I am learning that even though you love someone
It is better to leave them
If it only brings anguish on you
Casting spells that will forever bind you to misery
They will tell you to change your name
And you will want to do anything to make them love you
Because they asked you so nicely
And you are so naïve to the sound of their voice
It is like a gospel choir in an empty church hall
You are drawn to anything seemingly beautiful in isolated settings
But after all of the fun and games
There is always a loser
So I am going to travel miles and miles, leaving behind dirt clouds in my rear view mirror, throwing your name out of the window
Sort of like lighting the last match just to watch it burn
Let his face linger for just a second longer
But do not let it tattoo itself on your brain
Tattoos are not temporary
Neither is love
And I have learned that though you are permanently scarring my memory
Eventually, you will fade away
I hope that eventually
You will fade away

You are never given a warning
Often times, not will try and stop you
Your heart will flutter like hand painted butterfly wings
You will know you are in love when your hand is aching to write poems on their shoulders
Love grows like vines up from your stomach climbing to your heart and mind
Braiding into itself like a strand of DNA
Singing prayers and sacred alphabets of lust
No one is sure how to describe love because we negate definition when we know it is deliberately dangerous
We make it seem like this heartache is so wonderful
Because it is better to feel something for someone that to not feel anything at all
A joyous disaster is still a disaster
We are putting up wallpaper to cover up old memories, love songs, favorite colors going grey
We are never sure of what to do when our pulse turns to choir of sledgehammers when they tell you that they just don’t love you anymore
Something will trigger inside of you and you will feel like a city of stained glass with an approaching terrorist attack
But we continue to fall in love
Wondering how many times we can survive roulette

I was born August 11th at 10:58 am
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 good posture

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 shut
My eyes are constantly scanning for possibility
My arms are reaching for experience
I do not believe most things unless I have tested it
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
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 need a little tweaking

I am taken by my failures and astounded by my fears
I often 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 I see it as a sign of weakness

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 also out
I love the chase but I do not know that to do once I catch them
I find that this is something I need to apologize for but never do

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, my laugh even
I smile even when I am not actually happy

My hobbies include:
Worrying about my future
Hiding behind a silicon mask
And waiting for someone to tell me I am beautiful without it

I sometimes lay down, not because I am tired or craving affection or  because my back hurts
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
There must be a reason for that
I believe that there is a reason for that

As a collection of beings exchanging breaths and footprints in enclosed purgatories of our own nightmares
I do not think we can survive without love
We have always played the game because it is the first one we learned how to
As children we were taught to feel, programmed to need someone there
And as we grew, songs and movies molded our imaginations into something artificial
Like the sweetener your mother put into her ice tea the morning of the divorce
Magazine articles seem to know so much on "How To Make Them Love You"
And we begin to believe that all stories are the same stories, that maybe movies are real
That fairytales are finally crawling out of their mask of fiction and are coming to reward you with true love's kiss
Maybe we are just too naïve for the media
Maybe we are just too naïve for each other
Cradling words that hint "I love you"
Tucking their body language into our pocket
We make ourselves believe because we have always played make believe
I've learned it is hard to abandon the habits we have always lived by
Some of us our prone to fall in love with the first person who takes a second glance
The boy who wears ***** converse and slicks back his dark brown hair
Hair that is untamable and hangs over his forehead
The girl who knows every word to your favorite Beatles song
And writes poetry about the shading of the sky
Born on a lonely street and looking for vacancies on every corner
Patience has never been our priority
We are constantly shaping ourselves to fit into someone else's gap
Obsessed with becoming the kind of silhouette that people fall in love with
We are all connected in such a way that we need romance, need a body lying next to us in gray sheets on Sunday mornings to remind us that even when it rains, grass grows
This bloodline runs thin but somehow we always drown
I do not think we can survive without love
It is the key to locked doors, the blueprint for our foundation
Our rib cage aches to have fingers run across it
We are waiting for someone to reach inside of our chests and steal our heart away
We have laced up are shoes, ready to take theirs too
I do not think we can survive without love
And the crushing irony of it all
Is love is the very poison that will **** us

Falling in love is like driving without a seatbelt
You are vulnerable to any casualty, fatality, you are unprotected from chaos
I never understood people who drive without seatbelts
I never understood their courage
It must be nice to feel so safe, you have to invent new ways to put yourself in danger
He was thunderstorm
Exciting and powerful yes but violent, unpredictable and ultimately short lived
He would look at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house
And all the while I am thinking it is a nice day for the beach
I never did see it coming, not that I ever could have
Love blinds you, blurs your vision, it makes you forget to pay attention to the dangers and direct your focus to the wonderful
I only wish I could have heard the sounding of alarms, could have escaped the burning building for I set it on fire
I have found I am quieter now
Not as ambitious, not as outgoing, not as much laugher hangs in the air above me
With him, most days I could grab my voice and swing it like a hammer but now I pick it up like a shard of glass scared of what might happen if I didn't hold onto it carefully
I have recently been asking myself if sorrow is an art we should pride ourselves on sharing
That we should not fear failure of broad shoulders, we should not be afraid of pain
Throw pity parties in collection of bitter humans
The kind of party where no one is close but everyone is friendly tonight
Love ties come under
Romance is not relentless in appearance
A kiss does not last forever
Passion dies down
Jokes stop being funny
Coffee is too strong
Emotion shows little respect to your inner organs
Affection lies down into its grave
Sometimes the things we would die for are the ones that end up killing us
And now, I find myself driving for hours without my seatbelt on, holding on to nothing more than the steering wheel and endless thoughts of you

Whatever you do, don’t let your love go unspoken
It will be scary and your knees will quiver
Your hands will shake but this is what it feels like to be alive
To really feel something for someone
Do not miss an opportunity because you cannot bear the idea of your palms being anything but still
Tell them
Tell them that their smile runs through your veins and their touch consumes your body and soul
Tell them you have found a home within the gold of their eyes and a place between their laughter
Tell them that you still love them
Despite all the past holds, tell them you still haven't let go
Before telling them too late, past the point of repair
Tell them before they find someone else
Because they will

