Time carves us all from the inside,
people recognize faces
but do not realize no one
is who they were the day before.
Every loss, every victory, chipping pieces off
like tiny stones quietly slipping over the edge.
Sometimes I want to wear my growth
Like a new dress.
Sometimes I want to share my scars
Like a name tag,
have you call me by my real name,
let the world love me without judgement.
No one escapes pain, so what’s the point in small talk.
We all share a bed with the shape of everything we’ve ever lost,
so I don’t want to talk about the weather.

Elliott is 10 today, a decade passed like the blink of an eye, yet I feel like I have loved him forever, time is funny like that. He’s closer to adult now than baby on my lap; a thought too achy to process. His toy box sits untouched most days, sometimes I’ll see him pick up an action figure he used to love, and there will be a slight spark in his eye, but it’s gone as fast as it comes. From his room, I can hear him laughing while watching cartoons. I cling to these fleeting moments of his childhood, imprint the sound of his wild boy laugh, commit it to memory, and understand that time only passes this fast when you love this hard. I am happy to love you so, my dear, let the years pass, fast as they may.

Grabbing on to the thin cigarette trees
we’d take the steep path down to the creek,
sat on that freckled stone while catching our breath,
we could hear trains in the distance,
you’d imitate them, the whistles, and hisses.
I’d throw my head back in laughter, and wait for an echo.
As a teen, you would imagine the trains arrived
to pick up the lucky, who found their way out.
I asked you if you ever considered
that maybe those trains brought the broken back home as well.
You didn’t understand then.
Today I imagine you, small suitcase, heavy heart,
on the train to inspect what is left of that beautiful, big, old house,
I see you mentally sorting through what remains;
Maybe the smooth rocks, plucked from the creek,
by a child who wanted nothing but to leave,
and today could not possibly come back home.
California is on fire.
the sky is blood orange,
the sky is Big Stick red,
the sky is end of the world blue.
The woman on the news informs me it’s fire season,
and we’ve yet to reach its peak.
I become increasingly annoyed
as she refers to herself as "on the frontlines"
while standing in the parking lot of a Wendy’s,
in heels, and a short dress,
knowing nothing of what you have lost.

You’ll be 34 this year, you remember as you take a sip of wine,
the same wine you drank before it was legal to do so.

You struggle to decipher which parts are yours still,
and which parts belong to the girl who indulged
Before her time.

You tried to paint the moon tonight, on the good paper,
it doesn’t turn out. You attempt to capture it on your phone.
Despite how clear it was, it just escapes you.

There is dust collecting in the corners of your dining room floor.
You tell yourself that real women have clean baseboards.

They don’t attempt, and fail, to paint the moon when their children fall asleep.

You admit that you have not met the standards of your mother.
She never looks at you with disappointment,
she’s just scared the others would never understand your heart the way she does.

The record on the player needs to be flipped over,
That’s a compromise you’ve made,
for being able to indulge in the past a little longer,
once again.

It’s 2 am, a bookmark for sleep, that’s when adults
are allowed to go home.

You clean your brushes under cold water,
make sure to turn off all the lights.

Elliott reads aloud from some adventure book, I take over when his eyes are tired.
Luna is in the bath again, she’s a mermaid this week.
Jeremy works from home, his eyes dart back and forth, across computer screens.
If you weren’t watching the news, one could mistaken this merely as reverence for the mundane.
I turn off the news, and feel guilty for wanting to look away, I turn it back on again.
I did nothing to deserve the safety of my home, with the people I love.
I am reminded of the day the second Iraq war started,
we watched from our couch.
Black and white images of falling bombs flooding our screens,
our youngest brother weeping in my mother’s chest.
We all held him and assured him that it was happening somewhere far away,
that it was happening in someone else’s house, not our own.
I wanted to cry then, but I thought I was too old,
Sometimes I want to cry now, but I’m even older.
The neighbor’s dog howls all day long.
The kids run, laughing maniacally, from living-room,
to bedroom, and back again.
They are unencumbered by the chaos that remains unseen/unfelt in our home
I am grateful for that.

