Blue eyes, blonde hair, red lips, intense stare,
self doubt, dark soul, your eyes bore a hole,
hard kiss, quick ****, over fast, no luck,

leaving now, going home, so cold, so alone,
shiver shake earthquake, so unreal, so fake,
tears trickle down my face, so slow, quicken pace,
still there on the brink, another drug, another drink,
block you out, so numb, want to hide, want to run,

Far away, leave it all, the more i think, the more i fall,
Shut my mind, shut you out, feeling sick, full of doubt,
Too hard, you’re always there, look at you, try not to stare,
Fake smile, cold hello, nervous laugh, hard swallow,
little hope drains away, another moment, another day,

Time goes on, hope it heals, because I hate how it feels,
But for now, I crave your touch, I want you now, miss you so much.

tell me what keeps you awake at 2 am
whether it’s the girl who took the knife of her absence and stabbed it into your sternum
or the loneliness that swallows your skin

play the one song which releases the floodgates in your eyes
and let me listen to it over and over again
until i find which line makes your heart drop to your stomach

describe the story of your body to me
tell me of the invisible scars too
and with each detail you describe
i will make a map
so i know which road bumps to avoid
or which holy sites to fall to my knees and kiss the ground of

remember that
i wear a mask brimming with self confidence and an armor of words that are both easy to tear for they were thin like tissue to begin with
i am sensitive
taking to hurt the way a sponge absorbs water

do not hide me behind closed doors or keep me entrapped in bed sheets
when you walk past me, do not pull your hood over your head and avert your gaze
i need you to look at my eyes as if they illuminated the entire world
and kiss my lips as if they are what allow you to breathe

open the door.
bring me flowers.
because the only boy who did either was my 5th grade boyfriend

be willing to meet my family and friends
for they were the ones who created the marble statue whom you marvel at today

take note of how my heart is a reflection of myself
how she is too kind and will kiss the same man who tore her in two
so please do not say words which will make her wings flutter
if you are not ready to be the nest she flies to

let me know that me, as myself, i am enough
that i do not need to be a chameleon
dipping myself in new colors each day to please you

remember the little things about me
like how my first phrase i uttered was shut up to a man in an elevator or the delight i take in handwritten letters and mix CDs, or the significance of my first tattoo
because everything about you is being etched into the walls of mind
so that i can never forget

trace your fingers with a loving tenderness over my scars from the times i transformed my body into a crucifix
pinning my hands and feet onto a cross out of habit
thinking love was a word synoymous with self sacrifice

you must learn my language
know what zips my lips into silence
know the difference between when i want to give up versus when i will actually do so
and be there to hold me when the seams start to unravel

if you want me to love you
know that many have tried and failed
that people like me are not meant to be soft
if you want me to love you
know that to me
love is not a word you spit out of your mouth and juggle in your hands
you need to promise that our love won’t be like an hourglass
for my body has been disfgured enough from the times my chest turned inside out from the pang of abadonment
if you want me to love you
reaffirm my body is a kindgom, my heart is the treasure, and that i am your queen
paint pictures for me in what you do and say
telling me i am worthy to be loved, worthy to be kept, and worthy to stay

but if you really want me to fall in love with you
tell me what you see right before you close your eyes at night to fall asleep
and if you tell me it’s me
i will fall unfathomably further for you than i already have

I feel like a small frightened child, one who has become lost in the deep dark woods of every child’s nightmares, cold, alone, well past “losing one’s cool” and just precious inches away from “flipping one’s ****,” the only things that I possess a flashlight that I cannot figure out how to switch on, a compass that only points backwards and a magical, wish granting genie that only speaks in a language that I have never heard and therefor do not  understand while at the same time am not understood, whose only option to improve his situation is to sit in one spot and wait for help to arrive but what if it doesn’t  so I am forced to action to fashion crude tools and build a shelter and hunt and cook and survive because no one is going to find me and I am not going to find my way out, so I must live in the forest of nightmares and darkness...
...and then I begin to wonder if that small child is not a child at all, but an aging man in a worn bathrobe, alone in a darkened room in an asylum, sitting under a table with a bed sheet hanging over the sides like a makeshift tent, trying desperately to find the “ON” button of an empty pill bottle while I wait for a wound out, wind up clock to find North during the stock market numbers on the local Hispanic radio station, forever stuck in the nightmare forest created by his own mind, which is somehow less terrifying than the reality of his unreality...
...because it is beginning to become very muddled in both of those places and I am beginning to lose track of his self so here looks like a good place to sit down and wait for help to not arrive and over there a good spot to build a temporary cemetery plot to rest my weary hours and while away the bones because unless I figure out a way to sort his self out, I will forget to send for help that I am tired of waiting for and the seconds in the dark that were not there a moment ago and may not be here now will be gone forever when the clock strikes South-East and I am left alone again with only a snot nosed codger and a loony old brat, looking out a window that directly faces a brick wall, watching and praying for the sun to rise on its horizon.

I.
There will be a day, you say,
where the world stops and all that ever was
and all there ever will be would cease.

                                                                     Trust.

There will be a time, he says,
when I will no longer love like how
you built the moon for me, balancing
upon a staircase of wooden boxes.

                                                                    Trust.

You don’t care. You let him weave
with string, then with your soul,
your heart the ball of yarn at the end.

                                                                   Trust in him.

You are a lover. You are a fool.