There's something different about how I feel
It's not really infatuation so to say, it’s a lot of pain
It's not the same as it once was
Before this, I never really had a hope
I didn't have a memory to hold on to because it wasn’t as vivid
Nowhere as near as vivid as this
I guess I missed understanding the meaning of love
I've learned that love is not someone who makes you happiest
But the one that makes you feel the most
The one who can conduct your heart to drum the loudest
I becomes so easy to think on it to the point where his love is boiling and possible and suddenly  becomes so close
It isn't
You are simply playing tricks on yourself again
You silly little girl
He is never as close as you think he his
Never closer to you, only her
So as you down your 4th shot of cheap liquor
Leave the image of him smiling in the toilet
When you wake up you will feel empty and aching
Do not regret anything, remember, being drunk is the only way
To numb his touch from the valleys he made in your back
To numb every hole he burned into your skin
To numb every cut that his gliding fingers made as they traced your body
You are nothing special
And you never were

I wonder if he misses me
I know it sounds insane because she exists
But I wonder if at night he is somehow reminded of us
The way we lingered over one another
The sweet torture for both of us
The way we wrapped up like tying a knot at boy scouts
I wonder if he has rid the remnants of our love
Or if they are held holy to his left side

Our love is
so sweet and secret
Kept locked up behind bedroom doors
and the doors of your beat up truck
Our love is
clever woven words
trying to out-do each other
Our love is
our faces getting too close,
eye contact that last too long
Silly things that didn't exist before we created them
Our love is
the moment between breaths
the spark of a lighter
the hidden smiles
the looking
the looking away
Our love is
borderline insanity
Our love is
like nothing other
because this love
is titled

"Just Friends"

I wish I knew what you were thinking
Wish I could crawl inside of your head
Dissect your thoughts, decipher your fears
Know what all of this means
Know the reason behind every text message
I spend hours searching for a prophetic sign in your words and I am aching to take it back to when it was simple
I didn’t have to use a magnifying glass to see the love
It was not hidden
I often find myself picking up my phone just to know what it feels like to put it down
I tell myself this
I have been trying to claw the rested drop of lonely from my throat
But it is sewn in like a patch on a pair of blue jeans
It is hiding my skin for fear if I fall I will hurt myself
I am homesick for a heartbeat and green eyes
I wish I knew what you were thinking
If there is still something there
If you still love me, don’t just assume I don't

I want to get drunk with you
Allow our intoxicated senses to take flight
Speak all the words we are afraid to say with a sober mind
For fear that we might actually believe each other
I want to fall, stumble accidentally into your lap
Let us think back on times I did it on purpose
When you pulled me into you
When things were so much easier
We are playing the same game but describing it in different words
This toy of text messages cutting into my throat
I endeavor to remember that we are only friends
I know that I should be over this by now
But I want to get drunk with you
To tell you that I am not

I must remind myself that the times have been much worse before. I have seen darker days and I have touched light in the purest form. I know that we are amongst bad decisions and unlucky circumstances but we are not hopeless. We are never hopeless. We are relentless in our fight through humanity. We dance with illusion and flirt with temptation. Our hands are callused with fear and we continue to hammer away at these dreams, trying to bury them because we are too afraid to make them into the skyscrapers they ought to be. But no matter, things could be much worse. I am thankful for the air pumping through my lungs and the blood running live a river in my veins. I know that there is still a path, but I’m going to have to pave it myself. This is what instills the most fright within me. I often make wrong turns when I am given directions and now I have no destination in mind. I am just trying to have better days. I must remind myself that we are not hopeless. We are never hopeless.

Imagine if the sky were always orange and red
If it was a flaming sunset all the time
If the cloud's silver linings resembled halos
I think this the reoccurrence of beautiful things turning ordinary
I think this is the end of what once was a beginning
You see we often take things for granted
Things that do not last forever
I say to myself that nothing lasts forever often
I look at you and there is the picture frame understanding
You are a sunset I sometimes forget to step outside and see
Paint you on my walls to be a reminder of beauty
I often wonder if the sky were always orange and red
If it was a flaming sunset at all time
In the clouds silver linings resembled halos
I suppose if that were to be the case at hand
Then we may marvel and take pictures of the sky when it was blue

Sometime in life, most of you will come to a point
where the one whom you love
has taken away too many pieces of you
and has not returned enough
and you will feel vacant and hungry for any kind of love
from them
but they are not interested in giving any away
not to you
and you will just have to deal with it
but for those who never encounter this tribulation
do not take love for granted
love it like it loves you
and make the most of every waking second
because not everyone
is as fortunate as you

Last night I discovered of how little you think of yourself
How you battle insecurity and feel like less of a human being
How you look in the mirror and do not see perfection
You count the calories you intake instead of the constellations in your eyes
You see an empty soul instead of the alluring prize
And what you don’t understand is I think
You are so beautiful, I wouldn't recognize you among the stars
You are so beautiful, that flowers must be jealous
You are so beautiful, the oceans are envious of the depth of blue in your eyes
You are so blind to not see your charm and grace
And it tears me apart because I look at you and see a diamond
Unscratched, untouched, perfect
Yet all you see is a pebble

Stay right where you are
Don't move at all
Because where you are standing
You have never looked more beautiful
And although you do not see me
I love you
And I will love you from the corner of your eye forever
If that is what it takes
To keep ths love alive
In atleast one of us

