i can’t remember how many times i’ve been told
that the language of love is all i speak.
i laugh and say that
“i am a poet,
young love and
dead love and
to-the-grave love,
i sing of them as i sleep
and dream of them once i wake.”

we as poets surely know that
no amount of unsent letters
will bring her back to bed.
we know that we cannot charm our ways
into the hearts of anyone worthwhile
with our words alone.
and we know that cigarettes aren’t cute and
that pregnant women never drink alone
and that tripping on acid is not poetic,
it’s just really freaking stupid.

let me know why no one writes poetry
to commend the humble playground swing
who hardly even creaks in dissent as
another parent plops another screaming baby onto it.
and it pains this poor swing that
Daddy gets to be so blissfully unaware
of the very full and angry diaper,
and that they are the one to stare it in the face
because that’s just what swings do.
we could spin this tale into a revolution
if we cared a little less about our next first kiss.

when the pen meets the paper,
we find it easy to forget about
the girl gazing deep into her soup
because instead of boy-watching,
she is wishing death on her mother
for adding the lentils but forgetting the peas.

the great poets of ages past and present
make every bathroom trip a journey.
panicked sprints to catch the bus
are part of God’s plan, no doubt.
and she only hated the sweater you bought her
to celebrate her summer birthday because
“it was the very same shade of gray
that painted the sky when her boyfriend
traded her in for a broad with thicker thighs
or maybe even for a guy with socks twice as high”.

dear poets, for the love of love,
please don’t drown in her eyes anymore
because i won’t be there to rescue you again.
quit searching her freckles
for constellations in the dark
and just relax for once.
enjoy how naked she is.
and don’t say that the moon
is your old friend from high school
unless the yearbook photos can prove it.

these mountains in our minds
have every right to be molehills,
and sometimes it’s okay to
let the ocean just be the ocean.

I have a friend who collects butterflies.
She saves the beauty left behind
once their bodies are dead and
their spirits have fled.
And I wish I could explain to you,
that in this very same way,
your walls of glass may cage my heart,
but my soul stills wanders this land
in search of a love that does not ****.

I do not fear your high tides.
I see no more light in your ocean eyes.
You used to be my wild heart.
But now, you are only nature to me,
a bit of beauty observed from afar
as I hold someone else’s hand
and watch you swallow up the sun.

It seems you have a taste for radiance,
something you covet, but do not own.
You saw this in me,
but I will be ******
before I ever again
let you come in
close enough
to drag me under.

The whispers get caught between your bodies;
they scratch across your matchstick skin
and fill the room with lovers’ fire.

Wearing Converse ‘cause we’re All Stars,
leaping rails and busting through the knees of last year’s jeans,

Not sleeping, just dreaming for when it can all start over again.

But without the old, the exes and the oh’s,
how can we say we really knew the new?

Once upon a time, I was all about the pretty boys.

the kinds that walked me through my dreams, 
the kinds that plucked me from my wreckage like the springtime roses they'd leave on my doorstep. 


and they kissed me so kindly that falling in love was no longer sacred, and the smolder of victory in their eyes soon outshone our lovely moon.



but I would wake each morning with names on my lips that evaporated in the daylight, 

and just before I'd go, I'd confess to my bedroom ceiling that i still wanted someone more.

And then, by some miracle mapped out in stars, I followed a path that led to you.



And oh God, music hasn't sounded as sweet since the moment I heard your voice. 

Your laughter chases every nervous beat of my heart, your eyes hold constellations that make it easy enough to feel infinite as long as my gaze stays locked with yours. 



You make me feel fluorescent, the darkness has never felt so safe. With the memory of you in my near-present, there's no danger I cannot face. 

And I long so stupidly to fold and unfold myself in the spaces between your fingers.

 To taste the gold on your lips would make me the richest in spirit that I have ever been. 



And I can't deny, it would be heaven to stroke my hands through your hair and whisper while you're close, "oh darling, don't you know, 
you were art long before i began to admire you,"



This ecstasy you give has touched me deep within my bones. 

And I'm shocked you haven't heard this one before, it's a tale as old as time.

You linger like the softest whisper in the furthest corners of my mind.

I would write to you if only I could.

But I can't distract myself from my own head; it just hasn't been quiet around here since my mind first started humming with the idea of loving you.

Knowing your soul like my own would blossom within me like a sprawling forest.

