give me a thousand options every day

every day I'll pick the boy
who can recite my favorite poem from memory
and never ceases to make me smile

His fingertips left trails
Of tingling nerves as they
Gently brushed across her skin
And she smiled because she loved him


Your nails dug into my skin
Leaving me scarred, damaged
Taking away even the smallest pieces of me
And I smiled because you were being kind tonight

I may not love
All of your favorite movies,
But I think you're incredibly dorky
And I would still love to be yours

I've told myself not to
follow in mother's footsteps
and yet I picked you up like matches,
struck you across the book
until I could find your faults
as you burned, and burned out
I played with you like the lighter in my purse,
flicking you on until I got burned
and let go

The smoke has become a part of me,
the ugly epidermis that I can't shed
and looking in your eyes always
took me back to those glowing walls

I remind myself that
I was born of embers
and curiosity's breath
and though I long to be
passion ablaze,
I am still paper thin

I just can't stop playing with fire

poetry is expression

it is a window,
a way to open your mind
to new ideas

it is a light,
a way to see things that
had been hidden before

it is a lens,
a way to see the world
from a slightly different view

but most of all,
poetry is a mirror
it is a reflection of the writer
and in the best case,
the readers will see themselves too

poetry is expression

Oh, you have so much power
But you can't even see it
You could make her do anything
With a smile on her face
You could ask her anything
And she'd answer with her best quip
You could steal her heart
But she already gave it to you
--Giftwrapped-- With no hesitation
And you've held it hostage
Like the greedy boy you are

I feel like I am living
solely off of memories.

Tension runs through me
because I'm holding back.
I feel it all around me,
Can you feel it too?

There are so many emotions unspoken
So many poems hidden and unread
So many things I could have told you
So many things I should have said

Tension runs through me
as I try to hold back.
I feel it all around me,
Is it running through you too?

we stuck out our tongues and rested the pills on them
like a congregation receiving communion

then we looked up at the stars
and smiled like we had finally found God

numb to all but your touch
I spent the winter with
wind-whipped hair and a
jaw set hard

come spring you
removed my outer shell
with gentle hands and softer words
the promise of trouble in your eyes

summer stretched on for centuries
and our skin glowed
white hot to the touch,
we burned each other and said goodbyes


I watch the leaves fall
and assign letters to each one
until the crunching under my feet
sounds like your name

April is all graveyards and hauntings
I see carnations instead of tulips,
I see your ghost everywhere

she & I talk in hushed tones on the phone
sentences breaking under the
weight of the words they hold

I wonder if you know that all I want
is to love one person as much as she loves you
and here I am seeing your spirit in their bones
and all I know how to do is to
throw rope to anyone who will catch it
because even when I am sinking,
I'm shoving someone else to the surface

I am trying to save
the bits and pieces of you
as if I pull this one away from darkness,
I am saving you,
as if I push that one toward the light,
I am saving myself

I wonder what you'd say
if you knew I'd all but
abandoned my religion
what you'd say
if I told you all of the
memories taste bittersweet
I wonder what you'd say if I told you
that nothing you built up was
strong enough to
soften the blow
and nothing you'd say now matters
because you tore it all down

as someone who is sometimes
plagued by silence,
sometimes to scared to speak up,
too shy to say hello,
too quiet to be confident,
someone who is,
and always will be a
little different from the norm,
for unchangeable reasons,
I guess I don't understand
why you would want to
hide your face,
be silent,
and let your plethora
of opportunities go to waste

take it from someone who has less choice
and show your face

you are smoke
that is stuck in my lungs
you make every breath shallow and weak
and when I breathe out
it's a sigh of relief that
I am still alive
you are poison
sitting in my stomach
making it churn about
making it flip around
and the worst part is how you
snuck right in without a warning
you are plaque
stuck in my arteries
weighing down my heart
pushing it to beat faster
pumping it harder to
push you out

you make me hot and cold
feverish and I can't catch a break
you make me manic
happy and sad, up & down
you make me ache
I'm hurting all over for you

I could fall over
you wouldn't even notice

I told myself you were the sun.
I bathed in the light you radiated.
You warmed me up.
You made me happy again.

But I could never fall asleep
just thinking about you.
It was never that simple,
and it wasn't quite right.

Now I'm looking at old photographs
that I took down from the wall;
there I am, smiling with your arm
wrapped around me -- you were looking away.

She said, "You make me feel like I'm in the wrong skin."

And as he sat there in contemplation of this newest revelation

She told him about Thursday
And how he'd kissed her that way
And how it made her feel whole
As if they were one being meant to be
Joined at the mouth,
But had snapped apart and were together
Again

She told him about the way her heart
Raced with anxiety
And her fingers shook every day
But when he kissed her everything went numb
And her brain thought slowly
And the world kept turning
And she wasn't afraid it would stop anymore

Finally, she told him about the skin
She told him that being away from him
Made her snap back to reality
But she had finally tasted happiness
And her old reality felt all wrong
She felt all wrong without him

She asked him if he loved her
She couldn't bear to leave him

He didn't hear a word

"But your skin is so beautiful."

