Life is too short for this.
I have never found a good enough reason,
A deep enough betrayal,
A hideous enough flaw
To condemn someone I love.
Life
Is too
Short,
And I can try all I want to stay angry
But all I can think is if someday I read their obituary in the newspaper,
Will the days,
Months,
Years I lost to silence
To grudges
To misunderstanding
To judgement
Be worth the feeling of that moment?
Will whatever made me hate them have any meaning in the face of oblivion?
And the answer is always no.
And the answer is always forgiveness.
And I wish they gave me the same gift.

Long ago I learned not to think of my poems as wasted
Even if I bleed a thousand of them for the very same heart
That never bothers to look my way.
They are not wasted, on you, on anybody.
If I write you fifty and you write me one,
If I write hundreds to explain you and you never need to explain me,
I have still not wasted a single line.
That is not what I am about.
These poems are about people, not for them.
When they are seen and loved by the people they sing to,
I glow, it's true.
But if they remain caked in dust, unopened and silent like love letters never posted,
They will lose none of their radiance, tucked away.
They are not for you:
They are about you,
But these poems
Are for me.

Think you can walk on me?
Think you can walk away?
Think you can take me?
I know your darkness, honey.
I know your corners full of cobwebs and shadows,
The places within you.

Think I'm innocent and pure?
Sure.
I have not torn lace and tasted flesh,
Or sharped my fingernails on the ridges of a spine,
But I have been to hell, sweetness.
Been dragged below a grave,
Gouged wet dirt with mine,
Desperate hands scrabbling to pull me back
To rainy bitter nights.
I have lain bare and ****** on the cold stone floors, stained blue and black,
Burned beyond a breath, beyond thinking,
Beyond hope.
I've been brutalized and torn apart inside.
To compare evisceration to the blooming of a rose,
To say I've had the far away gentler time.
To think I am naive as you suppose,
That I couldn't possibly know the foreign lands
Traveled by your mute experienced hands.

Think because I ask for you I need you?
It is my nature to give, but not to take.
Not to take love when I am not offered it,
But also not to take any more ****.

If you look into my eyes, do you see fear?
Of anything, in their depths?
Keep looking, search away-
You'll not find it here.
You'll see my rise and fall, my grand absurdity,
But you'll not see my obeisance
To someone who will not match me
Mile for mile,
Straight down.

I have seen hell, you see.
Gazed long and hard and deep.
Purred savage in its velvet caress-
The way you have unzipped a dress,
I have unzipped my skin
And stepped out.
So look on, look lust, look IN-

I am no white snowflake, glittering
Fragile and quick to melt and meld.
No sniveling child begging weakly to be held.
I am a rainstorm drumming on my own back,
A rhythm and reminder of the tenderness I lack,
I am a lightning strike,
Sudden focused and intense, the white
Hot touch of the phantasm immense.

I am the song of suffering and of love,
I need no substance to loose my demons,
No dizzy fiery nectar to lose my mind.
I am complete unaltered, and sublime.

I have known centuries beneath my skin,
If no one's touch,
And words of every meaning through my wanting veins
For wanting such.

And you, girl, are not worth my time.

Push her blushing into bed, raise her pulse to reeling heights,
For I have pushed the world beneath my kneading hands, and pulled the sun to night.

Ravage rashly through the silly schoolgirls that you find.
The way into a woman's soul
Is the seducing of her mind.

The rain is making the grass grow thick
And blossoms push through the bark of every tree
And the wind is warm
And the ground is sighing its relief
Because you are home
Finally
And home is
You.

These poems
These are everything I'd love to whisper
Looking into your eyes
And see surprise flicker there,
Joy.
Watch you duck your head and smile,
Like you did yesterday when I told you
How beautiful you are.
I'd like to say those types of things all day
Just to see them hit you like soft rain,
To see you struggle not to grin that someone loves you
With such awe.

I sit and wait
And think I probably should stand and sing instead.
For I am no good at waiting,
There now, it's been said.

Still, I hope and wonder
Bite my lip in remembrance, hum a little.
I am no good at wondering.
It makes my soul feel brittle.

I try to be cool
Say what will keep you coming back.
But I'm no good at cool
When I know just what I lack.

I try for apathy
Try to act like I don't care.
But I'm not good at that one either,
Thinking of your sultry stare.

I kissed you and I felt it
And now I don't know what to do.
I happen to be good at feeling
And I feel for you.

They say that music uses your whole brain,
Lights it up like phosphorescence.
For a moment you're either brilliant or insane,
Distilled from all your pain right to the essence.

Ever felt the cut of a cold winter day?
So frigid that it's crystal clear like a frozen pond.
Ever wish your every feeling far away
And all your thoughts and longings dead and gone?

I woke up on a day like that, naive,
And felt the frozen sun reach through my window,
Ready in my ignorance to believe
That only changing seasons abruptly go.

As the sun had set in rings of red
And bled across the silent snow to darkness,
As the bruising blues of brutal nighttime spread
And shimmered shadows over all the rest,

The burning soul behind sad eyes, it choked and guttered,
Flickering like a candle in the rain.
And battered and abused, a heartbeat stuttered,
Shuttered in a mind unwilling to explain.

A scalding form among the frost blooming like flowers,
Silent and arrayed in lacy snow,
Passed away the last of all her hours,
Numb, full of surrender and alone.

As I'd layed me down that night to rest,
I had a sudden painful urge to pray.
Didn't know quite how- I had to guess.
But I knelt, puzzled, to do it anyway.

They say that when you watch a ballerina dance
Your body tenses like you're dancing too.
I pity those who never spare a glance,
For it fades quickly as all other beauties do.

I marveled tears upon my pale cheeks as I spoke,
And we both shut our eyes at once to dreams.
But in the cold sun only one of us awoke,
And shook off death in wispy silver beams.

You never know what you have done by living here
Until you stumble into the void of what you've been.
On an ice cold silent night with Christmas near,
She closed her eyes forever and I never lived again.

Do you still think I'm beautiful, darling? Because I'm just itching to mar something lovely in your name tonight.

