and, i swear
nobody could have
                      saved her
that day, she was a victim
    to graffiti and
       road signs.

you* are my daisy
by the c h a i n l i n k
fence.

jesse only smiles when he means it.

nowadays, it takes a needle
to get the boys and girl
around the streetcorner high,
but all jesse needs
is an average girl with a pretty mind.

his timid mouth and crooked teeth
is the prettiest treasure a person could find.

i woke up to find your name
tattooed on my bones, and darling,
i don't mind at all

i know it's easy to forget,
so here i am
telling you i love you again

(i'll say it 'til the sun comes up)

i want my name to become
synonymous with
your definition of hope
        (i don't know how to save you
        but i know how to try,
        and if you let me, i'll be your saving grace)

you're sister said i seemed
different* and he sighs when
i tell him *not different,
just sad

there is a small silence as he
loads up his truck, and when he is
not looking, i say

*but i guess, for you, that means
different

i hear the phone ring when
it doesn't, the door open
when it's locked, the
light switch flip when
it's off and i turn around and
look for you
still

&on; the count of three, we laid out our flaws and
they mirrored each other perfectly-
when i tried to take mine back
i gathered some of yours (and it was
an accident, i swear, but i don't mind
carrying them for you)

i know how heavy you must feel

.
i am so tired of my bones being
romanticized; being made of
stardust does not make me infinite or
beautiful.

i'll be patient for you
if that's what you need

(it's the only way i know
how to tell you
i love you)

what was real at the start
doesn't matter any more;
in the end, we're all
imaginary

do you remember when we
were children, and we would spin
in circles for minutes straight
just to make ourselves dizzy?

that's how my head feels when
i see you these days- it's like i can
feel the world rotating under my
feet- every thought, every edge
blurring until they're gone, but
(luckily) this paper is lined thick and
your name alone
is poetry.

i wonder what you'd look like
if you were stripped of your skin,
would your bones be as perfect
as your shell?

or would they be heavy with scars
etched into you slowly, filled with ink,
and laced with names you
wish you could forget?

i think i love you because
you have strong hands
and a steady smile, and
both of those are something
i can hold onto.

saudad (n)-- 1. knowing that
coffee and cigarettes
will never smell
quite as good as they
did on you

2. hearing your name over and
over again, then suddenly,
not at all, because even i am
too scared to whisper it
to the dark

3. watching you fade before
you're even gone; if you ever come
back home, you won't be the man
you were one year ago.

today i woke up not knowing where i
was or how to get back home,
(or if i would ever feel at home again)
because although i awake in the same
bed every day, this room is unceasingly cold
and i find myself more and more lost in these
sheets that i don't know as my own  anymore.

i had lain there for forever trying to remember
the last time i had felt comforted by sleep-
when the only thing i could find under my pillows
were nightmares about empty skies and
words that got lost in translation, i had to stop
in my tracks and reteach my self how to breathe.

i'm starting to get this awful feeling
that i'm not always going to fall asleep alone
but i'll still wake up terribly lonely.

some words move me so much
that i am surprised
they do not cause an earthquake

(i wonder how my bones shake
without the world taking notice)

i was tired of feeling so much
bigger on the inside,
       so instead of letting myself free
       i just poured myself out

(and what a shame, i ended up
a puddle instead of an ocean)

i am not my
mother's daughter or
my sister's shadow
or my family
name,
none of that is
enough to
contain me or
portray me any
more

kacey tried to ****
herself at thirteen; she cried
when it didn't work.

she didn't try once
more; she was tired of feeling
insignificant
in everything she did.

i loved you without
asking first
and i am
so sorry
for
that.

he said
sorry, i
totally just
spilled my
heart out
to you

don't worry
i told him
**i know the
feeling

i wish i could hold all your freckles
in the palm of my hand,
(sprinkle them across my body
and drown in them slowly,)

so i could carry a piece of you
with me, always.

