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.

Absence.
Lack thereof.
Without.
Lost.
Forgotten.

Absence.
An empty bed.
Lonely hearts club.
A party of one.
Quiet house.
Not even a stir.
Miles cracking as he spins and spins
Rain drop drops down the windows,
down walls
down me.

Absence.
Not good enough to be remembered.
Boring, lackluster, too easily surpassed.
A hole in the heart,
Weakness is showing emotion.
Blank face.
Death in Life.
EXILE.

Absence.
Tardiness.
A minute too late.
Detention.
No, absence.
Not here at all
was never really here
was never ever here.

Absence.
Seeing what is wanted
Not what is had.
What is had
is absence.
A lack thereof.
Nothing really at all.

For years, we let suffering gnaw away at our hearts
until we got really good at hiding it.
And instead
indulged in silent suffering
at going to pubs and clubs
and getting drunk
making out with random strangers
and being the life of the party
all the while
taking the label of a martyr
but claiming no glory.
We were instead
so completely devoid and empty inside
that our friends would see us as strangers
if they ever knew
how we really felt.

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.

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.

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.

Sleeping.
No. Not sleeping.
Hands in the dark.
Arm/Arm.
Next to each other, on top of each other.
Legs. Legs.
Foot. Tracing your leg.
A hand in the dark.
Fingers take my fingers.
Touches my face.
Kissing.
Suddenly.
You’re there.
So am I.
Should we be doing--?
--Kiss.
Never mind.

You’re supposed to be on a plane right now.
You’re not.
You’re on this bed.
Where I am too.
You kiss me again. Hard.
Hello, tongue.
Wait. What?
Doesn’t matter?
Okay.
Keep kissing.
Yes.

I know what this is.
I’m everything she’s not.

You call me beautiful.
No, I’m not.
My, you’re insistent.
I really don’t think I am.
You stare at me:
I’m the only woman in the world.
No one’s ever done that before.
Hands are going places.
I don’t want ***.
Well, I do.

I want *** with love. You love someone else. And I love you.
I am not an Equal Opportunity Provider.
Is that okay?
God, you’re so sweet.

You kiss me again.
I kiss you back.
Stroke my hair.
Scratchy beard,
Rubs my chin.
God you feel good.
Ugh.
My willpower is diminishing.

Stop.
Let’s talk.
Not about…her.
I mean.
About whatever, really.

Your back porch in Atlanta.
Play them blues.
Drink your Manhattans.
You and your gin.
Sounds beautiful.

You want me to know I’m beautiful.
No I’m not.
Why do I think that?
I’m just not.
It seems we’re at an impasse.
I don’t know I’m beautiful.
You don’t know you’re quite a catch.

You’re fanfacking tastic.
How do you not know it?
[It’s a cruel game;
that the universe made you love someone
who just can’t see that.
That the Gods would laugh
at our human folly
seems unfair.
That they gave us love
and then gave us no directions on how to use it.
That this man
is tripping over his own two feet
trekking mountains
traversing deserts
stealing the stars right out of the sky
Trying to re-win the love of his life.
She doesn’t even bat an eye.
She doesn’t know
that he is the rarest form of species.
And she
is a ******* poacher.]

Now I’m falling in love with your soul.
The very depths of you.
The secret rooms.
The inner dialogue.
You just get me like no one else does.

Sleeping.
No.
Getting there.
Pull me in tight.
Body on body.
Safest place in the world
is right here.
My head on your chest.
Arm/Arm.
Hand/Hand.
Tonight you’re mine.
Tomorrow
you were just a dream.

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.

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.

Those eyes.
Those angry, angry eyes.
Those angry eyes are the last thing I see before I sleep.
Inspiring the thought that is there for only just a moment,
and then slips into my subconscious,
Low beneath the surface where it will stay buried and withdrawn
and it is this:

You will always be this way
and I will always have to live with it.
It’s that thing I hate about you and love about you at the same time.
You’re full of passion, you’re zoned in a moment, you let your knobs turn to 11.
Emphatic, impassioned, ****** energy
floats in the spaces between atoms in the world around you.

But when you turn to anger…
I see a madman, with fire in his belly and hate in his heart.
The same man who storms into the flames
and barn burning antics consume his mind.
The switch is on and it won’t turn off,
it is single-handedly the most petrifying disposition you have.
and I know you will always be this way
and I will have to live with it.
and every night as I go to bed,
I hope to God I don’t see
Those angry, angry eyes.

As the booming music
from the crowded
student center
attempts to
beat my heart
right out of my chest
I retreat
into my own quietness.

Writing poetry
on a neon yellow
Post-It note
as the college kids
around me
talk about
that awesome house party
last night.

I think about how
I cannot have
the love that I want
but I know someday
I'll have
the love that wants me.

And now
the booming music
does indeed
make my heart race
as my quest for love
pauses
to rave out
to electronica music.

I pump a metaphorical fist
not to party
but to proclaim
that I
am a hopeless dreamer.
Deal with it.

Maybe dub step isn't so bad.

