Stalemate, double-date;
Go ahead-
Keep tempting fate.
Cross your fingers
That I'll take the bait.
Sideways glance,
check and mate.
Your move, Darling.

I'll sit
And wait.

We find
intoxicating
power in pursuit;
                             While we ignore
                             the approaching
                             weakness of need.

Eyes like a screen door
voice like a sigh
we talked through
those spaces
for hours
but you never
offered to let me
come inside.

Dark hallway,
cold wooden floors.
From opposite sides
of the glass
we both watch
my hips
as they swing
back
        and forth,
back
         and forth,
back
         and forth.

They rock silently
and I can tell you're
counting the exact
number of steps
it will take to move
you closer to me.

And for the fifth
time today
you wonder what
you'd say
if only I invited you
to speak.

And for the third
time today
I'm staring at your lips
and wondering how
they taste.

And for,
what seems like,
the millionth time
today
neither of us move.
What a waste...

Maybe we both
forced out
predictions of love
And lust
and everything in between.
But
it's not that
we ever really
wanted to see each other
as much as
we simply
wanted to know
how much the other
wanted to be seen.

These days
I spend
a lot of time
not exactly wanting
to die
but just
to be dead, maybe,
to rest.
There's a difference,
or at least
there used to be.
I am regret.
I am self-defeat.
I think about
thinking
more than I
used to.

I guess Depression will do that to you.

My body hurts.
Aches, actually.
It's constant.
In my head,
dull static
But louder.
Thumping rhymically.
Like, really ******* loud
all the
******* time.
Things are heavy.
My arms
weigh far too much.
My lungs
are concrete.
They pump
stale air.
My spine is sawdust.
My spit is mud.
Didn't my eyes
used to be
more blue?

Depression is an ******* who will do this to you.

My words
used to be sharp
and loud.
Electric and
strange, they
tumbled out
of me,
like machine
gun fire,
a swarm
of bees.
Now I have to
pry them
loose, carefully
like teeth.

Depression is mechanical and it's systematically destroying me.

I want to rest.

I want to be Earth-
my skin, loose soil,
yellow button dandelions
pushing through
the dirt in my chest,
as puddles fill my outstretched hands
while my hair twists into the roots of trees;
and the wind picks up
to scatters pieces of me
side by side
the dandelion seeds.

You read between
the horizontal lines
And ended up trapped
inside my sweater.

This city feels like spinning wheels
carving deeper into the earth
with each revolution.
I'm up to my knees,
now.
I inhale the dust
until my lungs are gravel
and my teeth and tongue
have no memories
except dirt
and the ache
of chewing your name.
I used to like
to hear the wind
and the rain
delivering my morse code messages,
spelling everything out.
I used to trust
the things the storms would say.
When did I develop a fear of gray?

We lost ourselves
for a moment there,
and found eachother
in the aftermath
with hands clasped,
laying shoulder to shoulder.

It seems fitting you said,
that we fell in love
watching the sun rise together,
and now we only separately
watch suns set.

Do you have any idea
how many cars in this city are blue?
More specifically,
that are Hondas?
Even more specifically,
that drive past me
and remind me of you?

In a moment of weakness
I said that I felt
like I was in your world now-
and it's true.

And don't get me wrong,
it's less than ideal,
But I still feel
so much more sorry for you.

Because I am in your head now,

And this time
it's going to take more than
a tank of gas,
a quick **** from someone new,
a million hits from whatever **** you're smoking now, or
a few bottles of whiskey
to get rid of me.

I never had a choice.
This reality has always been my truth,
(And it might be overdue)
but the only difference is
that  now it includes you.

You were just lonely
for so long.


I was bored.

You are my most violent Red
and I am your moodiest Gray.
We could paint the kitchen with my gloom,
smear your rage around each and every room
but who really has the time to remodel anyway?

We woke up entangled-
just bare limbs
wearing suggestive grins.

Your love
was a
promise
we knew
I couldn't
keep.

