what you need to understand about me is that i am nothing more than misplaced passion and a pair of blindly swinging fists that tremble with unrighteous anger. so allow me to apologize in advance for the fires my subconscious starts. i am a clumsy compilation of ill-suited lines that will never see life in your poetry. at least, not like they used to. you are a book filled with with pictures i never got to take, and every day i am forced to sit idly by while she starts a new roll of film. the missile crisis reincarnate is inside my chest, so forgive me for not being able to control when i shake. forgive me for fumbling with syntax so crassly. i know better than to spew hate and call it poetry. please understand that the endless series of sinking ships in my head makes it difficult to form coherent thought. my thoughts, will **** me, if your absence doesn't first. i think about your hands more than i am proud to admit, and when i picture them reaching for her i feel so sick. i'm sorry. i am so sorry that i haven't yet learned how to moderate the volcano in my throat. i'm so sorry for spitting fire with my eyes closed. forgive me for confusing anger with bravery and burning down too many houses to count. in my misguided thirst for blood i weaponized memories and threw them like daggers in every direction, but the only one being hit is me. i am so tired of bleeding, i am tired of this one-sided war, i am tired of being a war. i tried so hard to be catharsis personified but i have to face the reality that my arms would only hold you like a grave. i loved you like rainwater, and lost you like time. you were never mine. you were never mine. you were never mine. i have to say that to myself every day because it eases the pain of watching you belong to anyone else. but i can't ignore the surplus of "what if's" wreaking havoc in my consciousness. i think that's why i get so angry when i picture you laughing with her instead of me. i am blocking out the memory of the night you told me my laughter could cure your sadness. ******* it. i am trapped in a nightmare where the walls of the home we built are lined with photographs of her. this is why i can't breathe at the thought of her smiling when the flash goes off. they say that nothing good stays; i have never been good at leaving, so i guess that makes sense. you once referred to me as an anxious mess you would spend the rest of your life cleaning up, and i can't get that out of my head. i hope you know, that after everything, i would still sit and collect dust on a shelf in your house forever, if that's what you wanted me to do. but i know it's not, so i'll go back to apologizing. i'm sorry that my rage doesn't have an off switch. i'm sorry for being a literal spitfire. i'm sorry for being an earthquake under her glass slippers. i'm sorry that my mouth is a loaded gun and that i have ****** aim. i swear to god i'm trying not to shoot so often but this is one of the hardest things i have ever done. so until i learn control i will burn in silence with the safety on.  

- m.f.

Morning light comes crashing through the
windows of my terribly mundane room,
the same place I wake day after day. Dust has settled
on the picture frames week after week and leaves
a pall of sadness over the bookshelves.

Misery isn’t always some place we speak of
so distantly, as if waking up here wasn’t akin to
tearing off a scab and rubbing salt and sand
into the wound. My first thought of the day was
a wish, that love could be more than
just a blank page staring back.

The first sip of hot coffee reminds me of the
velvety words that always fell from your mouth. I’m
wishing that I was in another place or knew
another language, like the one I already know
somehow isn’t good enough for writing you poems.

I’m snapped out of my nostalgic mind
by the neighborhood children playing on the street.
Their screams echo down these barren halls; I wish
I could be five and full of pure joy while
learning the world all over again. But I have aged
and my innocence was lost so many years ago.

Everything I had tried to write you was full of guilt
and sadness and missing my genuine joy. Before I had to
picture my mother in a casket. Before I knew you’d leave
for someone who could fake happiness better
than I ever could. Before I lost that last bit of naïve light.

I’ll be searching for the beauty I once held inside.
Today my thoughts are shrouded in what was better
about yesterday. There is no use in counting money and
moments already spent. Maybe for a day I’ll forget you and
force myself to write freely and be childlike. I won’t try to
quantify beautiful, writable moments of everyday life.

Maybe today I’ll actually let myself write.

Ocean waves washing up dead bodies
on the shores inside my mind.

The distant fear of storm clouds rolling in
obscuring the future of everything.

Internal dialogue screams, demeaning
roaring, beating like trees in the wind.

“Sure you have it all together now, but
don’t forget how easy it could be to fall!”

Fear inside remains stronger than me,
don’t be fooled by the placid exterior seen.

This is the fault of my mind’s own demise,
the storm never warns when it begins brewing.

The hurricane destroys windows and doors
leaving me emaciated on the barren floor.

Anorexia starts by starving the soul
I’m trying not to dig up old bones.

I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep. I don't know which it is but it's happening, now and infinitesimally forever my eyes are open and not shutting down for the day, not recharging, not doing anything but waiting for something to see and perceive and solve, a problem to appear before them and present itself begging to be taken in and toyed with like a Rubik's cube. I don't want to sleep because sleep is giving up on the day, it's saying the day is over and it's giving up the chance to accomplish the innumerable tasks yet to be accomplished before I sleep that I haven't done and won't do if I sleep now, if I lie down in that bed and pull covers over my head and let myself drift away. I don't want to drift away, can't let it happen, can't let go of control over really the only thing I have left to control which is when and if I go to sleep so I don't, I force myself not to, I expunge the records of thought from my head into a text box and hope that the soft rattling that had droned there softens because now after all of this my eyelids get heavy and I may have to let sleep win, give up the day, defeated, fight again tomorrow because I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired of fighting, fighting against the minute tedium tripping along, fighting against transcendental ecclesiastical endlessness, tired of fighting when all I do is get bloodied and bruised, tired of fighting when I can't win because I'm tired. Rest now. Fight again tomorrow.

She was waiting for her order, waist adjacent to the counter. A young man supplied her beverage with his numbers scrawled on the side. She didn't seem too eager to call him later, however. To my surprise, I gently waved her over, almost immediately regretful of my impulse. To this day,I haven't produced a more rewarding decision. As hours past, every nearing moment promised of a tangible future involving this woman. My heart raced at the idea. Her hair beautifully curled towards the ends that seemed to perfectly frame her prominent cheekbones made
sharper by the contrast of her well dressed lips. Her ivory skin translated the sunlight coming from behind me, and I could almost swear, it seemed some of the light was trapped in her eyes, trying to find its way around her dark orbs. Months down the road, we're no longer an uncertain happenstance; every look at her was love at first sight. She was the love of my eye, and she knew it. You see, Emily was a curious person with particular habits and tendencies. At times, the distance between us reached near tangibility, then days would pass by and all would be well again. I kept a journal of her; I study everyone but she was the first person to provide some difficulty. Reading her was like trying to decipher Latin while knowing Spanish; I always had a feeling I knew her, but just not quite. I'm still wrting about her, bruising my memory, and she's still speaking sunlight to unsuspecting suitors. Emily was the type to get what she wants. The problem is that she grew bored with her toys. Eventually, I learned that there were no exceptions.

this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.  

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.