And just like that the rain was gone.
The puddles were the only thing that remained.
They reminded me of the rain.
How it fell so beautifully,
How it spoke so softly,
How it left without saying goodbye.
All that remains now are the puddles,
Until they too wither away in silence.

Saying goodbye
To someone you love
Is like reading the final page
Of an amazing book.

As the last chapter ends
You begin to notice
Just how beautiful
And perfect
The plot always was.  

You appreciate the joy
And even the pain
As you read and thumb
Through every page.

Finally understanding
The moral of the story,
You realize you've reached
The end of this journey.

Although the last sentence  
Is the most difficult to read
Another great book awaits
Once you turn the final page.

Eventually you may stumble
Upon yet another great find.
Or maybe you'll return
To the book you left behind.

You may just discover
Once all is said and done
That this particular book  
Was your favorite story
All along.

sweat runs slithering snake
down neck.
should i
brush
my teeth again?

fridged food i haven’t forgot
chewed up
dental floss
goes between
teeth like
love
trying to         ruin its way in.

As a college freshman
I find myself time traveling.
I close my eyes and
I appear
in the classroom where a group
of over-confident, lazy, too smart
for their own **** good
students stood on the precipice
between leaving and staying
regretting and dreaming.
Leaving would give us freedom
Leaving would fill the creases of
our palms with sweat
We kept our palms outstretched and empty
not daring to grasp anymore of home
because the weight would only
anchor us to the vines
we spent 13 years unraveling from
our ankles.

Maybe we should not have been
so eager to leave, maybe this is a mistake.

The girl with the mermaid hair
The boy with books stacked in
a corner of his desk
They both, we all, sat dreaming
about the same thing while
Ophelia drowned herself in the river
Shores of the ocean and city skylines
Classrooms that did not feel like cages
and eyes that did not reflect a memory
every time you glanced into them
In a high school English class,
a group of over-confident, lazy, too smart
for their own **** good students,
stood terrified and mystified
stood united in there persistence to become
something more than test scores and
the ability to memorize facts.

Fact:
Some mornings I walk to class
and I can feel the girl with the mermaid hair in Los Angeles
walking beside me and when I sit down
I can see books stacked on a corner of a desk somewhere in Berkeley.
I wonder if they wake in their bed and hear airplane engines roaring
somewhere above a valley.
The engines roar with warning.
sometimes it sounds like hope.
Baby, something is coming, we promise

We all began at the start,
dreaming as one and fearing as one
Today, she is five spaces forward
He is ten spaces forward
The others are halfway down the **** board
and I find myself back at the start
every few weeks.
Four spaces forward then three spaces back--
I don't know where I am going.
But I know where I have been.

I open my eyes.
A college freshman.
I hear the engines roar above me.
*Something is coming.

I did not love you,

I do not love you.

But I have forty unsent letters

hidden between my books.

No one takes the time to write

letters but I have taken hours

for you.



You were my greatest story—

The boy who lived life fast,

who made sure to never get

what he wanted.

He left everything broken.



There was a girl.

He used to make her laugh.

Now she hated him, she avoided him

but he knew she still searched for him.

Most days she would turn away

but some days she would see him

and walk past him like she could

not see him.

He wondered if she cared

or did not care at all. He did not care

enough to find out.

He lost this girl.

He saw a glimpse of her face, a shadow

on the concrete and watched her

walk away for the last time.

He did not feel

anything.



My greatest story:

The boy who did not care

about the girl who cared so much.



I do not love you,

I did not love you.

Last month I threw away forty letters.

I have grown tired of trying to spin

fiction into fact.

I look in the mirror
I can only see pieces.
You have taken so much of me, darling.
There are holes the shape of your hands
all over my body.
Big and gaping.
I don't remember what I look like without them.

You were real.
I had fallen in love with words
in a letter before.
With promises made
over telephone lines
thousands of miles apart.  
You were real.
Skin and bones.
Big hands and blue eyes.
For six months
I fell asleep to your voice.
I don't sleep much anymore.

