In school they teach you about arithmetic, but they never taught me how to divide my attention between work and play,
to add up the number of times you took my breath away or the number of times you've made me cry,
To subtract the times I've thought of you or to multiply the times I've tried to be content with that.

While listening to the radio on the bus ride home, I've realized late in my life that love is not as simple as a verse chorus verse. It takes more than one than one person to write a song, and there are more parts to a song than the lyrics

And at night I wonder if the stars shine brighter for you now that I'm gone, or maybe they sparkle just like they always did, or if there's a girl you know who knows the story of a snail who loved a sunflower too much, but slowly inched away

Hands are wonderful but fragile, used to break and to mend and to hold and to push
Mine are constantly reaching for something but my fingertips always brush against you. I never know whether to pull you close or to push you away.

In school they teach you about geography and history, but all I've learned about was the places I wanted to travel with you, of the weather, and whether we'd brace the storm together or not.
Rather than a history, I wanted to know yours: I wanted to see your future, and what it would hold for you, and whether or not I was a part of it.

I was thinking about how you were something I've unearthed, and how you were some kind of treasure that had been left hidden for a long long time, but maybe you were, in a way, like Pandora's Box with a Pharaoh's curse and I've started to avoid mirrors for quite some time afterward because I knew I would hate what was looking back at me.

In school they teach you of science, but they never taught me of how unstable we were in our individual elements and when combined we could have been perfect, except when put under pressure.
When ignited, you stole my electrons which would make you more negative and I positively unable to talk.

I didn't think I'd think about you, years from now. How much have you changed? How much have I changed?

In school they teach you of English, of grammar, and I've learned that every word in the English language cannot even define what this is that I feel for you.
You could call it love, I could call it love.
But is it 'te amo' or 'te quiero' ?

The constructs and the boundaries we place on words, on feelings, reminds me of the walls I built when you left, with each memory of you to the number of bricks I stack a ration of 1:2; one to keep you out and one to keep me in.

What's the probability of my failure in trying?
Could I move somewhere new and uncharted? Where the weather is stable? Or even unstable?
Rewrite my own history book, but without you?
Would it burn me to try again? Would the chemistry work?
School has taught me many things, but it didn't prepare me for you.

Where the grapes you eat are red and green
But the ones you draw are purple

Where you love your parents with all of your heart
But pretend you’re an orphan when you play with friends

Where the monsters that lurk in closets and under beds
Can be destroyed by the light of day

Where a stinging, aching cut or bruise
Can be healed by a kiss

Where a girl can transform into a fairy princess
By slipping on a voluminous pink tutu

Where a boy becomes a conquering hero
By arming himself with an intimidating roll of wrapping paper

Where a slightly unkempt yard
Becomes a jungle full of tigers and serpents

Where an in ground pool
Becomes an ocean whose depths must be explored

Where winter
Is a season for snowmen and presents

Where summer
Is a season for ice cream and beaches

Where Mommy
Is the best chef, nurse, and storyteller

Where Daddy
Is the great protector, hug giver, and handyman

Where science has no bearing
Because rainbows and lightning come from magic

Where logic doesn’t make sense
Because the powers of love and fantasy are illogical

And there is no place for suffering
Because pain is overshadowed by innocence

I wait patiently,
carefully working on this puzzel.
You give me your life in pieces.
First chipped old edge pieces
all grey as the sky.
Then one purple with an orange stripe
it doesn't seem to fit anywhere.
Then none for a long time,
but sometimes I steal them

and my collection of pieces of you
becomes beautiful
but maybe because I put some to the side
in the picture that I'm trying to piece together
those ones would not fit

It's becoming harder and harder
to make that picture
because you force into my hands
pieces I wish were not yours
you make more and more of them
The puzzle grows into an ugly parody
of the picture I was making.

and the little pieces I cherish
are just moments
lost in years
spent far away from me

Receive it, my impatient heart--
receive it as it comes.
Do not worry, pulsing thing,
straining against that chest
you inhabit.  Incubate;
let the body prepare you:
Beat calmly where you lie.
Be comfortable, my eager heart,
my vibrating, warm little heart.

Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright
As the blank windows set in glaring brick,
When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night
Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;

By the deserted paths, the vacant halls,
One may see figures, twisted shades and lean,
Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen,
Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls.

Turn the **** gently! There's the Thumbless Man,
Still weaving glass and silk into a dream,
Although the wall shows through him -- and the Khan
Journeys Cathay beside a paper stream.

A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door --
-- Chilly the grave-smell comes from the turned sod --
Come -- lift the curtain -- and be cold before
The silence of the eight men who were God!

the sun does not set
automatic

trees of autumn do not
wither away its feathers
immediate

nor do the formation of
old souled clouds, or
the birth of flowers or
even death, even death
nature rots, and molds,
and decay, and spoils,

it all fades.

the childhood of lovers
consumed with these
slow deaths, through-
out the seasons, years
teach a simple moral

when the phone calls
become shorter, when
the meetings are more
meaningless, when the
plans are rescheduled,
they can blame the stars
for never just leaving,
always a subtle wave, or
a whisper goodnight, then
fading into someone else's
window or balcony, (they
have heard this story
before)

you called me and I called
back, you said "we don't
talk much" I agreed, I had
to go and I hung up before
you could've even say bye,

and that's kind of how its been for a while.

What needs my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th’sharne of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the Leaves of thy unvalu’d Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

I want to explore your body
Find all the spots you are ticklish
Make you understand how I want you
I crave the feel of your skin underneath my lips
I want to feel you breathing
Listen to your heartbeat
I want your flaws
and your illnesses
and your lies
and love

It was my birthday 2 weeks ago
so of course we have to celebrate this completely arbitrary date
two weeks late
My uncle talks about killing things
smaller than him
My aunt smiles and laughs
but she doesn't mean it
My step dad glares at me
My step sister sighs
my step brother is oblivious
My mom drinks too much
as do I
my grandpa tells me how I'm
the black sheep
of the family
Criticizes me
"She's just not right"
I drink gin in the kitchen
come back smiling and docile
ready to take a beating