This is why I said no more love poems.
To be honest I don't know what I expected.
Maybe just for something different.
Or maybe something that made me feel a little more.
I guess knew this would happen I'm mean a senior and a sophomore.
Right people wrong time.
It seems to be a reoccurring theme for me.
Maybe I should just **** around again and let myself be free.
But then at the same time you actually meant something to me.
Even though I don't know what it was.
Doesn't matter now though I guess.
Because I refuse to let myself become a mess.
I feel like I've already grown from this.
I just hope I haven't grown too cold from this.
Though at the center I know its still me.
Maybe that's what I need.
Someone who thinks more like me.
This is why I said no more love poems.

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem.

I told myself reliving the same traumas
over
and over
would not aid in the healing process,
but these are not
the same traumas,
this is not
another **** poem,
there is just
so much ******* material
that it's starting to run together.

She went to a movie with him,
somewhere public,
somewhere safe,
and still he drug his hand
up her thigh,
she kept her mouth shut,
tried to push him away,
wouldn't want to interrupt the best scene,
whispered
"stop",
he didn't listen.

He was in his girlfriend's bedroom,
watched her sit in silence
fuming
when he said
"no"
for the fourth time,
told himself to
man up
when she said
"what, don't you love me?"
He swore he did,
he just couldn't show it like this,
she didn't listen.

She was at his apartment,
told him that morning
she just wasn't in the mood today,
she shifted inside herself
as he kissed her neck
the same way he had
hundreds of times before,
forced a laugh as she said
"I really don't want to,"
he didn't listen.

She was sitting on his couch
when he put his arm around her,
unwrapped herself from him,
he told her to
"just relax,"
became comfortable in a body
he was never invited into,
she got away,
called her brother from the next street over,
explained to him from the passenger seat
that she had said no,
he didn't listen.

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem
because I had convinced myself it wouldn't happen again,
had convinced myself that
my friends and family
were not a part of the statistic,

but every sobbing phone call
or hushed condolence
reminds me that
this happens every day,
that pretending **** culture does not exist
will not make it go away,
that 20% of human beings
in the United States
will be ***** in their lifetime,
that 20% of the people I love
will be ***** in their lifetime.

I keep telling myself
I will not write another **** poem,

keep reminding myself
to look at the facts.

third degree harvesting and dreaming of things that will never happen
stuck in skin-tight suffocating thighs
closing with sighs, opening up for this guy
..life is redundant,
but it doesn't have to be

Please understand that when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's the concrete in my stomach, it's the staples in between my toes, it's the zip ties around my wrists, it's the scars around my wrists, it's the coals in my throat, it's the liquor in my throat, it's the liquor in the cabinet my mom never had to put a lock on until I started hiding in it, it's the noose around my neck, it's the smoke in my eyes, it's the bullet in the barrel, it's the gun in my dad's closet, it's the gun in my hand, in my mouth, when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's all these things trying to get out.

To fill the emptiness with hollow things

To speak through our teeth only in whispers

To find remorse in the beautiful memories

To pour the milk ourselves

To walk away from that which we hold closest

To clog the drain with pebbles from our shoes

To hate those who love us

To hate those who cannot

To dog-ear the pages in borrowed novels

To hide lies beneath our skin

To lie thorns beneath the bedsheets

To forget to say hello

To forget to say good bye

This year will be bigger and better and involve less time in bed or possibly much more and this year will be loud and there will be bright lights and high heels and there will be hand holding and so many ******* hugs and I will eat pasta because I love pasta and I will not feel bad about that and I will make plans and then not cancel them and I will show up despite the knot in my stomach and I will laugh way too loud because I can and that is a beautiful thing and I will treat new acquaintances like old friends because people like it when you do that because it makes them feel good about themselves and I will make people feel good about themselves because that is a beautiful thing and I will feel good about myself because I deserve that and I will eat three meals a day and exercise and sleep eight hours a night because I deserve that and I will buy an unnecessary but adorable sweater every now and then because I have earned that and I will tell people I love them because they have earned that and they deserve to hear that and I will mean it when I tell people that life is great because I deserve that.

Tonight I am sitting around the fire that I lit
by burning all those poems I wrote for you.
And I swear it looks so beautiful as the flames
touch the stars just like I thought
my words would touch your heart.

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines

Arms to the ground.
I have fought my last
Battle.

Boots off, socks too.
I will search; explore
No more.

Head down, to rest upon
My woman's chest.
Not one night

On solitary pillow
Ever again.
The end of my life

As I have known it.
I'll never be less than
Two. Sad pen to

The ground. This might
Be the last poem I'll ever
Need to write.

Bandaged wounds that
Bled ink healing. All my
Smiles are unwriteable, now.