I Met God This Morning.
He Was Sitting At A Bus Stop. I Sat Down Beside Him. I Was Convinced He Was Was Part Of Some Devine Intervention, Thinking If He Could Find Silence So Close To The Street, He'd Finally Be Able To Say He'd Seen A Miracle.

But I Wasn't So Sure i Had Seen Anything  Because I Wasn't Raised On A Diet Of Bread And Wine, Oh Excuse Me, Body And Blood, Wasn't Cannibalized By The Holy Spirt. Now Don't Get Me Wrong, I'm Not The Sanctimonious Sacrilegious Type. But I've Placed My Hand,  To Enough HeartBeats To Know We're Placed Here For A Reason.

And Then I Met Him Again, In A Convenience Store On The Corner Of Locust. He Kissed The Palm Of My Hand, And Told Me To Pray More Often.

But I Wasn't Prone To Midnight Awakenings, My Tongue Didn't Speak The Same Language The Almighty Savior Did. Everyone Called Him Father, But I Was Told We Were Better Off Without Daddy Around. Hadn't Learned The Right Hymns, My Lungs Not Strong Enough To Hold A Breath Deep Enough For The Two Of Us.

And Then I Saw Him Again. Working A 100 Hour Week, On No Sleep. This Time He Was A Single Mother Of Three, Whose Hands Had Stitched More Wounds Then They Could Care To Count. They Didn't Call It An Emergency Room, For Nothing. Two Hundred Thousand Dollars In Debt Over School Loans, And Still Had The Capacity To Smile. Thats How I Knew It Was Him.

I Wasn't Baptized In Anything Except For Maybe Hell Fire And Brimstone, Seven Shades Of Sin, Out Of Wedlock, With No Shot Gun Wedding Procession. I Didn't Have A Pastor To Preach Me Into Submission. Wasn't Thumbing Any Bibles, No Prequel To My Older Than New Testament. They Called It Faith, But I Wasn't Prepared To Walk Down Any Pitch Black Hallways In Hopes Of A Light Switch.

And Then We, He And I, Crossed Paths, For What Seemed Like Should Have Been The Last Time, He Was Quiet And Collected This Time. Made Weak From His Seventh Round Of Chemotherapy. His Body Was Decaying Around Him. His Spirt Was Practically Screaming To Be Let Out Of The Cage That Was His Ribs. He Passed Me A Note, & All It Said Was “I'll Remember You.”

No One Ever Fed Me A Concoction Of Deity, And Diet.  Religion Wasn't A Silver Spoon In My Mouth. Afterlife Sounded Like A Bad Daytime Soap Opera.

But I Know The Creator. She Left Hearts On Notes In New York City Subway Stations. She Tattooed Your Name Onto The Bottom Of Her Foot, So Wherever They Took Her, You'd Be There Too. She Wore Her Heart On Her Sleeve, And Thats Why She Forgot It In So Many Places. She Was Obsessed With Shorelines, And Sunshine. And Shes Convinced We're All Natural Disasters, Happening Naturally, Falling Into Each Other, Against One Another, Like Dry Lightening Storms, Recklessly Stupid, And Always Too Young.

I Know God.

He Was Holding The Umbrella, And Told Me That No One Can Tell The Difference Between Tears And Rain Drops Anyway. He Was There The Day I Almost Drowned, He Pulled Me Out Of The Lake, And Held My Hand Until My Mother Came.

So Maybe I Wasn't The Church Pew Type, Hadn't Spent Hours At Sunday Service, Passing Around Empty Collection Plates, While Plates Else Where In The World Sat Empty. Didn't Know Scripture Like The Back Of My Hand, Two Freckles, Like Constellations, And Five Knuckles Hungry To Be Broken,

But I Know God.
I Know Him Like An Old Friend.  
He Kisses  My Forehead, When The Monsters Inside The Contours Of My Skull Got Too Loud.
He Holds My Skeleton, In The Early Hours Of The Morning, When I Was Desperate To Leave It Behind.

