you told me i should paint my nails red
as you studied the dark shade of gray
they were painted at the time
so dark they were almost black

it wasn’t me you wanted
to change her nail color
it’s the girl you thought i could be
perhaps the girl you wanted me to be

so i guess it’s fitting
you moved on
i bet her favorite color is
red

I am granite-

Cold yet smooth
But hard to the core.
I only break
When met with a blade.

She is moon sand-

Cool to the touch
In the most pleasurable way.
Soft and smooth
She crumbles instantly.

You are selfish-

Expecting a girl to melt
Instantly for you
Digging deeper
Until you get to her core.

Well, lucky for you
With her
You can build sand castles
And shape her into any mold
While I stand strong
Because as selfish as you are
You aren't the blade;
That will be someone worthwhile.

As he pulls me closer
Squeezing me as if to reaffirm my presence
I couldn't be further away
Further from him and closer to you.
His arms are big and strong
Warm and soft; arms anyone could get used to.
But they will never be yours
The ones I wished would never let me go
How I wish his would loosen their firm grip.

He kisses my cheek
Warm soft kisses
The kind that every girl wishes
A man would tenderly plant on the rounded softness of her cheek
But those kisses are quaint at best
And I never wish for more than that small tenderness
Instead I wish for the passion
That crackled the air around you and I

Miles away
I'm sure you are
Sharing a similar moment simultaneously
But instead of my touch boring in your memory
As the absence of yours runs my skin cold
You're thinking of just how happy you are
To have new, never thinking of the old

You promised you wouldn't break me
So I guess to say you broke that promise
Wouldn't be correct.
For now that I think of it
Your promise, you did keep.
You did make a promise not to break,
But never not to shatter.

You wonder why I left?
It seems you've forgotten
All the time that I was there

Those months you dragged me
Through all your confusion
You pushed and pulled;
A balancing act
Keeping me by your side

It stayed that way for a while
But your ability to push
Has ******* your ability to pull
It threw me away for good

So you wonder why?
I'll tell you:
Ask yourself
Why you pushed so hard

I watched as the sun broke over the horizon.
It occurred to me that nothing
In its most natural essence
Could ever be more beautiful.
Nothing could be more constant
Than the sun rising and setting
East to west
Every dusk and dawn.

I wondered
Why couldn't I be as beautiful
As that sky on which my eyes were fixed?
After all
They do say
We're made up of those same particles;
We may as well be one with the stars.

So, if in fact, that statement is true
How could I be so cold and dark?
Why does the darkness inside me
Never dissipate with a rising sun.
Why don't the kaleidoscopic colors
Infiltrate my darkness.

With the rising sun
And the pinks and purples spreading across the early morning sky
I wonder why I will never be anything other than
Dark.

I'm sorry I can only be friends with you
I regret to inform
We can't be the perfect two
If only you knew me better
You would know why

But to you, my friend, I cannot lie

So many feelings inside my soul
No longer allowing me to feel whole.
I promise you that this is true
I'm sorry I do not feel the same
About you.

These feelings keep and hold me back
So mutual feelings, I seem to lack
So many a time I've been hurt and defeated
And I'm so very scared of having the same
Repeated.

A relationship with me is not what you want
These feelings inside me still constantly taunt
And hold me back from being free

So for now, I beg you, let me leave.

Maybe in another time we can be
It's not to say there isn't a time
For you and me
But because of current situations
Current feelings and more
Other people and relationships
I encourage you to explore.

Wandering in a dark room
Chasing after the handle to a door
That moves every time I reach for it

Drowning
An inch below the surface
Hand above water
Bystanders every which way
Yet not one notices the hand
Extended for dear life

Calling out to a loved one
Looking in their direction
While they stare back blankly
Offering no reply

To those like me
There's no way out
Everyone sees
But what do they see?
It never resonates
How much you're struggling
To those around
That suffering is invisible
How do we cope?
How do we make life livable?

You told me to never let a guy ruin a song for me
But now every time I hear Jack Johnson
I picture you stumbling over the licks on your acoustic
As I watch enamored by every chord you strum

Banana pancakes will never taste the same
As that morning I was wildly hungover
And I watched you cook
As I often did when I spent the night

My nose will never forget the smell
That was naturally you
My ears will never forget the sound
Of you pretending you could sing
Along to "She Will Be Loved"

You touched my soul in ways
Few have the power to
I opened up just enough
To let you do so

Now you've left with part of me
You peered into a window of my soul
And selfishly took that piece of me with you

We both aren't ready for anything
And somehow I feel something here.

You don't say it
I know you aren't looking for a relationship;
Neither am I.
Perhaps
We are looking for each other
And don't know it yet.
But we're too stubborn;
Neither the first to break.

Yet when I feel
Your breath on my skin
My lips on yours
Your arms around me
I get a feeling I can't ignore.
Maybe we're just two scared people
Giving each other
All that we can.

There is a worn home
I see every day
The windows
Were left open
Inside
The furniture has faded
The paint on the walls chipped

On the outside
Everything looks the same
In effort to maintain
Familiarity

I hoped you would come back
But my eyes have grown
Tired of looking
My insides are torn
Longing for your presence
To return

I think it's time
To shut the windows.

Lips swollen
Wrists hurting
Pain between her legs.

What happened last night?

She wakes in a foreign room
Her clothes disheveled
Scattered on the floor.
A thin sheet barely covering
Her aching body.

They took her pride
They took her dignity.
They commanded control
Of the body she could not
Control herself.

Hazy with alcohol
Uninhibited by intoxication
They used it to their advantage
Stole her pride violently
Ravished her body.
And did so proudly.
A barely there girl-
They stole everything from her.

Bruises stamped along her body
Pain between her legs
Swollen lips
And empty chest
Are what she is left with.
While they are even more prideful
Full of her life
That they eagerly stole.

I couldn’t hide my disappointed face
This I realize now
It must have been the way
You ran your hands so gently
Over my bare skin
I couldn’t deny how sweet that felt

Is this really all I’m meant for?
Us talking when we’re drunk
Using each other’s bodies
Is this what you’re meant for?

Sometimes I desire more
Sometimes I wish I cared
You really had me there
Your touch was too soft
I think I prefer your hands
Around my neck

Things are easier for me
When it’s all lust-
No feelings
No pain

Next time
Don’t trace the scratches
You might tempt
The person I know
Is inside me

It still hurts.

But not in the way that it used to.
I do not love you like I did
You know, the "in love" sort.
I love you in your being
The person that you are.
But the romance faded with the years
That have passed in our separation.

It does still hurt
In seeing you with her.
Seeing the way you love and cherish
The way at one time I thought
You might still do me.
I watch the way you two just work
You fit perfectly side to side.
I wonder if maybe
Through me
Is how you knew she was for you.
Maybe what we shared
That was once so special to me
Helped show you that she
Was what you needed
No longer legitimizing
What we used to be.

You wanted the sun:
Bright, strong, undying.
But even the sun can only shine for so long.
So when shadows covered some of my light
You settled for that small bit.

My sunlight could only burn for so long
So when I turned to moon
Still giving off light
You supposed that different shade
Might still be okay.

But the moon goes through cycles
Time shows its different shapes.
By the time the new moon came
And all the light had dissipated
That's when you decided
That you could no longer stay.

and if only she could be as the sun-
which, despite it's nightly fall,
succumbing to the moon's power
will again rise the following day
perhaps even higher and brighter
than the day before