My favorite Irish poet
has a poem
called Chugat.

Which means "To you".

And my favorite three lines maybe ever written

translate to

"salvage your heart
never say I left you
say I drowned".

It basically describes my thoughts on love.

It's the time you realize your twenty-something coworker has maybe more talent in his left thumb that you do in your entire being. Or at least now a days. 10 years ago, you maybe could have competed. But also, like, you're not mad about it. There's a switch that flips where it's less threatening when you have colleagues with creative talent and now you just ******* love it instead of being threatened by it.

I had a a particularly hard conversation recently in which I had to defend my badass ***** evolution. I mean, I won. -> Hence the badass *****.

I talked about the time I was in over my head, my first love manipulating me, making me feel less than, making me feel like I owed him just for loving me, making me feel honestly the more that I think about it, just like a *******.

It's literally been 10 years. I've moved on, I'm happy now. I've got the dog and the fence, the ring and the acre and some ****.

But when I listen to my insanely creative colleague's music, I'm transported. Back to my academic days, back to my hippie groupie days, back to when I was a part of a group, part of a thing, part of something ******* bigger than myself. And I see the world in a different way. I see the skies and the mountains and the world to be conquered, not just bills and a mortgage and the weeds I need to obliterate. This was when I created - I made things. Theories, poetry, a future legacy. Honestly, I ******* loved my former life. It makes me secretly smile.

Waking up has it's practical advantages. But honestly, I think the value is in the steps of waking up that shows you the beauty of the world before and after that has value that you should treasure for the rest of your ******* life.

It's that time you remind yourself you're a wildly successfully badass woman in her career but when you re-read your 10-year-old poetry, you're so **** proud of yourself because ****, bae, you were a queen.

Where to go from here.

Wake up.

Out of nowhere, a message in a bottle.
The letter that never came
finally arrived.

I waited for that letter for six years.
And as soon as I got it,
I realized I hadn’t been waiting for it
for a while now.

The way is shut.

You know what you do when a ghost comes back into your life?
You remember it’s a ghost. It’s unliving. It’s not real.
And you move on.

There's a comfort that your own demise is in your own hands.
That someone else started digging it for you,
but you'll finish the **** job.

The graveyard calls
And I want to be a part of it.
No giant scythe scares me
I reap what I sow too.

Nicotine or alcohol
pumping the body full of unnatural things
or just pining over things lost and unfound.
Either way
Just killing yourself more slowly
Than the guy who just decided to jump one day.

No instant fix, just the long-awaited digging
And feeling steel separate the Earth
Muscles tensing
Flexing
Shovel down,
Scoop
Lift
Toss
Do it again.

I never bothered to fix that hole in my heart
because I don't even wanna go near it anymore.
It will just be there.
And I will just keep digging.

Just when I think I should stop
I still
Just Keep digging.

Storage for things I need but not right now.
Can I put my love there?

It's something I will not put away forever.
I'm proud of the mistakes I've made and the glory of love I've lived and died with.
But there's a time to carry my love with me--right next to me--
And a time to store it in the overhead cabin.

I'm a function of 21st Century pragmatism:
Where you don't have to put love away,
you can travel with it.
As your carry-on.

And as I make this decision
to stow my love away
Three feet above my head
I know one day
someday
My love will be sitting right next to me
as we take to the skies.

I want to be susceptible to the world's most anguishing heartbreak.

I want to know torture outside prisons
and inside the hidden doors in the soul-
the ones where you stash the secrets
the truth
the unadmittable.

Looking across a roomful of people
and only seeing one
only Ever seeing one
and wouldn't it be a fairytale
if he was looking right back.

Because before heartache comes heart great.

No more "do my eyes deceive me?"
No more fantasizing what happens when hands
accidentally graze

There's no mistaking his meaning.

Like Love poems in foreign languages-
you still understand every word
every sentiment
every intention.

And while the world keeps spinning
and the noise gets louder and louder

We will retreat into our own quietness.

Where we will stay for
a long
long

time.

The feeling of inadequacy
The feeling I vowed would not beat me
Now I find I’m a worthy candidate for surgery
Please, please, please, put me to sleep.

I did not know so I did not do
The last thing I needed was anything from you
What has been used can never again be new
What you have taken, you cannot keep.

