if I could only love myself
today
there's no telling what would come
on the morrow--
maybe I'd be courageous enough
to put down the pipe
and pick up
a pencil
more often;
maybe I'd glide
through love
without feeling like I'm
soaring
to plunge deeper than
I've ever been
before. and
if I could only love myself
today
I'd give it all up
if you'd let me
love you...

if I could just love myself
today

Can't explain the rumble I felt
deep in the gutter of my stomach,
couldn't believe how fast
I got taken over and
brought down to my knees
like a servant
to some devious beast.

It was a party gone awry;
the kind of get together where flashing
red and blue lights interrupt the rowdy kids
just as soon as they've got ****** up,
but we hadn't even reached there yet;
and here I am shaking
in front of empty girls with
mean eyes; full makeup

and a new kind of burn came next
when I saw you come through
the front door
and bypassed me like every other
soulless flesh-and-bones--
and you are just as empty
as you passed me
as I shook
and I crumbled
and not one soul took notice,
especially
not
you

I let you
so far in
believing
that you’d hold my discombobulated bones
in your weary boy hands
and devote your life
to being sure I hung
propped up and connected
by string
all 206 bones
right beside you mixing
your phalanges in with mine
owning my thoughts and finishing the sentences
I couldn’t
for the people
I couldn’t face and taking the
troubles I resurrected from the depths
just so you could take them
into yours and dissolve them
again in to the water
below the bridge –
cast in to that ***** water below the bridge that crumbled
and sank in that same pollution
as I did
when we were broken
and my bones corroded with my soul
along the muddy, trash-ridden bank
and when my faith dragged my
withered torn body towards the grass
and my mind longed more to fail
and to die and to hurt
it wasn’t you that picked me up,
but my faith
and how my eyes took notice
that none of my bones were cracked
only a piece of me left under that bridge
but not a shattered bone
and that leaves you gone
with me in one piece
and I have yet to discover
a bigger miracle

It’s a line I’ve heard
So many times before
“Afraid of commitment” –
an excuse to mean they don’t like me..
scared to get serious with someone
who feels as deeply

it’s a line I’ve heard
so many times before
just helps to make me cry,
ruins my perception of people just a little bit more
soils my hope just a little bit more

why all the false hope?
The false sense of security,
Like you want to love me
But only
To retreat so fast like the recoil of a snake
Who bit me
In the hand, so fast and left two clean holes
Bubbling blood
That traced down my hand slowly and left
Red tears in the wake of the
First time,
Time that ruined everything

Like the thing I should have done but didn’t
Like the words I never said, I couldn’t
And the empty replies
And long sleepless nights watching movies
And never kissing,
Never admitting

And giving in to urges
to be told they feel weird, they feel off
he needs to leave,
and so he’s gone

they are all gone

NO ONE CAN **** THIS IN ME,
IT'S SUCH AN ECCENTRICITY

AND I LOVE IT'S DEFINING POWERS,
HELPS SEPARATE ME FROM..."THEM"

SO PEOPLE DEAR TO ME KNOW
IM NOT JUST ANOTHER,
COS I HOLD MY OWN

We were great
until the *** talk,
until the thrill of what
we were naturally so close too
swarmed, and left us
emaciated-
in the rubble of what once was
but never will be

We clicked
until each word mattered
and held the weight of
the world
on the small curvatures of
a letter-
until the pressure
crushed our passion
and snuffed out the mystery;
the fear of monogamy
held in your eyes and
reflected in these lonely ones of mine

We were sound
until the chaos of romance
became a lie between friends
losing touch, losing love

We were harmony,
until the earth turned
and the contents shifted with it

It's weird what goes on
behind these "simple" eyelids--
the thoughts and the urges
I simply cannot control

In one moment, I feel like
cleaning my desk, my vanity, my life--
next I am moving in a fluid dance,
and every object has it's place so
please
don't touch my pile--
just watch as I rearrange
the makeup and bracelets,
don't speak as I shift the contents
into a perfectly patterned formula.

Don't look as I starve myself raw
let me tear up inside and tango
with the devil - once dormant - parading my soul.
everything's just a means of control.

And then there's the highs, like one
speedy night,
where the right words escape me, yet I
never shut up.
they roll on out
and with the drop of my tongue,
the tragic downs
shred the place where my hope once hung

The world is distorted--
all senses curved and
odd thoughts odd actions--
when there's more than
one of you
inside