Timid as she was, a mouse holed down six feet in the ground hiding
From the snake he was. From the beast he was.
She found herself a fascinated corpse of desire and anguish.
A man five foot ten. Standing six feet off the ground. Staring at her through the water.
Asking her what. Asking her why. Asking her emptiness.
Look at me. Face me. Do you not know what I want.
He would not wrestle her to the ground she was already a part of, covered in worms and critters.
He would not hold any part of her tenderly, gently, sweetly.
He would only face her and stare into her eyes, barely brushing his lips against hers slowly.
At first slowly, at first timidly. At first almost sweetly.
And then she turned away from the emptiness in his eyes.

Pass the bottle over to me
I'll show you how to have fun
And live like tomorrow doesn't exist
Like heaven is waiting beyond the stars.
Pass me the bottle
So we can make a toast to love
We find at the bottom of Jack Daniels
Or at the top of the world.
It's the same thing really.
Like a Ferris Wheel with a sweetheart
A swim in the moonlight
Drunk off of the smell of flowers and candy in the air
We can take over the world with just one bottle
Maybe two if we're lucky
Pass me the bottle
And I'll drink away the real poison
Drink after you the antidote
To a dull existence
Pass the bottle over to me
And we'll touch the moon and set the sun on fire.

So many people writing poetry
So many people full of ****.
The readers, who feel and yearn for those feelings on the page,
And skim and search for them day after day
Know nothing of what beauty is.
Poetry is ******* for the heart.
Poets, the stars, are just doing their part.
Images of men at desks, using tears as ink
“This woman makes me feel what I can’t think!
Her beauty, her smile, it’s too much to bear!
Like flowers and rivers and fields of pink
My heart just swells and explodes in her presence!”
A man sits at a table
Thinking of what people think
Imagining what people want to hear
Words on a page, not feeling at all.
Poets are the politicians of the writing community.

I have prayed
I have prayed and have cried
Each day I've fruitlessly fallen and tried
Again to get back up
And it seems the only truth I know
There is no truth in me
Redemption-less I seem to be
Like a born blind man squinting to see
Something transparent anyways.
My imperfections will define me
regulate my life
So those with less drive and strife
Cut through their struggles like a knife
While repetitively I beat mine
With a weak fist.
Was there a message I missed?
Is my downfall my own fault?
Will success ever opt to be mine?
Or
Am I doomed forever to fail.

I'm getting **** tired of people listening to music
Just as a reason to grab another person
And mumble words like they're meaningless obstacles towards your mouth
Doing other things.
Bump some tunes, play the bass loud, so we might not hear our intellects
High shrieks as they wither away into nothing.
And we don't have to look each other in the face
When we decide to own one another like slavery,
Like hate,
Like every other ist that exists to stop us from seeing each other for who we are
Intellects and children of thought
And of accomplishment. And of brotherhood.
And of progress.
Everyone needs to grow up. See the world for the opportunity it is.
And use words like they're pieces of gold.
Priceless.

What I know is that rain will fall
Some days when I don't have time to grab a coat.
But I get to decide that your arms are warmer
Anyway.

I'll be your Roseanna
If you be my Jonesie.
Let's go outside to the edge of the river.
Where the television hides behind a thick sheet of glass
And the water stays cool.
Keep the lights off
And we can let the moon take care of
Everything.
We'll stay by the pool where we belong
Dip our toes in the chlorine
Shimmy down into whatever we've got left
And dive right in.
The Lord can see us.
But no one else can.

If moments between breaths were made of pure
Raw
Unaltered distance,
I would have cursed my own skin for standing between us when we had the chance.
Because now that the miles are filling up my lungs
My heart won't beat in rhythm
And every muscle aches to run back home.

You, with your bed of thorns,
Broke the fall from my throne
And tangled me in your chaotic glory.

There is a street somewhere in the world with snow and old lamp posts.
Where a man sits under a street light writing.
To no one in particular about nothing in particular
Waiting for a woman to pass him and steal his soul.
Because she is untamable and fierce. But quiet.
There's a notebook in her purse hidden under a flask and two unopened packs of cigarettes.
And she is **** beautiful.
Walking straight towards no where.
On an empty, *** hole filled road in the south.
Hoping to pass a street light covered in snow with a man sitting helplessly underneath
Who could really use two brand new packs of cigarettes
And a shot of whiskey.

