With your brevity,
I start to disintegrate;
Only dust remains.

I am feeling so many things all at once,
a whirlwind of emotions,
frantic and furious,
circling the drain of my mind,
planting landmines in my heart,
subjecting me to explosion,
to drowning,
that I somehow feel none of it,
an empty shell
exhausted,
dried up from everything
I should be feeling,
I am left feeling none of it,
and maybe once I rest,
once I let go,
once I forget it all,
once I feel nothing,
I will then feel
everything,
and everything will feel
me.

I
looked on at a
yellow sky,
creamy meringue;
peppered with
feathers and wings,
the lemonade stage
for the black bird dancing.

Crisp November winds and
overheated toes,
I lost my head in the
music on the
dimly lit road.

Oh,
how conflicted is the soul
of a poet,
for we yearn for nothing more
than to share the deepest depths,
our nakedness and rawness in
the beautifully
tragic love we feel,
but how much do we
try to individualize
that that lies inside, to make ourselves
stand out, for we
experience the world in sensory means
beyond the normal comprehension
of those around us;
how badly we wish for our
word choice and alliteration
to breathe life into the persons
who never hopefully
comprehend our creativity,
for we are arrogant in our
supernatural secret-keeping,
in our mind games and
manipulation.
Oh, how I bless my soul,
a poet lost
deep in the depths of my own
emotion,
of my never-waivering devotion,
to being the most uniquely recognized
and desperately bittersweet
wide-eyed doe
that ever did aggressively
permit the world
to melt so fervently into a home
within her.

I once heard that there are
two kinds of love.
The first kind is the kind from
the movies,
the songs,
the Shakespearian sonnets,
the red-wine-induced conversations;
it is the
magnanimous
amorous
empowering love
that makes you lose your breath
and stumble across your words
until you fall so hard you
float back to the sky,
so emboldened you could
conquer the world in one fell swoop
and inspire hope in the most
hopeless.
The second kind
is the opposite of
empowering for it is
devouring,
cowering,
manipulative,
cold, and
a road paved with
adoring anguish as you
pour all of your bloated heart into
a desperate wish.

I've become exhausted by
door number two
and sit on the lip of
a hope and a prayer that
door number one opens for me
before I quit the
games(how).

There are these
        moments
where my eyes are closed,
my walls are decomposed,
any safeguards,
logic,
defenses,
they get swept away
as my subconscious becomes
my temporary conscious.

You often appear in my dreams.

No telling what you're doing,
where you're going,
what the context is,
who else is around...
no, you're just there
in the corners of my
uncooperative mind.

I always hear your voice
so clearly,
and I imagine somehow
that even your dream voice,
your dream lips,
your dream skin,
it all still makes my
conscious real-world body
get goosebumps...
that's the kind of effect
you've always
   had on
            me.

God,
and then I fall in love
all over again in my
dreams,
but in this realm you
don't disappoint me,
leaving me hurt,
forcing me
to
            walk
                                      away­.

Nope,
see,
my dreams
are perfect,
so much so that
I often get mad
when I wake up,
because that's
when I remember that
you're no longer around;
that I don't get to taste your tongue,
feel the softness of your caramel skin,
the fullness of your perfect lips;
that you aren't mine
and never really were;
that you never let me
love you;
that our love story never even began.

There are these moments
when my eyes are closed and
I am yours.

Sometimes I create my own
Writer's block;
It sounds ****** up,
Dozens of us at any given
Moment
Genuinely searching for
Any single word at all,
And here I am,
Wishing my words away,
Creating every writer's
Nightmare
Simply because I'm a
*******
Coward,
Too scared to pick up
My fresh black ballpoint pen
And put it to my
Worn out notebook
Because I'm too
Scared to feel
The dark, painful,
Scary things I know
Will come in the
Free flow of my
Disturbing verses...
So yeah, I'm
That *******,
Creating writer's block
For myself
So I don't have to
Let it all go.

****, that's lame.

I remember this one time that
You and I went to the beach and
We fell in love as we
Got up early to watch the sun rise and
Kissed and held hands and cared not
At all
Who was watching.

I had never felt love like that
So thrilling and still
Reciprocal and
Just so head over heels
I couldn't tell where was up and
How it differed from down
As my head twisted around your
Stone cold exterior and
Cracked the surface as I
Crumbled.

There is a fork in the road
where I veered left to merge onto
I-65,
and I spotted the same
bilboard I look up at
every day on my commute to work,
but now it was at eye level,
and I thought to myself,
*well, I guess that's what we call
perspective.

My body
feels small as I
stare at the the cracks in the
ceiling and
I am so small in my
loneliness,
my body shrinks and my
eyes glaze;
sandpaper tongue
and dry eyes
breathing stale air
and the cycle goes over and over
crumbling and
cracking and
splintering,
stumbling in darkness, my
body numb and also

Aching.

