"Let me get to know you"

Well, if you'd like to know me
You'd have to know how to read me
Because if my past serves me right,
I'll try so very hard
But never really tell you anything.
Instead I'll tell strangers
All about how I feel,
About you,
About life,
About me.

Don't be jealous
Just open a link
Type a few words
Find me online
And read me
Then you'll know
Exactly who I am
Well, maybe not exactly..

I tend to lie to strangers*
But I'll never lie to you

I want to have a body
that matches my mind

he always asks
why i am sad

he always asks
why i would choose the sadness
over happiness
every time

i don't want to be happy
completely
because i am
an echo of my soul
and there are parts of me
missing

abcd  g  j   m

all my friends loved drugs or liked to get ****** up
my boyfriend would shoot ****** and paint with my blood
i’ll sure as hell miss downing pills
but i think i want to live instead

i loved white nights bleaching my eyelids
i loved brunette boys who made me feel like jesus
getting ****** on rooftops watching the sun collapse
but i’m tired of waking up and feeling like ****

i had fun drinking ***** on hot, summer nights
and placing pills under my tongue until the world was vivid neon lights
holding hands with the boy who drank too much lean
but i think i want to make it past 2013

I spend a lot of time thinking,
so I've had some time to make up my mind.
But you spend a lot of time drinking,
leaving your morals and reasoning behind.

I spend a lot of time reading,
because I crave the escape of a fictional fantasy life.
But you spend a lot of time bleeding,
because you crave an escape only found through a knife.

I spend a lot of time worrying,
because I fear you'll never make it out of this town alive.
But you spend a lot of time hurrying;
dismissing everything that matters to stay busy,
just to survive.

I spend a lot of time laundering
your ***** clothes with stains of blood
that just won't seem wash out.
But you spend a lot of time wandering;
always searching,
but never finding what love is really about.

I spend a lot of time thinking,
so I've had some time to make up my mind.
You can carry on your drinking,
I've decided it's time to leave you behind.

It's poetry isn't it?
A caged bird.

Oh, I see—you liked it when I used that big word, huh?
You want me to use some more?
Mm, let me just grab my pocket Thesaurus.
Yeah, that's right baby, I take it everywhere with me—
I find it quite useful in these… situations.

Right now, I could give you seven variations
of the word “****.”
Seductive
         Arousing
                Provocative
                          Se­nsuous
                 Mmhm, you liked that one, didn't you?
                    Libidinous
           Suggestive
Titillating…
You'd like more, I can tell,
but I need you to want it.

Let's go somewhere quiet
and thumb through
my college style manuals for a few hours.
We could talk about sentence variety,
the Oxford comma, some syntax,
and mm, if you're feeling real good,
maybe even discuss the proper usage of a semi-colon.

Just know, I've been saving semi-colons
for, you know, that special someone.

If things get a little steamy, we can go down to the basement
and I'll show you my Scrabble board.
I'll set you up for a triple-word score,
and you can put together some of those high-scoring,
two-letter words that really get me going.
Oh yeah, I think I'd be into your strategy.

When the game is over, I'll lean you back,
come in real close, and whisper some Neruda,
some Cummings,
some Dickinson
softly into your ear.
Afterward, I’ll trace lines of Hughes and Whitman
down your naked spine with my fingers.

I'm sure you know it's only polite
to return the favor.

It's just an idea.
I know it sounds good.
Trust me, I'll be gentle—
But baby, believe me—
I could punctuate you in all the right places.

i'm sorry if i hurt you,
but you should know it
was only to make sure that
my own heart was beating.
i held interventions with
all of the ghosts of your
pasts, and the skeletons
living in your closet even
decided to move out, but i never
asked for anything return.
no kisses, no belonging to each other,
i don't mean to be cold, i swear.
but affection is salt,
and i am still an open wound,
all i can do is apologize
and pray you'll stay despite
the fact that i don't want to ****.
my first taught me that pain
will come again after healing,
and my second taught me that
maybe i'm better off alone, so i've
decided to live my life permanently
bleeding, so i won't have to cut myself
open for whoever comes along,
i'm putting myself on display,
but please do not touch.
do not touch.

do not ******* touch.

all i ask is that you have respect
for the fact that my body still trembles
over the dreams of a boy with closed
fists, and i still wake up from nightmares
of his smile after telling me he loved me.
i am still in the process of healing,
i am still in the process of accepting
that those months were not my fault,
that the bruises weren't caused by me.
i should've known by his name,
that he would leave behind more things than one.
i mean, Mark?
is that not ironic?

so, once again,
i'm sorry that i will
never be what you want
me to be, that i will never
hold your hand in public
or whisper into your ear
and kiss the nape of your neck.
i don't think you'd
want that from the
living dead, a fully functioning
cold-as-stone zombie.

i guess I just don't understand
how she can hold your hand
and never have to wear long
sleeves or turtlenecks.
maybe to her you aren't a thunderstorm.
maybe it just hurts to know that i never deserved
the calm before the storm.
i'm jealous of her shorts and t-shirts,
i can never look at her without searching
for bruises and crossed fingers.

was it just that I never deserved
to feel your breath against
my neck without your hand
digging into my wrist,
leaving marks of your lack
of tenderness in the same shade
as violets;
i always tried to find beauty in you.

i'm sorry that i could never be enough