Seeking a gentleman who gets lost in thoughts
Feels everything and holds onto nothing.
Bachelor must tolerate banjos, books, and bare-feet.
A writer is preferred, but not exclusively.
I'm seeking a companion who loves tea and coffee in the afternoons
Must be willing to gamble with the suggested shows on netflix
And suggested artists on pandora.
Bonus points if music moves him in directions he didn't know existed.
Seeking a gentleman whose heart is made entirely of love and passion
With a reasonable head
And an unapologetic twinkle in his eyes.
I warn you that I love sunburns and tank-tops
Rain makes me sad, and I own a blue Snuggie named Ralf.
I laugh too loud at lame jokes about muffins and bars
Cry desperately in movies
And am driven to push boundaries.
***** makes me loose
I'm terrified of fourteen-year-old girls and spiders.
And I consider 90 degrees to be jacket weather.
I'm seeking a gentleman with an empty hand and a full heart
That I can love with all that I have
Laugh with, cry with, dream with.
You can find me in the words on this page.
I'll be waiting.

There are two half-full cups of coffee on my desk
(and one in my car).
But you'd make me more in the morning
If I asked.
Like how you would drive my car in the rain,
Because I can't see the road
(even though I never told you I couldn't)
And then make me watch bad movies.
You're better than the rain,
You're the whole monsoon season,
Shaking the whole world up with yourself,
And making it better every time.

So selfish, so grabby so needy
Take take take
filling me with I owe yous I'm told are good for so much.
But they're not. You skip town, go bankrupt, need a bailout.
Leave me empty, pockets heart and soul.
God my soul.
You painted it so white it shined.
You poisoned me.
Make it appear so deadly clean, I should've seen right through it.
You taped my broken bones back so crudely
But my heart you held the tightest.
So tight you crushed it in your hands and scattered it to the wind as you ran away.
The heart you gave me was counterfeit.
fake, phony, flimsy.
Made of paper and glue, I could tear it apart and you wouldn't feel a thing.
Not one tear.
So selfish. So afraid for yourself.
All the ******* time.

At midnight I am not responsible
To fulfill your need for attention
Over and over again you tell me
I cry when I’m alone.
I feel sad
Everyone, no one, these are the people I have.
Your love is a selfish love.
You love to get love in return.
There is no self-sacrifice,
No inspiration from the truest of love
For the love you dish out.
I can tell you I love you,
But I can’t be your ring-tone.
Each time someone does not call to say
“I love you, you’re perfect, don’t worry”
I love because you’re amazing in your own spirit.
Hate, the likes of which, I have never known.
But I will not support,
I will not condone
Your selfish, needy, desperate love.

She's a mess.
The smallest fall of snow is a blizzard in her mind
And the cold is incurable.
So she sleeps when she can,
And wakes when she must.
Until, of course,
The day she can replace his old t-shirt
That she wears to fall asleep
With his strong and kind arms.
And she can replace the cold night air on her lips
With his.
So her dreams are stuck in euphoria between goodnight and goodmorning kisses.
That's how she'll survive the snowfall.

She just can't play with words anymore.
Everything is coated in a dreary layer of tired eyes and nostalgia.
Every word typed for a different person under a different name
For a different rhyme or reason.
There's no more feeling coming from those fingertips that once felt
The skin of someone not there. The sun when it wasn't shining.
The wind when it refused to howl.
There's only reality.

Black coffee, closed book, no mystery.
She is defined.
A word in the dictionary with one line.
One tense.
One meaning.
She is the word you must look up to understand
But once you do.
You know her.
Like the north star you know her.
Why she shines, where she is.
Why she cries and who she smiles for.
Perhaps one day
Someone will look her up.
And make an honest woman out of her.
But until then she is nothing but black coffee, closed books.
And mystery.

