I held the last piece of
Dark chocolate in my hand,
Preparing myself mentally for my
Last chance at delectable,
And as I popped the
Morsel in my mouth,
Its melty coating dissolving into
My tongue,
I heard the bag crinkle,
And I looked down to find
A sugar-coated surprise,
One bite remaining when I
Had thought that that hope had
Melted away,
And boy did it taste
Sweet.

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.

They say that time heals all
but time has come and
gone
and come and gone again
and I'm still raw,
unstitched,
not even scarred,
let alone healed.

If I close my eyes,
my body transports so easily to
the times and spaces we shared
and the times and spaces where
I waited for you,
for a response,
for you to appear,
for you to even give me a single
solitary
syllable,
but even that was too much.

The hands of clocks have grayed into
a new generation
and still whenever I take two steps toward
something better that voice of your
nothings tells me
I'm not enough
I'm not ready
I need more of things I can't even
identify.

The more I know myself
the more I question why
I was never enough for you,
and I wonder if me 2.0
still wouldn't be enough for
whichever version of you that's been
installed.
Would you know me now?
Do I know you now?
Am I still not enough?
Is that what I'm striving for?

The door is closed,
but the doubt
is always
o p e n
for debate.

Alone.
Sitting
           silence
thoughts
   sift
      drift
         swim
            sink
THINK.

Here she waits
     thoughts muddled
emotions jumbled
self
   honesty
      to self
   myself
herself
yourself
    all perspectives
tell me
Why?

What is real?
wants
needs
desires
truth & lies
but
   be
      REAL

FEEL

live
   cry
      laugh
sing & dance
scream
      lungs filled
Let go,
      freedom
and
fear
but real, feel,

it’s okay.

Today.

Will I ever be enough?
Or is it that I’m too much?
Either way, I’m always something,
Something that makes me
Unworthy of love
Or of loyalty
Or of sticking around.

Will I ever be accepted?
Or is it that I’m unacceptable?
I’ve got flaws,
But don’t we all?
Are my flaws all you see?
Is that the entirety of what makes me
Me?
Is that all I’m meant to be?

I never trust people
Because every time I flirt
With the idea,
I’m left here,
Asking myself again,
Am I too much and also
Somehow never enough?

People always leave,
And even when they stay,
They put conditions on the way
I’m supposed to be
In order to be worthy of that.

Does anyone see me?
Am I outwardly projecting,
Externally expressing
Who I am inside?
Can anyone hear me?
Am I talking to myself?
Is anyone listening?

Does anyone love me?
Can anyone love me
When I don’t even love myself?

And why don’t I?
If we’re all flawed,
Why are my flaws the only
Thing I see?
Why can’t I accept the totality
Of what it means to be me?
Where do I even begin?

My soul feels overwhelmed
With an intangible feeling
Of desperately wanting to love
And to be loved
And to make the world around me
Feel the way I feel.

It’s a love/hate thing that I have
With my interior;
I feel so inferior
Because I can’t control the constant
Stream.of.emotions;
I can’t be logical once my heart is involved.

I feel the 60% water that makes up
The human body;
Constantly drowning in a sea of
Feelings, my tide too strong
And ocean too deep.

I ask myself nearly every day
If there is anyway that I could just
Be someone else,
Just for a minute.
Couldn’t I just be someone who feels less,
Who is accepted more,
Who isn’t so alienated and complicated?
Can’t I just shrink away,
Lose a little bit of it,
Whatever it is?

I don’t know who I even want to be.
I just know,
Being me might be too much,
Even for me.

One of my favorite hobbies
is watching people
on the train.
Some on their
daily commute,
dressed in suits,
hurriedly sipping
coffee,
checking their
wrists with
frequency,
ensuring they
arrive not even a
minute late.
So many,
myself included,
travel along to
their own
soundtracks,
earbuds helping
them to tune out
the cabin noise
around them.
Bodies swaying
back and forth,
movement in sync,
limbs dancing
the train's tango,
left, right,
forward, and back,
and for the encore,
we all jolt and jive hard
as the wheels
screech to a stop
halfway down the
green line.

Sometimes I play a game
when I walk down the sidewalk or
I cross the street or
I descend the stairs or
I exit the elevator or
I squeeze onto the crowded train or
I choose a seat on the bus;
I refuse to alter my route,
to change my footing,
to look down or away;
I am unabashed and fearless;
and not one time,
not one single time in the hundreds of times
I have played,
have I ever lost;
my path is always clear,
my victory always uncontested,
because I make it so.

Invisibility;

it need not mean
to not physically be seen,
for eyes look on,
taking in the
loneliness
I don;

crowds and rooms
bursting loud with tunes,
faces happily grimacing,
I am grimacing back,
revelry I am feigning,
as on spins the DJ track;

professional smile-maker,
the most experienced faker,
regarded by passerbyers,
they know nothing of my
insides                     on fire;

room crowded
and still alone,
optimism shrouded
by apathetic groan;

You
see
"me,"
but
you
don't
see
me;

Invisibility.

It was the second to last time
that I had you,
curled beside me,
chest rising & falling,
slowly & rhythmically
to the beat of
an *****
I wished more than anything to be mine;
but it was not so.

Taste of liquor still
heavy, weighing between
my slightly pouting lips,
I think a part of me knew,
even then,
that this may be the last time.

Convincing myself,
little did I know this effort
had persisted
nearly a year,
green I was
to hope for more.

Yet hope I did.

