The funniest thing is

You'd probably know that all these poems
Are about you

And you have the key to open them.

You would know me inside out
If you'd ever turn the key

I thought I was goddess

Worshipped, desired, wanted

Beautiful, powerful, divine

I was reminded again that I
Will never be
Anything

I have never been quite sure why I like
To press my teeth into skin just like so

Maybe some animalistic instinct, as lionesses in heat bite the ***** of males when they want to mate

Maybe some innate claim to be made to the world, in dental record no less, that I have made this one my own

Marked. Claimed.

I still have a bruise on my arm, still feel your hair in my fingers

Smitten. Bitten.

The ring finger is supposed to be the loveline, the path right to the heart, the "right" line

But I've seen far more work from index fingers, middle fingers, the palm of a large calloused hand pressed just right...

The ring finger means so little in the frame of a life, marriage just a pretty little lie we tell ourselves to excuse lust, to pretend like we're not all animals ourselves

I'd wager the true loveline is the one that points arrows below the bellybutton, that makes a leg shoot out too straight, that curls toes

Is love even a line, or just a black hole leading to a womb, the place where all things begin?

The four walls around me have felt like a prison for longer than I'm willing to admit on paper

But I'd do the time again and again if it meant I could spend one more minute hearing your laugh, one more second watching the sparkle in your eyes, one more hour holding you in my arms, our hearts beating against each other.

There is something insane about me, sure. You'll hear that a lot, my boy. I've made poor choices. I've done wild things. I've lived enough lives for seven people. I've gone through literal hell.

But it was all worth it to be your mom. It will all be worth it to watch you grow.

Prison, I suppose, isn't so bad with a cool bunkie.

I see a lawn mower with a pull start that I’m just not strong enough to get myself the first time
Maybe I’ll just plant clover, since grass is an invasive species
A swing set that in a few years I will curse, because no one uses the **** thing anyway, but I cannot just give up the nostalgia

I see boys tennis shoes laying at my door as my son and his friends play video games, or soccer, or skateboard in the street, or hell even just hit each other with sticks, as boys will be boys after all.

I see a laundry room, a whole separate laundry room from the house, a room that has a place to actually fold the laundry before you deliver it to its home.

A bathtub that both knee and nip can be warm, a place to smoke a joint or drink a beer and forget that the day was stressful.

I wish for a loving partner, of course, but I’ll do this regardless.

I have simple dreams, sure. But they’re still dreams.

I don’t think I’m made for the life of settling down

Because the boys that treat me right don’t **** me right
And the ones that make my bones shake are ******* I wouldn’t let my cat befriend.

I think I’m meant for the streets.

I hate to be that girl
But I'd really like for someone to just
Actually pick me for once.

It's waiting on the sidelines of every ******* dance, praying that someone would see the brilliance of my soul,
Under this ******* skin suit
Forever and ever

Repeat, replay, again and again
I just hope that the stars or the moon or whatever Gods I believe in today will just,
******* have faith in me,
Like I try to have faith in them.

If the lesson is that I need to be comfortable with being alone,
Then I'm unwilling to be the student. I'm unchanging and unwavering.
I just want to be ******* loved,
The way I ******* deserve by someone that I actually want to be loved by.
It's really not that much to ask

My son does not understand why it is darker now
“But mom, three days ago at this time there was still sun!”

And I explain how, in our part of the world, we change our clocks for the benefit of using the most of our daylight

I do not tell him it is because we are slaves to time in the worst of ways

We spend mornings enjoying the sunrise together, and I count myself lucky that this time shift occurs

I do not tell him how I wish I could make it stop all together

“So is it 8? I’m staying up late?!”

I don’t bother to fight him, it’s the seventh times he’s asked the question, and I tousle his hair instead

Big brown eyes mischievously twinkle as he reaches for a hug, and jams his little fingers in my armpit painfully

“Tickle!!!” He shouts, rolling toward me and giggling.

I do not tell him that I would give all my hours to live in these moments with him

Hear me out,
5 years will pass quickly and slowly.
A jumble of seconds, slow and steady to create another 525,600 minutes to close out this last chapter.

Growth comes and goes in waves, realization its steady companion. We are still so ******* young.

Perhaps Peter Pan had it right. I do not want to be grown yet, stuck between birth and death; I watch time tumble treacherously through my fingers like quicksand, no where to go but down.

Yet I can pick you up like a favorite book. I've seen all the creases and fades and lines and letters before, but it's been 5 long years and there's something exciting about you still.

If this steady crawl to the end is it for all of us, perhaps I'll meet you in the next life. Maybe next time, we can get it right.

I am not the woman men stay with,

I am just the woman men stay the night with.

I've only ever been good at ******* **** up for myself

Who needs a faux pas when your mouth opens and you should bury your head in the sand?

I will claim this, the power I have over you
The intense attraction that pulls me back to you
Onto you
Perfect fit, so easy, so simple

I don't have to think about how much I want you
That much is evident in the waterfall
At the end of the hike
Both of which I enjoy equally

But *******, the power to make you fall to your knees
The feast that you're willing to make of
The famished
The way you are so willing to drown
Just for me

How could I ever pretend not to feel like a
Goddess
again?

