I would buy anything you asked
But what makes you smile most easily
Is as simple as flowers

So I will find you all the lilies I can buy, barter, steal, and gather -
Because I know they’re your favorite

May they make your room brighter
And give your face color when it is deprived of happiness

May they cover you in their perfume-
My perfume
Because
I want you to think of me

Think of me and lilies alike
Intertwine our names and smell and beauty

For I am the gifts I give-
I am the flowers
And you are all my meadows

Sometimes
I decide to fly
I can get too high-
I will admit the truth-
But if you’re there
Or I think you are
Or I imagine you
It’s like I can feel your body-
Your energy-
The aura of You wandering in like mist
The warmth of your arms
The cold in your hands-
Wrapped around my waist-
You intersect the reality of the ground
And you ascend with me to the sky
Floating about on clouds of sensitive skin and bad balance
It’s best when I’m so far up I can decipher nothing beyond my own desire
I breath
You sing
I whisper
You seem to kiss me back-
******* darling-
You are forever sweet in my mouth
A lover on whom I love to wait
And the intoxication I refuse to break
It’s a sinful heaven
Being too high
And thinking of you

To hold u is to live
Cherishing every second
And yet
Still desiring more
To the end I will love you
Never growing tired of you
And Always
Missing you when ur gone
To me you are beautiful
When you cannot see it
Still
I will remind you every day

You are that which softens my edges
And strengthens my soul -
Apart simply walking
...
With you
I am flying

i kinda feel like an alien among men
i don't know why
maybe it's my intense gaze
or the way i need to feel everything
or the way i love to change
or my restless spirit...
        I don't want to be stagnant
        like some muddy river water, stuck forever
        dammed up so i'll never escape
(in other words ******)
why do humans so champion settling down?

Lover,
Do you understand the way my heart desires you?
the way my soul longs for your touch-
Not the touch you give without thought
Or the kisses you do not seem to mind-
Those are but the surface of the endless desire
No, my love
the way I long for you is without parallel
I could spend my nights pining
Or spend verse after verse of exposition-
Like those poets of old-
But it would be no use
Lover,
I hope you understand,
I have tried to speak my mind,
You are all I want
And all I think of late at night
You are the stars and the rain
And every small, strong, beautiful, and rugged thing
...
I simply desire the intentional love you give me
Please, my dearest
Do not forget to love me with intention

He looks like god
He is my god
Does he know it
The way I absolutely obsess over him
He is everything to me
I am so ******* attached
His claws are in my back and they dig into my stomach
I can feel him diving deeper deeper
Till he surfaces again
Coming up for air through the front of my rib cage
I cannot escape
And if I did
Well
I’m already dead
I could never be accepted
Anywhere else

I started kissing this girl
They grew on me and turned my brain into butterflies-
Flying all over her flowers-
But I am just moss
Growing on her tree
I am a parasite.
Leeching out all their good
I am...
Unstable.

Now we are dating

I’m still not sure if this is a good idea.

Please handle me with care
If you don’t like lavender or honeysuckle
If you don’t want to smell like smoke
If you’re the type of person to buy almond milk
(I’m allergic)
If you avoid ****** eyeliner stoners
If you’d rather just play around
If you’d keep my heart after you break it
You might find I’m not so sweet in your mouth

Please handle me with care
I keep diaries and art journals with only a few entries
I wander at night and scare the **** out of my lovers
I don’t have enough friends to afford losing even one
(I’ll take yours too)
I think the sun is too bright but the moon is just right
I mutter under my breath when I need to process verbally
I sing loudly in the car
(Please never call me out on it)
Someday you’d find I’m worth the wait
But if you aren’t able to give patience and vulnerability
Please handle me with care
And don’t touch me like a lover does

Please handle me with care
If you like pretty boys and nerdy girls
If you wish you could talk and someone would listen
If you want obsession and passion and sweet sincerity
If you’d like the feeling of ‘my one and only’
If you’d tell me the truth and kiss me with your whole soul
You might find I’m the one for you

Holding his hand
so close to me
I feel so warm
His hands are strong
But still kind and gentle
sometimes calloused
I hold their hand
For all of time
Just to trace
The veiny surface
And feel his heart beat
Through his wrist
To have and to hold
My hand in theirs
Forever more
This
Is my dreamland
For when that handsome creature touches my face
I can see the stars
and every happy future
Dancing in their eyes
I am safe.
At last.