I am always so glad when I find another girl who writes love poems about women.
I get so tired of watching romances that tug at my heart....if I imagine I am the man.
Of reading books and finding that the plot revolves around obtaining a boyfriend.
Of listening to songs of love and heartbreak that I know were written about men.
I'm sick of knowing that it's more of an achievement to have a boy than it is to love a girl.
I'm sick of reading magazines and flipping past half of the articles- "8 Things Guys Notice About You Instantly" and "Make Him Hot For You".
I'm sick of being hidden.
It wears on you. Nobody ever talks about it.
Why does nobody ever talk about it?
I'm sick of knowing that if I were a boy, I would have been with many of the girls I've loved, would have been forgiven for more flaws, would have been seen so differently.
I don't want to be a man. I don't want to love a man.
I don't want either to be expected of me.
And honestly, I don't want to lose to a man.
But I know that that will be happening to me for the rest of my life, and so I swallow my pride.
And I watch other movies. And I write my own stories. And I sing my own songs. And I don't read magazines.
And I give everything I can to the girls I love, and hope that everything from me will mean more than something from a boy.

Sometimes I miss you.
The way you would try not to kiss me and fail,
Spectacularly.
Hold me like I was necessary.
Like you were starving and what you were starving for was my soul.
I loved how hard your hands were, pulling me closer,
How unafraid you were to want me once you finally admitted you did.
I really miss that, I really do.
But I think you were horrible for me.
And now that I have proof that you touched me,
I can find the strength to search for someone whose love
Won't bruise.

That word you wrote on my hand
Next to the scar from the day my heart was last broken
Right after you said my hands were beautiful,
Right after you said,
"Your hands look the way I wish my hands looked."
And I said
"Take them."
And slid them across the table to yours,
That word,
Galaxies,
I wonder what it means to you.
I only know
What it means to me.
It means
The first time someone I loved
Truly made me feel loved.
Touched me with tenderness.
Tucked my hair behind my ear.
That word...
I have a confession to make.
I waited, I did,
I actually think I waited until
You backed away from me-
Just to be sure it wasn't your proximity, your continued kindness,
That made me want to do it-
But the day you said you couldn't handle being loved that much right now,
I walked to the center of town
And I told the tattoo artist I needed an exact copy.
It's on my ribs,
Just under my right breast:
Galaxies.
It reminds me
Of how I deserve to be touched-
Gently. Kindly. Tenderly.
I didn't let the ink fade from my hands
Until I knew I'd have a copy of it forever in your handwriting.
I am afraid you will come back
And sink me to the bed beneath you again
And press your skin against mine
And see the evidence that I meant everything I ever said to you.
And I'm even more afraid
You won't.
I don't know what I'll say to you
If it ever comes to that,
If you ever discover it.
I know you'll know instantly.
I know you'll be afraid.
But it doesn't just mean you, to me.
That word, that wound,
Means that even when I'm old and life has done its worst
(And with any luck, its best as well)
I will never, ever forget
The first time someone I loved
Treated me the way I deserve to be treated
(If only
For a moment.)

Laughing with you is better than kissing anyone else.

Tonight, I could feel the nausea bloom in the core of my heart
Like it usually does when I think too long on your silence.
I could let the withdrawals start,
The shaking and the fear.
I could ask myself
Has she forgotten me?
Did I drive her away with my honesty?
Why can I never shut up?
I could torture myself
With the notion that tonight you consume someone else's lips
And think nothing of me,
Glad to be free of my adoration.
I could crucify my heart,
Nail it down with the possibility
That you see everything I say and choose never to respond.
I could.
But tonight,
Oddly,
My fear is tableaued behind frosted glass.
I can see the outline of my agony
All blurry and dark
But I can't touch it.
It's like one of those sliding shower doors is between me
And it
All rough on one side so that nothing can really be glimpsed
And all the more foggy with the steam of the years just boiling off me.
My pain can't see me, naked and exposed,
And I can't see it, menacing and razor sharp.
We know about each other, but only by the shadows.
It is out there, outside in the substantial world,
The one with hard lines and cold facts
And a biting breeze that keeps the brutal windows clear as crystal.
But it is warm in here and I have found a sort of spiritual nepenthe,
A numbness.
I know my torment is solid; I know that eventually the cruelty of my mind will have its pound of flesh,
(And perhaps more)
But...
Not tonight.
It's not real to me tonight.
And frankly
I am
Just too ******* tired
Tonight
And too clean
Tonight
And too calm
Tonight
To slit my pride's throat
And watch the blood run down the drain.

When you get there
I wonder, will it be sunny
Or cloudy?
Will the streets breathe mist
The way I've always heard they do?
When you get there,
Will that strange light kiss your face
As tenderly as the sun does here?
It better love you right, London air.
When you get there
I wonder
Will there ever be a moment or two
As you wander down unfamiliar roads and lanes,
When you can feel me missing you?
I think all cities, all across the world,
Have some sort of connection,
Like a spiderweb of light
Netted over a cerulean marble.
I hope London will love you
Like I know my city loves you
(because I do and we love alike, New York and I)
Maybe I'll try my hand at a transmission overseas,
Like a telegram
But with feelings.
Maybe I'll go to my city
When you get to London- the very day-
And stand beneath the clock tower down at Astor Place
(where I first saw the city sky)
And wonder, like my five year old self did, if it looks anything at all
Like Big Ben.
Maybe I'll stand there and say hello to you,
As if my city will send a whisper
Halfway around the world
On the wind
To yours.
And if I do that
Who knows-
Maybe it really will
Get there.

There is a wire
Stretched taut
Between me
And Home.
Below me there is darkness
Dizzying.
It is copper-shiny
And whisper-thin.
This is no trust test-
There is no test.
(There is no trust)
There is no grade,
This one
Is pass/fail.
There is a wire
Just the one
Bridging the gap
Between me and where
I need to go.
And it is hot
And it is sharp
And down it little shocks of white light pulse,
And they arc away
To bite my fingertips
And nip the ends of my hair.
And my feet
Are bare
And I
Am bare
And I cannot stay here
Because the cold
Will **** me-
Bruised blue and purple
The air, the ground, the light, it's all cold.
It's all frozen with little razorblade crystals of ice
And
I'd tightrope walk right over hell
To get away from the knowledge that that
Cold light
Is touching me
And making me different.
And I suppose that's lucky
Because
When I set out along my live wire of tension
It slices into the soles of my tender feet
Like they're made of softened butter,
And warm blood trickles down and
Drips
Into the void below,
And I wonder if whatever's down there
Likes sacrifices
And if a few drops
Can sign a contract
And if I care
Who owns me
As long as it's not
You.