Through some shiny contraption,
the pasta emerges smooth and flat.
Your arm around your new lover;
flour spread over a counter,
the both of you grinning.
When you look at the picture you can't tell
if you're this version, or the other.
You are a puzzle pieced together by a child
who knows nothing about life.

In a dream you're at the creek
where we saw the bear last summer;
this time he speaks to us and sounds like my grandfather.
Laughter like shaking gravel, morphs into babbling water
careening over boulders.
There's a hole in the creek,
in the sky,
in you,
the breeze makes it sting, like salt on a wound.
You clench your teeth and look into the void.
It is the color of everything you loved and lost.
You want your hands to transform to wings,
but again, you are a child who knows nothing about life.

Last winter, wildflowers grew in the California desert,
they called it a Superbloom, it happens every decade.
Soft petals withered into their own bones before the next moon.
Time erodes canyons from mountains, through the earth,
through flesh, through veins, it's all the same.
Natural disaster doesn't always sound a siren,
sometimes things, silently get worn away.

-
You recount in detail the three old ladies
outside of the diner,
how you listened in as they  
described the sky to one another.
One traced the swirls of the clouds
with trembling hands;
you thought it so beautiful,
you could have cried.
-
The record player is spinning the blues
through a gravelly veil.
I anticipate the moment
you lift your hand to your heart,
and exclaim:
"I love this next line!"
-
Sadness creeps in late through
your living room window
like the moon diving
into the ocean;
a wave of grief consumes you,
violent and unforgiving,
as you pour us another glass of
cheap white wine.
-
I feel like a thief in the night
when I think about you
on the train ride home,
as city blocks turn to fields,
and back to blocks again.
There is something blasphemous
about seeing you so clear.

Let me once more wake in my
Grandparent's dusty home.
Baths in the sink, belly out,
cereal on the table.
Petting the big brown dog;
putting my fingers in his mouth
to feel the warmth of his tongue.
******* on lemons;
picking out their seeds
with my small hands.
No thoughts of loss,
no thoughts of war.

I watch the daylight as it creeps across my wall,
it moves slowly, like a dying animal that
wants to live as badly as it has already wished to disappear.

I am bad impersonation of the person I was the day before;
like playing telephone with my body, or becoming a photocopy,
my true self has already begun wane.

When the waves peaked
the sunlight broke
through their belly,
filling the undertow
with stained glass,
blues, and greens.
At the foot of
something holy,
you felt like a child.
If you still
spoke to a God
you would have
done it then.
Instead, you scribbled
short prose
onto wrinkled
receipt paper,
released them
into the ebb.
You thought,
this sadness,
like the ocean,
belongs to all of us now.

We slept on your living room floor that sweltering Summer. Our overheated bodies attempted to absorb the small amount of, cool, humid air escaping the deafening swamp cooler.
No matter the night, your eyes always closed first. Accompanied by your slow breath, the feeling of loneliness would fall over the room like a dense fog.
Despite my proximity to you I could not fight the feeling of singularity. If you would have folded yourself into me, I would have still needed you closer.
On some nights I would walk to the large window that faced a busy intersection, and watch as the city performed a symphony.
The changing of lights, the passing of cars, the drunk laughter of strangers.
Somehow these strangers felt more like home, than you ever could;
with them I was able to imagine possibilities, with you, I knew this was as close as I was ever going to be.
We were actors, waiting for someone to claim the role of the villain. I'm sorry I made you play the part.
Yesterday I passed the bench in Union Station where you would wait for my train. I imagined you there amongst the chatter, and honking horns and there I was, 8 years later, alone (with you) in the fog, again.

I.
I’m standing in front of a stove starved  
for heat, shivering before a *** of boiling water,
my stiff fingers attempt to fold
themselves into my chest.
it's unusually cold in California this week,
I know you would be pleased.
I am focused on a gifted bouquet of orange roses
decorating my dining table;
only you would understand why
they make me so blue.

