i am  not your ******
nor your sister.
i do not know the meaning
of these words, mister.
except
in instances where
i hate us
like
they hate us.

a putrid loathing
sprouting from different
colored grounds
but a dangerous flower
nonetheless.

they are not just words,
they are drops of blood
spilled from the lashed backs
of our enslaved
triple grandfathers
and mothers.

our slang replaces
hoses
pushing us back
during marches
and righteous riots.

aggression
equals regression
equals deppression.

and now,
it's all our fault.
now it's
black on black assault.
now it's
fly shoes and ghetto booties.
poppin' bottles and
poppin' caps,
running through nights like
street ******* rats.

what would
W.E.B. DuBois say if
he'd seen this
backstep taken
after we'd come this far,
after reaching for stars
and dropping
the ball?

now
i love this color.
i love this color
and prefer no other.

all i'm saying is,
let us pick one day
when we put the negroidian away
put ****** back in it's roots.
no, not the movie,
don't me toby.

let us get the dream rollin'
Mister King style,
not Master P style.
no big rims, or leather seats.
none of that ****
for awhile.

i'm saying takeover.
i'm saying african-america makeover.
i'm saying,
let's take
our pride back,
like our
homeland lions.
let us make black
a taste not so sour.

i'm saying,
Black Power.

the urban ecosystem
breeds the urban beast;
the two-legged feral brute

they board their clockwork motorcages
the young ones in predatious packs
the old, too weathered to care
animal autonomy
born from sweatshop routines

i imagine myself
as a metropolitan jane goodall
observing and assimilating
taking note of the cacophony of
hoots and and hollers
the city-born mating calls
the high-topped courtship dances
******* civility born from enslaved mindsets

a young, dark-skinned boy
let's rhyme flow freeformed
to the rhythm of a young girls dancing feet
stomps and claps excite the celebration
of abandoned social etiquette
and of my foreign presence

i resemble some exotic missing link
a mix of this, that and the other
my skin, a rare quilt
and this draws more attention
than a gold-dusted african queen

i place myself in the back
peering through the windows of this transit jungle
feeling my heart skip beats
boom...boom...shhhh...
i must've left my rhythm in my other heritage
because i can't catch the ancient flow
but my neck leads my head in bobs

my brain rattles with old soul memories
and i see these young folks on the train
held back by centuries of black struggle
but forever rejoicing in african pulse
forever embodying our ancestoral pride

and i think, how peculiar
on the outside looking in like a fishbowl
exiled from my own brown-skinned tribe
with my oppression fitted like a glove
my blackness a mere disguise
my blackness camouflage
my blackness
not quite
black
enough

I was young when I learned to sing
to the rhythm of fists
flying through the air
like birds too angry
with the season to call.
I was young when I thought a tune
could drown the sounds
of my mother’s sobs
crashing through hallways
in tidal waves and monsoon misery.
I was young when I carved
songs in the wallpaper
and into my delicate skin.
I turned bruises into syncopated beats
and scars into major scales.
My stepfather hated music
but I was an ornery child,
and I sang of joyous things
just to see if his soul could dance,
but instead,
I got two left feet in swift kicks.
When I was was young I was afraid of sticks
because I thought my body was a drum
to be beaten and battered
to a punishing rhythm.
I was young when I learned
that the taste of blood on my lip
was merely the flicker before the intermission;
the finale would be a grand display
of pomp, punch, and unlucky circumstance.
My mother was a tone-deaf drunk
who never learned to sing.
She belted begging in B flat octaves
like it was the only note she knew.
She wept an ocean of sorrow
as I sang my S.O.S.
“God, save our sinking ship.”
“God, save our sinking souls.”
“God, save our sorry stepfather from himself.”
And when I thought to cry,
I sang my little heart out instead.
I sang of devil's meeting end,
and I sang of daughter's finding love,
and I sang of mother's finding
strength enough to leave,
and I sang to the happy families
that only existed in sitcoms,
because my stepfather hated music
but I hated him far more.