I'd ask where you are but
I don't even
Know who You is and that
is perhaps the most
painful part.
Or maybe it's that I'm so
        alone
in my loneliness(no one quite
seems to recall
t heir I solation)

Trees and grapes
I resolve to not need to
solve it;
I need no u's and
know you's

Is life nothing more
than a series of moments
strung together
like a poorly crafted
beaded bracelet,
the flimsy string base
nearly broken
under the weight
of the hand-woven design?
Or is the design not even
of our own creating,
fitted and shoved together
by someone else,
our will and drive
bent
to fall in line,
in pattern
with what we are
supposed to do?

I've been here for a lifetime,
or at least a quarter of one,
but the glue that
keeps me together,
it feels sealed,
stuck together
under the command
of something or someone else,
some entity that is not myself.

Day after day
feet following
in military style march,
left right left,
pumps beating hard
on the pavement
running, propelling me forward.

My robotic heart
pumps lead,
tongue tastes metallic
as it formulates
the expected utterances
for the ambitious woman.
Yes sir, yes ma'am,
achievements regurgitated
at pairs of ears
who listen merely
at how formulated,
premeditated phrases
may prove themselves worthy.
I aim no higher
than Mount Everest,
spitting my list
of captivating factors,
of perfected musings
of this unlivable habitat
I am to call life,
when all I truly yearn to do
is scream out
the loudest yelp,
that, no,
this isn't all that fascinating,
and, yes,
I would rather
pucker my
dried, worn out lips
around a cold glass
and inhale some
clarity and serenity.

Is a life that's driven,
that's focused,
that's ****** hollow,
its meat devoured by ambition,
is that a life that's lived,
or have I given
everything
away?

The water dances
silently under the
moonlight,
streetlights
reflecting onto
the river
in hues of gold and cerulean,
fish fluttering to the
surface
in arhythmic,
unpredictable
time sequences.

I sit
near the metallic railing
that guards
the liquid edges;
I inhale slowly
as my eyes
absorb all the hidden
color in the darkness
of the blackened
summer night.

The bushes arch toward me,
extending their leafy green fingers
in a hushed reassurance.
The mulch under my
lower body
is slightly poky
but weirdly soothing,
and I seem to melt
into the ground
as I lounge in a silent Indian style.

The back of my head
occasionally
grazes against the tree
behind me
as the sprinklers
just miss
my relaxed frame.

In long waves and splashes
of confusion,
self-doubt,
and loneliness,
I manage to retreat
to some, if only temporarily,
state of serenity
as I perch on the shoreline.
It's as if I lose myself
below the water,
all the heaviness drowning
& sinking to the bottom,
and my much lighter
outer shell
waits, wading on the
nearby soil.

Sometimes I have
this fear
that I'll always be

             alone,

one of those people
who just
"isn't destined to be
in a (loving) relationship,"
and in the meantime
all I get
are half-genuine,
wholly-awkward
"it's just not your time" 's.

Will there ever be a time
that is mine,
where I can let
my inner hurricane
fizzle out,
waves of infinite
heart to extend to
another, crashing down
onto a sandy white beach?

My spine suddenly
tingles,
existential crisis
swimming up and down
my icy veins,
clogging my
arteries;
shortly before fainting
from the crushing
weight of it all,
the sound of an airplane
flying overhead
snaps me out of my
analytical coma,
and the
ripples
put me back to tranquility.

Sometimes I fear
I have become too good at
being alone.

I basque in the hours
spent locked by my
lonesome in the confines
of my apartment,
surrounded by nothing but
brick and cement and the sounds
of the television or my iPod speaker.
Tranquility seeping in through my
isolation,
I yearn for the moments I am
privileged to spend without
the duty to perpetuate conversations
or offer advice to someone I consider
merely an acquaintance.

Sometimes I worry I am
too comfortable with solitude.

I get a thrill off of
being needed without needing,
being sought out without seeking.
I let others let me in
without having to give a shred of
myself in return,
for people love to go on
about themselves
without inquiring about
the person to whom they
narrate their autobiographies.

Sometimes I am scared of
the ease with which I can
let someone go.

So often have people come and gone
that now I comprehend, perhaps
too deeply,
that nothing in life is guaranteed
and most people are meant to be
lessons rather than
permanent.
There was a time where I wept
with sordid frequency for the people
I was forced relinquish,
clinging tightly to the empty void,
wallowing in a glass half full of
skewed memories.

Sometimes I am terrified that
I only really know how to
be alone.

It is almost impossible for me
to recall a love not
unrequited.
I stare up at screens and strangers
all screaming that love exists,
and there I am fighting
insane laughter because I just
can't see it,
as if my eyes have become colorblind,
for it is black and white that
all I've ever had is
gray.

