Hey remember that night when we chased the burglars in the front and back yard
and you almost kissed me?
God, I wanted you to.

I submitted a Post Secret of two young French lovers kissing in the rain
and I wrote “This will never be me” over the woman.
******* Parisians.

Once upon a time,
I bought flowers for myself just because I wanted to.
It was the most empowering thing I could have done.
But for the two weeks they sat on my window sill,
I was constantly reminded no one bought them for me.

Long ago, in a land far, far away,
I used to believe in miracles.

This one time, We sat at the Spanish Arch,
the one the Conquistadors built,
comprised of ancient old stone that caught the tears of the heartbroken,
heard the tales of the old salty men coming home from the bar,
and saw the transformation of an old Irish city into a new, artsy town.
We looked up, saw a shooting star, and wished on it I would be with him forever.

I was 19 once, and he sat on the beach with his flicky blonde hair
and a Corona and his oversized tee shirt hanging off his body
and we sat on that beach for hours, in the eye of the storm, soaking it all in.
It was the first time I realized I could love.

We were 22 and he was in love with somebody else and I loved his soul,
but I wasn’t in love with him and we found out we’re in the same boat.
We will always love each other but we can never be together
because we cannot give each other what we need.
He’s the only man who has never let me down.

As a child, I thought I could fly.
Not physically fly, but Peter and Wendy inspired me,
and I knew I could fly as a dreamer, and soar through the skies
like the hawk or the raven or the finch or the ******* pterodactyl if I wanted to.
And I wanted to. And I did.

I wrote a story once about a girl who ran several miles at two am when she couldn’t sleep
and the personal demons kept haunting her and taunting her
and the whiskey wouldn’t shut them up.

Every once in a while, I clean the house naked.
Sometimes, I kinda wish the UPS guy would catch me.

Every day, my life is filled with sullen, sunken, exposed regret.
I wish I did what I didn’t do.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

Inhale. Hold. Submerge.
This is all the grandest illusion
that’s one disappointment away from shattering.
Take a deep breath
feel the pain in your chest.

Every night
I drown in a wine glass
Dive off the ledge with such fever and ferocity,
The splash of a cannonball--
No high marks from the judges.

When you look at me,
I know now it’s irreverent.
We are a lie.
In the deep end, where I can’t touch anymore.

Time to wash away this sin
Hurt doesn't go,
It just lingers
Like our ghosts, lurking behind closed doors.
I can’t be rid of you
Because I don’t want to be.
Go on,
Haunt me until the end.

But I know
You cannot swim
so for now,
I'll sink further and further
into wine so dark
I disappear.

Ella Fitz’s rendition of Dream a Little Dream for the umpteenth time.
Louie comes in tune with that righteous horn.
I drink more as I sing along, off key.

There could be an entire SECTION of books written about us.
How we fell into that great whirlwind.
How we learned to hate the world when we didn’t have each other.
How we re-kindled, for that brief, brief time.
How I thought maybe we could love again.

We had hours that turned to days that turned to months.
We were the perfect piece of short fiction
An art form so gloriously undervalued,
(by both the audience and the creators)
Until we found ourselves in the Middle
(the worst feeling in the world.
Because like purgatory or super glue:
you're stuck.)

We said goodbye.
And I found I had residual emptiness.
I became residual emptiness.

I loved again, but it wasn’t anything
Like the masterpiece we had.
I knew because
Every day with him felt real.
Every day with you
Was a dream.
Something rooted in intangibility
Something I was astonished to find
happening to me.

It happened again-
We found ourselves in the same place
At the same time.
And after just a few weeks,
You gave me the greatest gift:
The indignity of silence.
And you gave me it
For the most ignoble reason—
You’re afraid.

Honey bun,
We’re all afraid.

It made me think
That maybe  the story of you and I
can only have a happy ending
in a place where it’s not so scary.

So me, Louie and Ella all ask you,
That
In your dreams
Whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me.

[Because that's the only place you'll find me now.]

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.

The vibration of the anticipation
of seeing you tonight.
I think I might
put on skirt
not to flirt but to impress
[Oh God]
I must love you,
I’m wearing a dress.
On the sand we’re shoeless
and it’s now I must confess
everything.

I met you three days ago and I love you.

We chase ***** and
Blickah Blickah dance
everything here is all just chance
we walk for miles on the beach
and if we keep going we can reach the pier
the ultimate destination, but
we keep getting caught
in our own procrastination.