This city makes me miss you.
And I would pretend to be surprised,
but the ceilings in cities are always too high
and my thoughts tend to wander.
(For the record, I am less than impressed
that they found their way back to you.)
Last night, I swear you were waiting for me to fall asleep
to climb into the rafters, and sneak into my dreams.
I woke up feeling haunted and exhausted.

Now you've been following me all day,
and I'm tired of looking over my shoulder.
Kissing him makes me remember the taste of your bitter coffee breath.
His kind eyes contrast the complex hurt yours used to reflect.
His simple, level-headed ways make me recall all
of the circles our troubled words used to spin,
the endless loops we were always trapped within.

My ears keep echoing with the way
you used to chatter nervously in your sleep.
And I can almost still smell your apartment
with the candles struggling to mask damp laundry,
unwashed dishes, the smell of sweat and stale ****.
The heaviness collecting inside of my chest resembles
the weight of your body wrapped around my lap
the last time we spoke and the way my fingers
still found their way to your back.
I wonder if you understood the things my fingertips traced
while our words started cornering us into our familiar place.

                                                      We were circling the drain anyway,
I was just another silly girl who thought she could save someone.

                                 I'm really sorry
                                You should be
I miss you
Good.
                                                         ­                  
                                              ­                                    You always saw through my *******,
                                                       ­                             it scared the hell out of me.
                    
I would have loved you exactly the way you are-unconditionally  
                                           ­                      You were always enough.

                                                       ­                                                                 ­   I love being miserable.
                                                    ­                                            Well, you should probably get used to it.

                                                        
                                                      We were circling the drain anyway...

Our conversations are the world's worst song on repeat
but I felt such smug closure after that night
things finally felt finished or at least mostly complete.
So why now did you feel the need to start the haunting again?
Call off your ******* ghost, B.
I am tired. Its over this time.
This needs to finally end.

I am a little bit more
than a little bit out of my league.
But whenever I start to panic
you try to reassure me.

What happens when we eventually run out,
of things for us to talk about?

Well then we'll both finally get some sleep.

And when we wake up?

**Then we'll  just talk about our dreams.

You told me black was your favorite color,
and I have always preferred lace, myself,
so I found something to make us both happy.

I knew I would see you today,
and if I leaned over in just the right way
you'd see the quick peek of what's hiding underneath
this light summer dress-the kind that lifts off so easily,
and you would wonder if it was for you.

Did you notice?
It was not an accident, but an invitation.
And something about the way
you placed your fingertips over your lips
to hide the smile slowly spreading across them
tells me that you accept.

Unimpressed by excess,
(gluttony doesn't strike a chord with me)
Contrarily, I forever seek more,
but rather than in quantity, I prefer in degree.  

I demand extremes.

If its hot,
I want it to blaze;
If its difficult,
I want it to incapacitate.
If its confusing,
I want it to dizzy me to the point of vomiting.
I want to shake and storm about,
and overwhelm and be overwhelmed.

I demand extremes.

Words need intent and meaning.
If they are meant to inspire,
they better make me ******* soar.
Biting words should drain the victim,
make them bleed,
instead of simply causing discomfort
or stunning momentarily.

I demand extremes.

Why say it,
when I can scream it?

Why just feel it,
when I can be consumed by it?

I  can't just idly sit by and watch my life
but rather I must fight and struggle and
lash out at it violently.
Days are long and meant to be conquered
and nights are meant to be devoured.

Why be content to just live life
when you can beat the **** out of it instead?

*Just don't be surprised when it returns the favor

Contentment is admirable,
complacency is dangerous.
Lines be                                                   b
                 t                                               l
                w                  often                     u
                   ee                                              r.
              ­        n                                               .
       ­                                                                 ­   .
                                                               ­         ..
                                                     ­                  .
                                                                     .
                                                               .
                                                 .

Elbows propped on tabletops,
we roll out our worlds, like a red carpet,
across the surface between us.
Mapping out our weeks
we speak in riddles
only able to be understood by
present company and others with
an acute appreciation for the absurd.

Round 1
We begin by bouncing pleasantries
mingled with snark and
littered with nonsense stories
across the space where our scotch glasses
drain lazily between us.