But while you're still unsure, I'm just wandering through the leaves.

And while I'm gone, I'll bet the trees pray to be dead just so they don't have to listen to me talk about you again.

But I ache with sorrow for their misunderstanding,

Because you are a song I will sing until it hurts anywhere above a whisper.

There is a sky outside that I want no part of.

I know that once I speak through the cracks, the glass will give way and my voice will catch in the wind,



and you will fear my flash floods and you will leap over puddles and you will refuse to be caught up in the rain even though it is you that I weep for.

You were thinking about God all night. If only you could without suffering sin, you’d swear it was true. Prayers clung to the gloss on your lips. You’d shaken your hair loose from the day’s mistakes, apologized for those that you chose to remember. But still, your body was a live wire.

Your fingers were knotted up in the chain of your grandmother’s cross when your first stranger offered you a drink. His smile boasted of layover stays in European cities, of glassy-eyed girls spread just for him, all neat and pretty on a silk duvet. You swallowed down your fears and let him order for you, just nodding his way so he wouldn’t get to hear your voice. A scotch on the rocks to ease your nerves, you reassured Him, and nothing more.

Let me slip into something a little more comfortable…you breathed easier in a strapless dress, a tight skin of black satin worth half of a month’s rent and all of your dignity. Eyes you didn’t recognize skimmed over more of your body than you let your own mother see. The little girl she raised would have been afraid. The good Lord Himself was a skeptic, a dwindling shadow of a doubt still stuck in the doorway. …She’s so exposed, can she really offer any more parts of herself to the world, or has it all gone?

You’d just gotten done with praying for the ****** when one of them shows up at your feet to thank you. You try to forget. You don’t want to remember that you asked for her in your sleep. She is a gift…not from God. You feel as you would have if you had seen her naked. Her white dress wraps high enough around her neck to make you second-guess your hands.

Touch…The thought hits you like a freight train and makes you sway. She laughs, guess I shouldn’t have gotten you this drink, huh? You’re halfway finished with the glass she gave you before you tell her you’re okay.

A hangover may keep you from church in the morning.

Just seemed like you needed to unwind.

God would have healed your heart then. Only you start to think now that the pain of someone else may be what keeps you alive.

Maybe a dance will help.

Her hand is warm as she leads you out onto the floor. Instead of letting go, her fingers squeeze the spaces in between yours. She leans in so she can hear you speak above the pounding of the bass. When she tosses her hair, she smells soft, like fresh roses. You feel her thorns press into your sides like the fingernails digging into your chest, and the pain breathes new life into you.

She dances up against you with her body like a hurricane. The shallow breaths against your neck are no longer just that. They are howling gusts, a swirling mass of a storm that comes to life in glaring black-and-white headlines, “disaster of the ages”, “the bullet you can’t outrun”. They are screaming at you to get a grip before you crash to the ground, another casualty in her wake.

Her hand swims up your dress to touch you between your thighs. You let her. It’s okay. You ease into her, let your eyes roll back for her. You kiss her unholy, her tongue tasting like redemption. The strokes of her fingers take you as close to Heaven as you’ll ever get.

Forgive me, Father, for I am sin.

Her hair may smell like sweet summer rain and her smile always settles weirdly in your stomach, but she is poison. She is a toxic cocktail garnished with cigarette smoke that reminds you of the night you came too close to kissing her. She is unattainable, she is right beside you and yet your fingertips cannot ever quiver hard enough to close the gap between you and her.

You crave her so desperately. You would be humbled to fall apart for her. At her feet, you’d make your bed, and there you would stay all alone through the night, dreaming of how she swore she’d come back for you. There you will stay while the dawn filters in through the drapes, while the sharp rays of early morning light are all that is there for you to blame for your tears. She will not come back because boys will be boys, with their tousled hair and heavy brows and all of their hard edges, and she will love them for that. No matter how hard she bleeds before he gives way for her, she will melt into him.

She wears your sorrows like a dress gown. You tell her past the knot in your throat that she looks gorgeous. Your palms itch; it takes everything in you to not smooth down the ripples in the fabric around her hips. Her night skin’s being shed by calloused hands within her first hour out at the bar. And in a few hours’ time, she’s battling her hangover with her head in your lap while you comb through the mess of her hair and tell her that she still deserves better. She says she knows that already.

What she doesn’t know is that you do, too.