Your body felt so soft &
melodious
as it gently greeted my own,
lost in its
hidden intentions,
the music that echoed
against
the cement walls
sounded too loud
& drowned out
notes of rhyme & reason.

Today lay I that song to rest
yet not without again
questioning
the senses felt
come the first exposure
to new lyrics, melodies,
and sounds.

The bitter taste,
his sweet recipe
left upon my tongue,
I will never forget,
nor the smell of the
vanilla candles
and soft feelings
of perceived,
believed silkiness,
I now feel the cold, hard
linoleum
as it presses against my cheek.

Sometime they will
pass, leave me;
until then
the second to last time
is too loud
for this time.

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.

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.

You were always
an early bird, and I wasn't,
but my favorite thing was
to stumble out of my slumber
and hungrily look at my phone for a text saying
wake up
to which I would hurriedly respond,
though three hours later,
and you knew I would,
so as soon as I did as you predicted
you would command me to
drive the less-than-ten-minutes to your apartment
so you could cook me some
breakfast,
and we could get lost in each other.

You made me eggs and bacon
and always a biscuit with my choice of topping,
and you'd put on whatever CD we
currently found relevant,
that one time I know it was Ne-Yo,
and I chomped on my plate full of yummies
so cheerily
as you made me listen so closely to
lyrics you knew I would
just
get.

10 AM and I was somehow
thrilled to be out of bed,
enjoying the way the sun peeked behind the clouds
and stroked my cheek
as we shared a smoke on your porch.

You were the kinda guy that
made me like mornings,
that made me
feel the weight of the words in songs,
that made me appreciate art
and notice how pink
the sunset was,
that made me want to read the newspaper
so I could pick your brain and
pay attention in class so I could
tell you what I learned,
that made my world brighter
and my burdens lighter.

You were you and
you made me a certain kinda me and
**** do I sometimes still wanna
wake up
and eat some eggs while you
tell me your dreams and
your stereo plays.

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 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).

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.

And still,
in the complete silence,
the universe
whispers your
name
and I
stretch out my fingertips,
searching for
you in the
overwhelming

darkness.

We met in the summertime,
which I recall because the AC in his apartment
was mediocre at best,
and fans were splayed throughout the
white-walled space as we attempted to
keep cool.

His roommate introduced me,
as he sat with no shirt on,
perched on a wooden chair,
staring intently at a deck of cards.

I think the first thing I noticed was the dazzle of
his smile,
but I can't pretend my eyes didn't veer
to the perfect V that was on display
just above his basketball shorts.

His skin glowed a perfect shade of honey and
cinnamon
in the dim lighting
that emitted from the sole lamp in the corner
of the living room.

I became submerged in a blur of
card games and laughter
and an eerily similar taste in music,
so much so that I forgot it was not he
who I had come to see.

it's like I've been moving in slow motion
caught somewhere between dreams & what's real
eyes open, eyes closed
as they flutter open
I wonder...
when dreams and reality are to come
together

the way I lose my breath
the thought,
the mere idea, memory, desire
your hands on the small of my back
your lips
I remember,
and, too, sadly, I forget,
and I hope
and I
dream.

I hear melodies, old and new, too
they remind me,
entice me,
help me dream...

But, is it a dream?
is it memories?
My memories and dreams,
they're one in the same.
It did happen,
it could happen,
will it happen?

I'm not waiting,
and I'm
                    waiting.
I don't care,
and I care so much.
I'm too busy for you,
and I'm always thinking of you.

Your words,
they have left,
they still leave,
they will leave,
a mark on my heart.

I think of your face,
your lips
     your hands,
your laugh,
your voice,
    but most of all...
I think of your words.

Words is what
we always exchange.
Almost like,
sometimes I think,
we have our own language.
Language.
Years spent studying it,
writing,
yet your words,
they are
              the most
                              immaculate.

You've said,
and you say,
so many things.
I get it all.
I hold onto each syllable,
written and oral,
they all touch me alike.

I am captivated
  by you--
  your thoughts,
    your mind.
It is your spirit,
unbridled,
that won me.
The thoughts you store,
a complex man
in a world too stipple to understand
him.
Often he has been a lone wolf.
Often he has struggled,
yet he was never defeated.
You have transformed,
as a caterpillar does into
a butterfly...
You now are transformed
into a man with a past,
with wisdom,
with baggage,
with an impendium of knowledge,
with a story...

It is this story, this very story,
these words,
they have won me,
taken their arms,
held me,
taken me in,
engulfed me.

You.
Your story.
Your words.
All of it.
I would listen,
hear,
read,
ponder,
comprehend,
analyze,
forever.

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."

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.

We had that
drive you crazy
butterflies flyin' in my stomach
make you wanna pull your hair out
**** I threw and broke my phone
your arms gettin' goosebumps
why can't I stop thinking about him
******* I hate you
I can't get enough
you're number one on my speed dial
texting me all day long
your family is my family and vice versa
stop looking through my phone
I could ****** you
why didn't you call me back
writing you love poems
writing you hate poems
gut wrenching, heart wrenching
I can't stop smiling
you're the only one who understands me
I would take a bullet for you
confusing
terrible
beautiful
commanding
consuming
kinda love.

The way that you look at me
Takes my breath away
It feels extraterrestrial
From another dimension
As if I’m living another being’s life.

The way that you look at me
Lights me up like kerosine
While simultaneously freezing my body into goosebumps.

The way that you look at me
Make me look at myself differently;

I love me more in loving you
I love me more in you loving me.

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)?