I woke up to a bed layered in scattered pages,
with an empty coffee mug at the foot
and your glasses perched, crooked, on the tip of your nose.
Fast asleep, you hold a thick gray book
with your thumb rested on a worn page.
45.
I cradle the book and stare at the printed lines
and I find a marked passage, something to do
with the suicide of a young girl.
Heavy underlines, arrows, stars,
every type of signal to label something
important.
Note number 12 is scrawled in black loops to the right,
and I scramble until I find it
crumpled in his left palm.
Don’t ever let that happen to her. She’s too nice.
7:15 AM, I fall asleep,
the happiest I’ve ever been.

From the day we met, you were hard to please,
Yet I swore I’d love thee, strange addiction;
You distressed my mind like a black disease.

My fondness was acute, deep as dark seas;
Though your temper enforced my strict caution.
From the day we met, you were hard to please.

Our brawls were unceasing, made my heart freeze
As my pain caused you great satisfaction;
You distressed my mind like a black disease.

My looks, and my theories, made you ill at ease,
So I drowned myself in your suggestion.
From the day we met, you were hard to please.

I walk to the river, past the bogs and breeze
To fulfill your desire: my expiration.
You distressed my mind like a black disease.

And finally, at my death, my mind frees
Itself of your malicious ambition.
From the day we met, you were hard to please.
You distressed my mind like a black disease.

I feel your arms
when I listen to my favorite songs,
I hear your voice
when I look at the moon and
I see your eyes whenever
I close mine.
Why can’t you be the one
to kiss me goodnight
rather than my
crinkling sheets?
And why isn’t your voice
singing me to sleep
rather than these
broken records?
How is it that
you’re so full when
I’m as hollow as bone?
Can you teach me your ways,
because I’m gasping for air
as you swim in an
ocean of luxury
and I’m sick of
drowning.

I never think back
on the days we spent together
until red wine runs through
my veins
and I begin to remember  
the nights we spent dreaming
until the sun came up
and I am left wondering
until the break of dawn
whether you were truly the one
I was meant to end up with
in the end.

I hate sleeping, but
I can’t close my eyes when there
is so much to see

Take me by the hand and lead me to thy haven
where trees are high, and spirits fly,
Where stars whisper that you are mine
In His light where I confide that i will never leave your side
and in your arms I do reside as reality cried and dreams surmised
that we were meant to be.

How does one go back to life after love?
Will your morning cup of coffee taste the same,
or will it be as bland as crisp white paper?
Do your favorite songs turn into dreary ballads
that now sound cheap and forged rather than beautiful?
Is the one thing you look forward to
going to change from being held in his arms
to hopefully forgetting his touch?
When tears of joy turn to tears of hate,
where do you turn?Where does all the love that was once
spent on “the one” go?
Where did it all go?

I wonder if
you call her by
the names you
used to call me,
if you stay up
with her until
the sunrise
night after night
to make sure
she’s okay like
you did for me.
Do you playfully
pull her hair
whenever she glides by,
or talk to her under
lamplight in abandon
parks like we did?
I hope you do.
Everyone deserves to be
as happy as you made me.

We were never perfect
but you always insisted that we were
meant to be together
forever and always.

But you always insisted that we were
the couple that everyone adored
forever and always,
a spectacle for one and all.

The couple that everyone adored,
but they never did know that we,
a spectacle for one and all,
were crumbling underneath the surface.

I never believed that we were
meant to be together
because we never did connect, and thus
we were never perfect

Maybe it
was the
coffee,
perhaps the
pouring rain,
that made
her want
to burst
with light
and be alive again.

Then came
the bitter
silence,
the lies
that tore
her heart,
that drove
her to
forget their past;
and thus, she fell apart.