Our fingers dance around each other
doing the cha cha on faded jeans instead of shiny floors,
picking popped kernels once in a while -
processed butter on the tips of our ballroom thumbs and forefingers.

Let me take a sip of your flat sugar laden drink,
taste it on my lips in a little while.

Hey!
It tickles when you draw question marks on my thighs,
just let your hands make knots with mine.

Train our eyes on the giant screen
where the heroine makes one mistake after another
and isn't that real life?
Blunders and I'm sorry's and
chance meetings and vivid colors
and the boy beside me--
Real. Life.

Maybe we should stay in the flimsy seats
while the credits roll,
pick apart the moving pictures
reminding us of first love and first fears.
Of forgotten dreams and words we lost.

Maybe we should examine the best narrative yet -
you in your soft sweater,
me in my mud-caked shoes.

Hold my hand while we descend the steps;
shadow swallows the bottom,
reminding me of movie monsters and white faced ghosts.

Usher me into the light.

Although, I have to admit,
I see you better when it's dark.

Little boy,
one day when you wake up and peer outside,
I hope you see flowers screaming in color and children dancing.
Little boy,
someday when you look up the sky
I hope you don't see gray,
but bright, bright, blue.
Little boy,
I hope the loudest noise you will ever hear
is your own laughter.
Little boy,
I hope one day you look at yourself
and don't see ruins,
but buildings standing tall,
guarding the city.
Little boy,
hope.

sickly sweet and sticky
honey
stains the checkered cloth,
a rusty blob
shaped like the birthmark
on your ribs,
except this one stays on my fingers
long after I touched it,
washed it,
licked it off,
and then it tastes like
nothing
and the saccharine surprise
exists only in memory

that sunny Sunday
when everything is yellow
and my knees are a little red and burnt
and ants colored like fire
form a trail
and the birthmark is
miles away
and I had to make do
with the honey

It's 12:01 AM and
do you know what you did to me?
I can't stop crying
I'm sad even though you're not mine

I don't know
if I miss you
or the idea of you.

do you know how weak you make me
when you utter my name
or brush against me
or gleam into my eyes

It's 12:01 AM
and I just want to hold your hand forever
until the day I die
I want you right here
in my arms
I want you to be my home,
my last resort,
my only source of sunshine
when a dark cloud looms over me

It's 12:01 AM
and I'm wasting tears over you
because I like you.
But I know it's all in my head,
Because I seek your validation.

i used to cry everyday.
because i thought i deserved
a love that burned my finger tips
every time i tried to fix it.
but love should never
leave you with blisters.

- *CPM