a sweet girl falls for the first boy she sees
and he is sweet for a while

his curly hair, devilish stare keeps her afflicted for a bit
speaking in tongues, translating words into kisses when they had none
‘i want to kiss you over and over’ in a jazz bar where the drummer isn’t very good
taking the wrong bus three times in a row

he claims he hates poetry and thats all she ever does, write about him
“i can’t wait to remember you”
zippers and untied shoes
a train ride north to sleep at his parents house
and they usually stumble in together after a pint or two
sneaking up the stairs, a bathroom with no doorknob
the floors sing beneath them

broken hearts aren’t badges
look how lovable i am, and look how little i care

i don’t mind their stains of red and white on my shirt
the half moon crescents i leave on their pillows

born to misplace words and sleep in different rooms
to love any big eyed sucker who returns eye contact
kisses bruises in unusual places, my hand

to fall every night
to sip the sun until i don’t feel it at all
to return to the mouths i once fed with poetry and mint chapstick

you taste like 2008
you taste like friday night behind the bleachers
you taste like 'lets get back together'
you taste like the carpeted basement of my old house
you taste like stale red vines

i tried to love you last night
with whiskey, whiskey
but you've left, gone west
the morning after, the morning after

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
you are heavy
i can feel it, so can the room

everyone is waiting for that pause
the one you find yourself existing in

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
finding the quirks
the imbalanced romanticism in their dialect

'yeah, i’m a southern boy'
the kind you swore you’d stay away from

you spent too many nights with knights at rogue water
underage but over your limit

oh boy, that patagonia
slinging country song quarters into the jukebox

take me home!

you are so lovely, even in your wicked ways

do you like country music?
he turns left for the freeway
do you know how to drive stick shift?

you are so lovely, even in your wicked ways
i didn’t fold her laundry
she left my XXL t-shirts without wrinkles
pink, without wrinkles

you are so lovely in your wicked ways
he mixes a couple of drinks for you
reaches to grab your hand from across the bar
seared by the tea-light candle

i waltzed out of that bar like i had him
he is small and beautiful with a temper
i could love him all while hating him

i’m just a gal whose nose bled
after falling into his bed (more than once)
more than once

waking up to bbc your alarm
clock radio was the soundtrack
to our mornings at your parents
house where they only sometimes
knew i was there but we would tip
toe but the floors creaked anyway

your purple royal platform bed with
an angel floating above it sometimes
i would accidentally kick it and say
“sorry” and you would laugh and flip
me over like a pancake we spent
national pancake day apart but we
spent other days together and we
were in love like when you’d roll a
cigarette and make me some of
your moms soup and we’d climb
the fence in our socks and they
became damp like my eyes on
the train home from the fox

you made me breakfast one day
while your mom was doing yoga
and then she asked me about
paint colours and offered to make
me a smoothie i wish i could have
said goodbye one more time
i imagined what our kids would
look like they would be beautiful
they would be beautiful wild eyed
and dark pupils we thought we almost
had a kid but we replaced her with a pill
and 5 migraines