II.
I thought about you this Thanksgiving,
how your hands drew a line through the air
showcasing points of chaos, as you recounted
the turkey fire, and your grandfather's
drunken speech, 8 years ago this week.
I couldn't remember the punchline,
but we laughed so **** hard.

I figured that's why you were writing,
you too recalled a time I made you laugh,
but edited the sad parts out.

III.
You ask how I am.
I want to tell you I feel not like myself,
but I think it unfair to make you a reference point
of whom I think I should be.
So I'll say, I feel less
like the girl you would remember,
and more like a stranger
living in her body.

IV.
I had a dream three days in a row
where we were sitting on the shallow end
of an empty pool avoiding remnants
of algae water, settled in small ponds.
I was wearing a burgundy, babydoll dress
that I used to wear when I was in eight.
I whispered something in slow motion,
you laughed, teeth grinning towards the sky,
like a child;
how bittersweet it was to remember the way
the lines find their place around your almond eyes.

I guess you will always be a place where
my subconscious goes to ache.

1.
I made my way through thin, cigarette trees
as I searched for, and simultaneously, lost myself.
The foliage coated the ground in different shades of gold,
soft earth's natural armour against my violent feet.

2.
I whispered like smoke, from some conscious place,
"where are you,

                       where are you?"

3.
I found the moon in wavering waters,
resembling a pale dinner plate.
The stars, its companions,
the table on which it was set.

4.
I looked for recognition in the eyes of my reflection,
the face was that of another woman.
One that did not flinch like an exposed nerve;
One that knew she was more like a grains of sand at her feet,
than the gravity around her.

I folded my tired self into her stillness,
knowing that I controlled nothing, and
finally rested.

We are sitting on the shallow side of an empty pool,
avoiding the remnants of algae water settled in small ponds.
I am wearing a burgundy, baby doll dress, the one I used to wear I was 8.
I say something in slow motion, you laugh like a child;
I forgot how the lines gather softly, around the corners of your eyes
as if you were squinting at the sun.

A song that makes you feel nostalgic is playing in the grocery store
you pick through green apples, mushrooms, & cilantro,
absorbing sadness like a dry sponge in a soap bowl.

You wish to mourn, but not in front of strangers so
you carry this knot in your throat, like grocery bags, all the way home.

You've been so quiet for days and after a drink you feel like spilling,
You tell your brother that the moon smells like gunpowder and
about that thing you did in middle school that still makes you cringe.

your last cigarette has reached the filter.
You panic, you feel this is the only way anyone will listen.

There is a small town in Alaska being swallowed by the sea,
the article reads, “Villagers fight to save drowning city…”

You too fight a futile fight against the ocean;
You know the feeling of flailing toes in search of solid ground.

Whenever you get too scared you think about
hang drying, clean, white sheets in an open field.

You don't know why, but it always calms you.

It was late November in Los Angeles,
back when it still used to rain.
In that old apartment in which everything felt
filtered yellow, like coffee stained teeth.
The walls, like you, were too thin;
at times I could hear your neighbor crying.

We used to drink, and head up to the rooftop,
where we would smoke too many cigarettes
and loudly declare our love.
Our aesthetic was broke and romantic.
Drunkenly admiring one another like
we admired the city
by romanticizing it's flawed demeanor.

"...don't you remember me babe,
I remember you quite well..."
I sang to you while I ran my cold fingers
through your soft waves.
You hated Dylan but joked
that I nailed it, and
began warm my hands with your breath.

Every single time I think of you
it is never directly of you.

It always is the red potatoes
sprinkled with rosemary.

It is lit cigarettes on fire escapes.

it is record players,
and scrabble matches.

It is the look on the cab driver's face
as I forced you in his cab
when you got too drunk
on the fourth of july.