Misogynist pig,
strong and demanding
with entitled eager prowess
hard for anything with hips
“Mami, you smell gooood…”  
This creature, lapping,
tongue dripping word drool
down my neck.
I am dreaming now,
awaken by the ghosthands
of an older man.
"Please.." barely escapes my lips,
"...don't.." makes its knot in my throat.
My spine tingles
with wild impulse,
claws drawn and digging holes
into my seat.
I wanna scream,
I am not your mami,
I am not your baby,
I am not your sweetheart,
Your cutie pie,
I AM NOT YOURS!
and still, this vile swine, undeserving
with his expectant toothy smile
and hot heavy breath
is stealing in my scent.
Wild animals
know no bounds
And He's lucky I stayed civilized.

Whether I’ve waited too long,
or I’m coming on too strong
I feel the need to put my words
where they belong;
In the drum of your ear,
beating to the sound of this nondescript fear
of “have I said too much?”
or “too little?” --
of wondering when my feet
will reach the middle
ground, between overkill and not enough.
That just right feeling we’ve all built up
for one girl or another,
trading one choice for the other
and never being quite satisfied
with the path you’ve taken;

but every time I choose you
my heart is breaking.
The crackling sound that
my heart keeps making
is like the sound of
a burning wood fire on a cold winter night
where I stare into the flames
like I stare into your eyes,
and remember you staring back like
you were looking for something.

And what that something was
is beyond me
but I sure hoped
that it was there for you to find.
and I sure hoped
that you could read my mind,
because my nerves stopped
my lips from moving,
and I’m constantly in question
of what I might be doing.

Now we’ve had our share
of one night stands,
and I hoped they would progress
to maybe holding hands.
But what I’ve learned is that
you can’t make life rewind
and run backwards
from the finish line,
you can’t make time
turn counter-clockwise.
I know driving through life
there are no u-turn signs.

As much as I wanted
to start by saying “I like you”
and do those cute things
that new lovers do,
it was never the case,
and I just got used.
nothing more
than a kid
to keep you amused.

Newly two decades old,
we’re both still young,
even if you’ve reached
the year of twenty-one.
Your heart doesn’t rest
atop your sleeve,
it’s comfortably hidden
away from me.
but I only ask for
one small peak
to settle my inner child’s
curiosity.
When night falls, I don’t want
what you think I do
what I really want
is to get to know you.

I couldn’t care less
about getting in your pants,
although I wouldn’t say no
given the chance.
But again, I’m content
with just sitting near you.
Us, just staring up at
the midnight moon
as she whispers
sweet nothings
to make you swoon
until the morning light
has come too soon.

I want to remember
the map of your face,
to feel how it fits
where my hand is placed.
I want to remember
the placement of every tattoo
as if I was the artist that
had drawn it on you.
I want to remember
the feeling of
the parts in your lips
where rings once docked
like navy ships.
I want to take you dancing
to feel your hips,
and make your morning coffee
to hear you sip.

This may be nothing more
than a simple crush
but it may be love, too,
not to make things rush.
But I’m bad with words when
they’re flying from my mouth
like confused grey geese
heading north instead of south.
So this is me starting the dialogue
without feeling wary of getting it wrong
because if I am then I’ll move on,
I won't mourn the day that
I wake and you're gone.

The next time you want to ban
brown skin from your white land ,
consider the crimson floods spilt
on burnt clay from red flesh.

You want brownfolk in this country
like we wanted pox in our quilts.
As our history is ripped to tattered patches
and replaced by a white silken sheet. 

But this is the land of the free
and this is the home of the brave.
And when I say brave
I don't mean that caricature
drawn on the front of a baseball jersey,
with buck teeth,
a bird feather
and  a tomahawk motion.

I mean the brave souls
that took a last stand
against the Custers
and the Mayflowers
and colonial white powers.
I mean the Sitting Bulls and Geronimos
who’s histories are rewritten
in Old Spaghetti Westerns.
Where John Wayne is always the hero,
and our people aren’t even cast
to play our own roles. 

