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 want to rake down your back
Leaving neat little lines
So I can grow in the cracks

I want to infest every inch of you
Grow vines around your brain
Until you wake up at 3am
Singing my name

When I die, dear Mother
don't give my body away
to science.

I'd rather have it given away to poetry.

I want people to cut me open
and observe
how my bones were riddled with
melancholic verses of joyful pasts.

They have to see
the scarlet of my blood was the hue
I stole from the sunsets of
wishful thoughts.

Dear Mother,
give my body away
to the art of writing:
for they have to look past
everything they have ever learned.

They must know
of how much I loved and I lost,
and how that made the twine of my ribs
a story to tell.

You fell in love with me.

I just hope you jumped.
Not slipped.

There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to one kind of apology alone,
Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.
You go to their house for a meal,
And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;
They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,
And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;
If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,
And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;
They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,
But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,
I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,
Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,
And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,
And what particularly bores me with them,
Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,
So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,
Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.