It is the ride back home,
over the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is Fireworks exploding
into chandeliers of light,
in the distance,
as you're passed out,
and I'm crying
because I miss my mother.

In hindsight, this too
was beautiful.

Wipe the crumbs from kitchen counter,
sweep the dust from the wooden floors.
do not mourn puddles
of spilled milk.

Look in the mirror, recognize
that there is light, and there is clarity.
See the small child still inside;
You have both loved the same people,
you have both longed for the same home,
how could you deny her?

Butter toast, flip the egg on the stove.
Thank yourself for not yet giving up
despite the hard days.

Your heart,
it is light and pure and honest...
and mine,
mine is heavy
but unknowingly and oh so sweetly
you help carry the weight

And on Sunday mornings
when you awake in my bed and you smile, yawn, blink,
stretch or even just breath,
I think,

NO, wait,

I know,
I was born just to see the green of your eyes.

Your tiny hands are a compass
not because they point
or because they fit perfectly in mine
but because I will always follow them.

Let me please always be a warm bed,
a piece of peace,
a comfort.
Soft, safe and quiet and still.
Soft like my mother was;
with her hands caressing my skin
she could heal any and all wounds.

In whispers let me sing,
"I want to tell you how much I love you,"
as your lids slowly and softly cover your eyes

Today, I made my way through the hallway,
taking the frames down,
wrapping them in old newspaper,
filling the holes they left with putty;
leaving the walls, white and bare.
Once again, erasing every trace of myself.

I walked from room to room, slowly and quietly
like a ghost without matter
trying to cling to things it can not hold.
I took breaks often, sat on the couch,
watched the grass sway through my living room window,
and wrote three awful poems.

I looked around at all my furniture,
realized how most was scratched and damaged
from being forced through so many doors…
I’m sure there’s a metaphor there,
but I’m not going to bother.

I got high by myself
and thought about my father.
I wonder whom or what he thinks about before
he does disappointing things.

I thought about how I’m scared to lose
my mother, If when she’s gone
I’ll remember what she smells like,
the sound of her laugh.

I called you over, hoping you’d accidentally
fall asleep on my couch.
I’ve been having those dreams about trains again,
and you know how much I hate thinking about being on time.

We watched news bloopers
and laughed until our bellies hurt.

I was surprised when you told me
that my presence made you feel calm;

my mind had been screaming for so long
that I forgot I had a presence to begin with.

The sunflowers I bought you
sat backlit by the window.
Their long stems
reflected into our small kitchen;
Every fallen petal played out
like a slow, sorrowful production
on how beautiful things often die.

I remember that last week and how
we had mapped out routes to avoid each other.
Our bodies that once pointed towards
one another like home,
now recalculated every way to avoid contact.

When our eyes involuntarily did meet
I would quickly begin to count
the dry, mustard yellow
blades on our kitchen table
until you were gone.

Till this day, every time I think of you,
I think of petals, and begin to count
until I can no longer feel the
enormous weight of your absence.

Feeling alone in room full of people
is like a corpse on the shoulder,
it's like anchors at your chest.
I do this trick where I disappear
just long enough that when I return
no one will call me.

I don't want to be alone,
but I feel like vase that breaks,
and every time I try I am less whole,
and in a different shape.

I'm always scared that I am getting so **** old
when I still feel like I fit in my mother's lap.
With her hands through my hair,
I can finally sleep,

but I have the same weird dream where
I am 15 and I'm making out with Mikey
in the restroom of Russell's party.

He is lifting my shirt and I tell him if he stops
he can still tell his friends that I let him touch me.

Mikey smiles and leaves, and again
somebody else is telling my story.

The time I first saw Picasso's Blind Man;
there was a loneliness I was unaware
that color, alone, could produce.
Picasso lost his friend & his home,
& I understood why
he mourned for years, in Cobalt blue.

My Mother has kept my Father's last name
for longer than she's known her own.
My father has forgotten who he is so
they hardly speak anymore.
She still carries his torch even knowing
that he may never come home.

