Searching for a book of matches,
I came across one of your poems
from 1993. It wasn't written on a
matchbook; no.  It was written on
a page torn right from my heart.

The line about how a blind man
helped you to see that words hold
more love than truth still burns my
eyes.  Seems you were right; and
you were wrong, too. The ink was
no longer as blue as your eyes
that day when we last held hands.
That day you penned these words
to my heart. That very day; our last.

Your poetry used to make me smile,
or laugh, or curse your soul for writing
words that I could never seem to find.
This poem was your best; your last.

The ink has faded and ran  in places
from all these years of tears shed and
long dried. More tears would do no good. 
I can hardly read these faded lines. You still
would not be here to kiss them away,
to tell me that everything is going to be
alright; no.

r ~ 5/8/14

Crush it
she said
handing me her heart

Like this?
I asked
showing her mine

we begin
as college sweethearts.
maybe
made express efforts
       to ignore dreams,
       & the careers within those dreams.
to slip away and instead
assemble upon eachother’s bodies.
                           fuse into one.
one & new dreams.
with our mouths we speak of love.
                   we eat and eat and replicate
                   the fridge-inner with groceries endless.
we work until our fingers go numb
                          work the steering wheel way
home ::: to you.

maybe we drift, some days;
before;
& after ::: the lump in your breast.
                    you think of black depths,
                    eternal depths,
& the fire we are.
the fire we live,
                     in restless color.
all else is oxytocin
           so soaked,
           so thick upon our thoughts.

& we only know the world as reflected in words like
                                                                ­                           love.

an idea, a notion, an act,
a belly, baby :::
                   ::: echo of us.
& as our happiness metastasizes,
         we grey on certain edges,
         we say things that remind us of our parents’ voices;
& slip away
into the night, to dance,
to remember.

the babysitter will get a good tip,
us being so late.
the child sleeps
& you are smiling.

girl swirls dreams in her drink.
boy spills ink on the carpet.

they swing below an oak;
laugh and dream, kiss and consider.
their feet curl, intertwine,
touch along the fallen leaves.

in hands and time
is the condensation of what is said to be true love.
only they don’t know.

later that night;
they drink and cuss, they fight and ****.
their feet curl, intertwine,
play at the end of the sheets.

they warm.
boy writes librettos,
girl reads them,
together they cook delicious dishes.

girl disappears into the distance,
one day.
& boy spirits away,
to the elephant burial grounds.

days,
months,
years later, they run into eachother on the streets
of a northwestern city.
smile mostly,
say not much.

boy has his poetry.
girl has her *******.

Distance has a particular way of hurting:
It begins slowly, and is self-contained.
Because our mothers would often speak about Love,
and how everything falls helpless in Love,
Distance becomes a housebroken dog.
It is powerless, and whilst I love, I am powerful.
On Sunday, our fathers would teach us to put our faith in things unseen,
and so we grow confident and complacent.
Just when you think you’ve understood it,
It sinks its teeth in hard and deep.

An idealist tries to make it out light and easy
They will often write poems about finding
ideal love in the real world.
But I will write about knowing
real love misplaced in an ideal world.
It’s a world where comfort could come in binary files
filled with digital empathy and memories.
Where typed words and numbers that form
black and white promises could replace
the real and organic voice of reassurance.
Where wires between my webcams and your headsets
could entangle themselves in ways our fingers
used to be intertwined.
Where waiting for an email meant as much as
waiting for you to return home to me.
Where the strategic positioning of your punctuation marks
could transform these passive symbols
into active symbols of love and concern:

A comma, like a shared pause for when our eyes meet
Exclamation marks for when we wave to each other from across the street,
or as a passionate gesture from underneath these sheets.
A question mark for when you’re sick and I am by your bed
Worried, because you wouldn’t eat.
A semicolon for when we argue,
and a full stop for when we finally give in.
A parenthesis for containing moments of vulnerability
that only seem to leak out late at night.

You won’t know it but,
I dream mostly of an online conversation,
filled with time stamps that affirm your presence.
If I’m lucky, I will find an ellipsis
Small creatures of continuity with
heads heavy with hesitation.
…
And - if I’m really lucky,
I’d undo those black buttons of suspense
and see you once more.

the waves wash over me as the momentum of the minute consoles me
but there is no consolation, no consolidation
I am alone with only my irrationality that leads to sedation.
and when I sleep, dreams don't mean a thing
except lucidity and restlessness and trauma of being.  
But being me is more than just waves and sunsets,
sorry to upset, but I am no daisy or garden
I am uneasy eyes, where everyone is a suspect.
So respect my wishes when I tell you no
Because I know, that no never means yes to me
it means satisfaction to some, sorrow to most
and i'm done being buttered up like your morning toast
with that perfect crunch that you finish like it's your last meal..
My smile is my *** appeal.

So slither your tongue with verbs etched with sin,
and i'll let you paint your picture across my skin.
But this is no love poem, or rhyme scheme rendition
this is what satisfaction looks like when it's written
and I've watched myself die inside a mirror
found myself drowning in a ocean much clearer
but the salt kissed my wounds and my bruises
and reminded me, no one ever loses.
Chances are like a fine wine
followed by slow dancing and slowed time.
& I get confused sometimes with the way
you say my name and then sigh.
Don't say you will leave me
Just say you will love me.
Don't say you will touch me
Just say you will trust me.

because i've never known home until i heard your voices tone,
and I condone most things like kissing your insecurities
and falling in love with your tragedy but baby,
there's so much more to me.
I can see only with one eye because in the other i'm half blind,
but i will never turn a blind eye to the tides of your rise
and even your fall but baby, this is my kryptonite
and my light at the end of this dark dingy dim tunnel,
this all so ******* fundamental, the way you make me mental.
I'm so ******* metal.
Hard as ****, and I **** like I'm hard - to love
but I'm easy - like sunday morning  not easy like,
hormonal and *****, you can take my layers of lust and peel-
My smile is my *** appeal.

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.