It is hard to forgive sometimes
and I now understand that statement
to it's full potential because of you
and I know that
one day I will forgive you
I do not know when that day will be
but I promise, one day
I will forgive you
for it **all

As the liquor undulates down my throat,
burning a little more at each swallow
like lighting a match with wet fingers
I realize that in this moment
I am not worried about you
I am too busy sequestering my existence
with alcohol that does not remind me of you at all
the one thing that can not summon your name to my mind
one thing that makes me forget you, even if only for a little while
Fueled by liquid fire
nature’s neutrality doesn't do much
for this current wave
of lust and infatuation
I am only a girl
fragile, choleric
& craving something to fill the hole you left
And I know I will wake up in the morning
with regret, a headache, and an empty stomach
It can take 2 hours, 8 hours or a full day
to get alcohol out of your system.
but it's going to take
much more than time,
to remove you from mine.

Congratulations
You went to church
but did you pay attention?
or were you focused more on bright screams
Congratulations
You read your bible
but when do you plan on listening to it
Congratulations
You're going to an outreach on Saturday
but what did you do Friday night?
Congratulations
You're a Christian
You are adding onto the stereotype of
Fake Christians
Stop telling people to not be lukewarm and
To live for God full out
When You Yourself
**Are the problem

I am learning how to love you
You're like a foreign language and I'm just learning to say hello
I am trying to pronounce you if I can
I am learning how to love you
Day by day
It comes naturally almost
Like I have loved you for years without knowing it
Like I have been unconsciously looking for you on every street corner
Every bus station, red light, checkout line, and hallway
You reign in the shadows of missing love, crippled love
I feel I am learning how to love you like I am learning to walk
You have kissed parts of me that have been lost for years
Parts of me that I have forgotten about, that I had given up on
There are so many ways to love and then there is only one and you are all of them
I am learning how to love you
Like lyrics to my new favorite song
I cannot wait to sing you in the car, play you on a rainy day
I am learning how to love you
Better than I ever loved
Because you deserve at least that
You are exquisite. You are art.
You have eyes like forests and lips like hurricanes
You deserve the world
So I am learning to love you
Slowly, in a way you will understand
So be patient, be gentle, I'm doing the best I can

when a boy tells you he loves you
do not panic
every nerve in your body will tremble like a sinner on judgement day
not sure of where this is going
not sure if it is real
when a boy tells you he loves you
do not curve you lips into half of the crescent moon that lit up your dark nights, he does not deserve that yet
when a boy tells you he loves you** over the phone
because he can not muster up the courage to spill the blood looking into your eyes do not believe him
a phone call is almost promising but not quite
when a boy tells you he loves you
you will want to say it back
and sitting in your car the words will fall out of your mouth
and into your lap like spilled white wine
when a boy tells you he loves you
do not panic
remember that he is only a boy
a silly, heart-scrabbled, inconsistent boy

I saw him today
He looked just as he did months ago
He hair was all in his face instead of slicked back
His shirt was tucked in and he was wearing a belt
He looked like his old self again
The one who I knew, really knew
I understood his brief sigh, could wrap my mind around his gentle smile
Could wake up to his breathing
I had never loved someone in such a way where it consumed me
He was delicate, fragile, but could stand in his two feet with no effort
And I loved when he was drunk, stumbling into my arms
It was the only time I ever really held him if only for a fleeting moment
I wish I had never known him before the change
It would be easier for my lungs to collect air
If I hadn't tasted his secrets, hadn't washed my hands in his laughter
If I hadn't met the boy who cared so much for the world
He never faltered in his genuine approach, never had to even try to be a light
He just was
I know that in this drought I will have to move on from him
But it is hard to walk away from something you once found such solace in
He was a thunderstorm
Could put me to sleep in troubled times, the sound of his rain
But the echo of his thunder was enough to wake the dead
The destruction he left behind him was merely a walk through an empty hallway
He had no idea what he had done to me and still I think he is oblivious
I do not want to tell him
Do not want him to feel pain or remorse for a girl he swore he'd love forever
I've learned it is easy to believe the things you want to hear
I was deaf to every motive that was not to my liking
I should have seen it coming from the moment he said he was just too busy
Hectic schedules are likely dry seasons and the sand of our hourglass had run out
Time had slipped off of my fingers like rain drops off the window of a car speeding down the highway
Flying by but moving ever so slowly
Evaporating had never seemed so malicious and
I saw him today
He looked just as he did months ago
He hair was all in his face instead of slicked back
His shirt was tucked in and he was wearing a belt
He looked like his old self again
The one who I knew, really knew
But I don't know him anymore
And he
Does not know me either