I climb the mountains to forget how much
I hate this city.
I watch them from below when I just
want to admire true beauty.
From the bottom, so sacred & somber,
they resemble an elephant sleeping,
surrounded by wild flowers
ready to return home.

We stood at the foot of Elephant Mountain
looking at scattered pieces of metal
illuminated by the blinding sun,
they stood out in the green grassy hill
reminding us with every glimmer how much it really hurt.

A government official tried to convince you
that that was all that was left of the people you love.
He was a liar, we both know that.

You took a seat on the ground, on a bed of rocks and dirt.
It seemed so appropriate so I joined you;
In times like these there is no where to go but down.

I begged the god I often ignore
for direction for the first time in years,  
I searched my memory for every or any wise words I've ever
heard my mother or father speak.
Nothing, absolutely nothing came to mind that would actually matter.
I guess that nothing really matters when faced with death.

so there I sat on the ground
trying my best to hold you
as you tried your best to hold yourself together

I am so sorry, I am so sorry, I am so sorry.

You forgetting me, me forgetting you
such a quiet disease

it gets worse with time

soon you nor I will feel
the feeling of loss when you think about
kissing, touching or making love

If we're lucky we will live on in each other
in a form of nostalgia
Like the feeling you get when you remember
something that used to seem so simple or innocent in your childhood

but at worst we wont remember or pretend not to remember at all

We'll go on with our beautiful lives
Charming this world, one boy, one girl at a time.

God, it is so hard to believe we were once so perfect.
Life is hard and we just kind of get by
I guess it takes it's toll on us.

You thought it would be nice
if I drove home with your sister in law,
after dinner.

I stared out the window of the silver sedan,
the trees engulfed the highway
like  flames of deep forest green.
Not the kind of green that
I recognized in the trees that grew
outside my childhood home.

Being away from you,
even if only for a short moment,
made me feel like a character in the wrong book.
Panic slowly seeped its way into my veins.

I buried myself in my lap.
She asked if I was okay,
I said that I was just tired.

The book on tape playing loudly on the stereo
narrated the rest of our silent drive.

Your dad handed me a box of Frosted Flakes
as he said, "they're great!" in a comically deep voice,
accompanied by the swing of a folded arm.

I laughed in that manner in which anyone laughs at dad jokes:
half heartedly, with a lazy smile.

The crunching of sugary flakes filled the room,
much like your morose mood.
I quietly ate a bowl of cereal,
and watched your face drown in a flood of regret.

I asked why you were so quiet
as you walked me to the guest room that night.
You said you had not spoken to your father in 4 years,
and had forgotten how he used to make you laugh.

You kissed my forehead
and headed towards your childhood bedroom.

I remember that night I slept
in the guest bedroom of your
mother's old house;
your childhood bedroom just across the hallway.

I waited all night for you
to sneak back.
You sat quietly on your bed
romanticizing foggy memories.

When I allow myself to think of
the first mornings we spent together,
I think about how you kissed my shoulder
with sleep still in your eyes;

I remember watching the the city blocks
whimsically turn to fields
and back to blocks again
from the train window,
on my way home.
The train rides were never
a clear picture
as much as they were a feeling,
as thoughts of you consumed me.

I thought about your small,
hot apartment,
the grand weight of our wallets,
empty.
The exaggerated love/lust
as our bellies swished,
full with cheap *****.

Contrary to how it sounds,
this is not a love letter
as much as it is a lament for a person
that once meant everything,
and now is another stranger
on crowded city sidewalk.

I no longer yearn to find you
in some corner of the world,
with arms that have again learned  
how to hold me,
no, this is not a love letter.

I just want to think of you sometimes
and hold on to the parts of you
that already felt like they were mine.

Once again,
I try to remember your scent;
there is no use,
it’s already gone.

i.
you love ghost
like a train you just missed.

with a heart full of regret
and a small bit of hope.

as if you were to change one small thing,
they might return.

ii.
you have been gone for 6 years now,

and i am no longer sure
if you are everywhere,

or if i look for you in everything.

