I spent years trying to be
one of the boys because i
couldn't be one of the girls
that boys like or girls liked

so now I've learned to be
whatever boys like, whatever
men like I'm not sure. so I search
for those perfect traits that align
with mine and they're never in
the same place, all in different
bodies.  And however petty
it may seem, i'm worried

that no one else will ever like
me for me.

If you see my ex girlfriend can you tell her,
tell her i took her t-shirt and ripped it up,
tell her i made something good, **** good out of it,
and it fit real well,
in all the places i've got left;
can you tell her, tell her,
i still have her shelves she left me,
and on the shelves full of heavy books and antique cameras,
lies a card she once wrote for me,
because it reminds me to be strong,
and tell her this card,
even though it sits on her shelves,
it is no way a regard to thoughts of her, now, still.
Can you tell her,
I threw away all the kitten food i had left over,
I took the kittens to a new home,
because they would be better with someone else,
i thought, that was for the best,
it was for the best,
can you tell her that?
Can you tell her that,
I miss her, but i don't mourn her,
I don't care to feel anything for her anymore,
as i look at the pictures,
i left of us, messing around,
in the park,
the two most beautiful girls we knew,
that i never deleted.
Can you tell her it took a year and another girl to get over her?
Can you tell her,
it was her that made me get over her?
In her hoody as i walked home,
from the night before,
i realised i had cried so many tears for the wrong person,
but i still loved who she was,
regardless,
can you tell her?
Tell her that i love her and always will,
because there is something inside of me,
that is broken,
broken like a record,
and it never stops, going around, and around,
like she was the record player,
and i was the record,
but something scratched me,
and i was never the same,
played in repeat, over and over, again,
a line sung of love, hate, misery and lust,
in a song that never stopped playing.
And now can you tell her,
tell her that i killed me to love her,
i wore my heart proudly,
bleeding on my chest,
from old battle scars and war wounds,
and tell her,
she should never be afraid to die for someone she loves,
because i want her to know,
that in the midst of all the broken pieces,
i was inside of her, outside of her, and had her,
but i never let her know,
because like a broken record,
i was stuck at the same spot from the last ride.
Can you tell her?
Tell her i think about the times she made me laugh,
really laugh til my soul fell out,
and the time she officially asked me out,
and i had no clue,
and i loved her for that
because she made it part of us.
Can you tell her,
she is missed, and loved,
and though we will never be,
she played me a song i had never heard before,
and i fell in love with her music right then.
Can you tell her?
She left a legacy, and changed the clocks when she left.
Can, you, tell her?

i feel that in some places
physical apologies only
make things worse, and
for all the times I tried you
always dismissively waved
your hand and shook your
head, pacifying me with a
simple smile, no, Brooke,
this was my fault.

But the truth is, I'm at fault
too, so one day I hope you
don't look back on me
in dismay, somehow find it in
your heart to forgive me for the
way I am or was. Because love
does not boast the way I did or
refuse an embrace from someone
so confused.

(And although this
wheat field is grand and seemingly
endless I'm thankful to run through
again and again if it meant learning
more from you)

some rather dark nights
seems the moon's on vacation . . .

1.
Look, here comes courage
Dragging the moon in its teeth
While stars dapple in its tangled fleece
Go on, you!
Go and put the moon back up in the sky
Where it belongs

2.
Tenebrous nite falls on square
Yet a caged moon shines courageous slivers
Most haunting melodies
Then that dark figure appears
Trying to steal it away

With black birds flapping round him
Like a sombre halo over him
He slinks off into the welcoming shadows.

3.
Girl with long blonde plaits
sits on water-lily petal-pads
In the middle of a mild mere
Mauve moon lies tame in her still palms
But the wrong notes suddenly play out
Harmony not quite jacked up

4.
Elemental whirlpool explodes
As sceptred figures hunch in red dust
A flash of green sky
white elephants drown in shallow puddles
angels sit on the edge of blue teacups
while thoughts crisscross

and moon hops away
galaxial order pleased


put the moon back
where it belongs

let it hang there . . .
in the sky*




S T, 20 July 2013

“I want you to bite my lip until I can no longer speak
And then **** my ex girlfriend’s name out of my mouth just to make sure she never comes up in our conversations.
I’m going to be honest, I’m not really a love poet
In fact, every time I try to write about love my hands cramp… just to show me how painful love can be.
And sometimes my pencils break, just to prove to me that every now and then love takes a little more work than you planned
See I heard that love is blind so, I write all my poems in Braille
And my poems are never actually finished because true love is endless.
I always believed that real love is kind of like a super model before she’s air brushed;
It’s pure and imperfect, just the way that God intended.
See I’m going to be honest, I’m not a love poet
But if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I really wanted to write about love I swear that my first poem…
It would be about you.
About how I loved you the same way that I learned how to ride a bike: Scared
But reckless with no training wheels or elbow pads so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you.
You see, I’m not really a love poet
But if I was I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud and your reflection in every window
You see I’ve written like a million poems hoping that somehow maybe someway you’ll jump out of the page and be closer to me
Because if you were here, right now
I would massage your back until your skin sings songs that your lips don’t even know the words to.

Until your heartbeat sounds like my last name and you smile like the Pacific ocean
I want to drink the sunlight in your skin.
If I was a love poet
I’d write about how you have the audacity to be beautiful
Even on days when everything around you is ugly
You see I’d write about your eyelashes and how they are like violin strings that play symphonies every time you blink.

If I was a love poet
I’d write about how I melt in front of you like an ice sculpture
Every time I hear the vibration in your voice so whenever I see your name on the caller ID my heart
It plays hop scotch inside of my chest.
Yo it climbs on to my ribs like monkey bars and I feel like a child all over again.
I know this sounds strange but every now and then I pray that God somehow turns you back into one of my ribs…
Just so that I would never have to spend an entire day without you.

I swear, I’m not a love poet
But if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I really wanted to write about love
My first poem it would be about you
And after all of that she was like, so how do you feel about me?
And I said, put it like this:
I want to be your ex boyfriend’s stunt man. I want to do everything that he never had the courage to do like… trust you.

I swear that when our lips touch I can taste the next sixty years of my life.
And some days I want to swallow stacks of your pictures just so you can be a part of me for a little bit longer.
If I could I would sample your smile and then I would let my heart beat
Do the bass line, we would create the greatest love song of all time
Whenever, we stand next to each other, love I was the only one made for you and you can be at last my Etta James
I’ll be oh child when you’re in pain or you could be candy coated drops of rain
Even though it never rains in Southern California
And together, we could be music.

And when my friends ask if you’re my girlfriend
I’ll say no.
She is my musician
And me… I’m her favorite song.”


-by Rudy Francisco