you have cotton candy thighs
that dissolve on his tongue
and lips that taste like
lemonade on a 90 degree
day
and you’re light brown hair
blowing over your shoulder
from a cool breeze that
touches your tongue and
tangles through your open
mouth because you’re
laughing and you’re a white
t-shirt and yellow flowers
pushing up against the grass
and rain after weeks of an
empty sky and everyone
wants to drink you up and
they melt under your fingertips
you are paint stained hands
and peppermint tea
and strawberry ice cream
and then you meet this guy
and you let him touch you
and he sets you on fire
and suddenly you’re a girl
who likes the heat and
won’t run when a room is
full of smoke and you’re
coughing up ashes
and you think you’re brave
but you’re just dark and hard
and cold and empty
and you’ve got a heart that
can’t love anything but fire
and boys who play with lighters

tonight when I got home
I pulled my hair into a ponytail.
I wished I could have kept pulling,
up and up until every little thing
and every last hair was off my shoulders.
-
I was running down my street tonight.
a meager glance down and I saw
another shadow chasing mine.
breathlessly,
excitedly I braked
in time to realize both shadows belonged to me.
-
tonight I mapped the distance
from Salt Lake to Phoenix;
11 hours and 18 minutes.
should I stop through Vegas
or the Grand Canyon?
-
I fell asleep alone tonight
in a bed too spacious for my body.
through murky midnight eyes,
I thought I caught you turning over.
what I didn't realize
is that you are not sleeping here
not tonight
and not the night before.

I said come back, come back
back before the line is crossed
but you just stared your bare beam
blank in the face
I tried to take it in but I couldn't
not with you looking like that
holing it away
I never knew you to be a liar
so that's it then
the thought broke me but I think that was your aim
to make me feel as barren as your vacant face
as desolate as I left you that night
well congratulations
we're even

but I still feel small compared to your unearthly laugh
I feel it when I'm downtown locked away in a tiny apartment
choking on my gargled laugh to indulge a smart mans dull humor
how do you do that?
make your laugh like God?
he waits for a response that will never arrive

never teach me venom
I already feel it rolling through my veins
after your bite
no I find people to **** it back out
lips bleeding the life from me with every draw
so I can fall faint
so faint I can't remember your name and I can't remember
what
i
did
to
you
and I'm sorry
I guess that's all I'd say
if  we were to meet again one day

there is not always hope
And that is depressing,
but also, inspiring.
hope in God, hope in the universe
in humanity, in family, in friends
hope in authority, hope in power
in karma, in school
hope in yourself.
so many places hope can be lost.
But it is our decision to make.

There is not one person, not one thing,
there is no army nor one disaster that could take your hope away from you.
Except yourself.
You choose hope.
Hope is yours.
and hallelujah for that
hallelujah for hoping in ourselves
hallelujah to the bright eyed seven year old boy
giving his happy meal to a homeless man
hallelujah to the stiletto wearing women
inviting friends to stay the night
hallelujah to Martin Luther King
hallelujah to the sun, rising each morning
and hallelujah to your mother
for not caring that your best friend likes the way you look in your swimsuit

He could be scared and fragile but he had a big heart.
He knew when to take her into his arms and make her know that she was safe there.
He gave his all,
even in times when he thought his all seemed so pale.
He could shine so bright,
but wasn't afraid to step down
let others share in the basking.
He was thoughtful
he made everyone crazy, including himself.
He took initiative.
He made her feel better than him -out of his league
although it was the other way around.
He was silly and confusing and brighter than he led on.
He could talk for hours
he listened when you needed.
He was beautiful.
Oh and his laugh... made him seem like a child with hope that reached far down into his belly.
He was going to change someones world
just not hers

What is it that makes a person cry?
Something bubbles up from within, threatening the tears to come to the surface of your eyes and spill over, but what is that feeling?
How does it come?
When our bodies are aching with despair, in physical pain over emotional torture, how do our eyes know to fill with a watery film?
Why are they the physical evidence of the emotional pain within?
What is it, really, that makes a person cry?

I wondered for the first time today
about the man that will capture your heart,
like I never could.

You'll meet him at some Friday night party
in a dim living room among wafts of pale gray smoke
and stale vapors from a shared hookah.

Some morning later, when lights stab your eyes,
and every sound tosses your stomach, you'll scramble
for scattered clothes, twisted and turned,
inside-out: your heart, confused and excited.

You'll say it was all unexpected, unplanned—a flight unmanned.
I'll hug you like a friend, and I'll mean it when I say
something vague about being happy for you.

At some white-clothed table, sheltered away
from twisting hips and unkempt ties,
I'll slide my fingers down condensation
of an abandoned, unfinished drink.
I'll look at you, and we'll recount the nights,
circa summer 2008, on my bedroom floor
and hanging from monkey bars,
dreaming of cool ocean nights and Hollywood lights.
And I'll pray he will love you like that.