you grabbed my hand like it was
your only saving grace,
and you held me in your arms
as if i was the only thing
keeping you afloat.
the carnival lights shone
brightly above,
and the cloud-masked sunset
waved goodbye on the horizon,
bidding us adieu,
farewell until next time.
waves lapped at our feet
as we lapped at each other
and the wind in our hair
must have mixed up our atoms;
that summer night when we became
a beautiful cacophony of half-broken hearts,
tearing each other’s flesh with our
desperate and greedy hands
and popping pink and purple blood vessels
between our canines and incisors.
sleeping in my bed
could never compare to the comfort
and safety i indulge in when cradled
in your arms,
and the sweetest of songs dulls in
comparison to the rhythm of your
breathing.

you are the tide and i am the shore.
you come and go as you please
while i lay in waiting for you
to return and kiss me once again
the way you did before.
the repetition does not teach or change me
for i am malleable.
i remain because of the hope that you will return
once again after each departure
you make from me.

i have ripped out my own veins and transformed them into suspension ropes in order to keep myself above water.

i will pry my ribs open, cracking them off of my spine in order to use them to construct a bridge to bring refuge to those that i love.

the veins in your arms like
road maps to your heart,
i trace them with my eyes
from afar.
youve got an aura that people write songs about,
the way you shine and
the way i fade and fizzle out.
im the last thing youd remember
but youre the last thing id forget,
the way your eyes wander
and mine are dead-set.

i am drowned in my own affections
and afflictions;
each day i fall again and again
for both new and old.
why am i so burdened by love?
why does it seep like honey,
like sweat
from my every pore?
why do i want everyone’s love
all to myself when i am so
full of it for dozens?

all i have ever been, all i will ever be
is a warm and hollow place for
lonely boys to find refuge in;
a meaningless shell of a girl
accepting any momentary sliver of light
as love, as meaning, as purpose.
there is no glory here, just a
disposable nighttime fix,
a backup plan,
a momentary euphoria that means nothing
once it its over.

i write my best poetry
about the collar of your shirt
the spaces between your fingertips
the warmth of your chest
the curve of your bottom lip
and the way that i have not
even experienced
any of them yet.

2:04 am


we talk about
living
and waiting
and wishing
and aging.
punks hiding
in the dark
on the cold concrete
near a busy street;
share a stolen cigarette
lit by stolen matches
drunk off stolen liquor.
lovely little ladies
little liars
little loners
little stoners
complaining
and comparing
and contrasting
and contemplating.
reunions
cold feet
smokey words
plastic spoons,
drugs
and hugs
and
"see you soon"s.
repeat it every week
different times,
different places,
sharing jackets
kissing cheeks
of familiar faces.
crosswalks and
cheap food
late at night
we all get bolder,
this is what it feels like
getting older.

dark and brooding;
you menace, you.
gaunt and godly,
your dark eyes, like bits of night sky,
scan over my skin,
my imperfect features.
I want to examine you through telescopes
like constellations.
I want to plant red poppies along your spine,
your collarbones.
I want to unravel your tangles,
illuminate your insides.
I want you,
under a microscope,
early in the morning,
on a silver platter,
you.

I cry a lot. I always have. everyone has always noticed. everyone has always pointed it out. a substitute teacher I had in the second grade called my mother one day to tell her that I needed to grow thicker skin. maybe I just need a thicker skull. a thicker heart. I think I'm too susceptible to the dark realities of humanity. maybe even when I was younger I knew of the hopelessness that is life. maybe that's why the tears poured from my adolescent eyes on their own accord. maybe I am a vessel. A delicate little receptionist of all of the darkness in the hearts of the inhabitants of my biosphere. It seeps from their pores and digs it's way through my skin and into the deepest extremities of my existence. I am small and I am meek but oh, how I can love. How I can wail and how I can cry and how I can hold passion inside of me. I am a fragile vessel, but oh, I am vast.

a contradictory cocktail of adrenaline and melatonin
dance lightly underneath my skin
and you move in time with
my heartbeat.
petal lips dance between my hips and
the seratonin
and dopamine
kick in
and the
oxytocin, endoprhins,
you are an aphrodisiac on legs
and oh god
oh
oh
oh