I pass the places we were
one year ago today
not purposely,
it's just that my Gods seem
to have an ill sense of humor.

Walking slowly, numbly, dreamlessly around
a blinking city
that refuses to belong to me
ever again.

With every step kicking up clouds of dirt
in form of awkward memories
from not too long ago
that feel like a hazy far away dream.
it is easier to pretend they were merely that.
Reality is much harder to accept.

Bright Cakes with soft candle light
that graced your brow.
And I find myself hoping and wishing
I didn't know that you were doing so well,

if so...I'd be able to lie to myself
and imagine that you think of me
a little sometimes.

I hope you found what you wanted,
what you relentlessly worked so hard for.

Happy Birthday.

Every single time I think of you
it is never directly of you.

It always is the red potatoes
sprinkled with rosemary.

It is lit cigarettes on fire escapes.

it is record players,
and scrabble matches.

It is the look on the cab driver's face
as I forced you in his cab
when you got too drunk
on the fourth of july.

It is the ride back home,
over the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is Fireworks exploding
into chandeliers of light,
in the distance,
as you're passed out,
and I'm crying
because I miss my mother.

The distance between us
is so wide that it can't
be scaled in inches, feet, days, or years;
it can only be measured in life times.

The version I knew of you,  
if I knew you at all,  
is only a shadow in my memory
left over from a previous life.

There are few things I can remember clearly
that have not been softened by time,
or cumbered by loneliness.

Those are:
One,
the small shape of your eyes
when sunlight broke, violent,
like a stone through windows
as particles danced
above us in slow motion.

Two,
the roughness of your rug
against our bodies
as we awoke
on your living room floor.

Three,
the way you offered me your long arms,
like ribbons, I wrapped them around myself,

and finally I felt like a gift.

All words
have been replayed
and rewritten so many times.
Like a photocopy of a photocopy
they have begun to wane.

Everything I have ever written
reads like a piece to the bridge
I am building to get back to you,
to remember who I was
when I was unscathed.

Everything I have ever written
is an ode to a past life,
an ode to reincarnation.
You have made a spiritual being
out of someone as cynical as me.

You would laugh, if you read the last sentence.

But there is no other way to explain
how I can feel such an anchor
for a practical stranger,
whose only familiar feature
that years have not taken
is a first and last name.

I.
My son does not understand fear,
he is 3,
he thinks in color,
he believes in magic,
he says that our dog Smokey
controls the weather.

Watch him as he goes!
Jumping over cracks on sidewalks,
pretending to fly,
attempting to get near electric outlets
because he saw them spark once,
and fire,
fire is cool!

"Watch me Mommy!

watch me."

II.
Some days I stay in bed all day,
I tell everyone I am catching a cold,
a sinus infection,
another migraine again.

It is easier to lie than to explain,
that it is too difficult to shower,
to find an outfit, to brush my hair,
to make food,
to chew it.

Friends jokingly call me a hypochondriac,
my Mother thinks I am mellow dramatic,
My son asks me if I need my temperature checked.

It is too honest to say,
"I am fighting monsters, and they won today."
Who would believe me if I did?

We are taught since childhood
to not believe in the things
we can not see.

III.
The day we buried my Grandfather,
I wore my favorite gray dress,
I was scared to taint it
with such a sad memory,
but I was 8 months pregnant
and nothing else fit.

We threw dirt in a hole
as three strangers watched us grieve.
They stood with shovels ready to do their jobs,
ready to get home to their loved ones.  

All I could think about was how much
it aches to love anyone,
even in the good times, it aches.
Loss dances outside our window
like flames, waiting to engulf.

I vowed to protect my child
from any unnecessary pain,
I vowed to make him feel safe.

Now I fear I am the one
tainting him in gray.

