It's such a strange thing,
falling in love,
and the way the things you fall in love with,
change with the seasons,
or as various lovers even strangers,
enter and exit our existence,
as time passes.
And it's extraordinary how love
seems to warp time.
How it moves too slowly
when love is sad,
but far too quickly
when the love is good,
how you fall in and out of love
faster than you can say the words,
or the tears can form
on the inside corners of the eyes.
The tears that don't ever fall,
but linger just long enough
to melt the mascara on the fine lashes,
that only seem to be evident
during moments like these.
The moments when people look most like themselves.
Moments of weakness.
The same moments when you realize
that the movies are liars,
and songs are rarely written from truth.
Because people don't find their soulmates
in the spontaneous moments of passing,
but in the everyday moments.
Real people don't fall in love
during the dramatic, desperate, lonely moments
but the quiet
simple moments.
For I once fell in love with a beautifully ordinary boy
as he slept soundly
on the other side of my mattress at 4am.
Because he'd never shown me
any of the private memories he had survived
and that night he'd told me everything,
and whispered that without me
he always slept, but couldn't dream.
And once during a quiet evening
on a couch,
in a small town in Connecticut,
in front of Lord of the Rings,
while we'd laughed about all the things,
we'd somehow forgotten to laugh about
over the course of growing older.
And then a third time in your car,
on a rainy afternoon
while we had danced horrendously and sang off key
to an old mix you had burned back in
God knows when.
Where you knew every line,
and I'd rolled down the windows
despite the rain,
to hold my arm out like I was flying,
like we had when we were kids,
and you had smiled at me like I was magic..
These have been the moments in which
I have fallen in love.
Never during the movie-esque moments,
but in the ordinary moments.
The moments in which,
I never expected to fall in love at all.

I never called it ****,
the events of the night the gin had made us hazy
and the drugs had us reckless.
The half hour you spent strumming me
like some pawn shop guitar
Suffocating me in the sheets
which were covered in the filth of your former lovers.

I never called it ****.

The way your hands had rudely ripped
my previously untouched skin
and your mouth devoured my innocent lips.
Never thought much of the way you had told me to be quiet
while I whispered for you to stop
because I'd never done this before
and it was painful
and I wept.
Because you had warned that I would wake the others
and I was embarrassed
and you had made me *****.

I never called it ****.

Never let the repetition of your phrases sink in too much
as you told me it was fine
and it was okay
that I'd like it.
I never thought too hard.
Because you moved too fast
and the room was spinning
and I gave in to waiting for it to be over.
And when you had gotten too tired of hearing me whimper
and my pleading had become obnoxious
you sighed an angry "**** this"
and stomped off to the bathroom to finish yourself,
after commanding I put my clothes back on,
And find somewhere else to sleep,
I stumbled across your ***** basement to where the others slept
and collapsed hiding silently in the sinkholes of your couch,
Listening to your grunts before the light came on and you passed out
avoiding the stains of my youth on your sheets.

And I never called it ****.

In the morning you drove me home
making little effort to hide your disgust in my failure to get you off
While I looked out the car window at all the houses I had grown up next to,
None of which looked familiar any more
attempted to ignore the stinging of the poisonous scars you had left behind
pretending that my body wasn't covered
in the scratches and bruises of your insincere actions.
And when we arrived outside my parents' house
after an eternity of painful silence
you didn't speak merely
grunted at my departure
and I snuck quietly through the front door to the shower
where I scrubbed until the marks from your fingernails
became indistinguishable from the skin I had rubbed raw
until it bled
trying to convince myself
that I had eliminated all the remnants of your scent
and the dirt from your actions.

But I never called it ****.

Tonight,
in the words of Neruda,
I can write the saddest lines.
Tonight I write the saddest lines,
all for you.
And it will be painful
and tear-stained,
but honest.
I will pour my heart into this page,
for you,
and you will take my innermost thoughts tonight.
But you must know,
darling boy,
that this will be the last words I spill for you,
the last drunken night I allow you into my creative soul.
This will be the end of this,
of us,
of you and me.
Never again will I write for you love stories, or sad words.