Let's have an affair over thousands of miles.
I know you through the words you've written down,
Which tell me you are equal parts baffled and fascinated
By the billions of minds that make up this crazy, crazy world we live in.
I'm asking you to take off your work uniform slowly and deliberately
So I can see where you've tattooed all of those nights smoking *** and laughing on your chest.
And I promise not to be intimidated by the black spot next to your heart
Inked in fully with the names of every girl you've brought home
And used as a muse those weeknights you just wanted to love something.
I don't fear your short, crisp lines filled with inside jokes you're dying to share
With anyone who isn't you.
I don't fear a little bit of darkness or loneliness.
I only fear that I'll never be able to feel your breath on my neck as we sway back and forth
Cloaked in smoke laying on a bed of aluminum and grease-stained shirts.
Or I'll never be able to run my hand along your chest as your lungs fill up with the sweet smell of rain.
I don't know you, but I like to imagine that you're a cliche ocean of depth and passion
That wants to do right by anyone who will do right by him.
So let's do this, let's have a cross country love affair of the senses
And feel each other like we're just learning what it means to touch.

I sit at the same table
Drinking the same tea
Nothing here has changed
Or everything, but me.
I feel not overwhelmed
Nor accomplished- nor ashamed.
Time is moving forward
And I feel so unchanged.
I'm numb to my accomplishments
Nothing is defined.
All I've ever worked for
Is just a paper someone signed.
While this world is moving forward
I don't know what I'm doing.
I know what it is I'm trying
And I know what I'm pursuing
But I'm lonely in this calmness.
I'm lonely sipping tea.
I just wish this ever changing world
Would sit and sip with me

It's 6 pm and I'm drunk off of cheap red wine
Poured to the brim of a plastic glass writing
About how lonely I am.
But I'm not lonely, I have cheap red wine
And every 6 pm for the rest of my life.

I want to kiss you softly and often.
Every moment of every day for the rest of my life if I could
I'd pull you as close to me as possible.
I'd grab your hands and put them around my waist
And taste your lips over and over again until they're all I remember.
When I'm not with you I want to dream of you holding me
Against your chest, feeling it rise and fall with every nervous breath
That sneaks out of your lungs
Through those beautiful lips of yours.
I want to lose myself to thoughts of you taking me by the hands
And fight loving you with everything I have.
I want to lose
Myself
In the way you kiss me sweetly and hold me tenderly.
In the way you've already kissed me sweetly
And held me gently, softly, warmly, kindly that one night.
I want to hate you. But more than that.
More than your lips, arms, eyes, smile, breath
I want to love you as wonderfully as a girl can love a boy
Beautiful and innocent until no more.

I asked what's a home?
And she said
"a place where we know how to turn on the water."
And I thought maybe it wasn't my home.
So I'll go get some midnight coffee down the street.
And pretend there's no one back there to yell at me
Maybe then I can keep these words in my head long enough to write them down
Or maybe I'll get drunk craning my neck to see the stars
And realizing it's the lights of on-coming cars.
The streetlights in this town are too dim.
I think that's why there's no hope here anymore.

The words sit
on the tip of my tongue--
Bubbling up from my chest and
Threatening the bust open the seams of my lips.
And I can't tell you how much it means to me
That you're feeling the same thing too,
And I get to be the stubborn one.

I saw him in the candlelight
With his elbows resting on his legs
His head facing the ground
And his eyes closed. Tightly.
So tightly they refused to be opened
To acknowledge that mine were there
Looking straight at his face
For the very first time.
It was as if he'd found something
More powerful than even him
To sit in reverence of.
And the candlelight tricked me
Into believing that too.
I could see light dance off of every inch of his face.
No smile.
No expression.
Just his mouth moving with every whisper
And his eyes shut tight.
I looked away but stayed focused
On the corner of my eye where I could see his back
Move up and down
With every
Single
Breath.
And I thought to myself how incredible
To fall in love with the man
That only God and I had the privilege to see.

The thing about love
See
Is that it can be everything, and nothing
Everywhere, and nowhere
Too much, and not enough.
All at once.
And it's hard to remember the beauty of the fire
After it burns and maims your skin.
But oh, but oh.
The beauty was there. The fire was there.
And the burn will never truly heal.

Touch my skin you ***** rascal
Touch mine and leave your mark.
Cook me with your radiance, let me feel your hands
As they run all over my exposed shoulders, waist, knees, and flip-flops.
Sunspots and freckles.
Burns and chapped lips.
Sunglasses and fenced pools
In the desert.
The cactus, the scorpion, the sun.
The dust in the air is better than oxygen.
And I sit for hours with nothing but love in my heart
For the heat that burned away the hate in my soul.
Sunspots and freckles like kisses from the sunshine
Drying me off in 2 minutes flat.
Hydrating the desert in my soul.