Hollywood won't stoop to blackface
but red face is PC. 
Perfect Aryan models advertise American Apparel,
one authentic-looking headdress
and fifty-dollar native design
crop top tank tops
are like spoils to the victor.
It's enough to make one sick.

This is America,
where they steal your culture
and sell it back to you
at ten times the price.
Those faux hide moccasins,
**** on old tradition,
turn centuries old struggle
into a fashion faux-pas.  

I once had a conversation with a girl
whose skin was made of privilege.
She said, ”I thought Native Americans
wanted to live on reservations..?”
Let that resonate. Repeat.
as if we were getting a room
at the Four Seasons.

It was called the trail of tears
not the trail of whimsical wonder.
But in this white washed world
invasion is called settling
genocide is industry
and poverty is tax-free.

Our heritage is endangered,
our veins are *****-diluted
but at least we have those scholarships
which, I suppose, we’ll use
to cram our brains
with a history
that never belonged to us.

Perhaps, all of those centuries ago,
we should have thought to build a wall,
you know, to keep the immigrants out.
We could have stood at the border
with picket signs of self-deluded righteousness
lungs filled with hate
for a different colored human
shouting, "Go home, Alien,
your dreams are illegal here!"

I played witness to a society crumbling
streets cracked and schools shut down
the landscape has grown beyond troubling.
My litter stains the earth just as
the blood stains the streets
and still no one takes notice.

Every anti-action can be guilt free
when not one person considers this place
or how it’s become a monstrosity.

Who, now, will watch the world end?
Your future children, or theirs after?
How long can we hold this green-patched trend?
How long before the affluence takes hold?
Or has it got it’s grips on us so hard
that everyone believes what they’re told?
Everyone has someone to answer to
but no one can provide an answer
that speaks a complete and honest truth.

Discrimination has not yet been abolished
but the modest effort can be seen
where it’s been masked and lightly polished
to be put on display as a once-was.
Politically corrected and cleverly disguised
but I still see a still-is that’s nearly silenced us.

What has occurred cannot be undone
but I still want to change the world
at least before my hate crime comes.

I miss you like the day you left,

with tears in my eyes,

forming angry rivers of deep seeded sorrow

and jealousy that I wanted to drown in.

We never said I love you,

But we could feel it trembling behind our lips with our last kiss.

Goodbye was painful enough without the dagger of truth

cutting into our chests.

When we found that one way ticket

my heart dropped like a pin in a silent room.

You were stoic like the Mona Lisa,

determined in your lack of discontentment

while I sobbed you away.

The worst of it was in the the future of irresolution.

I would never know if you’d come to love the world

more than me.

I would never know if I wasn’t Home

for you, anymore.

I would never know, if I waited long enough,

steadfast in my domesticated loyalty.

I’d sit, like an old dog, on your tacky foyer welcome rug,

waiting to tell you that I’ve not forgotten.

And if you never came back here

I’d still miss you like the day you left.

I had to tell myself that it didn’t make sense to count days,

or months, or years, if it came to it,

because even as my Sun rises,

and your Moon also does,

we still think

of that bed

that we’d fall in

and out of.

Its hard for me to know
where the hell
I went wrong
I never thought I'd see the day
We wouldn't get along

My thoughtghosts linger
on ancient code
with
severed brute vengeance
against your vile
harlot
wickedness.
My eye half blind
from the vicious
bolero
of your deceitful
venom tongue
may see
this wretcheed envy
once unknown
as it is now
an evil I have witnessed
once before
within you,
my divided enemy.
And this treachery is truly
an eye for an eye
when all
have fallen victim
to his own
horrid
lust.
Yet I am but made of youth
and the only trade
that
I have known
is that
of love
for scorn.

kate asked me to come over
to her childhood home
to meet her parents
and join their family dinner

i kept thinking, am i the type,
to bring home to mom and dad?
i am self-conscious
and i’m strange
and i wouldn’t let my daughter
date a person like me

but she insisted
that they’d love me
and they’d offered me a seat
at the head of the table

to talk about myself
and answer questions about church:
i went for 13 years and decided i hate liars..
and politics:
you’d have to be a sociopath to be a good politician..

