I believe that love is beyond us and not ahead of us, and if good sense was something that your mother passed onto you before she up and left you, you'd understand what I mean when I say, we don't look at us the same anymore and as hard as it is to come to terms with, love is beyond us and our grips are made up of acrylic hands, always ready to chip and shatter away, not able to hold onto anything the minute that that anything becomes, 'complicated' like we were becoming complicated. It's just not as complicated as you think. Love is is beyond us, not behind or ahead.

I fell apart at the mentioning of your name in rotation above and below the humdrum that jived around you. I smile just long enough for the song to end and my body to stop responding.
I held it together long enough to see through the music and fell apart at the after party. I imagined your name in blinking flourescent lights and shuddered at the images my mind conjured up of you, a constant spinning wheel.

Someday, those photos will look old, like when you recognize the pile of dust resting on a dingy book. Someday, those photos will look old, and you'll still be young in my mind, like every new word my mind pours from my chest to this paper, someday you'll grow old but my relics of you will remain frayed and new.

I kept on telling him
that my lips were made
of pillows as if he
couldn't feel them
with his charcoal tips
as his lips broke across
my shea skin. We are
globs of jojoba oil
set above a fire.
We melt. Together.

I have never argued to be the happiest person in the world nor sad nor intellectually gifted past the point of pretentiousness-but I have argued to be the least truest artifact that ever rested my whole entire weight soley on the ***** of my heels, cresting my chin rounded to the pins and points of the skies that buzz life into the rowdy blacks of my eyes, ready, ready, ready. I have-time and time again reminded my own-self of the fickleness that rapes me of sincerity and so I've told him-her-you-they-we-and-even me -that alone is self-destructive and togetherness, well, well, togetherness is over-reliant.

lets speak like there are no periods
and keep our need for our tongues
to curve into commas and let our
lips visit the taste of hesitance only
when our breaths begin to hitch like
ragweed on the itch of a cough lets keep
talking like our lungs have no need for
replenishment lets keep speaking like
we have no need to stop

my bottom lip burns, middle chapped and spiced, I worry that my limbs aren't strong enough to bare what you've had and what you could have.

comparing his lips to cherries
is like l i n k i n g Eve to sin.

Someday, those photos will look old, like when you recognize the pile of dust resting on a dingy book. Someday, those photos will look old, and you'll still be young in my mind, like every new word my mind pours from my chest to this paper, someday you'll grow old but my relics of you will remain frayed and new.

I tried to not take us
so seriously because
in the wake of a long
stream of non-commital
commitments, I've
begun to understand
how intense I become
when someone matters
to me on a personal level,
that's why I left you alone
when I found out about Marla
and Darla and Carla and all
of the Lala's that you ******
and then you decided to be
different for a day (let's be honest.
more like five minutes tops)
and you found yourself
with the proud and loud
feminist, Mandie with an
i-e in your bed and I keep
telling myself, it's not the
feminists fault that she likes
men. This man. My man.
And so I decided un-invite you
to the party I'll be throwing
for you in honor of you
being accepted into so and so
acting program in the city.
I'll drink everything they
bring for you, **** everyone
that only loves you. I'll
leave your car beneath
some distant bridge,
**** your boss and
and take me a little more.
It's not your fault I didn't
take us seriously.
It's not your fault
the feminist liked
you more than me.

he doesn't question my proclivity to absence, he accepts it as he does the width and length
of my mind and
I.

he rears away from the bone
of my hips, fearful of its
ability to puncture
and camouflages his skin
against the bulbs of my
******* and thighs.

he gazes upon me as he would
at a navy sealed sky
not searching for any stars,
not curious of whether an ability
to glow is apparent,
he understands that I am
unapologetically,
seamlessly, an unlit sky
he appreciates my stillness,
my inability to spark.

he accepts my absence
as I accept
my unaligned, navy
complexion.

I want nothing  more
than to snuggle into
someone else's blankets
curl into someone else's lungs,
and smell,
someone else's skin.

and we're giggling at the jokes we've
hit on the head and cracked as we watch
Captain Von Trapp sing songs about how
in all of the mischief he had caused as a child,
he must have done something good and as
Maria gives him a longing look,
Beck nudges the bulge of my arm, chuckles
and says to me, "all she's thinkin' is, you can
Cap'n my Von Trapp anytime Mr. Plummer."
hurling us back into a fit of whistling giggles
as raised as my penciled eyebrows and the new
heights his lungs has taken and through laughter
my eyes tear-up because in the mist of all the laughter
our mouths  fog against mirrors, I'm searching to find
what really is wrong with Maria-for her to settle for
such a stiff Trapp, such a character as Cap'n Von Trapp.