We climb on a trampoline
of a de-rigged sailboat
and hope
that we find contentment.
Turns out
we probably could have prevented
all the ******* introductions
and started the production
of us from the start instead
of the part
we’re supposed to play.

A meteor shower,
[How so romantic comedy]
but we’ve created a melody
that’s in harmony with our souls.
We give each other biographies as we
stare to sea
as barriers fade away.
There is just so much to say
but not enough time to say it
don’t deny it
just try to find it
the words to tell me I’m right
or did this night
mean nothing to you?

Can you hear that?
A heart pumping, no thumping,
thump, thump, thumping for you
but you can’t see through
the lines and the walls
you just don’t have the *****.

[I’m too good for you.]

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.

Sad girl rock
Fills the room with hopeless longing.
Rootless dreams take off out of the open 2nd floor window.
Cold Coffee.
Ain’t nothing
To a Cold, Cold heart.

This isn’t how the story ends.
Cryogenic stasis.
A general lack of brain damage.
Neurological bliss.
Goosebumps when it’s 90 degrees.

If a tree falls in the woods….
Questions.

Paralysis in analysis.
I understood more before the literary critique.
Lost.
We’re all lost.
Thematic speeches
and character monologues.
Overbearing landscape descriptions.
It’s all so oppressive.

Characters who walk around and around.
Past street signs. Past Monuments. Past that same newsstand again.
Circles in grids. So squares, then.
The time of Ulysses is near
So we can all be thoroughly confused together.

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.

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.

He led me down
To the confines of hell
And there I saw
I was no different than the rest
River Styx
Called me in
To swim its black waters
And I felt seaweed grab at my legs.
The sirens came
And they pull me down to the depths
I would breathe water in
Suffocating on the sea
Awaiting my turn to die
Waiting for eternity.

I saw the voices of a thousand fiendish angels
Take form in the air around me
As wars and battles and fights raged
And the clash of civilizations was among us once more.
Heroes and villains alike re-appeared and shouted noiselessly,
making the entire universe sound like the chaotic mess
that it once was and still is and will probably always be.

I followed Dante as he followed Virgil and we followed nobody down and down further into the depths.

Winged chariots came
And whisked me away
through the halls of fire
I crossed the bridge
Crumbling and tumbling down
To the caverns of stone
Rocks smashing
I’m falling and falling
Never to land.
The acrid smell of flesh burning
Fills my nostrils
the fires singe the hair off my body
and I burn in oblivion.
What deed hath I done
to earn the demons of Lady Macbeth?
Out, **** spot
Get me out
GET ME OUT
I will never breathe free air again.
The villainy you taught me, I executed
and now I am here with them and you.
I am a wanted, haunted man,
As my telltale heart beats louder and louder
Until I see the face of insanity
And realize it’s my own.

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.

Rhythm of life
Nails tapping on table tops
Beating of our hearts
spin the world right off its axis.
Momma shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die.
Atlas shrugged
And we all tripped as we walked
The pace of our mile,
off by 3.6 seconds.

Trust in our stated axioms
Disillusioned Americans in Paris
Judged by the color of our skins
and the shoes on our feet
No one stops to see how blue it is up there today.
Hurrying through the rain
Our cities never sleep.
Going down South
It’s slower down here.
Sunday’s best and
“God Loves You” stickers when you get your oil changed.

Night train whistle blows
Factory steam pipes squeal
Mississippi riverboats tug and chug
Dictionary.com definitions let us down.
Greatest disasters in history
are when thing we take perfectly for granted
stop working.
Mad cow, mad hatter, mad world
Bad boys, bad wine, bad date
Ellipses, dot dot dots, dramatic pause, passing of time passing of time passing of….
……..
………….
…………………….
Time.

Tw—
Twi—
Twitch.                       (tick tick tick)

I believe in the abnormal
And the impossible
And I refuse to believe that fictional characters aren’t real
Animals completely understand me
When I talk to them.

Baby missiles fire
From all parts of the globe
End of the world party
Let’s go down in glorious drunkenness
As the beating of our hearts
Spins the world right off its axis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I die
my grave will be
surrounded by cherry red wine stains.
That grass,
once green,
will be red, red red.
Have the weight of Cabernet
The dark mystery of Merlot.
I’ll say goodbye
and that wine will drip drop
Through soil
Under rocks
To six feet under
where I will taste it once again.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

Your love is like Guinness.
Black.
Hard to see through.
Heavy.
and tasty.

And if I have too much
really
really
Bad for me.

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.