I'd like to tell you about my desire to have freckles on my face
that reflect the sky on the warmest night of July
standing in front of my parent's house at the top of the driveway
and of the people who have gotten lost inside my head
from too many sleepless night spent trying to unravel every word ever said
ever spoken from me to them, and in return.
I'd like to tell you about how I'll never learn
and how there was a snake in the grass in the eye of my childhood cat,
a man with an ax banging on the back of my wall,
I'd like to tell you about how I've seen it all.

I've been gone for a while now
though still waiting for your fingers to leave my body
as you hold to the shape, you
put words together to explain my taste
run your hands from my ribs
down to my waist, remark of the beauty
ask what it'd take to steal me away
from the place where my eyes go dim
but train has taken the light within my being
I'm just doing, now, going through the motions
with your mouth on my mouth
indents on myself.

Don't be a stereotype, don't be afraid of blood - I want you
to hit me in the mouth and promise me the moon.
Pledge to a different flag every lunch break around noon.
Kneel on rice and claim to the world that you've been praying
to end the hunger of the masses,
to keep the evil ones from staying,
to stay awake in all your classes.
Laso the moon and yank it down
one pull for every year
if you forgot the ropes at home
I'll lend you thread to bring it nearer.
If that thread snaps before eighteen pulls
I'll check my pulse and declare myself dead and gone.
Don't kiss me on the mouth, don't let your eyelids hide the life -
the scratches up and up your arm are symbols of your constant strife.
Not subtle like the rest, you take pride in every switch
that recoils faster than your mind can see the glitch.
The rhyme scheme is poor and getting dull
like the needle in your arm.
Don't be a stereotype, please,
don't be afraid of flesh.
Don't be hollowed out and full of air
what's inside you is the best.
Don't cause yourself harm.

I like how this all started - history notes then a drunk hike.
I like that I believe you when you tell me it'll be alright.
I like how we can talk for hours and neither of us get bored,
and even when I ramble, I'm still not ignored.
I like how much we laugh and all the inside jokes we have
like "sea slug," "guacamol," and watching awkward dad.
I like that when we argue, we always talk it out
and how you know that something's wrong by just the slightest pout.
I like all of the silly things you do to make me laugh
so that when I'm sad or worrying, it never really lasts.
I have never liked anyone quite as much as I like you
and I like that I'm lucky enough that you like me that much, too.
I love your smile, the way you think, and everything you say.
I'm happy I can call you mine and that I find new things to love each day.

Stop thinking it's romantic
to **** the girl who cries
writes poetry at 3 am
has scars cascading down her thighs.
It simply isn't beautiful
when she chews on her insides
through alcohol and cigarettes
beneath artificial light.
Don't place your hand on her lower back
pretending like it's fair.
Stop telling her it's beautiful
as she tears out her hair
bites down her every fingernail
til they're just ****** stumps.
You think you'll help by listening
with artificial love.
A knock at your door at 4 am
will surely change your mind.
"I want to **** myself tonight,
please let me in, I want to die."

Mom, I am an alcoholic and
I've been doing drugs.
I've had *** with over twenty men,
I haven't prayed to God in months.
Dad, I can't remember when
I went to classes last.
I stay in bed all day
avoiding my future and my past.
All my friends from home,
I need to say this once and for all:
eventually, at 3 am, please expect a call.
Mom, I can't stop hurting myself.
Dad, I'm really scared.
The both of you should listen
if you ever really cared.
This is depression getting a hold
of my innocence and smile.
I'll stay in bed a few more days
and won't talk for a while.
*******, once more, just listen, please,
I'm trying to get help.
This is the last time, I'm done, I swear.
I can't avoid the pills and razors glaring from the shelf.

There is text on tectonic plates
that reads “This was the time when
constellations would guide
every living creature to
death after life
Before ashes to ashes shone
light through the cracks
and to love and be loved in return
was pushed further back
behind survival and ***
above god and all prayers
there sat rocks under earth
before the growth of our fear
for the devil and sin
and not living like Christ
to reap the rewards of following advice
When the breath leaves my lungs
when I’m merely a shell
I’ll go into the ground
and recycle my cells.

There was a sun catcher I painted for my mother
but I couldn't ignore the light in your eyes
with your mouth opened wide
and a tab on your tongue,
eyes reflecting the sun.
From then on I promised
that catcher would get to your hands
but you flew too high up
and you never did land.

