Eat a deck of tarot cards for breakfast.
Squeeze a little ketchup on the upright hanged man,
And try to figure out where we've gone wrong.

We don't know who we are,
So we try to box ourselves into
Cute little archetypes.
We don't know what love is,
So we kiss, laugh, and cry
Until we're exhausted.
We turn turn the card...
We don't know what to do with our lives.

The poetry is embarrassingly bad
Despite having so much new inspiration.
The big feelings feel so small
When trying to express them with words.
I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling.
I don't think,
I don't speak,
I don't make a sound
Other than a rustle of the sheets when turning.

I've become a simpleton -
An emotionless vegetable.
Even when the tears come at night
They mean nothing.
My limbic system
Is broken, I think.

Fairytales and picture books
Don't tell the whole truth.
Sometimes,
Toads are just toads.
They don't always become your prince
After you kiss them.

It's a funny idea, really -
The notion of finding love
In a murky pond.
Lonely bogs have lonely frogs,
I suppose.
Did you have any doubts
As you traced the surface of the water
With a fingertip?
When you took him in your palms,
Did you not have second thoughts?

It takes a mental blindfold,
Opaque enough to block out reason,
To hold a toad so dear.
He might be charming at first,
If for nothing else than for the idea
Of what the two of you could be.
But soon enough,
The emptiness will settle in.
He won't call you pretty,
Or hold you close.
He'll leave a little trail of slime
Wherever he goes.


And at the end of the day,
I'm left wondering...
Why the **** did I kiss a toad?

Blank walls, spackled
And clean, yet empty.
Stretch out your weary arms;
Feel the numbness in your fingers.
A can of paint, a brush, and a pan -
Colors bleeding from the shape of your mind.

Take a deep breath,
Feet flat on the ground,
And open your eyes.
You can remake yourself.
Paint the walls.


Blank walls, spackled.

85 degrees farenheit and counting -
A sweltering wave of heat.
It filled and fogged my mind,
As I laid supine on the bathroom floor.
I stared at the ceiling and wondered if
god still loved ***** sinners.
I then questioned if whether he did or not
Even mattered at all.

I had tied myself up in straps,
Just to forget my body for a little while.
I had spat in the face of celibacy,
Only to find that the face was my own.
Looking back at that face, I contemplated on
Just how dastardly my actions supposedly were.
Reaching in my chest, I shifted and searched,
Trying to find the sin...
But nothing surfaced.

So the play is over
After running for a year.
We had our ups and downs,
Our ins and outs,
Our highs and lows...
But that wasn't enough to keep on
Any longer.
You put on a smile and
Played your part convincingly.
I guess you really are a theater kid,
Because you made it feel so real.

I can't trace back the jagged timeline,
No matter how hard I try.
The acts all blur together -
There is no true beginning or end.
The only thing tangible and real
Is the pain,
And the scar you left behind.
To me, it's a severed ventricle
That will never heal.
To you, it's a stained napkin
To toss in the trash as you walk by.

Maybe method acting my role
Was the wrong approach.
My script told me to be
Your *****,
Your angel,
Your therapist,
But I just wanted to be your love.
I was never able to be
The perfect ***** that you wanted.
The kind of girl who
Actually stayed a girl.
I tricked myself into thinking
That I was finally good enough for someone.
I stared into the mirror
Until I convinced myself that
I was a beautiful monster.

"And I will always love you."
You listen to Dolly's when your heart is breaking,
And to Whitney's when you're ready to move on.
Some of us, however,
Stay stuck in limbo.
I can't push against the dusk
And get to the morning
If I can never trust again.
You built a city of lies
At my feet,
And the walls have yet to crumble.

And so, we take a bow
To our friends and family.
We exit, gripping a bouquet
Of dry and tattered roses.
You've taken the liberty
To give up and leave.
You're shedding the burden,
Peeling off the old, crusty skin.
I wasn't worth the trouble and effort,
I suppose.

I want to leave too,
But all the world will be the same stage.
I can't give up and leave
Unless I give up on the world itself.

I wanna look as different as I can
Than the girl you fell in love with.
The "girl next door,"
With the frizzy brown curls
And wide eyes -
I don't want to be her anymore.

