You are not
the you
you were
when you
were mine.

And me?
Maybe I’m not the same either.
Maybe I’m something better.
Maybe you don’t deserve me now.
And maybe,
just maybe,
you never did.

I am a fixture.

I am a body
whose frigid fingers
feel the nape of your neck.

I am a picture
that is only seen
(and never heard),
that makes the space prettier
with my paralyzed presence.

I am a pair of eyes that reflect light,
I am a pair of ears that hold your voice,
I am a nose that pulls your sweet scent from the air
and in doing so,
I make you real.

But I am not.
I am,
simply,
a fixture.

I will write ****** poetry
until the day I lose
the ability to sense,
the strength to feel,
the will to care,
and all memory
of ever possessing
any of the three.

I basked in the idea of our infinence,
all the while knowing that it never stood a chance.
While I may be a fool for believing,
I would have been a coward for not.
And it was,
ultimately,
more than I could have ever asked for.
But then,
suddenly,
it was all I was asking for.

It is all I am asking for.

4.
I open my Excel spreadsheet
named "GAMEPLAN"
and stare at it.
I am trying to remember
the last time I played
a game
and won.
I cannot.
I close the spreadsheet
and use my arms
to hold myself
together.
I am unsure as to why
I feel compelled to
plan the next decade
of my life
when I've let the past
two decades
pass
me
by.

If I could,
I would paint my room
The plaid of your old red flannel.

Rusty, ripped,
Rich with every piece of poor filth
Life has tossed your way.

I know you will go,
And I may forget,
But my red plaid walls
Will stay.

there is liquid in my ears.
perhaps it is nothing,
nothing more than
an accumulation of
the condensation from
your condescending words.

oh, how it aches.

there is liquid in my ears
and it has rendered me
utterly deaf
to hear
anything other
than
you.

My biggest mistake
was protecting you
from everything --
but yourself.

A morning ritual.

1.
Soft kisses
under the spray
of lukewarm water.
Your hair is wet
but, for once,
your eyes
are dry.

2.
Searching
the pantry for
something that
will fill you up but
will not fill you out.
Settling for a croissant,
acknowledging that it’s
the closest to speaking
French your tongue will
ever come. Chewing
thoroughly, you wonder
if the folds of the pastry
will show through the
folds of your pale skin.

3.
Wanting to learn,
but unsure of
where to
start.
Wanting to forget,
but unsure of
where to
stop.

I will lead.
We move foward. And things are wonderful.
But for every one step forward, it’s two steps back.
I hesitate.
We get off beat.
You step on my toes and I step back.
I pull away and we break apart.
And just like that, you don’t get to hold me so close anymore.

I am pressed between
the weight of your breath
and the sighs in my spine.

I am gripping a hand
that feels more like my own
than another's.

I am staring behind closed eyelids.
I am panting inside collapsed lungs.

Never before have I spread myself
so thinly
across foreign sheets.

Never before have I been so full;
never before have I been so thin.

I’ve been thinking
And I don’t know.
I’ve been thinking,
And I just don’t know.

There’s no point in pretending things will change.
I think things might change,
But we won’t.
None of us will ever change.
I won’t, she won’t, you won’t.
We won’t. We are all awful.
Me, her, you.
We are selfish, hopeless, and clueless,
Respectively.
And we are all stubborn.
And human.
We wear that as our alibi
But anyone would tell us that we are guilty.

Life doesn’t fix itself.
It doesn’t break itself either.
People do that.

I was tired.
Emotional baggage
Weighs more than you’d think.
Heavy hearts aren’t fun to drag around,
Especially when you know that other people are so
Free
And have room.

I am sorry that I burdened you with my words.
That is all I will apologize for.
I’m sorry I brought it up
And I’m sorry I let my fingers fly
And make words and phrases
That conjured up
Emotions
and thoughts.

I am not truly sorry though.
If I could go back, I would do it the same.
Because I am selfish. That shouldn’t surprise you.
I cannot deny that speaking now was better
Than forever holding my peace.
And now you are a bit less clueless.
Win-win?
I think so.
You probably don’t.

Not understanding
Is no longer an option.
You will think it is stupid
And juvenile
And that is okay.
I am stupid
And juvenile.
And I think that is okay.

I am telling you now in plain English what I want you so badly to understand:
You and I are fundamentally different.
It’s as simple and complicated as that.

This is me. I obsess.
I put everything I have
Into everything that I do.
I clamp onto things hard
And I do not let go
Until my fingers go numb
And holding on
Becomes a hazard to my sanity.
And even then,
Sometimes,
I keep holding on.
I am emotional.
So emotional, almost to a fault.
Actually, to a fault.
My rationality and emotionality
Are constantly
Fighting
For power
Over my personality.
You know that.

I am a storm.
A godawful storm.
But I’m done apologizing for that.
Because I like what I am better than what you are.

If damage could be measured
in skipped heartbeats
in splitting headaches
in heavy heaving heard
on the other end of the line...

You would consider me
damaged
beyond repair.

I'd like a thunderstorm
With lighting and pounding rain.
A storm so fierce
It needs to take
A whole town’s electricity
To fuel its fury.

The lightning should be bright enough to stun the blind.
The thunder should be loud enough to disorient minds.
Not forever but long enough.
Not forever, but just long enough.
The rain should make the windows tremble.
A storm you can see, hear, and feel.
It will make
every
sense
shake.

Consume. It will consume.
Time, space, energy.
And we will realize that the storm is worse than our problems.

Honey, this storm is too loud to fight over.
And just like that, peace.
We are happiest when we play the victim.
And now we are no longer the monster.

The home is now safe.
The house… Not so much.
But it is a small sacrifice.  

This is what I want.
Mother Nature, make it happen.

