I am the planets we can’t get to
and you are the entire earth;
vast, beautiful, and a little bit neglected.
I am the alien spaceships that fly over
our country to observe, but never make contact.
I am hidden in the far corners of the universe
and I don’t know how to reach you in a way
that you’d want me to stay.

my best friend would say
that I’m crazy for wanting you back.
most of the time, I try to convince myself
that it’s just the nostalgia talking,
but four o clock in the morning
is when the secrets come out.

you haven't changed your
profile picture since I left.
I don't know it that's because
you stayed the same,
or if you've changed so much
that you can't recognize yourself anymore.

it's been a long time coming,
and I must say;
I love you more this morning
than I did yesterday.
when you move,
I cannot think straight,
my head is in the clouds.
all I know, my darling
is that tomorrow I will love you
more than I do right now.

there might be other worlds in which
this behavior would be acceptable,
but this is not one of them.
there are people who would let you
string them along like old Christmas lights
on a freshly cut tree, but I am not one of them.
not anymore.

you can pretend that you don’t know me,
but your behavior won’t reverse what
the month of April was like.
truthfully, I don’t care if what she told you
made things different, as long as
you stop treating me like ****.

I had leaps and bounds picked for me you see.
plums with their crow’s foot skin
those tiny sour grapes and their toddler arms
hugging the waist of their own mother
because they weren’t yet big enough
to make it on their own.
all for the love of parents
who refused to pledge me to the catholic church
in preparation for their wedding in ’89.
and what’s the point of children
if not to make them soldiers?

I wish that I could protect you
from everything horrible in this world,
but I am just a person.
I can't tell where the pain is coming from
until it starts hurting.

I never believed in any sort of higher power,
but when I saw the color of your eyes, I thought
that, just maybe, I was wrong all along.

I don't know if I care if anyone ever loves me again.
I think he might love me enough for the entire world.

my sister has fire in her fingertips;
she might burn you, but she swears
she’ll keep you warm at night.
there’s a long list of boys
that she will kiss by the end of October,
**** on her tongue before you even learn their names.
she scars them with her lips licked with flames,
and they catch the heat in their throats
so their hearts won’t burn.
it’s just like grandmother always said
while the water boiled in the kitchen;
hold your own, hold your own, hold your own.

I'm extremely hard to love
unless you're being forced to,
but I swear that I'll try my best
to make it worth your while.

the biggest turn on
is the head and the heart.

the first time you called me crying,
there was a wasp in your living room.
I ran over as fast as I could. I killed
the wasp, picked you up off the
bathroom floor, and took you to the mall.
this is the sort of excitement you bring
into everyday life. the next time you
called me crying, he was gone. I could
run as fast as I could, but no matter
how much I wanted to, I couldn’t just
pick you up off the bathroom floor and
take you to the mall. not this time.

no matter how far I stray
from you, I'll always know
that you'll be there waiting for me
when I come home.

I evacuate at the first sign
of the storm and I will leave
you picking up the broken pieces
all alone. my heart is not your home.

you could have really loved me.
hell, you probably should have loved me.
but sometimes, the world is the
most cruel to those who least deserve it.

do we have to be friends?
I just want to hold your hand.

I dream of many impossible things.
like winning the lottery or
getting married to a famous boy
that I slow danced with at a concert.
but every time I see a car that
looks a little bit like yours,
I do a double take.
I start to think that maybe you've rolled
back into town to take me away,
like "Thunder Road" by Springsteen.
I think that's my most
impractical daydream of all.

even if I went back and changed things,
it still wouldn’t have made a difference.
but ****, your last name
would have looked good on me.
I think that’s what hurts the most.

help me, I have become addicted
to leaving behind those who have hurt me
over and over again,
like some become addicted to
cigarettes or tattoos or alcohol.
maybe my expectations are too high,
or being kind is my one true weakness,
but I don't expect to receive
any more than I am handing out.
if you keep taking, I won't have any more to give.

when I have a daughter, she will grow up
knowing that she shouldn’t give her world
to someone who wouldn’t take care of it.
never will my child give her time to someone
who doesn’t cherish the minutes.

sometimes, girls with monogrammed
backpacks will hold the boy with
the tattooed arms a little closer
than you want them to.
remember that there has to be a girl
who gets movie nights with her mother
instead of a date with the boy
with the candescent eyes. and sometimes,
that girl is going to be you. but not always.
oh darling, not always.

my pain will always cause thunderstorms.
sometimes death represents suspense.
its ruthless, depressing thoughts
will let me sleep when I'm dead.

I am yelling "I'm different."
please paint my contents.
look behind my shipwrecked mind.
find such violent tidal waves I know that I can fight.
I stay alive.

one day, you'll drive by their house
and you won't check
to see if their car is in the driveway.
it might be cloudy now,
but the sun always comes back.

I've been in my own hometown
for a couple of weeks now,
and slowly, you've started to
creep out of my mind.
I had a dream about you last night,
and now I'm right back where I started.
it's a cruel and unusual fate,
not being loved in return.

"set yourself free from your anxiety.
I have faith in you, you'll be okay."
everybody says it, but it only really
seems to matter when it's coming
from somebody who just gets it.
"just breathe, you'll be alright."

I’m being haunted
by the boy in the third row,
but I don’t see any ghosts.

I fell in love again at 6 AM,
staring at your fluttering eyelids
with your even breathing pattern
as my soundtrack. when you woke up,
you smiled at me, and I swear your bedroom
was the place that every species
in the galaxy most wanted to be.