II.
Light. Soft light and harsh light and lantern lights
and fairy lights and neon lights and flashlights.

Light, like that which comes on in his eyes
when you tell him you want Honey Stars, and
you two spend the night picking at those overhead.
He tells you that when you drop stars into the
Pacific, they become sweet, like honey.

All you wanted was cereal, but you are a fool
one that picks at stars that have long since died,
one that can’t tell a corpse from a sparkle.

You don’t get any stars in the end, except for the
ones in his eyes.

A fool.

III.
This is where you grew poppies,
expecting to harvest the seeds and
crush,
thinking that maybe,
just maybe,
the dust will help you sleep, like the
sand of the Golden man.
You teeter on the edge that separates
wanting and needing,
You walk on a slowly fraying tightrope.

Tight,
        like your heart.
Rope,
          like how you rope
souls into believing you,
how you rope in friends
and demand their faith.

This is where you rearranged
his little soldier boys, where the
ceramic crashed against the wood
and refused to break.

Not like you, then.

This is where you kissed him,
over
       and
             over, because
air is useless without oxygen
and oxygen is useless to a pair of collapsed lungs.

IV.
You hate him. You hate his strength,
how he bangs the table and it snaps in two.

You hate his laughter, scratching against the walls
in tune with your sobbing.

You hate how you have to scan his eyes before you sit,
have to look before you make the metaphorical leap.

You hate how you let him force open your legs,
hate his pride at being in control, and his guilt
for the purple and blue spots on your skin,
like garish children’s make-up,
a clown at the party of life.

You hate how he holds onto your sides till
you hear the crack, and how you tell the doctors
you fell, because you did.

You are still falling, every time he looks at you,
Honey Stars in his eyes.

You don’t hate him. You love him,
that’s why you come back to be destroyed.

You hate yourself.
That’s also why you come back, to be destroyed.

You can’t repair hurt like that
but you try anyway, because the best part of building
is when you knock down.

V.
It is painful, but pain is a symptom of life.
You let him hurt you, let him crush your
bones and self-esteem, because no one
taught you how to love and if it means giving,

then you must be doing it right.

VI.
Wake, from the best sleep you’ve had,
wake from a nightmare, to a nightmare.
He is gazing out of the window, with
suspenders to hold up his pants
and his courage.
Your canines sink into your thumb, as
he turns to you and he says, “Hera,
I love you, but–”

The memory ends there.

Hera was the wife of Zeus,
goddess of women and marriage.
Your parents made a mistake,
more than once.

VII.
You are alone.
Quiet was never your thing, silence the most
deafening noise in the world.

This is your hand, a hand that once
rested against his neck, a hand that
felt his blood pulsing in his veins.

This is your hand and it is green
not from gardening but with envy.

These are your shoulders, shoulders that once
carried backpacks stuffed with Honey Stars
and sour things like love.

These are your shoulders, and even Atlas
cannot carry the weight on them.

This is your heart, and it is red.
This is your soul, and it is aluminium,
his words like sandpaper, polishing
until your soul tears and can be collected,
filtered and cross-examined under a microscope.
It will be reactive with the acid of his absence,
but only for a while.

This is your neck, and the rope feels rough
compared to your memories of his hands.

You're a beautiful mystery clad in gorgeous enigma.
You're poetry that looks good in a skirt.

There's an orchestra on your tongue, playing the sound of your voice like a melody I can't forget,
matching the tempo of the drums in my heart
and the broken strings of my violin compliments.

You are a notebook, a yearbook, a sketchbook, a burn book,
every facet of you written in swirling cursive,
rhymes and famous signatures snaking between cinnamon hair and cleverness.

You are a pen running out of ink,
bleeding dry in Barnes and  Noble Moleskin journals,
but that's okay because I have more ink,
and you can borrow whatever you want from me--
store it in the heart you stole if you're bored enough to hunt my words for the pieces.
You have the key already.

You're the first dream of the boy too scared of nightmares to sleep again.

You are the taste of honey and cigarettes on the lips of the first girl that boy ever kissed,
because she was a rebel and he needed a hero
who wore boots instead of Mary-Janes
and band t-shirts instead of blouses.

You are the rose he drew when he was bored,
an outline with potential,
mysterious, entrancing, incomplete,
not yet ablaze with the red of desire
because he was never good at finishing things.
You are a dictionary. Your picture isn't just under "beautiful."
It's under "dangerous" and "witty" and "myth"
because Medusa bowed at your feet next to James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe,
and you're too good to be true anyways.

You are a poem, a telltale heart beating inside a lesson in vengeance,
temporary only because nothing gold can stay.
You've walked past where the sidewalk ends (certainly the road less traveled by)
and come back far more darling than any buds of May.

(You are the paperback novel he read under the covers,
the flashlight only bright enough to show paragraphs,
and every new page unique in shape and form
while the text remains the same.

You are the raw words read aloud by the daring poet,
standing beneath midnight moon,
the power of the throne,
the breath of a whispered promise falling upon the ear,
the warmth of kisses on the cheek,
the passion of all hope there ever was in trust and truth.

You are the fire in lightning,
the sparkle in the snow and the glitter in the rain,
the fierceness of the wind and the gentle, soothing peace,
the blazing chill of winter and the roar of summer's heat.)

But you're still a mystery.
A beautiful,
beautiful
mystery.