On February twenty-fifth
exactly twelve days from today
I'd like to show up
outside your window
with a ukulele and a cake
with frosting that reads "congratulations
baby sweetheart darling lover
you are on in a million
not one in the three-hundred-fifty-something people
in Connecticut who gave up
on themselves and on their lover
darling sweetheart honey
I'll be outside your window always
if only you'd call me.

I have whispered love into lonely quiet shoulders
and shouted from the bottom of a frozen hill.
I have tick-tick-ticked it into messages online
and kept it to myself to ensure the room stay still.
I have scrawled it endlessly onto pink paper,
it's been buried aside "but" and beneath salty tears.
I have hesitated in the Winter. By Spring it was eager.
I'll repeat it to you for years and years and years.

There are phrases spoken that sound a bit like "I no longer need you,"
but through the whistle of the words it comes out like an apology or,
depending on the direction the wind is blowing, a rhetorical question.
There are moments spent walking through snow drifts at noon with
heavy feet and a crackling at the bottom of my throat thinking
this is not your season for me. Your voice was never cold and damp
it was clear even when it broke, calming and clean. There are dreams
that you don't occupy anymore and when the great flood came
and the world was like a giant Roman pool in which the entire population bathed,
you were missing from the scenario. I swam from the steps of my dorm building
all the way to the ocean and when I realized I hadn't found you on the journey,
I turned back around to search. There are nights when bouys look more appealing
than constant breast back butterfly strokes through the sweat and salt
but then there are mornings that remind me
this will make me stronger. This will make me see.

Last night I realized that I ask people the most personal questions
in an attempt to know their depths in a hurry rather than allowing the answers to flow naturally.
I rarely make it underneath the skin.
"What's your middle name" followed by "Have you ever been in love" and
"What was your SAT score?" "Favourite subject?" "Favourite way to hurt yourself?"
Margaret after my great grandmother, but if we're being honest I'd say it were April
and I once fell in love with a man whose eyes I only met for a second on the train
while I was dreading making my way home again only to be scolded for not trying.
I've been scored on how much sweat I'd let out of my pores just to reach the tip top of
your spine, how early I could fall asleep and how many scars you remember me telling about.
The notebook my mother bought me for math is green and filled with fragments of
seventh grade, nail polish and the hope of a small room with someone who'd like to kiss
every single one of my fingers as I count every one of their hairs and eventually,
as we talk about family and falling off swings, we come across the father of your father
whose name is right between your first and last.
Once I've scratched the surface, I stay if I see red.

There's always been something calming about January sweat with the window open
and bruises making home on every inch of my neck.
If anyone were to ask "What's the matter?" I'd like to reply with
"Nothing, it's all vibrations of energy slowed enough to be perceived,
and these marks on my throat haven't been in the shaped of fingers since seventh grade."
I learned how dung beetles use the Milky Way Galaxy to guide themselves
but I take direction from people who shine twice as bright.

There are some silent decisions made at two in the morning
unshaven legs poking out from under the covers and sweaty palms reaching towards fresh air.
This is the time for missing and this is the time to breathe
but everyone whose face I've ever studied for the sole reason of having a better chance of dreaming of them,
they all know that this can't be a time for both.
Balance seems to be the word of the day although I've never quite learned the definition.
Getting by on synonyms like "harmony" and "symmetry" do the trick.

As you were sleeping
and possibly dead
I stripped the skin cell
and sweat soaked sheets
from my bed.
Scrawled two quotes
on the whiteboard that read
"Wait,
they don't love
you like I love you."and
"What you think
you become."
Poured milk into every bowl that we own.
Fed the fish and my pen
and the fire-bellied toads.
Kicked down the garbage pail,
rolled on the floor.
"They don't love you like I do. No,
they love you more."

I'd like to place a cigarette between your lips, cup my small hands around it
and proclaim that you are a writer living in a small apartment in the city.
You wear trench coats and I follow on your tails, doing my best to appear pretty.
But your words are soggy like the suede of your clearance shoes
that have stepped in the puddles between blocks striving
to get you through to the next privately owned book store
where you leave half-written poetry on notecards
and slip them into J.D. Salingar's fingertips
without having had read a single book he has written. (Neither have I.)

