i could have fallen in love
with the boy on the football team
the boy with a promised future
i could have gotten the diamond ring
and the honeymoon in paris
a white picket fence
had daughters with pretty hair
and sons with their dad's eyes
late night dinner parties and conference calls
steady income and monotonous life
i could have fallen in love with ease

but instead i fell in love with you
with all your bruises and scars
and your torn apart heart
your baggage and your past
your unwashed hair and your laugh
i fell in love with the dreams you held
and the late night conversations which never seemed to end
you had no money, you had no wealth
you had nothing to give me but love
and for me, that was enough

i could have fallen in love with ease
but instead i fell in love with *uncertainty

and nice dark hair
a warm smile,
hands that hold you close
i was so close to falling for him
but i jolted awake

It's times like these that I wish you were still around.
I could use somebody to keep me from sleeping on the ground.

Your worry spoke volumes,
but I've since grown deaf.

You were caught up in living.
I'm hung up on death.

too afraid to admit you ****** up
so you carve the apologies on your skin
hoping that somehow the pain outside
will help **** the pain within.

Here's to you getting whatever it was that you wanted.
Here's to me never figuring it out.

brushstrokes, some broad,  
some as narrow as one fine hair,  
are often red  

scarlet and scattered
across the canvas, splattered
against a crumbling wall, where,
for no rhyme or reason, the artist
may place a wilted wreath of flowers,
pallid, yellow
      
horses and people, babes
and the ancient not spared  
their share of the crimson cream  
the painter heaped munificently
on their mangled remains

Paris, Beirut, Yola yet to be painted
but there is still time: in its abundance
someone else will need only lift a hand  
to spill the ubiquitous blood      

our palettes do own other hues
black for charred crosses, white,
the lightning streaked screaming sky
but  none so plentiful as the red  
none so plentiful as the red

dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.

you never know
because

she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses

and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.

she'll create a thousand plots  
from your worst nightmares.

she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.

she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,

and she'll make you,
everything you're not.

but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?

but here's the beauty of it:

if you date a writer,
you'll never die.

Don't warp it into something that never was.
Just a game we played inside our heads with our hearts.

Failed predictions of a future that could never be.

You'll only ever be you.

I'll only ever be me.