When the earth first saw the sun
No words could e'er describe
What warmth his darkest corners felt
His joy he could not hide.
His broken heart did beat with life
Rivers swam into the sea.
Trees did reach the highest heights
Till no darkness they could see.
And the sun continued shining
Moving all around the earth.
He found joy in all life he saw
In shining he found worth.
And throughout this shining glory
Throughout their brightened years.
No words have ever been exchanged
Nor smiles, frowns, or tears.
The sun ne'er once said to the earth
"You owe me for my gift"
Instead, in endless thanks and praise,
His love the earth doth lift.
See and behold the truest love
Of only we, not my.
This love that gave life to the world
And lights up our whole sky.

More often than you would expect
But far less often than I'd like
I find myself in the company of the hands of time.
Each frequently infrequent encounter he tells me stories that are otherwise uninteresting and uneventful
But with him they are incomparable
And the passing of time goes far too quickly.
He doesn't realize who he is.
And I cannot be the one to tell him
That he controls the months and weeks and days with his voice.
And it's up to him how many seconds have passed since the beginning and until the end.
So I just sit and listen and laugh
and smile and cry
One becomes five, and five becomes four.
And on and on time flies.
Saying nothing, or saying little.
I'm afraid I'll ruin his magic.
Time will not speed up for me, nor will it slow down.
Only for him.
And only in his company.

I just wanted to tell you
I wrote everything for you.
So when I leave
You'll still have these words of mine.

You are standing on top of Holy ground
Because it's here that tears were seen crawling down her cheeks.
And emotions moved through her like tidal waves
Destroy simple pleasures.
Yes you are perched calmly on top of the place where her soul disappeared
Dissipated into smoke and flames
Danced towards heaven and hell with a passion unmatched by anything on earth.
Yet all you do is stand with your head down counting tiles.
Looking at the man in front of you waiting for him to move
Waiting for fifteen minutes to pass like an airplane passes through a cloud.
Waiting until you can go home to the life you've made for yourself.
You are standing on Holy ground.
Shield your eyes and take off your shoes before the power
Of the one tear shed for everything you are not.

For one night they loved the way only strangers know how to love
The way only she knew how to love, a fire in her heart kindled by the softness of his touch.
She refused to love, he refused to love, and yet they were
Twirling in an ever-ending, music-less, whirlwind of tenderness and sweetness.
She called him honey. Panicking. Said he wasn't alone.
He said stop.
She turned over and wept.
He left.
Strangers. The way it was always meant to be, but the way it never should have been.
With a secret.
They loved, the way only young people can love each other.
Never ending and unforgiving love.

Words do not come from the mind
Nor do they come from the heart.
They don’t rhyme because their sounds fit together.
Words don’t come from the mouth
The tongue or shape of the teeth.
Words are not music, or sounds, or even letters.
There is no science behind words.
There is no science behind what isn't tangible.
Words, the beauty of which are felt,
Come from the itching of fingertips.
It’s when you cannot speak that words become precious.
When you cannot rhyme that words have meaning,
And when you cannot feel that words hurt the most.
The power of words is the power of fists.
The softness of which is a mothers touch to her newborn child.
The beauty of freshly painted fingernails
Decorated with rings meaning love, forever, spirit.
The fingers.
The fingertips.
Flowing from the wrists and arms
The power source less
Only the itching to write what can’t be said.
What deserves to be preserved
Infinitely.

If she were to fall
She would be the last to know.
She keeps her chin held that high
The only thing she sees is the stars.
No one would notice
Him pulling her down.
She's hypnotizing.
They'd only see the stars too.

Sometimes after it storms the days are dark and cold
And the nights are endless.
These days the sun wants nothing more than to shine
But he’s so frozen with fear that once he does
It will rain again.
Because maybe next time the rain will destroy him once and for all
Maybe he’ll never get to shine again
And he’ll be lost like a piece of driftwood in the sea.
But in the darkness he doesn't look forward
Doesn't read the signs in front of him that say
It will all be alright.
Because even a piece of driftwood lost in a sea of storms and troubles
A simple piece of broken, soaked, and destroyed driftwood.
A fragment of a once great tree that shaded and grew and provided life
That was torn apart by the same storm the sun fears now.
Can become the reason someone lived another day.
And though he lives in fear, though he does not look ahead and realize these things
The sun shines on.

