It's 3 am and I'm going
100 on the highway
and I can't take my eyes off
the rear view mirror
and no amount of speed
can take me away fast enough
from all the lies you left behind

We are a collection of our own experiences. A destruction of our own making, we undo ourselves with what we've learned, unlove ourselves with what we've learned.

I have looked in the mirror to a stranger too many times for my liking. The girl that I became mirrored back in agony to the girl she wanted to be. She wanted to be a poet, she wanted to be a portrait. She wanted to be stronger.

My experiences have become me. But I don't want to be defined by broken hearted and tormented by my dreams. I don't want to be defined by the dark circles under my eyes, the heart beat in my ears. I wanted to be stronger.

I have looked in the mirror too many times and seen stranger, seen liar, seen a girl who kept too much bottled up and my demons creep behind me like the horror movies I'm so akin to watching. They wave hello like they belong and I have to break my stare.

The poet in me says this is another experience, another lifeline, another tether to the earth that I love so much. An earth that I love so much that it broke me.

The poet in me says this experience will make me stronger.

actually, my mother never told me about boys like you. she never said anything about boys at all. all i knew is that i had to be careful around them. she never told me that their "i love yous" are just words and not metaphors they see in your eyes. she never told me that them kissing you is just to **** your soul out and leave you dry. empty. desolate. and she sure as hell never told me that their hugs are only so they could play checkers on your spine. you see, some of us have allowed others to come in through the front and out through the back and well, your heart is the front door and you're so distorted they backslide out the same way they came in. he should've said good morning and never good night. he should've never sat down, he broke the chairs. you see, you're just standing on ice and your problems weigh too ******* much. you should've told him that seat wasn't for him. you should've told him it's been used and used and used and now it's worn out. you should have warned him that you haven't been taking care of yourself lately and the books you've collected throughout the years are filled with pollen. you should have told him that the footprints on the floors aren't of those who have fallen in love with you but rather have come in and walked all over you. when you introduced him to your mother, you should have noticed that no he wasn't smiling, he was smirking. and also, you should have noticed that your mother wasn't trembling because she was happy for you but rather because she feared for you. when you walked off with him, you should have n,oticed when he started rubbing your back and he never ******* held your hand. you should've noticed when you were aching in bed, you were actually dreaming about yourself. you're aching now aren't you. AREN'T YOU. my mother never warned me about boys like those. she never told me that they come inside you and play hopscotch on the bed sheets. you should've noticed the first time he told you he loves like a playground. you should've noticed when he said he loves playing "Don't Step On The White Tiles." you should've noticed when he told you he spent his lifetime playing board games. oh what does your heart print look like now?

it’s interesting to think about all the right people who might’ve come into your life at the wrong time.
but then again,
i often wonder if time could’ve saved or wrecked us at all.
maybe from the start, we were destined to be nothing more than strangers.
even if i had been weighed down, glued to one spot,
nomadic tensions silenced,
it seems likely that, still, our friendly smiles and cordial jokes would’ve been
limited, somehow,
by unseen barriers,
by the cruel overseer that is fate.

i think i meant something to you, once.
not a lot, but something.
and now,
now i’m just there.
a solid. something that takes up space.
you still sit close to me,
but not as close as you did when we first met.

and i wonder, sometimes, if i did something wrong,
if there was something i could’ve done, or not done, to change things,
to make things better,
to stop us from drifting silently onto the end of the growing list of tragedies my life’s friendships have been.

but maybe there was nothing i could do.
that thought, while terrifying, is perhaps the most comforting one.
after all, it is better to be left helpless from the start than to be burdened with the knowledge that the stones you threw became part of the landslide.

i hope, maybe, that we can salvage what’s left,
perhaps even grow it into something better.
but somewhere inside, i know that’s fool’s talk.
i doubt i ever meant much to you, anyway.
i always was, and always will be, just another shadow,
another stranger,
another change of season.
i suppose i was your winter —
a barrage of snow and ice that danced in clumsily,
not bothering to think about what would happen once spring came.

i hope you’ll remember me when i’m gone.
even now, it’s nice to think that i cross your mind as much as you cross mine.
but my hopes seldom match my reality.

so, still, i am just another.
watching.
waiting.
being.
i am nothing, and in being nothing i suppose that i, too, am everything.

but i will never be your everything.

and i could say that i regret that,
but perhaps i’m still holding onto that last bit of hope.

always the optimist,
and yet even more so the pessimist.

i thought you might be both, too.
i thought we might find a way to complete one another,
much like how the land completes the sea.

but i suppose i am left the earth without its ocean,
the ground without its rain.

it’s a horrible thing, detachment.
my roots never quite find what they’re looking for in the soil.

i had just hoped you would be different.

(a.m.)

I once saw you
sneaking out a girl's
window;
I didn't realize you
could climb that
well.
Sometimes
I wish you
thought I was
a princess in a
tower and you
were a prince
and my window
was the doorway
into your heart.
I just want to wear
your shirt around and
tell you how much I
love you.
But you don't care and
I don't care if you
don't feel the same.
My body is the
mid-west and
yours the
Mississippi traveling
along my edges.