They say that when you kiss someone you are supposed to feel fireworks going off in the back of your mind, a beautiful eruption of wonder in your chest, a tickling feeling in your stomach but fireworks only last seconds and I'm afraid of choking on the smoke it leaves in the aftermath. I'm afraid of burning out, of blowing up, of decaying into dust.
2. When I was 13 I broke my ankle running in the dark down the street. I do not remember what I was running from or what I was running to but I remember the fear and pain after I had stumbled onto the ground and tried to convince myself I could walk on it and I was fine. I am afraid of breaking and trying to be okay but only making it worse, I am stubborn by definition and will always try to stand and start running away again.
3. My cousin fell in love, hard with the boy with dark hair and funny jokes and nice clothes and ambition to do something with his life. They were together for over 6 years and on their wedding night, she found him in bed with someone else. I watched her crumble, drinking her coffee before it cooled down, burning the inside of her mouth, torching all of the words she couldn't say to him, all the words that she couldn’t say to anyone. She stopped talking, I sometimes wonder if she writes poetry to simply remember her language.
4. I remember when my dad found of my mom had cheated on him, he found himself on a downward spiral, running to the liquor cabinet for reassurance, hating himself sober, and he didn’t want anyone to help him. He was always stubborn like a kite stuck in a tree that didn't want to come down. He was okay with never being okay because after you lose the one thing that made you feel like your life was worth something, when they leave, it makes you feel like it isn’t anymore
5. I know that when I fall in love I will want to take him to the hilltop gardens and show him the place where I find rest and solace. The place I go when I don’t want to feel alone. I will make him listen to my favorite songs and let him touch the valleys of my body that I never really loved. I will memorize his smell, accustom myself to his physical language. And I know that since young love doesn’t always last I will never want to go the  gardens without hoping I suffocate, I will be swallowed by the lyrics of the songs we would dance to.
6. I don’t want to need him. I don’t want to have to forget the way he would tickle me when I was upset. I don’t want his taste drilling cavities in my teeth, I don’t want to miss him when he's not around
7. I do not mind feeling nothing, I do not mind being distant from love if that means I my heart won't die before I do
8. I don’t want to have to stop smoking so many cigarettes because he's worried about the way I breathe when I sleep. I don’t want to have to make sure I don’t smell of burnt lungs around his mother.
9. I hate the way I know I'll tremble, shake, quiver at the thought of him kissing someone else or letting my call go to voicemail when he's not busy, when he just doesn’t want to talk
10. I don’t want his mother to cry because she thinks you can do better than me. I don't want my mother to cry because she's scared of how I'll cope if you ever decide to leave, she's scared of losing her daughter.
11. I don’t like endings, I often times don't finish books or songs or poems. I have drafts hanging up on my wall as a reminder that unfinished things can be beautiful too. I am not very good at putting something away after having finished it. I think letting you go would **** me.

Hope is, by definition, a feeling of expectation and desire for something to happen, a feeling of trust**
Hope carries anchors on it's shoulders, afraid it will only meet the standard of almost
We all hope, but we do not all receive
Hope is the product of human weakness
We long that's why we aspire
Imagine how weak man is, we are not like birds that can fly when we want to go to places or we want to see people
We are frail and easily inflicted with illnesses
We are fragile bottles that easily break physically and emotionally, hence the development of the helmet and airbags
The study of human emotion called psychology and psychiatry
And worse, we die, that is why men searched for the fountain of youth to no avail
Hope helps us to move on and continue
Hope is a wish, hope is a motivator
Hope gives a reason to keep going
Hope is the whisper telling us that it will get better in time
But I ask, why do the hands of my clock have arthritis
Hope is not a liar
Hope is encouraging but hope is also deceiving
Hope is joker, a trickster
Like an amateur magician, everyone could see the trap door but me
Hope will disappoint you
Hope is not perfect, hope does not always work out like you think hope should
But hope is valuable, hope keeps balance
Hope carries the unable, the dreamers, the optimists
Hope is the guide
Without hope, we're lost
Without hope, we're nothing

The green in his eyes are a radiant emerald. A green that pushed through snow reminding you that spring was coming. That churning, passionate green that ocean turns during a storm. A green resembling the color of the forest after it rains. A luminous layer of water lays over the leaves, giving them the exquisite form like the eye of the Wizard of Oz. A soft green like an old sweater that's been washed too many times. A piercing green that made you stop to look again after a glimpse, one that made you look twice because once could never satisfy. Sunlight plays inside of them, dancing with pools of pine. Your eyes lure in innocence and twist it into ivy vineyards. I cannot resist them, I never could.

I like to think of people as a greenhouse
We are only a short moment in history
We can be radiant and beautiful
We can diffuse bliss and contentment
We can show the world that there is more to it
Some of us are short-lived gardens
We forget to water ourselves
Forget that we need sunshine to live
We forget that most on our rainy days
When clouds swarm our four walls
And the light of day does not touch us like it used to
Our flowers droop, fall, and die
We are only plants that require attention
Living objects that some pick up and some only marvel at
We are unique and earmarked
We are not the same
But each of us are fascinating in our own way
Do not forget to take care of yourself
You have so much more to yourself
Than the desolation you feel

Do not mistake his small acts of flirting for affection
Remind yourself that he does this with everyone
Do not stop reminding yourself until you believe it
Guard you heart
Do not let him hear how loud it is beating when you lock eyes with the moon
He has fallen in love with everything but you
He is only trying to get to manhood a little faster
Do not mistake his small acts of flirting for affection
Remind yourself that he does this with everyone
*Do not stop reminding yourself until you believe it

Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
I am tripping over syllables and breaking consonants
Knocking over languages I once kept locked away in safe quarters
Each time I try to speak these meticulously knit together units of expression my throat closes up like clenched fist and I feel myself choking on my words
You have changed my way of writing, using teeth and tongue to articulate words, my way of going about my day
I find myself skipping meals as if it will somehow make me feel less empty because lately things in my head are just not making much sense but I convince myself they are reasonable
They often never are
And I can tell you that I'm sorry
I can at least write my apologies bleeding out all over the page
Scribbling red letters onto this worn out notebook paper
I keep you trapped inside my head like a little kid traps a caterpillar in the palm of their hands
And maybe I was just holding you back from becoming something even more beautiful than you already are
I'm sorry for letting my selfish ambitions override your pleas to escape your grip
I have never been very good at telling someone that I love them but I love you
I want to memorize your laugh and store it in my mind, so I can bring it out and listen to it on a bad day
I want your hand prints to be imprinted on my body, the smell of your cologne on the shirt you like best on me
I want you to hold me like you hold your cigarettes
I would not mind sitting down and studying you for hours with my eyes and hands
I would not mind experiencing the foreign feel of your skin underneath my fingertips
I want to count every shade of color in your eyes and sew it into a dress
I want to pour all of your thoughts into a wine glass and sip it slowly, taking in each one
Becoming slowly intoxicated by your dreams, your fears of the dark, your plans for the future
You are a vision of evacuating a burning building but going back inside to gather the possessions you love too much to let burn
You are the ray of sunshine that greets a flower who had already said goodbye to its roots, giving it life again
You are the unopened bottle of whiskey that sits in my kitchen cabinet in case you ever want to stop by because I know it's your favorite
You are the map that keeps me from getting lose in places I have never adventured
You are the destination I've been looking for
You are the slow breathing I feel when I look at the moon
You are the morning coffee that wakes the cells in my brain
You are the only truth in my allusion
You are a lot of things but you are not mine
And in the midst of this hurricane I am still searching for pages on the ground
I want to keep writing about you
After even broken pencil, ripped sheet of paper, slammed fist to desk
There are very few things I know for sure
I know that every day is twenty four hours closer to you
I know that I have a special skill of feeling nothing when I should and feeling everything when I shouldn’t
I know that the only place I ever felt lost was in his arms
I know that you can't go back to yesterday's dawn by adding another verse to an old song
And I know that I can't speak for what I haven't bled over
But I have bled for love, for loss, the staggering feeling of loneliness
You came in like a winter wind and I breathed you in as if I was about to go underwater
You are the reason I always wear my seatbelt
You are the love songs I write when everyone else is asleep
You are the sound of rain on Sunday mornings
You give me hope for better days
You have taught me to believe in myself
You have made me want to love again
Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
But in a way you are also the best thing that has ever happened to me

There are things I try to avoid
many things in fact
I try to avoid the creepy guy staring at me on the bus
I try to avoid my teachers outside of school
I try to avoid gum on the sidewalk
I try to avoid you sometimes
Sometimes to protect myself
Other times simply to do it
There are things I try to avoid
one of them is you
and I am sorry you have fallen into that category
but I am not sorry for the reason why

There is something about being numb that is addicting
It is, sometimes, the only real way to not feel the pain
There is numbing medicine that we have all heard of
Anaesthesia, which means 'loss of sensation'
It is used to induce sleep, which prevents pain and discomfort
We have no problem with people using this to numb
Alcohol is my anaesthesia
It numbs my body, it numbs my mind
It pulls me into another time zone where the hands on the clock move faster
But everything else around you moves slower
All you can do is focus on the next drink coming
Rather than the pain being inflicted on you that made you go out in the first place
We all are addicted to numbing
Some sleep, some get drunk, some get high,
We all cannot deny the sweet flavor of feeling nothing
The needle piercing your skin but only feeling the cold, not the sting
The liquor scratching itself down your throat but loving the burn
Igniting a wild fire in your mouth, going down a ***** rubbed with gasoline
Numbness is an obsession
There's something so beautiful in the art of forgetting things
Even if it only be for a few hours
Alcohol dehydrates you, leaving you dizzy with a mind like a static TV
I would rather feel empty from alcohol
Than empty in the bed that we used to sleep in together
I would rather be numb in a bed next to a boy that I do not know
Rather than feeling all the glass I've stepped on walking away from you pressing into my skin while lying in bed alone

I am fascinated by candles
I am enticed by how such a small flame
can bring so much light to a room
My father used to always tell me
that no matter how the small the light may be
it is still stronger than the darkness
This is how I want my life to be
A candle can light a small closet
but can also bring enough light to
so much light a whole room

When I was a little girl I used to separate all of my crayons into colors
I had the different blues, reds, yellows, greens
All categorized into section waiting for their turn
And I finally realized
There was always one color left behind, white
Pure and untouched, so uncommon, never used, overlooked
And sometimes I like to think of myself as that **white crayon

Do not tell me to calm down
When you do not know
Of the demons inside of my head

This love is reckless
This love is closed doors that
only open for oxygen
This love is driving without headlights
This is I feel like I'm crazy kind of love
This is I never want to be away kind of love
This is I stay up late kind of love
You have a kiss like a forest fire
You once called me a match
I am no longer afraid of the dark
because you taught me that
darkness only covers up the wrong
It is a security blanket for our past mistakes
For our past lovers
We no longer listen to the voices that bring us down
because this love is our latter to the top
This love is reckless
and I would rather live a life
without seat belts
if you're the one driving

You are a rose, so beautifully arranged into sweet succulent taste
So mouthwatering and compassionate
Yet every time I bite into you there is blood in my mouth
Because I always forget
That even the most beautiful rose
Has thorns