Sometimes
I am afraid
that this is
Always
how it will be.

Dear America,

I’m really disappointed in you. It’s a harsh way to start a letter, I know, but that’s truly how I feel.

Our leadership (if you can call it that) has unveiled the deep rooted White supremacy and sexism that this country was founded upon. And that means that there are enough people in this country that feel this way that a man like Trump was able to get elected, that a man like Mitch is able to run the show in Congress.

America as the land, it isn’t your fault. You would’ve been happy to never have been invaded, carved up, forced to be witness to slavery and war and watching your beautiful indigenous people die and be culturally erased (in many ways still today). You are beautiful, with your mountains and trees, your beaches and oceans, your rivers and streams.

You are ugly, though, with your systemic oppression, kids in cages, Black people shot by police, housing segregation, gentrification, fatphobia, mass incarceration, capital consumerism, transphobia, misogyny, lack of mental health and addiction support, no healthcare for all, no equal right to education without stock piles of debt, and you always make a way for the wealthy and White,  but you box out anyone Brown without extra expectations or attempted White washing. You pave ways and repave them, neglecting potholes and broken bridges for those that need, deserve, should have them more. You are the birthplace of internal wars, internalized sexism, colorism, homophobia, racism; you’ve made us hate ourselves as much as you hate us.

America, I expected better with the version of you I read in textbooks. But then, that version of you was written by those whose roads were paved with gold, and they profit from its retelling.

I don’t like you, America. I don’t know what hope there is for us, but I do know that I love my brothers, sisters, siblings of all genders, colors, and creeds who too want to unravel you, America, and build you back up into something better, something equitable, something for all of us.

Maybe there’s hope for you, America. Maybe there’s hope in your (r)evolution.

-Meg

Sometimes I think he’s too good for me
He’s too kind
And there are all these words
That come out of my mouth like
*****
Because I’ve been alone so long and
Don’t know how to just let him be nice to me.
I am controlling,
But he’d insist I’m fiercely independent.
I am difficult,
But he’d tell me to never change.
The day after we had met,
He had said just that,
Yet I am constantly wanting to do the opposite.
I’ve spent so many years blaming myself for my own abandonment
That this all seems like a strange but beautiful dream.
Even so, somehow,
with just two words in the quiet of the morning,
He makes me feel like everything




“Hey, beautiful.”

I try to keep myself distracted,
Try to stay busy,
To keep my mind from wandering
Where it shouldn't.
But I look out across the
Vast expanse of water,
And my mind rides the ripples,
Catches the current,
Flows right to you.
I'm drowning,
I'm losing myself in this river
Of heartache and confusion.
I can't keep afloat
With the thought that
I would rather sink to the bottom,
Lay dormant at the water's depths
Than be without you,
And even so,
You couldn't fight to keep me
From sinking,
Couldn't breathe the air
Back into my lungs.
You couldn't make the plunge,
Swim in after me,
Sweep me under your tide.
Instead I'm left alone,
Treading the waters of love
Without you.
As the water rises higher,
I plead for you
To catch a boat,
Sail toward me,
Throw out your lifeline,
And pull me back in;
To realize all along
That you didn't want to swim away,
That even though the shoreline is safe,
You would rather be swept up
By my love
And drown in my riptide
Than sail the seas
Without me.

I once read that
there is a wrinkle in time and
ever since I've sought to
parse out the clock's seconds and
feel every whisper of wind on
my skin and
sneak glances at sunrises through
blinds and
taste snowflakes and rainstorms and
wrinkle my nose at
good and bad smells in
Time's wrinkle and
gaze at moonlight twinkle.

Miles
on
miles
separate
me            from       you,
and yet
you remain with me.
I hear your laugh
and feel your skin.
I ache for your mind,
for the way you
unravel me.
I burn with hatred
I cannot find for you.
I shake off love
I cannot dispel for you.
I left,
and you managed to
follow me,
leaving me wondering
if I'll ever be without you,
if there's some way to flush you,
rid your toxicity from my system.

I have been infected
with your infectious soul,
and distance isn't the cure
I thought it would be.
And now,
years later,
it is much too late to
vaccinate.

If only I had known.

How am I to know
when it's okay to surrender?

My body begs me
for sweet relief,
to let my limbs, my digits,
all of my organs,
to let them go numb,
falling deep down
into a dark place
where I have vehemently
refused to
stumble
for many moons.

I keep my carcass
a hollowed shell,
swearing off any inclination
of relaxation,
of letting down my guard,
forbidding myself
to wander to the place
that frightens me most.

My beating chest,
it fights back
with fierce vigor
against my head's resounding no's
as your lips,
soft and succulent,
beseech my own,
our tongues
exchanging salutations
in a hushed, velvety
vernacular
that seems completely
of our own creation.