My soft piece
of prose
sounded prettiest
pressed against
your pink ear.

Your scent was stronger
than your skeleton.
If I remember nothing else,
I will never forget that.

In foreign tongue,
I found
the phrase
that voiced
the feeling.

It always starts the same.

His teeth are shiny and his hair is
perfectly unkempt,
because a boy that beautiful
doesn't need to try.

He reminds her of her father,
the way he talks with his hands
wildly,
and when he talks with his mouth
softly,
he emphasizes all the right sounds.

He smells like her childhood,
and it's all she wants for her future.
The ring of his laugh,
she swears she heard years ago in a dream.
She's kept it in her ear all this time
and plans to for the rest of time.

He doesn't need to convince her of his perfection.
He doesn't need to do a **** thing.
He doesn't need to need.
She is full of enough need
and want
and wish
for them both.

It always starts the same.
And all I can do is hope that
this time
it will end differently.

Rehabilitate. Relapse. Regret.
Remember. Regress.
Reject.
Reject.
Reject.
Rehabilitate. Relapse. Regret.
Remember. Reflect. Respond.
Reject. Reject. Reject.
Rest.
Reflect.
Rehabilitate. Relapse. Rehabilitate. Relapse.
Regret.
Regret.
Regret.
Realize.

Repeat.

God is Man’s Eagerness
To explain
The who, what, why, and how
Of his existence
And of the world around him.

God is Man’s Desire
To understand
External, internal,
The forces of Nature
And the forces of his own mind.

God is Man’s Inability
To let go,
To give up,
To accept an end.

God is Man’s Conscience,
Steering him from what is wrong,
Urging him toward is right.

God is Man’s Will to Live,
To be eternal,
To be larger than life,
His escape from Death.

In biology, we learn that what is simplest came first.
Compared to God,
Man is quite simple.
Man is a story,
But God is a mystery.
God is complex,
Prompting more questions than answers,
Consisting of more ambiguity than security,
Useless to calculate and difficult to interpret.

God is a manifestation of Man’s Wants and Needs.
It is said that God created Man in his image.

But is Man truly God’s creation,
Or is God simply Man’s?

I am a hypocrite
If I say it bothers me.
And I am a liar
If I say that it does not.

And she'll take her frozen finger
and send it down
to find the sources of her quiet sound,
the cold and shaky embodiment of her state of mind.

Because she hates what she is,
inside and out.
She looks everywhere
for a piece of beauty that she will never find.

"There's so much ugly in this world."

Here. Have a little more.

The beauty of
transparency
is that everyone can['t] see it.

On the mornings I awake empty,
more frequent than few and far between,
I take solace in the supposition
That I have something within me
Worth expending.

If ever a moment of doubt,
if ever an instance of uncertainty
If ever a day, a night,
(and all the time in between)
If ever, if always,
Just know
Nothing will amount to what we have just become.

There is too much rigidity
In me
For anything precious
To be
Caught in the space
I keep
Between the bulk of your body
And my frail frame.

Oh, if only my limbs were liquid!
My god, can you imagine?

If fluidity could replace
Straight lines
Perhaps my thoughts could wrap around
Your mind
And this endless pursuit
To find
Eternity in our [e]motions
Would end.

She whispered,
*I wish more people cared about more people.

You are full of empty,
And I still don't know how that can be.

I'll get you to laugh,
and you'll forget for a minute.
I'll lay by your side,
and feel you struggle in it.

When we're together,
it's you, me, and your other.
When I gaze at your face,
I can't help but wonder:

Do you have space for me?
Love for me?
Anything to spare for me?
as I see you battle daily,
with this intruder I cannot see.

You can't stand my love
and don't want my pity.
You withdraw from the moment,
from our home, from this city.

You are full of empty,
And I'm still figuring out how that could be.
You are so full of empty,
is there any room for me?

She spit
He hit
She swore
He tore
Her heart.

I cannot recall
what it's like
to not
love
you.

The only people awake right now
don't
have
a pulse.

This
sin
is
the greatest salvation we will ever know.

I have become quite preoccupied with stomachs.

Ones that have skin stretched taut,
so thinly across that you can see every lie
they've ever swallowed.

Ones that shake
when the body laughs,
little waves threatening to spill
every emotion.

Ones that are held in,
too shy to reveal
the extent of their reach.
I have found myself reading them --
the depths of the creases,
the heights of the curves,
the shades of summer that
fade with fall.
They must mean something.
The contents of each
were not left to chance, no,
but were calculated decisions,
influenced by money, desire,
and calorie counting apps.

And I wonder,
what does my stomach say about me?
What did yours say about you?

The tension runs
as thick as my blood
... but not yours.

You are no longer
mine. Somewhere
between a touch
and a kiss,
I lost you.

My mistake to
believe that
feelings
could
be
reciprocated.

You're free.

I gave up self-pity
but am still
quite acquainted
with self-loathing.

I see too many roses
to not believe
that this city
is in love with me.

I am sitting in an empty classroom
wondering
what exactly it is
that makes Fear
such a formidable enemy.

To be afraid
is to be without
Peace.

I am counting
the myriad forms
Fear has taken for me.

As that number
is the number
of times
Peace has been taken from me.

This is not how things were supposed to be.

It started so simply,
quite earnestly,
so honestly.

This is not what I planned for us.

It came very swiftly,
so silently,
quite lethally.

We never stood a chance.

If words were money,
we'd be rich.

I'd buy us a future.

If promises were heavy,
we'd never fly.

I know we will never fly.

You called me a goner,
yet I am still here.

I know you don't look at her.
But I know you can see her.
So tell me again why I shouldn't worry.

I don't think I can
Fit more perfectly into
Any other arms