Anyone can write a poem
About the kind of love
That only happens
In romantic comedies.
But a real poet
Writes about what happens
After you've fallen.

He's a ghost  now.
His eyes are dull
his touch is feathery
his voice is the wind.
Every time I spoke
he drifted further
away.
So I learned to be silent
and cherish
the time that was left to be spent
until my wallet
was empty.

I wasn't aloud to  like myself.
Without permission.
                         "Do I feel pretty today?"
"No."
                          "Am I happy today?"
"No."
                           "You're hurting me."
"Some call it love."

You said
               "Go away, I don't like you anymore."
"Your nose is too big."
                            "You laugh too loud."
            "You kiss with your eyes open."
He said.
So I left.
I closed my mouth.
I shut my eyes.
But my ****** nose
                    It's still too big.

They called her crazy
Because she didn't know
Her own name.
The pale blue dot
She lived upon
She was afraid
To call home.
On that Wednesday
In December
When it began to rain
Her lifeless finger
Pulled the trigger.
She doesn't whistle anymore.

You like me more when you're asleep.
I seem prettier through your closed eyelids.
My voice is more sing-songier over your snores.
My touch feels electric.
I'm as real as you want me to be.
I exist as long as you're sleeping.

She was the girl that hated being called cute
Because she felt cute
Was a word that should be reserved to describe puppies.

She was the girl that used her daddy issues
As an excuse to cling on
Too tightly to the ones she loved.

She was the  girl that could be read
Like a book.
Wearing her emotional spectrum
Right between her eyebrows
That were  overdue
For a waxing.

She was the girl that wore lipstick
Instead of gloss.
Any shade of red or pink would do.

She was the girl that tried too hard
To please everyone
And forgot herself.

She was quite the girl.
She was.

I want to be the girl
That makes you feel lucky
And all your guy friends jealous.

I want to be the girl
That cooks and cleans
In my highest pair of stilettos.

I want to be the girl
That can wear a one piece bathing suit
And still dominate your fantasies.

She spent her whole life dreaming. Everything and everyone she encountered told her
to stop. “It’s a waste of time” “It’s not healthy” “Grow up” they’d say. And eventually she
started to believe the things people said. She wanted big things - for herself and for
others, but it didn’t take long for her to realize the importance of settling. It made things
easier and she had the tendency to complicate them without even trying. She felt
isolated from the world just outside her door but she didn’t know how to change that or if
she even wanted to. The best things in life tend to waste away after a matter of
moments. They pass away as if they’d never existed. Maybe she’d imagined them all.
She began to condition herself to expect disappointment. It worked for a little while, but
hard as she tried to shield herself from the pains of everyday life - the bullet always
seem to find her. It always came, without fail and pierced her heart with little regard for
the repercussions. She longed for the day she would be good enough for the people
she loved. Maybe you had to earn it, and she hadn’t yet collected enough gold stars to
pick out of the treasure box.

I remember the precise moment I stopped loving him.
We had gone out to dinner.
I was just getting back from the lady's room.
He looked up at me and smiled.
His eyes, I noticed, were dead and lifeless.
Not even a dull glimmer of light remained.
I blinked
thinking eyes would appear in the two gaping holes in his face.
They only grew deeper.
He looked at me quizzically.
Perhaps something in my expression had given me away.
I sat down beside him
avoiding looking at what had once been a pair of chlorine blue eyes.
It was as if something had changed in the time it took me to use the restroom.
When I left everything was normal.
But when I came back he was no longer the man I loved.
I denied it for a while,
dismissing it as a feeling that would pass just like indigestion.
But it never did.
It only worsened.
An unexplainable bitterness began to build up inside me.
Today I looked through some old photos of us
and realized that I'd imagined those chlorine blue eyes of his
because he'd never had eyes of his own to begin with.
Funny howI was the one with the eyes and I was blind the whole time.
Maybe I should pluck my eyes out.