I have romanticized my sadness
like slapping away the hand of a boy who reaches up my skirt
and half-smiling afterwards,
wishing he'd do it again.

When a luke warm shower is more comforting
than memories of your hands pressed to my hips:
this is me loving myself.
Poking at bruises on my thighs, forearm, neck
(none of which were caused by you):
this is me loving myself.
Words aren't running off of my fingertips anymore
and the muscles in my hands don't twitch.
You were my muse
and I will carry you in my words.
Un purposefully reserving a place for you in myself:
This is me loving you,
this is me letting go.

You're first,
name shows up in letters spelled out in songs,
the name after that one resides in the people I call friends. Your last
name is written on the calendar in my room
that starts in January but I believe all life began last June.
I've researched the buses and trains and your eye color
and none of them can take me as far as I'd like to go fast enough.
But one day eventually I will show up at your doorstep ******
from the heart that's swollen so much that it's purple and pressed
against my rib cage, breaking straight out of my chest. And I will open
my swirling constellation of a naked mouth, uncensored and raw
while sun and planet will aim to thaw you out.
What happens next

I once read a book that ended in the main character remembering incidents she had repressed,
so all throughout Sophomore year of high school, I wondered if the abuse stopped at bruised arms.
I wanted so badly to have a valid reason behind the stains on my skin and keeping people up at night
to keep me company. The truth of the matter is, if I write what I'm afraid of I'd be writing this:
I didn't cry when my cat of twelve years was put down and buried in the backyard.
I didn't even attend her funeral. There are about three dead pet fish in my freezer
that I haven't gotten around to burying and about twenty-seven lies I've told since my feet hit the floor
this morning. I do not regret any of it. My heart is too big to fit in my chest so I wear it on my sleeve,
I'm told. But that isn't true- I crave for people to look up to me. I've met at least two boys
who have had a tourniquet around their upper arm and a needle in their veins. I love them both.
If I had to choose the one who got away, it would be the boy I could never love as a lover and still
I wish I could. My scars have no profound reasoning behind them and yet I still care that I cut off bits of my hair that you've touched before.
I confuse hardened hearts with strength.
I move too quickly and tell the other to wait.
I've kissed two girls and one kissed me.
The furthest we got was hand holding.
I should write you more poetry.

In the middle of the night I went to Wakelee and the wind whipped at my face
like the way your thrashing words would wash up on the shore of my mouth
and I'd spit them back out at you just the same if not a bit more eloquently.
At Granada Street I remarked on the place in the road that our bodies would meet;
this is where we collapsed because the way we hugged goodbye admitted defeat.
I didn't make it to behind the school where the tree we lounged underneath grew
as we sat as a lioness and a lion completely content to bask in the shade,
but I know after the fall and the winter, that tree still stands the same.
There wasn't time to drive by the house where you traced the tops of my fingers
after inhaling two lungs full of smoke. Where you noticed the way I wrapped my hands
around yours like a knot that couldn't be undone while you were in that state of mind.
But I saw the water we saw when we were ready to duck and cover and the way
the tides of a reservoir can be stronger than any other.
I sent each word out on a separate paper boat lit with a candle as the
"I" floated further than the rocks we threw
and the longest word was sent out second while
"love" drifted towards the beach and
"you" swam away from me.

There are people I've seen on the train from the coast to my home
whom I've made eye contact with and loved
                                                                           the confused, weary look
and I wonder if they know which stop to get off
or if they've considered
                                       waiting til the last one and seeing where that will take them.
There was a man in a dark blue cardigan and a beige plaid scarf
sleeping the whole way through and I thought
I'm happy for you, you're content. But I could never love you
the way I loved the man
                                         who spent the ride staring at a paper in his hand
only glancing up once to catch my gaze
and smile.

Here's a half-naked picture of me
because your father is an alcoholic
and mine used to beat me until I left.
Another **** rip for my straight-A sister,
a hole through the wall for my mom,
scratches on my hips from secrets I should have kept.
Here's mascara on every pillow case I've ever owned
blood on my jeans from biting my nails
and pressing them face down to smother
the redness and keep it from my hands.
Another stab wound through my papers
because these words, they don't scream, they scratch
ever-so-slightly at the inside of my skull.
But I yank out the wrong wires and so it goes.