I sit in the November congelation
Hair risen on my skin, shivering under its frigid grip
The wind whispers a name and I cringe beneath the thought of you
And how if you were here I wouldn't be so cold
Your touch warms my skin
I shake my head in effort to clear the memory of your hand in mine
But there are very few things that can distract such a one sided love affair
I think of your burnt caramel dark brown hair falling over your forehead
Pale skin softened by the light of the rain
Eyes, green peering right through me
And that mouth that turned up corners in curiosity
You are an eternal misconception
I guess I have fallen in love with the idea of you loving me again
I know we existed once in a different lifetime
A few months ago where maybe we were meant to be together
But pieces of us have died since then and I'm not sure if we'll fit together anymore
And I know I have to stop trying to make us
You unraveled my inner dandelion,
Watched me dance on the night sky,
Helped me befriend the moon
I was so in love with you
Let me today show that I can do something right
I can love you better, I can love you and show you more
Endeavor with the deepest parts of me, spill open my heart
Open this book and read it to the end
I want to keep you safe, I want to keep you here
Even fragile hearts are strong enough to hold on to something as big as love
Your beauty punctured my soul and there is no antidote
Sometimes the only cure is the thing that infected you in the first place
Is it wrong to want to be centered when we are so unbalanced
You speak to me like a flightless bird, wounded and nearing extinction of emotion
You are the sweet whisper that is selling the promise of love but never actually delivering
You are swearing that everything will be okay but never doing anything to help me
I've learned that love comes when love feels it should, even when it is wrong
I have been re-watching old memories in hectic static and the rewind button isn't working
They say that time heals everything
But what am I supposed to do when it feels like the hands of my clock have arthritis
I remembered the last time he arched his mouth in my direction
He smiled the way Lucifer might smile, moments before he fell from heaven
Then, he stood straight up, shut my car door
The sound of the door slamming shut was as loud as a cannon firing in my ears
I was so oblivious to your discreet malevolence
I never in a lifetime would have imagined you
The unwoven leather material rubbing warm, gentle against my skin
Comforting me when fear was at my grip
The driven wonderland filled with my favorite songs
The happy hearted musician who played them for me
The open book, turning page, signed off, detailed, immaculate
The one person I could see myself loving for the rest of my life
You are the one who made me so unsure if it was one worth continuing

Lately, due to lack of sleep and immense heartache
I have been drinking more coffee
In attempt to avoid dreaming of you because it is so brutal
You are still here with me
Or you are on your way back
But when I wake, you are doing neither of those two things
This is my skin, not yours, and yet you are still under it
I am well aware of the blood running through the tunnels under the sheets of my skin
But I am not sure how they work
And I am not sure of why I still love you after you told me there was nothing left here for me
And yet I keep returning to see if you have changed your mind
You see, my definition of love
Is going back to an abandoned home everyday
And finding vast vacant spaces but still searching every corner, bedroom, kitchen cabinet, for a clue
And though each day, you find nothing
You think that today is going to be the day
That they may have left something behind on where you can find them
But you do not want to be found, you do not need to be
Sometimes, in just the right lighting
I can see the your tall figure standing in my room looking at pictures I've hung on the wall
Sometimes, I spend so long thinking of you
I don't realize that the music has stopped or that the wine is gone or that it's 4am again
How terrible is it that 95% of the ocean is undiscovered and I wish it was like that with you
But I know everything about you
The things that make you cringe, certain noises that make your ribcage shutter
Certain smells that bring back a memory of your grandfather at Christmas
And I am tired of hearing the same song play over again in my head
I am tired of spilling your name out all over my mattress in a drunken sickness in the middle of the night
I am tired of hiding myself behind drunken nights that are as never as fun as they sound
I am so tired
So in essence of oblivion, in grace of all distraught love poems, in complement to the sound of his voice replaying itself on my car radio
I will fix myself one more cup of coffee
Because I just can't bare going to sleep
I can't bare slipping away from reality any more than I already have

Can you love me when I am but fuel to the fire
Can you love me when I am a hurricane ripping out the flowers you planted for me
When I am 100 mph on a back road, throwing dust into ecstasy
Can you love me when you come home to find me lying on the ground because the gravity of my situation has reached its lowest point
Can you love me when I am vacant and need your attention
Can you show me your attention when you are busy
Can you love me when my mind is racing from one obstacle to the next
Can you remind me that everything will be alright
Can you love me in silence
When words do not fit the circumstance
When I just need to be held in the safeness of your arms
Can you love me still when I am gone
When my feet wander out the door, when they do this reluctantly
When you think I won't ever return
Can you love me in hopes that I will
Can you love me again
Because I'm on my way back home

What I've learned is you can never be too careful
You think that everything is fine
You think that no one will ever know
How many walls have been built and
Knocked down inside of your head
You can never keep something hidden forever
No matter how careful
All secrets will step into the light
Eventually

In my next life, I want to be sunlight so I can rest on your skin each morning and throughout the afternoon. I can long for you without rest in the midst of a thunderstorm. This feeling, it’s difficult to explain. Most of it is unspoken, but I’ll try to explain it on paper.

Each day, I want to be the softest thing you taste. After a long day at work, your touch anywhere on my frame will ******* undone like almond flowers.

Some days I feel as though I am going mad. I stare blankly at my computer screen and think, What good are my hands if you aren’t in them?  It’s all quite troubling and often keeps me from getting anything done at all. Even when I am getting things done, somehow, you are ever present, ever flowing from my fingertips.

There is something about drinking coffee with you that is simply thrilling. The way you purse your lips and smile, I unfold in your direction. Perhaps, this is the love that they’ve all been talking about. All of those songs I’ve listened to, books I’ve read; perhaps they have all led me to this point, to this place with you. How dare I presume that I’ve been so lucky?

Surely, this will turn south and we will be nothing more but old stories and photographs; but tonight we are in love. Tonight, we are daring, we are unarmed and tonight, this is enough.

a letter to my love who loves someone else
I know that with life cutting corners on your shoulders it is easier to walk away from a game that involves using your hands, the ones that knit blankets to keep me warm, the ones that made sound when I swore I was deaf to every motive except my own
I am sorry to have caused you so much trouble
I know that the word will knock down trees to build skyscrapers, I just only hope you will remember what it felt like to lay under them
I only hope you still think of me when you look up at the sky
I know that perspective is everything and sometimes turning the other cheek molds into shaking your head
I know that I often looked away too much and I am sorry I couldn't bare more drawn out moments of silence with you
My mouth has no safety on it, my mind wanders as if a lost child in a super market, it was hard to fall in love with every piece of you because I was scared of you leaving without taking me with you
I am afraid of the dark, I always have been and will most likely always will be because darkness means uncertainty and I still have a nightlight
I still pretend to be a child
I find myself sunbathing in these memories as a form of prayer
I hung up a picture of you and I on my wall and told everyone it was only for good times sake, something beautiful to look back on, flipping page in the scrapbook, old videos on the home computer
I did not tell them it was because I am pretending that we are still possible
That you will come back here and we can reminisce and play pretend
There are days when I am not sure if I can ever love someone the way I loved you, there are days when I do not want to play pretend with someone else
There is nothing poetic about the way I hopelessly love you
I have learned that poetry loses it's grandeur when you realize there is not a single combinations of words that can make someone love you back
And still, standing on the precipice of an echo, I can almost hear you singing along to the radio, I can almost feel your fingertips on my back like a record playing needle
And I can't help but wonder
Do you still sleep with a light on?

