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.

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.

Chances are
you will not be anyone else's first kiss ever again,
if ever at all.
Anyone else's first love.
Being eighteen
you must have seen
promises scrawled on a picnic table
"4ever & always"
Chances are that ended at about two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon,
when the perfect boy for you
decided to move
five hours away for school,
and you couldn't take the missing him.
Forever ended.
I was twelve in my neighbor's basement
playing hide-and-go-seek.
I kissed first because I'm tired
of waiting, always have been
the one to leave my eyes open
just a bit.
You'll be perfectly okay when someone who has loved
someone before you
loves you now.

I remember when you told me my body would rot,
and I agreed. I remember when you told me I am
nothing. I agreed, and said it back. You are nothing
to anyone else but me. I will not leave. You first,
please. And you agreed. God my feet were bare
and you loved me, last. Early to bed, five A.M.
I didn't sleep. I remember when I told you
we have lived before. And will live again.
And you replied, we are nothing. And I said no,
you are nothing to anyone else, you are nothing now
to me. I want to help you bleed, but you scab over
too quickly. I will not agree. I am more to me
than I am to you.

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.

Four letters, five. You're just like my child and I'll try my hardest to feed you wisdom
if you promise
not to spit it back up.
Kisses don't make the entire world better
but if it fixes your head, I'll kiss more.
I've never gotten stanzas quite
right
because sometimes I spend too long in one place and other times I
only spend the night.
You're unstable like the twin towers and I know that's harsh,
but your illnesses are tearing you apart
like planes, do you wonder who the people were and their
families? Their notebooks filled with words, little spots of blood from picking at their nails?
That's how mine are. Sometimes coffee stains, once in a while a tear
through the page from pressing down on my pen too hard. This is what a keyboard is for-
I don't need blood on my pages, but words mean more. Or do they?
I question that daily through texts and tea on my cell phone,
notebooks dusty under my feet with a leather strand braided to make it look neat
and spiritual. You're my baby.
I'll feed you love if you promise
not to spit it back up.

Let's take a recording of your heart beat
incorporate the cardiac sounds
into a song,
send them on their way with nothing missing
something left behind.
Quiver and shake for nineteen days
stop short.
The world asked for a recording of your heart beat
to feel something alive and true.
Pass the green beans, tie your shoe
but it will never be that a head is laid on someone's chest
stillness in the room and a simple beat
something rhythmic to tap your feet
to. Quiet in the house, let's remember
there are people in need,
and people right here
who need us.
There are enough empty houses to give every homeless person four,
enough empty words to take them all back.
We're concerned with the cancerous children,
worried about the stray dogs and cry over
those without enough to eat. Food for the soul
is more rare than carrots these days. Take my hand and listen,
I'm right here and always have been.
Stop trying to find the missing girl three states over
and begin to search for yourself.

Maybe tomorrow
or the next day
     the next?
Possibly I'll find a loophole
to avoid getting this fixed.
And next week I'll crumble
from neglecting my head,
next year there is a chance
that I'll be bled out and dead.
Hell, an hour from now
a plane might fall
dive into my building.
I wouldn't mind if a disaster
accidentally killed me.
Tomorrow or the next day
or the next day or the next.
I'll never get it done, I know,
I'll never be my best.

It was the tears in my eyes that kept my vision blurred
so I laid my face down on a pillow and let it go, breathed
in through my nose, through the clean cotton, leaving black stains.
Did not replace my eyeliner, replaced my energy
with laughter
open windows
chubby fingers kissed constantly
laughter. I can take myself seriously
to the edge, but he can bring me back
down to earth. He can bring me back
to bubble gum lollipops and corny jokes.
Let me cry to you again, look up and laugh.
I'm sitting on the entire globe,
soaking up the oceans with my sleeves
forest trees stabbing holes in me
all the mountains raising me high enough
to look up,
thinking my god it's beautiful
that I didn't need to believe in god
to be happy again.
I just needed to believe I could be happy.

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.

I love you because
you are written,
not typed.

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.