You do not tell someone that you love them
when you are not sure if you do
You do not tell someone that you love them when it is dark outside and all you really want is affection to share in
You do not tell someone you love them just because you know that it's what they want to hear
You do not tell someone you love them when you love someone else too

In our lives we all come across a sweetness
One that we cannot truly fathom
One that will give us the cavities that we once had nightmares about but are now being welcomed into their new home because you cannot let go of the sweetness
I know that sweetness
I know what it is like to have something to fill you up
I know what it's like to love something so much that it seems to occupy every thought and every vacant space in your mind until the image of it seems tattooed on your brain
Do not let it go
Chances are that loving something so much, there is a reason behind it
I never believed in coincidence
Everything is fate, everything has a purpose behind it
If you love something so sweet
Your taste buds are addicted to that flavor for a reason
Taste it, never let it slip away
In our lives we all come across a sweetness
Usually only once, hold on to it

Alcohol condones such sweet behavior
The way it lets you teach me something new
Lets your lips dance on my skin
Sends my body into ecstasy
The sound of your breathing
Resonates through the air
And seeps into the cracks of the walls
The way it collides with my skin
And buries through the flesh
Whisper passions in my ear
Like waves whispering on the shores of her children
Trail your fingers down my back
Engulf me in sin
No boundaries are drawn in liquor fantasy
The moment between each breath
Carving sweet drunken memories on my neck
Succumbing to your every desire
I know I should stand on my will
But you asked me so nicely
Turning one way and then the other
Falling inward towards the center of this spiral
Leading to such peaceful sleep
The way your snoring claws at the silence
Your burnt out taste has never felt so divine
Leaving numbness on my tongue
With the constant, reoccurring thought
I never want to leave this bed

some say that it's a physiological fact
that when someone appears
in your dreams
it means that they're missing you
so, I've come to the sad conclusion
that I am probably found in your dreams quite often
yet you never appear in mine
and that is why I hate science
just as much as I hate love

Some paths are destined to diverge
Meeting in one spot where they are better together
Leading the way, stepping stones for what's to come
Intertwining in the softest light
The love was so persuasive you could taste it
And it sounds so simple to keep going unitedly
But love never is
Some paths are destined to diverge
But some are destined to meet again
And all my hope is planted in that some
And that maybe we could be one of them
To join once more

I saw you tonight
Suit and bow-tie, hair slicked back
You looked like Jay Gatsby
a beautiful, mysterious being
whom everyone craved to be acquainted with
We spoke for only a moment or two
I recalled a few old memories hoping
that you read between the lines and remembered too
We walked away from each other after the small talk
I walked with hope and anticipation
while you probably carried another girl's name on your lips
You were searching for a girl who was not me
and I was looking into a green light
trying to grab hold of something that did not belong to me
I miss you like the stars miss the moon
So much that it hurts me to even say your name out loud
Do not accompany my heart with hers
She has not yet fallen into your spiderweb
And I am here tangled in translucent webbing
Hoping that maybe you haven't lost interest
In someone as undeniably in love with you, as me
no matter how much it hurts

I woke up on a Saturday morning and expected to feel somewhat refreshed
Saturday mornings have always been among those of my favorite, second to Sunday mornings
But as weeks continuously drag on I find I am not feeling as I would like to on these mornings
The bed being so cold seems to have more of an effect on me than I'd like to admit
I realize, that it is not that I miss you on Saturday mornings or Sunday morning
I miss you as soon as you are out of reach
Love is simultaneously the most cruelly selfish and wildly giving impulse we have and to be denied of it is something that sleeping in cannot fix, a disease incurable by coffee and cigarettes
I know heaven because I know what love is and I know hell because I know what love is
It is not a field of flowers but it is not a gun to your head
Love is something right in between, the most famous purgatory of them all, the end of your life as you once knew it, all memory of what you were before them has been erased, gentle, gone before you ever knew it was being taken from you
And it's funny because here I am overflowing with words I do not have about a love I do not own
But I imagine if I were to have your love it would be one to cherish
I think the first time I kiss you, I'll be smiling and
I think the first time I am graced with holding your hand a shiver will make its way up and down my spine
You are nothing ordinary, you are nothing common
I honestly am not sure how the universe even came up with you
Molded masterpiece of in the deep palms, crafted cut and complete to be something extraordinary
You are what I have been searching for years but with you standing so far I still haven't quite found you
This morning was dreary and still, it held a quietness to it that made me feel uncomfortable
There was not aroma of French toast or the curve of my body fitting perfecting into yours
I wake up Saturday mornings and expect to feel rejuvenated but instead, I am so weary
The morning is all empty where love used to be

On days like today, I am the sky. You are sitting on an old stool in the kitchen. Clad in blue pajamas, burnt caramel hair hanging over your eyes. You are reading a book, it is old and yellow. I find myself building a treehouse for us in my mind. You are a poet’s death of choice. Your fingers slide gently down the side of the page as you turn it, glancing over at me. You let out a sigh and give me a small smile. This is my garden song. This is my first right. My Sunday morning. I think I loved you before I knew how. Some people, they are artists and some people are art and my god, darling, you are both. I want to read the poems you write when you think God isn’t watching. Let’s make love and fall asleep in each other’s arms and wake up just to make love again. Take me to your favorite museum. Show me how gentle you can be. When you are at a loss of words, kiss me and I will spill a new language into your mouth. I will kiss you in places you never knew existed. I touch the parts of you that have been kept behind a curtain. This is my garden song and today, I am the sky. Tomorrow, we will bloom under the September rain and and slowly dig each other’s graves.