I want to dye my hair dark green,
And get the kind of nose piercing
You said you didn't like.
I want to get a beautiful tattoo sleeve,
Or
An old bald guy smoking a cigar,
Tattooed somewhere on my stomach.
I want to get some boots and overalls,
And maybe start smoking.
Hell, I wanna get my **** pierced,
As scary as that sounds.

I want to have scars
That are visible.
I want to wear mascara that runs.
On the weekends, I wanna get hammered
And bring someone home...
Even though it'll make me feel empty.
I'd like to quit my fitness center job,
And make 20 bucks or so a night
Doing drag king gigs.
I want to ruin my family's opinion of me
By coming out.

I don't care if
I'm seen as wild.
All I want is distance,
Pushing the life I used to love
To the other side of the globe.
I want to get lost if I go looking for it,
Unsure of which wind will take me there.
I need to launch it so far into the void
That it stops existing.

I've got to get away from
The life I used to love with you.
Otherwise,
I'll be drowning in my sorrow forever.

My darling,
How I adore you with all my heart.
You are my sun,
Moon,
And stars,
Or something,
All in one.
Yes, I love you more than life itself.

I love you so much that
My passion will quickly burn out.
Three months in,
I'll stop loving you,
Yet I'll continue the act.
You're so precious to me
That I'll treat interacting with you like a chore.
You're so lovely -
You make me want to treat you like a burden.

Sweetheart,
I long to withdraw from you forever more.
I anticipate refusing to hold you at night.
I cup my ear in hopes of hearing your sobs.
I'm giddy at the thought of withdrawing intimacy.
I await the sweet taste
Of crushing your heart in my fist.

My heart, my soul, all of me -
It was never yours.
How long should I lie to you?
A year? Two years? A decade?
I suppose it depends,
I might be able to get use out of you
For a good long while.
When I finally break it off,
I won't have rhyme or reason.
Dearest, you won't get an ounce of closure,
Or walk away knowing what was and wasn't real.

Don't cry, my angel.
This is just my self-discovery.
I'm doing field work
To become a master heart-breaker.
You might've been been first,
But you won't be the last.
Such is a straight man's love.

Oh, to revisit that familiar, suffocating feeling
Of burrowing under the covers.
A night of one's own company,
Left to make small talk with your mind.
What do you call an introvert who
Hates being alone?

Solitude is a solemn lover,
Creating a mix of solace and uncertainty.
Every dance is a slow dance in Solitude's arms,
Circling round and round the same, stale despair.
Somehow, it feels both right and wrong
Simultaneously.
Your head buzzes violently
When lost in a sea of people,
But does it buzz less in your empty home?
Surely you're happier this way,
With you, yourself, and Solitude.

---TW: themes of self harm---


I'm hungry,
******* hungry.
I'm not really in the mood
For the moldy apples in my fridge.
My brain is hungry though,
******' hungry.

A nagging, a pulling, and a tapping.
The urges crawl to and fro in the back of my skull,
Like drunken, confused spiders.
I roll my eyes back
To take a peep at the spiders,
And I stare at them for a while.
Their clumsy crawling is mesmerizing;
I can't look away, even though I want to.

The stomach growls,
The skin quivers,
And the aroma rises.
The blood running in my veins,
Along with the goosebumps on my skin
Are tantalizing.
Why does it smell better than any actual meal?
My thoughts begin to narrow in on my hunger,
On my skin,
And on my hunger,
And on my skin,
And on the box cutter,
And on my hunger,
And on my skin.
Eventually it's all I can think about,
God ******.

I bite and groan;
I bite and wail.
The guilt consumes me,
But the hunger consumes me
With an even sharper bite.

Passion flows from the pen.
Lines race through the mind
In a feverish fervor.
Such a noble piece deserves a remarkable title -
Something unique,
Innovative,
Never been done before...

"Untitled."
Showing 1 to 20 of a 1,000 search results.

Oh to be the young, Untitled poet.
They live in a world of dreamy wonder.
It takes an earnest naivete to believe
That the three stanzas, freshly written
Are beyond the need for a name.
How can words so profound be labeled?
To name the art would do it a disservice,
Surely.

However, do not frown on the Untitled poet.
No one is born with
A sophisticated understanding of the thesaurus.
Indeed, you were once a starry-eyed artist,
As was I.
We all need our time to bake,
Letting our edges singe and crisp.
In due time, they'll look back on their journey
And take note of how they've grown.
After all,
How can you call yourself a writer
If you don't hate your old work?