Indecision holds my passion;
I love hard from loving rarely.
**** out the marrow of your bones
while the flesh of my wrist
has barely been kissed
by anyone else.
Wanting to devour you
starved for something true,
like icicles so cold the heat pulses through
turning the tops of my hands uneven and red
I love like roadkill
sticky and dead.
Black rubber tired marks over the head
of an animal begging to leave or be left.
If the timings not right, those leaving are left
and the ones who hold on are swept away on tides
on the rain water missed
by gutter grates, reaching out
empty and dried.
Depending on a single element results in no fire
no breath or no way to walk,
no source of life.
If the timing's not right
those leaving are left
and not for a second did I anticipate death.

Maybe when it crumbles
there will be something better underneath.
For some reason unbeknownst to me
every time I think of the future
a lion is there inside my skull
roaring all orange and tangled up
stronger than anything I've known before.
It is hidden under the building,
the cities painted with reds and blues
faded into whites.
Blood, honor, purity.
We all wonder who
built this city with a lion
underneath.

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.

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

Stuck to my computer screen like
dry ice
complaining about plane rides
bus seats warmed
by the people there before.
I mean to wonder why they went where they went to
but I don't mind much anymore.
Ask questions constantly and plan our escape
but it will never happen
your mindsets always flake
off and away we go just for the night
through poorly written paragraphs and
promises of flight.
Surrounded by "love love love"
it's all words though, that's not enough
to keep me going, stay on my feet,
gain the energy to take a running leap
Let me leave here and never return.
Every
everything I knew turned out to be unsure.

I like it when you **** with my head
and hope we never speak again.
Call me up, please, break me down
tear me apart,
bruise my bones and body.
I feel sick to my stomach
feed me more poison in the chicken soup.
Your eyes were warm once, I don't remember
when. You fed me chicken soup you
said, "I will keep you safe always."
And my throat warmed from the broth,
and I smiled as the poison was swallowed.

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.

I have an unending need for people,
to feel flesh against flesh against sheets.
My blood pumps so forcibly, shaking my bones,
I have an unceasing need to find those I must meet.

Though the look in my eyes has grown weary,
and the feelings I have are short-lived.
Though I've never seen anything clearly,
and I've hardly felt more than a kid.
Though I've lived many lives before this one,
and none of them have reached their goal.
Not one of these facts can discourage
my constant search for shelter from the cold.

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.

Is that what you're into,
saving girls from themselves?
So you could watch the bubbled flesh
show up less and less
often?
Well I have a roar now,
my whimper has ceased.
No need for working to try and save me.
I've been through worse bleeding
through other peoples' wounds,
my lover's wounds,
like an addiction.
Yours is to use a girl at her weakest
teach her to be strong, all the while
tearing her up due to friction
in your words.
I've learned some thing new:
You are not the sky. Not the earth, nor the sea,
you are not a canyon or anything grand to me.
You are not a drawing on a napkin made at lunch,
you are not a beetle, not the feeling in my gut.
You will not be the one she or I are searching for.
You're a user, an abuser, and you can never be much more.
I am not sorry, cannot be
if you want truth, please ask me.
I'd leave the bear on your doorstep
if I had gasoline
and with fingers crossed I'd wish so hard
it'd burn your heart down.

I woke up this morning, thinking my god I've gotten older.
The edges of my dream, knawed at the corners of my eyes
go back to sleep.
Happy Birthday, July.
I had ***** poured into my hands,
I drank it
for the soul purpose of not wetting the bed.
Let's go for a birthday dinner in November,
get a tattoo of a word I think of the hour before,
smoke a cigar til your lungs get sore.
"My god it is beautiful
that I can still believe in god,
if I choose to."

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.

Dancing without music
means more to me than ***.
Avoided it completely
when there appeared a next.
Although the universe would never
have the ability to make
another you
or I
if it tried billions and billions of times.
I will save dancing for you,
                  black coffee, too,
                  everything that I once knew
          keep the songs we listened to
together sacred.
But let the other inside my body.
Never my mind,
never my mind.
If it were opened he would find
****** ****** suicide
always low and never high,
smoke has choked my lungs, they're dry.
Every breath becomes a sigh.
Every word I speak- a lie.
Nothing lives above the sky,
there is no white-bearded guy,
light is in-creas-ing-ly shy.
These thoughts belong to me, they're mine.
You were too, and then we quit.
Gave up, went deaf and mute and this
is you, at the tops of buildings now.
Your gun aimed at my head and, wow,
I wouldn't blame a single cell
inside your body
for pulling the trigger.

