how come when i heard that song
whose words stabbed straight through my ribs
you weren't the boy
i thought of?

how come i feel like
you wouldn't care
if you were.

head buzz, heart stop, breath catch, smile light
eyes grin, stomach flip, hands sweat, laughter burst, and
boy -
i'm crazy for you.

i am not a ******* afterthought
and you are not my only option
and i should not feel this way.
i should not be looking at him
and i should not want anyone but you
but that's not the way it is.

the way it is is that i feel like
a burden
and i shouldn't.
the way it is is that i should be able to tell you this
and work it out
and i can't.

the way it is is that i don't know what to do
and i don't know who to love
and i don't know who it is that loves me.

and i should.

are theories needed
to know that we're all equal?
let's know it ourselves.

you like telling me,
"you're jealous,"
of that boy's girlfriend
(as if i give a **** and a half about him anymore)
and how can i say it?
that i'm not, that i don't,
because of you?
i guess i could
(it would be easier than i think)
and i guess i should
(we're not going to live forever)
and i guess i will.
but for now i'm in agony over the fact that
the price of being my best friend for so long
is that you don't think i can love you.
the way i look at you should be enough
(but it isn't)
the way i hook my finger through yours should be enough
(but it isn't)
the way you make me feel should be enough
(if only you could see it on my face).

what will be enough
is the words
and what i don't have enough of
is the courage.





(the point is
that i'll do it anyway
for you.)

love for your life, my girl

it may yet

end.

sitting on your couch with my
leg wrapped around yours,
your hands in my hair and our
kisses like drowning -

well, this must be bliss.

because there's nothing for you here
and you're tired of the rain,
because summer's come and gone and it won't be back again,

why don't you take your books
and your jacket and your keys
why don't you take your laughter
and you leave?

a year ago -
before i knew you, much less
loved you -
but still, it's alive for both of us:
his hands on the girl you love,
his sweaty tongue fumbling in my mouth for something he wouldn't find

(you did.)

i'm not ready to write a poem for what happened today -
it will pull at tears that i don't have anymore
and my regret will drown me
because i don't know.
it will come.

what i don't understand is how you
can't hear my heartbeat from where you are,
can't feel my laughter,
can't see my love,
what i don't understand is how you
can't feel the way i feel about you.
i don't understand how it can be overlooked by
anyone, especially you,
the way my heart leaps
(out of my chest)
my eyes shine
(out of my head)
my breath stops
(out of my mind
for you).
what i don't understand is how
one person can love someone so much
how one person can be so oblivious to it -
shouldn't there be some
cosmic rule
that hearts don't love alone?
there's not, i know
(and
i would know)
but there should be because the
loneliness is eating me alive, the
want is eating me dead, the
hope is filling me to my absolute brim,
and all of it
all of it
all of it, for you.

spill and tumble -
and we catch them in our hands
and spin them.

this
is our calling.

hello, poetry.