In the end, I can see how it fit together.
You weren’t my someone, but you were someone
Who taught me to move on, to forgive, to look forward.
Sure, it ended with lost hearts but I’m different--
A girl who knows what she wants and who she deserves.
Now, I’m a person I’m proud of
Just because you said hello
To the girl next to the elevator.

I can see in your eyes
That you’re trying to forget, too.

But we can’t forget these small moments
Of a lack of judgment

Or a moment of brilliance.

When there are no words left,
Read the story around me.
Because I can feel where you’ve been
And the moments you hide in each word.

But you don’t like being seen.
Like a spectre you wish to haunt my walls
And leave without the faintest sign,
Reappearing when you want to be held.

But how can I be okay with ghosts?
I can never reach out and feel if you’re real
Because when I think I feel you,
You’re gone before I can even grasp the air.

Their noses sniff the shadows, at dusk
The leaves crumble beneath them
Leaving maps of the past
Forgotten until morning.

I can hear them.
They are only a single nightmare away.
The ivory hangs, but their teeth can taste
The faint
Traces
Of you.

I can never run far enough, fast enough
Because no matter how hard I try to forget,
Their noses appear from under the rug.

The warmth of the sun was the first to go.
Now, chills ***** my spine when I leave.
The concrete under my feet draws me closer
To another week searching for something
Beautiful.

Sitting on this bench, I see couples walking past
Fighting, laughing, kissing, or just standing together.
How simple it seems to belong to someone
And have someone tell you that you’re only theirs.

I feel alone in this city of lovers
Sharing their sandwiches and cuddling in the park.

They flash their smiles and laugh at each other’s quirks.
They have someone to snuggle with, when the night begins to chill.

I think back to the warmth of the sun
And remember when he called me beautiful.

The sound of the subway grinding past
Shakes to my core and quickly is gone.
A piece of paper flutters along the floor
But before long, it too is still.

Evict this woman from my brain.
She leans forward like a zombie
Unable to form words.
She cannot read and barely understands
That you love her.
Strapped to the bed, she fights to find
A fragment of who she was.
She wants to scream, but can only drool
Like a dog.
She wants to hold your hand and tell you
That she is still there underneath
And she wants to return.
But she can only sit and stare,
Her brain ablaze.

The nights change, but I still feel.
This one has your smile.
This one walks like you.
This one sometimes says hello
Like you sometimes did on Thursdays
In the rain (or some other cliché).
I don’t expect anything from them.
Yet I find myself disappointed
When they leave.
I shouldn’t’ let myself get weighted down
By these receding anchors.
They only wish to drag me down with them
And leave me without so much as a whisper goodbye
Or a promise that it could rain.

I feel each muscle shift individually.
Each breath, inhaling directly through me.
The lost boy I see when I look in his eyes--
Revealed underneath his charming disguise.
I want to feel him everywhere
And share as much as I can bear.
I listen for every sigh, each moan.
His eyes reveal that I am home.
......
Using him strictly for my body
He might as well be anybody.
He's handsome, yes, a piece of art
But I will never know his heart.
His chest is hard and cold as steal
Like machinery grinding, unwilling to feel.
What's done is done, I've met my aim.
I leave as empty as I came.

I sit looking at them.
Their names stare at me with blank expressions.
In a mood of unabbreviated luck, I choose one
but only one.
This curious anchor weighting me
now sinks to the bottom of the lapping tongues of water.
Once an idea of adventure, turned into an anchor of responsibility.
This beacon of skyline, no longer looming
defeated by its own receding horizon.

Revive this cold and riddled heart
She’s muted in a daze
Flame just one unembered spark
With a flash to set me ablaze.

When I lost my northern star
You found and brought me home
After many years of wandering
I know I’m not alone.

I know that just like a storm
You will rage and rage and pass
But even in these quiet moments
We know this will not last.

I’m thankful for your company
Because when we’re forced to part
Something stronger can bloom from the ashes
Of my cold and riddled heart.

