Wasn't it funny
how we both loved each other
and stole glances
when we thought no one was looking
and pretended the world was in slow motion
as we talked quietly in class,
yet never seemed to conduct sentences
that spoke what was in our hearts
because we both loved each other
but were too afraid?

don't love a writer
unless you can handle the truth
of the way they see your very existence
in the eyes of a poet,
a novelist,
a songwriter.
unless you, yourself, are willing to hear
the pencil moving to your name,
exposing secrets that only you two shared,
revealing hurt and laughter in rhythm and rhyme.
unless you know about the love letters
written to you but never sent
to express their yearning to hold your hand,
to kiss those lips,
to fall asleep next to you throughout the chilling night.
unless you know that your name isn't bob or joan,
or eric or melissa,
but that's how they wrote you in their novels,
marking the day you both met.

don't love a writer
unless you can handle the ache they feel
when they see you with someone else.
when they hear you laugh from afar,
but never with them.
when they allow themselves to be broken by you,
and you will never read their diaries written on napkins.
when they know you love another,
and yet still they want to hold you in their arms,
to kiss you,
to love you,
to write volumes about you.
when they promise themselves to stop writing
because the love poems have shadows of pain
and their novels go on, never ending.
when they break their hearts for you,
and let it bleed over paper and stitch it with words
to handle another day without you.

don't love a writer
until you've read their heart.

It's funny how I used to laugh
Every word spoken to emphasize a single thought
yet now I stand in silence,
just watching

Sometimes I tell the truth
in hopes of opening the eyes of those
whose hearts are set on breaking
because the truth sets the crumbling free
But then I think to myself how awful
it can be to know how broken you are
so I sit quietly and just think,
just watching

When I'm angry I try not to admit it
because then I show what makes me weak
and weakness makes me cry in frustration
because sadness has yet to **** me,
only give me company
when I'm alone in my room
with my eyes set on nothing,
just watching

It's funny how I used to speak
With laughter ripping my soul in two
and exposing the parts of myself that swell with delight
and illuminates the stars in my eyes
yet now I just listen in silence,
just waiting.

There is a scratch I cannot itch
on the surface of my belly,
where my nails used to dig deeper and deeper
until I bit them off one nervous night
and the prettiness of my hands,
of the delicacy of my fingers,
were chewed up mindlessly since old habits
die hard.

I cannot scratch this itch
no matter how many tears are shed
or nails are grown
because this itch burns deeper than old wounds.
It begs to be remembered,
begs time and time again to be known,
swelling on the surface of my sunken belly.

Without nails, without beauty,
I scratch my way to the bone
where the little voice lays in the cracks of my soul
and tells me to remember the ugly inside

the thoughts wither away and an old habit revives
itching, just itching, bleeding for life.

Though my nails have cracked
and my hands are sore,
my stomach expands with lines marked
from long nights before.
I remember then what I tried to forget,
because old habits only die
when new ones replace it.