I don't want to
Feel this way,
But I just can't.
And I don't know why,
But I can't stop thinking about you.

Do you do the same for me?
Probably not.

You know,
     there was once this
          sweet, sweet
                boy,
                     who I am forbidden to love.

He wrote me a poem
     and stole my heart.

Now, whenever I feel sad,
     I reread it,
          and remember what it felt like
                                   to be loved.
---

I wonder when it will stop working it's magic and I'll finally let go of the memory of what it felt like... why I should still be here...

Why do you stare me with such an intense gaze?
Making me blush, and hide, and run away,
But when I look at you again later
Trying to get your attention,
Attracted to your passion,
You just look away...

I need to find some mistletoe
and someone so I won't be so lonely this holiday season.

You stuck a knife in me.
When the pain from that wasn't enough for you,
You twisted,
leaving just another gaping hole in me destined to never heal.

You came in black.
Drenched in black,
encompassing the night into your every move.
Sun or moon for each eye,
stars twinkling your feet
so that you can slip quietly in,
black holes removing all evidence of breaking in.

You crept slowly, surely
grabbing everything you found,
every little
secret, scar, soul shine
into that bag you clung to,
clutching it so that it hung from your back.

You passed my fire place.
Empty, with nothing left but coal and dust.
The fire once there?
Now long extinguished.
You shivered,
and continued looking.

You glanced at the kitchen counter.
Strewn across it were spices
and ripped up shreds of pictures
of all those loved.
Mixed into remnants of
entrees, appetizers, desserts,
too good to be true,
gobbled up too fast,
gone.
You shudder,
continue.

Finally, you find what you're looking for.
In the basement, kept in a safe right by where I slept,
you found it.
You reached towards me,
slowly, silkily took the key I had around my neck
as I sighed at your touch and unconsciously let you take it.

You twisted the key,
opened the safe
and grabbed the
ornately scarred,
worn down wooden
box that was held inside.

You opened the box.
Inside lay a red thing.
It resembled a minuscule
mauled, mangled, mutilated
crimson heart.
You sighed with relief and tossed the box and it's hideous contents into the bag.

You grabbed everything else you found and put it inside your bag.
Some were lead heavy, others too light...
Memories kept too long,
some fading,
some still fresh,
others just too strong of a memory.

You crept quietly away,
but not before you heard me whisper your name.
You looked away
like the coward you are
and left the house.

i.
i feel you in my bones sometimes,
on those nights when the silence screams almost as loud as your lingering words,
when the portrait of you is stitched onto my aching eyelids,
thrown together in a mass of lazy brushstrokes from a dark palette.

ii.
i light cigarettes,
but i don't smoke them.
i just watch them burn out.
fade.
crumble.
like we did, endless eons ago.

iii.
it's clear to me now that,
like the land and the sky,
you and i were simply never meant to meet,
never destined to touch.

iv.
sometimes,
i can bring myself not to feel so hollow,
if i think of the better days,
when your smile wasn't a façade
and your love for me was a looming oak
in this great big forest of daft, dying weeds.

v.
but it's not worth much, anyway,
because the truth
is that your smile shines
just about as bright as the stars in the big city,
and your love for me
snaps
like a silly little twig.

vi.
in all honesty,
we never were,
we just tried to be.

vii.
you know,
i walk endless roads trying to forget you.

viii.**
it doesn't work.

(a.m.)

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.