I used to think that if given the chance,
or given the time,
I could write a thousand lines on the way
your breath felt against my bare back.
I could write infinite lines on the way
your fingertips electrified my lips,
and still have more to say.
I could write forever on the way I loved you,
Loved you entirely and hopelessly,
how I ached for you.
And I used to see you everywhere,
in the faces I passed
and the lopsided smiles of strangers.
I used to drive past you in every beat up pick up truck
on the streets of Columbus,
behind every backwards hat.
But my darling,
it's been awhile since I've seen you,
and I can't remember what your fingertips felt like anymore.
I used to close my eyes and be able to trace your features,
for they had been etched into the walls of my mind.
And I used to feel this emptiness in my chest,
because I had placed my heart in your hands,
whether you had wanted it or not.
But lately,
I haven't felt very empty,
and I couldn't tell you what your dimples
looked like.
I used to know every speckle and fleck
that lived in your irises.
But now,
I couldn't even tell you the color of your eyes.

At first,
I tried so hard to keep missing you,
thought I was supposed to miss you,
thought I wasn't supposed to let you go.
I used to think that I would love you forever,
that you would live in my heart,
occupy my soul.
I used to be okay with that.
I used to miss you every second that I was breathing.
But now,
well now sweet boy,
I go days without you here,
and some mornings I wake up unable to remember the last time
I actually missed you.
So I try,
try to miss you.
But it's far too hard to miss you by myself
and I'm so tired of missing us enough for the both of us.
So this is the end,
the end of all of this,
the end of everything.
Thank you for allowing me to love you,
for never asking me to be more than I was,
for never being more than you were,
for being ordinarily
Spectacular.

It's 2am in December and my windows are all open.
Every
one.
Heat off.
Clothes off.
Trying to remember what it's like to feel..

I'd smoke another Newport, but I've smoked so many
that it hurts to inhale normal air,
especially the crisp winter air
that's pouring into my apartment,
sleep seems futile..

There's an empty bottle of cheap pinot lying next to me,
a half-finished PBR, from the thirty I bought myself
and I haven't thought of you in a while.
Hello there...

My mind wanders to that alleyway in the heart of Columbus,
dark and deserted,
the sounds of lovers off in the distance,
my boyfriend calling my name, searching
but I can't hear him.
I can only hear you...

You see love, I haven't thought of you,
haven't let myself back to that place
because I met a nice boy,
who told me nice things,
asked nicely if he could touch me, in nice places
before he did so,
and it was nice...

So I waited and he waited,
took things slowly for once,
convinced him it was worth it,
that I, was worth it,
so when he told me, it was beautiful
and I told him right back.
it was beautiful,
"I love you"...

And don't you dare question me, love
for I love him,
because he thinks I'm wonderful,
hasn't seen the scary parts that I'd showed you,
doesn't believe I'm as broken as I say,
He tells me I'm perfect...

But yet,
that night in Columbus, Ohio still haunts me,
the night you rode a bus for sixteen hours to get to,
that moment we're screaming at each other,
I'm telling you that I hate you, and I know you've never cared
why are you even here? I HATE you...!

You kiss me.

Kiss me...
Like your sole purpose in life... was to kiss me.
Right then.
Right there.
Like you'd been waiting forever..

You kiss me
like you were created by God
for the final moment
where your lips would dance with mine,
and fireworks would fly
from your fingertips
as they brushed across my cheeks,
turning tears into vapor,
unspoken truths into song,
longing into love,

you kissed me.

Kissed me, and saved me from being stone..

That night, you told me everything I'd ever longed for you to tell me.
Told me about your terrifying family,
and the reasons you were better off being alone.
I wept into your arms as you told me you loved me,
that you had given me every single thing you could,
how you were sorry it wasn't enough.
And I told you all the sad things I'd lived through,
all the boys who never learned my name,
all the nights I'd never had a home,
the day I wished I was dead..

And you stroked my hair, told me not to cry,
wiped the tears from my cheeks,
while I told you that all you had to do was ask,
that I'd come back for you.
All you had to do was tell me to come back, for you.

And that night,
in that tiny apartment, 700 miles from home
you made love to me,
kissed me softly,
whispered sweet nothings until I fell asleep on your chest...
You became home, my love,
You were my home.



The next day,
you got on a Greyhound bus back to where you came from.
Didn't look back.
And I went back to that little apartment,
never looked back down that alleyway,
and once more,
became stone.

In the darkness,
I become tangled in your fingertips,
legs,
and sweat soaked sheets.
Your body rocks and moves against mine
in perfect motion
As you whisper how you want
to "make love to me."
That’s what you called it.
But I’d never done that before,
I didn’t even think people still called it that.
But once you said it,
all I wanted to do was...
make love...
to you too..