I change my nail polish every day
because I get bored of the color.
how am I supposed to handle
a long term relationship?

complacency will be the death of me.
run full speed ahead as I catch
the northbound bus to Portland,
whispering "aha, we meet again,"
as a way of keeping me on my toes.
get my adrenaline pumping,
use your british accent
to make me lose control.
I need to inject some excitement
in through my arm, and you'll be
the one to do it.
these things can be done cheaply
and they can be done often.

while she was flirting with you,
you looked straight into my eyes
and I swear the world stopped.
did you feel the same?

it's ironic that I want you
to be the one to take me home,
when you're my home
in the first place.

This could be your final lap around the Sorry board.
The moment when the German man chokes you on the Acela Express.
Skin kisses skin
crossing cheeks, pecking noses.
Before your vision blackens,
you see the blurring of blues and greens:
Live action bruising for the eggshell queen.

This is the part where life cracks open.
The final lap around the Sorry board,
the moment where a German man
chokes you on the Subway.
Your throat closes but your heart opens up
and there are bees in there.
General Mills was wondering where they went.

Skin kisses skin
crossing cheeks, pecking noses.
The breadth between ‘be my shadow’ and ‘enough for now.’

Blow out the candles if you’re listening God,
we need a little flicker here.

just when I thought I loved the city lights,
I started wishing away everything
in the cool night sky, so you could
shine the brightest.

when I was younger, I wish that somebody told me
that happiness is free. it's watching the lightning storm
on the balcony by the beach with your family.
it’s dancing barefoot to Steely Dan
in the kitchen with your little sister,
even though neither of you know the words.
it’s laughing harder than you ever have before
in the back of the red pickup truck.
it’s you best friend telling you that she wouldn’t have
survived the summer without you.
these small moments add up
to a greater sum than you won in the lottery.

It’s the color of her dress the day that you first met her
“I’m not bold enough to wear purple,” she said.

It’s the color of the smoke that comes out of your ears when her touch sets you on fire.

It’s the color of the sweatshirt she stole from you freshman year of college and never gave back.

It’s the faded color of the asphalt beneath your feet on 7th street where you proposed.

It’s the color of the dog that you share. You wanted to name him Ash, but she said that would be taking the easy way out.

It's the color of her matching bra and underwear set. Every woman deserves to have one in her favorite color.

It’s the color of the blanket that you wrapped around her when it was too cold in your bedroom.

It’s the color of her eyes if you look closely enough. Although they got this way because of old age, you still think that they are just rare enough to make her beautiful.

It’s the color of her hair as she is lowered into the ground: breathless and leaving you behind.

It’s the color of the cloud over your head when you wake up to an empty bed every morning and remember that she’s never coming home.

It’s the color of the sky when it spits at you, reminding you that life without her is as pointless as an umbrella when it’s too windy outside.

It’s not the color of your breath when you exhale for the last time. In that moment, you were yellow.

don't be afraid
to take up my time, my dear
because everything's
better when you're here.

my:  favorite color has always been gray, even though my
mother:  never believed me. she
says:  that this isn’t normal for a nine year old. colors like
these:  hint at your mental state. the
things:  I thought about at night made me go into a panic.
“are:  you going to die in your sleep tonight? should you write a last will and testament just in case?” I felt
like:  my heart was trying to jump up out of my throat. my cheeks would turn
red:  and I would put my head between my legs to steady my breathing. I would try to take my mind off of the finality of it all by thinking of anything else — the
diamonds:  that nobody would ever give me, how good medium
rare:  steak tastes as it melts in your mouth
and:  how
precious:  it is that my little brother is still my biggest fan.
and:  how does one have a moral compass if god isn’t at the center moving the arrow? — by believing that you’ll have a
beautiful:  and fulfilling life if you treat other people beautifully.

someone suggested that we pick a word to repeat.
hers was "breathe."

I think I might choose cad-dy-whomped.
it reminds me of the sound a train makes
when it's rushing down the tracks.

it'll give my mind something to sing it to sleep.

Some people say that Vincent van Gogh used to eat yellow paint
in order to make himself happy.
Others say that he was shot accidentally
by two teenage boys.
So maybe he didn’t need that yellow paint after all.

The scholars and the experts say that
these things aren’t true.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe van Gogh liked the color yellow because he was
on a prescription that made him see the world
through yellow glasses
every time he opened his eyes.
Maybe van Gogh liked yellow because
it was everything he wasn’t.

Maybe van Gogh just liked yellow.

in ten years, I’m not going
to remember the sound of your voice
or the exact color of your eyes,
but I’m going to remember
how you made me feel
and how you kept me up at night
because I couldn’t stop
thinking about you.
2 AM is a lonely time
without you here by my side.

father blank be thy name.
thy will follow the script,
thy must be kind.
on earth as it is in heaven.
give us this Christmas our yearly word
and forgive us our hypocriticalness
as we judge others before we repent ourselves.
tell us not of our faults,
rather teach us the ways to earn our tickets
as allegiance is not forced, it is learned.
for thine is the bread and the wine and the whiskey too
for ever and ever
amen.

my aunt told me that the good thing about pain
is that you can remember it after it's gone,
but you can never recreate the feeling.
I think this is why I kept going back for more.

I could have written
much better poems about you,
but you didn’t give me the chance.

there's nothing worse
than being deemed uninhabitable
by the people with the power
to light fires in your soul.

they say that
"the world will break your heart
ten ways to Sunday,"
but it's only Monday night,
and I already don't want to
get out of bed tomorrow.

you told me sophomore year
that you left him
because he was too nice to you.
it was only a matter of time
before you left me too,
so I ran before you did.