My mother's not an alcoholic but she's plenty of things I'd like to sing
Thanks for criticizing my skinny jeans and ****** up child hood teeth.
Here's to making my first girlfriend cry and squashing my beliefs,
a toast for being paranoid and obsessed with what you lack.
Better swallow all the car keys, mom, cause I may not come back.

And dad, thanks for slowing down the car so I could stick my head up
for knowing my mom is unstable and when I should just shut up.
Here's to holding me down and bruising my wrists and daring me to leave
because what I found and loved and lost is more than I could ever begin to believe.

So here's to my brother who got the short end of the stick
cause I was born so ******* intelligent
And here's to the buddies who left me on my own
Because we're all too lazy to pick up the ******* phone

Said I'll splatter my brains across your bedroom mirror and serial killers don't have motive,
not everyone knows enough to know what they don't,
but if this isn't the so-called "real world" I don't know what is.

So here's to death, Mr. Portuguese, zodiac signs, poor stitching and the trees (and their leaves.)
So here's to now, Mrs. Angel face, you've finally got your perfect family (and you see)
SO HERE'S TO THIS, my dear bestest friend, to laying in the tub at 2 am (til 4 am)
And here's to wrinkled toes and kissing, to grass stained jeans and living where you are (you've gotten far)

And you can try to end it all but they'll probably just hit you,
And when you go to therapy I'd like to be there with you
Because I don't think they know what they've got
No they don't know, they don't know
they don't know.

So here is you, living on the streets. I'd give it all away so we could be (why not happy.)
So here's to you, open heaven gates. Jesus knew that death awaits us all (well all fall down.)

Everyone I love is dying, everyone I love is dying (screaming) x how ever many times you feel
And I
am
dyyyyyying too.

What if a heart were made of chewing gum
and the leftover clippings from bird wings
tied together with frayed ****** seat belts
surrounding a core of fake diamond earrings.
There's a song out there written about me
and over fifty-seven poems written by me,
although not one of them encompasses the longing I have
to stare into the mirror and love myself from root to tip
like a tree that's grown on the side of a cliff.
You said extended metaphors seem to be "my thing."
I say home is a song my Vovo would sing,
"Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be."
It went on to talk about the future,
but I haven't gotten that far yet.
My discount heart
will keep pumping.

Come to think of it,
I'm not so sure
if I ever did
get the water out of my ears
that found its way in there
during a pool party
four years ago.

The sheets lay in a disarray as I attempt to make my writing real
"Like mountains," she told me, "Like the deer on those mountains gasping
for your body and his to blanket the trees during the first snow in November."
And the warmth faded over five months ago. Seven, if we're being precise.
I want my sentences to end sharply as I send you and the car over a cliff.
Put a stone on the pedal and give it a swift kick.
Stand there, wind in my hair, a smile on my lips.
Whisper while it's followed with the warmth of the breeze
singing "I'll burn it all down before everything leaves.
I'll set fire to the houses and the people and the trees."
And you. You are the flame that never burns dry,
the oxygen part of the air in the sky. You are
the water that refuses to drown me. Sung, you
are the earth under my feet.

I'd be more afraid
if I believed
you were able to be attained.

Flighty, exciting people do more for me than
coffee dates, 6 months together, here's a heart shaped necklace.
I want you to kick me when I'm down and do nothing to help
so that when I stand I have skinned knees and a scratched face
smiling up at you. Kiss me and tell me to pull myself together
because all the ribbon has been used to tie together boxes for me
that contain coal, cat litter, razor blades and ****.
All the tape in our house has been used to keep my mouth shut
forcing me to tear it off and scream
for you to kick me down again
and have me stand on my own.

In March, I'd like to call you
and calmly speak into the phone,
asking, "Have you been my rapids
while all this time
I have been a stick of gum?"
My flavor shocking your tongue
wrapper strewn
on the sidewalk.
Just an hour later, you stuck me
to a telephone pole,
and continued on with your day.

Several times, I spoke to you and said that your arms are my home.
The eviction notice came shortly after, coffee stained and stapled to my forehead.
My house still stands and I have a warm bed to sleep in,
so isn't it lovely how I can build a new home in my head?
I tried this summer to find the meaning of what that should be
and happened across your outstretched arms
only seeing in hindsight that I had pried them open.
You were meant to be a kind word, never soft skin.
Sitting at the bottom of a snowy hill,
yelling to the top
I realized home is where I've been heading.