IV.
Not every day is bad,
most days are nice, in fact,
some days are so good
that the bad ones seem
like distant memories.

On the good days I feel brave,
brave like my son;

I tickle his tummy and show him
which lights are stars, which are planets,
and tell him I love him, always,
no matter what.

Bread, avoacado,
bacon, lettuce, tomato.
Turkey, and the bread again.

He sneaks into my bed,
his tiny hands and feet are cold,
always.

He tangles himself in my limbs,
makes traps,
so he'll know if I try to leave his side.

I am swing set,
a slide set,
my head is a drum,
my hairs are guitar strings.
I never look put together like I used to;
there are tiny stains on all my shirts.

In my purse you will find lipstick,
a tube of jet black mascara...

and a tiny Hotwheels firetruck.

I remember how things used to be simple,
I remember how I used to move,
unencumbered,
alone.

I love him every day more
than the day prior.

I want to tell you how I am an empty house
with four dark corners that collect
fears like dust.

I want to tell you how I am an empty house,
So many things have been planted
but not one has sprout.

I want to trace the lines in
cracks of broken windows
and tell you how I formed webs of jagged glass

I want to tell you how I am an empty house;
a living and breathing
sign that somebody lives here,

yet nobody lives here.


I want to tell you how I am an empty house.

You are still a good person when you wake up naked
next to a man you don't remember
you are still a good person when you have to find out his name
by digging through the mail sitting on his kitchen table.

You are a good person when you call your brother's girlfriend
that word that she often acts like.

You are a good person when you take free drinks from men at bars
without returning a favor.

You are still a good person when you choose to let go of your parent's religion.

Don't let the ghosts of guilt dance outside of your windows,
like flames,
they will engulf you.

Don't pray for forgiveness,
forgive yourself.

Don't be cocky,
don't get walked upon,
you are worth not more than them, but you are worth just as much.

Cool it a little on the ***, Cheech and Chong,
it makes you inarticulate
and your dad will find your stash one day,
and flush it  all down the toilet.

Say thank you more often and be more sincere.
People will not always be kind,
know that it is special when they are.

Stay in one spot, even after you **** everything up,
let it breath, you'll see it's not so bad.
Know that the ugly sits in all of us regardless if we
stay long enough to let anyone else see it or not.

When counting friends, count them on one hand,
bigger numbers will never mean "less alone."
Choose quality over quantity every time.

Let people finish their sentences,
don't pretend to know what they are going to say;
You do not now, and will never... know it all.

When the first boy you love treats you like something that is
disposable or easily replaced,
don't cheat on him.
LEAVE, GO, Don't look back!
Relationships are not jail sentences,
you don't owe them time.
Besides, his forgiveness
will never mean you can forgive yourself.

When that one other boyfriend introduces
you to his friends as his roomatte,
don't later follow him to bed.
Demand that he treats you like you would like
your future daughter to be treated.
Because you are somebody's daughter,
and your mother, she loves you a **** of a lot!

Don't be afraid to run home when your heart hurts.
Your mother's house will be clean and
it will smell like fresh coffee early in the mornings.
Drink your coffee by the kitchen window
watch the sunlight saturate the fruit trees.
let your mother kiss your forehead, then say goodbye.
Remember, there was a reason you left.

One last thing…
When that one terrible thing happens
that you don't often talk about
Don't blame yourself for hiding, and crying.
Don't shake in crowded rooms,
don't need ***** to talk to strangers.
Please, don't question why it didn't mess her up
like it messed you up.
You saw her scars that could be easily seen
but you will never see the ones she hides beneath her skin.

I bet you want to know if things get better
Um, I'm not sure they do.
Things do get different
and somehow,
when you get to that point, different will be enough for you.

When I was younger I believed
whole heartedly I was worthy and
deserving of love,
and these days I just seem to  
take what I can get.

I keep starting tiny fires
to keep me warm
if only momentarily,
they only leave me colder
when they burn out

sometimes when I'm lonely
I like to glamorize past
failed relationships and
imagine that
that they loved me better,
or I them.

