i. in my dream, you ask me to connect your freckles with my 19 coloured pens. i create the constellations reflected in your eyes. you kiss me. i wake up.

ii. you ask me to play the bars of the same song that made us both cry and shiver on different continents before we knew each other. i leave the airport the happiest and the saddest i've ever been. happysad.

iii. you sing at 3 am at the back of the bus. i sit at the end of the same row. my head hurts from banging against the window while i try to look at the moon, instead of you.

iv. we sit on the tram and pretend to fix all your problems.

v. i sit up at 2 am and cry at my mistakes. i wonder if i make you the happysad you make me.

i am not in love,
nor am i out of love, just
stuck in the middle.

I cannot forgive you
for your past mistakes
because they are wrapped up inside my chest,
burning like the summer sun.

I cannot forget
the nights when I felt like nothing
and I held a bottle of yellow pills in my hand
because you pushed me over the edge.

I will not forgive
this feeling of absolute sadness
wrapped up inside of me,
I will not forgive
the stab wounds to my back
that the words you couldn't speak to my face left.

I will not forgive the person I became
because you said I wasn't good enough
(and I still never will be).

I'm sorry my words come out
when I'm neck deep in alcohol,
but drunk words are sober thoughts
and I've never been known to keep my mouth shut.

You are everything I never wanted to be around,
a disease of the mind, body, and soul,
and I cannot forgive you
for being the decay that is my demise.

Surrounded by watercolor sunsets,
I'm left with fifty slow miles
of untamed back road.

A half smile stays fixed
on my lips
and tilts slightly to the right.

Cracked pavement makes wheels
tremble in fine rhythms
and the heavy pulse
in my inner thighs
beats to match.

I'm on my way home
and in love
with the single notion
that I've been somewhere.

While I drive,
there's a gentle devil
who sits on my shoulder.
He croons satisfying tones
as he kisses my earlobe
and breathes this message
sensually down
the side of my neck:

“Mmm, baby,
consider this
your first lesson
in survival
on Pleasure Island.”

it was stale bubblegum
it was a bouquet of paper flowers
it was my favorite latte in a styrofoam coffee cup
and all it did was make my teeth ache