I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
I will tell you I take the long way to class
in  a Chicago January
in the snow
on foot
just to finish dissecting Teenage Dream because you said that song reminds you of me
I will tell you I devote time out of my day solely to thinking about you  heart heavily.
Because I am always thinking about you, fair warning.
And if I let myself indulge a week's worth of thinking of you in one minute,
maybe I can study some for my midterm in the morning.

I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
In those blindsiding instances of stark realization,
when I get a knee **** reaction putting on my scarf that still smells like fruit passion
because I made you wear it on the El platform to fend off a wind that round every corner could bend,
I will take out my blackberry, tear off my gloves, and tempt frost bite on the tips of my fingers
to send you a text that reads “I miss you.”

I won't tell you I love you when I don't.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don't.
Baby, I need not be insincere, I am not in love. Yet.
And it’s not you, and it’s not me. It is everyone else here.
Everyone else beating my brain in with cosmic signs
of Matt and Kim playing on the radio when they never play Matt and Kim on the radio.
Every poet pleading with me personally will flip their pages and I will be deemed defenseless against all odds.
I will tell you I love you, and I will mean it so fiercely
my chest will cave in upon itself thumping like a cartoon and creating a gooey mess of pink hearts.
Because you heart pink hearts.

I won't tell you I love you when I don’t.
I won't tell you I miss you when I don’t.
I will tell you embedded in the endless, elusive scenes of whimsy that make up my insides,
that song by The Darkness will play over every loudspeaker in the Student Center
because you paused,
you looked at me,
and you said “I love you. I really love you.”

the coffee was cold.
a day old.
i heated it.
poured it.
fought through it.

put on a b-film.
something about crap
films made our lives
feel more fulfilling.

we laughed.
exposed every flaw.
we held hands.
snuck
loving glances.

i have to wake up in three
hours, but all i can think
is life is luck,
even for the dumbest of us,
when you tell your
eyes to open up.

If an easy rain
would make the rocks slippery,
he would hold my hand.

dead to me
dead to you.
I know you like the inside of my socks,
you know me like the wrinkles in your skin.

"do you mind if I bleed for a little while?"

I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck
dance when you told me you were sorry.

"I'm going to try and take you home."

news papers:
you were late again.
the cat was late
the milk was warm
I was asleep.
you put lotion on your hands
you made me sweat.

the day after you told my secrets
your eyelashes fell out.
hearts can only pump so much blood:
mine wont waste it's time speeding for you.

"I've never told anyone that before."
    "It's not special any more."
"what's special?"       "does it matter?"
             "did it ever matter?"
"It was nice to see you today."
        "I have to go."         "one more cup?"
"that's two."     "that's three."  
"hold this cigarette."   "no."    "you don't have to smoke it."
    "neither do you."   another: "can I join?"

inside: warmth.
            my friends.
                                              outside: the smell of anxiety.
                                                                ­  last nights rain.

"I'm glad we decided to come."
                                                    "I'm glad we decided to leave."
        "agreed."

I am in love with the night.

My body craves the chilling midnight breeze.

My mind lingers in dark corners

and wanders through the silence of the small hours

with ghostlike ease.


I am one with alley cats

and all the prowlers of the dark.

We dance our slow samba

through sorrow and peace,

weaving from one emotion to the next

and back again.


We sing in whispers,

harmonizing with the hush tones

of life in piano.


We are phantoms.

We are the moonlit shadow-men.

We are the presence you feel just before sleep takes hold.

Feel us sweep through your mind like a storm wind.

We bring the cold.

We bring the quiet.

We bring peace to all but ourselves,


for there is no peace in the night.

We are the children of uncertainty.

we have taken the hand of chaos and kissed it

and felt all of life's woe and elation.


I have seen possibilities so boundless

that I may never rest this riot

and so

I will forever be a lover of the night

and she will forever be my mistress.

Let me show you what I see
(nothing too special)
but there is beauty
in between the tiles and floorboards...
and such serenity in the twist of an aging tree.

Just enough to give reason to art
and provide something with which to describe
your fire and water eyes.

Once your beauty is transcribed
let me sing to you my only song,
though it may not be beautiful.

Despite efforts to smooth out the accidentals
and soften each frantic high
it may seem a bit... experimental.

But perhaps,
if you listen with an open mind
and no intention to interpret
it may remind you of spring nights and summer dances
and that smooth chill that rain brings at twilight.

If you would allow it
I would give you all I have.
It isn't very much,
but it can rise to the moon,
like dust through a room,
pleasantly, catching breezes and bits of thin light.

And it can soar straight to the sun,
just close enough to evaporate...
until all that's left is you.

Hail unrequitted love,
ancient poetic rite of passage.

The bullet-burn of countless ant bites
knawing, devouring at young and tender flesh
empties soup-bowl eyes of suppose'd might,
a ringing scream sprawls out of each biological mesh.

You have never felt anything this full-of-feeling.


Never have you been so overcome
with nausea that you have no out
but to *****.


You have no choice but to cry:
Yet your sacred spillings prompt
your pen to fly.

It's almost two weeks,
"It feels like two years!"
It feels like
two
minutes.
Maybe it's your ego
Maybe it's my body
Maybe we can forget it
and just
move
on.
"I can live without him,
I don't NEED to be treated
that way."
But I want to wash your hair
And that'd be less awkward
if we were
together.
I want to make your feet better
I want to make you feel better.
I want to bake together,
cookies and treats
I want to bake together,
in the foreign sun's heat.
I want you to learn
How to give me a massage
Because I know
that it'll make YOU feel good
inside.
**** it.
******* it.
We're meant to be
together.

i am a little chernoble
cradled in the ***** of radioactive lakes
and cursed platoons of miasma snowflakes

my atoms were ripped apart
you were ripped from me -- and I did it
I tore out my own elementary particles until
i gave myself some kind of quantum complex

and now, he, them, the men in suits
they're coming to clean out the mess you left
the mess admittedly I made
and maybe they won't dive as deep into my soul
maybe they won't power rockets to far away moons
maybe they won't create realities.

but they are men and they are here
and they will recolonize me until
i grow weeds and eventually
a solitary flower.

For a place can never die,
even if it wants to try.