I guess I can’t trust when you said you’d stay
You came for a bit just to have your way
You spoke in circles; you spoke in grey
For God’s sake say what you mean, not what you think

Waking up mornings, alone in bed
Heavy hands, heavy heart, heavy head
Recalling every comma in every phrase you ever said
Please, please, don’t let me sink

Nothing that began ever did grow
There was never a way I would have ever known
The time has come to end this show
Don’t forget to turn off the lights.


Picked up my bags, walked down the hall
You gotta get up after the fall
It’s glorious for once not feeling so small
Wish me goodbye, not good night.

Man in the long black coat
as ominous as the Dylan song.

Eyes with wild abandon
Hurricanes happenin’ in them eyes.
Flicking a half-smoked cigarette
into a ***** puddle.

Sizzle of extinguishment
the sound of his life.

The dark cobblestone streets quiet, for once.
His cowboy boots keeping him surprisingly warm,
despite the November cold.

He stands at the crossroads.
If the devil came to make a deal,
he wasn’t sure he could say no.

“Lead me not to temptation.”
too late.

Stories of stuff, not people filled his head.
He found people broke more than stuff.
Warranties.
A whole department there to pay you back.

He lit up again.
Surrender to addiction
Just let it take you.

The nicotine rushed to his head and he exhaled,
feeling a little bit better
than 30 seconds ago.

He thought of the girl at the bar.
God, she could have passed as her twin.
Thinking of her was like
being hit by a battering ram
over and over again.
Crushed chest,
Crushed soul.

Again, he flicked the half-smoked cigarette away.

The cold November night,
The only one joining him tonight.

She’s not coming.
She never was.

Oh baby –
We were doomed from day one.

Though we weren’t in the Jazz age,
and we weren’t in the modern age,
We were in the age of us.

Wings on my eyelashes,
A silky robe around my shoulders,
You wore a vest and a tee shirt—
Indulged in cowboy bohemia;
God, it was ****.

Oh baby, we thought we were unstoppable
We drank too much
Met new people by liquid courage
And found fearlessness suited us well.
We harnessed the trade winds
and went where we wanted.

Interest and innovation embedded in curiosity;
In art and newness and literature and truth.
Calling ******* like we saw it
We were entitled and young and free
No restraints
And hey, maybe that was the problem.

The problem with freeness
Is running and running and running
Until you forget what you’re running towards
And instead find
You’re actually running from.

Oh baby-
We were doomed from day one
We just didn’t know it yet.
I’m just too tired to run anymore.

I could have been like Zelda.
Tired from the facade,
Strong and petrified at the same time,
Finding distractions in every part of life
That made me forget we weren’t as free as we thought we were.

God, Baby—
Didn’t you know we were doomed
From the very first day we met?
I suppose I should thank you:
Thanks for breaking my heart;
You saved me from breaking my own.

I could have been like Zelda.

She knew.
Just as she always knew.
It was just a matter of
If her mind could hear
What her heart was saying.

He was avoiding her.
Because maybe he knew too.
And that scared the living **** out of him.

But those times they both stop knowing
And the ***** flowed
And the night brought mystery and possibilities
They let themselves know nothing
And they let themselves feel the fire
That both of them felt
For each other.
And the memory of that heat
Would stay with them
For weeks after
Like embers after the fire.

But at the end of the night
Through misty cognizance,
She remembered.
Her intuition kindly reminded her
What she already knew.

And she’d try to bring it up
And he’d pretend he had no idea what the hell she was talking about.
Embers always turn to ashes.

She’d shake her head
Walk away
And turn back
And he’d be looking too.
She’d think from across the room
“Just once,
I wish you’d surprise me.”

And as she walked out that door
He’d think to himself
“Me too”.

Love got drunk one day
And slipped away as quickly as it came.
Leaving impressions and marks and a ******* memory
Why did it have to do that?

He told me
Perhaps the brightest insight
To human history
Since Copernicus Said
Hey maybe
We’re not so important
That the world
(literally)
Revolves around us
But perhaps it is us
Who revolve around the world
(as it should be.)
What my Copernicus said was
Individualism
Is the single most sign
Of continual human progress.
That without it
We just become droids
Or peons
Or mindless beings
Without sentience
Without intelligence
Without the single most important vocabulary word
“Why?”

You can see why he intrigued me.

Ever-going quest to
Make love stay.
Slipping out of my suitcase
Man it was cramped in there
I looked up
And saw my name written in the sky.
*******.
Always finding new ways
To tell the world
What we are
And what we could be
If I cashed in my chips
And went all-in
For just one hand.