As my brain runs hurriedly
a million miles in a direction
somewhere southwest of here,
my figure melts,
      oozing
into your muscular hands
as they caress my face,
sweeping my hair
behind my ears.

Panic sets into my mind,
my breathing grows heavy,
but instead of bolting for
the door,
I draw your frame closer to mine,
wrestling a copacetic convulsion of angst and jitters
as your fingernails
gingerly
scrape
down
my
spine.

We said goodbye after what
felt like just moments after
we had said hello,
for even though months
had passed,
we had both always done
our best not to
share too much.

Although I have gone to great lengths
mastering how to be aloof,
in that moment I
regretted so much my inability
to emote.

"You make it seem so easy,"
he breathed,
his face welling with discontent,
and I kissed him on the cheek
as I whispered,
"I'm good at making things
look easy."

He had the sweetest demeanor,
and my body trembled
in the gentle strength and
aggressive tenderness with which
he kissed me,
a passionate, bittersweet
exchange, as we became aware
that it might be for the
last time.

I've become so good at
being alone that I had not
even pondered how I might
actually miss him
once he was gone.

I think my lack of visible reaction
hurt him, but I
couldn't bring myself to be
vulnerable, to let down
my guard and tell him
that knowing we were
parting ways made my
insides ache in the most
unexpected and terrifying way.

Maybe we weren't ever
meant to be anything;
that was my thought from
the jump.
But when he looked me in my eyes,
his heart was so pure,
and I yearned to touch
my soul to his.
I settled for combing my nails
through his curly hair
and murmuring sage words,
masking the things I refused
to feel.

He sent me on my way with
his favorite record, and I said
the most unscripted thing I ever had
to him,
that I'd always think of him
when it crackled and popped.

The kindness of what he extended to me,
the vulnerability I saw in his
beautiful, youthful eyes,
the way he softened his tough exterior,
it ate at me the whole drive home
as I cursed myself for being
so cold
and wishing I could kiss him
one last time.

I still haven't been able to
shed a tear, my heart too
frozen to thaw,
but as the Ray Charles
erupts from my speakers,
I stick to my word;
I think of him,
and I ponder on the possibilities
should we cross paths again.

Should that moment never come,
I can still find him
in the words of my poems
and hear him in the
rifts of his record, so I guess, for me,
it wasn't really
"goodbye."

"I'm writing to you from a distance like a pen pal."


My war letters remain unanswered.
Sincerely,

Not yours,
Truly.

I just wish I could get my
head and my heart
to play on the same team,
but they are constantly
at
odds.

My heart still yearns for
a man that
never loved me to begin with,
convinces me that
it's worth responding when
he texts me some
empty ******* that
momentarily assuages his guilt
for his selfishness.
On a Saturday night when
all my friends are off with
someone who loves them,
my heart pumps heavy
against my hollowed chest,
trying to manipulate my
fingers like weak little
puppets,
persuading them to send a text
I will regret in the morning.
My heart replays the words he spoke,
the times he made me feel like I mattered,
the way our bodies made art,
how he understood me like
no one else ever has.
What if I made a mistake,
my heart demands of me,
a mistake in cutting him out,
in choosing to ignore his texts,
in attempting to move forward?
What if no one else will
ever open
their ears to all of my secrets,
their eyes to all of my skeletons,
their hearts to all of my mistakes?
What if I missed my
chance for love?
Remember, my heart whispers,
how he stayed up all night
unfolding himself
and
how you shared your poetry
and
how he sent you a text a day with
a new matter to ponder
and
how he knew what you thought
before you said a word
and
how he understood every
face you made and what it meant
and
how the lyrics you heard
always mattered to him
and
how he cared about what you were learning
and
how the minuscule moments
of your life meant the world to him...
or so he claimed.

And then my brain swoops in
to remind me how
he was all words, no action.
Days and weeks went by
without a peep
even though the week before
he had insisted on showing up at your
apartment five days in a row.
All he cared to do with you,
my brain recalls,
is share a smoke on the roof
and discuss life,
but never did he once care to
share in the outside world
with someone who he so claimed to love.
My brain reminds me of
the secrets he kept,
of the woman he lived with
behind my back,
of the gross refusal to make a commitment
even when he claimed
he would think of me in his last moments
and that he had never
felt for another like he did for me.
My brain knows of his emptiness,
of his excuse-making,
of how he blamed everything on his
pathetic circumstances
when he really was just a
selfish ******* who deserves
not a moment more of my time,
ever.
When I get those texts
that claim he's thinking of me
after church or
send me song lyrics in some
pathetic attempt to reawaken our
"connection,"
my brain reminds me to
ignore,
to remember that words are empty,
to wait until he becomes man enough
to give me what I deserve.

