I want to be the quiet girl
   who every boy falls in love with.
I want my sideways smile
   to steal the hearts
   of anyone who steals a glance
   at it from the side.
I want to be fragile,
   so that people want to
   take care of me
   as soon as they see me
   with my knees curled up
   on a chair that is too big.
I want to be the stuff of novels,
   and of films,
   and of love songs
   whose melodies are
   picked out on a guitar.
I want the idea of me
   to be so delicate
   and so alluring
   that I’ll never have to worry
   about being hurt.
I want to be a beautiful
   heart breaker -
   the one that they tell their
   brothers, mothers, and sons about.
I want to be
   what they describe as
   the best thing that ever happened
   to them.
I want to be
I want to be
I want to be all the things I’m not.

he was nearly twentynine and he still hadn't figured himself out,
still dedicated nights to the process of tearing up his moral ground,
laying his foundation, caught up in vacillation
between acts of possible valor- the ones to turn his life around.

he knew he would know somehow when he finally got it right
he was looking for that one sign-
the one they talk about in movies and
all the books which leave you shattered at the end,
the ones no one else has read but those who do
swear upon like they've never heard of the bible,
try to imitate the main character,
stumble into chaos and think they'll end up all right,
like in the movies-
a lucky plot twist and they'll own the night.

he wandered aimlessly,
up until the sun came out and the vampires went to sleep,
accompanied by cigarettes and the sound of his own head,
burned dirt and the cold of the city,
until the time of night where his words stalled
brain froze
and the space in his head became suddenly visceral,
paralyzed by feeling until his tongue and the roof of his mouth
sought each other out, pressed in a warm embrace
until the pain went away
until he closed up the wound behind his eyes
forgot the torment of seeing
until the night tore him open again.