dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.

you never know
because

she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses

and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.

she'll create a thousand plots  
from your worst nightmares.

she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.

she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,

and she'll make you,
everything you're not.

but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?

but here's the beauty of it:

if you date a writer,
you'll never die.

You are nothing now,
but if I had the chance to wish one thing of you,
it is this:
(may your past rest in parenthesis)
only an aside in the monologue of life
a soliloquy to the fourth wall of dramatic irony
a bracketed prologue to your story  
interjecting an understanding of now and everything from now
in a seemingly never-ending pattern
as present becomes past and enters the parentheses

when your death came and your last words and thoughts slipped behind you
death was the only thing left unsheltered
as your brackets came to a close
but may you rest in every moment and memory you contained in interjection thus far,
(may you rest in parenthesis)

I like her black dress,
the way it pools at her feet.
How she walks to the bed,
spilling over my sheets.
I drown in the depth
of her eyes.

"does the sky look odd to you?"

"no; I've been waiting for the day that the clouds would finally part and be able to speak to him for me, for the day that I wouldn't have to fear that a storm would ruin my chance of a kiss, because now the tables have turned. the sky can scream and rain all the words I've never been able to say to his face and I can lean over and whisper 'we're through.'"

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
*******?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.