----TW: brief mention of blood----

i wanna ***** on your floor.
i don't care how gross it is...
i want you to get a good look
and watch it harden and dry -
like my feelings for you,
like your feelings for me,
like someone's feelings about the weather,
like your lips when they occasionally crack,
like my tears after a regular midnight cry,
like an old man's emotions,
like my emotional intelligence,
like a kid's year old play dough,
like your sliver of remaining motivation,
like an adhd project,
like the blood i'll cough up,
like a teen's sloppily painted nails.
yeah, like all those things.

I'm taking you in and drinking you down
Like a tidal wave.
Our hearts beat in tandem -
A symbiotic rhythm.
I can't take my eyes off of yours.

Though my skin might wrinkle and swell,
I could sit here for hours,
Content in getting lost in your presence.
Water fills my mouth
And runs uncontrollably from my lips,
Falling in a steam of a repeated "I love you."
I say it over and over again;
The phrase comes as naturally as breathing.
It harmonizes with the way the water falls,
And the way my soul reverberates
Against your own.

Every time you pull me close,
Meeting your lips with mine,
The earth pauses on its axis.
With my hands either up to your cheeks,
Or down at your lap,
I'm reveling in you.
I'm content with drowning
In the affection you shower me with.

Even when the faucet eventually runs dry,
I am not.
I don't think I'll ever be able to fully dry off
Your love.

Ambience...
Lofi brainwashing beats to study and relax to.
A ritual nook, tucked in the back
Of the museum;
A perfectly designed trap
For young 20-somethings with anxiety.
One, two, three
Colorful figures spin across the screen.
Or was it four?
There definitely weren't five.

Something about it was appealing.
Perhaps it felt like a resting place,
To be quiet and breathe.
Or perhaps we simply liked our idea
Of little aliens being under their hats.
In that moment though, I felt a door open in me.
Where the door was, I couldn't exactly tell.
My brain? My heart?
Maybe my pancreas, which is my favorite body part.

At first it opened just a crack,
But a chill draft slowly swung the door.
A light filled that space,
Falling on corners that had never been lit.

What I'm trying to say is that
While sitting there,
Watching the three (four?) men whirl back and forth,
I realized that
I wanted to love you for as long as the universe would allow.
Lo and behold, as if you knew what I was thinking,
You looked straight into me with your radiant eyes
And took my sweaty hand in your own.

Your tongues all taste like cardboard...
Mostly because you are all cardboard,
But that's besides the point.
Even though your kisses can never give me warmth,
I'm still hung up over each and every one of you.

To you, fear kept me from loving you.
As for you, we eventually drifted apart
Across of the sea of remembrance.
Then for you, I had to drop any notion
When you asked "are you gay?"
With a skeptical gaze.
You made it clear that
You yourself were not.

However, I keep dusting you all off
To pull you out of my closet.
Standing on the ***** of my feet,
I'm hanging little beaded necklaces
Around all your necks again.

Three stoic monitors,
Illuminating the room with a blue light glow.
If he squints hard enough, he can almost see
The ghastly spectres that crawl up his walls.
Haunting shadows
Of guilt and inferiority.

Waking up
At twelve o'clock PM sharp.
He was stirred awake by a dull drumming.
The sound of his suprachiasmatic nucleus
Echoing in his ear
Alerted him to consciousness.
He sunk his bare feet into the Texan snow,
Standing naked out in the flurry and
Somehow not getting cold.

He looked back at the footprints he made.
Despite having just stepped outside,
He had a nagging suspicion that
They had been there all along.

We're chewing on pancakes,
And sipping cold coffee from wine glasses.
A record turns as we wistfully gaze outside,
Watching the weeds grow through cracks in the pavement.

A pill for you, a pill for me -
Without them we'd wear ourselves out.
They'll squeeze the norepinephrine and
Dopamine out of our neurons,
Just to keep us stable.
We toss them down the hatch,
Swallowing the chalky and bitter taste
Of uncertainty.

This is how we keep ourselves out of the hospital.
We listen to self indulgent music,
And keep our thoughts safe within these walls.
Dear friend, don't hang your head.
We'll be past this someday,
Maybe.

My psychiatrist promised I'd feel better,
So I'm going to try my best.
I'm sorry that your moods and mental state
Have been swinging like a brass pendulum,
To and fro;
Bleak lows and manic highs.
Let's take a stroll out by your old backyard pool,
With water black as ink.
Breathing in the crisp air
May help us clear our heads.