I Think Some People Might Have Called All Of These A Religious Experience.

But All I Know Is He Was There When I Was Born.
In The Room.
And I Swear His Voice Was The First One I Heard.

I'm Stripping Myself Bare For This One. Every Layer That I Meant To Impress, Down To My Bones. The Collection I've Come To Keep Is Now Not My Own.

I Am Now Pages.
Letters.
Ink.
Paper.
Charcoal.
And Pencil Lead.

This Is About What It Means To Give Up,
To Give In,
To Be Empty,
To Be Lonely,
To Be Fragile,
And Broken.

Every Story A Letter Carved In Your Skin, Something To Take With You, The Lyrics You Wrote Down On Bar Napkins, Book Quotes In The Margins Of Notebook Assignments, Love Letters Folded Into Hearts And Stashed Behind Your Eyelids,

It Isn't Just One Story, Its Every Single One Of Them.

Its Why Daddy Is Never Coming Back, And Why We Run Ourselves Bleeding Into A Tissue Paper'd Sky, Wondering When We'll Hit Home.

Chapter 103, Third Paragraph, Sentence 4

She Uses Rusted Razor Blades To Part The Lines Of Her Skin, Open Up Her Veins, Call It A Donation, But It Wasn't For The Collection Plate On Sunday. She Was Trying To Trace Deep Enough Into Herself, To The Point Where She Could Differentiate Between The Surface, And What Part Of Her Makes Her Human.

She Never Got An Answer.

Chapter 1, First Paragraph, Sentence 3

He Can't Pull His Body Out Of Bed In The Morning. No Matter How Many Hours He Sleeps, Its Never Enough. He's Spent Too Many Hours Connecting The Constellation Patterns In The Ceiling Above His Bed, Now He Can't Remember What The Real Stars Look Like, And He's Not Sure We Wants To Any More. Every Morning It's Like Gravity Is Working A Double Shift Making It Next To Impossible To Lift Himself Off The Mattress, He's Tired Of All This Pillow Talk, His Vocal Cords, Folded Line Over Line, And Left Out To Dry.

Hes Always So Tired.

Chapter 214, Last Paragraph, Last Sentence,

She's Bent Over Porcelain Coffins, Emptying Herself Out, Setting Her Esophagus On Fire. Someone Once Told Her Beauty Is Pain, So She's Hell Bent On Smiling Until It Hurts. Determining Her Self Worth In Calories And Pages Of Magazines Stapled Into Her Skin, She'll Only Be Happy When- She'll Only Be Happy If – She'll Only Be Happy When – It's A Never Ending List Of Self Proclaimed Requirements, And She's Never Been Good At Following Any Rules, Except For This One.

She Hates Herself.

Chapter 48, 4th Paragraph, Sentence 6

He Keeps A Bottle Of Absolute Under His Bed, And It's Why Everything Else Means Absolutely Nothing. He's An Engagement Ring Resting At The Bottom Of A Lake For One Too Many Sleepless Summers. Worthlessly Drunk On His Own Sorrow. Some Days Its The Only Thing He Thinks About, Pushing Himself Into The Only Kind Of Darkness He Can Dream In Anymore.

He Can't Remember If Its Worth It.

Chapter 17, 7th Paragraph, Sentence 2

She Can't Stop Giving Herself Away. So Many Hands To Hold Her Already Bruised Flesh, They Call Her Baby, Sweetie, Honey, Love, But None Of Them Stay Around Long Enough For Any Of Those To Stick. She's A Notch In The Bedpost, Face Down In The Mattress, And Sometimes She Doesn't Even Know Their Names. She's The Raven Haired Beauty From The Wrong Side Of The Tracks, And She's Told Herself Its Worth It, Because It's Twenty Minutes Someone's Arms Are Around Her.

She Lets Them Use Her.


This Is The End To Every Book You've Ever Read.
This Is Our Body's Last Stand To A War We've Been Fighting In Our Bones.

We're Asking Every Part Ourselves Why We're Here.

