I met a girl who puts her hair up with a pen.
But before thinking, "that's an odd thing to do,"
I lended her one of mine so I could try to see her face, now uncovered.

That beautiful face.

That beautiful girl.

"Rebel Rebel" rings in my ears as
we drive on a haunted road
at 10:00 at night.

"Hand of God - Outro" sticks to me,
a roach on tape,
as his hand meets mine
and passes me a cigarette.

"Sober Up" gets him humming along
gets him tearing up
when we look up off the concrete and
name the stars.

"Requiem" is on my mind today
for he told me about those from
his past
and present
and future

"80's Films" is on repeat this morning
and I look through my photos
to see one of him
smiling and
laughing and
in love with life.

The first time in years I saw him in love with life
even for the length of a song.

i met a boy with hazel eyes
which was new to me
since i had only seen
seas and
forests and
burnt honey but
never a painting

he liked poetry that rhymed
which is the opposite of mine
i don't like to rhyme
but i tried and it felt too much like him
i barely knew him but i told him the
truth
even when i knew he wouldn't like it
and he did me the same courtesy as it
destroyed me from the inside
so deep inside
that i didn't even know
i still existed there
i cried because he ****** me
and then ****** me over
and i hate myself for ever
falling so hard for those
hazel eyes.

[1] Set of earbuds. Black. Scratched and left to wither away.

[2] Dead pumpkins. Probable COD: baseball bat.

[7] Broken beer bottles. Some white, some amber, some still containing beer that has leeched into the cracks on the concrete.

[26] Acorns. I collected some for Mabon and Samhain. Some were close to shattering but aren't we all?

[85] Honey suckles that looked almost lavender. But they weren't.

[Too many] Different paths to go down.

I loved a boy
who lived as a girl for sixteen years
and he whispered in my ear
one morning so early it was practically night,
"I'm a boy, please don't hate me."

And I didn't.
I loved him
until I could no
longer

Snow is not supposed to be blue.
But it is. Tangled
in her locks so blue that the seas become envious.
The hair of the girl I thought I loved when I
thought I knew what love is.
But I don’t think that anyone knows what love is. We
hope and pray that the phrases that we string together with
flowers and promises can represent this idea that we
dream
about grasping in our trembling fingers since the day we came into this world
kicking and screaming.
We’ve been trying to figure out how to feel love and tackling the freezing fear of,
“What if I never find it?”
As if love is inside the treasure chest buried beneath the world,
Accessible to those who can find the map and find the spot marked with an X.

X is such an ugly sound.

It’s the sound of listening to her argue with her ex-boyfriend about their ex-relationship
And about the ex-problems that they had in their past ex-together and
it’s listening to her slamming the door to her bedroom in a tantrum because
sometimes love is not enough.
But if love is not enough, what is?
And what about love is not enough and can it be fixed and
mended like your mother kissing your knee after you fell outside
playing tag
with the neighbor girl with hair so blue
you swear that the gods made it from a summer sky itself?
If we are too young to understand love at thirteen when
your crush kisses you in the darkened gymnasium at the middle school dance then
how can we know that love is what we feel at six years old for the
fathers when they play hide-and-seek in the yard with us and
know that there is an absence of love for the
mothers that turn us aside and build fences between us
are those fences there to keep me out or to keep her and her anger in?
So, logically, if we don’t know love at six or thirteen then
when do we learn what love can be and how do we learn what love is?
Is it trial and error where we have to wait for “the one”
or is it just a guessing game, a gamble, and
hope that the person that you have so many
similar interests and hobbies and passions and beliefs and feelings with is
a person that you are in love with?
So do I love the girl beside me
sprawled out in the morning snow?
With hair so blue that the seas become envious?
No.
After all, how can I?
I don’t even know what love is.

Copper melted around my fingers,
eyes on me
mine on your neck.
Red.
Purple.
Candles always lit,
the light that cannot be contained in you.
Your body.
So bright.
Safety somersaults, caresses,
kisses, bites,
touches, grabbing, scratches.
Greed and lust together at last.
As you.
As me.
Us with no boundaries.
Skin to skin.
Spirit to spirit.
You to me.