I thought about the body I have hated all my life

I asked it “what will it take?”

Less food
More food
More puke
More pills
More miles
Less stones

It never answers, so I was surprised to hear a whisper this time...

“It will take kindness, acceptance, love...

You have to love me, darling. You have to let go.”

bleeding ink from my fingers
I try to paint a picture with words
clumsy and heavy
the letters swim
and change
I smoke ten cigarettes
in an hour
desperate to tease some kind
of creativity from my mind
but the ink runs dry,
and all that is left
is a black handprint on the page,
the result of pressing down too hard,
trying to put my pain to paper

pale and interesting
wilts under the August sun

each ray eradicating a joke, a charming tale

your skin ****** with heat and as it cracks
seeps through everything you tried to hide

a boring soul, a wandering eye, a fickle heart

I did not mean to burn you, darling
but you just weren’t interesting

to me

we kissed on rain soaked
street corners

as each droplet looked
like a crystal on the
concrete

and on your wet lips
I tasted the word

forever

poets long to be held
in the embrace of words

caressed by consonants  
held in the void with vowels

to have letters wrap around their fingers
like fingers

their sadness lies in knowing
that each poem has an ending

and that most are no more
than a drop in the ocean

of history

I am tired of being
a pit stop for your love

I am not here to fix your broken soul
or refuel your depleting lust

my heart has it’s own wound
don’t make me try to heal yours

(as well)

I stay up waiting
for a sign

maybe it is in
the sun rise

or the moon’s fall
as the stars start to fade

and my love wanes
with waiting