her father had a deep guttural chuckle
with a smokey aging rasp from 40 years of
******* in the same brand of cigarettes
nestled in my front shirt pocket
i could tell he approved
in his odd, silent way

her sandy-haired mother called me
by the name
of her daughter’s ex-lover
and i couldn’t tell
if it was deliberate

but i didn’t mind
because she smiled so sweetly
and i’ve never been able to read a woman
beyond her smile
but i’ve always known
when a woman liked me

i looked at kate
and she was watching her mother and father
so closely that i thought
she may have seen something
that i missed

but then she turned to me
and smiled
and she didn’t stop
‘til we escaped to the upstairs
to **** like teenagers
in the old bedroom
across from her folks’

i am listless
with the cold creek tears
of post traumatic romance
nestled lightly along
the traces of your velvet flesh.

i have dreamt to rise
with the morning
to the bittersweet taste
of savannah roast
and honeyed lips.

content to lose my bearing
in the fawning
spiral mazes
of woven gold
pinned rightly so

punch-drunk patience
in shallow wonder
of petal scent
and ship sinking
valley hips.

will you expel
your weary burdens
beneath the quiver of my touch..?
so that i may bury them
deep within my lungs
as cancer-smoke
deadly in my breath?

time may watch me
waste no glance
beyond your lonesome grace
and doting bare wander
til i am blind with
Venus lust
for your soul-steal gaze.

They say knowledge is power yet I feel weak.
When strength is in numbers and no one knows,
then how shall the earth go to the meek?

Power is the knowledge that people will agree
when no other option is addressed
and the media controls what we see.

The tele-images flash black and blue
beating our minds to a ****** pulp
and delivering news that’s untrue.

Television tells us lies
Through reporter spies
who invade our lives.

And only the truly informed will fight
for the rights of the freethinking brain
so the rest can sleep well at night.

We believe the clockwork illusions
drawing miserable conclusions.
Yet no one stops to decipher these cerebral intrusions
or question these mass delusions.

What, now, does our youth stand for?
What is it that makes us tick?
What kind of truth do we bring forth?

We have bludgeoned the idea of originality,
We've killed individuality, embraced naivete
and wasted opportunity.

So where shall we end up?
When will we stand up?

Our generation will shape the next,
yet we, ourselves, are misshapen.
When communication is reduced to text,
when will our youth awaken?

* This is Generation X

It’s nothing I want to be apart of anymore.
Does anyone take the world seriously anymore?
The government fights a war.
Our government?
Oh no.
Our big brother.
Our watchful eye.
Our masters
Oh yes.

Say not a word against them
for, the walls may hear you
and tell of the skeletons in your closet.
They'll tell the fat cats that sit
on their fat rumps
with a hard grasp
on the purse strings
of the machine.

All while the babies cry out
because mother is still yet a child
and  she can’t afford
the milk.

Moses’ fiery Bush shakes hands
with the devil
then travels back east
to write his own dictionary.
While the fate of your future  is tossed
to young brutes taught not to question,
“Why?”
Taught not to ask nor tell.
Only to shoot and ****
and come back a hero.

They fight the war against a violent enemy:
Fear and greed.
While the big Men lean back
to watch these people risk everything
but their pride.

"Our freedom is at stake," they say.
"Burn their homes and take their lives!
for it’s in the name of freedom!"

May God lay his blessings upon America,
and bet His life-savings on our victory.
For we are righteous in our decisions,
and so we give the gift of democracy,
a token to remember US by.