She deserves happy poems
Like nothing I can give her
I wish I knew how
To break this never ending spell
The tension between us
Has continued to rise
Yet my heart is not in it
So I wonder if
All I am doing is lying

She’ll get no happy poems from me

I wonder when
I will be able to write
Happy poems
About her
She deserves all the happiness I can give
But I dont know how to give-
Outside my body-
Anymore.
I wonder when
I will cease writing
Sad poems
About her
She deserves every beautiful memory framed in gold
And all the stories sewn up
Into perfect happy endings

Someone will give them the world on a silver platter.
It’s just not me.

I don’t understand
I don’t understand what’s in my head
Or why I’m so ******* obsessed with
You
god, You
You
The center of my life is you.
And so you shall be the end of
me.
God.

To hide a poem
Is to hide a piece of the soul
Poetry is only kept secret
If the words start with truth
And the letters breathe life
Hiding poetry
Is like locking away the past
A treasure trove full of adventure-
Tainted by rust and blood.
Sadly, once the box is unlocked,
One may find it to all be but dust
Poems scattered to the wind
Memories, once hidden, now forever lost

Why is it always rap?
Well sometimes it’s psychedelic
But at parties I mean
I like smoke filled rooms
Where I know
Everyone’s high
And I can join them unabashed
The room soon faded out
All that’s left
Is the dimmer lights
Maybe a face to make out with
Smoke
Some bare walls walking on stilts
I’m
the highest in the room

You hit me and it was shocking
Being hit by lightning never felt so divine
Being in love never felt so real
You hit me and I could Feel
For the first time
But I mistook licking the floor at your feet for love
And I misunderstood that eating out of your ***** hands was bad for my health
When you told me love was a chain and a collar, I believed you
So when you walked away -
Where was I supposed to go but to follow?
And when I was whining at your heels
How you turned and snarled
“Back to your corner till tonight”
So when you were done ******* them
Then you crawled back to me
And opened my cage-
Only to push my head between your legs
Only to tell me how it felt
To have another for lunch-
While waiting for me at dinner.

Night pour into nights
I was your night
But you had made yourself my Entire understanding of light.

But hey, that’s love right?
We let them destroy us with words and pain
Till we stand up
Only to get kicked down again and torn into for asking-
“Why am I not enough?”

the dictionary says it's a noun-
then why have I seen it in Action

an action like a thrusted spearhead at my chest,
an action like door hinges slamming shut
         and.the.lock.clicking.into.place.

because God forbid I have the chance to love
God forbids....
        their excuse is it's He and not They who cage me...
but i know homophobia
and it is a verb and a choice.
and They are the ones who told me:
You Are Not Allowed To Love

Was it worth it, dad?
All the hell you gave me for loving-
Was it worth what you lost?
Was it worth the scars on my body
from self harm
Or the distance between us-
the many nights you sent me fleeing out the door to cry in the darkness
Was it worth __ ;
(I'm sorry I can't say ___ because it hurts too much and it's still such a fresh wound)
But
You will never again hold that power over me.
You have Lost the Right to Tell Me My Value
you were nearly the end of me.
But My Lover shall be my new beginning

Honey, dripping off your tongue-
In all but a literal fashion-
Seduction and degradation
Sweetest tone and darkest words
Darling,
Tell me your tune,
So I might have words like a knife to your throat,
Our bodies matching the same frequency on the radio and our voices intertwined in pitch like a harmony
Wet honey dripping-
In all but a literal fashion-
Your mouth following my curves
Tell me the path and I will find my way across every landscape of that back
Com(b)ing over each inch
Caressing you with my fingers,
Maybe my nails too deep in your skin,
Ever so clearly,
The marks I have made,
Honey, honey-
Honey you are dripping-
Even in the literal sense.
let me teach you how to kneel
And tell me all the ways we might together mend our wounds and heal
Or reopen them all in a fit of passion
And make more memories carved into time and orga(ni)sm

You are the dearest creature to me
I didn’t know if you’d come back

Yet, here you are
I can reach out
Through time
And in a day
Your hand could be in mine

Dear god
I hope your hand is in mine

I have hope
And it refuses to wither away
Or be drowned out
It breathes in my ear

I miss him
I miss him
I miss him

I cannot let go of the chance
To have you again
And the desperate desire to keep you

Though I am reaching for the stars
I have hope
He’ll reach down to my mortal realm
And let me touch his heavens
Once again

I cannot read the future
But I hope (with time)
He may come to trust me

So, I will rebuild the broken shambles
Of my home
In his bed of starlight
And I will Never burn it down again.