Don't look at me.
Don't see that I am raw with something like loss
Like the loss of something that
I haven't ever had.
Don't look over here
And see tears in my eyes
Because I don't know why they are here
And I want them gone.
Rarely
Do people show me a flipped image
Of how empty I feel.
Mostly I can forget.
I know you are like me.
To the very core of you
You light up when you love somebody.
And from the shadows I
Have caught some sunlight on the way by
And it is charring my skin.
It bubbles and blisters
Red and white
And I feel so ugly I hold my breath.
Did I lose that?
Did I have that?
It's not envy,
Not of either of you.
It's too pure for that.
Has too much surrender,
Too much grief.
It is simply that
Right now
I want to shrink into this wall
Like a smudge.
Maybe if I could just be so insubstantial,
Maybe I could be the smoke you exhale,
Pretty against the stars,
Vitriolic in your lungs,
And that
Temporary.
I wish you all
Could forget me like a sigh,
Like a sigh on a frigid night that shows white
For a moment
And then dissipates.
I wish I could forget me like that.
I don't understand
The tears in me tonight.
They've been rising for a while,
All quiet and cold.
Now they're everywhere,
In my veins and in my fingertips
Making them heavy on the keys.
They are slowing me down,
Weighted and cold as
Hell
And I know I can't be the one
To turn to you and let them flood your moonlit heart.
I am freezing them, bit by bit,
To keep them here.
What kind of person would I be
If I were to cut through your haze of happy
And tell you I need you now?
And moreover
That I am drowning
Because I saw somebody who got saved.
No,
No I am not terrible that way.
I am terrible
This
Way.
I would sink to the floor
But it takes more energy
Than I want to expend
And there is a sort of smugness in restraint.
I learned it last year,
That if you try for long enough not to cry
The crushing pressure becomes almost a relaxation,
A thick, noxious mist that you can rest your weight upon and succumb to.
My grief tastes like giving up.
And I always say to the world
That I do it out of spite,
That I do it so that I hurt me before it does.
But it's just not true.
Giving up is a disease,
And it's killing me.
I have borne my wrists to the bloodthirsty,
Unsurprised at their zeal
When they bit down hard.
Something about a passive face
Makes me feel like I've kept something
Of myself
Even as I lost everything else.
What kind of awful would I be
If I asked for comfort now?
No,
I have weathered many silent storms
And frozen many tears
Calm- a sick calm that feels like pitch in your lungs- and clear as glass,
So thick you can't see through it anymore.
There's nothing to see to.
That is the secret.
When you break the ice,
There is only blackness.
The only thing you find beyond the tears
Is the place that births them,
And its only purpose is to be
Achingly empty.

Something calls, as the rain hits the windowpane.
Something calls,
And outside the lights blaze gold like fire.
They battle.
They struggle.
They kiss the face of the night as it
Weeps
With longing for what it cannot be.

And here it is dark and silent,
A glass case pausing the world outside.
No bitter rain may breach these walls,
Although it presses greedy fingers against them.
No cold
No wind-
Although it wails, dragging its desperate lips across the rough stones of the buildings-
Let me in!-
A lover who does not know how to be gentle.

And yet
They reach me.
Silent, the rain traces my silhouette along the wall,
Melting it.
In the quiet,
Something
Calls.
Something calls,
And I know I am not one for glass cases.

You have left no footprints here.

Many shoes have scuffed these gleaming hallways dull,
Gauche and mudcaked, large and echoing and
Careless.
Many hands have scrawled initials on these walls, invasive.
Gouged ownership into wooden panels with small, coarse blades
Pulled from pockets.

It is true that dust has lain in drifts
In silence
On every surface of my heart
For so long that the wings of a trapped moth could create
Snow angels and murmuring hieroglyphs along the window ledge,
The lightest sigh kick up a sandstorm on any landing,
The flickering of a single candleflame expel eddies of powdery currents to settle in concentric ripples, like the whispering chiffon skirts of a ballerina crumpling to curtsy.

It is true, as well, that every morning I fling wide the doors
And let the light in,
But light has no fingers, no arms or heartbeat,
No
Breath,
And when it fades
Leaves not a trace.

Evidence of past trespassers lies strewn,
Enshrined in a large, beautiful mausoleum with sparkling windows and
Total silence.
I took your hand and led you down each hallway,
Showed you the aging murals and
The haunted rooms--
Places where shutters slam of their own accord
And faces besides one's own inhabit mirrors--
Waltzed with you in the grand, shrouded foyer,
Sang to you sitting on the eaves in the starlight
But never once
Did I leave you to your own devices.

Not an heirloom did I let you leave your fingerprints upon,
And wherever I led you
Not a breath stirred--
The solid, blue stillness remained,
A former time trapped in glass
Catching and releasing tricks of light to mimic movement,
And only I spoke, only I sang, only I
Waltzed.
Only my footfalls echoed
And only my shadow soared,
For as long as I touched you
You could never touch
Me;
Paper thin, a refraction from the other side
A ring of crystal whose echo would ****** into
That inevitable quiet, so rich and heavy
Like the dust adorned velvet drapes I draw
Each night and peel back at daybreak.

Like a forest preserved,
Only light enters here
And only images leave.
The beaten paths have been
Abused
But only those who made them may change any:
The rest are only visitors, who take nothing but breaths
And leave nothing but silence,
Who **** nothing but time
Although they may hurl stones
And stir up no dust whatsoever,
Regardless of their flailing passions.

Many loves have scarred this heart,
Burnt names in lists
Into the railings and stair treads so that I may touch nothing without feeling the remembered heat.
Many souls have lit this hall with sacred gold
And bounced their laughter off the beams.

But your name
When spoken
Fell like a shadow on the floor,
Grasping feebly at a few dreamy dust motes illuminated by an errant shaft of sunlight
Before fluttering into silence.
Many names make this heart
A temple and a
Tomb
But yours
Is not among their number--

Another day is ended,
Another sun is set,
And you
Have left no footprints here.

I think I might have better been a fish
Skittering up and down among the waving weeds,
Free of thought and love and dream and wish,
Cuddled by a current like a breeze.

And I would linger on or then be eaten
Because those are the options to be had.
But never by another bled or beaten-
My wanting blood now cool and never sad.