I'll always love you, you *****.
Call me and I'll come,
And we can wallow in our intrusive thoughts.
Grab my shoulder
So we can stand and fight the tides of life together.

--- TRIGGER WARNING: themes related to ****** trauma ---


I'm sipping you sweet,
Sweetly.
Tangy, sugary, sappy tastes,
All dancing around my tongue
When you kiss me.
The straw is going to hit the bottom soon,
And croak as it scrapes the plastic.

How long is it gonna last?
How long is it gonna take
To find a new and fresh faced gal?
When I've grown boring and dull,
You'll think back
To when you asked if I'd be okay with a third person,
And I said no.
You'll shake your head,
Wondering how youthful passion passed so soon.
Who knew a life with the little trauma *****
Wouldn't always stay happy?

I want to do that for you,
I really do.
I want to give you freedom in love,
And the kind of affection
That you've been craving your entire life.
I can't though - my mind goes back every time.
It circles round and round,
Synapses resonating,
Until my occipital's eye rolls forward
To watch the memory reel yet again.

I'm folded under my loft bed's sheets,
Laying on my back,
And watching my thumbs type myself to my knees.
I'm scared,
But the desperation for affirmation is stronger.
So I do it, even though I don't want to.
I do it because they're telling me to.
I do it because even though I'm not there,
My body is physically responding.
It grieves the death of my innocence.

Performative bisexuality -
Kissing girls in front of men
Who don't give a **** about me.
This is what I associate
With two and one making three.
So that’s why I can’t do that for you.

Due to the aches in my skull,
I'm chaining your wrists to mine.
That's hardly fair though,
And I feel like I'm being cruel.
Seriously, why should you have to care?
Why should you have to care
About the time I was so lonely
That I fed myself to pigs?

Yet I know that you do care,
But I still feel guilty.
I still fear that our summer will eventually end.
We can only share one cup of this sugary stuff
For so long.
What will you drink
When it runs out?

It's a strange thing to feel something
After being dormant for so many years.
At this point, I thought my only emotion was stress.
I guess I was wrong after all.

I haven't gotten used to feeling things.
It's uncomfortable
To admit to having emotions.
I clam up when I want to say "I love you,"
And my hands get clammy when I want to hold your own.
I have so many feelings pressing against my insides,
Trying to break out and get free.
For some reason, it feels like pushing through a brick wall
Just to tell you how I feel.

I don't know why I'm this way with my feelings.
Is it because of past betrayals?
Or maybe anxiety,
Stapling my tongue to the roof of my mouth?
I can't really say,
But whatever it is, I want it to be gone.
I want to stop holding back my love for you,
And let it flourish - unbridled and free.
If anyone deserves to have my love,
It's you.

You, who refuses to leave,
Even when I'm breaking.
You, who holds me in your arms
Even when I've set myself on fire.
You, who has a smile
That brings me back to life.
You,
Whom I cherish with all my heart.

I'm aware
That because of you, I'll get better over time.
You keep finding cracks in my brick wall,
And bodyslam into them enough to create holes.
One day, thankfully, it's going to fall,
But I don't want you to do it all on your own.
I'll take a hammer to it from the other side,
And beat the **** out of my emotional barrier.

My emotions...
I never thought I'd be able
To set the ghastly things free.

I asked you if you would stay with me,
And you said "maybe,"
Before taking out a silver knife.
With a smile, you plunged it into my chest,
And I smiled back.

I continued to smile
When we would walk together.
We watched the people stopping to stare,
As more and more of them would inquire.
I would gladly show off the craftsmanship,
Such as the way the engravings in the handle
Would wind round and round like a supple vine.

Finally the last day came.
I knew it would, but I expected it sooner.
You politely pulled out the knife
And waved your goodbyes.
I waved back,
Happy that I could finally dispose of my corpse.

Mwah, mwah,
I'm so sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry -
Sorry for all the sorrys.
I have to apologize for everything I do,
For who am I if not a self-acknowledged failure?
Who am I if not a cluster of catastrophes?

My words are empty;
My apologies are emptier than loneliness.
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
I said I'm sorry-
I know, but I said I'm sorry.
Please, please I wanna say sorry;
I wanna be sorry.
I know, I know...
But I'm sorry.