Tears came
Hanging ten on the edge of eyes
Refusing to fall
Uncertain of their plight
So they do what people do
When they are scared
And they freeze.

It crushed me to know
I’ve cashed in my chips
One too many times
He thought I’m incredible
When really
I’m un-credible.

Love didn’t stay.
It took the next flight to Vegas
To gamble some other poor soul’s life
Leaving me
To look up a nameless sky.

I am a ghostyhead.
Transience.
Unfeeling
Passing through walls
Haunting
A sleepless forever
A continuous slumber
Ethereal
whether I want to be or not.
Tragic and beautiful
On earth as it is in heaven.

He sees right through
My ghostyhead
Sees the details of the wall behind me.
Sees my eyes that do not see him.
Sees my ghostyhead in
Another world.

He feels my cold when we do not sleep
Pretending that I am real
And here
When I am just only
A ghostyhead.

He knows my presence
Is more a haunting
and less a blessing.
They all came
Far and Long
To witness the ghostyhead
But they could not see
The ghost that haunts him
Only he sees and feels and knows
Ghostyhead is here.

And so without finality
A permanent purgatory
Without my goodbye
He slowly fades
And Exits.

So he says
“Lord,
help my poor soul.”

Once we were able
To lie down together
And forget the world.
But now,
the insomnia keeps me up,
I stare at the walls of my room
As you softly snore
And I wonder
How I ever
Only amounted to
A supporting actress
In my own life.

When he was away
I sent him picture messages
Of me holding signs
Proclaiming
He was the only one for me.
That our love was endless.
That one day, we’d have the house, the dog, the stocked wine fridge.
And I doubted it was true
Even as I wrote them.
But it was the fantasy to believe in
That he and I,
Two world-class **** ups
In our own rights
Could finally
Not
**** this one up.

What once was joy and laughter
And holding hands on public streets
And feeling validated from when he would call me ****
Quickly became
Lying on bedroom floors
Sobbing to the carpet
Heaving for breath
Wondering how it ever came to this.

I love to hate him.
The scars you see
Are ones he gave me
As I experienced the worst of
Neglect and
Abandonment.

We allowed ourselves disillusion
When reality became too tough
When hands that were holding
Felt like squeezing
When air we were breathing
Was suffocating
When love we were feeling
Became suffering.

I thought about all those signs today
Those signs I put in the “his” box
That he collected when I wasn’t there
Because I didn’t want to see him
And I wonder what he did with them.
If he threw them away
Like he did with us
Or if he has them still
And wants to be reminded
That he still ***** everything up.

I’m tired of pointless things
That I so seemingly need
Just to find them
Crushed under a girl’s hard boot
In the back of my car.
Guess I didn’t need it so much. always thinking you need **** you never do.
Not getting a text doesn’t bother me anymore
I don’t worry if that particular name doesn’t pop up on my Facebook feed.
I won’t worry tonight
I’ll just revel in my blankets and think about glorious things
And that gives me more pleasure
Than anything these fools would be willing to give me,
If they gave anything at all.

We’ll try to answer
The unanswerable paradox
Of tragedy and pain
And attempt to explain suffering.
Why ****** wasn’t born with an incurable disease
And why Anne Frank
Couldn’t have just held off
For three more weeks
Until Liberation.

These questions make
the world become poetry.
And we who ask them
become the world.

Inevitable losses contrived from the actuality
Saying goodbye to the ones that we love
Letting them go
Before we’re destroyed
By the inevitable suffering.

I am a grenade.
I am bound to explode.
Fatalities by the dozens.
Even more wounded.
PTSD for years after
I will leave an emptiness
In the lives of those I love
And those who love me.

Life will end midsentence
Before I have a chance to explain
Or say goodbye
Or say I’m sorry
To those who never got the chance.
Because I knew I was a grenade
And I loved them too much
To even be
One of my fatalities.

[Boom]

Allowing him
A total stranger
Into your world
Only to have him judge it

He wasn’t right in it anyways
A dinosaur in a dollhouse.

All you’re left with
Is sheets twisted around
The end of the bed
A quiet house
Faint smell of cologne on your pillows
The kind that smells cheap and tacky
And an emptiness inside
That you’ve felt before
But now it’s inescapable.

This is one American that drops beats, not bombs
This is one American that admits when she’s wrong.
But an ocean doesn’t divide us
Only you divide us
With your words for labels that say what’s you, not me
Your stereotypes are gunna be the death of me
You’re killing me with these close-minded philosophies
And Who the hell ever said you were the referee of me?