I hate you for making me hate my favorite restaurant because you work there
Because that's where I met you
I don't go there as often as I used to for fear you will be working
For fear I will have to see you
For fear I will have to talk to you
For fear that if I do I will stumble over my words
Stutter, speak another language, have blood spur from my cheeks due to how much I would be blushing
Vomiting up words of my renounced love for you that lately I have been sick of swallowing
It would be embarrassing to say the least
Your palms would not sweat, chills will not appear on the back of your neck, you will be just fine
I can hardly talk anymore due to the amount of poems stuck in my throat
It is getting hard to swallow
It is getting hard to breath
I have been coughing up letters and syllables, numbers given to me that I forget to call because I don’t remember getting them
I am drinking away this sadness but more often than not I forget my name before I forget yours
I do not know who I am because of you
I am losing touch with every reality that your named is not tattooed on
I am in love with the idea of you loving me
You told me not to string myself along for something that may never happen
You meant this when you said it which was something unusual for you
And I turned the other cheek to seeing your new girlfriend at walmart
Turned the other cheek to her laughing at me
Turned it again when I drove all the way home without a seatbelt on
I find myself wanted to get in a fatal car accident so I am not so tempted to drive by your house
I hit all the green lights on the way their so there must be some viable reason for me going
I see a car in your driveway that I do not recognize I wonder if it is hers
And I know you did not mean to do this
It was not something you planned from the beginning, **** just happens I guess
You are completely unknowing of what you have done
And frankly I don't want to tell you
I wouldn't want to harm your ego
You wouldn't harm anyone
In fact you may be one of the nicest people I have ever met
Something about you switches on a light inside of me, igniting this darkness that I have been residing in
For a brief moment, you reminded me what it felt like to not be so blind to love
I sometimes wish I still were
I see you everywhere I go
You are the voice inside of my head
Every time I meet someone new I cannot help but plater your face on their, smell your cologne, do not let them touch me in the same places you have for fear of smudging the fingerprints
And I know, I know it makes no sense to place valuable pieces of myself into hands that have no grip
Hands that shake, that tremble
Hands that have touches bodies, making no memories of the valleys of their skin, the mountains in their bones
I have learned you cannot teach someone to feel, cannot teach someone to love
Cannot force them to wash their body in all that you are offering them
They have become too accustomed to lukewarm love in between ***** bed sheets, threaded backseats
I find myself wanting to be a bridge worth burning
I hate you for making me hate my favorite restaurant
Because you work there
Because that’s where I met you

There are ways to forget
There are ways to get better
There will be a tornado in your throat as you try to unlearn the definition of love and you will have to choke down all the things he said to you with alcohol you shouldn't be having so much of
You are dizzy from intoxication and you think of his kaleidoscope eyes and fall to your knees
In humble abandonment of your old self, you are vacant of any comfort you may have once knew
You are looking for new ways to escape this horror of reality
You stop showering because the water feels too much like his hands running through your hair
Open the windows, he would have wanted them closed
Smash the television, break the radio, drown out all the sound because he can't sleep without noise
And you can't sleep without him but it is better to lay there with silence hanging in the air rather than accidentally hearing a song that the both of you once loved, waking you in a cold sweat like an addict itching for a drug
And sometimes when I get drunk I say that I hate you
That I wish my mind had never laced itself into yours
That I hope your next morning will be one that is cold and idle
And I'm sorry that I do these things
Because alcohol is an intoxicating ingredient being poured into my blood stream and these words that smell of liquor are one's that I do not always mean
I find myself filling with immoral substances to resist going to sleep
I cannot bear going to sleep now because each night at approximately 3 am
I wake up in a frenzy from a dream I was having about the old you
Panicked, terrorized, I feel I am under attack by the soldiers of my own mind
Maybe it is because I know I will never capture you, with each relentless passing second, you will never be the you I once knew and loved
Because when things were good, they were great
However, you must always pay close attention to how they treat you when things are bad
Whether it's "I love you but you're such a fool" or a door slammed on your fingers
There is always an option though
To continue loving you, chasing pavements, limping towards a dying light
Or to leave with some decency and a change of clean clothes
You see, I've learned that there is always a hospital bed, the question is whether or not I want to rot in it
And with you, I feel on top of the world, a mind game
Because I know I am actually on the bottom
There is something you do to me, as if you place glasses over my eyes
Making me believe that maybe this is not as bad as it seems
That being without you is somehow bearable as long as your face is implanted into my skull
There is no real way to describe the staggering appetite for his touch
I am starving for such warmth that never goes cold
A drinking water that never runs dry
He could refresh my cracking heart valves if only he were to come back
But he won't
He would watch me *******, crumble, disintegrate away
Deteriorate, degenerate, decay to ash
Corrode, decompose, shrivel up, pollute this hole I am locked inside of
He does not care for my safety, he does not care for my life
If he did, he would have come home already

Some telephone calls are never answered leaving people on the edge of a thought that was urgent to be said at the time but a voice mail never means as much as live audio
Your name is only an old recording that I refuse to delete
and it is no longer a valid word in my vocabulary
I refuse to let you go and I'm still not sure why I love you
but even as a light bulb runs out of wattage
my love for you will run out
So when your name becomes one of many others
and I no longer stop to stare
I will call you
and I hope it goes to voice mail
So that you too will have a useless recording of me
that you refuse to delete