And he leaned in and kissed her.

My teeth dig
Into my bottom lip,
And the sound hisses,
Finding the space between
My teeth
ffffffffffff
My mouth opens,
My jaw lowers,
The space between my lips
Is a lemon-shape,
My mouth open in surprise,
uhhh
And my tongue jumps
To meet my teeth,
To make that harsh sound,
Not exactly a scoff,
But somewhere close
kkkkkkkk
And the word falls from my mouth,
And it burns the ears of some,
But to others,
It tastes like candy

Sometimes,
perfect timing
is more important
than a perfect match.

her eyes held words,
planets full of words,
but his held the sun,
and she just couldn't look away

he was the only one who
could see through the black
of her eyes and find
the things she had meant to say

she looked up at him
as if he were the center of her world
but he saw her as an endless galaxy
before which, he was just a speck

his voice is heavy and smooth
like the comforter on my bed
and I bury myself in it

As the rain drummed quiet beats on the window,
I wondered what your favorite song was.

As thousands of books greeted me in rows and on shelves, I wondered if you read poetry.

As I laid in bed, missing your laugh and the smile that goes with it, I realized I don't know much about you.

But as you drove down the highway, windows down, music playing as I sat in the passenger seat,
finally happy,
I knew that I would spend forever learning.

Though you are cold,
(and I try my best to warm you)
your arms are where I melt.

Baby, I have a hurricane of hair
and a storm behind my eyes
and one hand on my hip,
ready to fight for my beliefs.
But I wouldn't mind
if you'd be my sunshine,
kiss the lids of my eyes,
I'll take my hand off my hip,
put your hands on my thighs,
I'll let the anger slip away, if just for today
so I can recite for you
my prettiest poetry
in between cinnamon kisses
and tell you stories that I heard
in the rustling of trees on a breeze
and maybe it's too much that I want
to know all of your everything,
but I'm imagining moonlit dancing
and lazy days spent listening to music
and walking through new cities, hand in hand.
We could have it all, baby,
let's just give it a chance.

When you talk to other girls,
I am terribly afraid you'll fall in love with them
instead of me.
I want to laugh at all of your jokes,
just so you'll realize that I appreciate you.
I am desperately trying to get you to talk to me.
I can say all I want but
one-sided conversations won't last long.
I've wished a dozen times that
you would take me to the movies.
I'm hoping you will somehow decide that
you need me in your life.
I am enamored with you,
but I'm too afraid to say it.

I just feel like I'm just waiting for an explosion
and time is tick-tick-ticking by

How long can I stand here
before I run out of time?
When should I leave
if I want to avoid injury?

I had always thought I was seamless until now
that my skin was smooth
that you couldn't see the lines of my personality,
only where they should be

but the other day I could swear you pulled a string off my shoulder
and it never stopped unraveling
I'm quickly falling to pieces
just a pile of thread where there once was cloth

I'm just a pile of wool thread that used to be a beautiful sweater.

You unravel me
and I can't make it stop.

He's always just behind me,
barely out of sight,
His eyes are sharp, two piercing slits
glowing a sickly shade of yellow-green
His nails are long and *****,
with ragged edges and pointed tips
He slinks around, snake-like
and silent, certainly not human

Sometimes he sneaks up behind me,
looking to stick around,
to make a bed of my brain,
to make a snack of my heart,
and I never catch him until he's
right behind me,
His rancid breath curling around
my neck from behind,
His claws lightly tracing
the ***** of my shoulder

But as soon as I know he's there,
as soon as I smell his breath and feel his touch,
I turn around, willing him away,
And he disappears...


...Until he rears his ugly head again,
that old monster, Jealousy

you're burning bridges
faster than you can build them,
making an abandoned
island
out of what was once called paradise      
  
you looked at me with an empty heart
and I tried to fill it  
"you're good, baby, you're so good"  
but my voice was so weak
and you didn't believe me
and, baby, you've gone bad

you're so busy fighting to be relevant
that you forgot to stop
fighting against the boy
with a smile like the moon
and arms like home

you've tried so hard to be tough
that you won't let the good things in
and the bad things won't leave
and you're dying from your own poison,
rotting in your own prison
from the inside out and

you're begging me
for something to quench your thirst but
I could pour you
glass after glass of compassion
and you'd empty it onto the floor because you can't bear to actually drink it

Instead you chase whiskey with self-pity
and I
watch helplessly
as pieces of my past
come dancing to life on stage
in front of me

I can't give hope to arms too shaky to hold it,
can't give faith to a stomach that can't keep it down     
     
"you're good, baby, you're so good," I whispered

but then I walked away and took my words with me, too

I take bitter pills to forget you,
I swallow them with honey
to mask the taste, and
they catch in my throat
like unspoken words