I've learned that when someone asks you if you want to watch the surise, it is not because they have never seen it before, it is because they have never seen it with you

I want you to call me when you're drunk
When vision is blurred and words are slurred
When your mind is running and tripping over its own feet
Throwing misspoken sentences right out of your mouth
I want you to call me
I want you to tell me that you miss me, tell me that you haven't forgotten about me yet, tell me that this drunken conversation is one you have been rehearsing for months
I would never want you to tell me these things sober
I want you to call me when you're drunk
I only want you to call me because you are lonely and are craving any sort of attention, I do not want you to mean anything that you say
I want you to call me when you're drunk
Cascade this façade all over your barstool
Run your fingers through your hair in distress and lack of affection
Call me and tell me everything on your sweet mind that I once knew
Call me and remind me of it all
And I want you to do this when you are drunk because I do not have to worry about this fight dragging on, we will settle this tonight and you will not recall it
I will able to nod my head and smile and not miss you anymore
This is the brink of intoxicated exhaustion
Call me when you are drunk
And reveal the secrets you've hid away in your heart
But I want you to wake up the next morning wondering
What spilled off your tongue, and why my name appeared lit up on your phone
I want you to call me when you're drunk
And not remember any of it
Do not call me in the morning
**Do not call me ever again

It is the late afternoon
The sun is setting over the city of Seattle and shadows fall underneath buildings
One after the other, lying on their backs mimicking jealousy to the tall giants
She will be in her kitchen stirring lemon grass tea, humming a song she'd heard earlier that day
Perhaps on the radio, perhaps on television, perhaps on the train
She'd glide onto her balcony over-looking endless roofs of houses, buildings and cars
She will never jump, she will never lean
She will simply sit and read books, mystery books, love books, books about everything, books about nothing, she read it all and he loved that but he hated it too
Wondered how someone could detach themselves from the real world to live in one made of only words
Yet though he questioned her motives, she continued
It has been a year, 4 months, and 3 days since her eyes last met his
Time has moved slow, crutched along, eased forward, never taking steps back
The tape hardly ever rewinds and if it does, only for a brief moment
She will be on the train and suddenly he steps inside
He looks just like him from behind
The jacket, the hair, the shoes and then he turns, revealing nothing but a stranger on a train
She will be sitting in a café and suddenly, the sweet and distinct smell of him reigns over her
And she will look around frantically, perhaps he is here
But then reality reminds her that he is back home, swimming in the little city
Accustomed to every street name and curve in the road
She is in Seattle, a runaway, a dreamer
It is late afternoon
The sun is setting over the city of Seattle and shadows fall underneath buildings
She will be in her kitchen, stirring lemon grass tea, humming his favorite song

There is infatuation and reality
Infatuation is knowing he loves you more than anything
Maybe baseball or his mom but you, you know his love is strong
Infatuation is a short lived love that exists while they are still perfect to you, that exists while you think that he has no flaws
And you love the little ones that you see
Infatuation is flying, soaring through clouds, feeling them brush the back of your hands, kissing your body with empathy
And then there is reality
Reality is realizing that he is like the rest
Never holding him to a standard to be different
Because he is only a boy
And boys will do what boys will do
They will look and flirt and crave and push
He is only a boy
You have to realize that he is not perfect
He has more flaws than the pimple on his chin or his crazy ex-girlfriend
Think about him
Realize that reality is knowing who he is
Not who you want him to be
Your mind is creative with love and this will be hard for you
But realize, please realize, that he is not different
He is only a boy
But that does not mean he cannot love you
He can love you with everything he has
Love you with all of his whiskey breath and cologne sprayed for any pretty girl that is drawn to it from across the party
He can love you like plants love fresh air
His love can grow, spread like roots digging themselves deeper
Reaching for a place to call home
He may love you, but love is not perfect
Love has its faults and failures
It is sometimes messy and will leave empty promises in the palms of your hands, do not hold on to them
You will want to grip them tight, squeeze until the broken pieces mend back together crooked
Reality is realizing you cannot fly unless you are in an airplane
There is no such thing as superman
This is reality
This is not your fantasy
And I know that is hard to hear
But know that even though love is strong, lust will sometimes win
It is not an even playing field
It never was

I look forward to being in love with you
I look forward to kissing your sunlit skin
To laying on your shoulder as we ride in the car
To holding your hand when mine gets cold,
When yours gets cold
I look forward to going out on the town
and showing you off to the street people
Unfamiliar faces who will never truly grasp the beautiful being that I believe you are
I look forward to smiling at you
When you are not looking
When you are too busy driving or looking at something on your phone or simply stuck in a day dream
I look forward to different times of day with you
To coffee in the morning and music at night
To watching the pink and orange in a sunset glow and linger, to watching the sun creep up in the east
I look forward to this peace
I look forward to being in love with you

