Eyes like fireflies
dancing in the black of night;
My lantern of light.

I do not wish for
a sharp needle of
ink as black as night
to etch eternal
flourished designs
and embellished words
on the canvas of my skin
for it is my humble belief
that nothing in life
should be permanent.

I.
My first in first grade
I carved your name in my desk
I hope it's still there.

II.
Made class valentines
Required for everyone
But mine was special.

III.
You begged the teacher
To sit by me on the bus
With a great big smile.

IV.
The first who wanted
To take me out for dinner
But it was a joke.

V.
Dedicated song
I can no longer hear it
Without thought of you.

VI.
You never said it
But your eyes always told me
You had wanted more.

VII.
You dated my friend
And I never told you how
Much I adored you.

VIII.
Playful like a child
But mature like an adult
So interesting.

IX.
You asked me to prom
Yellow flowers for friendship
That's all I wanted.

X.
You said you loved me
I loved you like a brother
It would never work.

XI.
You swore up and down
You had changed for the better
You didn't, first kiss.

XII.
Late walks on campus
Never saw me with makeup
We were so natural.

XIII.
Eyes found each other
"I don't forget pretty girls"
you whispered to me.

XIV.
I fell quickly, hard
But you still loved someone else
A girl with my name.

XV.
A friend of a friend
Texting non-stop everyday
Going nowhere fast.

XVI.
Liked me from the start
Bruised and broken, I do care
But not in that way.

XVII.
The piano man
It was all right but timing
One that got away.

XVIII.
We tried to fight time
Thinking that you were ready
Left us with heartache.

The ace of spades
The queen of hearts
I don't gamble, but if I did
I'd bet on you.

Scientists divide my body
into systems,
cardiovascular,
circulatory,
respiratory,
but when you are in my presence,
it all becomes nervous.

I have become endlessly infatuated
with the low cadence of your voice.
The way it crackles before dawn and
strengthens after your morning coffee.
Your soft lips part to bare its splendor.
It tickles my earlobe when you whisper
soft melodies I could never grow tired of.
It covers the rim of your coffee cup when
you take a sip; it sweetly kisses you like I do.
I believe in the beauty of simplicity once more.

She prayed for freckles
to inhabit her pale skin,
the small pigments covering
her defined cheekbones,
displaying an intricate pattern
as rare as the beauty of her hidden soul,
begging to shine through her open pores.

Everything goes in, rushing quickly
Only to realize there is no way out
Lost in darkness that seems endless
Until a small pocket of light appears
In the far far distance
It gets bigger as it pulls everything closer
Only to disappear as suddenly as it came.

In the warmth of May
I look at the magnolias
And wonder when I, too,
Will bloom into something
Beautiful.

a
flower
does
not
bloom
when
it's
told;

it
blooms
when
it's
read­y.

I feel you
in my bones.

All 206 of them.

As it ever so lightly touches your lips
The liquid disappears
Just as your soul does.

It all turns to black.

The strong tree bends down towards the rippling sea
As if to see its reflection in the waves crashing against the jagged rocks.
The thick trunk, about to break, stretching its roots as far as they can go,
Sees only a blurry black shadow staring back at him.

a bundle of
brave little bones,
all i am.

but i’m starting
to deteriorate at
a quickened pace.

my skin’s peeling,
abandoning my body
like everyone else.

the vessel of
my soul’s learning
to leave me.

left to rot
alone, the same
fate as you.

I continue
to write
about flowers
so they
never die.

Shattered, we stand tall.
Torn, feeling the pain within.
Bruised, but not broken.

Bruised,
Bewildered,
Battered,
Broken.

What else starts with B?

Beautiful.

I'll act as though this pen is a sword
and carve the words on the blank page before me
until my fingertips bleed the truth
begging to be set free from my wounds deep within.

Darkness, when he sobs,
turns his sadness into storms,
his tears into rain.

I don't think we are afraid of the dark.
No, more of what it so effortlessly conceals.
An unforeseeable threat lurking in the infinite darkness.
It plays a sly little waiting game,
Like an opponent anticipating the move of a chess piece,
Sure to be the next tragic victim...
Until,

Checkmate.

His bare arms wrapped
around her like seaweed,
pulling her further into
the deep dark blue lagoon.

Her soul was lost underneath
the crashing waves of the sea,
drowned in the deception
of his deep dark blue eyes.

Never once has a
dictionary defined this
infatuation,
adoration,
l  o  v   e.

