You were so cute
when you loved me
and now you're an arrogant *******.

You were so loving
when you loved me
and now it's almost as if you hate me.

You were so beautiful
when you loved me
and now I can't stand to see you.

You were so perfect
when you loved me
but now you've fallen from grace.

And I wonder if
now that you love her
you're everything you were to me.

Cute, loving, beautiful, perfect;
are you all these things?

Or are you pretending for her
like you did for me?

I want you to remember everything you've ever done for me.
I don't ever want you to forget me.
I want you to stay for me, to wait for me--
because I'm selfish and vain
and can't stand to have you
not love me.

As I flip the calendar page,
I think back to everything which has happened
throughout this year.
So close to the end, I cannot help but think
about those things which changed me.
Like those hospitalizations,
for depression, they said;
for bipolar, they said;
and all those medications.
And now, they have me half-asleep,
a waking zombie,
because they don't want me getting paranoid.
I miss that black cat.
And I miss getting giddy about the faces in the night.
November, you leave me
changed.

Woken from a dream by nothing but the fanblades--
It's two a.m. and I'm left wondering
silly things, of course--
and maybe I'm still sleeping anyway.
I wonder if I ever really loved you
and I wonder if you still...

Everything's gone wrong since you.
You like to say that it's your fault I had the seizures,
but that's my fault. I did that to myself.
All of this is my fault.
I couldn't let you go.
You know, it's funny;
I led you on because I liked the attention.
And I let you have me so I wouldn't lose you---
and look what that did.

And even when it was time to let you go---
"Let's cheat; let's ****,"
was in your eyes that night.
So I didn't let you go.

I tried, at some point---
I told you I hated you.
And you punched the ground.

Everything's gone wrong since you.

And now they have me on some medication.
That's my fault, too.
It makes me sleepy and it makes me numb---
everything feels gray now--
and lifeless.
You try to say something
to keep me from wanting to die
but you can't.
Even the clouds whose whispers
I heard and took pleasure in
have been grayed out by the sweeping hand
of medications.
There is nothing, anymore.

I wonder if you still love me.

I'm unfair, you know.
I want you to---
still love me.
I want you to be under my sticky spell---
I want you to do anything for me.
Even though we're long gone
and I have someone new now.

I wonder if I'm in love.

I told him yes but the meds---
they dull the soul
and turn the heart to stone.

It's two a.m. and I wonder too much.
I can feel myself hurting things.
This is what I get for being honest.

Saturday left me reeling with her
pleasures and passing fun.
Sunday left me wondering
what else there was to come.
Monday teased me, left me to die.
Tuesday found me beneath the open sky.
Wednesday left me stranded in the
middle of the road,
Thursday found me and
brought me only so far, but
Friday found the end for me,
in her shining golden car.

Let's go out to the ocean.

We can build our home where
anenomes grow
and the starfish lose their limbs among stones.
We can dance with the tide
and call the moon our mother
as she pulls us up from our watery home.

We can forget how to breathe--
grow gills and drink air--
forget how to swim and be fish--
be together in our house beneath the waves.

Let's dance in the schools
frolicking among the seaweed
growing too tall for the depths to the sun.
We can find shallow pools and take in the warmth
of the star we don't see anymore.

"I miss it," you say.

"I'll follow," I say.

Together we leave paradise for our forgotten tennis shoes.

Handholds placed at random
and footholds where my hands should go.
Down below, the bored crowd waiting its turn
and above, a spinning red light awaiting the bell.
Halfway up and I've realized
I never learned how to rock climb anyway.