Weird how distance is such a relative thing

I mean, we live 15 mins a part and we can't seem to find each other

It feels almost as though we do not exist near

I can't say, won't say that I don't miss you, if you were to ask

.

are you ever afraid
that you won't fit
back into someone's
life like you used to

the day I turned thirteen
my mother looked at my
hips and told me, "girls
with curves shouldn't wear
baggy clothes." since then
I've tried to stay out of
clothes as much as possible
because the tighest thing
that I can wear is my skin.

you're used to people falling for the charm of you.

My hands are as calm as my clam chest,
my throat, as shrill as metallic nails.
I am as hard as cotton candy, I beg him.
As if getting to know me better
would help him fall, I let
his words soak through me
as his doe eyes sponge through me.
I am not made of Jolly Ranchers.
I am made of the air that fluffs pink cottons.
I am not ready to count on his daisy dimples,
I was not made to.
I am ready to fall through him.

i am trying to
stay away from
this world today
because all it does
is wound me.

i brushed up the shards of a
glass bottle with the broom
of my fingers, surprised when
its skin broke, giving way to
crystalline splinters, and you-
you took your mother's
tweezers and pulled out it's
bits. Band-Aid-ed my wounds,
holding my hand as it quivered
and my lips pulsed. I hated you
in that moment.

For being so tender.

his voice
is night
hungover
from long binges
and hearty upchucks
large lump-sums
of bright pinks and soft reds
- i think i might just love him-
what could be so wrong,
with so very little     *fun.

I'd like to weigh a ton ton ton
just so that I am sure that I am
pushing down on something
like gravity. This Earth really
knows how to *******.

you gave me what I craved and what I needed and I didn't realize it until it was too late.

I start sensitive conversations with
passionate people so that they can
I can have a reason to release my
anger. They forget that I am well
studied on only topics that I've
interest in and they use emotion
to try to suade me. I am horrible
and stiill. I smile as they begin
to get worked up. I think I need help.

find myself wishing a little bit more each morning, noon and night for the rewind button on your remote control. those nights when we sat next to each other consumed with each other while consuming the screen before us, smoke aching our lungs as we grapple for new answers to old questions and old answers to new questions and all at once, I wish I had pressed paused, pulled my hair back and sunk to my knees. We could've mistaken it love but we understood the tensions of lust too much to fall prey and so instead we chose to fall in with the way  we spoke, the way we walked and the way we felt when our hands and thighs brushed each time we passed a spliff or a beer or each time our legs brushed, I remember it all down to the ache of my veins. "I understand what I am still too proud to mention, to you."

"I like broken people, Dad."
I said into the hourglass as
time sped down past my
waist. He is wasting sand.

"Just make sure they don't
break you, Jaso."

We are wasting sand and
time has sped down and
slowed up.

Fifteen years old Corinne says that
alcohol is like confidence in a bottle
And she just ******* loves that ****
and I say, you know it's not something
you have to buy, at least that's what I've heard.
But I get her. To me, alcohol tastes
real real good until I'm drunk and then
it just feels like falling. And I get tired
of falling. Into things and out of things
so much so that I abstain from drinking
unless I'm in private and then
I sit in my closet with all of my hims'
and we get drunk together
and we **** to get her and
we fall together
like we get her. And we kind of do.

I could
probably
fit you
into more
places than
one*.

what's worse is i have no clue how I'll feel when I see you again. Will I feel the pits of my stomach? Will I hear your voice calling to me before I see you, will I ever see you again, will I ever even get to hear from you again. Is it crazy to say that it's been four days since I've been sober sans you and I miss you more than I miss tequila? I'm already missing you and its only been four days what does this mean to you, does it mean anything, has it ever, will it ever?