I.
I remember being a child,
sitting in sunday mass,
taking in the the bright
stained glass blues and the reds.

The sunlight would leak through the cracks
drowning my small hands
in color and warmth…

Color and warmth;
That might be the best way
to describe you

II.
I have to remind myself
that staring at you is like
staring directly at the sun,
eventually, I'm going to go blind,
whether it be with love
or complete and utter inadequacy,

I can't help but prepare myself
for what I will lose
at the foot of your charm.

III.
You might not now it yet,
because things always
come easily to people like you.
But you will realize soon
that I can't give you anything
that you can't get from anyone else,
without half the battle.

I don't blame you if you go.

1.
A study has proven
that love affects the brain
like a drug addiction,
and addiction is a disease.

Love is a disease,
that explains so much!
The not acting like oneself,
the delusions,
the spending full days in bed,
the forgetfulness,
the appetite loss,
the aches

Oooh, the aches!

2.
Our hearts are vagabonds,
we try to trap them in tiny rooms
and lock the doors;
like kidnappers,
we get sad when they ask to leave.

How ******* creepy of us.

3.
Sometimes I treat love as a form of currency,
and I have always been bad with finances.
I always seem to spend it all in one place
without a thought of who is truly
worthy of my investment.

4.
A friend of mine once told me that
the minute you meet someone
you know the reason why
you will leave them one day.  
When you're high
you don't usually think of how awful
it will be to be sober/alone,
and if you ever do
you just try to get more ****** up,
and pretend that tomorrow will never come.

Almost nothing last forever,
prepare yourself without ruining present moment.
Love yourself a tiny bit more than you love them.

People flee but the feelings settle
in the space they left,
like dust on a bookshelf.

Don't be surprised when a breeze comes through
and you begin to count all the things
that could have made them laugh.
Doesn't mean you need them,
just means you did love them once.
But it's over,
it will never be the same,
how could it be?

People always look more beautiful when they
are departing by train or any other engined vehicle,

You watch them from a tiny window
and you mourn them as they slowly go away.

OH the BEAUTY, OH the TRAGEDY… oh puhlease!

Just try living with them for 5 years,
and having them *** on your toilet seat,

or hate all your friends or,

make fun of you when you're hungover and
rub all the embarrassing things you did in your face or,

hogging the TV to watch a Lakers game
when The New Girl is on and
everybody knows they are going to lose
then he's going to be all mopey all night.

Ugh, talk to me then!

Yeah, Jeremy, I'm talking to you.

You are a ghost lost in the hallways of my brain,
the gaps between my fingers and,
the space between my lips.

I'd like to show you the way out
from beneath my bear trap ribs;
I don't know how to be your keeper
just as much as you don't know how to be kept.

Your bony knees, like shovels,
bury themselves into your tummy.
Your hands clasped before your heart;

You've taken the shape of a praying child,
while you sleep on the couch.

The glow from the television bounces off
the sharp lines of your face.
blue,
and black, then fully lit,
and dark again.

The host from this infomercial
explains why my life is incomplete,
in three volume notches higher
than anyone should ever speak;  

It chops, dices, and something or the other,
"Satisfaction guaranteed!"

It is the first week of winter
and my limbs have turned to icicles
to prove the calendar right.
I'd like to slither my way under your blanket,
I'd like to tell you that I love you,
but I should not wake you with such
ordinary words.

I tuck my cold hands and inadequate feelings
into my sweater sleeves
and continue watching just about the ******* TV.

Do you remember when we
danced beneath street lights
that bowed
in the presence
of our youth,
to that hum
from power lines
that can only be heard
early in the morning
or late at night?

Lately,
much like the power lines,
I hum
but only
when no one
is listening.

I keep these feelings
like water in cupped hands;
desperate to convey them
but they slip,
drop by drop,
through my fingers
and never completely
make it to you.