How do I unwind my trail of sorrys?
How damp of a marker will I need
To scratch out "sorry" from my thesaurus?
Just what will I do without my precious little word?
My sorry - my keeper, my comfort,
My obsession.
Now say that you forgive me,
Come on.
Say it, please, I'm begging you.
I need it more than life itself.



I'm so sorry.

---TRIGGER WARNING: themes and references related to self harm---

I swear to god,
I'm the 13th reincarnation of Sylvia Plath,
Only I'm bad at poetry.
I write, I hide in my bedroom with the light off,
And I grow a little more absurd everyday.
One moment I'm singing a gentle song,
Nurturing the sweet daisies sprouted in my carpet.
A minute later I'm slicing open my forearms,
Cackling and painting something on the walls in blood.
Call 911 and shove the phone down my throat,
It feels good to gargle disappointment.

My writing has evolved over the years:
From naive, soft, and shallow murmurs,
To a steady, dull hum,
Then a defiant yell of a freedom.
However, it's time to enter another stage.
One of scratching, beating to the rhythm of a feverish dance.
It's tainted at the corners like an old, ruined photograph,
With a faint sour smell.
The final stage of my writing has come -
A frantic, hallowed, and rusty wail.
How long until the words I scrawl
Become nonsense?

So stay away,
Don't come through the crack in the bell jar.
Please, I'm trying to suffocate myself,
All in the name of art.
Let me stay in this vaccum of madness,
Pushing and pulling at my mind.
I'm telling you, it's going to hurt if you get too close.
My turbulent muse is ready with a match,
And I don't have the strength to stop her from burning you.

Let me revel in my obsession for a little longer.
My selfishness, my self-indulgence, my depravity,
Or whatever the hell you want to call it.
I know I'm a fool for wearing Plath's wedding band,
And swallowing her barbiturates.
I can't help but romanticize her legacy,
Writing her initials on Wernicke's and Broca's foreheads.
I don't care if I'm a copycat.

I can't stop thinking about you,
And I can't stop smiling.
You're my most favorite person in the whole wide world,
You know that?

You're a femme straight boy,
Who can probably walk in heels and wear liquid eyeliner
Better than I can.
You're sitting at the mid-point,
Content with being an enigma.
Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not mocking you.
I wouldn't have it any other way, believe me!
Your contradictory mystery,
Setting you apart from anyone I've known,
Is quite loveable, actually.

I'm holding onto the edge of my seat,
Trying to not get lost in your gaze.
Your eyes, warm and bright,
With color exploding from where the iris meets the pupil
Like miniature galaxies.
I can't tell if those explosions are green, gold, or hazel,
Or a mix of all three.
Either way, they're drawing me in,
And tearing down my walls,
Like dimensional space rifts ******* in and whisking
My fear away.

I know, I know,
I give these poems a conversational tone.
It's kind of like prose,
Even if it's too on the nose,
But **** the hoes
Who say I can't.
Cry more.
*** your pants.

So as you can see,
Indubitably,
I love my lesbian boyfriend
More than my heart can bear.
My atriums and ventricles swell
With thoughts of you,
Pushing against my sternum and pleasantly aching.

I keep trying,
But there's no combination of words
That can communicate just how much you mean to me.
So park your U-Haul in the back to the right
When we have our second date.
I guess I'd better clip my nails,
At least two on my right hand anyways.

you call me your light -
breaking through your cloudy days and darkest nights,
and making the sunny days burn brighter.
if that's the case, then you're my light switch:
lifting me up, turning me o-
... okay, that's not the direction I meant to take that in.
i mean... it is tr-
alright, let's just move on.

i'm not sure whether to make this sweet
or silly.
i guess it could be both? i'm not really sure.
i'd like it to have some sort of flow, though.
i'd like to make the poem poetic.
how am i supposed to make feelings into "art"
when i barely understand those feelings to begin with?

all this talk of "feelings," feelings.
feelings are fleeting...
i'm not playing around with that *******.
i have so much more building up in me
than just a feeling.
what i have, pulling at every muscle in my chest,
is... more like a promise.
a promise to you, and a promise to myself.

but what is that promise for?
what does it entail? what does it assure?
is it a promise for the future,
to press forward together despite the wrathful storms?
or is it a promise for the present,
to keep our palms and arms open
in case we need to fall back on each other?
i don't know - it could be neither, it could be both.
i'm still trying to figure out what the promise means,
and what it's for.