It's been two hours and we are still driving
The radio has repeated the same songs over and over
My seatbelt has grown too tight around my right collar bone
And my mind has fallen into my lap due to my eyes focusing too ******* the scratches in the window rather than what is behind them
I turn to you and ask,
"Are we almost there? I know I've asked you a billion times but I'm so hungry and my foot's asleep."
You look like an angel, draped in a white t-shirt, almost glowing
I cannot get enough of your aura and scent of burnt pine cones
You turn to me and lick you lips
"We're almost there, just be patient."
Your mouth forms a slight smile as you turn your head
And here I am melting in the passenger seat
I have never been so captivated by someone
I could watch him drive for hours and never get sick of it
As I'm looking out the window I see him smile out the corner of my eye as he glances at me
Oh there has never been a sweeter feeling
I can feel my body loosen and I feel as if I could slip right out of this seatbelt
I don’t think he knows what he does to me


It's been two ours and we are still driving
The radio has the repeated the same songs over and over
My seatbelt is cutting into my neck
And my hands are getting tired of holding this steering wheel
I feel as if they are numb and my left foot has drifted asleep
I see her turn to me and ask,
"Are we almost there? I know I've asked you a bullion times but I'm so hungry and my foots asleep."
God, she looks like an angel, her golden brown hair spilled down beside her face, framing it perfectly
She smells of vanilla and spearmint gum, I can't get enough of her
I turn to her and lick my lips
"We're almost there just be patient."
I smile because I just can't help it
The way she makes me feel is like nothing I've ever felt
Her whole being entices me
I could look at her for hours and still find new details that I love
I glace at her and smile, God, she's so beautiful
Oh there has never been a sweeter feeling
I can see her body relaxing as she lays her head back on the seat
I don’t think she knows what she does to me

And if he says he misses me then maybe we can just start over
Relearn each other's name and how to articulate them to the letter
I will retell you stories of my childhood
and you can laugh like you used to
We can learn how to tangle our bodies together so intricately that this time they will not undo
And I'm not saying that this will work, I know that it probably wont
But logic doesn't mean that I don’t miss you and right now I don’t give a **** what logic has to say
Just tell me you miss me and I swear I'll come running
Tell me you miss me and we can fall all over again

Understanding what we feel
Is so difficult
And other people asking
Assume that it is so easy to decipher
When in reality,
Words will never be enough
To truly describe the maze-like riddles
Going on in your head

One. Realize your heart has been broken
Take responsibility for the ***** inside of you
And how it's job of pumping blood into your lungs has gotten harder
It's okay to forget how to breathe as long as you're learning new things
Two. Learn new things
Pick up a book and read it to the very end
When you don’t feel like going to class, go anyways
Do not let the fatigue and agony keep you from gaining other important things
Three. Get very drunk
I know we are supposed to worry about getting stronger
But no one starts at the top of the ladder
Waiting in line is the world's most popular past time
Get sloppy and wild, let your inner goddess guide your heavily intoxicated nature
Forget their name right before you forget your own
Let someone else relinquish their fingerprints all over your frame
Cover up the old paint with new wallpaper
It's okay to remember all the things you once never thought to consider
Four. Write.
Write and then write some more
And even if all of it sounds the same do not fret
Because sometimes there are only so many ways to describe being defeated
Having the fire within you go out to its core
Let the smoke coming from your throat gain purpose by putting it on paper
Five. Make blueprints.
You cannot build something from scratch without planning ahead
You will probably not remember much of your life before them
So start a new, rebuild old friendships, revive old hobbies
The possibilities are endless with a blank sheet of paper
Accept your new reality without resentment.
Six. Start anew.
Fall out of love with them
With every gentle touch mimicking a lullaby putting you to sleep in their arms
Forget the laugh that filled every molecule of oxygen you ever breathed
Forget the weight of passion
Kiss as many people as you need to get the stamp of their lips off your brain
Seven. There is no way to manage heart break
It is consuming and clingy
It locks you up inside of its prison and you swear this will be a life sentence but don't let it
Heartbreak is not about trying to convince yourself that you don't miss it
It's about limiting the amount of things you would do to get it back
On some days you swear you would jump off of a building
And on others you wouldn't even take off your nail polish
It's not that this is supposed to be easy, it is only testing your endurance
Realize that you are in prison
And learn how to pick the lock

His name is elegance
He is the roses on your mother's kitchen table
He is the tie around your father's neck
He is the slow rise and fall of the sun
His name is laughter
He is your grandfather's old jokes that don't make sense
He is going over the railroad tracks too fast
He is late night conversations we never remember
His name is joy
He is the first bloom of spring
He is the fresh lemonade on a hot day
He is listening to your favorite record
He is a good afternoon nap
His name is love
He is kisses good morning and coffee on the balcony
He is holding my hand under the covers
He is lighting candles in the dark
He is a sweater fresh out the dryer
He is lying down after a long day
He is love
He is love
He is love

And then the strangest thing happened...I leaned in, close enough to exchange breaths and then I kissed her. It was a taste I’d never known before. Strawberries, cigarettes and cheap wine were suddenly a sample of honeyed lilac. Once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. We couldn’t stop. It was as if energy was pulsing through us, like we were generating the power to the whole city. It was soft and vicious at the same time. It was electric. My hands explored the back of her neck and she reached her hands into my hair, pulling into each other. We are magnetic. Finally, we stopped and looked at one another. A look so bold and revered and then everything came into focus and she let out a small sigh. I hadn’t noticed up until now that she had a freckle under the right corner of her eye. And then she smiled. God, isn’t that a sight, I thought to myself. So what do you do after a moment like this? What anyone in their right mind would do, of course. I asked her to dance.

