**** me platonically.
Measure the distance between your fingers and the synapse in my brain.
Check the amplitude across my breastplate and The absence of love marks semblance covering it.
Detach your hips from mine and run away from Me faster.
Look along the purlieu of my heart and shake me Harder with subliminal messages between Glances.
Touch my versification to your mouth and do not Stop your flickering eyes from studying the genial Eulogies between every line.
Sir, you cannot touch antique pieces of marrow And bone.
This blood is obsolete.
How anachronistic to have a heart pumping Inside of a dead soul.
Please tell me a story, the side I could never see.

on your wedding day

I will sit in wooden church pews more uncomfortable than your fathers stare because he knows what we are both thinking.

I will let my eyes wander through eyelashes heavy with reflections from the light of your smile as she walks down the aisle.

I watch as your hands shake like a child chasing a sudden warm breeze only to find a tornado.

you say your vows and I can only imagine ***** overflowing from your mouth because the name you say after "I love you" is not mine. It is not even close.

friends and family rise and pianos begin to play what sounds like a death march. You will have your first dance with her moments after this and all I can remember  is the jealousy in your eyes the night you wished you were the one dancing with me.

the room clears out and I can only think of the bed you will make love to her in. I hope you still find my stray hairs between the sheets. I know your finger tips will caress her sides in a way I never knew how to receive.

the song of my heart was always a little off pitch, so, when she plays the pianos of your heart I can only hope this time it will be in the right

key.

You really have to watch those liberal males,
they'll spend hours and hours with you having
deep intellectual conversations.

They'll discuss deep ideas, contemplate esoteric
theory and spiritual ideas. They'll make love
for hours and write deep and meaningful poetry
about you. Sure, they will probably wear their hair
long and most likely won't own a television.

But, they'll understand art and architecture and
literature. It's true that they probably won't give two
shakes about who won what football game, but they'll
dance with you late at night under the stars and they're
always looking for new ways to please you and usually
understand your deepest thoughts, often before you
understand them yourself.

They'll be your best friend and always treat you as
an equal, in fact, it will never even enter their mind
that you're not. They're almost always physically fit, too,
because they're usually the outdoorsy type and love to hike.
They never make fun of others, or discuss small ideas.
They enjoy discussing ways to improve the world and
the lives of others.

Sure, they won't slap you on your *** and tell you to get in
the kitchen and cook them some dinner and bring them a beer
while you're at it like those macho men on the right. Instead
they'll probably tell you to relax while they whip you up a
gourmet meal and serve it to you on the best dishes.

Yeah, you really gotta watch out for those liberal males.

things start to make sense as soon as you start feeling like background music instead of the main character in your own life and you'll start staring down at your shoes a lot and watching your phone die without making the effort to charge it again.
you'll feel lonely but never intend on making the effort to speak to anyone and you'll start looking for love in drunk encounters and every corner you can find it but it's not really love it's fake smiles and cold showers afterwards. you'll start to listen to songs that sound like all the apologies you want to tell them and watch sunrises that look like forgiveness.
you start spending a lot of time in busy coffee shops but at empty tables and in bed but never asleep.
and you'll start to realize that they haven't missed you in weeks and your hands started to shake more after they stopped holding them.
you'll begin closing yourself off again and silently apologizing to the next person that tries to love you.
you'll start drinking whenever you're around friends because if you don't they'll ask you why you're so quiet and silence is so much worse than slurred speech filling every gap and unfitting laughs every two minutes. then you realize you're just as needy as you were when you were three and someone had to rub your back to get you to fall asleep and all they had to do was tell you they love you for everything to make sense.

1) For every great skyscraper, there are petty fingers that built them.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
They were strong enough to raise a hammer, but not enough to raise a family.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
She is cold, and he is drinking, and this is our backbone.
She is alone and he is driving home too fast because sometimes you don't have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
She is afraid and he is warm, this is the beginning spark of a forrest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in. Everyone with a burden holds their confessions in their left palm and their beggings in their right and no one ends up having enough arms to hold each other.
2) One day the whole world will be in your hands too, and you'll see that sometimes darkness can blind you worse than the red glare the sun paints your vision when you stare at it with your eyes closed.
You will be brave, you will stand up straight, you will stop being royal when people stop painting Jesus with a purple robe.
Even the concrete asks the sun to make it a garden so try cracking your knuckles a little louder and maybe you will wake up as a mountain.
3) Autumn. When you wrote secrets on notebook paper and taped them underneath benches in the city park, you gave too many pieces of yourself to things that weren't made for holding that much weight.
But you said it kept you honest and there were never any reasons for me to ask you to stop giving away the parts of you I wanted to myself. It kept me humble.
4) I am alone
5) You are October in a green dress with a black mask around your eyes and you have stolen the breathe of that day. And I hope when you are 80 years old you feel a breeze sliding on the back of your neck reminding yourself of all the times it should have snapped in half during the moments of what should have been your hanging, how it takes you back to living life like you're always in the desert and stealing innocent people's money and smoking cigarettes beside rattlesnakes.
I hope you find a beach in the Caribbean that asks to be died on, I hope you learn to forgive people harder than you can cry on their shoulder. I hope you watch a sunrise that you spend the rest of your life thinking about. I feel like for that to happen you need your feet in the ocean or underneath a rocking chair, but I would settle for your bedroom.
6) But with you it was never settling.

