is celebrated with a call through tin can phones
connected by yarn-                           to us. He sends warm wishes and warnings, slurred together as                spirits replace blood. Our kiss was nine rings around the tin can ago,      under a streetlamp where you've unveiled a pool of               Acacias and shamrocks.

We are crafted of cement chips from the streets we once sauntered.
We grasp for one another's hands on playground equipment,
stomachs full of one-dollar cinnamon rolls from Jewel-Osco,
cowering from the sun like children in a blanket fort.

we are safe                 when we are together              we are invincible

There will always be splinters of us. My name
is spelled out where the light meets the street  –
a balmy, January sunset           birthing,
                                                                ­      crawling to a dry.

Dear You,

     I hope your day is wonderful. I want all of your days to be wonderful. I want you to wake up and smell roses, or dance in the rain, or be able to look in the mirror and just smile. I want you to know that someday you will make someone so incredibly happy, and that you'll be their whole world. I want you to know that you are incredible. You're perfectly imperfect. You're so special.

     I want you to know that you're my happiness. And I know that we are just friends and that I shouldn't feel the way that I feel because you couldn't feel the way that I feel and it isn't fair for me to even think that we could be anything other than friends, but I think about you all the time. I dream about you every night. You're the first thought when I wake up in the morning, and you're the my final prayer every evening.

     I want you to know that I am completely aware that this could never be anything at all. You aren't interested, and it has nothing to do with me but with my gender. No matter how many drunken nights you say otherwise, you will wake up sober and only want a woman. And I want you to want me all the time.

     I want you to know that I'm okay with that, because there is absolutely nothing else I can do. I can't change who I am to please you, and I would never want to anyway. I want you for who you are, and I want you all  the time.

     I want you to know that I would love you unconditionally, that I would give the world to you, all wrapped in a little bow if it would make you smile- God, I love your smile.

    I want you to know that in this whole wide world there are 7 billion people, and each and every individual is beautiful in their own unique way. In this world there are 7 billion different faces with different personalities, all of which will fall in love, smile, fall out of love, hurt, and fall in love with a different person all over again.

     I want you to know that within those 7 billion people there is only one you, and you are perfectly imperfect. You are the only person I want. I could spend the rest of my days looking at your face and that would be okay. I don't need an incredible life with fame and fortune, because having you would be the most fortunate thing.

     And I want you to know that even though you'll never want me, you are all I've ever wanted.

there are no words
for the way my ski
n electrifies when y
our smoke wraps ar
ound our bodies and
sends shivers down m
y spine because you a
re trickling your finge
rs down my ribs and s
ometimes i can not hel
p but think about how
blood felt trickling dow
n my wrists and by the
time you came around
i was so far gone that i
'm more than surprised
about how someone wh
ose smile is always six m
iles wide could love some
one who wants to be bur
ied six feet under and if i
lost the chance to tell you
that i love you, then i don
;t know where i would be
and if i make my bed in a
grave before you do i hop
e you never pick up the bo
ttle again and try to find s
olace because we both kno
w that anesthetics are neve
r any different from poison
s and if your nerve endings
remember my touch and y
our breath gets short but h
eavy when you think you j
ust got a text from me but
you remember that the te
xt will never come; i want y
ou to know that i love yo
u and that you can make it
through anything and if yo
u do just one thing in my r
emembrance then i want y
ou to never ******* drink
my taste away because no
matter how strong you se
em i still think that my p
assing will make you a lit
tle uneasy and a little diff
erent maybe and i wonde
r if you'll cry anywhere c
lose to as much as i used t
o cry on a nightly basis a
nd will you sneak out an
d walk down to the stop
sign where we exhaled a
nd inhaled smoke and we
held each other and ****
man when i laid on the as
phalt i still wished a car w
ould come speeding by e
ven though that's so ****
ed up and this isn't even a
poem it's just a ****** up
story but if you ever love
d me at all, you won't pi
ck up the bottle- you wo
n't take a shot even if it m
eans remembering the tr
igger.