Don't ask me what it is like to love someone
I have thrown the word love away
Like they do colorful beads at Mardi Gras
Abundant and beautiful
Yet no one throws them back
Don't ask me what it is like to love someone
I have waited by too many telephones
I have kissed too many of the wrong people
Hoping to find one who's lips might taste like his
Like craving something you're allergic to
Yet still giving into the temptation of eating it an suffering anyways
Do not ask me what it is like to love someone
Because I have not experienced real love
Real love is when it is returned
Having the one who's eyes look like the sunrise
The one who's walk makes you want to follow behind them
The one who had a smile that can reignite a fireplace
Having the one who makes your heart melt like ice cream on a summer day love you as much as you love them or even more
That is real love
And I am not familiar with something so precious
Because the one who stimulates my well-being is too busy
Following someone else, someone who is nothing like me
And yet still I wonder if he is taste testing too

I look out and see a crescendo of light emerging from behind trees
I try not to stare because I know my eyes are sensitive to this bright light
but I can not help but stare at such a beautiful illustration
and this is the closest comparison I can come up with
to how I feel when I see you

Water is a transparent fluid from which the world streams, lakes, oceans, and rain and is the major constituent of the fluids of living things
Water gives our lungs the moisture we need to breathe.
Water, therefore, is breath to life.
You cannot have too much of it.
Drinking too much water too quickly can lead to water intoxication water intoxication occurs when water dilutes the sodium level in the bloodstream and causes and an imbalance of water in the brain.
Although, you need it to survive.
People can survive no longer than 8 to 10 days without water
When our cells are starved for water, they become parched, dry and more vulnerable to attack by viruses.
Water is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year.
Water constitutes, regulates, flows through, cleanses and helps nourish every single part of your body. But the wrong kind of water -- with inorganic minerals, chemicals and other contaminants -- can pollute, clog up and turn to stone in every part of your body.
3.4 million people die each year from water related disease
That is equivalent to almost the entire city of Los Angeles.
I think water is all around us in metaphoric ways
For instance, water damage to a cell phone, computer, a book, or an entire city.
Water creeps into places where it is not supposed to be, where it is not meant to be and destroys things.
Suddenly, your screen goes white, words are smudged, people's belongings and treasures are ruined.
Water breaks things.
Water is a lot like pain.
It creeps into our life like a serpent in tall grass and fractures things that were once in perfect condition.
But the miraculous thing about it, although it is a demon, we need it to live.
Without pain we would not know pure joy.
How can you appreciate stepping to the sunlight if you have never experienced the shade.
Water is a lot like people.
70% is a person is water.
31% of our bones are made up of water.
Only 1% of the world's water is drinkable.
Some contain toxins that can be fatal to the human body.
Not every person may be able to quench your thirst.
When they leave they many leave you dehydrated and dizzy.
Not every person is drinkable.
Some people carry demons that they will introduce you to and you cannot rip them off.
These demons are not in relativity to the band-aids in your childhood.
People can cause damage like no other.
Some say that loneliness is killer.
Isn’t funny to think that the one thing you need most can leave you with more scars than you had in the first place.
Water is a lot like love.
Something we crave when the exhaustion from all of our day's work gets too heavy.
Without love we feel empty
When the body gets dehydrated it has already lost over 1% of its water
When we thirst for attention it's as if we lose an inch of security
Love is unlocking the door and flooding
Love causes destruction
But love is at the absolute brink of all things desired
Love is different temperatures
Love can boil, love can freeze, love can be just right
Love can be the one thing at the end of the day that refreshes the mind
Water is used frequently by firefighters to extinguish fires helicopters sometimes drop large amounts of water on wildfires or bushfires to stop the fire from spreading and limit the damage that it can cause
Love is the antidote to pain and the virus itself
Love is limiting damage
Love can calm the wildest fire set in someone's soul using only words
Water is such a generic liquid
Water is the only thing that hold each of us together
So when you reach the end of your journey
Remember water and all of its different forms
Remember the invigorating taste
Remember the abuse
Remember the revival
Remember it all
Because it is all there
**We simply do not look close enough

I want to love you better than I once did
I want to love you like a prayer that for which no words exist
I want to show you parts of me I have kept hidden, the beautiful ones
I want to brush the knots out of your hair,
work the knots out of your back
I want to hear a love song on the radio and have your face come to mind
I want to sing them to you when you are feeling alone
I want to always remind you that you are not
I want to love you like the sun rises, slowly, stretch wide
Grow taller, spend more time, give and not take
I am interested in the way you take your coffee, what makes you laugh, what makes your pupils dilate, what keeps you going on
I want to be the someone who will make you feel like the stars were a roof of a home that I built specifically for us to gaze at when eye contact was broken
I want to touch you like pen to paper
I want to breathe you in like summer air
I want to listen to your heartbeat like it is the sound of a drum
I want to love you more than anything I have ever wanted to love
But some people do not believe in second chances
If only life were a t-shirt and we could iron out the creases
I have learned that hard way that it is not
So if you ever wake up and you wonder if I still love you
I do, and I do more than I ever have before
And I want to show you
If you would only let me

Today I thought about you
As I did yesterday and the day before that
How your skin is like velvet
Hair like burnt caramel
Boy with a kiss like a hand grenade
Boy with a touch like a paper cut
Boy with a voice like a church choir
Boy I fell in love with in 2 weeks
At the age of 14 it was easy to love you
I loved every piece of you
Treated you as if you were the last molecule of oxygen inside of a gas chamber
My love for you was so sweet some would call it cliche
Cupid didn't have an arrow large enough to fit this love
You were the first boy to make my palms wet just by walking into the room
Until I took it too far
Finding myself on a bedroom floor
He loves me... He loves me not
I let you have the remote control to my smile
I realized I was never letting myself cry as much as I needed to
You were the boy who I would spend all day getting ready for
Loving you was the last thing I thought I was good at
Until I started replaying these memories like scatched up DVDs
Broken, glitching flashbacks
Your name engraved in my heart and mind
Your voice being the anthem of my soul
Your smile being my favorite picture
You being my favorite tragedy
Today I thought of you
As I will tomorrow and the day after that