my mother tells me to
choose wisely, and
i don't know if it's wise,
but there is no choice-

my answer will always be
you

i swear, i'm not a thief,
but if given the opportunity
i would take your
heart and run to the edge
of the universe and
back, just to have you chase me
(it may be my only way
to leave you breathless, the same
way you leave me)

honesty is just a desperate attempt
for closure used when
there's no more time to fake our way
around the truth

if i'm being honest with myself,
i am always scared

i am scared that someday i will trip in the
school hallway with everyone around, and
i am scared that my family will stop being able
to take care of ourselves. i am
scared that a third world war will erupt and
it will start two streets down the road from me
and end in my front yard

i am scared that one day i'll convince myself
that nobody really loves me, and, even worse, that
nobody will be around to tell me otherwise. and
i am scared that i'll drown at camp this summer
and i'm scared that if i don't, i will want to

i'm scared of needles and feet and airplanes
and on especially bad nights, i am afraid of the dark.

mostly i'm afraid that i will never stop living my
life on the brink of a panic attack, that i will always
back down from a fight, that i will never learn
to speak for myself, and i am scared that i will never
become anything more than this

yesterday a bird sat down on the power line
just outside my house-
he clamped his beak on the
wire and twisted and pulled until it
snapped in half.
he touched the broken line to
the one underneath it
until sparks flew and he
smoked,
               fell
                     to
                         the
                               ground
                                             .

his body was too mangled
to identify what kind of
bird he was
but experts say he was most likely
one of the two
endangered monsters that
swam in the pond behind the oaks.

i wonder if the remaining will
**** himself next.

if you'd like,
we could play pretend-
i'd be sylvia plath, if you'd
be my modern-day
cummings;

we can meet in
the coffee shop on
forty-eighth and first
and talk about suicide
over tall cups of coffee
that taste like your grandfather's cigars

and when neither of us are
up for walking
we'll go out to the park
and sit
on the bench by the pond
and hold hands

(i won't really feel your fingers by mine
until they become
sticky with sweat; we'll look at each other
and realize it doesn't mean a thing
to either
except for maybe the first attempt on both parts
to not feel so alone)

when the sun sets,
i'll cry
and not have an answer
when you ask for one.

nothing is more violent than
love, but i would reconstruct
mountains just to have another
chance to break them down
again with you

when he asks if you're in
love with him,
*lie

today i woke up to the radio,
and when every song sounded
like it should be ours, i couldn't tell
if i was dreaming or not

(and i am so gone
on you)

(could you feel it too?
each last part of me,
poured into the smile
i handed over to you.
because i don't know how
to speak around you,
so i figured everything else
would just have to do.)

to tell you the honest truth,
i'd give anything to sit
and be quiet with you.

i'd rather you hold
my heart too tightly
than not at
all

i would chase away
all your demons, if that would
help to change your mind.

my bones are my of glass
    and
        i watched you sink last night
            and
                his mouth says he sleeps but his eyes say he lies
                    and
                   i
              am
        tired
    like
him.

i'll shut my ears and eyes,
but i can't shut you out
any more

(i don't know why you keep
returning when i have nothing
left to give)

i am tired of being
scared to fight for
what i want, but i
am too tired of
being rejected
to fight for
you.

today a friend of mine told me that in china
they only say i love you when they really mean it;
she talked about it like it was a loaded gun,
like telling somebody i love you also meant
i'd **** for you, i'd die for you, i'd live for you.

i don't know how to be brave enough to say that
straight, but if i could, i would fly you across the globe
to help you understand.

i wish i could erase all the worlds you've
ever whispered into my ear,
but my blood runs thick with ink
instead of graphite and lead,
and my bones are heavy with every
syllable you ever spoke.

i wish you would try just one last
time to reach out, so that i could be
the one to walk away

(i'm so ******* proud of myself
for not loving you anymore)

because it's like every time we're
in the same room, i can't
pull my eyes away from the curve
of your ears or the lines of your
knees or the way your veins are
permanently risen off the
back of your hands, like you're
always gripping something,
       you     just     don't    know    what

(it's overwhelming, knowing how
conveniently my hands would
fit into yours, so that you'd finally have
something to hold on to)

i would do anything for you,
even if that means
waking up at three in the morning
just to hold your hand
so you don't have to chase your
nightmares away alone.

lately i've spent hours a day
crying over you,
but that doesn't mean
you didn't make my life
so absolutely
extraordinary

(and it sure as hell
doesn't mean i'm
over you
yet)