And never would I drown in pride or sin
Because I'd take my breath beneath the water
But if I were to drown and nature win,
My departure from the world would hardly matter.

How lovely life would be in blue green quiet,
To know just what I should be and to be it.
Never again to feel love or deny it,
And forget what I have seen soon as I see it.

She has a girlfriend.
Deep red hair and soft fingertips and a magnetic gaze like being pierced by a ray of sunlight
And a girlfriend.
Freckles sprinkled like cinnamon over pale cheeks,
Eyelashes that cast soft shadows
Around chocolate eyes
As she looks down in confusion
That I would gaze into them
Like I gaze into a night sky full of diamond constellations.

And. A girlfriend.
Permission aside, and brevity,
The fact remained, and...

God help me, but I never minded.
We were partners, and we danced all night,
Not with steps but with subtle touches and near collisions.
And I tried, I really did,
To bow out.
But sweeping close and stealing away,
Somewhere within the infinite moments when we were a breath apart
I lost my grip on restraint
And tumbled into her thrall.

I don’t understand how someone could want a man.
Men have no power, no magnetism like that.
No force that draws you in like a moth to a flame.
No captivating pull that drags you into their arms.
When I've kissed a man, I've been led.
Hell, when I've kissed most people, I've been led.
But every once in a great while,
I meet a girl and I am drawn,
Enticed, seduced.
And oh,
Does that demolish my self control.

The dizziness of being touched
My skin humming like guitar strings
Strummed
By her casual hands
The little tendrils of her hair that waved in the breeze and twined in my fingers...
I showed her tenderness that I don’t show people
Because I knew she wouldn't see it if I did.

When I hitched my fingers beneath her chin,
I thought of the marble sculptures in the soaring halls of a museum-
Perfect and smooth- that cool, soft texture that begs caresses.
Even as a child,
I always wanted to run my fingertips across their cheeks,
Feel the curve of their lips,
See if soft and unyielding could exist together like kin.

Last night, my restraint frayed like a rope
Sawed down by the blade of her subtle symmetry.

I never had much anyway
And what I had never meant much to me.

We shared a breath a thousand times before we shared a kiss
And it was like dying to be so close every single time.
That was the best part- the sweet, slow torture of being close-
I didn't think I’d feel that way again
After the last time.

Maybe that was why I couldn't stop,
Wouldn't try,
When her hands would flutter around my waist
And land like butterflies on my hips.
I’m not sure it was me,
Leaning in, tugging on the thread of decency I didn't have.

I fell. And I was happy about it.
From grace and from goodness.
All my life I've made my choices to save everyone else
And last night I made my choice to stop for a night
And save myself.
It was the sweetest chance I ever took,
And I don’t know what it means or what it makes me.
Not sure what I've lost,
And if I care to look towards missing it.

I know it was too short a time when I was near her.
I wouldn't call myself caught,
But captivated.
It was like being drugged.
Her hands wove a spell into my skin,
Pressed a longing into my chest
That I haven’t truly felt in too long to remember.

Stupid me, I loved her scars,
Tattooed on her arms like snowflakes that hit her skin
And stuck, lacy, to it.
I tried so hard not to break her vow,
Sat with her and asked her who she was.
I think she thought it was an act
But she doesn't know that that was what I meant by kissing her-
I wanted her soul to come out and play,
And lay lithe in the light of the almost-up sun
So that I could see it and let it transform me.

Can you feel a woman’s soul in her lips?
Only if you look. Only if you beg for it to touch yours.
I did,
Unapologetic,
Full of shudders like a struck chord.

But hours before, I lay beside her as she struggled in her conscience
And told her I didn't mind.
What a story behind those eyes,
And chagrined to tell it, she glanced away.
Her fingers twined with mine and it was my struggle then:
To keep it simple.

But.
See.

The quirks of her lips when she’s tired,
The way she squints her eyes when she realizes she’s done it again
Like you've set the sun on her and not warned her first,
Her steadfast denial when the words of awe would slip from my lips
Showing her the side of me that can write a poem about such a beautiful girl,
They tugged at my heart and I bade it sit quiet.
But it ignored me like it usually does
And seeped tenderness into my veins like wine.

She has a little bit of me, I think.
God help me, I really know how to get myself into these messes.
But she does, she’s got the part of me that hoped
Someone like her would prove me wrong that I’d never feel again
Beyond the confines of my control.
She stole it with her soft lips
Pulled my resistance from me and turned it willing.
And today I woke up
Happy to have lost it.

People tell me I have sad eyes.
They always have, ever since I can remember.
They're right.
Big sad brown eyes, like a child when they first realize that all living things
Die.
Like that moment, if that moment had eyes.

They look sadder right after it rains:
Whenever the rain stops, something inside of me curls back up to sleep
And I ache to see it go
Because it leaves such an echoing space
Like a single harp string struck all alone
While the others glisten with silence.

Sometimes
If I am very lucky and very patient,
I find someone who makes me feel like rain does.
I wake up inside, tentatively at first, a shock of green pushing up through snow, and then all at once
Roots digging into the core of me.
I look at her and I can hear the hush of a thousand shifting whispers
See lightning sliding through her bones and spreading along her skin.
My heart becomes the thrum of hot air high up, yearning for thunder but too human to reach it.

It is then that I'm told my eyes are saddest.

Funny, to be sad about joy
But inside I become a storm, a hurricane trapped in glass,
My body so dangerously brittle and transparent, a thin but hopeless barrier between me and a world I want to touch ferociously
Frantically
Wickedly.
Words are not enough-
I could build stone temples to this feeling
But it would only grind them to sand.
I hum inside like a tuning fork struck, unable to hold all this chaos in such small, fragile casings.

It is a fearful joy
It is joy that knows its hunger
Will be its starvation:
All storms end.

It is the joy and not the sadness that touches my eyes,
But they are so alike
Both filled with a longing too vast for either.
I reel with it,
For when I find my moments of freedom
The world has texture
And I want to spread my palms against it and never be torn away again.
I hold tight, searching every corner for a place to anchor myself
A scalding certainty seeping through me in layers
That it will always be too soon, never close enough,
That before I can begin to discover what people really meant when they created god,
This vibrant place will slip away and fall to dust
And the grays and browns of my stable solitude will bloom again
And crush the color from me.