Sometimes I turn it into a game to see how many boys will promise to teach me how to swim, since my swimming lessons never stuck and I never bothered to learn when I grew enough to touch the bottom of my aunt's pool with my tippy-toes. Sometimes I like to count on my hands how many times I've been told that I'd be taken ice-skating in the winter and that, because my body is like a ballerina's and I can't dance, maybe I can skate and be brilliant at it. I've never seen a panda bear in real life, although we had made plans to go to the zoo over the summer. Skinny dipping is still only a silly idea to me since the water was "too cold" and "we might get caught." The movie Pulp Fiction was skipped for ***. So was the trip to the mall, playing video games, talking. My sister taught me how to ride a bike. I want to thank her.

What you say consists of
fifty percent the sound of your voice
and fifty percent the words.
Why is "dreamed" a word
but "nightmared" isn't?
When you have cancer, I don't dream,
I suffer with you
because however unfortunate it may be
your heart is tied to my hip
like a hand bag
that I keep nothing in
except a lighter and
a gum wrapper that you took the gum out of.

I want to write this for a future lover
if there ever is one:
You have the universe in your eyes, dear,
and the ocean is in mine.
They'll collide miles above us
so the explosion doesn't blind.
When you're introduced to my parents,
shake my father's hand and say
I know your hands caused harm
but I'll love your daughter all the same.
Her bruises are a ticking clock
until they fade away,
her voice is now my life's alarm
to keep sadness at bay.

This is the way the earth curves
while gravity keeps you away from me.
I'm in Chicago, you're in Shanghai
with not even a minute to say goodbye.  

And this is the way the world turns
as I love you and he loves her
in running shoes and perfect hair.
I couldn't be here and you weren't there.

This is the way the ground shakes
with tiny quivers then giant quakes.
It splits up the land in smaller bits
as I lay here and my chest aches.

And this is how we fall apart
with promises and beating hearts.
I laid you down to go to sleep
but you did not even dream of me.

This is the meaning of life itself
to learn, forget and repeat the pattern.
This is why I love you so
with breaking bones and blood all splattered.

And this is why I can't let go
no matter the cutting and breaking of ropes.
My body stays tangled miles above
and the life within stays filled with hope.

This is my breath upon your face
as we slept inside the summer air
This is everything I've given you
to lose a love yet still think it true.

We're both tired, I'm sure.
So when I receive the message that says
so goodnight, seafarer, who lives
where the ocean meets the sky
forever
I'll respond with
goodnight, sleep well,
you're beautiful.

If my heart were made of blown glass
and if someone were holding it and carelessly tripped up the stairs
I would collect all the shattered bits in a dust pan
and be sure that the ones that resembled you
stayed in the corner away from the others.
Then I would rebuild
and place all of your bits
right in the center.

I love you because
you are written,
not typed.

Each word I write leaves something behind.
Every time I part my lips to speak about your name
my body goes limp and my brain won't work the same.
It's like a slug on a journey to the top of a rock
with salt pouring down to make him burn up.
Leaving a trail of slime more quickly as I burn you
through my jacket. Promise me your memories aren't skewed.
My breath on your face was as real as it gets.
With everything I put in, I come up third to last.
It all goes away one days and hits me harder the next.
Every time it fades I'm more okay. But when the missing comes back it tears through my chest.
I should let go like the wind blows the snow but I can't and you know
the breath on your face was more real than the place I call home.

To this day I picture you by my dresser standing pale without a stitch of clothing;
when things get tough I want you there. When things are simple, I only want myself.
Just a few months ago, I imagined I was leaning down to reach into the mini fridge
to grab you a snack while you sat on my bed and told stories of how my hair fell behind my back,
wrote poetry on my pillow case with every crease caused by your restless head.
Over summer I drew for you even though I hadn't held your hand in years and years.
On some of those pages was blood from nervous picking at my fingernails and tears
from being home sick for a home I hadn't known since before tenth grade, when we met.
The halloween before last, I'd imagine you calling me to tell me you thought I was beautiful.
Say, come outside, sweetheart, I've got a surprise. Immediately there'd be life growing in my eyes-
but you wouldn't call and I wouldn't open the door. I'd stay in bed awake and hurt my heart with more
or less words from your messages and silent text.
We yearned for each other but we agreed to not make a mess of this.
We have potential, but not just yet.
Last summer I saw you, spent the night in a tent.
You told me I was your best friend and two months later, left.
Last summer I told you, this would be more than a lesson.
Your voice made my knees weak and your words kept me sane.
You're a blessing without god; and I love you all the same.

