lately your kiss has been tasting like poison
and it has been dripping from my lips like honey
your touch feels like a bullet wound on every inch of my skin you touch
but the blood looks like sunlight to me
in your eyes the devil has made a home
his looks are enticing
and now my dreams are haunted by his face
i taste the poison and i see the blood and i feel the devil
and although it's killing me
i've convinced myself it's the only thing keeping me alive

-m.v.

i went to the place we first met
to try and make amends with my ghost
not much has been the same since you came around
im missing you terribly
and sometimes i think i can make out the faint noise
of you screaming you love me into the wind
like you did seven months ago
in a field blooming with bugloss flowers
how puerile of me to not realize
that we were surrounded by the flower of lies
i hate anything that reminds me of you
so i guess i hate everything including myself
i see you in the passenger seats of cars on busy highways
and i see you in empty grocery store aisles
i see you in clouds and tv shows
and newspapers and sunlight
and everything else there is to imagine
because youre all i see now
i gave myself to you the first day we met
but you refused to take me
so now my soul is out wandering
these weakly lit streets
people ask why i see so distant
i turn to them and wonder
if they can see the image of you  
kissing me for the first time
in the reflection of my eyes
i also wonder if they can see
the image of me throwing up
and shrieking and sobbing the day you left
im begging someone to fix this absence we created
three months ago when you walked away
i went to the first place we met
to try and make amends with my ghost
but by the time i had arrived it had already moved on
just like you

-m.v.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

i found my muse
when i found you
i could write about
the confidence in your walk
the taste of your tongue
the softness of your smile
and everything in-between
for hours on end
i find poems
embedded in your neck
and the only way to get them out
is with my lips
i find fragmented sentences
on your back
and the only way to fix them
is by subtly tracing my fingers
along your skin
your eyes
oh god
theyre a book in themselves
and im still trying
to figure out what they say
the freckles dusting your cheeks
are very similar to single words
much in need of being
strung together
to form the loveliest sentence
ever whispered into a summer breeze
your lips
remind me much of pieces of poetry
ive never gotten to finish writing
but my lips are the pen
and your mouth is my paper
so i wouldnt mind seeing the final product
not even the worlds best poets
could come together
and write something
the capture the beauty of your existence
my words
are merely an understatement

-m.v.

i am nothing more
than the atoms that make up my body
the sadness that has washed over me
is like a flood that never goes away
and most days
i feel like a toy
broken and malfunctioning
from being used at the wrong times
by the wrong people
i would rip
every aspect of my being apart
if it meant getting rid of this feeling
my body has been sentenced to
what do you do
when you look in the mirror
and hear your insides weep
at what is looking back at them?
what do you do
when you've drawn a black cloud
above your head
with permanent marker?
i pour my heart into a glass vase
and give it to you
while you stare at me
with shaking hands
how endlessly ******* stupid am i for that?
i never expected you to fix me
but i never expected you to
break me even worse either
my worth is close to nothing
and i feel about as useful
as a broken record
im just a crack in the concrete
and youre a perfectly paved
road

-m.v.