And the next time you are left with nothing,
we will give our stars and stripes.

by choice, we are this way

by choice, we are alone

i’d rather pine over love lost

and dwell on moments past

than wake up with that empty feeling

next to an empty shell of a girl

sad and lonely

there’s too much of myself in her

this pout-lipped stranger

she whispered nothings

almost as sweet

as the last pair of lips

i tasted

she could swoon a room

full of broken hearts

and she could make you think

you were healing

her glossed doe eyes

could see through you

and in you

and they could make you fall

deliberately

as if gravity stopped existing

she could make you forget

that the ground would hurt

even more than the last crash down

she could make you hope

that you’d be safe

at the bottom

so i lept into the air

and i’m still falling

because the hope is gone

and the ground is

a long way down

My mother used to say I was unlovable,
as she nurtured her bourbon garden.

That word was planted in me,
taking root beneath my skin.

Budding lonely leave-me’s
and forget-me-now’s.

Summer’s spent naked
under torturous heavy heat.

Seeking sanctuary Autumn,
relieving seasons past.

let’s just end this pleasantly
you do what you please
without this dreary back and forth
vying for what exactly..?

any touch other than mine?
some barren wasteland
of some used up ****
or greasy Mexican
hardened ******* ****

this takes too much
of my precious time
or wasted time
either way

i heard the faintly
familiar sound of you
running out on reality,
like Alice chasing
that elusive rabbit
falling into a spiral
downward
facing dog

had your sleeves rolled up
and denim pulled down
hoping to fool yet
another kind of beating *****
hidden beneath layers of
thick cotton blend fabric
whose fibers remind me
of connection --

you know, that thing
that we pretended
to have.

like that time
that I told you
I owned a cat that died
in the fire of an
invented childhood

it felt almost real
like us

you washed your hands
three times that day
and you still
can’t get me off

can’t get me out
from under your
masticated claws

why so anxious?

i saw the nerves
pulsating beneath your
nearly transparent skin
hands clammy and cold
like your usual demeanor

you asked if I’d moved on,
well, I hadn’t but my body did
so I aggressed passively
the way you begged me to

yes, she was prettier than you
and yes, she was funnier than you
yes, she gave a better kiss
with softer lips
and she tasted like a
spoonful of sugar
helped the alcohol
go down

you secreted poison
into us and into me
lies soaked in formaldehyde
dripping from between
your trembling, dope sick
walking sticks

an act you balanced well
with no recognition of any
sort of lines
no black or white, just gray
like the cloud
hanging over your head

you rained down
self loathing and dread
and it soaked through my clothes
til my skin wrinkled

i couldn't take it anymore
i couldn't fake it anymore
and i felt bad for lying to you

but in retrospect
i should have lied a little more
i should have yelled a little more
to make you suffer
just a little more

that night before the very end
i sat alone, singing songs
of unrequited love
with a guitar between my legs
while you screamed for drugs
with a strangers ****
between yours

i was on my way
to work when i heard
the broken voice
of a saddened and abandoned
feral kitten.

broken, damaged, scared
like i had once been
when i was the size
of my father's
cupped palms.

when my mother left me
out in the frozen winter
which was still
warmer than her
frigid heart.

two drinks in, and
she was mother of the year.
four drinks in, and
her eyes changed shape and color.
six killed all kinship,
all love, all parental
boundaries.

"Shut up, you little ******!" she'd say
when i'd already learned
to stay quiet but
what's that last word?

my mother was a different color
and really quite furious
that i never moved
to the back
of her ******.

i was the rosa of her womb
refused to do and spoke
before spoken to.
when she pushed and hollered
for my unearned love
i outright refused.

i'd learned to read
by the age of three
and did well to ignore
by the age of four.
i'd learned that books
tend to lie a little less
than mothers do,
and hurt a little less,
too.

so i'd read quietly inside
the library of my mind
while she'd be losing
hers.

reciting passages from
psych books at the age of ten
it's not her fault, i'd read,
she's sick.
it's not my fault,
or is it?

like that kitten i'd crossed
i'd forgotten what
a hug felt like,
tucked under mother's warmth.
i'd only known that defense was right
when madness began
to swarm.

if i ever love again
it will be tomorrow
or the next day
or the next
in such a natural, evolved way.

i love and am in love
consistently,
permissively,
incessantly.

it's loving..

just pure souls touched
like
a simple handshake
or
smile exchanged.

