Don’t be afraid, little heart.
It’s simple, really.
Be smarter than to believe what’s promised,
and you’ll always have the courage
to keep beating for something,
something better.

i raised her
with a violent birth
my vocal cords tangled
like a drunk couple
making love
with her name.

she emerged from
the slit in men's throats,
a grown woman,
her sister followed,
from suffocated coughs,
glowing like streetlamps
from mouth to mouth,
never happy,
never settled.

girls like her,
they don't enter this
world easy,
they leave it in a mess,
exit it like a highway,
move on to the
next place.

there's a stain they
always leave,
yellow on the teeth,
marks on bed-sheets,
empty rings on
bedsides with last
nights drink
gone cold just like
their feelings.

just a girl they say,
harmless,
girls have endless love
in their hearts,
and endless hate.

I don't remember much
my youth
the lake
fresh blood
his eyes

The pain
the scream that left me
and all the screams that stayed inside
his firm grip handcoffing my wrists
bruises

The fear
of not being in control
helplessness at a time I should
protect myself
guilt


The silence
twenty years of silence
of not dealing with a memory
ignoring facts until they dissapeared
living my life as an aftershock
waiting for those last moments between disaster and death

I don't know what happened
I refuse to remember, even now
but that was the day
the sun went out

The pain of a heartbreak affects us in different ways.
She’ll erase you completely, never speak to you again, and have you questioning whether it truly was you who decided to end things.
But the next girl won’t be able to ease the ache until she drives past your house in different cars that you won’t recognize to see if anybody else is leaving tire marks in your drive.
You won’t be lucky enough to escape without the insane red eyed ex who you term “******” because she just loved you too much when you still couldn’t love at all.

The only tire marks in your yard are from the friends who are tired of trying to bring you back from the corner you’ve crawled into since the intrepid spirit you never could quite tame spiraled through you and blew even the most intact parts of you into places you are too hurt to reach. But her destruction isn’t one sided, she erases you in every word she writes and every tear she cries, hoping that your green eyes and the dimple in the left cheek fade from her memory as the pen fades on the paper.

Red eyes search for a reason in the cold of the night while black ink words spill onto a piece of paper under the candlelight. Our emotions bleed and our madness can be deranged, but it can also be elegantly beautiful.

It's only been 24 hours
and the thing I miss most is your smell.
Because I know that when that scent surrounds me,
your arms are holding me tight and
your lips are pressed against my forehead.
There's acoustic music playing in the background
and you smell of Dove soap,
the same soap I have used every time to bathe
since I was five.
But it never smelled that good until I met you.

me made a pact,
more respect,
less attack,
That's what keeps you in tact,

Not being sarcastic,
Not being narcissistic,
But this is anarchistic,
This is chaotic.

Rhymes caustic,
I'm a fanatic,
Your rhymes antique,
Yes, i'm a freak.

You stay on your side,
i stay in mine,
You lied,
what a swine

Kids compare their love to the stars. Citing celestial forces in their rooftop, late night, parents-can't-hear, stolen-beer vows. They compare the way their hands combine to constellations ever present in the night sky. I trashed this misconception in the back of a Chevrolet with the married man I was with that day when he compared our love to the moon and sun and how ours was a forbidden one. There wasn't a notion of poetry in his slurred words, just a man so scared of growing old he needed the comfort of a child, to soothe his soul. You and me, you and the person I am trying to be, don't need the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, we just need the TV set on a Tuesday night. We fell in love in the daylight, in parks down the street. We fell for each other, not the universe, that before you, had tortured me. We don't need space suits to look into each other's eyes and know that it's here, right here, on this couch where we first made love that we call home. The kids can keep their zodiac signs and universe themed metaphors because our love can't be illustrated with astrological analogies. It's complicated and messy and hurtful and hard, but loving you is the best thing I’ve ever done, right here on earth.


-bcg (we fell in love in the daylight, so what happens when the sun goes down)