We gotta spend less time sneering and swearing
We gotta spend less time jeering and tearing

You should never have to defend when you love
You should never have to defend why you love
You should never have to defend who you love

We are all created equal;
That’s the condition of the receiver
And we are all the receivers
But some keep spewing that hate; those hate-believers

But we don’t accept their judgment upon us
We gotta rise up out of adversity placed on us

Some out there will go to their graves justifying
Committing acts based on fear is nothing but mortifying
And I’m gunna be truthful; I’m not even lying
When your preach your *******, the human race is dying.

You see United this house stands strong
Every new hand we hold pushes us along
Every brick makes us higher
Acceptance makes us flyer

Gotta keep hate out of your heart
And maybe then we’ll get to start
To come together
To love one another
And to be free like it is intended
Maybe then the human race will be mended
Maybe then this bad movie will get a better sequel
Maybe then we’ll realize We are all created equal.

I want to stop it all
To go into a free-for-all
To rip those signs apart
To take that hate from that heart
All I can do is spread the word on love
And hope to God that will be enough
All I can do is be me and let you be you
All I can do is all I can do
But together we can appreciate
That all together we can officiate
Love that knows no bounds
That type of harmony with unreal sounds.

We may measure success by what’s published
We may measure it by what’s re-said
By how much money we make
By the course that we take
But one thing I know that will bring us deliverance
All that matters is that one voice that says
You make a ******* difference.

Oh yeah.
That saxophone yeah.
That saxophone yeah that
Makes you in that mood
Yeah
Snap
Snap
Snaps
(Oh yeah)
So many snaps
Clap
Clap
Hips moving
Spinning around.
Reminiscent of tacky decades music
whatever
Secretly, you know you’re also dancing.

Been thinking about things
Life, him, them, that one time…
Time to stop with the dot dot dots.
I have the life among lives.

I’ve got Wonder like that time
You were a little kid
Looking up at the sky
With the fierce belief
That one day you
Could own it too
I’ve got this feeling
That I awake every day
With a renewal
And a knowledge that I will in fact
Someday change the world.
I’ve got Adventure without fear
Going beyond the “Danger” sign
Because life in front of the sign
Is never as fun
As the life beyond it.

If this is how 80’s music makes me feel
Come on, guys,
(Key change)
Let’s bring back the ******* 80’s.

Here I am.
In all of my unveiled natural.
I am not a china doll
I am not a superstar
I am a ******* glorious headfuck.
And I make the lights brighter
And worlds bigger
And sounds louder.

I’m that high note
That few people can reach
I am that glory
They brag about from the battlefield
I am home
I am the adventure.
I’ve been higher than the highest mountain.
Brighter than the largest supernova
More graceful than the ******’ swan
Here I am.

I scare you
You want me
You hate me
You want to be me
You envy my entire existence
How I can so
Seemingly be
So ******* confident
Within my own skin
And know without a doubt
My purpose
On this earth
You all take that way
I take the way
You wish you would have gone.

Here I am.
Ignore me.
Love me.
Envy me.
Hate me.
I ain’t going nowhere.

There’s a bar in Baltimore
Called Bad Decisions
And I think this bar
Has perhaps traveled around with me
In my inner conscious.
Because lately
That’s where you can find me.

As a previous lover of fairytales,
Disney movies
And all things for ages 5-12
I’m horrified to see myself
As a cold, callous woman.
How did I become
This?

Anytime I used to see a field
I took my shoes off
And ran barefoot.
And I soaked the earth into my skin
Until I was something more
Than just a resident—
I was part of this world.

The biggest thing I used to worry about
Was trying to find the next adventure
Which sometimes was right in my backyard.
Now all my wondering
Has to do with why
My electric bill is so high.

I comfort it
With the fact that I am just like Wendy.
I knew my time to grow up
Because Neverland was never the place for me
To stay forever.

But when my time comes
to bear children
I will spoil them rotten
With newfangled fairytales
And maybe I’ll catch them
Flying off into the night
With a lost boy who I’ve known
For quite a long time.

I will teach them to believe in the impossible
with all of their hearts.
Because even though it may in fact
Be impossible
All children
Should see the sky
Before they grow old
and have to live on the ground.
But when they do
I want them to look up
every once in a while
and Smile.

I have firmly believed that life is music
And love is the song.
Now knowing both intimately
I wouldn’t say that I was wrong.