So many times it's happened
And yet each time is like the first
Like a child realizing that all living things
Die--
The surprise
The grief
The innocence
All over again
And I am left so tired, washed up on the shores of myself
Bleached by cold light which slices through my haze of passion
Revealing
That it has only ever been me in here
And only ever will be.

People tell me I have sad eyes.
I expect they always will.

I wish your hands had left a mark.
I wish your lips had.
I wish I could walk through life
Patterned with the evidence that you
Touched me.
I wish everyone could see-
I wish I could-
The exact parts of my skin that you changed,
That you own,
That you blessed.

Desire is a dangerous thing. Almost as dangerous as hope.
The moment you feel a hunger in your soul for something, it can own you.
I do not enjoy being owned, but I am bent.
A longing bows me towards the life I want, the girl I want, the peace I want,
But I resist it
Simply because I know that I could not withstand the hope that I might have it.
It is a delicate balance to be struck, though, because without any desire,
Without any tightening of your chest to guide you through life, you are.... cut adrift.
This can be scarier than being tractor-beam pulled toward a situation you can see ending badly, because then you are pulled toward nothing.
Nothing has gravity,
Nothing has weight, and it dismays you to find that although you no longer have to run
From your secret, devastating wishes
By drowning out the silence when the sun sets,
You must still run in the same way, but this time from the knowledge that you don't know what to wish for.
Desire is a dangerous thing.
Dangerous in presence and dangerous in lack.
Do you understand how fragile it is that we are human? How vulnerable? How shaky and unsure?
This skin that barely holds us in imprisons us well, because we are just a little bit more afraid to leave it
Than we are terrified to stay.
It is a dangerous, dangerous thing to be a person.
To want anything.
To want nothing.
There is no safety. It is a truth that will always rub me like a rock in my shoe that I can't dislodge.

It's just loss. Just grief. So ordinary.
It's just "gone forever".
What a word, gone is.
Gone.
I would venture to guess that any room you might speak that word into would ring hollow and empty as a cavern, no matter its size or appearance.
After all, you are, from me.
Just that:
Only gone.

I didn't want to take the Waterloo train.
I had gone everywhere we went, but it was done, and somehow I just couldn't do it
I had to diverge.
Had to go somewhere else.
So I started walking. Over the bridge.
The other bridge.
That one was closer but I didn't want to walk where we had walked anymore.
I think I knew I had just said goodbye to Waterloo.
I didn't want to say goodbye to anywhere else
Not tonight.
So I walked back through everything you'd shown me
Looking down.
I wanted to listen to a sad song
But I knew I wouldn't make it if I did.
So I put on my book.
A deep sonorous voice to tell me a story that didn't exist,
So that maybe I could stop existing
For a moment.
I really thought
It'd be like usual when I am sad in public.
It's part of why I walk.
I don't cry in front of people.
Especially not strangers.
Don't trust them--
Why would I?
And so I thought
If I were to take the long way home
Maybe it'd seep out of me into the cobblestones
And mingle with the stale water and bits of forgotten litter
And leave me
Be.
As I crossed the bridge, the water beckoned coldly.
I looked away
Cringed
Away.
A man pulled a woman into a kiss.
They were framed by the lights of the buildings across the water.
The intimacy of it
Cut
Me
And I began to stare at the ground again.
But the feeling
Didn't leave.
And I thought
Just get home so you can cry.
Just get back
Just hold off until you're alone.
But I thought of it-
Me
Like usual
On a bathroom floor beneath harsh lights
Muffling sobs and clutching the empty part of my chest
The one that never complains
Until it is comforted
And then
Never seems to get over such
Novel kindness.
I pictured it and I remembered
When I cried in the stall of the price chopper bathroom
In February
Sliding down the grimy wall
Trying so hard to be silent
Because there was a woman fixing her hair in the mirror.
I remembered her breathing
Listening to it and trying
To disappear into the tiles
Trying to keep quiet.
I remembered
Kneeling in my shower in the dark
Back home
I remembered letting the hot water smother my mouth and nose and I remembered
The moment I realized that I was all I had
The moment I whispered to myself- so viciously!-
Get up.
Get up or die here.
Nobody is coming.
NOBODY
IS
COMING.
I remembered and
All that grief
Swelled inside of me
And an idea started.
Small, but insidious.
An idea an echo
What if
What if I just let them all see?
And of course my first reaction was an inner derisive snort,
A quick dismissal.
Ridiculous.
But the idea wouldn't leave.
Tears had been clawing at my throat all night.
All day, really.
Two days, if I was to be honest.
I'd probably known before she'd even decided.
I kept walking, fast,
Head down
Don't look at me
But that idea
Something about the sincerity of it
The freedom
Tugged at me.
There was a moment when I decided to let it happen.
A few times, waiting at the stoplight, seeing nothing, walking when the crowd did, trusting them to keep me alive by accident,
Tears had welled.
A few times before I decided.
And my first thought then was
If you start you won't stop.
What will stop you if not shame?
How many years of tears do you have within you?
Do you
Really
Want to
Know?
I cowered from that question but then
Then there it was again
Show them
Show them all
In a world of people who refuse to feel
Feel.
Be real.
Be the only one.
Be brave enough to accept your pain
And to show it
Or it will boil you alive.
I fought it.
I fought but suddenly I thought why?
A flash of a memory, TOO fresh, slid across my vision and this time
I let my tears fall.
I was in the middle of a split street
With people on either side of me
Waiting for the light to tell us
We could flee
And I felt them slip hot and silent down my cheeks.
I didn't look to see if people noticed.
I didn't want to know.
Their gazes weren't
My problem
Not tonight.
I notched my chin a bit higher
And walked tall
Tears
Pouring down my face and trickling cold into the collar of my coat.
I walked and I thought I'd let go.
I could hear, though...
I could hear a man under the eaves of the building ahead.
He was playing guitar.
I couldn't hear what he was playing over my book.
I was glad.
I didn't want to.
I ignored him.
But as I walked by, I glanced at him, iresistably.
He was smiling
And through the din I'd tried to cocoon myself in
I heard him sing "every little thing, is gonna be alright"
And I felt for no apparent reason
My face
Just crumble.
My steps faltered and I tried to breathe
But this was real
And this was happening
And I realized quickly and gave myself to it
Resigned.
I sobbed
Silently
As I kept walking.
He saw me.
He is the only person I saw see me.
His smile
Froze
And his eyes widened just a little.
I fled
But not before I'd seen him see.
Now I am walking still
And it is cold
And the storm passed moments ago with a death rattle and a shudder,
And now I am slowly congealing,
Slowly the tears in me
Are becoming sludge.
I wonder if they will be stone
Or ice
Or maybe
Just dirt
The better to shrivel and blow away.
Right now I am walking
And I don't know what to think of what I've done tonight
I just know
That when I wake up inside again
I will want the art that came of it to have been preserved.
I will want proof,
Any proof
That this excruciating
Aching suffering
Was FOR something.
So I wrote this.
So you could know
So maybe you could make it mean something
So that when I have healed from this wound
I will have even the barest reason
To believe I should try again.