now you know my name-
what'll do with me

I <3 makeup. I like playing around w. pinks and reds and browns. Matte lipstick and lip stains etc etc. Which is funny cause I didn't start wearing makeup until I was 20, just about a year ago. I hated the idea of it. But now I realize that I hated the idea of it because of the mental state I was in. Wearing makeup shouldn't lessen your confidence in your natural appearance. For some reason, I was afraid that I'd become more comfortable seeing myself in makeup versa ****. But that's not the case at all. One of my favorite things to do at the end of my day is to remove my makeup off my face. Warm salt water and then a mixture of honey, egg whites, organic milk thickened in the fridge & then lathered on my face for an hour and then cleansed with cold salt water. It's heaven.
Idk. I've just been laughing at how my mind worked when I was younger. I was so terrified of learning more about myself. Almost like I didn't want to get to know who I was. Almost like I didn't care. I didn't want to form my own opinions and so I clutched onto others opinions. I didn't want to accept my definition of beauty and so I devoured others guidelines. And I didn't want responsibility and so I refused all forms of commitments. What a horrible way to live. For those of you who've been wondering where I've been lately. I've been reflecting, accepting and understanding myself because I've come to understand that's the only way I'll keep existing in this world.  
Idk. I've just been laughing at how my mind worked when I was younger. I was so terrified of learning more about myself. Almost like I didn't want to get to know who I was. Almost like I didn't care. I didn't want to form my own opinions and so I clutched onto others opinions. I didn't want to accept my definition of beauty and so I devoured others guidelines. And I didn't want responsibility and so I refused all forms of commitments. What a horrible way to live. For those of you who've been wondering where I've been lately. I've been reflecting, accepting and understanding myself because I've come to understand that's the only way I'll keep existing in this world.

He breathes
so loud that I can
hear him even
when I'm outside
of him.

Apart from
him, he swallows
all of it. The air.

He doesn't
suffocate me. He
inhales so deeply
that he forgets to
leave me a shred.

he asks me,
you're a
*******
Gemini
aren't you?
That explains
why you're so
******* crazy.
You're like two
people.
Get a grip."
Laughing,
I asked him,
"Of what?"

we drove into a flushed pink sunset
our eyes brimming with lighter shades
of red and smiles, uninterested in the
promise that fate brought and carried
by the ideas of each other. He seemed
keen to me both surprised by my
existence and willingness to bridge
into his cove of a life and pleased
by the way i fit so neat to the rhythms
of his beats. He splayed
khaki shoulders and thin legs
against netted lawn chairs,
happy to watch me laugh and
bounce with his lilac-haired ex
whose voice took on the comical
pitch of Minnie Mouse when she
was high or drunk or trying too hard
as she told me about Fidelity,
the tattoo parlor that she traveled an
hour to just to meet up with some
artist whose name she couldn't
remember but trusted so so much
and teared up when I told her about
my nose hoop that I had to get rid
of because some sketchy artist used
an earing that wasn't Nickel free
on me but swore that he did.
We had fun that day. He ambled
over when Glass Animal's
Gooey revved up and we
screamed the words into
each other's lungs, certain that our
breaths would swell each other up
and help us float away.

leave me be
       with the toxicity of my thoughts
breathe me humble into the blades of the night
dream me pure through the comforts of my words,
on this night i feel deep within the roughs of his voice,
southern charmed beneath my lobes, on this night,
i heard his noise in my thoughts and indeed, he did
                 sing to me,
great poems of comfort

Autumn leaves are butterflies falling from nature's grace:
This morning, I watched a butterfly disappear into a pile
of auburn leaves. As I stopped to watch, it frightened its black
speckled wings into the clouds and I smiled because
even something as beautiful as a butterfly has a will to disappear.

There are mirrors all over this place
and each wall is hologram-ed with my reflection. I am pink and blue with the
pale ideas of hues and pleasantries.
I am not abstract but my lungs don’t quake
with the facts of air and the thrusts of life-
I am reality. Independently so, I am reality
perched on the back of a featherless bird and the flight takes wind of my throat and sets me on fire.

I’ve not had a powerful love that moons me hollow or jades me pale like the blistered stars that hangs on too long to something too dark, I’m not depressed but indefinitely so, I do not feel too happy or too sad or too anything. I am a stranger.

My emotions are not too stark or too raw, they linger. A little longer than yesterday’s Jack and I burn just a little darker than
this morning’s sun. I am awake only for this moment and the moment after that, my eyes will close and I will drift sallow into a putrid shade of hollandaise yellow.

"sometimes
i just want
some time
to myself.

is that so hard.
is that so hard."

"is that so?'
he says.

and he laces his
fingers into
mine.

I'll jot you down til there's nothing left for me to remember.

Above his head a golden halo
fleshed around his tight curls

A moon. One singular, lone moon
          -danced.

You used to
pay attention
to things like
my absence.
Where I've
been and
where I'm
going
as if I
ever knew
the latter.
I used to
hate your
questions
saying,
******* my
dust, I'm not
your star ***.
Before
hanging up the
phone or
shutting the door.
I can't believe
I actually
miss you
now.
And the way
you used to
kiss my lips
in my greatest
moments of
panic, holding
my chin up to
your face and
saying, *you
are my star.