you were constant acid rain

and i was the statue
you never stopped falling on

after the sun, you reached for my hand

you said it was the moon in me
that was stronger than earth's gravity

you said if you'd created the stars
you would've put me in with gods

you said when the world ends
you'll die a sundial's shadow
without my light to paint you

this is early morning anger
when the sun is too far down
to burn away my skin

i wish you understood
that when i tell you to leave
i'm really asking you to stay

I AM THE FADED "MAYBE"S
YOU LEFT LOCKED IN YOUR OLD ROOM.

i can't love you.

i'm already in love with
someone else's words.

we love incandescent,
words growing light
that laughs at the dark.

we love incandescent,
gold in a world of grey,
dazzling in its misplacement.

we love incandescent
and sinuous and strange
and lies and logical madness.

we love incandescent,
and the witches come for us
like moths dying in candles.

we love incandescent
until you strangle my light
and i steal your fire
(a prometheus that wins)
and we both ignite.

we love incandescent
until it is me, alone,
watching your old mirror.

we love incandescent
and it is not your downfall
but my rebirth.

i cried so much that
my heart filled with tears.

my blood got evicted.
now zhe goes to the library
and sits next to hope.

the last time my grandmother said goodbye
is the only time she meant it.

no more "come visit again"s
or "see you soon"s.

just
goodbye.
(as if that were an adequate replacement.)

maybe the space between words is lonely.
and maybe that is why i let it swallow me whole.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LOVED ME ENOUGH
TO SEE THAT I DIDN'T LOVE YOU.

i don't remember how it felt yesterday,
with its empty windows and laughing winds,
lonely pedestals and creaking floors.

i don't remember what you said yesterday
when we whispered suicide to the earth
and prayed the stars might explode.

i don't remember what i did yesterday
when my eyes were pumping blood,
and i used a heart-shaped telescope
to see beyond today's hurricanes.

yesterday i lied. today i do too.
i remember everything yesterday
so i lose myself in tomorrow.

the people here do not stand
for the sky has fallen—

now, they crawl beneath
crumpled edifice and shattered glass
moaning trees and long-dead birdsong—

now, they crawl beneath their own skins
and try to remember
when they last saw the sun—

sometimes i think i'd like to run
away from this misfortune,
this molasses life,
this maybe someday you'll win—

but other times
i think i'd like to drown here
and suffocate under these dead dreams—

in this world -

juliet poisons the city
with the ashes of her ancestors
and burns romeo's bones.
the feud is ended because
no one is left to carry it on.

desdemona drowns iago
under the willow tree.
they say there's a nymph here,
one with madness in her bones,
and when iago stops breathing
desdemona does not leave.

ophelia, the nymph says.

juliet watches them,
floating in their shadows,
and holds out for a sunset
before she jumps.

(they tell stories of three nymphs
underneath a willow tree.
the nymphs do not mind
that no one remembers their names.)

the worst fate is not
fighting the monster
or killing the monster
or being the monster.
no, the worst fate is
loving him.

DEPRESSION NEVER HURTS AND
THAT'S WHAT SCARES ME -

THIS NOT FEELING ANYTHING
FEELS NUMB

AND MAYBE SOMEDAY
I'LL TELL YOU
HOW WE FIRST DIED

i thought i could write, but then you came along,
and i realized i didn't understand
anything
at all.

it tastes like quiet, here
the trees watch and do not
movespeakbreathe -
they do not tell the curious sky
what is changing below

it tastes like quiet, here
eighteen species of birds
gone deaf from this silence,
and thirty more
who have forgotten their song

it tastes like quiet, here
shining goldgreengray with
the darkest of clouds

it tastes like quiet, here
and it is so easy
to forget yourself:
impose the heart on forests
and leave it behind

and it tastes like quiet, you think
but you do not remember
knowing anything else

the day is filled with ghosts.
the living rest at night,
when dead laughs are silenced
by shadows of the stars.

all that glisters is not gold,
for the moon shines a silver
brighter than this sun.

(there are churches left standing in war zones.)

there are churches left standing in war zones and
they're a symbol
of far-off war-torn places
because destruction is universal.

(blood stains the walls
but they are still holy
and still there.)

there are churches left standing in war zones on
the front page of newspapers,
shouting numbers and figures
but never tragedy.

(there is nothing more powerful
than a bombed-out miracle.)

there are churches left standing in war zones because
soldiers know that in churches
words cut deeper than bullets,
than bayonets,
and the destruction of that power
would be atomic bomb
ground zero
hiroshima nagasaki
hundreds dead and
decades of fallout.

(hospitals and morgues are gone.
the church still stands.)

there are churches left standing in war zones
filled with dust and rubble
and blood and death and dying
and faith screaming for hope
and the church is still standing
but nothing
else
breathes.

(and the church watches war
and she laughs.)

see,
i died,
and she burned,
and you forgot the both of us.

here's how it goes:
i wrote your name on my heart
in solid black sharpie,
and i can't get it out.

let me want the world
because you cannot give me it

there's an awful lot of expectations
laid on you by a name.

like.
my name is emily
but i'm no good at poetry.

you walk among the suffering
and they do not know you are the cause.

let us imagine that we are imaginary.

of you, i ask two things:
that you do not cry for me.
that my name will not be unspoken.

they have always lied.
heaven is home to demons in disguise.

in hell, at least,
they do not hide their misbeings.

i miss you like
the sun to the earth

i think your light forgot me
somewhere past mercury

and that's okay -
if you get too close
i'll burn

sometimes i lie awake
picturing how a gun would feel
pressed above my ear

and i think it would be cold
and sharp-edged
and empty

but in imagining i
never.
feel.
scared.

index finger of dominant hand
point upright
let finger rotate from wrist
flick across the tip of nose
close to touching skin
let your wrist fall into the movement
quick motion, don't hesitate
like you have something on your fingertip
and you're throwing it aside -
you want it over and done with

*liar

we write poems about broken gods
to see falls in perspective.

we look at atlas' burden
and say it could be worse.
we look at pele's destruction
and say we do not burn worlds.

we write poems about broken gods.
in comparison, our failures are insignificant.

DO NOT CRY TO YOURSELF.
CRY TO THE WORLD
SO THEY WILL HEAR
YOUR VOICE.

i always adjust the rearview mirror
so that i can't see myself in it.

las cosas que vienen entreolas -
vidas, sueños y estrellas de amor -
nunca regresarán
a mi isla de soledad

hey, you know that feeling?
the one where you're in love -
sweaty palms and catching breaths
and a world spinning on an axis of one?

yeah.
me neither.

ghosts of feathers trailing dust
over old photographs of us,

and laughing clocks
ticking their own lives away

do not burn this city.

leave the people with
secondhand smoke
in their skins.

burn yourself
with all the hopes
they cannot have -
the hopes you
have stolen.

she may hurt, but she is not pain.
she may fail, but she is not a failure.
she may be tragic, but she is not tragedy.

*she may feel worthless,
but this, too, will pass.

i'm enamored with the past and the future
but the present cannot stand alone

there is a fine line between "doing better" and "doing well".
do not spend your life obsessed with the former.

do not weep for the dead.
mourn the stars that cannot fall to earth.

leap from rooftops in your dreams.
pretend to be a hero there,
so when you wake,
the coward will retreat
and the leader rise.

i'm still confused by the idea of........... this

romance, i think it's like the mindless devotion
i see on television and in disney movies
(which in itself seems foolish)

but how is it better than
love for friends or family or soulmates?

why do people do crazy things for love?
how do true things conquer all?
what the **** makes "romance" so special?

i guess i'll always be left out of that loop