I have residue in my blood of every lover I've ever had,
pulsing through my veins,
making my head swell,
making my legs shake.
You call me Siddhartha
Siddhartha Gautama
I am The Buddha, you say.
Understanding everything is connected.
At total peace, gone to pieces as
my heart pumps blood so hard my legs shake to the beat.
Om above my bed,
every of the seven chakras jumbled because
I have trouble letting go.
More often,
I have trouble holding on.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You are not the ocean because I do not know that well,
you are not a meadow nor a stroll around the park.
None of these things mean much to me, although
they're beautiful in and of themselves.
You are the scent of incense that used to attack my nose,
eventually I craved it, now the smoke in my room grows.
You are laying on my back in the middle of the road
a kickball flying over me, no worries in the world.
You are a caterpillar making it's way across the street,
climbing onto my open palm so that we may personally meet.
Suction cup feet, pipe in it's mouth a formal way of greeting me.
You tickle my taste buds like peta chips,
you're like sleeping through Christmas morning
(something I could never miss
on purpose,
but if I'm tired enough, I might accidentally oversleep.)
You are grass with ants on each blade
but I lay in you anyway
roll around
breathe
it in
laugh, think,
when did this begin?
When I stopped appreciating little things.
The freezing water of a pool in the shade,
baked beans and a fire place.
New York City vendors
selling handicrafts.
My town written down
tucked away with other maps.
You are
an apple all sliced up without the skin,
you are the worm inside it, too.
Where did this begin?
You are a tree,
now trace my roots,
later trace my skin.
But only when I've figured out
what's missing from within.

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.

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."

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.

I had a dream about the ocean and you
were under my bed in a lounge chair,
tongue out, care free
you said you wanted to be kissing me.
And so we did. You laughed,
not thinking about the past
your father stumbling around your kitchen
or peanut butter sandwiches. We can
do anything really, but what we will do is
stay away.
From me. I mean, stay away from you.
You're like a whirlwind and you think
you'll bring me down, too.
But if my feet are planted
firmly on the ground,
or if I'm under the earth,
a whirlwind is better than the settling of dirt.
Lift me up and slam me down
I want me feet high
high off the ground.

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.

Sometimes I forget that people feel alive all the time.
When I am swishing the smoke of a black and mild
around my mouth til my tongue gets sore,
making rings with the smoke
that I wish could be circling
around your nose,
people feel alive.
This hollow in my chest is heavier than anything that once filled it.
And so I inhale
and take pleasure in the feeling of being punched in the lungs,
destroying the breath that was once used to say "I love you."
And I take pleasure in destroying my body
by the boy who is fully convinced he loves me because
I told him how my father hit me and how I always feel numb.
I take pleasure in destroying my mind
by sleeping all day and smoking all night,
because this is the only thing that allows me
to take pleasure in destruction.
I take pleasure in the thought
of building myself
all back up
for you.

I want you to know I didn't mind the cold
of the tiles, sliding under the bathroom stall door,
holding your hair back and you laughed
when I did. Thank you, for listening
and talking even more. For raising your voice
but not slamming doors. Thank you for being
exactly who you are. We're lost, that's okay,
let's go downtown to a bar. No, thank you,
for being there when I threw up, too.
Regurgitate my feelings for every person new
and thank you for not dying, for crying to your mom.
I wish I had the courage to stop singing the psalms
at church earlier than this. I should have believed in myself,
the way you believe in me. I want you to know I see
the bits of you that you dislike, I'll love them all the same.
And thank you, too, for making sure I don't hold all the blame,
for taking some of the weight
off my shoulders. For being there
when I do things to build myself back up.
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
It will never be said enough.