I probably should have healed
The part of me that is wild
Before I touched you.

The problem is, I believe that love can exist
In duality
To who we are as people.

I'll never send you this ******* poem, for instance,
But I wish you'd read it all the same.

I never meant to hurt anyone on my constant downward spiral, least of all you.
Least of all, you.

Maybe someday it can be different.
Probably not, I'm really good at ruining **** for myself.
But maybe.

I will probably always be a little ****** up

And unlovable

I didn't have good role models,
I learned love in the front seat of a truck
On back roads screaming to songs
That mirrored the beat of my heart against his

I learned love in toxic waste,
In hatred for myself
In anger for the world around me

I learned love in falsehoods
Drive by robbery
Bombs where poems should be

I learned love in the eyes of a child
Who never asked for any of this
Whose heart shatters the same way mine did
And I can't protect him either.

I learned love in protection
Building walls, building castles
I am not Rapunzel, my hair is not the key
Prince Charming does not exist

I'll probably always be a little ****** up

And unlovable.

I have decided to let go of the silly notion
That I can somehow control all of this
Control all of you
I can only control myself
(And that's even a little misleading)

So you can take your opinions
And do with them what you will
I literally refuse
To find it in me
To care

The poet in my always wants to take apart everything

The shish in his pants as he slid them off and they hit my floor

How fur like, soft as thick, his inky hair was as I ran my fingers through it, caressing the scalp underneath gently with the tips

The beauty of the curves of the muscles in his back, how gorgeously proportioned every part of him is

The vibration of his laughter, the heaviness of his arms as he fell asleep wrapped around me

The way my heart squeezed when he woke up and cared gently for me

I haven't slept so well next to someone in so long

It all still hurts

So I see him, and we smile, and we both know
That this world existed between us
While everyone else speculates
And I pretend that
I don't have complicated feelings
And he pretends
He doesn't feel at all
And we pretend
We have only ever been friends

I miss my parents more than I thought I would at 30.

That's not to say I forgive them, or want to speak to them, or want to actually see them.

Maybe I don't miss my parents, but I miss the thought of having parents at all. The safety and idealism of being able to fall back into someone's loving arms.

Except, what I experienced wasn't love at all..  wasn't familial bonds, wasn't safety, wasn't security, wasn't the basic needs of my childhood being fulfilled...

I often joke I was raised by a wolf pack. But only if that wolf pack was a lone wolf, myself, by myself always as leader of a pack.

I still hoard canned goods like the apocalypse might happen, like I might not have money, like I might have to throw a couple things in a pan and make it edible for three kids

I miss my parents, or what should have been parents but was instead a cold dark cave with nothing but the growls of hungry bellies.

I miss the wolves, oh wait, my parents, oh wait, when I look in the mirror I see her cheekbones and his eyebrows and I can't help but want to push my fist right through the glass.

The wolves, I mean black sheep, I mean parents that begot me always haunt my reflection, always come through in the worst ways as I reflect on my life, how do you reflect on this and feel gratitude?

I miss my parents, or the idea of having parents, I guess.

I've made a good mess of my life.

Lost everyone that had just started to matter
By being me.

This is why I never leave my house.

I'm exhausted

Like, getting out of bed is something I regret
Like, my bones literally hurt along the edges of all of my joints and my back is on fire
Like, going to work fills me with a dread I can't even explain

I'm tired

Like, I didn't ******* ask to do this life alone
Like, I never wanted this life to begin with
Like, I sometimes want to just throw in the towel

And I'm ******* sad

All the time, always
I can't catch a break, no matter how much I work
I get so sick of watching people treat others like absolute ****
I get so upset when all that spews from people is hatred

No, no
Shh honey, it’s alright
I don’t wanna fight, don’t wanna do
Anything
But hold you and make all the scaries disappear

Yes, it’s fine
I know what it’s like to live inside
Your own head
Fighting
Tornados of chaos peeling at your
Sanity

Shh,
the world is big and we are small
But there is nothing to do
But hold each other
And face it

You wanna do something really lame

And fall in love

And succeed at everything

And stay home in our safe space

Where the worlds we discuss are enough muse

To keep me writing forever

I wonder if you remember some of the things I do...
The way your name tumbled out of my mouth as I took careful instruction
on just where to touch...
Or the hours we spent talking about nothing.
Or the way I used to be...
Or if I am just the me I am now,
still lost but still bold and unafraid,
with different scars and deeper forehead wrinkles.
Aging is irrelevant in this part of my head, you're still just as much welcome to this body as you were before.
But I don't need instructions on how to make myself scream your name anymore, I can do that all on my own...

Though help is always appreciated.