My heart makes me weak.
My brain keeps me strong.
My heart wants you.
My brain doesn't need you.
And even though I want
to listen to my heart,
my brain knows better.

Taste of freshly picked
honeysuckle melting on my tongue,
diving head first into the
smells and sounds of spring,
croaking of insects as they
happily hum on blossomed branches,
I bite into ripe fruits and
frolick under a sun who fights
slumber till late,
my arms tickling against the fresh
green grass as I lay
in the park with my notebook,
dogs barking cheerily as they
run in the open space,
dusting me with pollen and
peacefulness,
the earth
soaking in a warmth about which
I've been dreaming for
months.

Loving you was the emergence of spring,
and thus without you I remain
frozen in a winter that
seems it will never thaw.

I once saw a man sitting at
the bar of one of my favorite dives,
and he looked so handsome in his
profile,
his lips gingerly kissing a bottle
of craft beer,
his suit fitted just right
against his sculpted
frame.

He stared intently through his
trendy glasses
at the glow of his
laptop screen,
and I imagined he was
reading something involving
important business,
or maybe a book about a
new age philosophy as he
pondered the meaning of life.

He seemed so comfortable
and familiar in his
solitude,
like he traveled often and
had grown to love himself
immensely;
he valued his alone
time.

I imagined he went to some
ivy league school,
like Brown or Cornell,
where he studied business and
made his parents proud.
He still likes to learn and finds
the world to be a
blissfully curious place.

I was enthralled with
the picture I had drawn in
my head as I
gazed at his strong jaw
and white smile,
and I couldn't help but whisper
to my friend how
infatuated I was with the
view from
my seat in our wooden booth,
when my friend chuckled
nervously,
his brows downturned as he
erased all I had
drawn and replaced the
picture with
he's homeless.

An insatiable hunger
that rips at my insides;
the more I get, the more
still I'm left wanting.

Mostly served in snacks,
rarely a full meal,
but I want you in five courses
with a glass of wine to pair.

I crave your
lips and fingers on my neck;
salivating at the sound of your voice.

I am famished for every inch of your body, starved for the  intricacies of your mind, ravenous for the layers of your soul.

I yearn for another taste of you,
each moment somehow more delicious than the last.

You know that feeling
you get when
you drive at night, and you
just want to feel the car fly, so you
push your foot as far as
it'll go down on the gas,
down to the baseboard,
your engine howling like a wolf in the
moonlight,
yet somehow it doesn't feel
fast enough?

That's what it feels like
getting over
you.

Getting over you is like
sneaking home, trying not to awaken
the parents that you
left dozing,
but every
single
solitary
stair
creaks underneath your weight.

It is the
new routine with the
broken ankle;
the unanswered
correspondance;
the sailing ship on
the windless ocean;
getting over you is the
road taken and laden with potholes;
the refusal of the snow
to melt,
my feet slipping out from underneath me
on the remaining ice.

Getting over you is the
flameless fire,
the un-Happy New Year,
the series of unhappy poems.

Getting over you
is the bottle of champagne I drank
to quench my thirst for you,
the texts I sent you and didn't remember,
the tears I shed as I begged the
universe (and anyone else in ear shot)
to explain why it had to
turn out this way.

You know that feeling where
up is down,
left is right,
inside is flipped outside?

You're gone.

(Y)our
v - O - ice
so melodio[U]s

.A. s it
whispe _ R _ s
sw (E) etly
in my ear;

[B]ewildering
c...E...ssation
of logicAl
tho U ghts,

\T\oo overwhelmed
to
fa'I n
neutrality;

inhaling F-ascination,
i am
high off yo -- U r
fumes;

/L et me
exhale.

I remind myself of
all the bad things you did
so that I can convince myself
to stop missing you;





Yet I go on missing you anyway...

I'm freezing cold as my
insides burn,
my body lapped up by
flames of frustration and feelings of failure;

lonely in the most crowded of rooms,
fighting to find meaning in a city full of answer keys,
the most educated of the inexperienced and the
least successful of the most ambitious;

adventuring in ambiguity,
road tripping with no map,
the drive is long, the horizon lost in the sea of darkness;

sleeping passes time,
but the past's vivid dreams seem harder to find;

where am I (fromnowgoingheadedstranded)?

I put on my glasses to
refocus my vision,
but I realize it is my distracted mind
that hinders me,
work documents transposed with your face,
my mouth still filled with your taste,
your body still bruised into me and
your skin still stuck to my fingernails;
my body aches for your touch,
my ears yearn for the feeling of your teeth,
my mouth hungry for your lips;
my eyes stare blankly at my computer monitors as
my brain remains transfixed on the way
we intertwine and
how you make my limbs shake;

I'm not sure my boss will understand
that 8 hours a day has gone by,
and all I have managed to accomplish is
the perpetual fantasizing of the way you make me sweat,
the way you take away my breath,
how you disassemble me.