Last night there were buses in my head,
a plaque above the door that said
"This will go anywhere for
(insert names here.)"
And I woke up in bed next to
not you.
Whoever it was
was not you.
My eyes stayed glued shut
from sleep tears and make-up,
giving me time to think this through.
If I traveled the country, if,
will I travel it with you?
Because anyone is willing to help
if you allow them to.

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.

You've been waiting in my backyard for a train since last September
and I haven't gotten anything to feed you but some crackers.
Methadone makes your father stumble, but what if he didn't take it?
I've never tripped on acid or shrooms. I fell down my basement
stairs, hit one by one. Onto the concrete and I only cried because it startled me.
There is an entire forest back there with horses and movie seats
both can take you somewhere. If the train never shows, I'll go too.
Hold my hands, they're bare, and raw are my feelings for you.
Raw is the piercing in my nose, the ground outside has frozen
I'll take nearly any challenge if it means an opportunity to know him
better than I know myself. That isn't really difficult since the way I look
into my full-length mirror only shows the surface. Never every nook
or crevice of my body, you viewed all of me cold in a shack.
I know what's there because I've never faced away, never been given the chance to turn back.

I let my hands slip
from your shoulder blades
only a few seconds after your
arms had dropped to your sides.
Feel better, have a good night
but you can't cry to me anymore
you said it with your bloodshot eyes
the forcefulness of your voice proclaiming
that you've loved her for longer than anyone else.
I stood there, biting my lip thinking
does it really matter how long
you've loved someone for
or is it all based on how
hard you fight, the
passion in your
words and the
taste of your lover
printed all over your skin.
Two years of dim comfort cannot
combat two months of struggle, constant
kicking down of walls and kisses with smoke
in between. Letters miles long with the word "never"
attached to "stop" connected with "loving you."
Mattresses with sheets and easy sleep won't
compare to uncertainty of where to rest
my head, being more concerned with
the state of yours and your self
worth. Two months of loving
passionately does not even
need to fight against
two years of rest.
It always wins.

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.

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.

I spent my past few days sleeping through daylight
waking only to taste the raindrops collected on the outside of my window,
begging the sky to feed me more and the moon to lay me back to sleep.
Sweet dreams as pristine as snow grazed my cheek
screaming softly for me to embrace the weak and the months ahead
enveloping me in cool air, praying with cloudy hands that I'd stay awake, get out of bed.
But I looked to the stars and said please, I want to wake in the night
stay alone with my pen and my dusty floor, it's only right for
sheets to stay chilled without our bodies atop them
my heart lies somewhere else with a ferris wheel operator at the traveling carnival
bearded women and great lions that aren't really tame, only for a piece of steak.
But that's where I want to be- a traveling sales man. Buy my advice and keep me
close in your heart with each passing home. I'll sell you away and sail to the moon
with my traveling circus and on my name signed
wrote "Things do get better, it's all in your mind."
Award winning books with this written on each page
my friends and my lovers said it wasn't me that they'd need,
it was themselves. I agreed. It's myself that I want and myself that I hold dear,
I've gained enough courage to say this without a sneer. It's yourself you've got for good
with others passing daily. Sometimes stay for years, but you shed them like dead skin cells
and that's okay. Because the beauty underneath is worth all the rage
from losing a lover, fighting a friend,
missing a mother from letters unsent, unopened. Tied to balloons to get to her final resting place.
I'm rambling rambling lions tigers bears,
trees have been piling upon my back for years
but they're resettled themselves to build a home.
Everything I've collected makes sure I'm not alone.
Every memory and scar, each piercing word
ties me closer to myself and no one else.
"Things do get better, it's all in your head."
I wrote this on a book, I swore it. If it were a lie, I'd be dead.

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

There is nothing
left in my lungs
lingering on taste buds at the tip of my tongue  
underneath fingernails, toenails alike
caught between follicles skin cells or pores
nothing that’s hidden
not anymore
no fragments of letters or commas or ink
no residue, evidence that I could once think.
From the backs of my knees right up to my chest
there is nothing
no evidence
not a single bit left

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."