Now,
baby,
I'm not saying I love you,
or anything like that.
Don’t smile that smile like you’ve enchanted me.
Because I refuse to make that commitment
or give you that much.
Cause see,
I've got things to see
and people to do
and I can't be in love right now.
it's not a good time..

Is it for you...?

..cause if you say it first
I'll jump at the chance to tell you
that when I'm with you,
I soar.
Your fingertips send sparks from my skin
and the sweat dripping
down your caramel complexion
leaves me hungry.
Hungry for your lips on my lips
and your body on mine,
and lord oh lordy,
I might need a minute
excuse me..

Baby see,
when I'm with you
I can smell the scent of your country
taste the exotic taste on your tongue.
and it sends me to far away places and distant lands.
sends me to other planets.
I'm so high off the scent of us,
I'm lightheaded just thinking about you.
****..

And you laugh at me
because I breath a little harder
when you whisper in your native tongue.
"¿Te gusta eso?"
you ask.
And I'm not sure what you're saying
so I just say yes..
and you keep on going with your secret words
losing me in your translations
to the point where I don't wanna be found.
So let's stay in this limbo forever..
because you got me so high baby,
so high,
I never wanna come down.

Our story was written
in the empty cracks of our broken home.
Scribbled
in a million strokes,
symbols and signs.
Thousands of languages flew
from our wasted pen tips
and we could feel the ink drip from the ceiling like acid rain.
Soaked in the blood
from our pointless thoughts,
we attempted to feel.
We attempted to understand.

But our home had become Babble
and the bible burned our fingertips.

And they waited.
Waited for me to become more sane,
more acceptable.
They waited for me to decipher the sins
I had carved into my bedroom walls
for the last seventeen years.
But even they had no real shape or form.
Simply black marks
left from the paint on my bitten nails..

And so our tower crumbled beneath us.
And our pens kept pouring down.
And our story continued to write itself.

If only we had learned to read.

Laying here on ***** sheets,
the words of that crooked smile haunt me.
That moment
over and over,
like a black and white movie with a scratch on the film.
Over and over and over...



You're like a black widow, he said.
You bite the heads off every man you touch,
You're lucky you're hot and look good with your clothes off.
You don't even know how to feel, he said.

You're cold.

You're cold as your eyes are blue, he said.
But you know if you laugh loud enough,
and pretend you're drunk enough,
your prey will be dead before they figure you out.
I sure as hell wouldn't love you, he said.

You're ice.

Even your hands are cold, he said.
Doesn't it get old?
Don't you get tired of being so guarded,
Isn't it painful being you? he said.

You're stone.

Look at you now,
How blank your eyes, how ridged your lips,
How thick your skin,
I don't even want
to touch you, he said.

You're heartless...

Heartless..

he said...

heart.
less.

Heart - less.
Adjective.
unfeeling; unkind; unsympathetic; harsh; cruel.

Heartless.

That word pounds through my head,
wreaking havoc on who I am.
Forcing perspectives.
Since the moment he said it,
while I laid there,
naked,
more vulnerable than he ever gave me credit for.

Heartless.

Jokingly, I tell myself that he's insane.
Scientifically it's impossible to be heartless.
I'd be dead, I think.
He's an *******.

But I know that he was right.
Because he wasn't the type to spare feelings,
or mince words,
He never said things he didn't mean,
especially not to me..
And he never cared about my reasons,
or the things that made me this way.
He showed up at my door, and took my clothes off
Told me I wasn't the type boys bring home anyway.
Told me I was too damaged to belong to anyone.
He said and did mean things.
He was not a nice boy.
But in the end I told myself I deserved it.
All the things he did and said.

I perfected my game face.

After all,
I'm stone.
I can take it.

My son will never know the me I was
before I became myself.
He'll never know the girl
who sat on fire escapes at three am,
in some city somewhere,
smoking cigarettes and writing love poems.
He'll never know the tiny apartment
where she discovered
that she could never really be as broke and glamorous as Audrey had been,
because she didn't make enough money,
and there was no handsome stranger that would eventually take care of her
after ninety-five minutes' time.
And instead of throwing fabulous parties,
she preferred sitting on the floor,
drinking cheap wine from the bottle
in front of old movies.

