A slam poem


Your contact picture was taken the day you forgot to buy me a Christmas present
And when I scroll through my phone and see your name I remember crying until my pillow was painted black with streams of dashed hopes and childish mistakes.
On our third date you took the clip out of my hair and put it in yours and I haven't worn it since. Now I keep that clip in a desk drawer and try not to remember the way your voice cracked when you whispered my name and breathed your secrets into my mouth before trying to rip them back out through my heart when you decided you'd had enough of laughing over clips in your hair.
At night I lay awake and command my mind to conjure up any thought that's not you in your grey tuxedo, you in your painted skin that you outgrew when you smoked your first cigarette, peeling layers of who you were when you still filmed ghost hunting videos and touch-ups of who you are now, with your tears like rare prizes I wish I could collect in bottles and auction off to every past girl you've ever loved. And ****, there's a lot of girls.
But in the grand essay of your every past love I am the typo on the third page that knocks down your grade two points, the ****-up you would do anything to hit backspace on, the messy extra letter that somehow is overlooked by your meticulous eye because it's 2 am and you stopped giving a **** at 10. I am the coffee stain that gives away your procrastination like a badge worn across your chest, like a bruise on your forehead she may notice when she leans in to kiss you, like a tear in your favorite tie that she will see when she slides it off your neck and slips it sensually onto her own, not knowing I think about hanging myself with that very tie 1036 times a day if only I thought for one second it would awaken you from the slumber you fell into when you found whiskey and me that one December night on the countertop that wasn't even our own.
And I awake every morning drenched in heartache and heavily breathing out the rhythm your heart would drum as I lay at night with my head on your chest and my heart in your hands and my body in your mind. I was the glass sculpture you couldn't resist playing with no matter how many times you were warned not to, I was the wet paint sign you couldn't resist testing, I was the fire alarm you just had to pull.
But I would burn my tongue on coffee watching the sunrise with you again and again and again if it would resurrect the Christmas lights that burned like dying stars in my stomach in the fleeting moment where I truly believed you could love me, your kisses like butterfly wings that became bats all too quickly, your love like a fever that broke too fast- sweating and crying in bed at 2 am-I MISS YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I NEED YOU.
Yet maybe I knew along that this would happen. Yes, maybe I saw you as an opportunity to rekindle my old romance with anger and pain and depression, maybe when my friends told me you were bad news, I rejoiced in the idea of my old friends returning so much so that I opened the door and said "come on in," arms opened wide, play dough mind in their hands.
Or maybe I just really loved you.

Recently I heard that in Spain they changed the word ‘marriage’
From permanent tense to temporary
That worries me
But everybody’s so rapidly changing
And love couldn’t possibly stay ‘unconditional’
You shouldn’t love out of fear
Maybe nobody is ‘meant to be’
No ‘soulmates’
Nor ‘fate’
Not that I ever believed in those fairy-tale yarns
But I perhaps enjoy the idea
Of somebody forever finding me somewhat
Tolerable
But now we’re accepting
That everything is terrifyingly perishable
And that is a very scary thought,
Emphasising, when you think about it
A reminder
That
Every
Living
Creature
On Earth
Dies
A   l   o   n    e

I am not alone because I
Can't make friends

I am alone because alone is safe

No one can tear the
Tender flesh of my heart
If no one is near enough
To find it

With all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas
The smallest gift was received
Ten words on a page
Joy beyond measure deluged a happy heart
Pieces of a soul....more precious than gold

And in return
With all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas
The smallest gift was given
More excited at the giving
At the anticipation of joy

Waived off upon receipt
Forgotten on a page
Unread pieces of love
Bore holes in a happy heart
Chagrin unassuaged by reluctant glances spurred by pain

Longing for all the exhuberance of a child on Christmas

I remember back, to the time when I was numb.
All the way back to one of the darkest times in my life,
I remember the face of the boy who shined through my darkness.
I remember the first person to make me feel again.
It was one of the most excruciating things I'd done... feeling again.
You were like the ocean, and I, a grain of sand.
It felt like you ripped me out of my comfortably miserable little beach
and swept me out into your sea and proceeded to drown me.
But you had no idea of the effect you had, you were just being the sea.
I remember the first time I met you, my gaze swept right past.
And then you spoke.
You made me laugh, and it hurt to laugh but it felt so right.
Even on my darkest days, you'd be there to make sure I could smile again.
You'd always do everything you could to pull me out of my pit.
You became my best friend and I fell so hard, oh how I fell.
That's what hurt.
I wasn't allowed to love you as I'd wanted to.
You had your girlfriend and she was so sick and she needed you.
I watched you, dying to make her better.
You didn't sleep. You barely ate.
I noticed the etches on your wrist and my heart shattered.
There was nothing I could do for the boy I loved.
I wish there had been something I could have done for you and for her.
It's been years since I last saw you.
I still think about you all the time.
I don't think I could ever forget you.
The one I couldn't have.
The one I should've had.
We would have been so good.
It's funny..
I know you loved me too.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

if you try to kick me when i'm down
i'm liable to reach out a hand
and pull your leg out from under you.

don't **** with me when i'm vulnerable