We're Running Out Into The Storm. One Made Of Words, And Weapons, And Sorry Stained Goodbyes. Paperback Regret, Prolog Pretenses, Epilog Broke Back Empathy.
  
We've Got Jaws Bared Tight. Asking  The God Our Parents Pray To, To Give Us All The Answers To All The Questions That Keep Us Awake At Night.

So Here We Are. So Here I Am, Afraid of My Shadow At Seven, Afraid Of Myself At Seventeen.

Afraid Of What I Could Do To Myself.

Afraid Of What My Fingertips Might Feel Like, Turning The Last Page.
But I Always Do, Don't I?
We Always Do, Don't We?

Because We're All Just A Bunch of Self-Destructive Mother-*******, Aren't We?

So This Is Why.
She, He, We & I Are Why.
This Story Is Why.

If Someone Ever Wrote Us into A Support Group, We'd Heal Her Wounds. Not With Bandages Or Stitches, But With Soft Words And Ribbons Around All Her Old Scars. We'd Shake The Dust Off Of His Bones, And Pull Him So Far Out Of Himself, He'd Be New Again, More Alive, More Awake Than He Had Ever Been, We'd  Tell Her She Was Pretty, Beautiful, Stunning, Cover Her in Copper And Sunlight, Tell Her She Didn't Need Anything Except The Skin She Was In, And That Would Be Enough. We'd Empty His Veins Of The Alcohol Poisoning His Blood, And Tell Him Life Is So Much Better When You Can Remember It, We'd Hold Her, How We Should, And Promise Not To Let Go, Hold Her So Tightly It Hurts, And Remind Her How To Love The Right Way.

And There Would Be That Storm. Brewing Inside All Of Us.

And We'd Go Back.

Go Back To The Pressed Flowers We Had Kept Between Encyclopedia Pages.
And We'd Feel The Thunder.
And See The Lightning.
We'd Be Held Tight In Book Jackets, And Leather Bound Binding,

And We'd Promise Each Other Not To Let Go.

My mother would have told you I came in the dead of winter, on the coldest night of the year, and hit like a storm, if she had remembered it.

But she hadn't.

Asleep for several more months before my heartbeat would wake her from her deep sleep, I was born screaming.

Overwhelmingly solitary they called us. But your voice sounded like raspberries and honey, you smelled like summertime and love, I couldn't tell the difference between the two anymore.

Our cousins in Asia tell us this kind of infatuation is unheard of, say I must be going mad. The Northern family say I need someone to keep me warm at night, and I knew it had to be you. Mother said I was a late bloomer, six years into my life until I could love you the right way, I was tired of destroying all the things I touched, with more claw then palm.

I would swim oceans for you, over the coldest currents, paw over paw until my body sand. I would eat a diet of creatures one' one thousandth my size for you, all year long if it meant making you mine. When I thought I couldn't have you, I waded, restlessly to my stone swaddled basin and slept for so long when I awoke I swore months had past.

I would shed every inch of skin, every single hair follicle, 9,677 per square inch, make myself naked, for you.

But you left. Almost as soon as you came. Like a thief in the night, far away for far too long. But you said you wern't the type to mate for life. But I've expanded my rage, a 60 mile radius around the length of my home, and I'm waiting for you.

You'll be mine again.

I Decided That I'm Going To Write A Love Poem About You.*

Something I've Been Battling With For A Long Time, Like A Empty War In My Chest.
I'm Not Sure Who Brought The Trojan Horse Into My Heart And Defiled Me From The Inside Out,

But I Know That I've Decided On The Final Solution..

Some Nuclear Weaponry To End This Once And For All.

I Had This Idea In My Head That Writing A Love Poem About You Would Somehow Make Me Less Of A Poet. Instead Two Quarters Sell-Out, One Half Wannabe, One Seventh Cop-Out, And Now You're Probably Laughing At Me Because There Is No Way That Adds Up To One Whole Of Anything.

But This Is What You've Made Me Into.

