One day I will return to the dust of the Universe.
But first?

*Let me shine.

Don’t become infatuated
Don’t fall in love
Especially not with poets
Because they only ever exist in their words
They will write you love poems, and lengthy paragraphs
With words said in ways you have never heard before
You will fall in love, with love poems, the way they say their vowels, and the look in their eyes when they read to you  
They will lull you to sleep with sticky sweet words
And they will speak of the colour yellow, in a new light
A new meaning will come to its definition
And it will slowly become your favorite colour
You will wear yellow dresses, and put daisies in every room  
You will see the speckles of yellow in their brown eyes
But you will find them at three in the morning sitting in the bath tub, bathing in the words of metaphors
You will find them having an affair with Stanzas and Verses at the same time, sleeping with sonnets
You will see that poetry was always their mistress
At night they will no longer share blankets with you, but they will wrap themselves in ballads and couplets
You will only be able to express this new distance with eulogies
You will start seeing yellow everywhere
In the beds of your nails, and them hems of your skirts
Till you start seeing it so often that you will want to puke up every word they have ever said to you
You will realize that talk is cheap and Rhymes are easy
You will realize that poets only ever exist in their words

Wait I.. I take that back
Fall in love with oddly pronounced vowels, love poems, lengthy paragraphs, and sparking eyes
Wear yellow dresses again
Pick a bouquet of daisies
Fall in love with 2 a.m. again
But not with just anyones 2 a.m.
Fall in love with yours
Get swept up in the arms of personification
Drink sticky sweet words, get drunk off yourself
Have a love affair with stanzas
Kiss verses on the lip
Wrap up your wounded parts with haikus
Become infatuated with metaphors
Whisper sweet nothings to yourself
Fill your nights with praise poems
And love songs
Tear up every eulogy you have ever written
Knit yourself a blanket from all the unfinished poems, all your couplets
Sing ballads to yourself
And write sonnets in the moonlight
Fall in love with rich words and complex rhymes
Don’t worry about falling out of love this time

Maybe what I need to write
isn't something that reflects how I feel
but rather
how the world around me is beautiful even
when I am recovering from crippling embarrassment while
I was the center of attention.
How there's sunlight coming into the room at such an angle
that it creates a heavenly glow across the walls,
or maybe how much wearing sweatpants in bed make the experience
so sweet.
How a sad song makes me happy because
it takes away my anger
and replaces it with serenity.
How there's a walk one step out of the door to where ever i go that
keeps my head clear
and reminds me how even when it's freezing its a gorgeous day
because I'm living in it, not dying.
Writing about how beautiful this world can be
when I can't find that beauty..
it's therapeutic.

(I am sick of writing love poems for you, so here’s another)*


Do not fall in love with me, I am a poet.

I’ll scrawl down your every word,

Your most innate gestures,

Your bent and whims;

That you will grow conscious of your natural being,

About how your skin breathes,

You’ll run your fingers down your face wondering if you are even normal.


Do not fall in love with me, you’ll hate me.

I’ll write about you incessantly and obsessively.

When I’ll hold your face to kiss you,

I’ll leave ink stains on your aerial lips.

I’ll write till my fingers weep and lungs rip apart.


Do not fall in love with me, you’ll feel empty.

Because I’ll kiss this crooked stick between my fingers more than your lips;

This pale paper brighter than your smile.

I won’t smell of perfumes and lilies,

But ink and *** and cigarettes.


Do not fall in love with me, I am a greedy scribbler.

I’ll make your every colloquy an artwork (against your will)

That you’ll crave normalcy.

I’ll stay awake to watch you sleep at night

For my words, for my penniless art.

I’ll feed on you like a parasite,

I’ll script your existence in my veins,

You’ll have nothing of your own.


Do not fall in love with me,

There will be days when you’ll be talking to me in a fine-looking coffee shop

But I won’t be listening,

Because I’d be writing in my head, nodding along, smiling mindlessly

And your soul will ache.


Do not fall in love with me because more than anything

I want to be an obsessive writer.

I’ll forget your name,

Thinking if I should call my character Kurt or Keith.

You will feel trivial and ignored.


Do not fall in love with me,

I won’t love you like an ordinary girl,

I will be self-absorbed and oblivious.

But oh my darling, my flame, do love me, else I’ll have nothing to live for.