I’m going to warn you
That all I need is a promise
That I will never turn around
And wonder where you went.
You are going to promise me
That you don't plan on
Going anywhere
Anytime soon.
I am going to trust you
I am going to let you
Inside the part of me
Usually reserved.
I will show you all of the
Broken pieces left by others
And you will promise that
You can fix them over time.
I will let you show me your side of Boston
And we are going to go to brunches and museums and piers
And I will wake up in your arms, watching your smile
And I will laugh at you as you laugh at me laughing
And I will finally see how I can be, how guys can be
And I will fall deeply and crazily in love with you.
I’m going to warn you
That all I need is a promise
That I will never turn around
And wonder where you went.
You are going to promise me
That you don’t plan on
Going anywhere.
One
Day
Chaos
Ensues
And you will need to leave.
You will shut yourself away
Because you will feel the weight
Of the world fighting against you
And who you want to be for me.
And I will miss you greatly.
You will hide from the world
And from the love I want to give you.
I will finally see all of your
Broken pieces left by others
That you hid so well.
I’m going to warn you
That I can make you a promise
That you will never turn around
And wonder where I went.
I am going to promise you
That I don't plan on
Going anywhere.

Forever is an impossible word.
You can never wrap anything around it.
It’s the string too short to wrap around the package.
After all, we are only human.
Forever is a whisper of maybes;
A perhaps waiting in the downpour.
He doesn’t mean it.
He couldn’t.
Forever is an impossible word
But I love the impossible.

It’s a simple kind of funny
How weeks spent figuring out
Titles and expectations
And ****** relations
Drag on and on.
Two people figure out what they want
And if they want what they want.
The frustrations and aggravations
Lead to that catharsis, what this is.
No more wondering and no more doubts.

But

In a brief moment of insanity
One person can decide for both
That this “isn’t working.”
One can force the other out of this
Mutual agreement.
So how mutual is it?
We love each other as long as I decide to love you.
Until your flaws scratch their nails against my skin
And I wonder who else could make me smile.

Unless

You beat me to it.

Tell me you remember
Who I was that night
When you had your arm around me
And you laughed and held me tight.

Tell me you remember
Telling me about your dreams
About who you are, where you’ve been,
And who you want to be.

Tell me you remember
How you never left my side
Even though I was too shy to act
And I wounded your pride.

Tell me you remember
How you only wanted me
For one night, for one moment,
A dancing memory.

Tell me you remember
Though it’s brighter in the day
Even though you look right past me
And take thirty steps away.

I sit in bed and listen to the crickets chime
I can hear them through these wispy walls
they always know when I am thinking
or not thinking.

I sit in bed and listen to my own heartbeat
the pulses of a drug I require
necessary, yet distant
the faint stirring of mustang hooves.

I sit in bed and listen to the rustle
of the trees breathing against my window.
Their breaths fog the glass
as they laugh.

I sit in bed and listen to you tell me
that contrary to my own belief
I am not crazy.
But maybe you are.

This guy walked into work today.
He smelled exactly like you.
Suddenly, I felt as fake as the strawberry-banana flavoring
In the frozen yogurt sample I was trying to give him.
He said, “thank you,” and walked away, just like you did.
“Thank you for the years, for the taste of what I could have had.”
You don’t like it? Want to sample something else?
Maybe then you can find who you’re looking for.
He smiled and walked away.
I knew I would never see him again.
He probably would never think of me,
And if he did,
it would be to wonder why that girl at the frozen yogurt shop
stood a little
too
close.

Please whisper a little louder.
I cannot understand you.
What is your category?
Are you red or blue? Or yellow with purple spots?
Do you glow in the dark?
Do you not have a shape?
Are you smooth? Or perhaps a little wrinkled around the edges?
Are you strong enough to hold us both?
Or shall I expect to catch myself when you let go?

You can hear the heartbeat of a creature we have created.
The smell of ***** and spilled beer covers these floorboards.
The music drives the thumping in my chest, as I wait.
Leaning against a wall, as if this doesn’t thrill you
Brushing past, you place your hand on my back as you glide by
Passing clusters of girls who would love to know your name
If only for a night.
She locks eyes with you, and you both agree silently.
She flashes a smile and laughs, even though you won’t remember
Her clothing, her freshly curled hair, her eyeliner she spent hours on
All only forgettable fragments.
She presses against you, moving to the pulsing walls
She runs her fingers through her hair, as she grinds against you
Pulling you deeper.
You look around the room, taking in the nature of this monster.
Grabbing her hand, you pull her into another room.
I do not know where you went: to get a drink, to talk to friends, to **** her
But I saw in your eyes that you saw, if only for an instant
How scary this has become.
Wherever you went that night,
I hope you at least gave her your coat
And asked for her name.

She told you not to fall in love.
She warned you it was a mistake.
You felt her feathers and polished her cage.
Watched her fall
fall
fall into the dusty seed.
Day after day you watched yourself age
And wondered why she wouldn’t sing.
You counted your breaths and the beatings of your wings.
You opened her cage and stared into her eyes.
Why would you do that? She asked.
I warned you.

