I know that I only
hate you
because I'm actually
still crazy
in love with you,
but I
*******
hate you
for saying
I was the person
you'd think of
in your last moments
and then
somehow not loving me
in the kind of way
to
even feel the
    magnitude of
               it all.

*******.

I love you in my
                     hatred,
hate you in my
             undying,
                            unwavering,
       stupid
        stubborn
    dumbly drunk on you
                   love.

After 6 PM,
four glasses of Chardonnay;
Jekyll turns to Hyde.

Don't you ever
have moments
where you want to get
so high
your pain becomes funny,
so drunk
you seek company and comfort
in strangers,
so numb,
so ****** up,
so incoherent,
feelings aren't felt,
thoughts aren't thought,
pain isn't painful?

             Oh, right...

Me neither.

There are these
        moments
where my eyes are closed,
my walls are decomposed,
any safeguards,
logic,
defenses,
they get swept away
as my subconscious becomes
my temporary conscious.

You often appear in my dreams.

No telling what you're doing,
where you're going,
what the context is,
who else is around...
no, you're just there
in the corners of my
uncooperative mind.

I always hear your voice
so clearly,
and I imagine somehow
that even your dream voice,
your dream lips,
your dream skin,
it all still makes my
conscious real-world body
get goosebumps...
that's the kind of effect
you've always
   had on
            me.

God,
and then I fall in love
all over again in my
dreams,
but in this realm you
don't disappoint me,
leaving me hurt,
forcing me
to
            walk
                                      away­.

Nope,
see,
my dreams
are perfect,
so much so that
I often get mad
when I wake up,
because that's
when I remember that
you're no longer around;
that I don't get to taste your tongue,
feel the softness of your caramel skin,
the fullness of your perfect lips;
that you aren't mine
and never really were;
that you never let me
love you;
that our love story never even began.

There are these moments
when my eyes are closed and
I am yours.

Sometimes I create my own
Writer's block;
It sounds ****** up,
Dozens of us at any given
Moment
Genuinely searching for
Any single word at all,
And here I am,
Wishing my words away,
Creating every writer's
Nightmare
Simply because I'm a
*******
Coward,
Too scared to pick up
My fresh black ballpoint pen
And put it to my
Worn out notebook
Because I'm too
Scared to feel
The dark, painful,
Scary things I know
Will come in the
Free flow of my
Disturbing verses...
So yeah, I'm
That *******,
Creating writer's block
For myself
So I don't have to
Let it all go.

****, that's lame.

With your brevity,
I start to disintegrate;
Only dust remains.

Sometimes I think about you.

I know it's been a while,
But there are these times that
You just cross my mind,
A glimpse of what was,
What could've been.

I remember those
Cold afternoons in your
Dorm room,
Your arms wrapped around mine
On your sofa couch,
Watching some cool movie
I had never been hip to before,
The laughter bouncing off our chests,
Reverberating against the off-white cement walls,
****** and maybe a little drunk,
But mostly just high off of our chemistry.

You were someone so different to me,
So full of stories of mischief and misunderstandings;
I used to get lost in your words,
Hanging onto every slightly twanged syllable.

You told me your secrets.
I let you unzip me,
Physically and mentally,
Seduced me so with your blue eyes
That I didn't even mind that you
Smoked cigarettes.

Months that felt like eternities
As I stumbled into a kind of love
I still don't comprehend,
So fleeting yet the moments
I spent with you
Are so vivid,
Sometimes so that I
Can almost feel the
Softness of your full lips...

You might just be that cliche,
That one
Who somehow got away.

To the one who has my heart,

I love you.
I love you as deeply as the deepest trench,
As vastly as the expanse of the universe,
As greatly as the highest mountain.
I love you so much
I have been consumed by it,
I have been swallowed by its tidal waves,
I have been dried up by its arid air,
I have been devoured by its rabid hunger.

I love you.

But I'm realizing,
I love me more,
And me loves me back;
I breathe life into myself,
I inflate and empower and embolden me;
I am neither consumed nor weakened;
I am on top of my own mountain tops,
Cooled down by my own streams,
Tackling the corners of the universe.

Sincerely,
Yours truly,
I will always love you,
But I choose me.

2 years, 5 months, 19 days.

That's the last time a man
Looked me in my eyes
And told me
He loved me.

Nearly one thousand days have passed
Since someone looked at me
Like I was his whole world.

And now I'm at the point
Where I wonder if I'll be alone
Forever,
Not like the cliches,
The woman who chooses a career over a family,
Or the crazed lady who clings to her cats...
No, just a girl
Growing into a young woman
Who doesn't even remember
What it feels like to have someone
Love her.

Not sure if I've really ever even been loved,
At least not like it happens in the movies.
I've continued to pine hard,
Chasing the affection of conflicted souls
Who never bother to appreciate me,
Those cliched types who are
"Too damaged" to really love someone.

