Kissing you was like swallowing
the salty, salty sea:

I have corals for ribs,
and seaweed limbs;
my bones are ship-wreck saves
and wishful pennies.

My heart is a sea-shell:
if you put your ear to it,
you’ll hear me screaming, shouting,
pining
for you.

Don't ever fall in love with a poet
because they will indeed admire and watch your every move
they will write about how the pen marks on the side of your palm when you write
don't ever because they will trace
every single freckle you have on your face and
write about the color of each and every one of them and
describe how they smile so brightly under the sunlight
they will want you to want to know every little thing about them
even if it's just what hand they write with and want you
to be wondering why they write with that specific hand when in
reality it doesn't even matter

the poet will watch the way you dig
your eyes onto that book and your small quick remarks onto the 26 letters all crumpled together and will know that everyday at 5:28 p.m. you smile

they will look deeply into your eyes
to see if they can at least take a little
peak of your soul and they will write
about you like if you were the only
thing they see good in this world

they will want to know what you think
about when you look at them and
see if you also count each and
every freckle and hope and write  
that you do but they will
love you endlessly and they will
show you that they love you and only you

but don't date a poet if you aren't
capable to watch them and
admire their imperfections
when they sleep late at night
beside you.

j.f

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

My fingers cannot scale a melody
or take a rule across lands, to the sea
and back again. My fingers have never
pressed these strings into sounds worthwhile,
nor have they ever held a person's hand
and not felt utterly incapable of human touch.
These fingers know only strength in binding;
in fidget and rhyme, as I try to structure confusion
into something marketable. If nothing else though,
these fingers can roll a mean joint, and hold a
beer bottle so precisely to these lips.

That’s the complication of staying up at these early hours of the morning.
These early hours are when your mind is most naked, when your heart is bare, and your body numb. You hear the rain pouring down, and you look outside your window, and stare at the droplets falling, you think about what It must feel like to drown in the inescapable water, it quenches your thirst yes, but at some point you would have enough of the water coming down on you. There’s a point where the water fills your intestines, it soaks every part of you until your practically drowning. But then the rain starts to fade, and all you hear are the drops falling from the roof onto the cement. You watch slowly in those milliseconds from the time the drop falls to the cement, and the cement consuming the drop, until it’s practically non - existent. And in a short amount time, the whole sound of rain becomes non - existent to a point where you forget that it rained, and the only evidence left is the dark, grey sky above, that within time will fade as well.

m.d.

Broken conversations,
empty lungs,
doors half open,
hearts almost out of love.

We used to talk of how
we used to be infinite.
But now every second now feels
like a stroke against an unforgiving current.

Our conversations broke
as the flaws of our souls
fell through the cracks of this glass foundation.

These upset words that escaped you
left the air around me a little sad,
a little awake,
and with a lot of echoes.

My lungs went empty
talking you down.

I left the door open for you.
So you can walk in
and slip in quietly-
I won't say a word.

And this heart could never go empty,
not mine.
Yours,
at this point,
I know not.

Flowers never lost their color
as long as you walked this earth.

I never saw eyes,
Like hers, now we walk together,
Lake water sparkles.

Maybe I am a crybaby. Maybe I am the person that feels twice as hard because she has a father that doesn't feel anything and maybe I love too much because I watched 2 parents that didn't know how to do it but they pretended because l talked to myself since I was too young to understand why the sky is blue and maybe the things I said scared them. Maybe I made up friends, not for the sake of having some, but for the sake of knowing that at least they understand and at least they won't judge me because I scratched my legs until I bled and they don't know that I'm making up all these happy stories of vacations I've never been on so I don't feel so sad in school while everyone talks about what they did over the summer because all mom and dad ever did was scream at each other run from their problems while I drew in my room. Maybe I grew out of my imaginary friends because I'm not even worth their imaginary time and their imaginary presence the imaginary way they pretended to care. Maybe I called my dad even though I know what he did because I still loved him because he's still my ******* dad and he loved his son and he wouldn't tell him that it's wrong to break baby birds' necks and it's wrong to sneak into your sister's room and hurt her. Maybe he hasn't picked up on the fact that life is a big cycle, but you can't let your child hurt because your father let you hurt and his father let him hurt. Maybe I left long voicemails talking about one day being able to see him without a supervisor because I hated the way she wrote everything I said down, including the time I cried because he wouldn't stop prying me about if my mother would let us go out of state together. Maybe I don't need razors and cigarettes because my body isn't even worth the pain at this point. Or, maybe I'm just a coward who can't face death or who doesn't want to hurt more than she already does. Maybe I love too many sick people. Maybe I love too many normal people. Maybe everyone's sick and I just don't realize it yet. Maybe I self-loathe too often, maybe I shouldn't have said those things to people I thought gave a ****,; maybe it's a dream and I'll wake up and be five again. Maybe I don't want to be five again because being five was more hell than being alive. Maybe we wish some people we love were dead because it's too painful to know that they are somewhere loving some stranger when they couldn't ******* call their own child back. But I don't know. I don't know a thing. Not a **** thing. Maybe my ghosts sing because they've got nothing ******* better to do, because their fists just slide through every wall they try to punch. Maybe the dead don't rise because there's something about this life that makes Hades look like paradise I don't know. I don't know a **** thing. Maybe the wolf is howling at what the moon took from him. Maybe the stars are self-conscious and don't like to be stared at. Maybe we're always alone. Maybe we're always ******* alone. But I don't know. I do not know a **** thing.