It’s about time I talked
About it all
So here it is

I only remember buzzing
and fuzzy shots
of blurry people with even more blurry conversations
I remember the walls and holes in the ground
They had tried to seal them up
The tar black was reopened
Wounded floors
Wounded people
Walls with punctures like knives
White and cold
Blue fragile and cheap blankets
thin Pale sheets
White is the easiest to bleach I suppose
I don’t know what happened
I still want to die
I just won’t try anything
My father asked me
What do you hope for
And I had no words
The only thing I hope for
Beyond a dream
The only desire
Is death
How do you tell the man who has watched you grow from infancy to adulthood that his pain was all for nothing
You are long g on e
Forever drifting
Hope is only a good friend for the pure hearted
I am evil
And I can only hope I will die and my future evil should be dissipated forever

I don’t want to be your girl
But
I also don’t want to be anyone’s girl
Anymore
Maybe a girlfriend
But lover is more appealing
I don’t want to be a girl
Anymore
At least
Some of the time
I’m somewhere between heaven and hell
When I get called pretty girl
I want to be Pretty
But not a Girl
I want to be admired
But without the constructs of social gender
I just want
To be desired
As a Woman or a Man
As a Person or Human
But not as a Female or a Male Distinctly
How do I meet the standard of social desirability
Without
The pressure of a binary box

I hate the things
I let you do to me
I hate the way
My body boils
For your pleasure
I hate the way
I love to burn myself
Alive
For the sound of your laughter
I hate the way
You only love me
When no one watches
And I hate the way
I am nothing
But so desperately want to be something
That I let you
Step all over my heart

I hate the way I am so ******* broken
Over and over

I hope when he goes
He knows
He will be the subject of my poetry
And the center of my affections
Till all else dwindles away
And the emotions
Like him
Disappear into the deep darkness
Inside the hollow place
Under my skin
And beneath my cage of human bone
I hope he knows
My affirming words were real-
When I wrote or spoke
And so was my happiness-
During our time
And all the sorrow-
When he leaves
For indeed,
The sorrow,
Will be the most deep set reality of all.
Though he might never see it for himself.
After all,
That is what happens when you leave someone.

I miss you my love
It’s odd
To get used to the rhythm of ones voice
And have it disappear completely
It reminds me
To always treasure my every -
Second
With you
For you are the woman I want to spend -
My life
Dancing with
To walk hand in hand
Through fire and water and everything we must face in this life
I miss you
But it’s a good reminder
...
I’ll buy u flowers the next time I see you

Nail salons and marijuana
living inside a song
Lorde and pop culture have stolen all my good memories
And turned them into melody

I’m not longer original
even in my own warped traditions

I’ve rented a head
Just for the day
To get out and fall a stray
Shoved a fist
Right through your brain
Made a home
Inside your flesh
Constraints on your mind
While I chop off your fingers
And grind up your spine
To the sound of your shrieks
And the early night signs
I’m playing in-sanity of course
Did you think I was really ever (in)sane

i think i see potential in things

what they could become-
if someone just takes the time to look

and
right now

i see my world
when i look in your eyes

A comprehensive list of fears
My mother always said
Make a list and check it twice
Beware unrepresented ignorance and under-communicated pain
Here is my list thus far
Heights
Religion
Confronting myself
Rejection
Chalk
Praying and hearing anger
Armageddon
Team sports
Embarrassment
Being second best
The possibility I am in fact unlovable and have destroyed the one good person I had through my own selfishness
Changing plans
Phone calls
Momma says
It can’t hurt you if you write it down and just-
Be aware.

You are in everything
I suppose it’s inevitable
Because
I loved you for so long
You have become everything
All around me
There is nothing left but you
Deep inside me
Consuming me
Turning circles around my head
The way the sky looks at night
It’s still you
The way every love song sounds like a wedding tune
It’s still because of you
The way I cry and destroy myself to fight the regret eating at my insides
It’s still
You.
It’s always you
And I can’t escape it.

It’s time to let go,
To let my body drift away
Maybe I’ll wash up on some abandoned shore
Or an oil covered river along the wretched edges of Venice
It’s time to watch it all
Slip away...

Perhaps,
I should stop saving the things only I can save
Perhaps,
It is time to take what is given to me and bite my tongue
Perhaps, I should not scream and thrash against the howling tide-
Desperately seeking a perfect resolution where everything is fixed and I am with you once again...

One last time,
I will breathe deep
And sink under
To wash myself clean
And wake up *****-
Alone in the dark and the damp and the cold
One last time....

It’s time to let go,
Today I will watch the opportunity to fix it
And I will let it slip away.

If I alone am burdened to fix it-
Was it even true love in the first place?