Sometimes I wonder
If I'm gonna be able to accept love
If I finally find it,
My fragmented soul having grown
An allergy to kind gestures,
Compliments,
Or anything that actually might be deemed
Indicative of affection.

Slowly sinking down to the baseboards,
Rotted and gnarled roots
Clinging deep to the underground,
My body dissolved into an anterior realm of
Cynicism
As I grasp the realities of my own
Unrequited love,
My yearning to demand more,
******* and twisted with my
Fear to stop settling
And actually obtain
"better."

2 years, 5 months, 19 days.
I'm just hoping it doesn't take me
As long
To look at the
Golden brown eyes that I
See in the mirror and tell me
I love me
Enough to not care who
Else might.

I guess you could call me
a people addict;
I live for the exchanges,
momentary or prolonged,
the satisfaction of smiles substituted for
verbalized salutations;
the how-you-do's and hello's,
the pleasantries of chit chat,
talk of my oh my, I am not ready for this snow
and how was your holiday?;
catching a supposed-to-be-sneaked glance from that tasty
stranger,
allowing your eyes to meet for longer than
you meant to;
a compliment that drips off the lips so sweet,
its nectar invading the taste buds for hours
on end;
individualized or multiplied,
I relish in the conjugated haze,
in the gazes and the giggles,
in the potential formulation of inside jokes,
in a have a good day to a grin I will never see again,
the whirlwind of vowels and consonants,
of coincidences and sarcasm,
of the impressions we may leave of which
we will never be aware;
I crave the mundane,
I get high off the monotony,
I am swallowed by the simplicity;
Yeah,
I guess you could call me a
people addict,
and I'm cool with that.

Sometimes after I've
Had a drink or two,
Or a few more,
I convince myself that I can
Find what I want
In the superficial distractions,
Building my ego in faked conversations,
Pretending to be the careless girl
I've never really been able to be,
But pass me one more beer
So I can text every other
Y-chromosome in my phone
And pretend the meaningless
Exchange of dialogue
Even minimally replaces the gross
Urge I repress
To send you the stifled sonnets
That lay dormant at the pit of
My suppression.

Love is so complex;
too grandiose to comprehend,
too intricate to explain,
lost in some ulterior realm,
in a universe that is foreign
where the only thing of which I am certain
is that I am in fact
lost in you.

My body goes on autopilot
as my hands grip the sterilely frigid steering wheel,
speeding 20 miles over the limit,
body going through the motions
as my mind slips back into love,
into the all-consuming mesmerization,
grasping at song lyrics like straws,
searching the vowels and consonants for the
y - o - u
that I hear in them.

Reality comes and goes,
but you remain,
even in the moments most mundane;
sipping the koolaid slowly,
injecting your poison deeper into my veins
as I struggle to prevent the come-down.

What I feel buried deep inside...
it dries out my mouth,
creates craters in my stomach,
esophageal spasming,
I fight to catch my breath at the sight of your name on my phone,
the sound of your voice as you speak my name.

A thundering tsunami bursting at the seams of my
pale skin, my rosy cheeks,
the ferocity of my burning love
scraping against the bone and cartilage
to rip through me and
devour you...

And the only way that you
allow me to love you,
it's so small, it's so
momentary,
you only able to drink one
drop
at
a
time,
an entire hydraulic system,
streams and tributaries,
rivers and oceans,
forcefully squeezed,
funneled into daily droplets.

Dreaming of the last time I tasted you,
the times you used
to intertwine your body
with mine,
lost in incomprehensible ecstasy,
I can now only love you
through the simplicity of
conversation
and
of sitting by your side;
however,
even in its relative infinitesimalness,
I anticipate, yearn evermore for the stillness,
for I know that if today were to be my last,
if my hands were to slip off the steering wheel,
my body becoming sterilely cold,
your name would be the first word I would
speak
in my survival,
the last thought I would think
in my demise.

And though those moments
do exist
where I grow impatient,
frustrated with the walls you've built,
the dams you've constructed
to guard against my love's roaring riptide,
I would rather lose myself,
drop
by
drop
to you,
love you in the most minute way,
if it means I can
love you
at all.

The tiny flurries
Glide, shimmy down from the sky,
Their snowy bodies intertwining,
Rhythmically conjoining into a wintery waltz,
One two three
Together they step,
Sweeping against the buildings and the trees,
Resting their feet at last
As they gracefully come to a halt
Atop the pavement.

The first snow of the season
Blows its frosty breath against
My nose,
The wind catching my hair,
Whipping it against my scarf.
The cold feels
Jagged against my exposed face
And fingertips,
My lips splitting open from the air's
Bitterness.
I stop the snowflakes' strides short
As they get stuck to my coat,
My hat,
My long black lashes.

Winter is upon me.