She sings and I break.
Flood of unwanted memories.
Waves crashing down.
Here it is—the song—those notes—
Hand clenching the armrest.
Fingers white; knuckles clenched; rings bulging off my fingers,
Squeezing, gripping, relying on that armrest to be rooted in the Earth
so that I am not taken away.

He hums and I squirm.
So nonchalant. Casual. Like it’s nothing.
Like it’s just a song.

It’s NOT just a song.

What do you do
when you realize
your life as you know it
is a cardboard cutout,
a dollhouse scene,
Of what your life should be.
Of what it once was.

The people in my life are characters
A backdrop in the place of reality.
Scenery behind my doorstep.
Photographic fire in the fireplace.
Tiny kitchen cutlery that isn’t sharp.
Staged people in my living room
at literally, a lifeless party.
A fantastic picturesque magazine spread in Southern Living.

And I am a part of this falseness.
I am a creator of this un-reality.
I am a willing participant in this stagnant stage of my life.

This life, this love, this truth
Is a figment
Is a dream
Is a scene of a scene.

I remember when green was green
And blue was blue
And I breathed in newness in every breathe.
Reality bowed down in servitude
And I took every step into a setting sun
The world around me, my partner in crime
As I took it by storm.

The tragedy here
Is knowing that life and love and truth barren
Is knowing it naked
As it really is.
As it really was.

And knowing that you’ve settled for the cardboard cutout
is recognizing you’ve given up.
You’ve settled for second best.
You’re taking the doll house route to life.
You’d rather watch the movie than live it out.
It’s cowardice at its best.

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.

They came again last night.
The demons.
They morph into everything
We’ve ever been afraid of
And everything
We still are.
The ones that haunt and scream and wail
Until we listen to them.
And hear
Our faults
And remember
Our fears
Until everything gets cold and numb.
And no matter how many people are around,
We still know
We’re hopelessly alone.

Ghastly beings, those demons.
They haunt the halls of our subconscious;
They guard the doors
With the keys still in the locks
Covered with cobwebs
Because we dare not venture
Those again.
And every once in a while
Those demons come back
At one or two or three a.m.
To remind us
Those doors
Are still there.

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.

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.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare give up on me.
I am helpless. I am flawed. I am undeserving.
But I am here.
I am one of us.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare push me aside.
I can be a ghost. I can be a fly on the wall.
But I am steadfast.
I am a sphinx who cannot be moved.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare ignore me.
I am faceless. I am unwanted. I am forgettable.
But I have presence. I have substance.
I exist.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare betray me.
I am shameful. I’ve made mistakes.
But I deserve trust.
I don’t want to turn to resignation.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare forget about me.
I am invisible. I fade to black.
But I am a person.
And I want to be remembered.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare ever stop loving me.
I am incapable. I have walls. I am scared.
But I don’t want to be empty.

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 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.

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 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.”

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.

As I watch
as he
sits in the corner
drinking grain alcohol
that tastes like regret and pain and general unpleasantry

and he weeps
those tears of solid resignation and misery
the scene unfolds before me
of his early days
of being young like me
but having so much passion and commitment to a bigger idea
that he committed
human atrocity
for something bigger
than himself.

As I watch
I cry my own tears
for this man’s lack of youth
because he had no time to squander
and instead
was forced
to live a life
of the worst kind of sacrifice.

And I cry some more
because I
am a self-aggrandizing
*******
if I think my petulant, schoolgirl drama
is ****
compared to this.

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.

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.

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.

From the moment that the last moment has passed and is gone
To the moment that has not yet come to pass
There is a long haul,
A varied in-between
A somber hiatus of all things living and dead.
Where my mind wanders into an eternal state of flux
And where everything that could never be
Is.

And as we swim beneath the sea and then above the stars
And watch galaxies give birth to new stars and light and life
And friendly sea creatures wink at us as they pass us by
We stretch out our arms and let freedom take us.

And it’s there we’ll kiss so long
That we never come up for air.
And make love in the blankets of the Milky Way
Bearing our souls for every spec of dust to witness.

And then I blink
And my feet are back firmly on the ground.
While you stand just yards away from me.
We’ll give each other half smiles, half waves
And pass each other by,
Just like that moment is supposed to pass by.

But I know
Somewhere
In an eternal state of flux
We were the good, and the good is the free
And we were free to love each other the way we aren’t allowed here.

Hold on when you get love.
Let go when you give it.

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.

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.

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.

I came to you because I thought you would save me.
You laughed over the John Hughes quote
That now is a seminal classic
But I’m not sure because I don’t believe in it
Because I’ve never known it
or maybe it’s just you I don’t believe in.

I didn't have enough energy to actually make an effort to laugh
and pretend I was having a good time.
I would rather sink into you, slowly, like I would ((in a shipwreck or)) in oversized couch cushions.
and be usurped by ((cold water that wakes you up)) musty fabric
when it swallows us whole
and we sink to the bottom.
I'd only feel
your long arms around me and nothing else

I’d rather strip for you
Not to be naked but to take my layers off.
[You bore me, You shaped me, You taught me]

And then I’d try to not love you so that I could fall into you once more.
let the  overwhelming overwhelm me (again)
until I forget the ongoing drama of the heart and the heart (a purposely neverending story)
[There are no words with which to describe thee:
My darling my love I need you beside me.]

we quote our favorite title page to our favorite epilogue.
An absurd story about love and blowing things up
Because really, (like hospitals and prisons)
it’s the same thing.

what does this night mean in the greater consequence of our lives?
Nothing.
I’m okay with that.
I’m just saying that.
[?]