"at least we have each other"
are my favorite words you've said,
even over distance,
even in different beds.
I don't know where we're going
and I don't know what we'll be,
but whatever happens to happen,
you're someone that I'll keep.

there is a boy who smells like crushed up pills
who licks his lips when he thinks hard
and holds his hands in the pockets of his
blue windbreaker.
he is the kind of person with the kind of mind
that you wish you could read; you want to
delicately crack open his skull and reveal the
contents written in its folds.
you want to know what is written on the crumpled up
slips of graph paper that he carries in his jacket pockets.
you want to know why he is and why you are and
what mess of universal ties somehow connect you.

1,116 miles separates your flesh from mine
but i still feel your warmth
in the palms of my hands
in the pit of my stomach
in the space between my legs.
cold nights remind me of the space between us
but i've never felt so close to someone.
i swear if i'm lucky
i dream of you,
like a ghost,
crawling in through my window
into my sheets -
lips crawling across my jaw and
fingers crawling up my thighs.

love sputtered,
burnt out too soon;
it could have stayed so beautiful.
blonde curls fall left and right
cheeks stinging red
uncovered
unmasked
lashes flutter over four blue eyes
and the love only exists there
in one pair.
an unrequited ignition
of old flames
and your car is cold
like your hands
and your heart.

tickle my fancy
slip past my *******
delve into the pieces
of me in all senses
that make me
a woman; the woman i am.
the velvet, the silk,
the warm honey and milk
dripping and falling in time
with your breath.

I wish I could sew the states
closer together
and stitch you in right next to me.
I wish I could kick the tectonic plates
so hard that they overlapped
and destroyed everything
that is separating our heartbeats.
what do I have to do
to wind up next to you?

with your arm around me
and your warmth engulfing me
i realize why i often speak of you
in metaphors of fire and flame.
each word you utter,
each glance you sneak,
feels like strikes of red
against my matchbox heart,
surrounded by newspaper and brush
doused in gasoline.

with every brush, every stroke of my hands
against your warm skin,
I write love letters on your flesh;
I hope my words seep into
your pores and your follicles
so that you never forget
all of the ways
I love you.

it is a shame that someone as beautiful as you loses nearly a million skin cells a day. i bet that when they fall, the dance like pale snow cascading down from the most heavenly corner of the sky. the corners of your bedroom must be decorated by little pieces of you, unless you are an avid duster. either way, anything that has been graced by even a mere cell that reluctantly detached itself from you is infinitely more beautiful than it was before you left your microscopic mark.

the loose tooth of youth
is hanging low by its root now;
our mother birds cry at night
knowing that soon we’ll be
leaving the nests we called home
for so many years and
her wings will no longer wipe away
the tears of her baby birds
as they plummet down from the foliage
above.
we’ll fly high above states
and admire the way in which,
as we look down,
the terrain far below mimics the lines
of the maps which
held our undying attention
by the throat
for the entirety of our adolescence.

fireworks on the freeway
fireflies in your eyes
****** noses and bruised knees.
crying in the rain,
******* in the backseat,
picking at scabs,
binging and purging and
writing poems on napkins
and on clammy palms.
this is human nature as we know it;
stringy hair and sweaty faces,
dancing and moving in crowds.
street lamps, freeway noise,
stop lights through blurry, tear-filled eyes.
traffic on the streets and in our
hearts and in our heads and in our
beds, messy sheets and limbs tied
together like nooses.
ghosts hanging from ropes,
empty bottles,
****** knuckles,
sleeping in bath tubs.
kissing boys, kissing girls,
and drinking and smoking
and other things
our parents told us not to do.
concrete jungles in the palms
of our hands;
life lines and love lines
that mimic maps and paved roads.
popping pills on public transport,
leather and lace and broken glass,
cigarette smoke spelling words
of rebellion and
tell tales of broken homes.
pretension and potential
and the production of
history.
memories write themselves
when you're young,
and whether we remember them
through narcotics and alcohol
or not, they all mold us into
the complex beings
that each of us are.
youth is now, and
if you close your eyes
for too long,
it'll pass you by.