To me
Your name is strung across the stars
And wrapped around the moon.
That way
I hear it
Every evening
No matter where I am or what I am doing.
That way
Whatever else may happen
If night still falls
I will always be thinking of you.

My entire life
The world has told me
To be satisfied with what I get.
To be quiet.
To be gracious.
And my entire life
I have needed more
Wanted more
Been...
Hungrier
Than anyone else I have ever met.
And the world said
Be satisfied.
And the world said
Be silent.
And so I learned to fit inside it.
I have been taught to need less.
I have been obsessed
With needing less.
The world has said
Be satisfied
Do not demand
And in my quest to please it
The only answer I have found
Is to never be satisfied.
To be quiet
To be hungry
To need, and never ask.
What I get, I rejoice at.
What I am denied, I never covet.
But give me something and ****** it back
And you will find that it was much more important
Than you ever thought.
I have been conditioned
To be silent.
But I have never been
Satisfied.
I need.
And I have never seen my needs met.
And I have learned to live this way
But only barely,
Only by my fingernails.
The world said
The more you need
The less power you will have.
It said
Be satisfied.
Be silent.
Be gracious.
Be
Sorry
For your hunger.
It said
Do not demand
And as hard as I have tried
I have
Failed to obey.

My special talent is being tough.
Not being unreachable,
Not being invincible,
Not being unaffected, but taking blows.
It's a dubious gift, to be sure.
But I think I can no longer deny the fact that my biggest strength in this life is my ability to take a hit and come back.
Yes, there are people who don't even feel the blows that life deals out.
And on the other hand, there are those people who fall to their knees and collapse whenever something hurts.
But right in the middle,
Between apathy and fragility,
That is where I live,
And I think it's the hardest place to be.
To brush off attacks is one thing.
To let them reach you and go on through the pain is quite another.
My special talent is SURVIVING.
My therapist says I need to learn how to thrive.
Maybe she's right. But with my life, I've not been allowed the chance.
What I have had some kickass experience with is enduring.
Surviving.
Going on.
Finding something to live for when everything I've lived for in the past has been knocked down like a line of dominoes.
And yeah, my acceptance of pain makes me vulnerable, but I spring back.
I absorb the force of what life throws at me and throw it right back.
I spend the time I need to crying, hurting, fearing.
But I always rise.
Always.
If you decide to edit the cast of my life, I learn to love new people.
If you take my chances from me, I make new ones.
If my dreams are shattered, I create new dreams.
I am not impenetrable.
I am not an island.
People touch my heart,
Leave handprints in wet paint, leave scars, cigarette burns, leave graffiti, but I
Go on.
They do not destroy me.
They can take, but they can never demolish.
My backbone bends in the wind, but it's made of steel, and you'll never break it.
I am tough, it is my special talent.
I fight wars every day that you will never know about.
I rise ****** each morning from battles against dreams of your arms.
And I will tell you this, my darling, my tyrant:
You can conquer, but you'll never win.

I fear these days. These days of silence from you.
Not the days I fritter away waiting for you to speak,
Worrying, wondering, wishing.
Not those.
I fear these days.
The days when you do not speak,
And I do not need you to.
I am afraid to miss you all the time.
But what I am truly terrified of are the rare, heartstoppingly brutal moments
When I don't.

I envy those who
Know the timbre of your voice
Just by memory.

I have a scar on the bottom of my left thumb.
I got it
The day after you broke my heart the second time.
I was trying to open something with a knife
And it slipped.
It went straight in
Point first
Right at the joint between my thumb and the pad of my hand
That fleshy spot that is always stretching and wrinkling.
I was shocked at first- it went in deep
Almost two inches.
I suppose, maybe, I should have gotten stitches.
But what I did instead was pull the point out
pop
It made a small sound
Like I was unstopping a tiny bottle of wine.
In fact the hole in my hand
Remained clean and white and surprised
For a moment
Startled, I think, by its own existence.
And then it caught up to itself all at once
And bubbled up thick red blood
Faster than I expected it to.
Beads of it slid down my fingers.
Soon my hand was slick with it
Shaking
And I was still fascinated, transfixed,
Slow.
When the first drop hit the carpet
I figured I should go into the bathroom and let the tiles take the stains.
On the way there the world tilted a little
Since now I held in my cupped hand a small pool of red.
I resented my body's need for its own blood.
Its fragility.
It is so needy and so frail
And I have no patience for it.
On my knees on the smooth cold white floor
And then with my cheek pressed against it
To calm the fever of "shock"
I hated that my shell could steal my will.
I stood again in a moment
Having left a smudge on the floor
And my hand dripped
pat pat pat
Onto the tiles.
The smoothness of my own blood surprised me-
Its tendency to slip away and stand in pools.
Again I looked for a moment
And then ran my hand beneath the faucet
And marveled at the way the water was instantly crimson.
It kept running and running down the drain
And after a while I realized that it was unlikely to stop.
Lifting my now white hand
I peered at it
And there was the hole in it-
A perfect slit, deep and clean and filling up with dark sticky red fluid.
It overflowed again and I did my best to wrap it in bandages.
The bathroom looked like a ****** scene.
Who knew my hands
Held so much?
Who knew we were so easily punctured and drained?
It took a long time to heal.
I kept ripping it open by accident over and over
Because of its prime location in the crease of my hand.
It was weeks, really, before it actually did close.
And weeks more
Before it finally became less of an angry red
And more of a thick, shiny pinkish white.
It is raised.
It still hurts sometimes, even though it has been months healed.
I rather like it.
I like the gory proof of what I went through when you walked away.
It's just a small reminder,
A little white ridge and a tightness on my skin
But
Well
They say you don't know anything
Quite so well as the look of your own hands
And
I think it is appropriate that the landscape of mine
Was forever changed
When you left.

