I am surrounded by remnants
of you. Every morning I wake
and drink my coffee with
your cup, your spoon,
your opinion that coffee
should be burnt and strong
and crude.

I even eat meals
among your fallen soldiers
of furniture, the ones
that got left behind. The
ottoman you never could say
goodbye to, the one
that you have nightmares about, you
wonder where
he is now.

I walk up the stairway
of your fibers, old hairs and
samples of your DNA
are mixed in with mine
in the layers of sediment
carpet. Your toe nail clippings
petrified into the
concrete.

I avoid mirrors because
my ghost image
reminds me of you,
something false, a reflection
that I will stare at
for the rest of my life
and still never
truly see.

Little accidents,
like the purple umbrella
on my bookshelf that
you bought me many months
ago, to keep me dry on
one of our many
rainy days. Now
you'll keep me
dry forever.

This is not a poem
about the weather.
This is a poem about the
ruins of you,
the staples
that hold me
together.

Tell me all the horrible
things you think but
never say.

Tell me why I can't be loved,
why I am as lonely as a
desert, why I
deserve to be.

Tell me that I'm the reason
my parents divorced, dad left,
mom shut down, sister
shut me out.

Tell me why 22 years
of running in place,
contrary to popular belief,
is not good
for the heart.

Tell me about all the moments
you really saw me, saw me sneeze,
saw my flaws, my hips, my rolls and
you ignored them, kindly, holding
onto the illusion of me.

Tell me that you
never wanted to **** me,
you just felt bad for me, a sympathy
**** with extra tongue
to boost
my self-esteem.

Tell me you don't love
me while you're still inside of me,
the moment in between our
first kiss and last.

Tell me we should just
be friends even though
we never, ever were.

Tell me to chill, relax,
be buds, tell me not
to disappear again.

Please, don't let me
disappear
again.

Four years ago I left in attempt
to get on with my life, in hopes it would
appear to the other human beings
that I had gotten on with my life, out of
fear that you'd discover that I
never really could
get on with my life.

Tell me, in an alternate universe,
we would be perfect together,
a bizarro dream-land with a beach
and a hammock on which we could waste
away the beautiful
imaginary
day.

Tell me you don't want me
to die anymore
in my sleep.

Tell me that life, although
meaningless, is still
worth living.

You have to lower your
expectations for life.

It probably didn't help
being fed clichés for breakfast
like strawberry pop-tarts
throughout your
adolescence.

Middle school only
made it worse, when you
discovered words could
describe sadness. You learned
about math and the
improbability,
statistically speaking,
of your dreams.

The sadness picked up speed
in high school, and the teacher
you loved who smoked,
who cursed and made jokes,
who taught you how meaningful
words can be, has already
forgotten your name.

The university did not help
at all. Your tall, lost professors and
brilliant lovers
only added to the distant,
dream-like ego
of the future. Piling hopes
one on top of the other
accumulating mass,
collecting nothing.

Your dream is a tidal wave
and we are nowhere near
the sea.

If you could, please,
lower your expectations
of me.

do not
feed the negative ****.
tell your brain not to swallow it
into your frontal lobe, stop,
bite your lower lip, whatever
you do,
do not
let it in.

resist the old familiar siren song
of sabotage
in your
head.
deny the temptation
to lie in bed
for the rest
of your existence.
avoid the path
of least resistance,
self-loathing,
alone smoking
in your parents basement.

do not feed
the negative ****.
do not let
the darkness in.
don't water
that old, rotting
plant.

I can't stop
sinking about you.
Below myself, underneath
the warm water of existence
that I prefer, that serene six inches
pooled at the top,
heated by love and
the sun.

I can't stop
sinking about you.
Frigid layers of ocean are
suspended underneath me.
Cold water flirts with
my organs, seeps
into my hair, collects
tiny frozen membranes
between my toes.

I am not a girl, I am
a ship mid-wreck
unlikely
to be found.

You're not a man, you are
an anchor pulling my
already heavy heart
straight down.

Papa repeats bad jokes
like a broken record, an overplayed
and under paid radio station
that forgot how many times
we've heard the same
song.

Out to eat at a fine dining
Mexican restaurant, Papa orders
a hot dog. The waiter
doesn't get it. The joke, nor the
hot dog.

Who would guess so many
bad one-liners and puns lie behind
your dark leather skin and
tired jaw? The waiter cannot tell
that buried underneath pages of wrinkles and
stoic smiles, Papa
is only joking.

Have I ever had
an original thought?
I've been told
that, 'Everything we ever
write is just an accumulation
of all we've ever read,'
or something
like that.

I don't remember
by who, but I've cited him
Chicago Style
in my heart.

It started young, with my name.
Permanent ink on the soul,
a cliche. I hated
hearing it,
over used and
haphazardly
picked out of
a book.

If I have children,
they won't suffer from recycled
personality disorder. I'll
start them off right,
give them names
that don't
exist yet.

One in a sea
of Lindseys. My
post-modernism
lost-cause syndrome
in itself
is unoriginal.

How can I write
in stream of consciousness
with two decades of
songs stuck in
my head?

This isn't new, I've always
plagiarized while I dreamt
of you, hallucinated
my creativity, now I can't
even picture you without
sappy lyrics
sticking to your
clothes.

I am merely stealing like
an artist, another concept
I stole, brilliant,
but don't
thank me.