he tasted faintly of cigarettes and black coffee-
a single kiss satisfied all my vices

he had galaxies turning slowly within him
and she crawled inside and kissed every planet

he filled my bones with
    moonlight and cicada songs,
his kisses tasted of
    slow lazy days
and even when i felt the seasons
    change,
i couldn't let him go

He exists in a world
a little higher than hers,
filled with more
colors and shapes
than she could ever
dare to see.
She traces the lines
he created and longs
to feel what he feels,
to taste the same
inexplicable tinge in the air
that he breathes,
But her eyes don't see,
she doesn't feel
and her lungs can never know.
And that's why she
needs him so fiercely,
why she clings so tightly
to her painter.

My heart has know every kind of love it can

Thank you
for doing everything right.
You're my favorite story
to tell,
still so surreal to me
that I dare not
defile you with
my clumsy pen and page.
Rest assured,
my soul remembers every detail.
And if life were to
ever bring you back my way,
I'd love you still

I wonder if the stars know how many
love poems
promises
sighs
serenades
slow dances
soft kisses
proposals
whispers
they've inspired.
I also wonder how many of them still yet wish they were the moon.

I missed you
even when I was in your arms
because
I knew
the lips you were kissing
weren't mine.

If the artist were to love the writer
and she him,
surely,
their souls would never
untangle.

His voice whispered he believed in me
and in that moment
I hid my secrets in his soul

m a y b e...
if i scream
             loud
      enough...
you won't hear
my heart
breaking

turns out
i couldn't
do it
for you,
so i
did it
for me

I have a friend,
beautiful and daring,
who is now afraid to love
because of the men
standing in her shadow.
                                         "Maybe I don't know what love really is,"
she said.
                                         "Maybe you loved someone who didn't deserve it.
                                            And that's okay"
I replied.

He knew
the only
way to get
enough of her
was to breathe her into both lungs and never exhale

If it wasn't love,
the hole she felt
in her chest
told her it was
***** close

He was her skeleton key
changing shape and
fitting snugly to her,
dying to unlock
her so that he could
reside in the space
between her ribs

His name melted on my tongue
and was breathed out like a sigh

There's a place in her mind
where he can not reach,
no matter how deep
his longing goes.
Her form lies with his
but her closed eyes are
drinking in worlds
he never could,
no matter how much
he thirsts.
She's breathing in
ethereal elements
his lungs will never know,
because she is his dreamer.

If my bones poked more readily
through my skin,
would more men
long to cut themselves
on my edges?

i
write
to
discover
how
i
really
feel
about
life

Loving you is like
intentionally drinking poison-
foolish and painful.

My skin
isn't fitting
anymore.
I wear it like a hand-me-down dress,
resentful of the way it
scratches itches pinches pulls pokes chokes
me.
It's tailored to fit someone else.
The person I used to be
but not this new me.
When I try to reach
I can feel it tear
with no point in trying to
repair it,
it doesn't fit me
keep me warm or
protect me.
I'm desperately fighting the urge
to rip it off with
nails teeth sheer will
ANYTHING
so I can free my rib cage and
inflate my lungs without restraint.
But as I examine the fabric
I realize I don't know what's
underneath.
What if I'm bare?
Nothing to hide behind or blame,
only my goose-bumped self
to stand before all eyes,
vulnerable?
Is freedom worth exposure?
The seams seem to grow tighter
as I contemplate,
"This is it.
I cannot wait."
**tear

Sometimes we get the itch.
It's annoying & persistent & insatiable.
We've all felt it,
that hand twitch when you hear
pen against paper,
that foot tap while you mumble
to yourself.  
It's actually quite natural.
It happens because
our bones are filled with syntax,
our skin is parchment
& our thoughts are iambic meters.
If they were to draw blood,
unwritten love poems would
bleed out of us.
We can't help it.
We can't help it that
sonnets & haikus & tankas & free verses
line our lungs,
that we breathe in rhymes.
Because if we try to repress
our God-given inclination
we'll get **the poet's itch.

That smile, right?
He was smooth.
He could tell you the sky was
green and you'd believe him.
Soon you felt special.
You were the escape,
the safe haven, right?
Promises were made in seconds,
and were supposed to last forever.
Like when you talked about running away.
Leaving one town for the next, heck, even
a new country.
All doors seemed open.
Until you started to go through one and
BAM!
You smacked into the glass lens of a
CNN news camera
Alone.
The smile was gone.
The promises broken.
Now it's inquisitions and allegations.
It's the 6'o'clock news and tear soaked pillows.
It's memories that were burnt into your mind
waking you up at night.
But who hasn't been taken in, only to be shoved out?
I mean, it takes 2 to tango, Monica,
but we all have dance cards that we wish weren't punched.
I guess the only difference between us is
*your guy was married

If each star is a wish
then the heavens are
illuminated by dreams.
Each one is lovely,
dancing gracefully
in the sky until it
comes true.
Then it falls down
to earth,
back to the mind that
first created it,
to wait for rebirth.
The ones that don't
come true
continue their eternal dance,
giving hope to the one who
put it there,
reminding them to
*never stop reaching for
the stars.

I'm not scared of waking up alone.
I'm terrified that you're not.

Life is the mixing of
voices
dreams
bones
and
fears.

I'd live in your ribbed cage
if
   you'd
       let
           me

It's too difficult.
       I'm flesh and blood
so when I try to convert
       myself to
       paper and ink,
I don't like it...
                         Paper me has no depth
                                                        pizazz
                                                   or truth
to her.
She's 2D in more way than one,
simply pretending to have
                                                  life
                                                  love
                                          and excitement.
Vicarious living will only breathe a few
feeble
puffs into her deflated parchment lungs,
but that's all I can
ever
give her.
To impart all my life
                               love
                       and excitement
into her would                  
                          drain me
                           zap me
(and probably) shock me.
Because then she
would no longer be
Paper Me,
she'd be
Real Me
and I don't think I could
          bear to
            come face to face
               with **Real Me

I can only think in
half formed metaphors,
and before I know it
they're
gone.
But,
I bet
if I wrote down every
eloquent phrase I thought up
and stitched them together,
they'd make a
romance novel.

A poet wants...
    Someone who adores everything they've ever written
    (because it means they adore us)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who's honest, who tells us when it's not our best work
      (because it makes the good work even more special)
A poet wants...
    Someone to hold close every night. Someone who loves to have poems breathed into their collarbone while they sleep
     (because it inspires long love poems)
But a poet needs...
      Someone who spends a few nights away. Someone who forgets to call occasionally
       (because it inspires real poems)
A poet wants...
    Everything to be perfect. To be able to edit and rewrite life as it happens, so we never have to feel pain
    (because then we wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about the unshared poems in our journals)
But a poet needs...
    Pain. Imperfection. Mistakes. Life.
     (because it allows us to write to feel to forgive to learn. To bleed out our heartbreak with ink and parchment. To reach out to each other with words)
All because a poet thrives on the difference between *want and **need

I can only write
    in
      the
         dark
(Is that odd?)

I don't mean to drag it out, to go on and on
Call it "over-thinking" or "emotional detox",
But I have to write you out now that
You're **gone

I hate myself for this
but ****,
*I miss you

I will not hurt(you) no more
I will not fake(for you) no more
I will not break(your heart) no more
I simply will not be (yours) no more.

Real*
love*
only pours
from the
pages of
my *Bible

There has never been
another person
capable of
fixing me

He is strong because he can't stand to feel weak.
  His words ***** her skin but his laughter brings relief.
    His biggest regrets are in the shadows of his reflection.
      She wants to climb inside and put him back together.
        But like the moon and ocean, there is no "them".