Today I saw a photo of you
Holding a little puppy and smiling
And your hands were in its fur and I looked a second too long at them
And I found myself thinking how much I love your palms
And the creases in them
And how soft your fingertips are
And how you are one of the only people
With hands smaller than mine
Small and perfect and smooth, like a child's.
And the force of how much I love you
Crept up behind those thoughts
And crashed through in a wave
And I looked away, chagrined,
Embarrassed to have such beautiful thoughts
About somebody who won't even speak to me.

Every time I think I know how much I love you
I'm wrong.
It is bottomless
Boundless.
It shocks me.
I've been loving all my life,
Loving to distraction,
Loving till I sobbed from the beauty of it.
I thought I knew what it was.
But I've never loved anyone or anything
This much.
It is too vast even to scare me.
The universe could expand tenfold
And it wouldn't be so enormous
Or so complete.
And something this important-
It could crush me, couldn't it?
It could erase me?
And yet I trust it the way I trust my own heartbeat
Because it has become that constant
A part of how I live,
Woven into my bones,
Coursing through my veins,
Filling my lungs as I sleep
Dreaming of a life with you.
I stare at the words every time you send them
"I love you."
And I know that even if I see and hear and feel them from you every day, every
Moment
For the rest of my life
I will never lose my aching thirst for them,
Or my awe that you mean them.
Those words.
I will never have enough of them.
I will never have enough of you,
Never close enough, never together for long enough, not if we live a thousand years.
I will never stop craving your voice, your hands, your thoughts and little mannerisms,
Your warmth beside me in bed.
You are the beginning and the end.
At night
You follow me into my dreams
And in the morning
You rise in my heart before the sun,
In my mind before I even know I'm awake.
If you will have me,
I'd rather be with you than ever go to heaven,
And if you'd let me
I would follow you into hell.
Please,
Have me
Always.
Have all of me.
Every time I think I know how much I love you,
I'm wrong.
It can't be known.
It can only be felt.

Silence often stills me.
I don't like it.
Sometimes I will accidentally find myself sitting in silence
And a cascade of sadness will begin to drift over me
And inside I will see it coming
And in my mind I will flee from it.
But...
It's like sleep paralysis, almost.
If you've ever woken up unable to move when you want to, you know the feeling I mean.
Get up! I think.
Turn on the television.
Take your pills.
Eat something.
Get a voice besides your own into your head
Now
Or it will be dire.
And I sit there
Still.
Paralyzed.
Feeling black ice glaze over where my panic should be
And depression creeping towards me like a dense fog.
And just as I am about to be swallowed by it
My mind returns to my body
And I jump up, escaping.
It is
Disconcerting to say the least.

I've been searching for a fountain for this entire visit.
People don't seem to wish much here.
I had a two pence piece saved in my pocket
And I took it everywhere with me
Just in case.
And maybe as I walked it absorbed my uncertainty
My misery
My acceptance
My love and joy
Maybe it grew warm in my pocket with the weight of everything coursing through me for these weeks.
And here I am, sat alone and silent by a bubbling fountain
In a soaring white hall
And the light glances off coins in its depths
They glimmer and wink, giving the water a false glow.
So many wishes.
At the bottom, where the water drains, I can see them piled, half hidden by stone.
People who sat like I sit and poured their desires into a coin
Or people who walked casually past and, on a whim, found a penny and tossed it in,
Their wishes have collected here, like sand and pebbles at the emptying of a river,
The residue of us.
I take my coin out and hold it in my palm until it grows hot.
I have always known what to wish for before.
Every moment, always known where I wanted to go.
But this time I turn it over and over in my fingers, trying to read something divine in its ridges and valleys, its rough edges.
I think for a long time.
Finally, I decide
Not to decide.
"Help me."
"Save me."
"I want to be happy."
Because for the first time in my life
I don't know what will get me there.
I don't know what I want to happen.
I only know what I want to feel.
I want to be happy.
I want to be happy.
I want to be happy.
Help me be happy.
I repeat it in my mind, trying to find a clearer answer, a better wish,
But all that comes, cyclical, is "I want to be happy."
I throw the coin in and it sinks to the bottom, indistinguishable from the others.
I've made my wish.
So why do I feel so lost?

I never say what I mean
When I beg you to talk to me:
I don't beg.
I just say hello.
I find things to say,
Silly things.
Anything.
See,
I never say

                                                            ­   "Please, please speak to me.
                                     You are the only thing that makes days like this any better.
                                     I feel a knot in my stomach and my heart won't slow down.
                                                           ­   Please say any old stupid thing
                                                           ­     And make me feel at home."

I don't mention it, I don't ask,

"Please, just a word, just one.
          Any word that isn't one of hate.
                   Anything, any tiny little phrase.
                            Even that you're busy or that your day's been boring.
                                    Please, just a thought in my direction.
                                         I need proof that you are here.
                                                I don't know why.
                                                     I never know why.
                                                          Bu­t the longer I go without
                                                         ­       The more I've lost you in my head.
                         And me as well."

I try not to explain,

                                                       ­                                                "I think there's something in here with me
Something not-quite-right
                                                 ­                          That pulls the strings and makes me crazy
                             When I don't hear your voice for a while.
         I'm really scared that I could be like                                                        the people in the movies
                                                          ­            Who rock on their knees and hum
Whose eyes are hollowed out.
                                                            ­                           You keep me from that person crouched inside me
         Waiting to spring forth and unravel my sanity."

I never tell you these things.
I assume you know.
It embarrasses me to ask for help with my own head.
It shames me that you are so essential.
I spare you knowing it, mostly.
And I just say hello.
But know this:
Whenever I say it,
Whenever I say anything out of the blue,
Any random little conversation I start that seems but meaningless...

Know that underneath my words there's this.
Know that it's likely I've tried already, to leave you alone and not bother you
Until you want to talk to me.
Know that behind every hello,
There is a plea
                                                            ­                    "Save me."
I don't know from what.
I don't know why it's you.
I don't know what makes me shake and frown and my heart
Speeduplikearunawaytrain.
I only know that you fix it.
And that I am not strong enough not to ask you to, if all it costs you
Is just a smile and
                                                             ­                   


                                                              ­                     **"Hello."