We were just friends.
You didn't want me
but you gave me the stars
and your lips and those
hands--******* those hands.
You didn't want commitment
but if I could have just kept your mouth
on my mouth and my legs around
your waist
If I could have kept you
in the backseat of your car
If I could have made the stars
hang in the sky forever
If I—
I didn't want to fall in love with you.
You should have never held my hand.
You should have stayed.

There's a sad boy who loves me now.
We're just friends
but I give him my body and sometimes
when I close my eyes, his hands
feel like yours.
I don't tell him I love him.
He knows I couldn't.
The sad understand—
we only love the ones
who can't love us back.

At night,
my fingers itch and
I write you letters
you will never read.
It's always the same
two sentences:
*Never tell a sad girl
you love her.
She won't believe you
until you leave her.

My sister told me once,
"Everything between men
and women is a game"
I never understood
what she meant—until
I met you. Back and forth,
we play to see how far
we can push our boundaries
without breaking. Tonight
you can make me blush but
tomorrow you will be
up all night replaying
my hand on your chest.
They say love is our favorite game.
But baby, this was never about love.

This is about boredom,
this is entertainment.
This is a constant fight
for the upper-hand.
There are only two ways
this will end:

I.
I will fall a little in love with you.
Instead of a game, you will become
a puzzle. I'll start believing
your edges fit with mine and
I will hate myself for letting this happen again.
Because I have done this before,
I always feel too much for
people who do not feel anything
at all. I am the girl that's great
for marking time. Quick remarks,
a smirk, a laugh that is too loud—
I am neon lights and for now
you can't look away but eventually
your eyes will get tired and you
will fall in love with a girl
who looks like candlelight
.
II.
I will push you away.
I will hate you for making
me another stop on the way
to a destination
and you'll hate me for ruining
our game because this was supposed
to be fun, this was supposed to
be a boost to your ego,
a way to pass time.
But you will get over it
because girls like me are disposable
and you will replace me before
I get the chance to say I'm sorry.
I'm sorry we can't be friends that
flirt without me getting hurt I'm sorry
I can't be all fun and no commitment I'm sorry
you can't fall in love with me I'm sorry
my heart always gets in the way
You will be fine.
I won't be able to look at you.

So you see,
this is game of ours isn't fair.
You don't deserve to
feel like the bad guy
and I shouldn't let myself
get hurt again. I know I should
stop this before we get to far in but
baby, I couldn't quit
even if you asked me to.
Because my fear of losing,
my fear of getting hurt doesn't
matter because my hope,
that maybe you could be different,
that maybe you could fall in love
with me, is bigger than the fear
of losing a game.

While we play this back and forth,
please remember that
I'm not trying to get hurt.
I'm just a girl who tries
so hard and is never the one--
but would rather play and lose
then not play at all.

I know I don't make sense.
But the game is more fun
that way, isn't it?
Please just don't stop.
Smile at me,
touch me,
look at me,
that way you do—
our game
has only just begun.

I.
When you sleep
your spine curls
like a question mark
and there's always
too much space.

II.
You lay alone,
belly down on your bed.
You can't breathe
and you don't mean
to but you cry out,
arms wrapped around
your body,
clutching your sides.
You fall apart.

III.
You want to scream.
You want to scream
because it hurts.
You're empty
and everything aches.
You're tired of trying
and waiting and
waiting and waiting
and always
going to bed alone.

IV.
It is a never-ending prayer.
In the back of your mind,
it plays like a soundtrack.
Please, please, please, please.

V.
They say it happens when
you least expect it.
You wonder if you can
use reverse-psychology
on the Universe.

VI.
You'll fall in love
with every man
who looks at you
without turning away.
Every touch
from any stranger
electrifies you.
You still feel it
three
days
later.

VII.
You write letters
to the Universe.
Sometimes you're
angry but usually
you're just broken.
You're always asking
*why?