We Used To Make Fun of The Girls With Their Boyfriend's Name Tattooed Across Their Collarbones, But Now I'm Sketching Out Your Initials On The Cover Of Every One Of My Notebooks, Wishing It Was My Skin.

And When I Can't Answer The Next Question In Class Because Of You, I Can't Help But Laugh, Because Suddenly I'm The Ridiculous One Now.

And That Makes Me Love You Like I Love Concerts. Being Smashed Against Seven Hundred Screaming Bodies, To Get A Glimpse At The Heartbroken Hero Who Is Singing Just For Me. The Next Morning, Every Single Part Of My Body Is On Fire, And I'd Tell Myself It Was Somehow All Worth It.

Because You See, You're  Somehow All Worth It.

Worth Being Called Every Single Cliche I've Been Battling.

I Pledged When I Was Twelve Years Old That I Would Never Cry Over A Boy. But I've Shed More Tears Between Us Then I'm Capable Of Counting. And Even Openly In Front Of You, Which Is Something I've Never Been Very Good At.

And I've Written Apologies Letters To The Both Of Us, For Not Being Everything I Could Be.

And You've Made Me Want To Make A List Of Our Every Occurrence, July Seventh, 2010,  August 14th 7:53pm, January 19th, October 29th 3:14pm, March 10th, Like A Date Book Of Every Important Moment Because I'm Afraid I Might File Them Away In The Back Of My Mind

And Then Forget Where I Put Them.  

And By Now You've Probably Noticed That I Haven't Been Able To Stick With One Single Metaphor During This Entire Poem And I'm Several Shades Of Scarlet, Because Somehow You Make It Impossible To Be Anything Except A Mess.

And That's Coming From The Girl Who Color Coordinates Her Underwear Drawer.*

You've Also Probably Noticed That My Usual Over Emotional, Polished And Perfect Poetry Of Pretty Words Has Completely Gone Missing In This Piece. And Instead All I'm Left With Is This Awkward Imagery Of Something Much Less Honorable Then What I'm Usually Referencing.

But Somehow I'm Still Smiling.

And I've Been Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve For So Long Now That I Can't Remember What Part Of My Body It Belongs In Anymore. I've Been Listening To Your Voice On Repeat So Often That It Has Became My Soundtrack.

I've Decided To Give My Empty Parts, My Fingertips, My Shoulder Blades To You As Gifts, Make-Shift Wrapped In Newspaper, Because I Didn't Have Anything Else Left.

You Took Them As Yours
Took Me As Yours

Now I Spend Every Night Connecting The Constellations In The Spackle Patterns Of The Ceiling Above My Bed, Wondering What Stars You're Staring At.

And Suddenly This Love Poem Doesn't Feel So Terrifying Anymore.

Because You've Scared Away The Sorrow, Put Hello-Kitty Band-Aids On All My Old Scars.
You Make Me Want To Make You Chocolate Chip Pancakes In Bed And, And, Read Shakespeare For Fun!
Because If I'm Sally, Then You're Jack, Rodger To My Mimi, Princess Buttercup And Wesley, Hermione Granger And Ron Weasley, Allie And Noah..

And Now I'm Rambling.

And You're Probably Smiling Again.

What I'm Trying To Say Is That I Want You To Know That I Will Spend The Rest Of The Forever You Give Me Listening To Your Voice.

Singing In The Shower, Humming In The Back Of My Mind, Whispering It To Me Late At Night, All Those Songs Of Longing.

I'll Lay Wide Awake And Listen, Repeating It Myself How Incredibly Deep You Are.

So Deep I Could Throw Myself Into You And Drown Inside You, Before I Ever Have The Chance To Come Up For Air.

And That Aching In My Chest Would Somehow Make Me Feel Like I Was Finally Home.

I Guess She Must Have Been Starving.**
Wasn't Well Fed Enough To Keep Her Skin And Bones, Her Silk And Gold, More Than Just Skin And Bones.

