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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My classy *** ragtime notes
Can pound yo dub step trippin’ beats any day.

You’re techno,
I’m folk.

You gotta wear neon to be seen.
Man, they can see me from the moon.

You spend two hours getting dressed
I roll out of bed and still look this fly.

Your hat points in a different direction than your nose.
Mine is the same one my grandfather wore.

Your pants are falling off your ***.
Mine are held up with suspenders.

You try so hard.
I kind of feel bad for you.

Girl, you a fraud.
And I’m the real deal.

You tried to hide you’re in love with my guy.
I kind of wanted to **** you.

You kind of did me a favor.
He was just as bad as you.

Thanks for showing me
That I can do better than Dub Step.

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 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.

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'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?

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I would like
for you
to for once
in your life
get angry.
I broke you;
made you
into the so many
pieces
of the man
I used to know
you to be.

I would like
for me
to stop believing
in fairy tales
because I know
first-hand
there is no
happy ending
but I still
dream
about them
anyways.

I would like
for you
to break my heart
(again)
so that
this current state
of self-loathing
would make
some sort
of sense.

I think
I hate myself
more
for ruining you
than I hate you
for ruining me.

Lovely.
Lying awake.
Naked in bed.
I refused to take off the leopard print push-up.
For once, no music.
An abnormality in our lives.
Everything is stillness except the beating of our hearts.
Because your head’s on my chest, you can hear mine beating faster,
Beating harder
Beating stronger. Because you give me life.
The black cat purrs by our heads. Her rhythm becomes our rhythm as we lay awake
Lights on
Staring at the ceiling
Breathing each other in.
We’re the only 2 people who exist.

I can remember when we used to lie in bed
and make love for hours on Sundays.
Duvet days where
Breakfast in bed
Lunch in bed
*** in bed

I remember taking in every part of you
tracing my finger along your back
committing every curve of your spine to memory
And reminding myself
that this wasn’t a dream.

I can recall those times I’d wake up
at midnight or one or two
And I’d sense your eyes going right through me.
I’d take a peak and there you were,
staring at me long and hard
with those baby blues.

There was a moment I first realized you loved me.
It was in a room full of beautiful women
and all you could do was stare at me
with that ***** smile plastered on your face.
And I knew I was ***** smiling back at you.

I was shocked every time you took my hand
when we were walking down the street
Because the one before you never did that.
He was ashamed of me.
You wanted the world to see us together.

I fantasized having a child with you
Tiny, perfect and beautiful
with my sandy blonde hair
And your tall, lanky body.
We’d give him all the love in the world.

All I can remember are those moments.
But I sleep alone in a Queen with dark, cold sheets
and you’re no longer there.
You’re my own personal ghost
who will follow me until eternity’s end.

All I have left of you
is how we once were.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

Sometimes I think
you don’t remember
when we held hands.
When we got wasted together
and had the most fun
in a night of debauchery
and fell asleep
fully clothed
side-by-side.

We both woke up
at 6 a.m.
from the sun streaming in
the sunlight windows.
We both stared
bleary-eyed at the light
then at each other.
You took my left hand in yours
gave me a cheeky half smile
and fell back asleep.
I did too.

I woke up
a few minutes before you
and removed my hand
just in case you were embarrassed
or in case it was just because
we were drunk.

Anyways
Sometimes I think you don’t remember
that time we fell asleep
holding hands.
and it was the nicest sleep I’ve ever had.

But anytime you give me
that mischievous half smile
that just screams
“I know something you don’t know”

Then I think you very much remember.

As I breathed in his clean scent of soap and cologne
and the faint smell of mint coming from the gum he chewed,
I realized our knees were a small way away from touching.
A man that many women around me looked at twice
was looking at me.
He shifted on the uncomfortable folding chair
And there it was—
Our legs were touching.
His skin was soft and warm,
like his dark tan skin kept
Latin heat inside to emanate all year round.

I felt no rush of pleasure;
no smirk appeared at the corner of my mouth.
All I felt was a warm knee on my skin.
and nothing more.

It is this moment I realize just how damaged I am.

Who would have thought
When all I wanted
Was for things to be easy.
That you so easy
You so easily read
You so simple
So one dimensional
So realistically there or not there
Would bore me to death.
Who would have thought
That all I thought I wanted
Was nothing more
Than the grandest illusion
The one I had before you.

That instead
I’d crave
The great Perhaps
The great indefinitely maybe
The perhaps not entirely attainable.
That perhaps, in this time and that place and this time around
I’ll finally find it.
Find that which I’ve always been looking for.
That I'll finally see what was always right in front of me.
What was always supposed to be.

That I’d get off my high horse.
And admit
That you stole me the day we met.
That I was inevitably yours from day one.
That we were the perfect mystery,
That unsolvable equation
And tell you that you were the X factor
The spark that starts the fire.
And you were always
The only one.

My only one.

Why do we
keep drinking
out of the bottle
with the skull and crossbones
when we've
seen enough
to know
it’ll **** us
sooner or later.

Hands shaking
****** burning.
This is how we are today.
Tomorrow, we’re something else.

Body trembling
Heart pounding
We’re in love today
I ******* hate you tomorrow.

Glass emptying
Bar hopping
Broken hearts club gathers today
Tomorrow, we cry alone in bed.

Stars falling
World changing
Today I’m kicking ***.
Tomorrow the sinking feeling returns to my stomach.

Admissions Essay
Studying with wine.
Dreams of yesterday
Are coming back today.

Uncertain future
Forgotten wants
You **** up everything today
And I keep you anyways.

Battered heart
Love warrior
You cannot break me so stop trying
Tomorrow I’ll be better.

Open your eyes, boy,
I think we are saved.
Took a walk over the bridge above troubled water
Got to the other side
Got to the other side.

Silent Hail Marys over and over again.
Counting beads.
Fingers running over them beads.
Muttering.
Muttering the same thing again.

Mother, I am weak, but I am strong.
I am no longer young;
I am an old man’s daughter.
Who understands less now than when she started.

He’s still walking up and down those streets
Doesn’t know what he’s doing that for.
I asked him why
He said it’s hard living with ghosts
In someone else’s tomorrow.

We are water
We are water
We are water.
I want life to
Give me
what the water gave me.

Take me down to the levy
Take me down to the stream.
I wanna be like old John and
Wash my sins away.
The choir of gospel singers
Moved me down
Down to the river.

Father can you forgive your son?
I’m a fallen apostle
Carrying the sins of Cain.
Take me down to the River Jordan
To take me away.
Gunna wade in the water.
Gunna come home again.
To the house of Gold
Under a dark, deep blue sea.

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.

He came up to me
on the street
Looked at me long and hard
with chocolate brown eyes
that stared right through me
And said

You’re strikingly beautiful.

I gave him a soft smile,
Shook my head.
And said

No I’m not.
I’m a ******* headcase.

His turn to smile softly.
And he said

well you do the ******* headcase thing gloriously.

And he walked away.

I stared at corner where he turned for four hours.
Because it was the most alive I ever felt
and I didn’t want it to end just yet.

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.