We need to talk about how we treat one another like trash in this generation. Because it's toxic.
There's this pattern, and I've talked about it before. We treat one another like objects. Like people are disposible. It's absolutely revolting, and the thing is, ALMOST EVERYBODY DOES IT. Even people who are kind, even people with decent intentions. Why? Because it's easy. We grow up in a society of instant gratification and endless options. And we've begun to SHOP for people. It's sickening. The other side of this is that our generation has romanticized being emotionless SO much that we've forgotten how to forge real connections.
Put simply, we are cowardly.
I see it time and again. I try never to imitate it. It BAFFLES me that we can see each other the way we do- we search for a partner, but we dehumanize them before we even truly connect with them. Because it's easy. I don't understand how you can look at someone and not remember they're a person, but people do it. Behind that text you didn't answer because you are bored, is A WHOLE PERSON. Behind the screens, THERE ARE PEOPLE. How did we get to a point where we could look into another person's eyes and FORGET that they are a miracle? If you feel something for someone, here's a revolutionary concept: why don't you try recalling that there has never been and will never be another being like them. Ever. Try counting how many different events had to spontaneously align just for them to even exist, never mind for you to have met and spoken to and started to connect with them. Try looking at their messages and understanding, for once, that behind that screen of generic emojis there are eyes full of fear and doubt and joy and humanity, and that behind those eyes there is a soul, putting itself on the line to try and reach you. How have we gotten to a point where we just use each other and then let the connection we both worked on slip through our fingers like a bottle into a trashcan? I've been treated like this a hundred times, and I've never gotten used to it. It became hard, at the worst of times, to avoid treating MYSELF like this. But the thing is, whether or not you take this nauseatingly pragmatic and sterilized view of other people, someday you will all be deeply hurting, and deeply alone, and you will reach for someone and pray to find a connection. And it's up to you whether you create a world in which those connections are even possible, whether they're valued, whether at that moment you will be able to expect to find comfort, or expect to be ignored like the annoying text tone they have unwittingly replaced your name with in their heads. ******* shape up. I'm serious. I refuse to live and love in a world where Instagram is more important than me, where showing the world you're doing great outweighs finding happiness, where relationships are played like candy crush games with Russian roulette stakes. I'm not doing it. And you shouldn't either. You exist. You're a human being. You deserve to be acknowledged, not put back on a shelf like a defective box of coffee filters. And so does every other ******* person you know. I don't even mean just the people you love. I mean people. Because they're PEOPLE. If you can't handle the pressure of having someone care about you and talk to you, then grow some ******* ***** and tell them. Make it clear that you will not be giving them your full attention, or any, if that's your choice. Make it clear that you are incapable of connecting on a deep level, so that people who are not yet damaged beyond the point of no return won't have you to thank for their suffering. Nowadays we end relationships over text. And that's if they MATTER. If they don't, we just fall off the face of the earth and leave the other person, whose name we have replaced with an annoying text tone and a flashing light on our phone, to stew in their uncertainty. Sometimes for years. I'll tell you right now, if you think that's somehow "kinder" you are as stupid as you are cruel. Our generation has cultivated, between this attitude of blasé apathy and the idea that people are just products, a kind of casual cruelty. And I don't know about anyone else, but I believe that casually cruel is about the worst thing someone can be. It gives no responsibility, you never have to look at what you've done, and you walk around in a sociopathic haze, leaving the broken hearts of the people you have destroyed inside in your wake. Let me tell you, **** our attitude, **** our casual dismissal of other human beings. I swear to god, scream at me, make me cry, be ******* honest about who you are and what you want, but strap me to a chair and peel off my fingernails before you ignore my humanity like that.

Sometimes when I am home alone
In the hazy heat of the afternoon
And the house is quiet
With its little creaks and groans
And my mind is stripped
Of all the other noise that might help it forget,
I smile instead,
And I turn on some soft music that echoes through the emptiness
With tender chords
And I take a walk around my empty house
And say hello to your ghosts.

The time you stood in your black skirt by my counter
And leaned on the chair.
I say hello to each of you,
Smile my love into your eyes
That aren't there.
If someone were to see me
Sitting on the couch
Holding hands that aren't there
Smiling sadly
Saying
"It's okay."
They'd probably think I was mad.

But sometimes
When no one's around
I like to say hello to all the times
I never could have loved you more.
I like to let my flashbacks,
The little slices of you that settled here
When my love of you shattered your memory and scattered you all about my life
In little sharp shards,
I like to let them exist completely
Like one film strip laid over another
So that two people
Who never met
Could seem to stand
Close together.

You are my permanent wound,
My favorite scar.
My love,
You live in my life with me.
And sometimes I stop,
And say hello to you.
Lay on my rose patterned rug
Up in my room
Right where we laid the first time you put your arms around me
And laughed at me for crying at Rent.
Look in the mirror where you fixed my hair
And let myself see you behind me
Instead of pretending you're not always there
Anyway.

Darling,
That's just the way things are.
You live in my life with me.
Sometimes I wonder if you feel a little tickle in your mind
When I do this,
When I say hello and look at you like you're my world
Because really
Why pretend
That you're not all over it
All in it
All around it
All the time?
When there you are
At my kitchen counter in your black skirt,
Leaning on my old chair,
Sitting on my couch about to give me a gift,
Dancing in my pointe shoes trying not to fall,
Laying on my bedroom floor,
Or in the mirror right behind me.
How can I always pretend that I am alone
When you don't leave?

I never want you to.
I am grateful for your little ghosts,
Film reels that play mere seconds on repeat,
Faded and scratched,
A little pale compared to the world around them.
They are my home.
After all this, they are finally home to me.

So sometimes when I'm all alone,
I like to thank them,
And say hello to the girl I loved
As she was when I first loved her.
Seeing you is like falling into bed after a long day of doing good-
Comforting, perfect...peaceful.
The little twinge of loss is there, but it just makes it sweeter,
Because those moments
Permanently painted over the little spots in my house
That I used to avoid,
And then rush through brazenly,
Angry that they still felt rough and sore,
That I finally stopped to look at
Had a good cry over,
And said hello to
And felt at home...
Those moments wouldn't mean as much
If they weren't gone forever.

I guess in the end
None of us really have that much time
Do we?