but
there is one thing that's clear to me.
there's one part of that promise
that i'm absolutely certain of.
no need to build suspense...
i'll cut to the chase.

i promise
honesty.

i know, that seems like such a little thing.
i can give honesty to anyone, right?
but when i say honesty, i don't mean the bare minimum.
i'm not talking about basic respect,
and baseline truthfulness that everyone deserves.
i'm not even talking about polite humility,
or standard integrity.
i can offer that to anyone,
and i could give you that even if i didn't love you.

so let me clarify...
this is what i mean when i say honesty:
i'm promising to remove my mask around you;
to let the fake persona shielding me crumble.
i'm promising to let you into places of my conscience
that i don't even know about.
a promise of full vulnerability,
to give you a carbon copy of the key to my being.
i promise to tell you things
that i've never told anyone.
hopefully, by opening up that intimate honesty,
i can support you in a stronger way as well.

there's more to the overall promise, yes,
but i've yet figure out
what each dimension of it means.
i'm excited to further discover that promise
together with you.

wow, i intended this to be funny.
i guess it got real, huh?

Your passion blooms yellow,
Like the smile of a rising sun.
The wind blows and the daffodils bellow -
They echo a crescendo.
Their spring has begun.

Their song flows across the ground,
Blooming budding emotions in its wake.
The nectar, mixed into the soil mound,
Has enough oxytocin to make a soul ache.

These daffodils grew over the snow in my lawn,
Melting the cold as their roots gripped the earth.
I kept warm among the blossoms as the hours rolled on.
My mind gradually defrosted - like a cerebral rebirth.

My winter has mostly ended, indicated by each perennial.
I have you to thank for planting the first bulb out there -
Double digging the stubborn dirt, yet remaining congenial,
Despite the unfit sod and icy air.

I owe it to you that I've recovered whatsoever:
My cognitive crime scene, solved with your empathetic luminol.
Perhaps young love is a foolish endeavor,
But if that's so, then I'm the most foolish fool of all.

So I'll unabashedly listen to your daffodil crescendo,
And resonate with the joy in your living rhythm.
I'll plant you some chrysanthemums to match in yellow,
So we can sit together with them.

---TRIGGER WARNING: themes related to ****** trauma.---

On an evening alone, dark and dismal,
I laid upon my crisp floor rug.
Stomach down, back up,
Thinking about the one I love.
I mused and mulled over many things,
Such as how I cared for her so,
Or when we'd next meet,
And what I'd even say.
As I continued to think and think,
My mind settled on other kinds of things.

I bit my lip; I stalled for a moment.
I hovered a thumb over the enter key,
And with a single exhale released my hesitation.
"How to figure out my kinks," or
"How to ask about her kinks."
I felt like a child, sneaking onto the home computer at night,
And finding a timid sort of delight
In googling "*****."

So I continued...
Taking a quiz here,
Reading a page there,
When something stopped me in my tracks.
Something cold ran down my back,
Like a spectre tracing my spine with a finger -
An otherworldly shiver.
Not a shiver of excitement or elation,
But rather one of danger,
Signaling an unholy presence hanging over me.

I could see them as I glanced up.
His eyes:
Smiling
  Laughing
      Singing
                       Feeding
                                                   Growling
                                                        ­                                       Burning
                                                         ­     Knashing
                                Decaying
        Wa­iling
                                               Devouring
                                                       ­                                       Bloodcurdling
Looking, seeing right through me.
My ceiling fan stirred his viridescent hair;
Pulled at the petals of the rose between his teeth.
His grin grew wider
As the stem's thorns grew longer,
Piercing his raw, red gums.

He came to remind me, it would seem...
Remind me that he still existed.
He wanted to remind me that
He still haunted the sides of my head -
Stirring, kneading my temporal lobes.
Searching the gaze in his eyes, I remembered.

I remembered feeling more worthless than dirt.
I remembered the validation I thought I needed.
I remembered the guilt, shame, and fear.
I remembered feeling like a disgusting, useless ****.
I remembered trying to avoid sending him photos.
I remembered staring at my ceiling,
Sobbing quietly in the night,
Silently screaming within my chest
For help.
To be saved...
By someone, anyone.

