I strung Christmas lights on my bed
Because they make me happy
Because they make my dreams brighter
But some nights
We don't say goodnight
And I can taste the bitterness
On your tongue
Like rock salt and toothpaste
Those nights
I unplug the lights
Because those nights
I don't deserve them

This is not a love poem
Because I swear to god I'm not in love
This is not beautiful
Because I swear to god I'm not that either
This is a half assed pretentious poem
That I wrote to distract myself
From actually feeling sad
Because it's a lot easier to pretend
"I'm fine" is not an excuse
If you can say
"my poetry gets notes on Tumblr"

The ride from Starbucks was too quiet.
We sit crossed on adjacent couches.
All six feet of him cornering into my couch.
He sweating in his black ninja shirt and jeans
because my house is always 10 degrees too hot for him.
His half-smile retreats behind your tongue.
I am too bright for him in my pink T-shirt.
The couch I lie on barely runs the length of my legs.
My hands fiddle with my blue wristband,
snap it across the room. I lock my fingers together.
The clock coughs loudly with each tick.
He was suppose to be home four hours ago.
The pillows and I lean in. This conversation
starts as a reflection. He wants to know
why people are friends with him. Why I keep
claiming him as my best friend. I admit
it is because I want him to be mine.
He saved me from the black undertow.
Threw me a fishing hook. Reeled me into his boat.
His phone rings. His mom and dad are furious
that he has ignored dinner. Slowly, he drags
himself across my carpet. He wraps his palm
around the door handle. His shoulders roll back-
this has never happened before- he say stiffly,
I've been dating another man for two months now,
I didn't tell you because I didn't want to lose your
friendship. You are the best friend I have ever had.
He slumps through my door,
face too blue and low to say good-bye.
He didn't expect me to cry.
I sit here jarred as we once were.
Trace the tears on the floor.
I can't find it in me to pelt him against my wall
like ******. There is only He is still my best friend.
The whole house shakes with me.
My lungs are jellied.

I think your hair looks better now that you've grown it out.
Let the curls that come natural breeze down your neck.
It looks like you belong in it.
Not like last year.
The way your hair, cut and lopsided,
German like the rest of you.
Spending time with people you knew weren't worth the honey soak on your hair.
I look next to me on your couch,
sideways and drunk,
notice the way our hair curls in the same directions.
How your kaleidoscope lamp lets the blonde reach out of our tips.
How the guitar on your lap leans to the middle of us.

I cut my hair two weeks ago.
I said it got in the way of performance,
but really I wanted you to see the way my hair curls natural breeze on my shoulders.

Me

You find me, your eyes knockout-black.
I am heavy, swerving through the door.
You do not speak. You lift me by the slop
of my neck, drop me in front of the toilet.
You flip the lights, hook me to the bowl. Wait.
I can't feel the porcelain fangs.
The toilet taunts me, smiles
like it has been waiting.
I know you must be swirling red,
you raised me to not fall like this.
Your down-stare and strict chin bites
more than any hangover, rocks me like a ritual.  
I see no up from here. I cannot face you. I know
I have failed. I have not yet earned the dark mark of man.

Him**

Boy, you used to be rainbow-young,
rosed cheek,  yellow life, too eager
to grow up. Baby, now you are whisking
in the husk of a bottle, slosh and off-tilt.
I am grateful you made your way
home. I was like this once. My father
turned a blind body to me. Left me
swollen and ripe for the bathroom.
I will be there for your initiation.
Silent as I hunch you off the toilet bowl,
watch you atone for your regrets.
The toilet beckons you. It wants to lick
you with the same crystallize bite
it gave me. This is how it's always been.
You have passed the test I've raised you to fail.
I know you will not face me, curl to the waist
of the toilet. This is the dark way to manhood.

I'm afraid of needles.
I'm tired of rubber sheets and tubes.
I'm tired of faces that I don't know
and now I think that death is starting.
Death starts like a dream,
full of objects and my sister's laughter.
We are young and we are walking
and picking wild blueberries.
all the way to Damariscotta.
Oh Susan, she cried.
you've stained your new waist.
Sweet taste --
my mouth so full
and the sweet blue running out
all the way to Damariscotta.
What are you doing? Leave me alone!
Can't you see I'm dreaming?
In a dream you are never eighty.

My best friend and I got married 6 times
in my front yard that summer.
Our fingernails *****, hair short and knees bleeding.
The peonies lining my stairs leaned towards us
knowing what love was,
we were 8 and pretending to, toes muddy and noses burnt.

2. The window frames were the color of my mother’s lips;
at night,
I sat on the ledges and pressed my cheek
to cold shattered paint. My dad would ask
why my face was the color of a rose bud sometimes.

3. The tree in the front wasn’t sick
when I was younger.
I cried underneath it
and the ridges reached to me,
still and scraping, taking the pieces of me
I couldn’t handle. My love is somewhere deep in my front yard.