Round 2
Brings with it a new tone-
we begin to slip into hypotheticals
and start the dangerous
and all too familiar process of
looking over our own shoulders.
The past seems to sneak
into the pauses and reminiscing starts
to seem too surreal to be appealing.

Round 3
And we are forced to keep reluctant company
with the regret that now speckles the tabletop in front of me.
Our eyes retreat from each other
as our  mouths start forming
around our greatest inadequacies.
Fear of the future,
we're petrified by the present.
We are forgetting how to be hesitant
as coping mechanics drift and split.

Round 4
**** starts to get real.
You try to be ambivalent.
And I just get angry.

Round 5
I am entertaining the possibility
of weeping publically.
(It's an unfortunate emotional default setting)

Round 6
We find our way back
to the familiar.
Accessing the damage
we joke to save face
while working to wind the loose ends
back together again
to stash them from where they came.
(But nothing ever fits back into its box as easily after its been unpacked)

Each week we try to be
each other's comfort zone
to crawl inside
to rest awhile.
But tonight we're too exhausted
and too self-absorbed
and too similar to get it right.
We'll try again next week,
on the next high-top next Wednesday night.

You are so tentative and terrified
and we both know beyond a reasonable doubt
exactly how much of it is all my fault.

There is no way to deny
my responsibility this time.

But I am confident and competent
and, at this point, not really giving a ****-
(rock bottom has advantages sometimes.)

I have nothing left to lose
because I have already misplaced you
but I am a master of Hide and Seek
and you are not terribly hard to find.

**I gave you fair warning that I wasn't backing down this time.

Softball game recap:**
We went down swinging...
                
unfortunately,

                        only figuratively...

Look closely
and find-
sugar and spite
and everything *trite.

Ancient History
doesn't seem so far
when you are drunkenly
swaying with it at the bar.
So grab on to that glass,
and hold on to the straw
because this time, darling,
we are not ending in a draw.

Finite time is not designed
to accomodate a poet's fate.

Although it helps us
            write,
It doesn't make it
             right.

On  more than one occasion,
you said that I deserved nice things.

But you never really understood
how little things mean to me.

Instead, I believe
I deserve to fill my life with nice people,
but based on your behavior
it doesn't seem like you quite agree.

I stare steadily
with great interest and
the unrivaled concentration
usually reserved for tasks
such as bravely attempting the
(ever-humbling)
Sunday crossword,
clinging to the fragments
of the dream
desperately trying to escape
with each new moment
you are awake,
and other endeavors that hint at grave importance.

The solutions to my life's predicaments
haven't yet turned up,
but, just in case I could find them here,
I will continue to refill and
search to bottom of this coffee cup.

Age isn't important,
if you
(and your pen!)
are alive.

If Love is a Drug,
maybe
I'm actually abusing you?

Life pushed hard.
You shoved
that **** right back.

Your fire
has always burned brighter.
Be proud of that.

The percussive April sounds
work themselves into a perfect storm
as the electric Spring hues-
you know the ones:
the shocking orange,
an almost toxic green,
explode with little regard to ceremony
and settle into spaces
that were splintered by winter
and buried away, forgotten and lonely.
It helps me remember that I am not the only thing
to survive the harsh reality of December.

And, trust me, it was easier said than done.
As the world around me shifts and begins to renew
I start to learn to grow back too.

sentences,
       words,
syllables,
      sounds-

unstick  your lips/ push them around.

Why do poets insist on dwelling on Love?
What a futile, tragic endeavor, indeed.
The only thing, however,
more futile and truly tragic
is to believe that we ever really had a choice
in the matter.
Poets cannot help but to root around the subtle
and revel in the profound.
And Love seems to be the most natural
and confounding sickness around.
Its the most fundamentally complex
ailment we've found to date.
So continue to unravel
my dear friends
and pinpoint and storm about.
Carry on with the exploration
of the rawness, the disappointment,
the unmatched excitement and roaring self-doubt.
Keep prodding and analyzing
and let me know if you discover a way
to cure oneself of unwanted, unrequited love
and live without.

Even my
      coloring books
            imply
  where my
             fierce loyalties
                     lie...