Still,
I think about you now,
imagine your dead eyes,
the telltale sign of your
jumbled mind

you gave up
you stopped living in reality
you are gone

all you were good for
was a handful of poems,
written in aggravation
and a handful of flowers,
long since dried up

I thought I had swallowed
every last piece of you
when I chewed you up
and chewed you out

but here I am a year later,
pulling pieces of you out of my teeth

Sometimes it's a murmur,
an angry whisper,
under your breath,
when the impatience
mixes with silence and
makes the air too thick
to really talk
****

And sometimes it's out loud,
when the anger has turned to flames,
no longer pressing in on your head
but being rejected from your body
in an attempt to cool it
before you
explode,
scream,
punch,
I don't give a ****.

And it's gone,
and it's better,
and somehow,
it's much better
than simply
breathing and
i m a g i n i n g
your problems away

somewhere in the dark
she found his heart,
lying among the others in the storm
bleeding but beating

she took it in her hands,
carefully wrapped it up,
and sheltered it
in the safest place she knew

the next morning she set to work,
stitching the wounded pieces
until his heart was strong again
it beat hard and happy now,
but it was useless without its body

she set out on her journey to find him,
the black clouds rolled in,
she dodged trees blown over by wind,
she dodged flashes of lighting that
appeared just before her eyes

she was just about to save him
when she felt a famililiar pain in her chest
it felt as though a knife was stabbing her
in and out, in and out, in and out
she felt the blood pour from her heart
into her chest
and she fell for the first time
in a long time

she looked over to find him lying on the ground
and whispered her apologies
because one mended heart has a will to repair another
but a broken heart is useless in the darkness

She walked on through the trees
The branches stuck out menacingly,
Poiting their knife-like ends at her
And she tried her best to duck around them
One caught her knee
And she silently said a prayer of thanks
Because it missed the open wound on the joint
By a mere three inches
Still, the fresh cut bled just like the rest

This was good luck

She reached the end of the trees
And something strange happened
The corners of her parched lips turned up
Against her will,
As if they didn't understand the weight of gravity,
As if they had forgotten the things that had preceded this forest
The things she wouldn't be able to forget

But oh, it felt so wonderful to *smile

I think more than you,
specifically,
more than your kindness,
more than the joking,
more than the attention,

I miss the idea of being in love,
of being excited when I looked at the phone,
of being right on the edge of falling into something new,
of being so close to true love that I felt it as a fluttering in my
stomach brought on by the thought of you

I miss having someone to imagine about,
someone real that I can image falling for,
someone who's more than a crush, but not a sure thing,
someone whose arms I want to wrap myself in,
someone whose smile I want to see,
someone who coaxes my own smile out every day,
someone who makes the dreary days worth dealing with,
someone who makes the dreary days less dreary,
someone who makes me a little anxious and confused

I miss thinking that this is it, this is going to be love,
he likes me and I like him and we both know it,
he wants to talk to me, to joke with me,
he must really care,
he will be someone I can share things with,
he will be someone I can spend time with,
he is the one I've been waiting for
he will be my first true love

And so when I think about you,
your ego will have to take a hit,
and I will have to remind myself
that I'm not really thinking about you,
I'm thinking about the last person I
thought I could fall in love with,
and I'm just waiting for someone
to take your place

I think more than you,
specifically,
more than your kindness,
more than the joking,
more than the attention,

I miss the idea of being in love,
of being excited when I looked at the phone,
of being right on the edge of falling into something new,
of being so close to true love that I felt it as a fluttering in my
stomach brought on by the thought of you

I miss having someone to imagine about,
someone real that I can image falling for,
someone who's more than a crush, but not a sure thing,
someone whose arms I want to wrap myself in,
someone whose smile I want to see,
someone who coaxes my own smile out every day,
someone who makes the dreary days worth dealing with,
someone who makes the dreary days less dreary,
someone who makes me a little anxious and confused

I miss thinking that this is it, this is going to be love,
he likes me and I like him and we both know it,
he wants to talk to me, to joke with me,
he must really care,
he will be someone I can share things with,
he will be someone I can spend time with,
he is the one I've been waiting for
he will be my first true love

And so when I think about you,
your ego will have to take a hit,
and I will have to remind myself
that I'm not really thinking about you,
I'm thinking about the last person I
thought I could fall in love with,
and I'm just waiting for someone
to take your place

the way you smile
and the way you look
when you finally laugh

****

that's the stuff worth living for

If you told me that I'm beautiful,
I sure wouldn't hate you for it.
If you held my hand,
I wouldn't pull away.
If you asked me for a date,
It'd mean more to me than just passing time.
"I love you"
would be more than just something to say.

It's silly to imagine,
It's silly to pretend,
and I know
You may not know it,
You may not see it,

But, if you took the chance,
I think I could fall in love
with you.