I used to love his genre his style his swag.
Now I think it just sounds ridiculous.
I want something else now for me
I want something so delicious.

My boy HDT told me to go
with the beat of a different drum
And I think I have now
Those odd beats I’ll get me some.

It’s funny how our tastes change.
It’s funny how we used to be.
What used to move those mountains
Now doesn’t do a ******* thing for me.

I can never pretend that I don’t still love you
Honey bun you know I do
But I can admit that I don’t want you
Took me this long but now it’s true.

You’re only just a warm body
Someone I used to love and you're here
But it’s not the same, oh my darling
You ain’t ever gunna get another tear.

I think our timelines are twisted
I think our timing is just wrong
I still think love is the music
But Thank God you’re no longer my song.

I type all my poetry
In a Word document
Called “Legends”
Because everything worth remembering
Is the stories
Happening
Over and over again.
Repetition until we’re dead.
Same **** different day.
Looking at it this way
And then that one.

I write so I can give someone
somewhere
Goosebumps.
I want to touch stranger’s lives
In remarkable ways
I want to share my pain
My love
My story
With all of you.
My art
is showing the sanctity of words
and leaving a legacy.

I will be dead
But someone will inherit my little black book
Filled not with men’s phone numbers
but the thing
That allows tourists to find their way
That allows kids to express themselves in healthy ways
When what they’re feeling just might **** them
That allows you and me to talk
When we’re thousands of miles apart.
My art
Is words.
And I’ll tell the same ******* story
But I’ll do it in new ways
That’ll make you go “ooo. She’s good.”
Because I am.

No one fawns over us.
We’re not the musicians with admirers
Or the actors who enjoy owning islands.
We’re not covers of magazines.
No one even knows what we look like.

But if I’ve put Goosebumps on your arm
I’ve done the same thing as the greats.
And in doing so,
I’ve become one.

We loved them because
they loved to create.
A tailor and a builder.
made art from nothing.
Left a legacy.
Constructed beauty
from seemingly nothing.

Oh boys,
Our tailors and our builders,
Without you, we’d be sleeping just fine.

He blew her mind
Made her consult
With her old dear friend
Jack
(Daniels)
At hours unmentionable to civilized people.
Who indeed made her feel better
but also made her feel
Worse in the end.

He could talk real pretty things around my head
And I was hooked like a fish
It’s been 4 years and I’m still not free.
I’ve never met anyone so broken
And yet so comfortable with his millions of pieces.
He taught me to take the lenses off
And embrace this life, this love, this way.
Everything that happened before
Is over.
Tomorrow is just what we’re calling 12 hours from now
And oh, won’t those 12 hours until then
Be ******* glorious.

He molded her
Into a volcano.
The kind you see in middle school art class
That the kiln hardens
and it becomes supposedly unbreakable
Until one day, you find it has been chipped all along
[You did that to her, you know.
Broke a piece off her without even knowing it.]

Now that we’re older
they suddenly saw us
When before we were just the backing cast.
Made things that belong in the deep
Accessible to us without fishing lines
Now that’s just a cruel game to play.

It’s funny that it was
a tailor and a builder
who gave us the courage
to not need
to be built or tailored
anymore.

You were there
So close
That I could feel
Your breath
On my neck.
Touch
became instant
Gratification.

You were there.
So close
That anytime we touched
it was a spark
Leaping out from the coals
because it was not
Ready to die out
and that made me
have hope
that maybe
I’m not entirely
Opposed to fire
As I thought I was.

Because Fire
Rages
Consumes
Cares nothing for what has happened
What could happen
Or what will happen
and there’s something
So entirely ****
About that concept.

And you made me
Forget about
all the ****
that happened before
and all of those ghosts
that used to haunt me
Were silenced that night.
and I thought
If you could do that
You could probably
Do anything.

I in fact
Did not rule the world
when I was 19.

I did not
Know everything.

I was not
The ruler of my own kingdom;
I was just a serf
In someone else’s.

I came out of Neverland
And knew I needed to grow up.
Because I was not the one
Who wouldn’t.

Life became
A learning experience
Rather than that
Which I’ve already conquered.

Secret spider solitaire
Behind the desk.

Discovering Heartache
And Heartburn.
Realizing I can’t love like I’m 19 anymore.
And I can’t eat like I’m 19 anymore either.

Lord of the Rings soundtrack
Just to remember
What hope sounds like.

