We will wake in the morning; pink and repentant. As if the words strung above our bed mean any less with the sun upon them.

This isn't a poem about how I don't like to get drunk
because I show that, maybe,
I'm not as strong as I say I am.
There will be no metaphors comparing your eyes
to the most beautiful of nights, or
how I search them constantly like a map
afraid to see that you've finally gotten lost.
I won't add any clever line breaks to represent
the juxtaposition of our personalities.
I can only write poems about the terrible things in my life, and you
are nothing of the sort.

I will count your teeth, naming them
for the reasons you smiled before me.
I will call her ugly and make fun of her name.
I will think she looks like me.
I will want to know what your home looked like.
I will hate myself for not having more in common with you.
I will hate that she had so much in common with you.
I will wonder if I'm artsy enough.
I will decide to buy a camera.
I will worry if you actually like how eclectic I am.
I will think you'll leave me for it someday.
I will love you with everything.
I will pray that you love me more than you loved her.

He was a beautiful enigma.
A bonified butcher knife
whispering against my throat
on a wooden dorm room desk.

His hands drummed
to beats my heart missed.
My lungs forgot  the in and out,
we’d been perfecting
all these years.

He brought me closer to divinity
Than I had ever come before
I can see him now, eyes ignited
to match my joint.

Down and out, or better than ever, I can’t tell.
No matter where on Earth I am with you
I will wake up in cold sweats, panting
Because I can’t get this restlessness out of me.

Some days, I swear
In place of my blood there is kerosene.
My fingernails are growing yellow.
Skin equals ashes.
But I can’t tear the meat from my bones
If you’re busy loving it.


You and inferno are playing tug of war with my limbs
And if you win you’ll regret it.

One day, I will meet you. My face
in ruins. Pink skin like thrift store taffeta,
and you will say nothing.
I will be with child. High school sweetheart
gripping tight to my left hand.
There will be mascara draining
from the ledges of my empty, hand me down blue eyes,
but the streetlights will fill me up effectively.

If I see you any time soon,
it will be because we miscalculated,
kept our heads up for a second too long on the street.
I will open my mouth to spill out my mirror practiced monologue,
I'm just like you, so they say. Callous and Shifting.
But my dry mouth will close tight around the first vowel, swallowing hard.

Your eyes will look through me.
Because you, like all things, must pass.

Lend me your crimson
tinted telescope lens.
I can see you now
glittering out there
in alien sands.
Green lungs,
like neon lights,
ignite to match your joint.

Pantomime of a stoner,
I see you better in the dark,
while I lie wrapped in the sheets
of your second-hand smoke.