I am not made to listen to everything you have to say
I am not created to follow all of your rules
You are not the author of my life
You are the delete button
You are the troublesome being who believes they can control
all of my actions, all of my words
but I am not your puppeteer
I am the untrained, non-manipulated,
over-reacting, non sensible, unreasonable
***** who knows exactly what she's talking about
So in case you were wondering
Yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth
And you can go **** yourself

I have been looking for a taste like his
Searching for him in back seats of cars to boys who were not him
Testing out new flavors
Hoping that maybe tonight will be different
Stretching myself like a trampoline
Turning bone to dust
Because that is what you do when the curtain is falling, you say the line the audience wants to hear
You do things only to please
But changing the script was never what you intended
I never hoped for any of this
But this is what I am left it
And I sometimes wonder
Maybe you have been rewriting too

We are a story of bad timing
We let each other in, arms swing wide
Holding the elevator door
We were both destined to be going down
You never realize the change of elevation until your ears pop
Space was tight between us like knots in braids, the air hung hot above us as if we were steaming
The confined walls fogging
The thing about this amorous vapor is it never last very long
The doors eventually open
And we can either choose to step off, or suffocate
We are a story of bad timing
Getting in an elevator
Seconds before a fire

It is Sunday morning
The light leaking from the curtains lands on my eyelids
Upon just waking up I feel I am being blinded so I turn over
Warm breath kisses the tip of my nose and I see you lying there next to me completely at peace with in your gentle unconsciousness
I pull my hand from under the covers and glide my fingers down your cheekbone
You smirk and open your eyes
I have never wanted to go swimming in the mornings but when I look in your eyes the desire swallows me whole
Their shades blue green drowning my words
I know exactly what love is when you look at me
And there's something about the way you kiss so lazily in the mornings
Like last night's dream is spilling out of your mouth
You whisper to me good morning and my stomach takes flight with butterfly wings tickling my insides
Because your voice sounds a lot like a love song
Once, I could not think of love without thinking of a plane crash
Trained myself to keep distance from romance
When a friend would introduce me to a boy I learned resist making a memory of his cologne
Because sometimes you don't see, the best thing that has ever happened to you is sitting right there under your nose
There will be hell to pay for the way we love
Disjoining ever love story resting in antique ambience
We kiss with our mouths open
We have kept it complicated
We have kept it impossible
It's that hushed conversation that happens when you love someone and it's reckless, when you watch them life up their shirt and die
I want you unfolded
I want to untie you
I want to touch you like pen to paper
I want to brush the knots out of your hair
And work the knots out of your back
I am interested in the way you take your coffee, what makes you laugh, what makes your pupils dilate, what keeps you going on
Love is not just made up of syllables or words that sound nice
Love is more than clandestine love letters and sharing umbrellas in the rain
Love is Sunday mornings waking up next to you
Love is the feeling of your lips curving into a smile when they are on my skin
Love can heal your asymmetry, it can piece you back together
It is Sunday morning
And I am in love as I'd always hoped I'd be

As time goes on I am starting to learn how everyone has someone they love but just can't be with
It is the sad reality of stumbling blocks ruining what could have been, the imagined perception expectation of the future that we let ourselves believed we deserved to live
I often imagine meeting you at the record store in another life and it working out the way it was always supposed to and you've been holding my heart for centuries and though here, we may be foolish and alone but this is just one time dimension where maybe things are difficult but I will see you in the approaching vigor, in the dim light of a motel room near the city, a place where things are better, a place where we are better and I will kiss you like a poet trying to rewrite the language of love on your lips and you will touch me like your hands are praying to the religion beneath my skin and we will burn with love beyond what any movie or book describes
But here, I cannot love you and you cannot love me. Here and now we are poison to one another, a disease not worth catching if it can be avoided, our bodies were never strong enough for our love, we didn't want it anymore, we got too busy, too stressed out
You wasted my time but that’s okay I wasted yours right back, we were never in love but oh God we could've been, you know, as time goes on I am starting to learn how everyone has someone they love but just can't be with and regrettably, you are my someone

My Honest Poem:
I was born August 11th at 10:58am
Being born on this day, means I am a Leo
I read my horoscope religiously even though I do not even know what a zodiac sign actually is
I'm 5'5"
I couldn't live without green tea or coffee
And I'm a sucker for a boy with a nice smile and honest eyes

I am still learning how to speak up
I often keep my mouth shut when I'm expected to talk
And talk when I am expected to keep my mouth closed
My eyes are constantly scanning for possibility
My arms are reaching for experience
I do not believe most things unless I have tested it myself
Theories were never my best attribute to the conversation

I am a handful
Most people who have known me for a while warn other people to stay behind the caution tape because
My life was never a pretty journey
I tend to make most of my problems bigger than they actually are but when people ask I say they are only small things that are simply no big deal

