Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.

Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me--then
I scream to have you back again?

The night sky above us was splattered with stars.
Millions of them.
Galaxies and constellations right before our eyes.
The universe was dancing and rejoicing
To a cadence that could not be heard, but only felt.

I think of her body,
of her curves
and curls
and I blow a line as long as my finger to think of something else.
Anything else.

I think of Freud and how wrong he was,
I think of Clapton and his false credit,
I think of the ringing in my ears and how I wish it would stop,
anything but her hips and her blonde hair and her fat ***.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up,
and god, it was hard enough to stand up the first time.

One missed call but no voicemail.
I would say we're playing phone tag but I can't shake the feeling that you only called so you can say you never gave up.

This isn't even poetry anymore but did I ever write poetry about you?

I wrote poetry about girls and the weather and sometimes both and I write angst filled strings of thought about you.

Call again, I'll hear the phone ring this time, I promise.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

I need feminism
because men are more upset about people saying "all men"
than they are about the fact that 1 in 4 women will be ***** in their lifetime.

Not harassed, not catcalled,
*****
And that is not okay.

I need feminism because out of the four women
I speak to everyday
two of them have been *****
and all four of them can't walk to their car
without sticking their keys through their fingers to
feel the slightest inclination of safety.

I need feminism
because the other day in my math class
a student said "She was asking for it"
and the teacher agreed.  

I need feminism
because when my father wasn't drinking
he was telling me to be a man.

I need feminism
because the way my father taught me to treat women
was to get them drunk.
It's not his fault,
he knew no better.

I need feminism
because my father knew no better.

It was autumn,
or at least I think it was.
The leaves were changing color
as were you.
It's funny, the way memories linger,
associate and disassociate with senses.
Smells;
the wild flowers.
Colors;
the deep reds of a changing season.
Sounds;
the crunching of dry leaves.
Touch;
your hands.

It may have been autumn,
or at least I think it was,
but I'll always remember you as the Autumn Girl.
Not my autumn girl,
I was merely a vessel
while you were a lamp to be lit.
I was in the dark
while you crossing great expenses of water.

That pond was so small
and you were so magnificently
immense.