I can feel the burning
in the back of my brain
The warmth
unkindly using my cells as kindling

Jealousy and sorrow
Are close friends
They feed off each other
And their chemicals form wildfires
In my mind
My jealousy and sorrow have become-
All consuming

He slept with them
Someone I don’t even know
Someone prettier
Someone kinder
Someone who tasted like lust and candy

Did you like it when your mouth was kissing its way down their body?
Or did you only think of me?
For how could that be the case if you continued.
Did they say your name in that way you like?
Is that what made you want to hear it in bed?

He slept with them
And I can’t even be upset
Because I understand why

And it’s my fault.

Still I am left wondering
Will I taste as sweet?
Or look as good?
Does my face need fixing or my body need shrinking?
Will I love as well as they?

Is my love undesirable?
Am I undesirable?

For how could you desire them in a matter of days
But turning back to me say
“I do not want you in that way”

I think I am lesser.
Perhaps I must accept that...

My mind is still burning.
It will not reduce.

kissing you was a poem
it was long and laced with words beyond definition
your lips were soft and the prettiest shade of pink i've ever seen
kissing you tasted like cherries and ***** secrets in a parking lot
it was deep and intimate, a dive into the abyss of your soul
your tongue sent shivers down my spine and slid candy in my mouth
kissing you was a poem
it sang in my soul, a rhythm set to the beating of my heart
your hands were writing all across my body like ink spilled on parchment, forever stuck

kissing you made me understand the feeling of Being Alive.

someday
i hope
i can stand again
stand and say
i am enough

the little girl was the only one not smiling
the only one painted to match the others' natural laughter
the little girl had tears drenching her skin
the little girl
looked up to the sky
and asked,

"dear Lord,
Must i be sad forever?"

Feeling lonely
Losing the love of your life
Feels
Lonely
Everything that once was so full-
Of them-
Is suddenly
Empty.
And you are left.

Feeling lonely.

Perhaps you are not even totally alone
You could be surrounded by the masses
But you’re still
Lonely
That space they took up in your life
Is now void
Once again
And all the nights-
When the world is partying, working, or fast asleep-
Are without their fingers in your hair
And their arms around your waist
All the mornings-
The early times when you are still blurry in the eyes and the mind-
Are without their small kisses
Or their midnight murmurs
The way they talk in their sleep
The way they look so at peace or smile in dreamland

All Gone.

So
You are left
Feeling lonely
In the liminal spaces of life
Where nothing ever existed but them
In the holes they filled
The sand of time spills out
And you are gaping open-
Wide-
Again.
Losing the love of your life
Feels
Lonely
So so ... lonely

You took my soul and held it gently
You unlocked my heart and breathed life into me
I was so afraid and you helped me stand
You didn't carry me, but you showed me how to walk
You empowered my being.
I thought I was lighting up yours.
You taught me what love was
You told me you'd never leave
I finally
Finally
Believed you.

Where are you now?

Love would be no sweeter
Than the love they give me
Tastes like caramel
and eating...
Cookie dough off a spoon
Love could be no softer
Than the skin between their thighs
Their hand in mine
The feeling of hair sifting through fingers...
The thought of more than just their soft hair between my fingers....
Love should be no less
Than all the secrets I’ve shared
The vulnerability of being theirs
The desire...
For them as my own
And worshipping the inches between my mouth and their....
Temple
Love cannot be anymore lovely
Than this river of passion and protective nature
Rushing out my pores and washing us away
carry us...
Away

I found a love eternal
Without realizing it
He captured my heart in a glass jar
Adding to his collection of wild light and color
Shining wings still flutter when the sunlight hits
But it is not the same
No captured beauty is truly wild or whole
The terror of loss is the truth that makes all things beautiful
Life is fleeting
And so was he
My butterfly heart is still on his shelf
Just adjusted to be less visible by others
Maybe he’ll forget
But when he does a deep clean
There I’ll be
Maybe the blue butterfly heart be dead at that point
But it’s still going to be his

Perhaps I am being forced to come to terms with the loss of a lover and the endurance of love long after

I think I shall truly love him forever
I will never have a love like his again

But perhaps
If I’m lucky
I shall find one different
More wild more beautiful
And even if it’s fleeting
I shall treasure the touch of insect legs ( and it’s precious gift of a heart) on my fingers-
without a cage or a license of ownership-
I can love him and love others
Sameness is not the goal
Evolution is.
Love is eternal
Even if the Lover is not.