every women is a goddess.
even the sad and bitter,
broken,
choking on every emotion,
beautiful
deity.

that is me.
deity.
bronze goddess, me.

i am woman,
hear me purrrr...
when you look at me
with woeful eyes
ever so
lovely.
touch me,
ever so,
behind that place...
you know?

looking out into a world
i made with my own
hands,
molding clay,
folding pieces like origami;

like God and her gorgeous eve,
which only took about a week,
yet mine,
seven years times three.

a world built on
a lack of love,
no miracles above.

just something from the inside
of every pair
of beautiful eyes
that saw what i could not surmise
about myself.
putting every woman on the
tip top, highest shelf.

even the ***-crazed heathens
committed to
stealing pieces of my heart away
when i'd be
more than pleased
to give them freely
and entirely.

that fiery,
from the pit of hell
burning,
yearning,
lusting and learning.

if i was damaged
along the way,
i never minded the price i paid.
i never minded
getting laid.

i only ever minded
the love going away.
never wanting to stay,
turning back around
as if only to say,

maybe..
i'll come back around
your way,
just don't start counting the days
or the moons.
just stop trying altogether
to make girls swoon

because this
is the simple
and honest truth.

if you ever love again
by midnight
or by noon,
it will still
have been
too soon.

You're making me uneasy..
I uttered with an adolescent anxiousness
that trailed, shaky, behind my words.

There is nothing wrong..* she said,
with a poignancy she couldn't hide.

There is nothing wrong..
There is nothing wrong..

I let her falsity echo quietly
through my anxious mind
while choking down
enough bottom-shelf sauce
to dull the sound.

There were tears in her eyes,
and they weren't the kind that
you'd shed from loneliness,
but the kind you'd save
'til you found yourself in bar
full of drunkards
feigning joy
while sitting across
from the person
you can't love back.

My eyes met hers with curiosity
and she wiped her face,
pulled her glass from her lips
and kissed me.

She always kissed me differently
when I worried.

You're making me uneasy.. I said again.
Stop it. There is nothing wrong..

I watched her lips spill the same lie
onto the table between us.
It formed a puddle of regret
and longing that neither of us
were ready to clean up.

There is nothing wrong..
There is nothing wrong..

I couldn't tell which one of us
needed to believe it most,
either way,
neither of us
were falling for it.

She kissed me again
and I headed for the door
still feeling uneasy
as she sat there
all alone
fighting tears.

i saw you in a strangers face
the other day
i missed a breath in that moment
of karmic trickery

i saw you in the reflection of a window
while i was out to lunch
and my lover caught me staring
into the empty space
outside

i saw you in my dream on the night
i couldn't sleep alone
apparently, I tossed and turned
And twitched until
I whispered your name aloud.

i saw you in the waking heat
of the morning sun
the curiousity of envy kept us half asleep
my only groggy answers escaped
the narrow crease in my lips
my unrequited
my muse
my love

my bed left empty
once again.

i once dreamt of forever after
                                               happily
until those words you spoke
                                              drifted
again­st my confessing whisper that frightened you
                                             away

the weight was, to say the least,
                                           unbearable
i reached into my own chest for
                                          reassurance
but instead found a decrepid box
                                          full up
of misremembered moments
                                         of lies

world be still around me
these legs are ocean-sick

my spirit is disgorging
waves of ambivalence crashing
into the S.S. Lost Hope

the moon pulls the High tide dancing
across a weathered life’s surface
as if tugging the strings of a marionette
always a smile
painted on

always a light reflected
borrowed guidance from the Sun
sorrow hiding, obvious
under transparent hellos
glossed over goodbyes

i can be bright like her
queen helios
but i illuminate sadness
pain, struggle, scars

she speaks and flowers grow
i sympathize as rivers flow
down crying mountain faces
bathing in manic springs
celebrating the nakedness
of being lonesome

because we all weep
into the same sea
and none are certain
but they want to be

we all want
to be

once, you thought of me, cold
in the breeze rustled mountains of Colorado
the moon must’ve told you to miss me
the trees must’ve whispered, “Look up.”

