it started with the
collapsing, or the almost-
collapsing and sprinting to
catch her and
something about a
brain tumor and wanting to
screamscream scream
but not being able to
because i have to be
the strong one now.
she could still hardly
walk when she
said that she wanted to
look at the
stars, so
i said no. i said
you’ll fall.
she looked at
me like i had
just rearranged her
entire universe
and said, more with
her eyes than with
her mouth, that
i wouldn’t let her.

what you know is flash cards
and laptop screens and college
applications. what you know is
who’s sleeping with who
and who wants to sleep with
you and what you know is
how to live through independent
films or how to fake an ******
or how to talk trash about
the people you (quote) love (endquote).
you don’t know about
the starving man under the bridge
who can talk for hours about
richard wagner, or how the girl
who sells her art on the street
has a boyfriend who beats her
then makes her shade his drawings.
you don’t know about
the abandoned building bursting
with sharpied revelations across
its walls or that when the sun sets
over the green line it’s almost
like the tracks disappear
and you’re left to glide over
hollywood dreams well past
their expiration date.
you don’t know this place.
you don’t know.

keep your ******* wanderlust
away from my skyline.

i’ll never be your
tall dark and handsome your
captain of the
football team your strong perfect
arms and scruffy unshaven
face i’ll never give you a  
six pack underneath an unbuttoned
dress shirt
because i can hardly
unbutton my shirt without
wanting to tear my chest into
shreds — tumors on my chest,
massive lumps of fat and
anger and wrongness,
i can give you those and
i can give you the hopeless
ugly honor of watching me
cry in bed because
being naked scares me
almost as much as  
never getting
rid of this.  
i am so toxic and so afraid
of smothering you.

when it feels like the subway tunnels
are caving in around you and
i’m not there to clear the rubble
remember how the light
reflects off my skin no matter
where the sun is.
the thing about the patterns
in the sky is that they’re not there
to please the floating lovers
who know they’ve got the atmosphere
trapped inside the space between
their palms. the sky is there
when all you see are concrete walls.
the atmosphere is blowing through
your hair and rushing through
your veins whether the lovers are
puzzle piece close or hemisphere far.
with all the soulstuff winding through us
i swear you can pretend
i’m the sky — boundless past the
tunnels, past everything that’s
smothering you.
together we can merge entire oceans.

what do you know about
substance?
when hungry sidewalk angels
amble towards you
hidden in jackets that
goodwill threw out on
the curb,
you look the other way.

is that the people who
don’t know where
their lives are going
are the only ones worth
being around and that
i should take my poetry
the same way i take my
coffee: strong and cheap
and wherever i can,
however it comes.
what i learned this semester
is that if you don’t get lost
it doesn’t count as an
adventure and if she
doesn’t gasp over the
skyline she isn’t worth
your bus money.
what i learned this semester
is how to find the best stories
where no one else looks;
in the people who sleep
under street lamps and
push their lives around
in shopping carts
and that once their words
hit, everything around you
turns to either promise
or poison.
what i learned this semester,
more than any formula or
literary device,
is that there’s a life here
waiting for me. i will remember
what reality feels like.

this sound is dangerously new
and his key is something
you’re not tuned to.
you are paper thin,
willow girl. nothing’s there
inside you to drive the hurt
away.
it will take a year
but you will leave him in your
best friend’s room
after telling the new boy about
your dreams and kissing him
as the grass turns golden.

2.
you’ve got hold of the rhythm
but you’re still stumbling
over fingerings, especially his.
he doesn’t know how to love
something like you and
you know it, but you’re
drowning in the way he
teaches your mother how to
count measures over dinner.
he will leave you in the field
that he carried you through
when your foot was hurt,
and you will cry and call
your best friend but fighting
means she doesn’t pick up.
you will sit alone there,
but don’t worry —
he is the only one
who will ever leave first.

3.
you should’ve known there was
something wrong about kissing the
boy whose apartment used to
give you nightmares. you will get away
before he can hurt you while
you aren’t sleeping.

4.
he doesn’t deserve to be the one
whose hand you’ll be holding
when you realize that you
can only ever lose yourself
in girls.

5.
she will coax out all the
notes in you that you never
knew you could hit,
but when your pitch starts
to fall she won’t be there
to even you out.
her touch will take ages
to rub off your skin and when
she comes back to you
with all her pegs out of place
you will only smile
and plug your ears.

6.
she will be the one
who teaches you that it is
usually best to stay far away
from the only person you can’t
begin to wrap your head around.
hearts have always worked
the same way.

7.
her touch will make the stars
less endless and the mountains
more suffocating. her curls will
tease your chest and snake around
your neck and you won’t know why
you don’t want them to.

8.
you will never find enough cadenzas
for a calamity like this.
she’s the girl who will kiss you
between boulders and show you
what a mountaintop sunset
really means and you will
love her like you’re not supposed
to love anyone yet; she will
turn you selfless and see-through
and broken and you will take
too long to see how she is
shattering you.

9.
you’re out of breath by now
but it’s okay —
the only notes you’ll ever
need to play with her arms
around you are the ones
that ring, “i’m safe.
i’m safe. i’m safe.”