Staring across the bar, it was love at first sight
- eyes so wide- I think I gave her a fright
She thought it was a *** look
thought she could read me like a textbook
wary of my advance
refusing me a chance
avoiding my glance
I put down my glass
and,
in a stance
weakened by my lovestruck trance,
simply asked for a dance

enough time
turns lost love
into a cicada shell

a hollow melange of
lust and nostalgia
left abandoned under a tree

the ley lines and star alignments that drew us together
have all lock-tumbler shifted
and the combination is in a notebook
in a cobwebbed and dusty box
that i left on the curb for recycling
on some unspecified thursday in 2012
or 11, or 13
something a little unlucky

i miss you
in the same way that i miss
a dream, upon waking:
a sandcastle, built under the wrong moon, described to a stranger
shapes so thick with water that they can't hold,
but it was good, wasn't it?
it was probably good.
it must have been good.
i think i remember smiling.

She's like deliquescent caramel,

the cool side of a pillow

        to lay your weary head,

subtleties of springtime &

          warmth in wintertide,

whispering hope upon lush  

        Zephyrus pipe dreams,  

    mellifluous nymph with wings

                 of a butterfly warrior,

softly determined,

    unfailingly true-hearted,

       whilst relentlessly ferocious

  Wise, yet sometimes struts

        blindly in the light,

       as dulcet tones of a cello's

           melodious marmalade

            in sentiment's tender fancy,

she's beauty, charm,

         knowledge, poetry,

               utter strength,

               & humane weaknesses,

she's twisted and ethereal,

           her aura sublimely captivating

     you may covet her body,

            you'll never possess her soul

I summoned the devil
in all the coaxing dulcet tones of a lover
to make a little trade.
He appeared to reply
in something sounding suspiciously like amusement
that contrary to popular belief,
he did not buy souls.
Why, he wondered
would he bother with such trivial humanities?
so I plucked from my chest
the thing in question
that he might know
there are not so many stars in the sky
as neurons firing in my mind.
and I showed him exquisite pain
and deliriously beautiful sadness
anger so searing I shook to contain it
All the things a devil delights in
cannot be felt so deeply as by a soul
that has tasted misery again and again
and lived to wish to tell the tale.
He moaned in half-ecstasy
tones thick with desire
to name my price.
I asked only for peace at last
How cruel!
he cried, not un-admiringly
To make one long for something so desperately
and name a price they cannot pay.
For peace, he said
Can only be found through one's own demons
It comes from acceptance
of one's self entirely; not absence.
So I left,
having wrung good advice
from the devil himself.

The sky, a plate
in kindly blue,
smooth
as the ceramic face
of this, my swimming pool;

the bobbing palm
glazing the back
of my starfish shape
like white liquid icing;

sweet, the water's after-taste;
gently
pungent smell lodged
in the nape of my neck

I will wash the blue
off my skin, in a tiled doll-box
cubicle
I will smell the smell fade
out of my fizzled wet-strung hair
just as sugar dissipates
into the hot
nothingness of drinks.

I will pretend to forget,
then forget
I was offered a plate
in a summery shade, bordered by
tree branches
I was in that half
amniotic vessel -
weightless

as a seed pearl in
an ocean or a lover
exhaling in the depths
of a kiss;

a posy of
air on liquid.

The umbrella is by the door,
still coiled up and dry,
save for dust droplets.
I swear, the last time
I moved it from its resting place
it was heavier than before,
absorbing stagnant clouds
and exhaling anticipation.

We both sigh.
I count the raindrops that do not come,
the flowers’ dying petals
an upturned flag on the mailbox.
There are letters to send;
the postman should be here
soon.

I curse my arthritis
before the weather;
I have to hold my breath
when I climb upstairs.

Petrichor is at the door.
I am playing an outdated forecast,
watching the clouds rolling in.

Our future gloomy uncertainty,
Uncharted as the rolling sea.
Doubtful monsters slither in the water
To ****** at our feet and
Drag us beneath the deep.
Sinking and separated, we're whipped
By the pale winds of indebted and petty misery.
Never to return, never to return
To a place we used to know
Or to whom we used to be.
Seeking refuge like heathens in heather,
We friends meet again,
(If only in thought or misty memory),
And band together in stormy weather,
Clasping hands tight.
Incessantly pressing
Onward, guessing everything might be alright.
Even in different boats, 'long different shores,
And under unclear skies...
We find each other under the same moon.
Floating in the same ocean,
Traveling by the same wind.

Café
tantalizing aroma
evicts every other scent from my nasal cavity
remedy for self-diagnosed cranial narcolepsy
eyelid suspenders

bittersweet paramour
empty mug,
stirs my core
caramel and dark chocolate
micro-foam, group heads and caffeine
velvet layered cappuccino
espresso parts my thoughts

come sip with me