I apologized to someone for dumping them three years ago
and thanked someone else for admitting their faults and thinning their pride.
Realized the faces I make during *** don't coincide with how I'm feeling
and noticed letting go doesn't always mean that love is fleeting.
Three people are tugging at my eardrums. Someone gave me a forehead kiss.
Two people told me today that I am their favourite person to laugh with.
One person told me that the ocean is in my eyes in response to the universe in hers.
I want to be more eloquent with words and the way I walk.
I want to put my top lip between someone else's before the bottom.
Have them look into me with a sword and proclaim,
"it's all there. Nothing was missing. Look, it's hiding in the corners."
Pull tweezers out of your pocket and reach all the way back to my spine,
pull out my DNA and everything else that's mine.
I never gave it away, I compressed it, kept it in shadow on a shelf.
I belong wholly to myself.

Three years with the palms of my hands still struggling to feel all of your skin-
but like when a microphone gets too close to speakers, the sound is unbearable.
Twelve days I went without trying to figure out how you are.
Your friend says you're a roller coaster but I find you to be more of a circle, the ring of a key chain.
I used to believe that there was a man who lived alone in a shack
by my grandparent's home, and that the man who drove the bus to take me there
has a pet alligator who lived in his bath.
The shack was for tools, the man had a house, and Tom didn't own an alligator.
I used to think my shivering in the middle of the night would be enough to shake those screws
from my head and wake you up from the lack of screeching.
We both fought to be the speaker. While I was growing weaker
I became the microphone.
And when I refused to accept  your words into the hallows of myself
you picked up your voice and headed west
without so much as a "check check check."

It's like the kids on the white house lawn sticking flowers in guns.
Only this time, someone takes a swing for their friend
screams for their sister, brother, mother
and I can't bother to try to hold this back again without your arms keeping me in.
You want me to break through-
when it fades, it comes back stronger.
You hold every particle of oxygen between the gaps of your teeth
keeping me on the edge of my seat because I can't breathe until you speak.
Us verses the world or you against me,
something needs to break so we can rebuild it.
A rock isn't eternal, it erodes and the roads in every city
have heard someone cry at least once in their lonely lives.
Destroy the foundation, build up from the bottom.
Stick roses in guns and worship each other.
That's enough.

Sometimes I think I'd prefer an addiction to rain.
****** will either **** me or make everyone feel sorry for me
or bring me praise when I recover. That's a better life than constant
disappointment and showering others with the same. What goes around
comes back around so why aren't I happy? He said I saved his life, I asked when
and where is my angel to take me away and love my addiction to the rain and the city?
Isn't it a pity? How long have you felt this way? That there's a hollowing in your chest that
just won't go away. And are you all the way empty, or just evaporated slightly? I wish I was able
to aide you in the fight to fill yourself back up; it's something I'm working on myself, you know.
Or did you? I apologize too often when I really don't mean it. Say I love you before I can
look into the person's eyes. My skin is so thick I can't feel your heart beating as I lay
directly, face to face, nose to nose, breath mixing, toes crumpled-
I can't hear it.

When I've flown twenty-five minutes away from here, it is safe to thaw.
To chip off every icicle and let the glassy bits fall.
I'll warm from within and be as a nest
a place for those to strengthen their wings before they return to the world
but I think I'd prefer to stay here with a sign that says
"I will give you one dollar to tell me a secret;
pay you two for you to listen to mine."
Sit at the front of a church to proclaim that
"I listen more closely than god ever will and my answers come more swiftly,
as they do not need to travel all the way from heaven,
due to the fact that they have originated on Earth."
My mother tells me to stick to my faith and then yells
about my grades. I don't love god but god she loves success.
I want to ask her, on a sticky note, and leave it in her lunch bag
saying, "Mommy, what does god love more: money, or someone with worth?"
She'd answer in an email three days later
saying, "Be happy. Be yourself. But believe in god and get a well-paying job.
That is who you are
and that is what it means
to be happy."