But most of all...
But most of all,
I remembered why I couldn't be loved.
Not in that way, at least.
My demon, who for some reason I still cling to,
Reasons that I don't even understand,
Won't allow it.
I blinked, and all but his eyes vanished,
Leaving me with a small thought as opposed to immense fear.
Maybe it's okay that I could never enjoy a partner that way?
Perhaps I could learn to be complacent with that.
Perhaps I could learn to be content with that.

I yawned, chucked my phone aside,
And closed my eyes to sleep.

I don't write love poems,
It's just not something I do.
Maybe that's because
I've never been in love.
That is, until I met you.

You monopolize my limbic system,
Leaving me to limbo under my emotions.
Look, you know I had to include some **** like that.
Don't laugh at me, you loveable *******.

I'm staring at the notepad app
On my phone,
Trying to think of how to say what's on my heart.
I type a few words, then I stop,
And realize that I don't know where to start.

Lips sealed shut,
Unable to speak -
I'm a frazzled mess;
An energizer bunny of stress,
With electrifying panic.
For a moment I forgot how to breathe:
Giving my brain some oxygen
May help a little.

"I don't know if you feel the same,
But I wanted to check and see."
I wanted to say so, so much more.
Like how your voice is the most enrapturing melody I've ever heard,
Or how rewarding your laugh is,
Or how intricate the stories you tell are,
Or how you say the most amazing things,
Or how you can make me laugh harder than anyone else can,
Or how you're the most loving person I know,
Or how vivid and lively your writing is,
Or how-


... That's gushy, I know.
I'm not very good at this.
I've never felt like this before.
Sure, I've stood longingly in others' shadows,
Feeling some kind of connection -
A string of fate.
I couldn't ever quite figure out though
If that string was tied to my heart or my prefrontal cortex.

But this is different:
It's not the same,
Not the same.
While it's hard to admit sometimes,
I think I kind of like it.

I've decided, firmly -
Today, a year later from when I knew you;
A year later from when I cried...
I've decided
That I don't want religious ****.

Now hold on - I know how that sounds.
"This ***** is gonna castrate me!
Or something," is what you probably said.
Don't worry, little altar boy.
I only use my machete for garden snakes
In my two inch back yard.

The nerve, the gall, the gumption,
To tell me in the sweetest way possible
That you'd prefer a subservient house wife.
You couldn't even tell me to my face -
It was second hand knowledge,
Passed along to me by my co-worker.

I bit the pink marker and ****** it dry of ink.
The False god stopped sending you love letters.
Boo hoo,
Poor you.

I'm not entitled to anyone's love, and especially not yours.
You came into my life like a bullet,
Which through the lenses of rose-colored glasses
Looked like a gentle butterfly.
The Cosmos - she was looking out for me.
She's seen too many limp men like you,
And saved me with the gravitational pull of the moon.

So once again,
For those in the back,
Who were too busy wooing Joshua Harris:
******* and your christian *****.

You're looking for a girl
To give you character development;
Someone who can sweep you off your feet,
And change your life.
I can tell you one thing, bucko -
She's not gonna be me.

You're looking for a girl
Who can make the stars move to the rhythm of her voice.
The type of girl who, with a glint in her eye,
Sets the world on fire with will alone.
You expect me to be like that?
Please, I can hardly get out of bed
Most mornings.

I used to feel like it was wrong to be normal.
I used to feel guilty for being average.
It took me a while to realize that
It's okay to be proud of who I am,
Even if I'm as simple and bog-standard as they come.

Do I look like my name is Mary Sue?
Bug off,
I've got better things to do.

I've got no pop; no tangy sugary bite.
I'm not your type.

You need to forget me.
I'm not cute or pretty;
I'm not innocent and sweet.
I may not laugh at all your jokes.
I'm not your type, I'm no bubblegum girl.

I don't bubble up and out,
With a sunshine smile and a warm hand.
I have weird knees and baggy eyes,
And my body is like nicotine gum.
You'll quit me and go back to the real thing.

The wrapper is in the trash,
So there's nowhere to spit me out.
So I run around the house at night,
Like a careless kid in the rain,
Splashing in puddles from my indulgent tears.

You need to forget me.
I'm not your type,
But I'd love you more than I've loved anyone.
I'd bury my heart in my tiny backyard
If that's what it took to make you happy.

