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my pianos a deaf mute
doesn't care when I smash the keys
I tell it anyways, listen here, you miracle, you conversation piece, I'm going to play you without plugging you in because 1) who makes electronic pianos and 2) I can hear the sounds in my head, just like old times old times old times
I map out a Beatles song I hate because I really just want you to hold my hand
I never take my foot off the soft pedal because it should always be gentle and I should always be gentle to you and God knows you're the only one listening so listen here and listen close
i know im not really alone because we are attached by the red string of fate or friendship or car crash and I know this because you're the only one I can say these things to without getting myself committed
if you want me I'll be in the bar buying you drinks you'll never be thirsty enough to let touch your tongue and what is all of this shaking for
who first felt this feeling and said **** I'm in love or **** I Might be dying because my chest kind of feels like the monkey bars after rain we all fall off of because we're too ******* stubborn to wait a while
what is it about instant gratification that has everyone around me filling up their gas tanks because "it's not gonna get this low again for a long time" and how I wish I could say the same for myself or
how I wish I could say the same for you
I don't know if this poem is a piano or if this poem is you or if this poem is drunk and wanting to call someone who will pick up or listen or want to
But
I once said to someone "I think I really need to talk about this" and I shouldn't have been surprised when I was handed a hotline but maybe you have always been answering the phone "tell me where it hurts, and then tell me again"
they're saying "all you do is drink and cry", "I think you're bad for everyone" and you're not saying anything and I'm saying I love you,
I ******* love you
And maybe I needed something to bring me back to reality maybe these bathtubs are always a little too deep for me but I fit so perfectly in small spaces because I learned when I was 14 that i was never gonna grow into a butterfly
but my aunt still calls me hers and I'd still flutter my eyelashes on yours while the earth turned to ash because I like things ending so softly
and you are a ******* miracle if I've ever seen one I want to sleep with you so badly, on a trampoline in the summer and I want to watch you do bad things and smile so sweetly at you and you'll know that I don't give a **** what you do as long as you're still loving me while you're doing it because baby we've got this one life and I've been loving you as long as I have known what love is and I know it's in the way you whisper and I know it's in the way you say you're my world and if the world stopped turning tomorrow we'd be the only things still moving with excitement you make me so nervous and calm and nervous and calm and deep breath you make me nervous I bet you'll make me nervous when we're older and I'm making you pancakes and I feel your eyes on me and I burn my fingers but you always kiss them better baby
you're an alleyway and the kitten that sleeps there
you're the rain on the windowpane and the water breaking the levee
I'm drowning in everything I have ever said to you so if I say one last thing one last thing,
while you're not saying anything,
I love you,
I ******* love you
full circle
I'm laying here with the window open listening to the rain for secrets or something or waiting for you to tell me what you haven't been telling me
like maybe there really is a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair and her eyes are the kind of blue that is never mistaken for grey
she touches your chin before she kisses you, real softly or maybe she traces the spot above your lip where we all know angels rested their fingers before we were sent down here to rot or thrive
maybe you talk about gardens with her, how you'd never ever own an orchid cause that ***** ex of yours demanded one every hospital visit
how flowers aren't for boys but you'll pretend to watch football while you're really watching her bend down to touch the dirt like she used to smooth her baby brothers hair out of his little eyes
before their parents decided that it was more convenient to buy them a little apartment and keep money in the safe while they spent their pensions in Florida watching alligators and Dolphins and toucan ******* Sam but never at the same time
you see, I don't drink earl grey cause it tastes like fruit loops
and I don't eat fruit loops cause it tastes like the childhood I erased from my memory by forcing myself to dissociate
maybe this, is something else altogether
maybe this... is not true, another delusion, maybe your hands are busy counting change out for cardboard signs
maybe your feet move a little bit faster, not because you're in a rush to see someone who isn't me but because you're so scared of ending up back where you started
People walk past and come around
So you think I’d never be lonely
But I’m stuck behind this glass

It’s easy to seem like its okay inside
You’d think it was obvious
From the other side

Now I’m painting these invisible walls
With the pain inside
Hoping things will change
If they can’t see inside

But I’m paralyzed, not by fear
Or anger
Or my rattled mind

Indifference has crept in
But people still don’t see
It haunting me
Through these glass halls

And I’m trying my best
But the paint
Just isn’t sticking

Now these glass walls
They’re just spattered messes
And invisible dead ends

And they see transparency
But I’m trapped
Behind these glass walls
Transparency is tricky.  But it is easy to feel trapped.
I love you most with tension between us
You're sad, I'm mad,
Look at me.
And oh that stare
Makes my stomach churn,
With worry of what it means for us
Because maybe you'll never look at me how you used to.
I love you most when I fear I might lose you,
Gone forever,
With worry I'll never feel your hands
Make burning embers of my skin
Make me quiver
Shiver
Ashes in your arms again.
With fear your lips will never again gently,
Passionately, protectively
Meet mine.
I love you most when I get that edge
of the cliff
No breath feeling,
When it's all drooping sighs, angelic eyes
Balled up fists, wrenching heart
Aching head
Sick to my stomach,
I can't lose you, I love you, I hate you.
I love you most in the end
when we don't fight,
When, oh god, we aren't one of those couples
We become tense and worry
We lie, cry
Want to die
But never fight,
We just curl up and sigh
Breathe each other in and touch
Like we might fall apart.
But truly,
I love you most when you say
You aren't going any where,
you love me
Hold me close, won't let go
When I tell you over and over
I want you, I need you, I love you.
I love you most when we are finally together.
Alone.
And we sin,
I feel myself unravel in your bed
And breathless we cling to each other,
Come crashing back
And I bury my smile in your chest
And, at last,
I'm home.
You act like the flowers on my dress aren't alive,
like they won't root themselves in your hands when you touch me.