Make a list
Make a list of the things you are
Grateful for
Grateful that death is close
Grateful that I will die soon
Grateful that-
Those aren’t the things I was supposed to write
But
They did ask
Make a list they said
So I made my little edgy list
My angsty, teenage, ******* list
My depression my anxiety
Wound into
A list

Make a list
Of what you’re grateful for
And everyday
Remind yourself
There’s a reason to live

I think I did the assignment incorrectly
But I did make a list

you’re making a killing
on all the hours, i spend at your side
im as free (for you)
as the spotify premium your father pays for
you’re making a killing
with every broken promise
i still stay by your side
faithful and stupid to the bitter end

May you wash your feathers in light so blinding others cannot bear to behold
May you return from waters deep-
So white and without blemish-
The creatures at your bed’s end cower from your glory
May they fear the turn of your heel and flee from your footsteps
You- without fault-
Holy
Your skin sits in pudges
Your hair stands on end
Your jaw is set too strong
Lips far too much like a man’s
Can you see your Father’s reflection?
Holy like his Bible
Holy like his morning devotion
You can be too much
And by God
There it is again
You are your Father’s reflection
Staring back at the ******
What righteous defiance god shows in the face of his creation’s howling
May they all tremble.

I listen to 1975 on repeat,
Because all I can do is think of u
All I can do is cry over ur kisses and
Scream that I miss you to the wind
I want to dance in the stars or
drink till I’m dead-
No In between-
I want to marry you
Or live abandoned in a forest till my bones dry into the dirt around my feet
If you will not stay
I, too, will have no good reason to exist
If I cannot have you
I want no one else ...
Just listening to 1975,
Thinking of all the ways I miss you
And all the ways I love you

Something happy.... something.... happy...
I can remember happy things

I think

I never told you but I wrote about you
For therapy
I felt silly
But it made me happy
I wrote about our picnic
When we had dated for only a year
It felt like forever
But it was a good forever
I wish I could go back to that

My arms feel like lead pipes -
Hollow metal husks
The passage for heated blood to travel my body

The bones were not strong enough
Nor was the mind
But metal is unfeeling
it will not melt when the heat of blood and rage pumps

I like to imagine
The weight inside of my arms (and my legs and my head and my heart) is metal-
Holding me up-
Even if I am lying to myself

I feel as though I have wandered alone
Even when I was not

Blood roaring in my ears
Reverberating rush from the pipes of under my skin
The metal and the blood
Weighing me down

So much weight
I do not know that my unstable flesh and defeated skeleton can hold up any longer
The strength of the cold metal is not helping me in my fight
As I thought it could

watching
stopped staring
heart so fast,
beating in my chest
face so sweet
arms inviting
eyes to eyes
hand to hand
smiles so kind,
like an old friend
he looks at me
and i at him
i am his
if only
he'll be Mine

I still don’t understand why my mother insists on eating meals at the dining room table
But I’m starting to realize why she likes windows in the kitchen, above the sink
Maybe there’s a piece of me-
Chipped corners on the granite countertop
(Where my teeth took a beating at ten)-
Carrying an overwhelming fear of being left out
Maybe, I am like my mother
And she is like me.
I can’t hear her calling out,
But she’s present in the spice rack and the memorized cookie recipe in my phone-
I’ve taken up her affinity for long articles and paranoid monologues,
But I’m struggling in keeping with her veracious consumption of innocence paperback novels
Maybe all her words were wisdom
And I just am foolish child
Maybe, I am like my mother
And she is like me.

She walks on moonlight
And in the purple dusk
In between those murky moments
just before the sun disappears
Bluest eyes
Seem to glow
Under that pale moon
and all those falling stars
Where smiles glow white
And man gives way to werewolf,
Under the cover of night,
All things
find an unnatural way about them
Be careful where those glowing eyes go,
Under pale moonlight,
Some things
Come to being
And they are more than just the lonely woods ...

More than you know:
It’s not condescending
It’s just a phrase meant to frame my fizzy feelings
I swear I’m not washed up
(Though my use of words is slow)
Only a washed up poet
My words kinda crinkle together
Curses. Mounting. Lions-heads.
My feelings there pinned to a wall
Nailed to realism and limited reality
I am forced to find a set of words,
Which lessen the chains of limited speech-
There in I find;       I must say...
More than you know:
To throw off the restraints
On the confines of language-
For I love you more than you believe
And more than the limits of speech

I'm trying to be happy
for you
it's kind of hard though
i miss you
but
you seem
happy on your own
away from me.
you're moving to Canada?

can i come too?

what does it mean when you say "i'm busy"

it means that you just don't care about making time anymore
it means you're shutting me out
it means i'm annoying

it means-

it means the voices are too loud in my head and you mean to much to me-
because i'm sitting here overthinking your words.

i guess if you're busy,
too busy for me,
I'll just try to be small and fit in the corner

maybe you'll look at me when you're less busy...

i know i'm not important anyway-

at least,
that's what "i'm busy" says,
when in the place of
                                                  "i love you"