Loving my bed
For engulfing me in a duvet
But hating it
For eyes that won’t sleep
Like
It’s laughing at me
While my exhausted body
Lays awake in paralyzing insomnia.

I think the most adult decision
I can make
is admitting
I want to escape with you
to a place
where we can both be 19 forever.

Love is a farce.
A Marketing ploy.
To make your heart beat faster
Your dreams dream bigger
And to raise you up
So that everything below
looks minuscule and meaningless in comparison.

And to delude you
Into thinking
You could have that someday too.

I reach up
touch my face
I just feel two pockets of dimples
and warm skin.
I gave some of that little fire to you one day and together,
we blew up everything we knew.

It was one of those inconsequential disasters.
Because it was never supposed to happen
But
It did.

I can still feel the burns.

We can’t undo that Nagasaki.

All I want is the one who knows me.
All I want is my little fire returned to me.

We’ve accepted that we’re already dead.

Like the soldier
Like the victim
No, the veteran of love
(and subsequent heartbreak)
We’ve accepted we’re already dead
So we can keep on living.

I was broken.
No longer working
No longer dreaming
No longer wanting
Pushing away
The hands that tried to help me
The encounters that didn’t last broke me.
I was embattled.
In the trenches of my own existence.

Those we met
Under picture-perfect circumstances
When we thought utopia could be real
woefully disproved this theory.
Rude awakening to what agony feels like

And sleeping all day so we could self-medicate
all night.
Self-medicating with ***** and cigarettes
Not because we needed to but
For respite
For the moment
For a friend in the bottle
Or the lighter.

Life is war
Survival is the only option
Death, inevitable and imminent

We are the ones in the ring
We have lived here
We will die here.

There are those who are weak
Succumbing to the needles
The tap tap tap on veins
Or worse
Ordinariness
Boring as the 8x11’s
found in printers
All around the world.

I will not be ordinary.
Surrender is not an option.
Because I am a gladiator
I have adapted.
I’m still in the ring
But I will defend myself now.
They are the lions;
The king of their race
But I
I am a gladiator in a Gap V-Neck Tee shirt.
I will die with love in my heart,
Belief in my soul
My ashes will spell out the word Hope.

Nothing will break me ever again.

Illuminated by a dream.
Drawings on the wall
Writings on your back
Hiding away in abstract thought.
Pastel colors and vintage photographs and Levi Jeans ads.
Dusty records on the floor of your room with the slanted walls
Hibernating on the roof
Looking over the city
Like the hero of Gotham
See the world through someone else’s eyes.
See the way you live.
Merge. Connection.
Binnocularing into the future.
Bird watching peeping tomming.
Conjoining what’s real and what is just what it seems.
Edgar, it is just a dream.
Earth, Moon and global Pangaea.
The world is my canvas and now so are you.
Why do you look at me like that?
You make me want to write.
I can’t stop looking at you too.
You have rendered me useless
All I’m focused on is those blue eyes
Staring so intently at me
Fixated on me and only me
Hey, I’m talking to you,
Cowbell tamboureen percussion section cowboy.
You burn with a fire from the sun.

a moment
an instant
that one second of time
captured
forever
imprinted
and faded
like the ones
you find
in your grandfather’s attic
that you can’t believe
ever
happened.

Do you know what it’s like
for me
looking at
a half empty
bottle of wine?

It is
Like it is
for a chain smoker
who sees
Cigarette butts on the ground
That are only half smoked.

It’s like when
The alcoholic
Sees the perfect tumbler
with just the right amount of ice
and with the pristine glass craftsmanship
that makes that
Satisfying “clink”ing sound
Whenever it hits the side table or counter.

I SUFFER
When I see such a sight.
And I wouldn’t call it
Addiction
As much as I call it
Jealousy.

For me, it’s torture
Realizing
That people buy the bottle
To get drunk
Or to have fun
Rather than
To forget
Like I do.

The Irish word for poet
is "File".
This always fascinates me
Because it reminds me of a youthful horse
(The filly)
Pushing the boundaries
And stumbling on awkward legs
Being
not the most majestic
But the one who discovers
Joy and passion
and vibrancy
in every action of life.

When just putting
one foot in front of the other(s)
is a deed as majestic
As galloping
Like a knight with surmounting pride
Or a night with no end,
It's indeed a gift
of youth and innocence.

Like the old mare,
We may bear wrinkles.
Like the war horse,
We have our battle scars.

