Blistered hands, blistered feet
Hit hard and left confused
Is the rocking boat or the betrayal
making me sick?
The salt water on my cheeks
either came from the ocean or my eyes
But what difference does it make

Blistered hands, blistered feet
Broken heart
Two thousand miles couldn't soften the blow

You pull me down
Never letting me go
No matter how hard I try to get away
You always seem to grab me

please stop suffering
you are too young to be so sad

you lock the door
let the music scream
as loud as your thoughts

starring in the mirror crying
ugly, ugly, ugly

oh god knows
that i wish i could protect you
every second of everyday,
but the matter of fact is
i can scare away those kids,
i can wave away our parents,
i can’t protect you from yourself

i can only steal so many razors
tell you that you’re beautiful so many times
i’m beating myself
trying to save you

nobody loves me
you utter
i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry

please don’t leave me here
please let me help you

i don’t have the words
to give you what you need
to stay
you just have to believe
its going to be okay

I'm a closet romantic.
Constantly
Writing poetry
About beautiful boys.
But if you talk to me
Face to face
I'll deny that is this the case.

I can't let people know my weakness.

We've become cliché,
And not just one,
But a multitude.
The forbidden romance.
The older man.
The late night phone calls.
The cigarettes after ***.
The hopeless romantics.
The songs we sing to each other.
The late night drives to nowhere.
The fling that never ends.
We've become cliché.
And I couldn't be happier.

You think I'll be like you
You believe that I'll fall like you did
Well, You're wrong
I'll never be you
I'll never waste myself as you have

All those times you thought you helped
You were wrong
I clean up after you
I do damage control
You're only in my way

He said he liked her style
and her pianist fingers.
She told him that he could paint her
onto canvas, in shades
of cinnamon and ivory.

He laughed at her trembling hands
as she sat there, dressed in naught
but peonies and wild roses.
She scowled at his impudence
and then laughed
at the absurdity of it all.

She sat there and he told her
hold still
with a smile that flashed
across his eyes like quicksilver.

She watched him create poetry
with strokes of umber and chartreuse,
cerulean and scarlet.
He pulled the shadows from her eyes
and placed them into a fixed state of being.

She watched the metamorphosis of scars
into moonlit fault lines and
freckles into blips of smooth paint.

He transformed her pale outline
into a sensuous display of smooth gradients
and colors deep enough to make men weep.
He captured the penumbra of sorrow
and spread it across her painted eyes.

As he anointed the canvas
with delicate finishing touches,
She dressed in a paint-spattered shirt
and marveled at the uncanny likeness.

They sat and watched the paint dry
as he rubbed the knots from her shoulders
and kissed strained tendons and ligament
beneath innocuous flesh,
as she tapped rhythms into his hands.

He is no longer hers to consume.
He belongs now to the kingdom of earthworms
and a darkness that swallows all traces of light.
He took with him the chunk of her
that knew how to love as a human
and left her with shirts devoid of his form
and gradually losing his scent,
fragmented memories that slip
through fingers like sand,
and a room full of paintings
that she cannot bring herself
to uncover.

"PUT off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes."
"O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold."
"I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit."
"It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind."
"But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire."
"O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?"