Lying motionless on the sofa,
eyes fixated on the gray and purple cat clock perched on the mantle,
watching apathetically as the second hand
click click clicks,
stuck in place as the hour and the minute hands
sit sit sit,
as if intentionally to keep time from passing;
sit sit sitting
lie lie lying
stuck in place,
disappointment
click click clicking
in my mind,
so debilitated that
I can't even feel the passage of time,
the clock intentionally refraining from counting minutes so are empty.

warm, strong hands;
the delicacy of his fingers
softly racing
d
o
w
n
the small of my back
losing my breath
heart beating;
lump in my chest.

a world unknown,
I have yet to feel for
someone
new,
my world spinning endlessly
as we lay
on the azure blue of his sofa couch;

feels so soft,
soft as the heaven and the clouds
as they wrap
             their arms
                          around the sun
and it slips into Darkness....

Darkness.
days of it.
nights of it.
yet the most remote light found
in the darkest of places

a cold lonely night,
riots; tragic news; insecurity...
he turns them into
radiance,
to the white of a sandy beach;
his soft skin, his beautiful gaze...
I get lost in that blue-green ocean
that bores into me
with all of their innocence.

I let him take me away
away from it all;
in that moment...
and as my skin brushes melodiously
against his enchantment
I know somehow that everything
has
changed,
and it is so far
from
                                                              undisclosed.

if only I could keep the sunshiny Darkness;
the togetherness of our loneliness;
the stillness of our fast-moving passions...
locked away secretly,
                                        a secret between (your lips and mine.)

On a Wednesday,
here I lay
with so many things
I want to
say.

Even though
on deaf ears
it would
fall,
I still fight that urge
to call
you
and explain
the disdain
I maintain
from what you refrained
to give,
to do,
to live;
you withdrew.

How I wish I could say,
"I know you'll be back
someday.
I know you'll be in dismay,
in disarray,
for going astray,
for walking away
from what we could've made.
To realizations you will come;
to emotions you will succumb;
regretful you will become
when you recognize what you've done;
you'll become numb,
petrified of
what's been
undone.
By the time
you find
your peace of mind,
the strength inside;
when from vulnerability
and love
you no longer hide;
that someday
when you try
to reappear at my side,
I
will be far-away,
no longer with any
words I wish
to say."

I know that I only
hate you
because I'm actually
still crazy
in love with you,
but I
*******
hate you
for saying
I was the person
you'd think of
in your last moments
and then
somehow not loving me
in the kind of way
to
even feel the
    magnitude of
               it all.

*******.

I love you in my
                     hatred,
hate you in my
             undying,
                            unwavering,
       stupid
        stubborn
    dumbly drunk on you
                   love.

We have the kinda love
where I can only love you from afar,
feel you in the lyrics of songs that
I fight the urge to send your way,
see you in the stanzas of poems
I desire to imitate.
I am forced to love you like the
vegetation loves the sun;
distant but omnipresent,
refusing to forget you even in
the depths of winter.

Sitting
very much alone
on a makeshift bench
out of an old log,
my coffee balanced in
a knot in the wood I've
made into a cup holder,
my feet planted into the
soggy leaf-covered dirt.
I gaze outward onto
the wooden bridge
that aids the passerbyers
of persons and canines to
overstep the pebble-laden
creek.
The air is brisk,
the sun sneaking only
occasional glances at my
solitude
behind a screen of
scattered trees,
tall and thin,
buried in leaves slowly
transitioning from green to
yellow.
I ponder on how
brave everyone has
said I am,
that they could never do
what I'm doing,
like I'm some sort
of war hero.
I laugh slightly to myself,
for, I wonder, how much
moxy does it really take
to sit on an
abandoned stump in the
woods, fighting off
tears of loneliness and
anxiety?
Aren't those who are
brave not so
chock full of doubt,
not clinging to a pen
and a notebook in
hopes of dispelling
waves of woes?
The wind blows by me
once more as if to
reassure me that
my newfound spot of
singularity is exactly
where I am supposed to
be, so I go back to
watching the passerbyers, or,
momentarily,
the lack thereof,
sipping my coffee
and soaking in my new
surroundings.

Sometimes I think about you.

I know it's been a while,
But there are these times that
You just cross my mind,
A glimpse of what was,
What could've been.

I remember those
Cold afternoons in your
Dorm room,
Your arms wrapped around mine
On your sofa couch,
Watching some cool movie
I had never been hip to before,
The laughter bouncing off our chests,
Reverberating against the off-white cement walls,
****** and maybe a little drunk,
But mostly just high off of our chemistry.