All I know for certain is that I lost you.
Somewhere between "hello" and the goodbye that stopped my heart,
My smile didn't matter to you any longer,
And my hand became a world too heavy for you to burden.
Somewhere between "hello" and never seeing your face again
Watching the moon rise over the lake turned into a complete and utter memory
Of a moon that waited on the other side of the parking garage roof,
And love turned from a campfire
To wood too damp to kindle a flame.
I don't know where my accomplishments began affecting you
More than the spring in my step,
Or my tears became tangible evidence of discovering reality
But there was a specific point where it turned.
After so many months, years have passed, the point has left me.
My heart beats again
I smile, and write, and dance,
But for fear of finding the turning point once more
I do not love.

There is one American word
To describe the relationship
Between a mother and a daughter
A pair of lovers
A young boy and his puppy
A CEO and his paycheck
The sun and the moon
Me and these words.
It's an American fallacy to believe
That what can be bonded by blood
Can be consummated in the bedroom
Or born of thought
What can die in a moment
Is immortal, infinite generations old.
There is no one word with shoulders powerful enough for that kind of weight.

She fell in love with words on a page written down like a cry for help.
Because she felt them move inside of her and stop her very heart from beating.
She could feel them hammer into her veins and tiptoe through her brain
As they nested ideas and thoughts into her mind about the man who wrote them.
Like he was sitting somewhere in the dark etching his feelings into the air with his own sweat
She could feel him.
Using only the words he wrote down with the ink he barely had left on the last page of the journal he carries
To and from his days as a student or a business-man, or a drifter. A loner.
Who whispers sweet nothings into the air like a spider's egg explodes into infinity with children
And the wind carries them gracefully to her eyes somehow.
She dreams about the words flowing through her fingertips onto the last page of her journal
That she carries to and from her days as a student, business-woman, drifter. A loner.
She hasn't let one single laugh escape from her lips, or a smile appear on her face.
Not while the words she needs to breathe cling to some forsaken wind across the country
Looking for her in the moonlight, written with an unknown desire to be with her.

They say that time will heal all wounds but time will never pass
A year I spent in love with you who promised we would last.
You promised me with all your heart you’d love me till I died.
And when I passed you’d love me still, and visit where I lied.
You held me in tightly when we met, even if we met in dreams
You promised me forever without knowing what itmeans.
You told me I was perfect, you told me everyday
You would love nobody more than me. That’s what you’d always say.
You wanted me to be better than I was, you wanted what was best.
I couldn’t be perfect for you; I tried and failed that test.
I couldn’t keep on feeling like you were slipping from my hands
That your love for me was passing as an hourglass’s sands.
So I chose not to let you rule me, and for a while I was fine.
But I know you and I were meant to be, that we’d be back in time.
As time passed and I wished to speak you couldn’t find my place,
I was the puzzle piece of sky that didn’t have a place.
And so I lie inside my grave, where you swore you would come too
My spirit decays bit by bit as I remember you.
You’re eyes, your smile, your hands your mouth, your laugh and all my tears.
We will never meet again my love, you’ve moved onward with your years.

So here we are again.
Looking at each other with our thoughts racing.
Our hands trembling in tune with our lips
Which burn to say what cannot be said,
What needs to be said,
What isn't worth saying.
Every unspoken word singes my fragile heart,
Bit by bit melting the glue that's been crudely holding it together.
It's not my own anymore.
It's broken, brittle, useless.
Take it and grow old with it.
please
Make a life with it,
Give it purpose
Make it whole
Bring it back from the dead.
I know, though, that you can't.
I know you wish you could mend it
Supplement what's been lost with your own.
But you can't.
I can't.
We can't. Ever.
So I guess it'll be this way.
We'll part ways
Grow old separate of each other
Give our hearts to people who can't give them what they need.
And then we'll die, for real this time.
So that's how this will end.

Oh to be loved by you.
To hear the whisper of the words slip up your lungs into your throat
And out of your lips.
And into the air around us, crawling into my ears and nestling
In my heart.
To be held safely, cherished in your arms.
Oh, to be loved--
Actually, honestly, loved--
By you who I love with an honorable, cherishing, true and unfailing love.
To be loved.
To be loved.
To be loved.

