what you need to understand about me is that i am nothing more than misplaced passion and a pair of blindly swinging fists that tremble with unrighteous anger. so allow me to apologize in advance for the fires my subconscious starts. i am a clumsy compilation of ill-suited lines that will never see life in your poetry. at least, not like they used to. you are a book filled with with pictures i never got to take, and every day i am forced to sit idly by while she starts a new roll of film. the missile crisis reincarnate is inside my chest, so forgive me for not being able to control when i shake. forgive me for fumbling with syntax so crassly. i know better than to spew hate and call it poetry. please understand that the endless series of sinking ships in my head makes it difficult to form coherent thought. my thoughts, will **** me, if your absence doesn't first. i think about your hands more than i am proud to admit, and when i picture them reaching for her i feel so sick. i'm sorry. i am so sorry that i haven't yet learned how to moderate the volcano in my throat. i'm so sorry for spitting fire with my eyes closed. forgive me for confusing anger with bravery and burning down too many houses to count. in my misguided thirst for blood i weaponized memories and threw them like daggers in every direction, but the only one being hit is me. i am so tired of bleeding, i am tired of this one-sided war, i am tired of being a war. i tried so hard to be catharsis personified but i have to face the reality that my arms would only hold you like a grave. i loved you like rainwater, and lost you like time. you were never mine. you were never mine. you were never mine. i have to say that to myself every day because it eases the pain of watching you belong to anyone else. but i can't ignore the surplus of "what if's" wreaking havoc in my consciousness. i think that's why i get so angry when i picture you laughing with her instead of me. i am blocking out the memory of the night you told me my laughter could cure your sadness. ******* it. i am trapped in a nightmare where the walls of the home we built are lined with photographs of her. this is why i can't breathe at the thought of her smiling when the flash goes off. they say that nothing good stays; i have never been good at leaving, so i guess that makes sense. you once referred to me as an anxious mess you would spend the rest of your life cleaning up, and i can't get that out of my head. i hope you know, that after everything, i would still sit and collect dust on a shelf in your house forever, if that's what you wanted me to do. but i know it's not, so i'll go back to apologizing. i'm sorry that my rage doesn't have an off switch. i'm sorry for being a literal spitfire. i'm sorry for being an earthquake under her glass slippers. i'm sorry that my mouth is a loaded gun and that i have ****** aim. i swear to god i'm trying not to shoot so often but this is one of the hardest things i have ever done. so until i learn control i will burn in silence with the safety on.  

- m.f.

If you want to train a ghost you must have a subject after which to model the ghost. Find someone who takes your breath away. Maybe it will be that girl who sits across from you on the subway, or it could be a close friend that you've always wanted more from.

Make memories with them. Memories that won’t easily fade. The kind that come to you in the darkest hours of the night. Learn all the little things about them that you possibly can. Every endearing detail and quirk that makes them a unique human being, and love them to your own breaking point. It doesn’t matter if they return your love. Some even argue that its better if they don’t. This way you know that they will be the one to leave you, but thats just a matter of opinion.

Take little pieces of them and stow them away in your pockets. Hide some of those pieces in the music you listened to while you were with them. Take another and put it in the walls and under the floorboards of the places you went together. Stain everything you know with their memory. The best ghost trainers can do all of this without ever speaking a word to their subject.

Eventually they will leave you. It will be quick like when the sun shines through the clouds on a dark day before hiding his face again. There will be no real explanation. Don't you know there is no law for such things? Now the ghost will begin to take shape, and if you have followed each instruction carefully you will never be able to escape.
*~W.C.

Each infrequent word you say to me
Causes me to long for you.

Every time that you ignore me
Makes me wish you missed me too.

There is something about the way a feather hits the ground that sounds surprisingly similar to glass breaking and there are so many things I need to tell you but the words all dance in my head behind a mental block and they swirl with songs about broken boughs and fallen cradles and realizing this hits me harder than the day you realize that Ring Around The Rosie is about the Black Plague (I'm sorry for ever telling you that you were the childhood innocence I always wanted) but I suppose nothing can ever be as pure as a pair of turtle doves and I always imagined myself as a pigeon cooing at your feet while you sprinkle your affection like bread crumbs — always plentiful but always in your control — and I am always cooing, cooing for you, cooing even if you wrung my neck like your hands when you are nervous and you are always clipping my wings with those persuasions to keep me around and incapable of flying away or even imagining a home anywhere unless it is perched on either of your broad shoulders and I accept that; I have never been a songbird with anything lovely to croon about and while smoothing out my feathers I know why the caged birds sings and it's because all the birds that cry get their necks broken.

this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.  

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.