The subway stairs will trip you up, make you slip, make you fall
They will hold you hostage, hold you close
Brush against their hand rails, let the feeling of other hands rub off on your palms
Sweat will gather on your back as you walk further down
It is too cold out and too hot down
Body heat radiates off of children and their mothers
You feel the gust of wind hit your body like a preachers knees hitting the floor
When the subway arrives, it is submitting to the sound of its breaks
It is telling you to stop where you are and fall into me
The doors open wide
They remind you of your mothers open arms
You step inside checking to see if you are going in the right direction
It never hurts to look twice
The subway trains will trip you up, break you down, make you weak
You will look and see quiet people, there are far too little people laughing
You wonder if it is the cold weather
You wonder if it would be better if it weren't so cold out

You are so funny in the mornings
Something about your dazed conscience and sleepy nature
Each morning it is enough to make me weak all over again
Each morning I am reunited with the thought of "I love you"
You stumble over silly words, you smile shy and tuck your head underneath the covers, giggling, I can see your smile, I can see it clear
You are so funny in the mornings
You are so gentle in the evenings
Something about the end of the day as the sun retraces it's steps from the day before, we lay in silence
The sound of nothing but breath in and breath out
As the dust particles in the air settle over our still bodies
A car passes by but we do not turn to look, we do not move
Your hand traces up my shoulder and a warm feeling flows like a river through me
You are so gentle in the evenings
You are so simple at noon
Calm and amicable, something about the way you stare out of the car window
Like you are soaking up every tree, every cloud, every gust of wind and it hits your face
You sway to the music in the car, humming sweetly like the sound of a city at midnight
You close your eyes, lean back your head
You are so simple at noon
Every time of day, you are divine
You are the last breath before going underwater
You are the feeling of going for a long walk
You are the sweet smell of an empty room and fresh paint as sawdust blooms all around, building, climbing
You are a journal I hope to fill my days with until the space runs out
You are a poem I cannot seem to end
But until next time
Thank you for being so funny in the morning
Thank you for being so gentle in the evening
Thank you for being so simple at noon

"Stay for just a while," I say, "just for tonight, we can make this work if you give me a chance."
He sits there quietly looking down at his hands, he glances at the watch I gave him for his birthday
"Okay, fine," he manages
I reach across the table to grab his hands, he reluctantly lets me in
Tomorrow I know he will leave with the taste of coffee that was not sweet enough branded on his tongue
I did not put enough sugar to make him want to stay here
Tomorrow he will walk out as if he never knew me, as if I were a stranger he glanced at on the street
But for now, I curl up in his arms and kiss his neck just before he falls asleep
"We could make this work," I mumble, "I swear we could."
I want to stay in the crevice between his chest and arm forever
He drifts to sleep and slowly I am fatigued but refuse to rest
I do not want to waste any of the time I have the chance to look at you
Tomorrow he will pack his bags and say goodbye
It will be as if we never shared a thing together
The late night phone calls of you telling me how when you got home late, your parents were asleep
The lingering of our lips as our breath stood hot and still in the space between us
"I have to go now," he will say, "please try to understand."?and I will try to understand but I just can't
The light beaming in from the kitchen window has never looked so grim
I try to think of a way to convince him that the weather is too bad to walk outside
But it isn't, it's beautiful out and he has every reason to leave me
I thought that if I told him I missed him, that I wanted this one more time
That everything would turn around and that he would say he still loved me
He shuts the door behind him and I have never felt it more
That he doesn't

Do not confuse hands for a safety net
You will trust that the fun is worth the fall
Will trust that the holes are small enough to still catch you
Will trust that you won't slip right through them
Will trust that it is a sturdy landing to sink into
Will trust that they love you just as much as you love them
But despite everything that will decieve you
Despite the amount of confidence you have in someone who looks so sweet do not mistake the first bite for the bitter aftertaste that follows
Do not confuse hands for a safety net
Because they are not
They are only hands

You are the letters that I write all unsent, all kept inside my drawer yet I am wishing that one day you could read them without me having to let you
You are the stars I put in the backpack of my mind when I have full grasp of attention that I am approaching a long, cold journey
You are the name scribbled in the top corners of my notebook
You are the feeling I get after a long drive and I can stretch and reach out, far in hopes to touch you somewhere in the sky
You are the unzipping of a formal dress in an old hotel room
You are the place I would like to call home and never need a vacation from, a place better than anywhere else, a place of safety and passion, a place of rest for my weary soul
You are the puzzle I can never solve, the Rubik's cube stored away in a junk drawer, the books I never got around to finishing, the poems I left as drafts
You are the unwound clock that confuses visitors, they are not used to adding two hours and three minutes because I never bothered to change it
You are the amazing opening to a really bad movie
You are the reason some people put too much sugar in their coffee the morning after kissing you because you leave such a bitter taste in their mouth
You are the unraveling of a cigarette exhale that will end up killing you
You are the best thing that I decided I didn’t actually need
You are out of my mind, you are burned letters, running out of gas, you are getting lost on the interstate, you are nothing to me anymore and you were once everything
You are not who you used to me and neither am I and perhaps you should walk one way and I, the other

I've been loving the sky more than anything else these days and not many will understand why
I have gradually discovered that romantic love is like a blanket that will always leave your feet cold
You will waste time blowing out candles only to drown in smoke
Lately, I'm beginning to feel like all those books you never finished
You see, I believe there is depth to existence, I believe the surface is mostly decorative
And perhaps you really are exhausted, perhaps you are not as happy as you seem now that you have left me
I'm sorry for being such a difficult person to love
But slowly I am becoming
I often find myself talking to the sky, she always knows exactly what to say, she always listens