Momma Said She Was Hungry For Heart Ache.
It Was The Echo Of Her Own Voice, The Empty Callouses On Her Palms And The Way She Had Written Hell Bent Across Her Knuckles, Loved By So Many She Was Worn Out, Worn Down, Like On Old Pair Of Shoes.

She Cleaned Her Plate Every Night, Her Mouth Full Of More Teeth Than Her Jaw Could Hold.
She Told Me, After Supper, She'd Find Palm Prints That Match Her Own, But She Was Always Too Tired To Go Out Looking

There Were Street Corners, And Fish Nets, She Told Me That Were Meant For Catching Men, She Always Wore Her Skin Too Tightly, Like It Didn't Fit Her Right, Like It Had Been Handed Down To Her, From An Older Sister With Broader Shoulders, And A Thousand Watt Smile, That Her Teeth Could Never Generate.


She Told Me She Had Tasted So Many Flavors.

Said That Her Tongue Could Contort, To The Taste Of Memory. The Lavender Eyelashes Who Kept Saying Sorry, The Butterscotch Fingertips That Wouldn't Look Her In The Eyes, The Honeycomb Heart Break Whose Lips Felt Like Regret, The Cherry **** Knuckles Who Painted Her Flesh Purple Under His Palms, The Cotton Candy Wrists Who Wouldn't Stop Swearing, The Elderberry Shoulder Blades That Were Always Shaking.

I Think They Called Her Man Eater.

Capable Of Unhinging Her Jaw Like A Python, Swallowing Her Subjects Whole, It Wasn't That She Was So Hungry, It Was That She Had To.

I Think Someone Printed Prey Across Her Hip Bones, Made Her Feel Like Where Ever She Was Going, She Had To Run To, Eyes Too Big, Too Bright, Too Empty For The Planes Of Her Face, She Was Use To Being Hollow, Her Stomach, Wound Tight Around What Was Left Of Her Insides.

She Had Regurgitated Every Ounce Of Herself Back Up To Them, Stripped Down, Every Layer Of Her Skin, Until She Was Naked. Bare Like The Back She Had Carried Me On.

Her Bedroom Didn't Have A Lock On The Door. I Could Find Her Bent Over Porcelain Coffins, Emptying Out The Fill She Had Eaten That Night.

Said It Never Tasted As Good The Second Time Around.

I'd Hold Her Hair, With Small Hands That We're Always Grabbing Things They Shouldn’t, And Listen To Her Body Betray Her.

She Was Cellophane And Cheap Lip Gloss, Born Screaming, Ravenous For Rejected Remembrance, I Was Always Trying To Be Enough For Her, Shoving Home Cooked Meals Under The Bathroom Door, Said Soul Food Could Save Her, Said Sunlight Could Unshackle Her, But The Lines Of Her Body, The Road Maps Behind Her Eyelids, Said She Needed More Then Empty Calories, More Than The Taste Of Her Own Sweat.

Love Wasn't A Flavor Anyone Had Ever Fed Her.

All She Knew Was An Appetizer Of Angry Words, A Dessert Of Bad Goodbyes.

In The Morning, She'd Hold The Small Hands That Were Always Grabbing Things They Shouldn't, And Tell Me “Baby Doll.”

“A Girl Has To Eat.”

They Are Lost Love Letters. Written & Sculpted, Imprinted On The Palms Of Praying Children.

They Are Hauntingly Beautiful.

They Are The Silence Of The Storm, They Are The Emptiness Of Shallow Graves.

All She Left Was “I'm Sorry” On The Bathroom Mirror In Red Lipstick, She's Said It So Many Times Her Body Is Now Bent Into A Permanent Benediction Of Regret.

He Wrote Five Drafts Of His Suicide Note Crossed Every T, Dotted Every I.

Now They Wear Self Inflicted Scars, Like Road Maps To Their Own Insanity.

It Was Her Palm Across The Diner Table At 3am. Her Skin Like Rose Petals Pressed In Submission, Smiling, Teeth Pulled Taunt Across Her Chapped Lips, Smiling, Telling Me She Hasn't Eaten In Three Days, Says The Sounds Of Her Body Eating Her Alive Helps Her Sleep At Night.