You looked at me with a mouthful of forevers
and I looked at you with stained glass eyes
that have never seen the inside of a church.

You act like my lips won't find you,
like they won't caress a map until they land on your hometown.
Until they touch your memories.

But that's all I will be soon- a memory.

Soon you'll realize that you have more flies in your house than loved ones
and you'll remember the day you pushed me away.

You were full of bad ideas and the color red.
Your hands reminded me of diamonds for some unknown reason.

You used to walk along the edge of the roof on apartment buildings
you said you were testing fate.
I called it testing the wind.
One bitter spit your way from the clouds and you'd be one with the cement.

I told you, "Stop batting your eyes at death darling",
it will greet you faster than you can say you wish you had more time.

I need you to keep my flowers alive.
Before you get lost in the unfinished maps of her veins
the ones like yours, but not stitched up too many times to count on the ticks of a clock,
make sure that she trusts you enough to tell the truth.
Make sure that she loves you enough to know how you lie.
Remember that every single time you open your mouth, she's wishing
you're saying I love you.
Remember that on Fridays she doesn't want to cook.
And she sure doesn't want you to cook anything that was slaughtered.
Remember that she prefers cheap whiskey over champagne.
And when you're opening your ribcage to show her how fast your heart beats
when she grabs your wrists, make sure the butterflies are set free.
Make sure they find the window.
Make sure they find a home.
Remember that every living creature is just that, living.
Remember that they have a heartbeat.
And when you stop breathing when you see her with her hair down,
when you're thinking about starting a religion about girls with flowers for eyes,
tell her she's beautiful.
Tell her she's so full of the future.
Get her a telescope so you can show her the moon when it's bigger than both your thumbs.
Take her skiing while it's Summer in Australia even though you curse the snow as if it
were born out of wedlock.
Let her know she's not the first but she's definitely the only, and you're so scared of dying.
You never know what you have until it's locked firmly in your grasp as if to not let it run away.
You might lose a lot of blood but you'll never lose your way home.
I don't want to hear the dial tone.
I want to hear your voice, I want to hear you scream.  Tell me to leave.
Tell me that I am the only road that leads you to a purpose.
That in a world of blindness I am so technicolour.
Even though I can't promise you that, I can give you my words, thrusted from my lungs
like wildfire.
Searching for the way out.
Talk to me about religion, please please convince me that there is something out there other than
rotting in the ground for all of eternity.
Bible scripture doesn't whisper of your lips like my pillows do.
I never really thought about pillow talk until they started speaking me to sleep.
I find myself found by the curvature of your spine, of the shadows that take up residence on your shoulders like they have lived there all along.
I want to kiss away every bit of pain that has ever stopped you from smiling at strangers
and let you know that I'm coming home and I will always find your hands.
Let your ribs shake when your heart has had enough.
Let them shake.
Let the rain come through your window while you're sitting there in your makeshift darkroom.
You are the only thing I know about consistency.
And before I get lost in the unfinished maps of your veins,
I will be making sure they lead to me.
Love letters to every person who has ever seen the stars as someone's freckles:

1. You were afraid to love him.  It was okay, he did not know much except for demanding what he wanted despite the word "no".
I want you knowing that you deserve better than half *** apologies and snowstorms for white blood cells.

2. She was your first girlfriend.  Her hair reminded you of your mother's curtains in the living room.  Burgundy.  
She loved you but she had to go, I bet you wish you never hung that rope in your basement.

3.  Everything was set on fire, even your lungs.  You started finding ashes everywhere but in your shoes.  Walk away
before she gives you a new meaning for saying grace.

4.  By now you've had enough of religious boys.  And Oh My God, how your hips felt like heaven.
This is all ******* and he always went to church hungover.

5. This time you've forgotten how to sleep without his breath in your ear.  I think his name was Noah or something like that.
It was ironic how he didn't have two dogs, two cats and oh yes, that's right.  He had two lovers.

6.  You went crazy with him, he was so full of water.  You thought you'd drown when he touched you, and you did.

7.  You were so pale that I thought you were dying.  This is a letter to myself to remind me to never fall in love with a boy who cares
more about putting his cigarettes out in public ashtrays than asking me how I take my coffee.
He was extra surprised to learn that I was vegan and only drank water when we sat in cafes.
While you're swimming in my veins,
I just pray that my rivers meet the sea
when you're fed up with the songs I'm singing
just tell me softly- darling I think you ought to stick to poetry
when you're mad, your hands bleed
like a wounded soldier with no guns to hold;
you will fight for me every day I'm alive
When my silent scissor wrists refuse to cut your edges,
when your firefly mouth I tried to keep in a mason jar finds my spine,
I will never again count my own secrets
I will never again search for the answers with knowing the question
and when you look at me like a crumbling rockwall,
I will tell you not to climb. Do not climb these mountains,
you will not find God at the top
you will not find God in my temples,
or between them.
or anywhere near my sinner's cheeks.
because when they burn, they set fire.
because when you ignite, you're deadly.
because you called me one night adorned with whiskey,
your lips telling tales I used to dream about for bedtime stories.
tell me leaving was a mistake, drawn in blood
and I just want you back like the revolving door
through that airport where we met near the spring
and find me by the river, caressing my veins
because you are so full of water and I don't want to drown
in anything less than your body.
Let me in, like that stray cat
walk over my body like a ******* welcome mat.
You are always welcome, do not thank me
for saving your life because my hands shake when I think of you dying
and I can't write you down as fast as you're coming in so be still for a second
be still while the storm breaks, while you try to figure out if my body is the eye.
while you try to let me in.
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