i ******* hate
that every time i sit down
to write something
it always turns into
a ******* love poem
but not even a real
love poem
a half-assed, empty, lifeless
congregation of lines
i don’t know a ******* thing
about love
i just know that when you said
i was the most beautiful
person
you have ever met
i cried for two days
two ******* days

saying
the wrong thing
could end someone's life

you told me you don’t drink coffee
because it’s a reminder that you are cold in comparison
i laughed and placed my hand on your cheek
i said that you don’t feel cold to me
i’m not sure if i believed you were joking
or just hoped you were
because when you smiled in response
i felt those same insidious currents of warmth
that synapse through every one of my raw nerve endings
            when you mouthed that one line in your favorite song
            when you traced concentric circles on my bare skin with your fingertips
            when you compared my eyes to the color of chocolate chips
            when we sat on that frozen iron bench at the park and you held my hand
were you a fiction that i crafted
to ignore some truth i could not handle
i blame myself for letting my self-indulgence
evolve into an aching addiction

my nerve endings have fizzled and popped like burnt out light bulbs
no electric voltages runs through my filaments
because i am numb and cold again.
your frostbite was inevitable
and for a while, i must have been so cold
i felt white hot.

oh,
and *******,
i don’t drink coffee anymore.

i still don’t understand how you thought
it would be a good idea to
sneak out of the house to meet
a boy
you are thirteen not eighteen &
trust me when i say
he’s not even worth your first kiss
(or worth your second, third & so on)
& he’s definitely not worth
being caught sneaking out
of the house for & when you
get caught (which is unavoidable,
sorry) you will throw a fit, go ahead &
stamp your feet, cry hot tears
mom, you don’t understand; you’re
blah
        blah
                blah
going to run away because
you are suffocating (of course you
will be grounded after this) before
sulking up to your room you will
tell your mom
calmly, collectively, seriously
that you hate her
& you should probably just avoid
that last part

She has been approached before
By soldiers who find a sullen inhabitant
Someone young and alone.
Soldiers were coming in with just bits of their bodies,
Soldiers lost from themselves,
Those running away from or running towards war.
Some people you just had to embrace,
Tenderness towards the unknown.
A **** with a solider,
Even when he is a tender lover,
Enjoyed more for their weight
Than the warmth they bring.
The hollowness and darkness was full of such choreography.
She was surrounded day and night by their wounds.

All through her youth
She never looked at herself in mirrors
Just her shadows on the wall.
But she wanted to save him,
The unseen man,
And he had wanted to see himself.
“Keep the mirror still, my dear.”
She leaned the mirror against the wall
And carefully turned the reflection the on herself.
She watched her little portrait as if trying to discern the figure of the girl she had stepped away from.
Youth judging age at the end of its outstretched hand:
The third eye of salvation.
She raised her skirt and moved forward.
Her body had been in war and, as in love, it had used every part of itself.
She was more patient than nurse.
But all this she could burn down if she wished
And she smiled at that.