Opportunity and random occurrence are just a farce
That we use to pretend fate doesn’t exist;
(it doesn’t, does it?)
Everything that matters seems too big to be real.
but I lived long before this, and I will exist ever after
one day I will achieve greatness
you will be forced to know me then
Since you won’t nor never will now.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Sometimes, I’ll open with the King’s Gambit
Because I’m feeling bold
Or saucy
Or generally suicidal
Since I know you’ll just countergambit.

I’ll move my pawn and you’ll move yours.
I’ll take your rook
With a sly move you never saw coming
Only to wave goodbye
To that brave knight of mine
Who gave his life
For my ongoing crusade
To capture you.

Move after move
Feeling victory in a capture
And dejection at a loss
Until we’ve suddenly found
We’ve been playing this game
For years.

I’ll give a little bit
And let you take something
That belongs to me.
And you’ll rejoice and be glad
For the whole world to see.

But darling?
Don’t you know
The number one rule of this game?
You always have to be
One move ahead.

Checkmate, *******.

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.

Cool kid euphoria with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on is what we all are in the basement of the 50’s house.
Our phones blowing up while we sip whiskey and wine.
Trying to get the attention of the cars on the main road
By handstanding and flashing and cheersing our beers
And we receive our victorious honks.

Guitar clock radio with numbers around the fretboard and Sir Paul smiling and crooked, acid-trippin’ guitarist/violinist/celloist looking product of orange and gold look down upon as our patron saints.
Swingin’ low, Sweet Chariot words stares up at me from the 70’s floral carpet.
Ralph Stanley and Eric Clapton singing solos and duets in my head keep me company as the boys play and figure out key changes.

Painted screen hiding the Etta James microphone stands forgotten in the corner—
As I take in the teals and roses and golds.
Give me a heart shaped box where I can store my love
I fly so high in the world above
I’ll come back down eventually.

Lava lamped water stain engulfs the ceiling. As fingers go up frets
And they go down frets
And they go up frets
And they go down frets.
As you don’t enunciate when you sing.
We all mourn  our fallen brethren, the base of the telecaster with no strings and no head and it weeps silently from its place on the water pipes, hearing his cousins WAAAIIIIILLLLLL.

As Cool kid euphoria is created with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on in the basement of the 50’s house.

We work all day so we can drink all night
Getting high off the drug that is each other
Chain-smoking Pall Malls like it’s our job
Listening to oldies as we shoot the eight ball in the corner pocket.
Garden tools and Lawn Mower parts as a sweet, creepy décor in the dank basement
As we breathe in mold and dust and cigarette smoke.

We are gloriously young.
So *******.
We still think we can change the world.
Not through politics or through fear or by means of war
But by doing just enough to get by and loving everybody for who they are, even the parts or religions or particular ways of life we don’t like,
Because people aren’t what they do or what they believe
They’re who they are.
We still think we can change the world
And Maybe one day, we will

But for now
We’ll just be here,
In the basement of the 50’s house with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on.

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.

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.

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.

Saturday morning yoga class for moms.
We go anyways.
Tremors in our wavelength, shaky hands, unsteady heartbeats.
Off the Richter,
Ashes to rain, rainy ashes, acid burns through our umbrellas, ellas, ellas, ellas.
Writing stories about the time we danced on the bar
Another drink tonight
Just one more drag; then I quit.
Then, I need another.
Things you promise I know you can’t keep
Bejeweled picture frames and tiny figurines
Heeby jeeby vibes from the hippie couple that freaks every one out
Guitar chords, strumming of my heart
We breathe smog and fog
Shortened breaths for shortened lives
Strange noises emerge from the next room
We emulate our favorite heroes past.
She changes her name to something androgynous
Because that’s how she feels.
And doesn’t want to get a pixie cut.
She won’t shut up from the next cubicle over.
She craves the attention, the validation from her stories
That she is one of us.
Swing the scissors around again, throw them to me.
Nothing makes sense.
I ordered another beer
Even though I didn’t want another.
Indulgence. Liquid indulgence.
Hailing the Porcelain God later.
Routine.
Soft smile
Swiveled me to the ground
Things are never the way you want them to be
So move away
Go home
Keep moving
If you stand still, you’ll start to feel something
Hum hum hum
Everything is Numb numb numb
Here is where the heartache is--
“If you loved me you would…”
No I wouldn’t.
You don’t know me at all.

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.

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.

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.

Buttresses flew
too close to the sun.
Icarus repeated.

Monuments based on Ideas.
Prophecies based on Conviction.
Trust in a stated Axiom.


Only last for
as long as
someone believes in them.