she smelt of forget-me-nots
and moved as if some unseen force
propelled each step.
with sandpaper knuckles
and rose petal palms,
her sunshine hair fell over her
sunspotted shoulders
and with every step she swayed to
some unheard tune,
crackling like vinyl through a wooden stereo.
with chrysanthemum lips and ice-cap teeth,
her honey-drenched voice slipped through
to carry the most god ****** unforgettable
hello
i will ever hear.

that day
nine months ago
when you held my hand
in the sand
and my dress blew
with your hair
and with the waves
is an echo now.
the echo is deafening
and rings in my ears
and in the back of my mind
and it keeps me
stuck on a fishing line
dangling dangerously,
delicately,
precariously,
above a raging fire
clinging to you.

I want to kiss you so hard that our lips crack and disintegrate
2. I used to hate the color brown but then I saw your eyes and now whenever I see it I think of the way that you look at me
3. I will tell you that I love you until my tongue shrivels up and falls out
4. When I think of you flowers bloom inside of me
5. My affection for you grows even faster than your hair does
6. Remember the night we cried into each other’s mouths and dried each other’s tears with our lips?
7. You have been the backbone of all of my poetry for 350 days and counting
8. I will never forget when we laid in the grass at night and our love for each other made us cry
9. You wrote me a poem and used the word “euphoric”. I have never loved anyone more.
10. I think the reason why I often press my ear against your chest to listen to your heartbeat is the same reason why I roll your collarbones between my fingers; I want to solidify the fact that you are human and you have a beating heart and veins doused with warm red love for me
11. I have tied a string around your heart and attached it to my own

alcohol poisoning in the parking lot
and cigarette ashes on the concrete.
you had burn holes in your tee shirt and
she had lipstick on her neck and
we ran around under purple lights;
our skin stained with artificial pigments.
you had sweat dripping down your face and
her nail polish was chipped.
a girl sat alone on a bench
and shook so furiously that she scolded her finger
while trying to light up her third consecutive cigarette
and a boy washed the blood from the corners of his mouth
with a half-full bottle of whiskey.
you had her all over your skin and
she had too much to drink.

in a fast food parking lot
you gave me liquid fire
that torched my insides
and singed my lips.
on the dark side
of a concert venue
you lit up a stick
that burned my throat
and engulfed my lungs
with flames.
we drank to the bottom
and smoked to the ****.
on the sidewalk
with yellow pills
and crumpled dollar bills
we talked about
how we were going to
get out of this town
and camp out
on rooftops
and in backyards
and in pick-up truck beds.
skipping meals
and saving up
we watched our worries
cascade to the ground;
dancing, intertwining themselves
with ash and ember.
we draw constellations
on our hands and on our feet
and on our hearts,
until the day we
get to chase them
away from here.

he·don·ism
ˈhēdəˌnizəm,ˈhedənˌizəm/
noun

knowing that somebody is going to hurt you
but chasing after them blindly
nonetheless.

you used to be my yellow paint,
the warmth in the pit of my stomach;
but your toxicity has got to me
and now you are just *****.

he is the hunter
and I, the willing prey.
hands wrapping slowly around my throat,
a smile blooms across my face.

swimming in a pool
laced with tragedy
my feet kick only as a reflex of my
pounding, deafening heartbeat,
thudding all over my body,
leaving ripples around me in the water.
i am a wet dog.
i am wearing concrete boots.
i am the child who can not swim
but enters the water anyway,
overcome by morbid curiosity.
i am drowning for my art
i am drowning for my art
i am drowning

‘maybe it was all of those books i read in middle school,
filling my head up with hopeless things’.
if i could i would stitch you up
but not before coating your insides
with yellow paint to keep you
warm and full of life,
she said
‘come keep me and my paranoia company’
but if it were up to me
i would **** up every ounce of darkness from you
and hold it as my own.

memories of you, of us
dance behind my broken face,
a cracked smile and swollen eyes
characterized by long and late and lonely nights.
youre making new memories now
with her, my antithesis,
the girl who sets you ablaze
and ashes her cigarettes on your bedroom floor.
you have her to keep you warm at night,
i sleep with my bedroom window open
and make myself sicker and sicker just to feel something
and i write until the friction of pen on paper is enough
to warm the tips of my fingers.

