You’re like a white noise slushie
swirling off my sunburnt tastebuds.
I can’t quite catch you.
Those coffee driven evenings have destroyed my mouth’s ability
to make something stay.
See, whispered lollipop kisses used to work
but not half as well as my grape syrup words.
Teach me how to fix my salt-sugar body.
You don’t know how many times those candy coated sighs
“I love you”
have crossed my artificially sweetened lips.

Love me like you never got tired of playing tag between the swings.

Love me like skinned knees only hurt in that moment you noticed them.

Love me like being anything I wanted to be was being a superhero with you.

Love me like your favorite character was always the villian.

Love me from afar but also like you learn a language.
Up close and formal, then with every bad word in the book.

Love me like your hands could never get tired of my curves and your lips numbed with admiration.

Love me like you could withstand the storm I bring to town every now and then.

Love me like you're tired of pretending that bottle could wash away the pain.

Love me like I make this all worth it.

Love me like you could begin to learn to love yourself.

Take your time.
Please don't rush.
Sleep on it
if you must.
Don't decide
based on lust.
'Cause, if you do,
I'll be crushed.
So take your time
and please don't rush.

I need to know
that you stopped
and put in
some decent thought,
listed the pros
and the cons,
weighed the rights
and the wrongs.

Give this decision
thought and time
even if you don't
change your mind.
You hold my life
in your hands:
all my dreams,
all my plans.

Take your time.
Please don't rush.
Sleep on it
if you must.
Don't decide
based on lust.
'Cause, if you do,
I'll be crushed.
So take your time
and please don't rush.

(you once described me as an ocean)

an oceans
current is constant
its waves flow
pulled by the moon
while the stars watch
it grabs the sand
and lets it free with every fluid motion
never letting go of anything in its wake
you can caress its nature
but you cant grasp
the depth of life
that lives in the core
of its cave
breathing
thriving
in the darkness only its natural creatures
can understand

(and i understand
why you left)

I remember the boy with art in his heart
I was there too
Tucked amongst everything else he loved
We were so young, but he loved me
I remember the pretty words he wrote for me
They felt empty
As I tried to hold them in my mind
He wanted something I didn’t know how to give
So I put his name on my list of failed attempts
And continued along a different road.

I remember the boy with art in his mind
He made passionate sense to me
His beautiful thoughts reflected at me through his eyes
I hear Socratic dialogues read in his voice
And when I listen to music we shared
It’s like he sings to me
Stories of what never was
And what could have been
I remember him telling me I’d always be triumphant in love
Now I laugh
Maybe he didn't know everything after all.

I remember the boy with art on his body
My fingers ghosted over storied skulls and roses and knives
He had suffered for his art
I remember letting him take me in any way he chose
“Gentle, gentle,” I whispered, over and over
But he chose not to hear
Too lost in his selfish pleasure
So I braced myself against the pain
And told myself that it felt good.

But what about the boy with art in his soul?
I imagined that he
Would speak to me in poems
That his laugh would be a song
That he would paint pictures with his caress across the canvas of my skin
For what is love, if not a work of art?