I know you left and that was your choice
but may I just ask, do you still hear my voice?
When you read all my poems through
is it my voice reading them to you?
Are my words in your head
or to you are my words dead?

river poets meandering
through stacks of golden hay
water rolling over jagged rocks
as night turns to day
pen to paper, written later
reeks of means to hesitate
ocean writers flicking lighters
humming through to meditate
when your chest is getting tighter
smoke through cigarette haze

Sometimes, I wish it were boy.
   A boy who kissed me for the first time.
   A boy who saw me naked for the first time.
   A boy who touched my body for the first time.

Instead, it was a girl.
   She would make me take my night gown off when we would sleep in the same bed.
    She would kiss me and touch me when I had no way of understanding what it meant or why it was happening.

But I let her.
  
See, in my mind, I was finally getting the attention I was lacking from everyone else.
I  finally felt loved.
But she manipulated my innocence by making me think this was all normal.

When it wasn't.

I didn't realize this for 3 years.
3 years of confusion.
3 years of shame.
3 years of abuse.
At least it stopped.

It took another 8 years for me to actually tell someone.
I remember there were very few words exchanged.
No tears.
No hugs.
Unbearable silence.

I remember spending that night crying into my pillow
wondering why nobody cared.
Would they have reacted differently
if it were a boy who had done this to me?

A boy who stole my ability to trust anyone.
A boy who made me afraid to sleep in my own bed.
A boy who stole my ability to think of my own body as a temple.
A boy who took advantage of my desire to be loved
   and then made me feel unlovable.

But it wasn't a boy.
                 **It was a girl.

This           is             not
A po          em           But
rather       a cha        lange
For             you            to
Write.     A poem      about
The sh    ape that       you see.
What oddity, unusual deformity do you see inYour precious minds eye?
               A castle?
                A cloud?
               A hand or
               A heart?

She was beautiful in the destroying an entire city but illuminating the entire sky kind of way.

"...schizophrenic kisses in a reflection."

Fade in.

My eyes stick to one another like two slices of wax paper with faltering, yet desperately unable to let go of graveyard-shift-love adhesive.

Shifting sides inside. Shifting sides inside.

I stare at my naked body, as water, or something like it, rains from my head to my feet. Warm. Out of control. Gathering by the drain, mixing with the thoughts that won't fall asleep and the daydreams reserved for night.

My eyes are encased by the steam. My lungs filling with water or something like it.

I hope for a classic horror scene or a twist in a melodramatic rom-com. But nothing is funny nor scary and there is no Norman Bates or Meg Ryan. I am not Billy Crystal. I am unrequited love and future fame stemmed by heartbreak and three thousand miles of, "Please let me forget the broken heart I left in a hotel, by the shore, on the east coast, on a pit of dried firewood, in my parents' home, in my bed, in every book I didn't finish, in every sentence I should have finished."



Fade out.


Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Josh, how many oxycodone did you take?