The people that say passive aggressiveness is just a made up term
and doesn’t really exist
obviously have not met my grandmother

or been across from her at a Thanksgiving day get together
and heard her comments from over the hum of
green beans and dry turkey
that none of us are really so keen to eat
-
The people that say ADHD is just an excuse
and some kind of made up disorder to make people feel better
have not met my mother

or have had to witness a 47 year old middle school teacher quiver
at the thought of concentrating for more than an hour
without some kind of medication or break
or tear up at having to think about organization
-
The people that say being trapped in your own skin
is just a saying that has become overused
have obviously not met me

or have ever felt the need to open their ribcage
and let their bones fly free like little wings
or felt an itch deep inside their organs like some kind of ticking bomb
that could go off at any time  
-
We are all packaged explosives hidden deep in
rocky crevices in a hillside growing wild and green

Just because the outside isn't so frightening
doesn't mean there isn't something dark waiting underneath

At the end of it all, we said good bye a hundred different ways
but never with our words

and on Halloween we crept down the stairs as not to wake the others
and we burned every last piece of him you had left
and I let you cry yourself to sleep in my arms
and we lit a few candles and we started being
us

and you intimidated me because you were beautiful
and charming
and cunning
and smart

and I was just 15 years old and boring
and you were 18 and everything I ever wanted to be

and I guess I could say I love you

and the way your skin felt as I caressed it
as we laid in your bed (or mine)
wide eyed and heavy hearted

and you were not the first girl I ever kissed
but you were the first and only one I've ever loved

and oh how I ******* loved you
how I still ******* love you

I was born again the first day I ever laid eyes on you
Right there in the doorway

You in your little blue dress and white diamond smile
and me a little sad and scared and looking for something in your curves

I had been warned about you
I had been told you were
a snake
a plastic *****
a lunatic
a ****
and you were all of those things

but I worshipped you
as did everyone else
we kissed your golden feet

I listened to you like Eve in the garden of Eden
and I took a bite of that apple
and nothing has ever been the same since

for that short time I think I found a little bit of heaven in hell
and it was always bliss in your arms

and how you scraped your lips against my teeth in the dead of night

and dear lord who art in heaven hallow be thy name
I have prayed for you

I have prayed and I have called out your name

I met you on your eighteenth birthday
and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
and you are my roots reaching down into the green earth

you are the queen of all queens
you are made of divine intervention
you made me bleed

My mother used to believe in things like
fairies and
angels and
good spirits and
me

and she uses every available context to remind me of just that

and the whole world is making a huge deal about how
Pope Francis dropped the “F-bomb”
like it least it wasn’t an A-bomb
dropped in a country we can’t pronounce

or maybe even our own
because who would alert the media then
if we were all dead

I’m feeling a bit cynical tonight
and maybe it’s the result of reading too much
Poe and Shakespeare for homework

and if I’m honest I’ve really never felt much in the way of
inspiration from either of them
after being forced down my throat since the third grade

and we had a small play once
and ever since then I’ve thought of you as Romeo
and I’ve always felt a bit more connected to Edgar’s “Annabel Lee”
in that ****** sepulcher by the ever moving and sounding sea

I just wish I had someone pining over me

I still think of things that got lost under the waves
and how every inch of me was rubbed raw by shells
and shifting sand

and I couldn’t tell which way was up

I was in a world of frothy ocean
and jellyfish
and siren songs

and now I think I know how Alice felt
when she was tumbling into something we call wonderland

I think I found hell in the corners of my organs

I think I was poisoned
and the culprit is the sea

I think a mermaid tried to **** me

I had a dream I was walking on the beach
and the waves receded into a wall
like Moses parting the Red Sea

but it was only me
and it was only a dream

I’m sorry you were the result of seduction
I’m really very good at it and I used you
7 years my senior and supremely illegal
you were hesitant to kiss me

Because you've been to jail enough
and didn't want to see a cell again

but I still unbuttoned your shirt
and traced the tattoos on your chest and all the way down your arm
spilling out onto your hand

and I still love the way it felt to sleep naked in your bed
and have your window half open and hear the rain pouring down
as you packed yet another **** hit at 2 am

and we always started movies we never got more than
30 minutes into
because of the way my fingers tested your willpower

and one night we were watching pulp fiction
and I still cant remember a solitary scene
and im sorry

and one night I came over
and you handed me a Marlboro Red and a cold 40
and asked me what my drug of choice was

and we taked about how the
acid in your spine is resting for the next 7 years

and your pupils were dilated so much so I could not see your pretty irises
and I guess what I’m saying is

I love your 24 year old self
and how you made me pizza
and let me wear your favorite shirt (and that’s it) around your house

and im sorry I always left you in bed
when you tried to pull me closer into you
I should have just stayed

and you would always say
“my pillow smells like you, come back. I miss you”

and I stopped dropping by your house in January
and I stopped talking to you

but sometimes at night I dream of the ink on your skin
and how you got hit by a bus
and how you called yourself the antichrist
and how the last four digits of your cellphone number are 7666

and how we ****** so hard I would pull the sheets off of your bed
and how you always kissed me in the small of my back
and the curve of my shoulders and

imsorryimsorryiloveyou

Vous disiez toujours mes mots sonnés le mieux en français
(You always said my words sounded best in French)

Comme ils fondaient de ma langue dans des tons de caramel
(Like they were melting off my tongue in caramel tones)

Vous me prieriez de chuchoter des choses comme
(You would beg me to whisper things like)

Je vous aime ou
(I love you or)

Vous êtes les seuls
(You are the only one )

Je pense que vous en avez vraiment seulement aimé l'ironie
(I think you really only liked the irony of it )

Parce que je n'étais jamais le seul pour vous
(Because I was never the only one for you)