I.
the cloud yearned to sweetly kiss the sea
for he reflected the colored sky  in his crashing waves
so the cloud could see her mirrored image was beautiful.

II.
the cloud lived in eternal sadness
willing herself to sob salty tears
a sacrifice to save the sea from emptiness.

III.
the cloud fell in love with the sea
because no matter how her shape or size changed
his waves formed a curved smile of affection.

What if our tears of loneliness
fell from our wet cheeks
and met at our chin
to make each other whole?

A plane ticket can help you
leave this hell behind,
but it can't help you escape
from your dreadful mind.

You took your limbs
and twisted them around me
like snakes
squeezing my ribcage

It was no warm embrace, no
I was holding on by a thin thread
And you knew...
And still continued.

All it took was a swipe.
One small, insignificant swipe.
You took your finger and erased my name,
Erased me.

I won't let you erase my identity.

An
                     a
                              v
                         a
                                   l
                                         a
                                                    n
         ­                                        c
                                                          h
   ­                                                                 ­e
Of goosebumps,
One after another
As a result from just one touch,
One flick of your fingertip
Sends my body into a mass of tingles,
Never yearning for stillness again.

What I would give to be the shadow
cast upon your paralyzed body
from the dim light shining through
the cracked window of your quaint flat.

What I would give to be the oxygen
filling your heaving lungs with new life
keeping your nightmarish reality alive
while you're lost in your heavenly dreams.

What I would give to be the one.
The one to bring you out of the shadows of doubt
so you no longer need to close your eyes to escape.

As the leaves change their pigment
and fall through the brisk autumn air
Darling, don't you go changing on me too
for I will catch you if you begin to fall.

Twirling my coal black fine-tip pen
In the vacant gaps between my restless fingers,
My wandering mind is filled only with thoughts of you,
Desperately longing for your strong hand
To effortlessly fill the
S      p      a      c      e     s
Between my own.

Soon I will be a ghost.
Nothing but a figure of the forgotten past.
Slowly but surely fading away.
I will still reside in this upstate loft.
Sitting in that cocoa brown armchair.
Watching the future live on in a front row seat.

There stands the frozen man
In which time stands endlessly still
Only a distant memory, fading with age
Trapped in a quaint box, his life sentence.

Rusted trailers file in,
carrying pop-up roller coasters
and tilt-a-whirls. A tall man, face splashed
with paint, trips in oversized shoes.
His drawn lips smile, but teeth do not show.
A ferris wheel spins in the distance, time
measured in each rotation, the carnival's only clock.
Perched on a saddle, a small tot
rides a stallion, tangling her curled fingers
in its mane, cotton candy stained palms
shaking the reins. The steed chained
to a central post, muzzled in silence,
frozen like his carousel brothers.

We all are hiding from something.

Someone.

The bystanders circling around us
Like trees, stretching their branch-like arms
Trying to grab us with all of their might.

We peek out of our shells
That we have created for ourselves
To protect us from the poisonous world we live in.

Clenching our fists and
burrowing our heads

We wait

Inevitably for the next attack
For we know we are the society’s next victim.

Home.

It's not a place made of four sturdy walls,
built from strong brick and stone.
It has no windows to peer out of,
nothing to conceal, to keep hidden.
There's no roof above to protect,
to shield, to encase.

Home.

It's when I look into your glossy eyes at 1 a.m.
before we fall deeply together into an effortless slumber.
It's where my fingertips slowly graze your shoulders
delighting at the slightest touch of your soul's vessel.
It's what keeps me safe at nightfall when I stroll down the boardwalk
in sync, in perfect rhythm with your footsteps moving beside me.
It's why I look at my bare feet and shyly smile when a subtle compliment
travels from your muffled throat to fill my ears with joy.
It's who I open my tired, restless eyes to see every bright sunrise
filling me with the courage to face another cycle of hours, minutes, seconds.

Home.

It holds the answer to every question I've yearned to uncover.
My home will always be with you.

The tangerine stained race track
spread across our **** carpet, a turn
by the wooden bed frame, a loop
near the five piece drum set.
My brother’s fingertips gripped a Hot Wheel
by its rear end, its rubber wheels
greeting the track, propelling it forward,
launching it into another plastic vehicle,
and Crash.