One.
If I could, I would wash my body in the endless sunrays of your morning language with curtains wide open and coffee brewing
I would sing rhythms of fire breathing unrequited love poems and stain your bedsheets with untouched melodies I should never had wrote for you in the first place
I would have the ghost of my former self dance bare feet in your kitchen to songs you have never listened to
If I could, I would pick myself up and take myself to the hospital, attach myself to the nearest IV and drug myself up until I forget how in love I am with someone as spiteful as you
Two.
It's almost funny to me how you can lie to someone about how you hate liars and then you can lie and pretend you still hate liars because you don’t think that I know that you're lying
Three.
You don't have to let me down easy
In fact, I want you to skull drag these words on asphalt streets, rip them apart and throw them at me at the speed of a bullet
Let this declaration be a war cry
Do not tell me it might happen sometime down the road
Because neither of us can see what is going to happen so instead of giving me hope why don't you just ******* tell me that I am not what you want
That you could do better, that you are out of my league
And you are but I have always believed that in relation to how many lucky pennies I have picked up, I would spend them all on you
Four.
If I could, I would break all my bones to have them mold into the structure you would most like them to be in
I would get a lobotomy, wipe my mind clean and start fresh, build a beautiful minded girl that you might be able to love
One with sunflowers growing on the layers of her frontal lobe, one with ripped wave ocean tyrants of searing joy tattooed to her skull, someone who can make you laugh, someone who's laugh you adored
Five.
I'm sorry I let my hands tie ropes to your heart strings, I am telling you to stop pulling me along when really I am the only one who is still holding on
It is easy to be confused in love because I have found that we convince ourselves something is true simply because we want it to be
Six.
It once was wonderful, I felt like you looked at me as more than another catcall, girl's number you got while you were working and I often wonder what would happen if I never strolled into your workplace, if I never looked in your direction, if I hated Mexican food, if I lived too far away
Maybe if I stapled the receipt to my shoulder and walked backwards we could unmeet each other, and I will have the bittersweet opportunity to miss out on this heartache you have unknowingly caused
Seven.
I am not trying to make you love me because you cannot force someone to feel something when there is no vacancy inside of their chest or even when they is but they like the empty spaces
I have cut off pieces of myself and tried to hand them to you and it was hard to understand why you wouldn't want them
Some people do not appreciate sacrifice or maybe they do not care much for such insanity
And I know, I know it makes no sense put valuable things into hands that shake, that tremble, that quiver
Hands that often break things without feeling remorse, we willingly let go and expect them to catch up when they cannot even catch up to their own minds
It is a dangerous game that we all love to play
You are a the red light that I always end up running
And I know the risk of calamity, the risk of consequences
Eight.
Sometimes I like to talk about you like you're the one that got away, sort of like you're on a trip somewhere and you're coming back
And maybe you are, and maybe I am making all of this up in my mind like a child convinces himself that there are no monsters under their bed or a wife who tries to convince herself that he isn't cheating
It is a dangerous game, we all know it is
So, I'll be around if you want someone to be dangerous with

A sunrise it created by broken pieces of light hitting the atmosphere
Igniting the sky with flaming orange, leaving people in awe
I have never seen a sunset quite like the one I've seen today
Approximately 39,000 feet in the air and finally I see it
Painting over black and navy blue with warmer colors
Burying the darkness in something more hopeful
I think about my plane ticket
I know, this is odd to think about when looking at something beautiful
But I think it is important to remind yourself on how I got here
It is only a slip of paper, it holds a date, a name, a seat number, a destination, a departure time
But it does not talk about what you will experience
A plane ticket is only the introduction to the show
The ticket does not promise safety or a sunset or a sunrise
The ticket does not tell you who you will sit next to
The ticket is all of the general information, it is the instructions
It is all taken by chance, the ticket is only the stepping off point
I encourage you to think of your life like this
Do not skip the plane ride because of fear or uncertainty
Because you could miss one of the most beautiful views of all

I struggle to have a good life and by this I do not mean a happy one, I am happy, I simply mean I want to live a life I can be proud of and lately my mind has been caught in a fishing net with every corner having loose truths and conned dispositions, I dream of a life with nirvana, with such a profound amount overwhelming peace you can hardly stand it.
I have a special skill of feeling a lot when I probably shouldn't and feeling nothing when I should.
I still mix up left from right and often forget where I am going while trying to figure out where to turn next
I still mix up my rights from my wrongs
But I am writing my wrongs and hoping that doing so will help in the process of correcting them, forgiving myself for them
I am a hopeless romantic with the absolute potential to be alone the rest of my life
When love finds me, I am terrified
Staring in the face of commitment is beautiful but a risk I am often not willing to take
It thrills me when people say they do not love me anymore, it burns like a fire in my stomach and I sometimes confuse the likely possibility that other people are not thrilled by this
I think a breeze could feel like a hurricane if it hits you at the right time
I am learning to control myself and taking only what I need from the world
I am still baffled by the fact and also completely terrified at how when I look him in the eyes I never fail to be reminded of you
I will sometimes lay out to watch the stars at night but regretfully I do not even do this for my own enjoyment anymore I do it to think of you, I ask myself if you look at the sky for the same reasons
I have been told I am an open book, running through pages as if a strong breeze was rolling by, emptying all of the things carved into my skin, from by passers, best friends, ex lovers, strangers, blowing each syllable off the page
My mother has always been right and I always knew she was
I am stubborn and have a hard time moving my opinions or motives
I am slowly learning why natural disasters are given human names
I find myself wanting to catch your thoughts like raindrops on my hands and watch them dissolve, your words are a hurricane in themselves
I like flushed red cheeks and cold fingers warned by a fire
I enjoy watching attempted sweet talk however I am never sure how to respond to it
And no I do not drink to forget about other people's mistakes, I drink to forget about my own
I sometimes scream at the mirror, it is one of the safest ways I could think of to take out anger on myself
There is a pen connected to my mind and I often wish the people in books were real
And I love this world with all of my heart and I love life, I want to crawl under every tree, dance on every mountain, swim in waterfalls, drown myself in this world's excellence
Paint my body with it's colors, wash my skin in it's prayers, listen to it's music and let is resonate in my mind until it reigns in my brain when silence is too loud
I like opening doors more than closing them, I open too many and twist my mind into patterns I am alice trying to find her wonderland but there are no maps for the unknown
We have no yet crafted directions in desolate places because no one visits but I do
I need adventure to grow
And I am growing

When life throws you in the water
Do not be frightened by the storm
Remember you know how to swim
Remember that getting the wind
Knocked out of you
Is sometimes the only way for your lungs to realize
That they like the taste of air

When you want to tell him you miss him
Hold your tongue like you are hanging onto a ledge
You are saving yourself by not letting go
When you want to tell him you miss him
Listen for your inner guidance
You know what it will say, your heart cannot bear
One more rejection
When you want to tell him you miss him
Think of why this all came to an end
He used to be the one filled with apologies
Look how the tables have turned
When you want to tell him you miss him
Think of her name, think of the girl who stimulates his heartbeat
Think of how she is nothing like you
Think of how her smile is plastered on every vacant space in his brain
Think of how he is missing her in place of you
When you want to tell him you miss him
Don't, let the words slide down back into your gut where they belong
Do not give him the leverage
Let him think that you are missing someone else too
Someone else who is not him