Lady Luna’s warm reflection made me want to wish on stars
sent me all romantic and hopeful and naive
I felt tiny in your thoughts like you did in the hole in my wall
but you climbed through, already planning
your barely daring escape.

And now, nights are hard to listen to
this bed is hard to sleep in lonesome
and your memory lies within my muscles
my chest rises shallow without your breath to match

you once danced graceful with me in slumber
but the blue rhythm of dreams has left with you
and i’ve forgotten how i ever waltzed alone

you used to send a chill through my bones
a warning sign, perhaps, of the inevitable
it must have been the ice around your heart
that made you complain of always feeling so **** cold


the sky here is clear again
and i'm sent into reminiscent wishing
on a sympathetic moon
as her voice grows weary of reminders
to miss me

I live to watch you wander from room to room in nothing but the skin you were born in,
cook me eggs (over easy) in the ****.
You are too good for me, I think, as I saunter upward toward your door in youthful eager stupor.
You were the best i'd never had before now.
I think, what a gift, your silhouette against the darkness of my loneliness.
You admit torrid fantasies, so carefully masked by mercurial aloofness.
And yet, I am young with worry that you'll grow tired of my adolescent admiration,
my minor quirks and strange tics no longer endearing months from now.
Like i've felt with all my lovers past,
curious until the novelty wears itself thin.
but for now, I memorize your movements,
and I walk home grinning,
shamelessly,
purposely,
oblivious.

No matter where you were
or who you left me to
Who you left me for
or why;
I’ve written us down.

I’ve remembered every sound
every word, every curve
of your lips and
your waist.
I wrote it down.

We share a bad habit
of always coming back here
after all of our disasters;
and we spill into each other
as crimson ink
on the tattered pages
of a borrowed book.
It stands out.

I replaced our lapse in time
with a project of a girl,
a down in dumps
lost and lonesome soul —
a fixer-upper.
And still I wrote to you
and of you.

I wrote how
we’d tread lightly on new ground
each time, safe
at a distance
carefully timing the old dance
that we do twice a year
never missing a step
but still missing.

And these pages go back
quite a way,
to the first shy hello
and the first lie we told
to everyone
and to ourselves.
Sometimes the sentiment
raw and explicit,
sometimes read between
lines and lovers
Even still, our story
seems destined
to rewrite us.

you're projecting again;
like moonlight on frigid waters
lightly ice-layered
before the snow,
like fire off glossed stares
lost in the heat
and the moment.

you said i fell in love too fast,
i said, "no, i stay in love,
it's different."
maybe you fall out too soon
or teeter on the edge
basking
in the safe balance
of your way.

i've loved just as i've hated,
reminisced as i've seethed,
sought as i've forgotten
but loved too fast?
that's not a mistake
to me
just because love
is a mistake
to you

i walked into a room made dark
heard the sound of a dying heart
this girl had met the monster

so i sat beside her
and i watched her cry
a breakdown, given up
i don't know why
she wouldn't tell

i looked at her and felt
this burrowing pain
this seething bain
this violated sense of dismay
a forever changed
kind of feeling

i offered a comforting
hand to hold but
my palms were far too cold
my tongue was tied by a life untold

i felt i could say nothing
to put her mind at ease
except that "it happened to me.."

i've met that monster, too
he hides in boys too close to you
waits til he knows most of you
lies to you and calls it truth

he's the worst kind of thief
he's a charming fiend
he smiles sweetly
dresses neatly
and prays

no, not to any sort of god
but on every sort of girl
innocent enough
to deserve it

and we all pretend
to be unnerved
while all our insides are
so shook up
that our legs forget to keep us up

i told her she was not alone
this world is filled with tainted souls
lost and shattered
pieces stole

yes, it's all too real
the hardest thing to ever hope
to heal from
when everyday you smell his stench
every subtle motion makes you flinch

so i told this girl to be not afraid
because she can make them go away
for, monsters can never win
when you don't believe in them