The scar in your eyebrow, the way you know exactly where to stand to raise my temperature

These are the things that will haunt me most

I swore I wouldn't do this to myself, swore I wouldn't play the game

But the chess board was already set in my head

And it only ends with me losing, it always ends with me losing

The three freckles on your lips keep my heart stuttering,

But I will never be yours, and you could never be mine

And it will keep me wondering til the ends of time.

I didn't know I was so prepared to fall in lo... Lo... Loooooo?

I really ******* like you, okay? Like, I'm awake at 4am writing this poem. Like, I wanna beg you to see the good in me. Like, I never knew that a kiss could send me into a tailspin and make me question my spot on this floating rock so thoroughly. Like, I might just lo, lo, lo....

I lust after you. How strange. You've barely touched me. How intriguing that you've unlocked the primal part of my brain, the part that screams "this one is mine" and wants to parade around the outside world with your fingers tied through my fingers. How delightful that when I picture the nights of my future, it's always with you tied around me, with you inside of me.

And I want you inside of me. Inside my brain, where sometimes it a party and sometimes it's a relaxing vacation and sometimes it's a horror movie but it's always something different. Inside my heart, which has the current Olympic gold metal for gymnastics, the way you have it doing backflips and somersaults. Inside of me, deep and stretching, pressing, fill me to the brim with all of the reasons I forgot to enjoy being alive. Words cascading from my lips, a language spoken only between souls. "I lo... Lo... Lo..."

I am terrified to fall in love again. I worry that the mere existence of you will make me crumble. That I will not be enough, again, and again and again... That disappointment is the only thing I have to offer. I am shaking, scared, vulnerable in the worst ways,
vulnerable in the best ways,
but I am unsure of my next step.

I am a patient, intelligent woman. But this game of chess is one I don't quite remember the rules to. The flutters in my stomach are enough to fly away, the short-circuiting in my brain enough to make me wary, enough to make me want to run, run, run

Run right back into your embrace, into the future I want to make, into the terrifying, through the thick of it, to the other side of time. To where I want my home.

I lo.. lo... Like you a lot, alright?

Hearts have brain cells. They know. They warn you when **** is about to hit the fan.

That sinking feeling in your chest? That's intuition babe. It always has been.

But when that sinking feeling feels so much like that flying, falling feeling, it's hard to unravel which is really which.

So I'm done. I'm done. I give up. I can't trust myself, can't trust a man, can't trust the words that someone says, can't unravel the "I love you" from the "I don't know what I want."

I am chambers fully loaded, blood pumping, always ready. So willing. Send me into war for you, I'll come back a victor.

Send me away?

They'll write back home about my efforts and valiant attempts, but I will be nothing more than a story someone tells someday, disintegrated bones, sticks and stones, she who didn't need love anyway, wanted it so badly, didn't need it... But only ever got herself.

Maybe you do not realize,
That I wish nothing more than to
Break down all your walls
Rip through the bricks you have around your heart
And hold you until you feel safe again.

Maybe you do not realize
that I am not the damsel in distress
I am the knight, riding in on a white horse to kick *** and take names
Ideally yours at the end of the journey

Maybe you do not realize
That for everyone that's hurt you,
I've been hurt too.
I know the shield you're carrying.
I want you to know you can put it down.

Maybe you do not realize
All I wanted out of this
Was you.

Part of me wants it to **** you
That someone else's head was between my legs
That someone else's name was on my lips
That my fingers tangled in someone else's hair

Part of me craves that little spike of jealousy
Because of what it means otherwise.

I will probably always be
Just the tiniest bit feral

But part of feminism is the choice
And I would really like the choice
To just stay home

And clean a house and do a million hobbies
Stay close to my son, be able to take him to
AND pick him up from school.

Follow my dreams. Write like my life
And very income
Depends on it.

Write like no ones reading because I don't have to consider it
Life or death

I would like to scrub floors and toilets
Wear pretty clothes for a man
That truthfully loves me and doesn't
View me as property, but a proper
Partner

I just want to stay safe
In my four walls
With my words

I am so sick of men
ruining
Love and lust
Promising
Devotion and Desire
Giving
******* and lies

I still dream of a white dress
And have the color scheme in mind
I'm not a wearer of heels, anyway
So barefoot amongst the grass I'll go

I know who I'd want there,
Watching me take this second
Go.
A second chance.

I still believe I can do this
The right way
The way I deserve
I still believe that someday I may have
A happily ever after

How do you say you're screaming internally when no one else seems to see that you're drowning?

How do you keep trying, trying to do the right thing, to follow the rules, to keep life fair,
keep watching, watching as everyone that cheats and lies gets everything while you still have
Nothing

How do you keep giving away your heart, over and over, smiling at strangers, held together with bandaids over gaping wounds, holding onto coping mechanisms like internalizing everything

How can you say you're burning, burning from the inside, your chest is too tight and your brain is too wound, and you're not sleeping again and it definitely shows...

How can you keep going, going, Energizer bunny this **** because you have to, you have a mouth to feed that isn't yours and you can't give up

But how can you fight for your life when it keeps kicking you back down?

The truth just is:

Happy people make **** poor poets.