You listen but are incapable of (truly) hearing.
You say you're sorry but, even to yourself, can't explain what the words mean.
The truth is...
We're just empty shells of people.
We walk through halls: judged, misunderstood.
We accept the inevitable: that life is unfair and no one owes anyone a single kindness.
The truth is...
Kindness is a blessing. It's a patch, but it can't mend a broken heart.
Kindness can't rewind our lives.
Kindness helps us through each day, but Your kindness is no substitute for Their love.
The truth is...
You say, "It will all be ok." And, we know this.
We keep to the maximum dosage, the guns are kept unloaded, razors are left to their proper use.
The truth is...
We WILL be ok, because there is nothing else we know to be.

(May 2010)

Undress me of these emotions, of these agonizing feelings that bind me to the physical incarnation of a perfect impossibility. Remove them from within me, placing them blatantly, unabashedly out for the world to see.

Dissect me... and explain to me what this is that I feel.

I am of no significance, lacking structure, merely one in a million: living, breathing, simply... existing. I am not nearly of age to have made a name for myself or to claim to have learned how to love. I am just a girl, just a human being standing precariously close to the edge of a mental bridge I have built for myself.

I expect perfection, and am perpetually disappointed.

I become skeptical, losing trust in everything around me, even life, especially love. I walk through life with a cautious gait, daring someone to touch me, to break my stride. I build walls; I put up fences; I am a fortress, impregnable.

Or so I once thought...

I am pensive and withdrawn from the world. I stereotype you; Yes, I judge you. I believe the worst in people, rarely allowing myself to see the good. Occasionally, I let down my guard. I begin to feel... I begin to care... always dismissing the cold, hard fact that it has failed to work before and is certain to fail again. ... And when it does, when my own attempt to "feel something" finally c r a s h e s and b u r n s, breaking the most personal, protected parts of me...

...I dare to inch closer and closer to the edge of that bridge.

I am not without hope, not without a future, but I AM broken, not quite as untouchable as I had once believed. I carry with me no regrets. I forgive; I survive, like so many others before me. I find it within myself to love, t r u l y love... tempting myself to take the step that will finally carry me over the edge of my bridge, into the unknown depths of unknown waters, where it is uncertain that I shall ever emerge again.

Allow me to be bold- brave prying eyes and bare all. Allow me to tamper with excommunication- to tempt ostracism- to tease trouble by talking of taboos... speaking of shushed subjects- oh, society's little secrets, the ones we're all willing to share. Allow me to expound on the lessons parents never wanted to teach- the lessons children are so eager to learn. The very act- the very word- that induces giggles, inspires poets, excites lovers, and makes or breaks "true bliss."

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns." -V.N  

***- a word constructed of three of the twenty-six letters that make the English language go round. On their own, quite harmless, but collectively- a jaw-dropping, blush-inspiring, shush-provoking combination. ***- the ultimate caricature of love and all that is romantic- oh, just look at this tangle of thorns. Tangled- because we have turned the beauty into a beast- taken "the two will become one"- and rationalized- two will always be two- Not you, me or me, you. No, nothing bad can come of this.

***- used to make lies beautiful and truth obscured. Sold in society- the promoter of skin- condemned in the church- discouraged as sin. All the while, teenagers are toppling around- neck deep in lust- desperate to be loved- fumbling- tumbling into the open arms of the ultimate outlet. ***- a shallow solution to a deeper problem- a gift given, unwrapped, re-wrapped, and given again. Allow me to attempt to untangle these thorns- when does making love become wrong?

When it makes heroes into harlots and turns the righteous into romantics- when it complicates the uncomplicated? When it manipulates insincerity to seem sincere- liberates itself from simple mathematics, why, the more the merrier, and forgets three's a crowd? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, allow me to be ridiculed- expose myself as a hypocrite and define: It is when *** is misconstrued as a mere act of "love" that it becomes a crime.

Inspiration is a fickle flirt. He comes and goes, leaving my notebooks full of erratic bursts of passion. Sometimes I almost wish we had never met. I remember the first day; my thoughts were a collision of naivety and girlish impropriety. It was pen to paper and I lost myself in discovering the "inner" me.

Inspiration guided me blindly through heartbreaks and near self-destructions, preserving the sanity my mind so desperately clung to. But then there were other nights when I blared my music and lit some candles, but inspiration never came. I just sat in the dark, wide awake with hands of stone and a restless mind. Of course, inspiration always called the next morning, making sure I had survived the night, begging me to take him back.

Dear _,

You mean more to me than any word, poem, or lyric, whether it was written by me or by Poe himself, could ever convey. The principle of "actions speaking louder than words" could never be emphasized enough when it comes to love. Writing love poems is as effortless as breathing for me. It sounds as though I am trying to dim any previous feelings I’ve felt for another, but if those feelings were still an issue you would see them in the way I now carry myself around that person, the tones of my voice when I now speak of that person, not in the way I had previously written about that person. I write for the sake of writing most times.

Anyone can write a love poem for anyone- about anyone- to anyone. I don’t want that to be what we are all about: words. I want to love you with my actions. I want to love you with my silences. I want you to know that it is not in my poems that my true affections can be seen but in my glances and in my gestures. Love, I don’t want you to be my muse; I just want you to be mine.
Sincerely yours,

KM