The Boy with the Sunshine Face came back today.
He was never really missing, he just needed a break.
And in the few days he was gone I realized how much I love him.
How much I love his hands on my back
and his laugh in my ears.

God knows his parents were worried
and they don't know I could have told them
where he was staying.
But I missed his face just as much as they did.
And no one should be forced to be somewhere
if it's killing them.
Even if that place is home,
with those who love them.

But now he is back but I still haven't seen him.
Except for last night, in my dream.
He was sitting on a bench by the school,
but he was different. His face didn't
have that smile I have grown so accustomed to loving.
Hiss words didn't have the same ring to them.
And when I kissed his face he didn't kiss mine back.

This is all just some weird front my brain is putting up
because I'm sure he's the same he always has been,
just a little more tired.
Still,
I miss The Boy with the Sunshine Face.

Sometimes I think you're a druggie.
Because when I'm with you
I feel like we are
Redundant noises and images
And snorts of laughter
And we are holding each other tongues.
And I feel like
There are stars in your eyes
that are buzzing further into this dark hole.
In my mind thinking of you in a heavy coat
smoking when you're away.
You'll never know I write in cursive.
Because you want my words
From my lips instead
And you choose to peel them off
by typing letters into your phone
By thinking of what each letter in my name means
And you put the phone in your pocket
And think of the squack of a voice I have
And you picture my legs
thick with an ivory curtain surrounding them.
And the red on my lips speaking
Of the thing I know least of.
And that is love.

Sense comes at the most senseless times and
wonder comes when the world is dull.
Neurotic, I stumble into the calm
and sunlight unfolds in the throes of depression.

My life is an ill-timed spectacle; my big top is freshly painted and moth-eaten.

Come one, come all to see my brilliant downfall
at my own hands. Can one girl have devised so masterful
an undermining? I think not, patrons young and old.

I am listless when it counts the most
and engrossed in the extraneous.
Trust me, I'm a master of these believings and disbelievings.

I can tame tigers and yet the pests undo me.
Beetle-brained, I guess you could say.
There I go again.

Undoing and redoing, rethinking, unthinking and linking all these meaningless experiences in a chain of being that takes the guise of sense but bends into a pattern without purpose and a gobbledygook message spelling out the things I've already read a thousand times but can't seem to memorize.
My brain is a storm of confession and repression and a sense of self that is in fact the lack of.
Does any of this make sense to you? This absurd gestation between bright and blue?
And all the nonsense in between that braids the random with the fated?
Now you're probably irritated at my own madness; darling, you're not the first that has cursed me.
Nor will you be the last. I've heard this lecture; I've taken this class.
It's the one that tells you everything is sense
and there's a great symbol
and when you die you'll receive recompense for all those little goods you did.
Aesop promised, didn't he?
Well grow up, because there is nothing beyond for me.
And I'll die knowing that at least I could see how ridiculous we humans can be,
searching to name the stars and the rocks beneath our feet.
It doesn't matter; perhaps you're better off naming the worms that will soon eat
both you and me.
Life is does not fit in some neat box of god and good and bad and right.
In fact, the only thing that is sure is the day and the night and ultimately
the loss of our fight for the eternal and the immortal.
No one will read this, the writings of some girl who curls inside herself when the world comes knocking.
There is nothing that will not rot
and we ought not try to fight that.
The pearly gates are the crumbling stones in your backyard;
god is yourself and I know this may be hard for you to realize
but stop clinging to these comforting lies because
I'm not a fated poet, and I'm not meant for words
we just happened to meet one day
and realize we both were a little absurd.

And here I am.
One a.m.
Writing about you again, although I swore I wouldn't.
There's just so much to write about.
You fill me with poetic words and phrases that can't help but fall from my mind onto the pages beneath my pen.
I can't help but write about you, everything about you.
I want the world to know how you're a paradox with your big-*** truck and your hipster music.
And how you softly kiss my forehead while you hold me in your arms.
I want to yell and scream about our love, but I'm shy, so I silently write about your big eyes that so seriously look into mine.
And your strong hands that slowly run over my skin.
I need the world to know about your mind, how smart and interesting it is.
So I fill the pages of my book with tiny praises of you.
My biggest compliments strewn across the lined paper, compliments that you will never read.
But that's okay.
You know what your mind, hands, and eyes are like---it's the world that doesn't.
So, world, read my poem and see the big-eyed, strong-handed boy that for some reason has chosen to love me.
Picture him with his unsteady walk because he's afraid of what's in store for him.
But don't miss those flashes of courage that sometimes radiate from him as he chooses to fall in love anyway.
See the boy so full of life, yet unaware of what he's capable of.
Do you love him?
I do.