His Eyes, Angry And Blue, Told Me He Put A Down Payment On His Coffin Today. He'd Been Saving His Pennies For Five Years Now, Don't Tell Me This Wasn't Premeditated.

It Was The Way Her Body Vibrated Aching In Every Joint, Throbbing, Screaming Into Herself So Loudly Her Palms Shook. On The Way To Work In The Morning, Says Sometimes She Can Hear The Wind Whispering To Step In Front Of That Train, Says She Can Lick Her Lips And Taste Heaven.

The Way He Wore A Crooked Half Smile, Pouring GunShot After Gunshot Down His Throat. The Sting Reminded Him Of Wintertime In The Midwest, Told Me Could Feel The Tubes Clawing Their Way Down His Throat. Someday He'll Met A Heart Monitor With The Guts To Tell His Mother Sorry For Him, Because He Never Could.

She Filled Her Bathtub With Ice, She Fantasizes About The Layers Of Flesh Shes Been Suffocating In For So Long, Finally Being Numb.

The Way He Begged The Stars To Call Him Home, Closed His Eyes, As His Right Foot Craved The Gas Pedal, Screaming Through This Red Light, So He Can Finally Come Face To Face With The Angry God So Many People Pray To.

She Wanted To Trace The Lineage Of Her Family Tree Deep Into Her Veins, Up The Length Of Her Riverbed Skin, Until She Can Kiss The Underside Of Her Own Touch.

In The Early Hours Of The Morning, He Finds Himself Crawling On Bruised Hands & Scraped Knees, Cradled Against Train Tracks, He Liked The Constant Thunder In His Ribcage, The Promise Of Something So Much Bigger Than Him Dwelling Inside The Body He Has Been Calling Home.

She Wanted To Wrap The Tether Of Regret Around Her Throat, Ring Her Lungs Breathless, Tighter, Tighter, Until The Time Between The Rise And Fall Of Her Chest Felt Like Centuries.

He Stood Face To Face With A Motionless Sky, A Shade Of Grey So Empty He Could Feel It Ache Inside Of Him. It Begged Him To Step Forward, Just Inches, The Call Of The Void, Bridge Jumper, Harlequin Lost Lover, So Close, So Close.

She Held The Barrel Of Life Between Her Lips, A Fine Line Between Here And There. Shes Walking A Boundary Built In Her Blood. It Doesn't Hurt Yet. A Trigger Happy Hand, Palms Sweating, Shes Counting Down In Her Head, 3, 2, 1,

He's Got “Wide Awake” Written All Over Him, The Bottle Says Take One, But He's Got 53 In The Palm Of His Hand, She's Got Gasoline Seeping Into Her Skin, The Smell Of Smoke Has Never Been This Strong.

They've Been Journaling Their Lives Deep Into Leather-bound Notebooks For Someone To Remember, They've Swallowed Their Own Self Pity, Call It Poison.

She  Never Knew I Would Have Used My Fingertips As Windshield Wipers For Her Tears. I Would Have Placed My Open Palms Against His Chest, And Told Him He Mattered, At Least To Me, In This Moment, Brash And Reckless Healing,

They Told Me They Found A Muse In The Lost. Hopeless Melodies, Kurt Cobain. Sylvia Path With Stones In Her Pockets. ****** With Cyanide Tablets And Silver Born Bullets. Anne Sexton With Carbon-Monoxide Lungs And A Padlocked Volkswagen. Marilyn Monroe Silver Studded In Sedatives, Pulled Down Deep, Until There Was Nothing Left. Hemingway With Shotgun Shells Littering His Skull.

To Them It Seemed Like A Right Of Passage. A Last Attempt To Leave This Planet Screaming. A Better Than Goodbye. Something Poetic To Carve Into Your Skin, Or Flip Top Wooden Desk, So Someone Somewhere Would Remember The Name, Because They Were Told Legends Never Die.