For years I dreamt of a life like that.
Where I was my own and belonged to no one.
Where life was lonely
in a tragic but beautiful sort of way.
That was the woman
I believed
I was destined to be.

And I was lucky
For not many people make it
to who they've always dreamt of being.
Not many people escape the monotony of real life.
I did.
I got out.

And parts of me were glamorous.
The nights I met strangers
and danced on city streets,
drunk and in love with the world,
wearing tight dresses,
heels in hand,
hair blowing in the summers breeze.
She,
was glamorous.
Walking down streets
singing anthems to our youth and independence,
we were glamorous,
me and all those nameless friends.
We were young and unattached.
We roamed the world,
and it belonged solely to us.

But friends,
life gets lonely.
And when the glamour fades,
you are who you are.

I loved those nights.
Every one of the passionate,
exciting,
artistic,
lonely nights.
And if my life had gone a different way,
I would still be that girl,
in that tiny apartment,
twenty years from now,
longing to escape that life as well.

You see,
my life has been wonderful.
And I have been the luckiest girl to walk the earth.
Because I never got stuck.
Some people just get lost,
in all of that never belonging to anyone,
never belonging anywhere nonsense.
But I didn't.
Now, I
belong to my son.

And he will never know who I was before him.
Nor will I tell him.
Because those memories,
and those secrets,
those are mine.
Mine,
to drift off into remembrance from time to time,
smiling secretly
about how I was one of the luckiest women alive
back then.
And luckier still that when I come back,
my son's smile is there to greet me,
and remind me that my life
my life, is exactly where it should be.

My son is an old soul,
filled with old thoughts.
I can feel it in his breath as he sleeps,
and his eyes while he studies the world,
ever so serious,
ever so conserved,
and ever so beautiful in his silent observations
of me and the world he is meeting
for the first time.
And one day
he will be the man who walks city streets,
changing the world,
saving the existence of man.

This,
I know,
because he saved me.
He saved me when I was so "glamorously unaware"
that I needed saving.

So while I have moments
where I mourn who I was -
the starving artist intent on creating tragically beautiful art -
I remind myself
every moment,
that my son,
my son IS art.
And who he is
will forever
be my greatest poem.

I live, in honor of him.

It wasn't the same,

laying in your bed,
Touching your flesh.

It wasn't the same.

All those months I spent missing you, haunted by the secrets you told me,
in that alleyway
somewhere in Columbus,
all your secrets of loving me,

it wasn't the same.

My skin didn't spark from your drunken fingertips
and your lips didn't taste like they used to,
back when they were all I could taste,
when everything tasted of you.

And you were sweet and frightened,
vulnerable,
giving up the pieces of you I had sought for endlessly,
these last three years, giving me everything you had.

But all I remember is feeling cold, Shivering under the blankets of your mattress on the floor,
and all I was thinking about was work in three hours,
and my laundry in the dryer, back at my parents' place.

And you followed my skeleton with your hands
and traced the writings on my skin, whispered that you loved me,
that I was the one that mattered,
the only one that made you feel alive.

And I glanced past you at the clock and debated whether I wanted coffee on my way home.
Then once the lights began to rise and you had gotten off enough for the both of us,
you begged me to lay with you and sleep the day away,
told me to hold onto to you and never let go.

But I got up without saying goodbye, and drove to work, smoking my last newport
never looking back at what we had been,
all those years ago
in a dark basement, somewhere on Susan Lane.

Last night,
well last night I dreamt that you were making love to me.
when suddenly,

you lit me on fire.

But I didn’t scream or cry out.
I didn’t even fight it…
I simply

watched you,
watching me,

burn
to
death.

I could’ve loved you anywhere,
at any moment,
in any other life.

But instead,

instead, I loved you
in the front seat of your truck,
when you reeked of cigarettes
and cheap whiskey.
I loved you,
with your slurred words
and rude hands.


I loved you
when you didn’t love me  


at all.

Oh, to be a flea upon my lover's flesh,
I'd land softly upon your neck and there
I'd kiss you sweetly,
Taste your sweat,
Smell your sweet scent.
Our illicit love affair would be for only us
As I lay hidden, quietly, in your silken strands.
Then, once your blood had crossed my lips,
You would be one with me, and I with you.
And no matter where my travels took me,
No matter how many lovers you would come to have,
You would always be with me.
And perhaps, one day,
You would brush your fingers upon the place
Where I had once secretly made you mine
And you would remember me,
If only for a moment.