But we are the “File”.
And we have something to say.

and we will forever be
infinite
in our hoof beats
and our heart beats.

It may sound harsh
But it’s true.
I can’t divorce the word
“Disappointing”
Anytime I hear your name.

When my phone t9’s what I really want to say
into your name
It’s like a slap in the face
And I can still feel the sting
hours later.

When I run into you
On the streets
I wish It would be
like how I imagine it:
Where the empowered heroine
(that’s me)
Gives a look so piercing
It makes him shiver
And wallow in rebuke and despair.

Instead
I freeze up
Deer in headlights
Shocked and bewildered and delighted and horrified
All at the same time.

After all the **** you put me through
You can still do that to me.
It’s like magnetism or The Force
Or magical forces unexplained
And I stumble awkwardly
To get away.

My life is not a movie
And I am no heroine.
But at least
my name
Isn’t synonymous
with disappointment.

Lately I find
There’s nothing to write about.
Because for once in my life
When I lay my head down to rest
I regret nothing.

I remember those poor decisions
I made as a naïve young girl
And I recall those moments
I wish I could have back.
But I see clarity
And have stopped blaming the cosmos
For when bad things happen to good people.

I am instead thinking
as I fall asleep
How thankful I am
for the loving people around me
(and across an ocean)
And for not being so ******* up
That I'd forget that fact.

I am proud
Of where life has led me
And the hard work it took
Just to get here.
And I am excited
For the prospect of a new journey
where all of those bad decisions
have no effect.
And just maybe,
Oh maybe.
I’ll get my happy ending.

I think all I have ever created
is compensation
For being such a fool.
I had him;
ensnared him with my womanly ways.
I never realized he was always mine
And turned away
thinking I was doing the right thing.

I sought someone else;
I found him.  
I was horrified when I discovered
It was the love I always wanted—
And the love that undid me.

What I wanted was fleeting,
was overwhelming
in-the-moment
out-of-body experience.

Now all I want
is the metaphorical dog and house and white picket fence.
But it’s not those material items I crave;
It’s the permanence that accompanies
that dedication and level of love.

I don’t want it to only last a moment
and disappear
like sand sifting through the hourglass;
I don’t want to feel out of my body
Any more.

I just want someone I love who wants me too.

This is the curse of unrequited love.
This is the gift of Eve to womankind.
I was tempted, and I have no more
what I could have had for eternity.

I love the stories
that make the world what it is.
When Peter looked at Wendy
and even considered
Growing up for her
Well.
That was love.
And I wanted it.

I’ve always known
Our love was NOT a classic novel.
It was a short story.
And a **** good one.
I’ll read it over and over again
until I’m old and grey.

However, he is but a chapter in my life.
The exciting love interest
Who you sort of root for
because that love is so beautiful in the moment
But when someone else comes along
You like him better
Because he’s so genuine and loyal
You just wish he wasn’t a piece a fiction
So that you could have him.

I think maybe
We’re supposed to have the fireworks
(Ephemeral as they are)
So we understand how wonderful
Having the actual fire is.

He once asked me
Was I just merely chiseling stone?
Or building a cathedral?
And to this day
I’ve seen life
In its most elevated grandeur
Because that’s what it is.
I just never looked up
At what I was creating.

I haven’t looked down since.

I've always found I love the dot dot dots.
Maybe because they feel so unfinished
(like me).
Maybe because I enjoy repetition and threes.
Maybe because those dots look like they’re going somewhere.

I overuse them
(I know).
Abuse
and manipulate
and put them in
and take them out…

And of all the punctuation marks
and parts of English grammar,
They have yet to let me down.

? leaves me with so much doubt.
! overexcites me and then
leaves me disappointed with the main event.
.’s feels so final.
I’m a comma *****,
My college English professor told me that
And I so liked the label
I haven’t changed my scandalous ways.

I do enjoy a good ( ).
So many ways to use them.
e.e. taught me that.

But
…
win in the end.
And
Don’t you just want to know
what more there is to say?

As soon as I
cut the Christmas tree
and the Frasier Fur sap
seeped down my arm
like
viscous honey
enjoying
every
second
out of the jar
I thought of you.

I thought of all the holidays
We will never have
Of all the presents
We will never open
Of all the dinner parties
with close friends
We will never laugh at.

And in this holiday season
when we're suppose to be
Oh so thankful
for what we have
All I can think about
is what I don’t have

anymore.

Instead of pulling backwards,
I’m going to look this way.
----->
MOVE FORWARD.
Shift out of reverse.