An abandoned church with an open hymn book lying on the ground
The pages are still new yet the floor beneath it was littered
With ash and broken pieces from the ceiling
Amazing Grace has never sounded so bitter
The walls reverberated the sound through the hallways and columns
There was something sweet in the harmony of a lonely voice
The choir has fallen with the rest of the stained glass windows
I think of the last person to ever have prayed in that church
Got on their knees in the ruins, asked God why his body felt like this church
Broken and annihilated, like a plane crashing into a building
Like a freight train hitting a parked car
I feel weaker than I ever have in between the pews of this empty church
He thinks, "God, what did I do to deserve such hollow bones? Why does my heart beat slow down when I see her? How many prayers must I pray to get her out of my mind?"
His eyes closes tight like the doors to his father's house
And he wonders how he will ever get off of his knees
A tear falls to his blue jeans and does not make any effort to hold this in
He was past the point of never crying, no one was watching him anyways
Being destroyed was part of being a man sometimes
The open hymnal smiles in the back of his mind
He thinks of his mother singing in the car
Thinks of how her hands clenched tight to the steering wheel
She was careful driving with him in the car
She loved her son more than herself, she cared more for her family than anything
He thinks of the girl that he still loves
Even though she has walked out on him
Her long hair that draped down her back
Hung like a man on a noose in the middle of a town
Her eyes, like a bullet in a gun, rusted and covered in dust
She used to sing all the time
You wonder if she still sings hymnals in her grandmother's church
You wonder if she sings Amazing Grace

Peel of your skin
Open up your muscles
Crack open your bones to take a look inside
See the generations crawl backwards
Through the same mess
Abuse, dominance, fear
There are no new sorrows running in your veins
Your mother has felt it and so has your father
Stories and scrapbooks, old record players and blankets
They are passed down from parent to children
Tradition holds caskets full of antiques and poems for her children's children to read
To write them as well
In different bodies, new homes with younger skin patiently waiting to reveal their own lives
To their children

I have always loved going on walks
Sometimes in hopes to find something, sometimes in hopes of nothing at all
I find it easy to travel with no particular destination in mind
I simply just love to listen to the sounds of the woods
The trees seem to constantly be talking about him
And every now and then I will catch a glimpse of his laugh
When I stray from the marked path I may get a hint of his scent
Pinecones, pinches of lilac, and the smell of the rain
He tells me he is lost
That his body had fled from his mind
That he is scared if it will ever the return the way it left
A stranger to his own skeleton, I cannot imagine what it is like
But he is so foolish, I tell him
But you are not lost to me
Your eyes are the skin, your lips are air, your body is the ocean
You are always with me and in me and through me,
You are not lost, you are home
You are always home to me

Every inch of my skin aches to be close to yours
Itching like an addict
Want to inject my veins with the light illuminating off your shoulders
My body is a blank canvas waiting for the ink in your fingertips to paint over me
Pin up my love with clothes pins
Display me on billboards on the side of the road
Love me like you think it is the only thing you're good at
Kiss me like you are suffocating and I am the only air supply within a one hundred mile radius
Hold me so tight that not even a typhoon could make me flinch
Let this love grow like a garden at the peak of spring
And there will be rainy days but they will only advance us with the sunlight that follows
And we can look up at the stars like we used to
A sky so bright that no even a thousand unsent love letters could block hide the stars from our view
Look at me and smile and I will do the same
Because this love has the potential to live in perfect harmony with the world around us
And still be so different that people could look and not know what to think, just stand in awe
I hope one day I can live in this love
With you

When your body feels foreign and abandoned
When your hands are shaking more
than the soil before an earthquake occurs
When your words seem to only grow louder
but never have more meaning added to them
They are only adding fuel to this fire that never should have started in the first place, there was not much to do after it started
Just watch it burn, feel it pierce your skin
When he yells, when he hits, when he yells more
Do not let it dismay you
Wipe the blood from your face, do not cry
There is no use in showing more weakness to this man
This man who claims to love you will tower over you
Holding you hostage, peeling off your innocence
Do not scream, do not alert the neighbors
Everything will be alright just wait until this is over
Let the silence resonate in your ears
Do not flinch when he yells again for he will only feel more superior
Do not fight for yourself after it all because you know he loves you
Deep down it is not just anger
You swear deep down he's a good guy

And although I actively debate the thought of suicide
I know that there is nothing better than being alive
I may have trials, days where it feels God fist is pressing down on me
Days where I can't function how I should because of the immense discomfort
Days where I am soaked to the bone in poisonous words
I know one thing to be true, always
There is nothing better than being alive
If I have no one, I have myself
I have birds and trees, the ocean is my swimming pool
I have the sun and the moon, the cosmos are my best of friends
The mountains encourage me the stay strong child
The wind encourages me to keep moving forward
This world is the only reason I am still breathing because I am so in love with it
I know that even on my worst of days
There is nothing better than being alive

The dawn cracks the sky like his words tearing through your skin this is dancing in the suns intoxicating rays
It beams down, light reflecting off the water you thought of drowning yourself in
And for a moment everything is simple
The race of the world slows down, the bullet stands still in the air
Defying gravity, your heart is no longer trying to rip out of your chest
The oxygen you are breathing goes easy into your lungs
The heaviness decreases, something has lifted the weight
And you wonder why it cannot feel like this all the time
When dusk falls there is something that triggers inside of you
Your mind wanders into a forest lit only by the light in his eyes
This used to be a place so beautiful when he was yours
But as he trails away holding someone else's hand
This maze has become all the more difficult
You can never truly say that you are okay because deep down you are enveloped in an agony that words cannot capture
They say that things have to get worse before they get better
But I have never heard of their being a ladder at the bottom of the pit
This desolation seems eternal and I cannot bear to look at you without my chest having a plane crash into it
And the smoke is hindering my ability to breathe
I wonder if you are lost too
I wonder if you are looking for me
As I am looking for you