I need to read love poetry
For the same reason monks read bibles

the irrepressible need to believe

That love exists
That love is omnipresent, omniscient, all powerful
That it is eternal

For someone somewhere, at least

The emptier I feel, the more I read

Let me believe

Someone kisses
Crusty eye-lids in perfect bliss

a couple of months ago i got lost
somewhere between sad and depressed
and i never managed to find my way out.
i've been dwelling among roots
of lost memories and engrave
the reasons why i'm still in love with you
in tree barks,
why i still miss you.
i bet you never even think of looking for me
and i can't stop myself from seeing your face
in every crease of my mind.
i hope you still love me. no,
i wish you'd still love me
because i just know your lips
are resting on someone else's
while mine are covered in layers of dust
left behind by loneliness.
late at night,
i'm haunted by echoes
of the way you say you love him
and it's keeping me awake.
i haven't slept in 5 days.
my heart is crumbling
and it's becoming increasingly harder
to hold it all together.
the feeling of your lips
is a fading memory
and i hate that i can no longer remember
what it felt like to hear you say
that you love me.

You came into this world screaming for your right to be loved,
please don’t think you have to leave the same way.  
I know what it’s like to crush pills every night just so you can break something other than yourself, but darling, love doesn’t exist in powder.
Remember that inside of you are crashing galaxies; every fiber of your being resonates with tragedy and stardust,
and there is someone out there who will want to crawl into the folds of your universe.
However, there will be days that even ghosts can’t see you,
but just remember that you don’t have to search for approval in the arms of strangers.
It won’t be there.
The only thing you’ll find is trouble.
When you notice that lovers repeatedly treat you like a puddle, stepping
over you and carrying on with their life, know that that’s not what you are.
You are an ocean, ebbing and flowing with the moons magnetism.
Calm enough to carry the burdens of others,
but powerful enough to drown them.
It’s not easy realizing that everyone you have ever loved has never loved you, but neither is pretending to be a *******.
So give away paper mâché versions of your heart, one after the other,
until you find the person who notices the difference
between something living and something dead.
Until you find the person who is willing to ask about your real heart.  
There is no reason that you should not be loved.

My apartment still smells like cigarettes from Saturday
when a couple girls with crop-top ambitions
drank themselves through flip cups and through guys’ eyes
who purposely landed on their belly-buttons.
I might have stood on the couch to sing that song,
but I’ve fallen for you all wrong. After another remix,
everyone left and we played footsies while leaning
in the doorway of my bathroom, the wood trim chipping
but your smile brightening in the yellow overhead light.
And I promised I wouldn’t find myself
come Monday morning sitting here with my knees knocking,
and knocking, and knocking themselves back into my brain
that keeps reminding my heart that we expired last season,
and that it’s just too **** late.
I promised myself I wouldn’t wipe my tears on my sweatshirt sleeves,
or run my toes on the tile, or breathe in another toxic pack
of what I essentially believe is you. You are the *** I pour myself into.
You are the chance I keep giving myself seconds of.

I know I shouldn’t have separated myself that quickly, or without notice,
but honestly I didn’t know how to attach myself to someone
unless it was delicate and barb-wired together. I’m sorry I ******* it up,
back then, before the mess, wherever you’d like to pinpoint
the blame on our timeline
but you are the only chance I keep giving myself seconds of.
So I’ll distance myself between my body and this frame,
cut out text-message screen shots and paste them to my frown
so maybe I can remember what it was like to smile
without ******* cigarette smoke between my teeth.

I am your masterpiece,
I am what you made me; every stitch and every crease.
Like the finest tailor, you cut me open at the seams,
And sewed me back together as a quilt of your insecurities and dreams.
I was hand-stitched and handpicked to bare the weight of your pain.
And in my strength you found another string to pull time and time again.
Before I collapse and fall apart, you sew yourself into me,
So instead of all the holes and tears, it is only the beautiful patches that they see.
Your strength was drawn from my frayed and fragile heart,
I am your creation; I was built for you to use and tear apart.

He tickled my feathers,
teased and caressed them;
fanned the beauty of my plumes
perfectly, until I was the perfect
way he wanted me to be
and then trampled me to the ground
How clearly I remembered his sound,
his thunderous roar
with the hunger of a lion,
his hunger for my peace,
his insatiable desire
to have complete control of me
But I fought back;
perhaps only in the end
when all of my feathers
were but a wilted lament
of what was once me
I fought silently,
no blood or tears
and certainly no fears
I simply walked away

~ Priya 3/21/15

You made my blood stand still when you came in,
My cerebellum panicking wildly
As I stood, my will could not be caved in
I approached and asked for a dance, mildly.

Everlasting oceans crashed inside you,
Washing over my broken, waking shore,
Pulling me down into your bitter blue
I wonder what the bottom has in store

I see you drowning me in lullabies
Enticing, pulling me into your sea
I know even mermaids had their dark side,
Drag me through the waters, a silent scream

I flash back, and you're still in the doorway
I'll leave you be, I can't swim anyway