You are only happy
When the door of opportunity
Sits wide open,
With signs telling you
How to pass through

You are hopeless,
When the door is open,
But you can't find it

You are angry
When you can find the door
But it is locked

You are sad
When someone shuts the door
Right in your face

You are anxious
When you see the door
But are too scared to go through

You are depressed
When you lie by the door
But lack the energy to get up
And go through

This is why
Happiness
Is so hard to achieve

I do not care if
you do not love me,
for I have stored all the colours and
traced the secrets of your steps.

Your arm around my shoulder
is the first moment of the first sunrise
radiance caressing frozen webs of spider silk,
silver glory emanating golden dew.

I know no other way but
nor do I want for more, only to will
you stay; hang suspended on
backdrops of my blackest night.

So I do not care if
you do not love me;
I treasure that weakness enough
for the both of us.

I saw fire light, this night whilst
your fingers skimmed my jaw.

It's way past time but
your face is inches from mine
and my fingers dance freedom
on your skin; sleep is for  
the absence of him.

I saw star light, this night whilst
you dropped words like bombs.

I'm so tired today I can taste
the movements of molecules haste,
tripping in each moment bare
and slipping through sweet salted air.

I saw moon light, this night whilst
you oscillated each villain of me.

This is the very first winter
since he went and he kissed her,
that I have been free; able to see
each shade of light, this night.

Excuse my ignorance
or pardon me for my damns
for when I wrote that letter
your breath was still in my lungs
your kiss wound into my tongue
etched into my forefingers
your presence twirling around me like smoke
emasculating freedom of thought
taking over like a low swooping cloud
casting shadows upon thy back
And so when I said I love you
I was misguided
I mistook it for infatuation
like chocolate
pure bliss within the moment
love is not the paper
burning fast and bright for but a second
love is the one that lingers
love is like the hot coals
where a fire has burned
love makes people run
it made you run
for some reason it comes as a burden
to the heart
a heavy sinking anchor.
but to me love is not anything of that sort
it is light and free
it is a songbird
in the early hours

what you felt was fear,
that is the anchor,
now...
release...

My spoken word often
falls short of my
blood stained paper.
Where my heart spills
emotions only felt
with fingers between pages.

Words seasoned through the years,
lost love, heartache.
The many firsts and the lasts,
I experience my ink saturated tales.
Where one lives in a mysterious clarity
not received on the vocal reenactment.

Writing comes in waves, like the coast.
Overwhelmed, drenched in feeling,
fading then; waiting to crash back
against me eroding barriers.
To keep my detached self between
one tidal eruption breaking my
total defense from all intervention.

whether you think adam and eve were human bodies
created by the hands of an insurmountable man or
collections of stardust created by the most
beautiful explosion there's ever
been, i know that when they were first being taught to taste
language they were shown a picture of me in place of the words
'natural disaster.' it's not my
fault i burn down every
building i touch. girls try to
save me and boys try to
change me but it's all just dust in the
end, i'll always go to bed smelling like
smoke. sometimes
i imagine myself as the lost rings of
neptune, floating
aimlessly in space, being as bright as the corona of a cracked open
sun, but everything always ends in
damage. meteorites are bound to
shoot from my trembling hands like
lasers. i once had a
boy who was the most exquisite
galaxy i'd ever
met and the minute he
kissed me he erupted like a
volcano, like
everything i'd ever said never
meant a thing. at his
funeral i cast apologies his family's
way by means of making
magnolias spring up from beneath
their feet. when people
die, the universe grows a
garden up to them, their souls floating in outer
space, using the tears of their
loved ones as
nourishment. cry for me. please
believe me, i didn't mean for katrina to
happen, and i'm
sorry sandy was a result of my
stomach flu. the
earthquake in los angeles this morning was my
fault, i'm sorry i can't keep my hands in
control anymore.

i.
you are the cruelest person I've ever
met but my heart still beats really
fast whenever I think about 
you. I'm afraid if I touch 
you I'll burst into 
flames again. my 
hands haven't stopped shaking since you
left and I never got to thank you for teaching me the meaning of the word
hurt. I found my 
poems at the bottom of your
garbage can and I still can't 
sleep alone. I 
kissed you a lot, and sometimes, you kissed me
too.  

ii.
your skin rings up memories of moonlight and 
granite, a gaping
desert lying open like
it's as vulnerable as
you when it gets
dark. you have a murderous look in your
eye but you never broke a hair on my
head, you saved every phone log of every time I ever
called you. i heard your last girlfriend got arrested for domestic 
abuse and you never wrote to tell me. did it
hurt you more than 
I could? I hope you found what you were
looking for out there and I hope you never
lose it unless you
want to. 

iii.
something about your
eyes makes me want to know everything about the middle of the
night, I watch you
move and I whimper inside my
head. I haven't touched you in what seems like two whole
lifetimes, if I ever even did at
all. I hope I can again some
day. years later and your music stillI makes my ears
raw. I hope that bullet didn't
hurt too bad, I hope 
it brought you the happy. I'm sorry I never
could. 

iiii.
we are a modern day romeo and juli
et, it took me two 
years to realize how lovely your
lips looked and I'm still wrecking 
barriers, I'm still 
damning christ. my best friend has made it
clear she does not want me as a 
sister. I wish they'd let me
love you because you, you are all I've got
left. I might be the bullet but I will never be the
shooter, I'll take everything on
myself. you are so fragile and i am so 
sorry.

I do not love like this
I don't love like this
but I am learning

I burn between kissing you
what I can't have wholly
& somehow I am full
too aware of what I'm doing to be foolish
I rule out sound
birds
birds
you've taken both turns
I am laying
I am left
but am not without

I must front torture to embrace love -
without fire, I cannot burn
I cannot live without that heat
char instead of ink just to write it down

we are singing a song now
quiet
you are asleep & I am dancing in the heaviness of your breathing

this bed is not a nightclub
your knees hurt
& I have never seen anything so beautiful