You play my heart like a harpsichord,
Making me feel things that
I never wanted to feel.

They say that you're a player,
But I'd have to disagree.
I have a sneaking suspicion that
You're actually a puppeteer,
Because I can't move my limbs
When you're not around.

C, c, d -
Clair de Lune in C minor.
Otherwise known as the sound of
The buffoon shedding tears.
When the moonlight comes, I ponder.
Only then, in that moment, do I doubt.

Are your glass eyes empty?
I thought for sure that they sparkled with light.
But even if that was my mind's reflection
I still want you.

Brilliant cherry reds
Scattered like stars across the tile floor.
Their sheen is alluring -
A bright dollar store sparkle;
A candied shimmer to disguise triviality.

All it takes is a jagged nail
To scratch away the lie,
Thinly veiled by a coat of paint and acrylic.
"A person's true colors will always show in time,"
Or so the saying goes.

The deceit is lovely.
It carries an aromatic falsehood
With promises of

                          truth,

                                    gentleness,

                                                    and beauty,

All pretending to glimmer in your plastic ruby eyes.

Half asleep feet shuffle in aimlessly;
Water fills the celestial coffeepot.
Chocolate brown grounds by a spoon are allot.
A spoonful spills to the floor! This marks its tragedy.
Another, another, so painfully,
This tragedy would make any distraught.
How can sleep be torn from eyes so bloodshot
Without the black elixir so holy?

The sleepy feet walk through the garage door,
Each brooms' handle is long like cold harpoons.
It sweeps up the wasted dreams on the floor.
"I measured out my life in coffee spoons."1
The tedious toil begins once more,
And so go the morning coffee mistunes.


1 - From "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

do you ever feel like...
like you're ethereal, ghostly?
a fantasy existing in your own mind.
maybe the reason they don't see you is
because you're not real.


do you ever feel like...
like you walk alone in company?
flitting through dimensions,
enough in their world to exist
but wholly invisible within yours.


do you

do you ever wish

to be seen?
that someone would just
******* notice you for once?

Who are all of you?
What are you?
Am I human like you too?
If so, then why is there a pane of glass
Separating me from you?

I've been out here in the cold,
Looking in my whole life.
I once tried knocking on the glass;
Gently tapping with my fingertips -
ra-ta-tat-tat.
I think the music was playing too loud
For any of you to hear.

Just when I was ready to accept my fate:
Freeze to death and meet my maker -
She took my gloved hand in her own
So we could both look in together.

A flow, a pen, an ink stained palm.
A life, a story, all gone wrong.
A spark of hope in the night, maybe?
No, your hope is grammatically incorrect.

"This is where your sentence could have ended
but it didn't," see?
Nonetheless, it wants so desperately to end.
An incomplete thought, a fragment -
A fragmented existence with an expired due date.

Can you pick up the forlorn pieces?
Use your calloused fingers to avoid getting cut.
You continued the sentence,
But you used the semicolon wrong.

What do I have to do to be her?
Your god-sent angel,
Taking dainty steps down a golden staircase;
Descending from a city unknown to living men.
I'll have a paper sign stapled to my chest,
With narrow streams of blood down to my toes,
And words in pink marker scrawled across the paper:
"The One - Yours Truly, a False god."

She thinks she's all grown up;
She walks in thinking that she's a full grown
Woman,
Turning her ankle to show off that tiny heel.

She overdrew her lips
Higher than the empire state.
Her tiny eyes dart down the aisles.
Do you really think you can sniff out
A hot stud at the local WalMart?

Her soul tricked itself,
Roaring like it's a lion.
She'd do anything to make herself forget
That she's only a tiny girl.

And there she stands,
Scanning a tiny bag of chips,
Then stealing a beer at the self-checkout.
What a grown up thing to do.

I took a drive on a manic day,
And turned the corner way too fast.
My actions caught up to me at last,
And I crashed my car on life choice lane.

So I stood there as the engine smoked,
And pondered on nonsensical things:
Such as how the caged bird still sings
Despite a shortage of dopamine.

Hallowed be thy name o' Lorde,
Somehow still playing through my radio.
Sound waves bounce against the pavement and echo,
Making the loneliness even louder.

I'm left to kick rocks on life choice lane.
There's a dent in the stop sign pole
For everyone who has paid the toll
Of dealing with my sorry ***.

But now they're gone,
And now I'm gone.