I have discovered
the difference between
you and him;
I cannot write poetry about him
that includes bones and bruises,
breath and breaking,
fingertips and fire,
struggle and shouts.
All I can say is
he snores
when he sleeps next to me
while I lay awake
and his body is a heater.
He is comfortable.
I prefer the rapids.

I am more nostalgic for the roughness of your hands than
Christmas morning in a time when I still believed in Santa Claus.
The sound of your voice when you first wake up holds a bigger place in my heart
than Jesus in a manger when I was in 2nd grade,
signing in the choir as an angel and praying like hell that I'd get into heaven when I died.
And the color of your eyes mean more to me than
the authentic reindeer string and jingle bells I used to show off.
I want to show off your thoughts
to the world and scream "This is the greatest gift of all."
God didn't lift a finger to help me get it
and I didn't lift a hand to stop from losing it
again. I look at the music you listen to every day
more often than I think of taking naps at my Vovo's house while she made bread.
I need some holiday cleaning of my soul;
to kick you out, I'll burn a hole
straight through the walls of my flesh.
And I owe you this much because you were not once second best.
I need more room to love someone who loves without waiting
instead of breaking my jaw and constantly hating
the world. I'll make it better by kissing the wounds of those
who want more than anything, when they realize they've died,
to live.

There are pins and needles in my feet made of guilt and cheap *****,
bits of me are missing left in kisses and paint
                                            everything else I put my heart into
too early and yanked it right back out
too quickly. I'd make promises like icicles pressed hard to my tongue
as if it wouldn't melt. The tissues in my dorm were used up
before forget-me-not's toppled  to the floor,
the dirt strewn on my slippers that I just threw out
and left the mess there for weeks
stayed in bed above it all,
acupuncture can't cure this ache. Pumping my stomach can't empty
what is already empty. It's like a quarter on a string placed in a vending machine.
I get what I want and leave
with exactly what I came with
and more. But on rare occasions the coin is left on the floor.
I don't bother to pick it up because maybe it belongs there,
dancing among dust bunnies and clumps of hair.
There are needles underneath the first layer of skin on my fingertips
and they don't hurt. It's a feeling of uneasiness like a knot
in the chain of my necklace. I'll work it out later.
Pro-cras-tin-ation. You are the crab on an aluminum can, a moon lit with moths
a ninety year old man who burnt down his house from lighting too many candles.
Take it all in
                      for yourself.
It's not selfish, it's right. Because the sun burns the top of my head
even when my body is cold. Without you in my presence, my own hand I will hold
to cross the street.
Don't count your blessings until your hand is around their necks
so they have no way to escape without suffocation.

Color me green like my aura
and the needles of the Christmas tree.
Begged, color me free like the forest
and the algae beneath the sea.
Color me blue like the waves up above
and the sky even higher than that.
Pleaded, color me new like the bird's feathers
and the widened eyes of a cat.
Color me pink like a winter nose,
the blanket I clung to as a child.
Yelled color me sinking within myself
when your bloodshot eyes go wild.
Color me black like the darkening night
or the air cupped between my hands.
Screamed color me back into your arms
and I promise to stop my demands.
Color me red like the blood 'neath my skin,
like a rose plucked fresh from a plant.
Sighed, color me dead like a graveyard
as the final word spoken is "can't."
And color me yellow like sunshine
and the rising of christ from his tomb.
Spoke, color me mellow like dreaming
as I look towards my healing wounds.
Color me indigo, color me teal
color my sins. Not forgiven- still healed.
Color me ancient and reborn once more,
color me brighter since I'm still in this world.

Some things I should stop doing include
reading about your zodiac sign
checking if you're online
wondering about your scent.
The infamous "something-missing" won't shake
from my spine ever, it ran back quickly
when I let what was mine slip.
I should stop writing you poems although a wise boy once said
if you keep writing, maybe he'll leave your head.
And you'll get sick of his name in every word, every keystroke
I agreed with more poems but asked, what if I won't?
What if you bloom like cherry blossoms in the cracks of my bones,
like the watermelon seeds I'd spit outside my grandparents' home
that turned into a garden of green rounded fruit.
Asked, what if it isn't
that easy to shake you?
Some things I should stop doing
but I know that I won't
include
thinking of me as a sailor
and you as a boat.