i’d be able to wake up to
i spend all my spare time collecting the different ways you’ve called me beautiful to wear as a golden chain around my neck, close to the pulse in my throat, and thump in my heart
as a reminder of how you’ve made me feel alive again

2. when we first kissed
i couldn’t even find the right words to string together to describe how i discovered home on your lips
i love you speechless and i am terrified for just that reason
and i don’t know if i will ever be able to forklift the reasons why out of my chest
but here’s a start
you want to know why i’m scared? i’m scared because for me
love was always a lot like throwing yourself off the edge of a building
and i had a nasty habit of falling for ghosts who couldn’t catch me
but your hands,
your hands weren’t callused, they were soft
they gave me amensia of all the times i shattered against the pavement
the first time i held them they gave me so much reckless abandon that i knew
if i took my heart and catapulted it to atlanta, new york, london, or cuba
you’d be able to catch it blindly
so please just outstretch your arms and do it

3. i know i said earlier that i didn’t believe in fate
but that was before i started writing this
and because you exist
i believe in fate now
because someone, somewhere
made you carefully, painfully, slowly, and deliberately just for me
because there is no other explanation
for the way my bones ticked like the angry hands of a clock,
counting down the seconds until you found me
i believe in fate now because
the moment we met
the possibility of you and i even breathing the same air
and the number of hellos and goodbyes we will exchange
must have been thought about for centuries
when we were nothing but dust

4. if i could take a minute
somehow place all the galaxies into the palms of my hand and rename every star, every constellation after each moment we’ve had and the little things no one notices about you
like how when you blush, you say “oh gawsh” and it reminds me of a bad western movie and my childhood innocence all wrapped up in one
or how you hate being interrupted
how you have a scar on your abdomen from that surgery you had when you were little
or how you wear bruises and bloodied knuckles from all the times you’ve hated yourself
i would do it
i would make this universe into a story only the two of us could understand
a story that says,
i love you…
for as long as you want me to (k.w)