we're scratching the surface, baby,
diving in deep,
no matter how foolish or blind it may be.
your walls are falling down so quickly,
but why?
it's unlike you.
I like to imagine that it's because I
came into your life like an earthquake;
laying dormant for so long, warming up,
then striking at the perfect time.
sometimes ruins are a good thing, baby.
you were a vacant home, rotting from the inside.
when your walls came crashing down,
the opportunity to rebuild arose.
I'll be the carpenter, baby.
I'll build you up, working daily.
when you're bold and big and beautiful
like you once were long ago before the floods came,
before the neglect and tarnish,
I'll unload your baggage, bringing it to light.
I'll make your pain, your struggles,
into beautiful furnishings, accenting you,
building character, adding to your uniqueness.
and, baby, when I'm done,
I'll inhabit you and care for you.
you'll be my refuge, my home, mine,
no matter how far i venture.
I'll always come back to your warmth
and your protection
once again.

tongue dancing, your eyes roll back
as blood poppies bloom on pale skin.
your sins, sweet and warm,
depraved, delectable, diluted, and
dissolving
we pull the life out of each other
and we revel in the taste.

You felt my pain
and I felt yours.
From clumsy lovers
to the closest of friends,
we helped each other
settle in our skin.
I told you
that you would go far
and you said the same to me,
but now I wish
you would have stayed.

i have been writing risque poetry and i have been putting honey in my tea and i have not washed my hair in a week and i am a mess on legs.

i have been reading bukowski and i have been cutting off my fingernails and i have even taken my pills every morning but i still feel enigmatic.

i have been wearing silk ******* and i have been smoking cigarettes and i have been writing my ******* guts out and
oh god
i miss you
i miss you
i miss you

petal lips
causing insatiable lust,
breaking down walls but
building up trust.
a connection stalled,
better late than never;
when I say that I want you,
I mean it forever.

Maybe we all have poetry inside of us;
the way we start deteriorating
the moment we leave our mothers’ wombs.
Life has revealed itself to me
as a sigh.
It varies from shallow to deep;
long, light, short,
depending on the lungs
that are attached to it.
We breathe in
and out,
then turn back
into the dust we
once came from.

dampened bed sheets,
nerve endings ablaze,
shaking from the inside out.
ravaging,
youre rugged,
ruthless and raw;
across pale silk skin,
lovers claw.
teary eyes and sultry pouts,
the **** wet dreams are all about.
i may be little, but im ready
to love you hard
and feel you heavy.

where do you go
from the lowest of lows
when the heaviest of weights
blocks your only escape?

you told me it was nothing,
now youre sleeping in her bed.
you said i was the only one
now i dont exist in your head.
shes the best youve ever had
i was a warm, convenient place.
i poured all i had into you
and she quickly took my place.

tattoos sit where marker scribbles
once graced our freckled skin,
and cooties have evolved into
a new kind of plague.
the innocence of youth
is now few and far between;
our purity has melted away in the sun
like the wax of a candle.
who are we now?
what is this change?
is anything the same?

i wasted my
first poem
of the year
on you.
****,
there goes
the second one,
too.

do I need to be burdened
to make the words flow?
do I need
a weight on my shoulders
to push poetry from
my pores?

in a world of winter cold
you are fire,
warm and quiet
but vital.
unsung but crucial.
speaking lightly,
whispering to me
through sparks;
warm, just for me.

your glasses slip down
the bridge of your nose
and your slender hands
turn pale around the steering wheel.
i wonder what you do
when you are alone,
what you think about as you
drive aimlessly
through the city and
through my mind.
i wonder if your presence here
was premeditated or
a happy accident
like those days when you
drive wherever feels right.
i want to know how similar
the contents of you are
to myself, and
i want to know the processes
and the dreams
and the fears
behind those frames,
behind those eyes
that you hide.
to you, im cool
but to me you are
a mystery;
you are pandoras box
and im the willing fool
whose curiosity got the best of them.

words get trapped in my throat
but they flow fluently
through my finger tips;
i would rather get carpal tunnel
than die of asphyxiation.