You were someone so different to me,
So full of stories of mischief and misunderstandings;
I used to get lost in your words,
Hanging onto every slightly twanged syllable.

You told me your secrets.
I let you unzip me,
Physically and mentally,
Seduced me so with your blue eyes
That I didn't even mind that you
Smoked cigarettes.

Months that felt like eternities
As I stumbled into a kind of love
I still don't comprehend,
So fleeting yet the moments
I spent with you
Are so vivid,
Sometimes so that I
Can almost feel the
Softness of your full lips...

You might just be that cliche,
That one
Who somehow got away.

I distinctly remember the moment
When I realized I was in love with you.

I was lying beneath
The most incredible night sky,
Black blanket speckled with
An endless stretch of stars.
I had never seen a sky like that.
I had never seen anything so
Infinitely beautiful,
So breathtaking.
I felt the smallness of my existence
In the context of an infinite universe.

And it was then that I knew,
In the smallness of my existence,
In the vastness of this world,
Amidst all the chaos
And stillness
And uncertainty;
Somewhere between all the quiet
Moments and contemplations,
You had found a home in my heart.

In that moment,
I realized that there was nothing
That I wanted more
Than to lay next to you on the
Chilled ground,
And let our souls speak all the words
That we never needed to say out loud.

It was then that I knew,
That I loved you,
That I wanted to love you
As large as the universe,
As bountifully as the stars,
Until our spirits became celestial.

Like the white of lightening,
Pulsating its veins against the
Angry purple sky;
Like the wild claps of thunder,
Beating tirelessly against
Windows and doors;
Like the furious scattering of rain,
Throwing punches at the
Asphalt of the streets and sidewalks;
Like a violent summer storm,
You rip my insides apart with
The force of your winds and
****** me up in your
Unpleasant storminess,
And I hate you as much as
The sun hates the rain clouds
Stealing away its glow
While madly loving you as
The flowers love the rain storms
For calming to a drizzle,
Leaving their floral thirsts quenched.

Yet,
I remain dry,
Thirsty,
Desperate for more rain
That never seems to come
In the desert where you left me
Alone.
Or rather,
Where I lead myself
To escape your monsoon.

Green
is the color of the trees,
the luscious spring grass
that sparkles in the
creamy April sunshine
as I gaze outward
from atop the
monkey bars.

Sweet nectar of
honeysuckle and lavender,
a chorus
reverberating in my eardrums
of children giggling,
swings creaking,
runners thumping by.

I think of you,
your delicious warmth
that abruptly turned cold,
the chill and goosebumps
trickling up my arms.

I blink hard in the light,
brain processing thoughts
jumbled with
sadness
and
strength,
muddled with a dollop of regret,
sprinkled with
perpetuated curiosity.

The almost-turqouise sky,
toward it I stare,
longingly
in attempts to solve
the mysteries circling
my ever-chattering
mind.

Such simplicity
I see in this spring day,
at the playground
where I search
for my own
tranquility and ease.

Will I find
the answers
in the white buds blooming
on the bushes?
Or in the innocent smile
of a girl, no more than one year,
legs kicking jubilantly
as she swings high,
back and forth?
Perhaps then
hidden behind
the trunk of that tree
where a young couple
shares a secret,
sealed with a tender kiss?

Green are the trees and grass,
flowers dressed in beautiful
shades
of pink, purple, and blue,
sun bright yellow,
orange too;

my insides bleeding red,
your name
etched still,
carved into my
wooden heart;
I
bleed
out
all
last
thoughts
of you.

Closing my eyes
to all shades
of rouge,
I reopen
and take in spring,
take in the scent of the air,
take in the green.
You are gone.

It was a Saturday morning.

My eyes,
they fluttered,
lashes grazing against
the top of my lids,
pitter, patter, flutter,
am I awake yet?

Hours spent
drifting in, drifting out
somewhere I slipped,
swiftly,
floating in between
sweet, delicious dreams
and soft, serene reality.

The universe opened
wide
just beyond the unlatched windows.
The wind
whispered to me
as it slowly blew by
the quilted drapes.

"The universe is yours,"
it whispered.
Awake, rising,
how I was aware,
senses heightened
by the morning air,
or was it afternoon?

No matter.

Grogginess faded
as my eyes focused
on the whimsical, soft shapes
that shifted, turned,
dissolved, bloated and
withered,
the clouds spoke to
me,
creating a slow, two-step
harmony
in my soul.

Sunlight faint,
that early afternoon light
the kind that
makes everything beautiful,
and poetic,
even the 3, oh wait,
there's 4,
flies buzzing,
circling round and round
the overhead light
were they dancing?
playing a tune?
The sunlight made it so.

'Twas all a chord,
a line from a song,
a poem,
a simple moment
in a complicated world,
and all I felt, smelled, heard, saw, tasted;
I am alive.