My body
Insists that I
Never
Desert you.

There is something horrifically poetic
about lying beside him after the war.
Silent, the thick air surrounds us in a suffocating haze.
Not touching, I feel him breathing.
I feel him thinking.
We don't dare speak, as nothing more can be said.
Still in love, we must begin again
Together in separate rooms.
I hear him pacing there.
He comes back and settles behind me
And I feel him breathing on my neck.
A force that sustains him, like I never will.

The flicker of fabric among our intertwined bodies.
How could something so faultless
Like the missing key, snuggly fitting my chest
Possibly be wrong?

Please hold me closer one last time.
Let me smell your ebbing love
That makes every hair on my body reach on end.

Just one last time, run your fingers through my hair
Like claws catching me again, and again.
Tell me to come nearer, and wrap your mind around me.

Don’t forget these extensions of us.

Before I know it, we will return to our posts—
Averting our eyes as we watch the world dance
And we struggle just to hold ourselves.

I never meant to let you in
Opening my door to someone just as confused as me.
I never meant to enjoy the words dripping from your mouth
Like honey, drenching my wings.

I fell for your soul that night
And your heart reverberating through my walls.
You pulled me closer, and I could feel it beating
Ready to march into battle.

Morning came, and so you stayed
You wanted to climb mountains.
So I dreamt of adventures with you
And believed the clear lakes in your eyes.

Sometimes I wonder what you’re doing
And if you’ve forgotten my name.
Words mean nothing
When they drip from empty hives.

I know that I won't forget
How perfectly you fit around me.
But even a perfectly tailored coat
Is sometimes torn in the seams.

He sat on the rug and doodled a house
Using his brand new crayons.
Red for the roof, blue for the walls, green for the door.
He drew his mommy and his daddy and a smiling sun.
No one heard the door’s handle click open.
He never heard the screams, because when they began
He was already down, hugging the ground
Still holding his crayons.
Still smiling.
His parents would never see that smile
When in a week, he would have opened his red firetruck for Christmas.
It would remain in a box
In his parents' closet,
Never to be opened.

With him lying close beside me/
He took up the whole bed/
But now without him here/
He's still taking up my head.

Nights like this remind me
That a void is inevitable.
Not only do we enter and leave alone,

We live alone.

Otherwise, our hedgehog spikes
Drive us further and further away
As we try desperately to connect
To the same people who puncture us
Who we also wound.

We love to love
And we hate to hurt
But we hurt those in love anyway.

A cruel world is this
Where we are always trying
To cling to somebody real,
Someone who doesn’t know that you see
A bit of yourself in them.

Is it worth burrowing close
When your spikes could come out at any time?
Perhaps, it is better to stay in the cold air
Safe from the inevitable *****.

I choose to not decide.
Either way, there is longing.
So I might as well take a step back
And see what hedgehog dares to borrow
right next
to me.

Love me as the waves
Warm the iceberg’s icy frame
And break it into a million shards of
Adoration.

How simple it is to melt.

Sail with me to the Bering
And fight the urge to sail
Where the winds blow your
Intentions.

We all look so little under water.

Imagine what could be
Instead of riding those waves
Because I will sink under the melting
Iceberg.  

You love me best when I refuse.

What creates a God?
Moments of Desperation
Or a nice folktale

The moment of impact.
For an instant, you can hear the silence.
You can’t even hear my breathing.
Everything bursts forth--
The red, sweet liquid originating from the same point
Bursts to encompass all.
Did you see it?
The moment its flesh was pierced with lead?
It’s only the particles suspended in
air
that you remember.
You never saw them touch earth.
You only saw them floating
As if above us all.

It’s hard for me to open up
My heart usually reserved
Because bolted down by lock and key
Is how I stay preserved

For every part I’ve given away
There’s less of me to share
The curse to want to give myself
Is past what I can bear

I gave away my oxygen
Now it’s hard for me to breathe
What point is there in loving you
When tomorrow you could leave

Maybe someday you’ll look inside
And know every part of me
But until proven otherwise
I guard my lock and key

I could see the light through my eyelids
Before I recognized your breath,
Orienting myself to your world around me.

The way you held me last night
Gentle but also on fire,
Burned into arm and lip.

Your closed eyes ignore the light
The same one that pierces through me,
Comfortable in this new place.

Everything is brighter in the day.
The familiarity is gone
Shedding through you as I open the door.

The trees sing softly, my favorite song.
The murmurs of the willow oak
And of my heart beating.
The voices of my sisters
Tell me never stop running
Because as long as I run
Man only sees my shadow.