tonight there's a fire in texas
& it's screaming out for the all the bodies it's lost there
in some grand american war
in someone else's glorious battle

the backyard tree was too high for you to climb
& so you took a jaunt to the brooklyn bridge and jumped
to see what it was like to fly

& tonight there's a fire in her chest that bleeds
for her father's bones to be buried next to hers
even though for years he didn't know her name
or what her laugh sounded like
i guess he forgot to check the post

& tonight there's a broadcast on the radio
the presidents been assassinated
& somehow that's your fault
for being to open about your love for your best friend, tom
who also happens to be a boy

& tomorrow there'll be an earthquake in memphis
& it'll be because there's too much *** on tv
god must be flapping his wings hard enough to shake
our great and grand scheme of things

& yesterday a little girl lay awake in her bed
counting her ribcage to make sure she can see every bone
she's praying she won't lose track of them under the meat

& tonight i will drink a tall glass of wine
so i can feel something
other than all the pain we've created for each other

this is not a poem. it's more of an anthem, to honour all the nights i set my hair on fire with the wind & to raise a glass to all my glasses of wine brought on by poems written under candlelight. i'm not a writer, i'm just a woman paying tribute to you & all the ways you made my chest ache with infatuation & my finger tips tingle with skin-on-skin interaction. this is not a poem, i am not an artist. i am merely recollecting, reminiscing all the nights my skin was wild with alcohol & my breath was breathing out endless love letters & my guitar was singing out holy hymns. i was praising something. i was praising my body & the way my arms always unfolded for you & the way we always seemed to fit together. even when we didn't. but no, this is not a poem. i am not romantic but i was madly, romantically in love with you.

When you say you miss the old me,
Don't you mean the younger me?

Because there is your problem;
You think the world revolves around you,
And time works a different way for you,
when if fact it doesn't.

Time only goes forward.
Therefore you can't miss something  
you never got to experience,
Such as the old me.

they say "never fight fire with fire"
but I fought the fire in my chest
with the fiery heat of your bones
&they; were right
you should never do that
you end up losing your last love breath
to a lovely, cunning smoke

You cover yourself with tattoos
to finally have something in your life that won't leave you.
You keep your house spotless
to make up for your filthy heart.
You read slowly
because the feeling of being passed over kills.
So you watch a lot of movies
to pretend for a new reality…
only to wake up 165 minutes later,
still alone,
still *****,
still overlooked.

If
Problems
Follow
You
Everywhere,
I'd
Rather
Be
Miserable
In
California