I am taken by my failures and astounded by my fears
I wish I did not have any at all
Although, I do, I fear almost everything
I fear what I know
I fear what I don’t know
Secretly, I get really nervous when people stand close enough to hear me breathing
I am irrational and complicated
I apologize for things I shouldn’t
And I often find myself wanting to cry but never allowing myself to because it is step down on the food chain

I am dangerous in the setting of love
The idea of it is so beautiful, but nothing that should ever belong to someone like me
I fall in love so easily
And I am still not sure if this is a curse or a blessing
I get carried away by promises that not some do not intend on keeping
Including my own
I am sorry that grip is so fragile, I am working on getting stronger

My name is Alexis
I love frozen yogurt
And laughing at my own jokes
Even if I am the only person laughing (which is most of the time)
I am insecure about my body, my personality, even my laugh
I smile even when I am not actually happy
Although recently I have discovered what it feels like
To really smile
Certain people are teaching me new things such as how to be truly happy
And I do not intend on letting them lose
I hope they do not intend on slipping away when I am not looking

My hobbies include:
Worrying about my future
Writing poetry about people I never intend on reading to them
And wanting to someone to show me I am beautiful without the words

I have found myself lying down a lot lately and not because I am tired or
craving affection or because my back hurts
Or because I feel like staring at the my ceiling
I sometimes lay down, because I can hear my heart beat so clearly when I do
I can almost see it bursting from my chest
I know God has something else for me
Because each and every time I lay down
My heart never fails to remind me, I am still alive
I am still a living and breathing piece of art
My life is a large canvas that still has a lot more work to be done on it
And I do not intend on leaving it as a rough draft
I am still mixing colors, trying to find one that best fits me when I am around you
When I make this discovery
You will be the first person I call
I promise

Tangled
You and I
Like old earphones coming out of worn pockets
Like string sitting in a junk drawer
Like hair fresh from a nap
Like old shoe laces that were double knotted
You and I
Tangled

They told me I was humble
Showing a modest or low estimate of my own importance
Having a tendency to decrease my dignity under others
They were telling the truth
My stature of one not as a boulder but a pebble
I am smaller to others, crushed underneath
They tell me it is a good thing
To place others above myself so I do not conquer them
Pushing them up even if I am falling
Unprivileged behind those who need love more than I do
It is selfish to not be humble
They tell me that I am
I wonder if that means I am weak
Or if that means I am strong

There are days I don't have maps for
Days I stray from the path with no direction or destination
Moments where my mind wanders far from its assigned seat
I am not alone in this and I know it
We are mad, you and I
Our brains move effortlessly away from principal locations
We dance on burning coals because we think it will grant us a lighter step
We sing the songs our mother listened to because maybe she will come back just to sing along
We breathe in cigarette smoke to suffocate the dreams inside of us because surely, they are impossible to reach, just like your mother always said
There are days I don't have maps for
There are days where I don’t need them

I will still write poems about you
Even if I do not speak to you out of fear I will love you again
Even if I look away when I see you out of the corner of my eye
Looking in my direction with the hope I will turn to you
I won't
Even if the rate of my heart outruns my mind and I want to call you
I won't do that either
Because I am coming to realize that waiting on someone to love me
Is like having a noose around my neck and a stool beneath me
But I am choosing to life my feet from it, hanging myself
Putting myself through torture with hopes you will lower the rope
But you never will
So I am standing up, I am saving myself from falling into you
I will not wait around for someone who is waiting for someone else
I will not be the second choice
Even if you never come back to me
I will still write poems about you

I hate love and how it is so deceiving
It lures you in with a promise that this will be just like the movies
Giving us an image in our minds
This will be something so sweet
But instead it just cuts the roof of your mouth
And leaves a bitter aftertaste on your tongue

Your hips will fall into metal blankness
His hands will brush over them like paint to a canvas
And you will expect a beautiful painting
And even though your mother told you to never hold high expectations
You did anyways
And now you feel the wisdom in her words as this grotesque picture looks you in the face grinning with deceit because you only did this to forget about someone else
He insists that you frame it
Your collarbones will sink like boulders
Lay on the bottom of desolate ocean floors
You will feel like an abandoned ship wreck
Like an empty treasure chest
You have disappointed because you are still in love with someone else
You will ask for a blue print of your body so you can leave it on a train just so you can have something to remind you what it used to look like before he took it from you
And they will call this a mistake
Giving away the one piece of you that should have been saved for someone who didn't just say they loved you
Someone who meant it, the words would hold so much passion it would hit you with a force that not even the strongest anaesthesia could keep you from feeling
But yet you keep trying to find that missing piece of you in other people's bed sheets
You will trust anyone who shows interest because you have not tasted this is so long
Because bad man look like respectable men
Bad men with a smile so wide that they will swallow you and you will convince yourself that you asked him to
Your whole being will begin to ash away
Because you were lit by someone who did not finish what they began
And the truth is, you cannot hand a paintbrush to someone else once a piece of art is started because the finished picture will never be as beautiful as it could have been
So why do you keep passing it around

I carry the weight of your smile
like it is someone else's baggage that I am planning to steal
Something so desirable that I can not obtain on my own
I look in the direction you are in and I am being told
by the voice in the back of my mind
(that most of the time knows what it's talking about)
and it tells me not to stare
but how can I not
when something as beautiful as you
is in my sight of vision