What’s was
Is what has already happened
Cemented in its place in history
Indisputable fact
Not so indisputable to *******
who want to talk about existentialism
But those moments are gone
Those opportunities, lost
That’s air you already breathed,
In and out of your lungs like THAT.

You’d get arrested
For driving on the left hand side of the road
Because that’s the wrong way
Unless you’re Britain,
Who still needs to prove their righteousness
In totally weird ways.
The rest of us are more humble.

When you put on our uniform
Make sure you kick the ball in the right goal
Otherwise the PG comedy reality comes to fruition.

I can do nothing about yesterday;
Tomorrow scares the **** out of me.
But today,
I can do.
I can make it through.
I can go that way.

I.
Lovers, hold on to everything.
Because when you’re holding on for dear life
That’s when you find what you’re made of.

II.
I walk and the rose petals fall
(Slowly)
as if they have gravitational properties
which allow them to float
for just a while longer
Before they hit the ground.

God I wish for that gift.

III.
An ethereal light
Illuminates my figure
I crashed onto the ***** mattress
On an even dirtier floor
And writhed my body
Screaming
Wait

Wait.

WAIT.

This isn’t the story of heartbreak
It’s the story of what happens after it.

IV.
I’ve felt the heat from the core of the earth
Give birth to my broken body
He broke me but I fixed me.

(It took an eternity)

When I thought I just needed his love
I found I just needed mine.

There is
a perpetual hole in my life
where you used to be

And it doesn’t matter if
it’s only been an hour
Or seventeen days
Or seven months
Or three years.
It’s still there.

It has the cruelest consequences.
Even when you’re absent
You’re here with me.
and when I want you to be gone,
You are
but I feel your goneness,
and your absence
becomes a presence.
and not the one I want.

What’s worst is
you’re not dead
Or in a desolate war zone
Or being a good Samaritan
in a third world country;
You live right down the street.
You chose to be a hole
rather than to be
with me.

I might as well save electricity
And just unplug the “no”
of my vacancy sign.

Because there will always be one.

The first thing that disappeared
was your lips.
Not your voice;
That I still hear loud and clear.
I can’t seem to remember what your lips look like.
But I remember how they taste.

Next it was your nose;
it melted right off your face.
Sliding down your cheek and now
your mouthless lower half,
It fell to the ground below.

The image of your eyes is burned into my mind.
I fell into them the moment we first met,
sunk into the blue flecked with grey
submerged in a stormy sea.
I have yet to come up for air.

Your rosy cheeks have faded
over the years.
Now they just look like everyone else’s.

I hope this means that to me
You’re not as distinct as you used to be.
But I sometimes wonder if it’s far worse;
if it’s that everyone else
is now more like you.

Everyone I’ve ever idolized dies tragically.

He said that Blues Run the Game and died still feeling that fire all over his body.
He sings about losing control again even though it’s he who was.
He taught his son about responsibility and fell to the wildebeest.

I used to think the monk who set himself on fire
was insane
but now I think
he was a product of sound rationale.

Ears are falling off in this starry night.
And I see nothing weird
If he told me to keep the object carefully
I would.
Madness is Genius.
And I’d rather be absolutely ridiculous
than nauseatingly normal.

No one tells you that the very best parts of love
are also its very worst.
Love torments the soul
Tragedy becomes a way of life
And suffering, a daily occurrence.
Such is the way of the mad artist.
Who after he paints Starry Night
Cuts off his ear.

I’m starting to think
I’ll live longer
If I stop being an artist.

When I walk down Shop Street
I shake my ***.
(Yeah, I do.)

I swagger
With the confidence
That yes
I am a foreigner
In your country
And yeah I say,
You’re alright.
But I
Am a newly awakened goddess.

And it took being heartbroken
And being drunk five nights  out of seven
And feeling like the water is going over my head
To say WAIT.
I am more than this.

And when you look at me
It won’t be because my *** is shaking
(although, that certainly helps)
It will be because
I EXUDE GREATNESS.
And you will want to know me.

I’ll be nodding my head from side to side
And shaking my hips like it is my God-given right
(it is)
And Instead of telling you how awesome you are
I’ll be telling myself.
Because that is the one person
whose been neglected from this equation
from the start.

When I ask
DO YOU THINK OF ME?
I’ll be asking myself.

And I’ll be replying  a wholehearted “YES”
As I shake my ***
Walking down Shop Street.