You're a cigarette and I
can't find a patch.
You taste foul in my mouth,
my tongue is dried out and my
words taste like tar as your
name rattles out;
I feel sickly satisfied as I realize
I have nothing else to scratch my itch.

You are
You have always been
a bad habit.

I quit.

It was a Sunday night,
a Sunday night that was
truly a Monday morning,
but the darkness,
coupled with
the heaviness of my body's
desire for rest,
to me it still felt like
nighttime.

The sweetly scented candles
flickered silently,
their aroma
filling my nostrils
as the sounds of
a
cliché romance movie
filled my
eardrums.

The dry red wine
poured smoothly
from
        the bottle to
                             my empty glass
        for the fourth time
   that
night.

Yes, it was a Sunday
night,
the pain and miscomprehension
clouding my mind
more than
another glass or
another hit
ever could.

How heavy
it all
    weighed


down
on
me

that
Sunday night;

That Sunday night,
I knew
I loved you,
but you never
loved me
back, and

That
Sunday night,
in the
darkness,
I sipped slowly,
blinked softly,
and
out
came
the
tears

that
I
had
resisted

for
many
nig­hts
just
like
this.

It was a Sunday night
when I finally
cried.

Again.

And even when my mind is foggy
And my eyes are glazed

Your image remains as clear as ever.

I stare blankly at the
bathroom wall
where the tiled portion
meets the faded blue paint
as it soaks in...
I liked it

The years of unrequited love,
the chase for affection,
the tortured artist
twisted up in twisted tortured
feelings

I spent year writing
dark poems,
letting the liquid manifest as a physical representation
of the tears shed
and bleeding heart.
Did I like it?

My existence was
wandering streets alone,
getting lost in melancholy songs,
wondering if love equated pain.

Then I found
what I told my notebook
I'd been searching for all along.
Someone loves me,
someone gives me love,
and I spent so much time searching for it,
enjoying the hunt and
getting gratification out
of my own self-deprecation
that I'm lost even though I'm found.

Do I like it?
Did I like that?
Do I like this?

I can't seem to decipher
affection and how it's supposed to
make me feel
versus how it does.
Did I like looking for it more than having it?

Am I so ****** up that
I love not receiving love more than receiving it?

I don't want to run; I want to stay;
I always used to run
to
     and away.

I tasted a lingering shot of ****** *****
on my tongue
before my mouth tasted
the rest of the night.
I pretended that I was
much drunker than I was
because I thought that would
make it easier,
less painful.
I gave myself a pep talk
and should've understood
that nothing wanted
needs convincing.
I've suppressed the act so much
in my subconscious
that I only remember it in flashes,
like a slow motion replay of a life-ending
car accident you'd see in a movie.
In some ways,
that scened ended me;
the world was fuzzier
than it had been the night before,
when I woke up no longer wearing
my agency.
The normalcy with which I picked myself up
from the dingy navy couch
was underwhelming
and haunting all at once.
I left with my dress and my shame clinging to me,
fearing not for myself
or how I had said no so many times before,
but instead that
giving it all still wasn't enough for you;
losing myself,
unraveling my soul wasn't worth
what I thought it would sell for.
All I saw was
the satisfaction that I had given that didn't satisfy you.

An emptied shell;
you took it all,
and I've been hollow ever since.

I was panting
as my feet continuously
pounded against
the asphalt,
the steepness of the hills
sending shockwaves through
my calves.

The crisp air and dusk lighting
enveloped me,
the steady beats from my headphones
isolated me.

I moved 'round the multitude
of pedestrians
with relative ease,
feeling as if they were all
paying me as little mind
as I them.

My sweatshirt shielded me from
the cooling temperature
and simultaneously trapped
beads of sweat to my forearms,
the rest dripping steadily down
my shoulder blades,
off my forehead, my breathing
evening as I hit my rhythm.

The lights from the honking cars
and various restaurants and bars
illuminated my pathway-for-one
as I snaked my way north.

My mouth dried out as
my body had near hit its limit,
as I am not exactly in marathon shape
(to put it nicely).

Yet still I pushed,
a mind-over-matter-moment
as I tried to decide on a
definitive destination.

I wasn't sure whether
I was running from something
or toward something;
all I knew was that my blood
was pumping,
my mouth was inhaling fresh air
into my lungs,
my skin was sweating and shivering
as it kissed the wind;
all I knew was that I was
running,
all I knew was that I was
alive.

As my
heart pounded against
my ribcage,
the start and the finish line
suddenly mattered so much less
than the seemingly endless
stretch of sidewalk
underneath
my
feet.

I knew that I was running;
I knew that I was alive;
and that was all I needed
to know.

Sometimes I prefer
sleeping to waking,
for in my dreams
our love is
without complication.