i read your poems, but i can't read you.
what's the point?

other boys, they call me pretty-
well,
sometimes they do.
but still,
other boys, they touch my hand,
they like my hair,
they think i'm funny.
but they're not you,
and that rips me up.

the boy who once said i'm not his type
doesn't think
you are good
for me.
but
he doesn't know you.
he doesn't know
your pretty
folded
inside out
folded
right side out,
folded
into the pit
of my stomach, giving me butterflies.
oh, my god, i think this is what love feels like
when you’re stuck on the rewind
of a cassette tape,
because the player
doesn’t auto-stop,
and you don't feel like getting up,
so the tape snaps or tangles or knots.
either way it can’t be the same ******* song,
it sounds too different to be.
warbled.

but the beat is the same.
it starts off slow then speeds up
as the eyes get bluer
and her cheeks get warmer.
tha. thump. tha. thump.
tha thump. tha thump.
thathumpthathumpthathump.

if you love me, baby, just say so.
because i’m so brand new,
i’m so full of darkness.
you’re so ruggedly smooth,
so full of lightning.
i’m so brand new,
that i can’t read you like your poems.
i’m so full of darkness,
that i can’t feel loved anymore.
but, baby, baby, bubby.
i could love you like a poem.

i’ll be the body electric.
(i love as hard as a whitman)
i’ll be the master, the dream, the fool.
(i love as illogically as a kipling)
i’ll be immortal.
(i’ll love as sweetly as a dickinson)
i’ll be everything
you’ve ever read about and wanted,
if you’d just come clean.

so if you love me
if you love me
come clean.

If we could achieve unity
Maybe you and me
Could live happily

that was gonna be me
ya know?
well it almost was
but sometimes
i feel like it really should have been
if only i had tried hard enough

but wouldn’t you know
trazodone is actually really
hard to overdose on
so it seems safe to conclude
that when the paramedic told me
i was lucky i had woken up
he was lying

the bottom line is though
that i thought i was ready
to be that person who so
many others knew
went to school with
grew up with
but then they all would have
continued to age
while i became part of the earth again

and while i was certainly
gone for those few hours
before i woke up
soaked in sweat
tangled in my sheets and
the realization that i had failed
my heart was still beating
and when i was pulled under again
fear gripped me tighter than
my depression and
suicidal urges ever did

because i didn’t want to die
i was only sixteen years old
my sister was in the room
right next to mine
and i wondered what that would
have done to her
if she had found me
and that makes me hate myself
just that much more

but failing that
being an almost statistic
waking up
and voluntarily being admitted
into the psychiatric ward
it made me a survivor
it meant that i wanted to live
and i do
i really do

but there are so many
other scars besides the one
on my skin and possibly some
internal organs
that run like deep grooves
inside of my psyche
and i sometimes wonder
why people that want to die
that do **** themselves
are treated like they did not
want to live
when they wanted to live
the most of all

why does wanting to
have the pain stop
make them bad people?

I want to be sad
but I know I should be stronger than that.
The lies you told filled my heart with love
I couldn't have been happier.

I want to cry
but you're not worth those tears
anymore
If I shed
its for myself
for ignoring what deep down I knew
I didn't have you
Not truly
You were never mine to have

This hole that is left
feels like death
How can I ever let myself love again?

He writes loves stories of wonder beyond inspiration

and no one could ever match his wit, his art, his creation

No one could defeat him from the poet’s throne
                                 . . .
Though the king of composed literary

is a fool behind his work of virtuosity

a clown to his own emotions

describing love letters for a lover he has let go

Why be so depressed and stressed
Just because you're lovesick,
It's fixable with the risk
Of one more set of dead lips.

I remember sitting with my legs crossed
at an empty parking lot with you.
Burning our lungs,
sharing our deepest secrets at 3am
while I rest my head
on your shoulder that cold summer night.
I sang along our favorite songs
and you wished that time stopped
so we could still be together.

But alas,

You are still too damaged.
You think too much.
You are too practical.
You are not yet ready for anything.

And I’m left confused
and angry
and frustrated
and a little bit hurt, I guess.

So here we are again,
so here we go again.

Who would have thought
that we would actually
burn even faster
than our cigarettes?

                                                    ­                        
 — apbq

home alone,
i sit down on the kitchen floor,
cradling my heart in my hands.

i see your face in my mind,
and my heart shatters in my palms,
a few pieces cutting my fingers.

two-thirds of a bottle of jack later
i don't feel the pain anymore.
everything's hazy, everything's blur.

then your face floats up
out of my sub-conscious drunkenness
and my stupid heart starts to hurt again.

i finish the bottle in five quick swigs.
there's a burn in my chest,
but somehow it doesn't hurt as bad

as the wounds you left in your wake.
i fall asleep, cheek against
the cold tiled kitchen floor,

and stumble back into consciousness
the next morning, swearing and groaning,
but with the daylight comes

the clarity of the memories
i've been trying so hard to push away.