I nursed the toy cars through emergencies,
playing doctor to replace cracked windshields
and torn plastic bumpers, victims
of one too many collisions. It alarmed me
how easily the 1976 Mustang could lose its wheel,
sending it spinning like a dreidel while my brother grinned
with splintered teeth, feeling nothing.
The car survived the impact, but people
don’t always walk away from accidents. They can’t be raised
on jack stands and tinkered with. The operation table,
home to drivers with fluttering heartbeats,
can hum to the deafening beat of a flat-line monitor.

You try to blend in
with the beautiful daisies
when all you feel like is
a dandelion, a ****.

I wanted to be light so I swallowed the sun.

Goosebumps cover my
skin as I shiver from the
chilled touch of your soul.

If the sun had hands, he’d reach out
to touch the curve of the moon’s spine, tracing
his fingers along each crater as she lit up
for him like a paper lantern
in the sky. His flamed limbs enveloping
her, his Luna. The arch of her back
against the backdrop of night, her fullness
intoxicating. After all this time, still burning for her.

When the sun was given hands, he cursed them
as he watched the moon crumble
into ash in the blaze. His hands were Rome
and he couldn’t stop the collapse, the ruins of her
scattered across his cupped palms. He prayed
to Moirai for revival, but all three gods
were silent. Choking back flames of fury, he tossed
his beloved into the black expanse, each flake still lit
with a passion to rebel the stars
that continue to burn with foolish hope.

your arteries are wired to
sound an alarm if thieves
come to rob you of your heart
but I swiftly stole the wrinkles
on your brain so maybe you’d forget
the mole below my left eye, the
faded birthmark embedded in my left shoulder

if that makes me a criminal dress
me in tangerine, let me play
tug of war with a noose

I took a polygraph test last night, the examiner
asked if I still loved you
I whispered no but the needle painted
the cadence of your voice instead

Just because you are gone
Doesn’t mean you haven’t left your print in the world
I close my eyes and pretend my fingers are laced in yours
And all I do is smile and the tears fade away.

You nurtured the garden of your mind,
letting the most beautiful parts of you grow
and bloom like healthy tulips in early April,
until a single **** poked through the soil
and continued to spread itself, seed by seed.
One by one, the flowers all began to wilt with grief,
giving way to the **** that plagued your mind.
If you don't have the strength the pluck each ****,
you don't allow for the exquisite flowers to bloom.

It's beautiful.

How the wave kisses the rocky shoreline
begging to stay before it retreats to the sea.
How the moon kisses the cheek of the sun
waiting patiently for the next eclipse.  
How the raindrop kisses the withered leaf
filling its veins with hope before it falls to the soil.

You hear about the kiss of death,
But never the kiss of life.

The cream lace dress falls to the floor.
The bright morning light fills the empty spaces.
The many layers pool around my feet.
The structure, the texture, the workmanship.
They all fill me with delight and splendid wonder.
I throw my head back and gently close my eyes.
I wonder how my mother felt in this dress.
Her dress.
Many years ago.
When she danced with my daddy at the prom.
Looking into his big, brown eyes,
Lacing her fingers together around his strong neck,
His hands placed ever so lightly on her small waist,
I wonder if she loved him then.
I wonder if she always had.
And always would.
I never knew my mother.
From the pictures, I could tell she was beautiful.
I never felt a true connection with her,
Although I had longed to.
Until I tried on the cream lace dress.
Her cream lace dress.
I felt like she, instead of the fabric,
Was wrapped around me.
Embracing me tightly.
I never want to lose her,
Even though I never truly knew her.
But this dress,
Her dress,
Allowed me to find what was always lost.

I was told I would be a hero.
A true hero,
Giving my life for my country.
I’d make my family proud.

I now look at the fear stricken faces,
With tears running down their wet cheeks,
About to pummel into the bottomless sea.
I am deeply saddened.
They never got a chance to say goodbye.
Endless screams is all I hear as the plane drops,
Falls,
Dives,
Crashes.

I am no hero.

Millions of people
work nine to five
breaking their backs
for disposable paper bills
and small copper coins
never realizing currency
cannot guarantee tomorrow.
The promise of another day
can only be granted by
a phenomenon we continue
to waste: t...i...m...e.

Death's shadowy figure hides
between the small cracks of my
home's crumbling foundation.

I fear to close my tired eyes at twilight
when Death may rise from the core
and run through my pulsing veins.

I want to flip through the delicate,
worn pages of your life's story.
Past the detailed table of contents,
experiencing each chapter for myself.
Every small ink splatter between the
spaces of your soul's dialogue
forms tears descending on the page.
Instead of a period signaling the end
of your life's long sentence,
you courageously turned it into a comma
so that your story would never truly end,