People don't die beautifully for living plainly.
The most gorgeous deaths stem from lives made entirely of chafing and scratching
At the eyes of bystanders and the legs of elites pushing pencils and having babies.
Women do not make history sleeping in the arms of men
That stroke their hair and tell them they're beautiful.
Nor do they change the course of a nation by smiling at those they're told to smile at,
By following rules and setting limits on their intellect and imagination.
Likewise men do not make history kneeling in front of a stone with the word destiny written in repetition
On its surface.
Men do not alter reality by being societal representations of men. Of trees. Of beasts.
Men, and women, who make history,
Who have died beautifully, tragically, desperately,
Have died in incredible circumstances. Have been remembered
For being a thorn in the side or the splinter in the eye of the path laid out by reality
So every breath and every sight was them. Pestering.
Until they could no longer be tolerated.
That's when they were remembered.

Everyone wants to fall in love
But all I want is a pen and some tequila
And to remember every detail about the dream I had a couple of nights ago.
About a small ship in a big ocean
A castle with a maze of hallways.
Perplexing. Confusing. Invigorating.
Terrifying.
Then I can wake up and go to church,
Forget to check my texts again.
And wonder what it must be like to lose yourself in another person.
Then I'll write it down.

This morning I cried twice.
Once walking to school.
It was dark, and it was cold.
And I was going to meet with God
We needed to talk about something
And He wasn't
Saying what.
So I pulled my brother's old flannel shirt
Around my coffee stained top
And cried right there
In front of a homeless person
Waiting for a bus that wasn't coming.
Then I cried again
Because I still had no idea
What God wanted from me.
And it dawned on me
That that was the point.

A twin bed is big enough for two
Perhaps those two chairs are for me and for you.
Even your car says to leave you be and I will never understand how winter
Can harden your heart.
In this house glasses fog and furnaces roar with every passing moment but everything inside coolly whispers
Faster and softer with every heartbeat nervously pounding on my lungs
As my breath gets louder as my throat closes and my mind races
To images of Christmas lights and coffee, gloves and sweaters
Complaining about the cold knowing there's nothing we can do about it.
So we go home and watch a movie drinking hot chocolate from coffee mugs.
Waking up the next morning on a twin bed made for one.
I will never understand how silently you live your life.
A spark from a match can become a candle or a wildfire, one fades and one scars.
And you can drive your car anywhere you like but where will you go alone?
You can sleep every night but what will you do by yourself?
You have a voice you don't use but to sing your praises and excuse yourself but you have a beautiful mouth
That you can use to form the most beautiful words.
Like hello
And even goodbye
Men prefer loneliness from time to time and that's okay but not this winter.
Not this winter.

I looked into her eyes and knew
She was looking at an angel
And reaching for the hand
of a soldier none of us could see.
Sometimes all that's left to do
Is close your eyes and wait
In memories and selfish tears
For mortality to softly return.
And while we sit around a hospital bed
sipping coffee out of plastic cups, waiting.
She's resting on the ***** of forever
Feasting at the table of the almighty.

I fell in love twice.
The first, a glorious trip over cheap champagne and the dreams of youth.
Tremendously child-like , desperately adult.
But nothing that burns so bright dies slowly without notice.
And I swore I would never love again.
The second, greatest love
Happened without intention
And saw into the future. And saw reality.
And was a great, great love.
Subtlety spread from an ember to a wildfire,
And I've learned that love hurts more as an ache
Than it ever could as an explosion,
And sometimes feels like loneliness.

I fell in love twice.
The first, a glorious trip over cheap champagne and the dreams of youth.
Tremendously child-like , desperately adult.
But nothing that burns so bright dies slowly without notice.
And I swore I would never love again.
The second, greatest love
Happened without intention
And saw into the future. And saw reality.
And was a great, great love.
Subtlety spread from an ember to a wildfire,
And I've learned that love hurts more as an ache
Than it ever could as an explosion,
And sometimes feels like loneliness.

He is not the type of man who will remain ruined.
Or to let blood stop a fight.
He's not the type of man to stay silent
In corruption and leisure.
He's not the type of man to sit and think
He speaks. He yells. He growls.
He hunts and drinks. Throws the bad to the ground
And the good he leads with purpose.
He has the power.
On his own.
To make and to destroy.
He is not the type of man
To be any type of man.