THESE ARE YOUR HANDS AND THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE FLAMES YOU'RE NOT ALL BAD.
THESE ARE YOUR THIRD DEGREE BURNS TO SAY YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH BONES MELTING IN TRUST ISSUES.
THESE ARE YOUR WRISTS, THOSE ARE YOUR KNEECAPS, THIS IS YOUR STORY.
THIS IS HOW YOU BITE YOUR TONGUE BUT STILL MANAGE TO LEAVE THE WORLD WONDERING HOW YOU COULD MATCH UP TO THUNDER'S HARMONIES,
THIS IS HOW YOU WHISPER TO MOUNTAINS AND KNOW THE PEAKS WILL HEAR YOU.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD TO SHAKE HANDS WITHOUT STARTING AN EARTHQUAKE,
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL DEPRESSION TO LIGHTEN UP,
THIS IS HOW YOU GRAB ANXIETY BY THE SHOULDERS AND SING LULLABIES TO ITS LUNGS.
THIS IS HOW YOU WALK UP TO GOD AND RIP OPEN YOUR CHEST WITHOUT INTRODUCING YOURSELF FIRST AND ASK "WHY?"
THERE'S PAPER UNDERNEATH YOUR PILLOW,
THOSE ARE THE NOTES YOU PASSED TO YOUR BEST FRIEND IN THE THIRD GRADE WHEN YOU TOLD HER ABOUT YOUR FIRST CRUSH.
THERE'S A PAPER THAT'S BEEN IN YOUR BACK POCKET FOR A YEAR AND A HALF,
THE ONE NEXT TO YOUR RECEIPT FOR A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY AND STAIN REMOVER,
THIS IS THE NOTE SHE WROTE YOU A WEEK BEFORE HER FUNERAL.
THIS IS HOW YOU WASH YOUR JEANS WITH TWO CUPS OF 'TODAY I FORGOT TO REMEMBER TO FORGET'.
THIS IS HOW YOU COPE.
THIS IS HOW YOU LAY ON MUD STAINED CARPETING AND AND STARE AT YOUR BROKEN DOOR,
THIS IS HOW YOU CONVERT TO HARDWOOD FLOORS AND STRONGER DOOR HINGES.
THIS IS HOW YOU WIN A WAR WITH ONE BODY ON A BATTLEFIELD,
THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW A BLIND MAN THAT YOU CAN PAINT A ******* MASTERPIECE.
THIS IS HOW YOU REACH HEAVEN WITHOUT DYING, THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW HELL WITHOUT LIVING THROUGH IT.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, BY CROSSING PATHS WITH THE GUY THAT MADE YOU HATE WET PAVEMENT AND THE SMELL AFTER IT RAINS,
THIS IS HOW YOU HELD HIS HAND THE SAME WAY YOU HOLD A KNIFE, THIS IS HOW YOU LEARN FORGIVENESS.
THIS IS HOW YOU SMOKE WITH THREE LUNGS AND LOVE WITH ONE.
THIS IS HOW YOU STUFF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE IN A FORTUNE COOKIE AND LEARN PATIENCE.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL PEOPLE YOU'RE NOTHING LIKE YOUR MOTHER. THIS IS HOW YOU SAY YOU HAVE YOUR EYES, NOT HERS BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU UNCLENCH YOUR HUSBANDS FISTS.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE SOMEONE THAT NEVER KNEW HOW TO BE ALONE, THIS IS HOW YOU WORRY.
THIS IS HOW YOU CONFIDE IN A HOSPITAL BED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO LET GO.
THIS IS HOW YOU LET THE NURSE WITH SHAKY HANDS TEACH YOU HOW TO TRACE THE STRAIGHT LINE ON YOUR HEART MONITOR AND BE OKAY AFTERWARDS. THIS IS HOW YOU LIVE AND ACCEPT DEATH.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNEARTH YOURSELF,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP EXISTING,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP FOCUSING ON LIVING AND BREATHE FOR YOURSELF.
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP THINKING AND FEEL.
THIS IS HOW YOU SPEND A LIFETIME TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT 'THIS' IS.

you are eighteen and you're in love
with a boy who hates his birthday.
you don't know it yet,
but the world gets so much bigger than the back of his car.
you think he needs you to be happy and so does he
but both of you are wrong.
it'll take you almost a year to stop crying.
and then you don't talk for another three
and when you finally do,
he thinks he still knows you,
but your heart is heavier than it was then.
and you **** him because you're lonely
but it isn't the same.
neither of you can fake love.
at least he still makes you laugh.
you'll pretend it's enough
because at least he's a body.
at least you're not by yourself.
at least you're alive
and you're good at *******.
because bodies are distractions
from the things we hide inside them.
you have him inside you
and he wants to gut you of your ugly, your sad.
he scrambles for an excuse not to stay the night
and you laugh.
you know what this is and how it goes
and you both love someone else.
you swear you won't **** him again
but you do anyway because you're still lonely
and you like the way his hands fit around your neck.
you **** him because it's good for your art
and you get bored of your own hands on your body
and you're fine with letting him feel useful.
and you think about when you were sixteen
and how *** was supposed to be special
and it makes you cry
because you're not who you wanted to be.
it makes you cry, because the world got so much bigger
after you left the backseat of his car.
the world is so big and you don't know
how it ended up on your shoulders.
you would have died for him.
you have been ready to die for every person you have ever loved.
you have dreams where he dies
and you can't save him.
you have dreams where people die
and you can't save them
and you're the one who tied your hands.
your mangled heart and all its bleeding.
nobody asked you to die.
what good is all the love in your chest
if you don't leave any for yourself?

- m.f.