I am learning how to love you
You're like a foreign language and I'm just learning to say hello
I am trying to pronounce you if I can
I am learning how to love you
Day by day
It comes naturally almost
Like I have loved you for years without knowing it
Like I have been unconsciously looking for you on every street corner
Every bus station, red light, checkout line, and hallway
You reign in the shadows of missing love, crippled love
I feel I am learning how to love you like I am learning to walk
You have kissed parts of me that have been lost for years
Parts of me that I have forgotten about, that I had given up on
There are so many ways to love and then there is only one and you are all of them
I am learning how to love you
Like lyrics to my new favorite song
I cannot wait to sing you in the car, play you on a rainy day
I am learning how to love you
Better than I ever loved
Because you deserve at least that
You are exquisite. You are art.
You have eyes like forests and lips like hurricanes
You deserve the world
So I am learning to love you
Slowly, in a way you will understand
So be patient, be gentle, I'm doing the best I can

...
I like to convince myself that she's a walking solar system.
                                              (One)
­                                                          (It will never be enough;)        
She has the sunken cheek bones of Mercury;
~filthy shadows, caked in crimes~
they forge her face,
oh so well,
and engrave her smile in
stone; the sun
laughs sourly,
and then,
he spits on her.
                              (Two)
                   ­                    (Because sorrow is a sweet thing.)
         She reminds me of Venus the most.
         Her hair is the murmur of violet,
         her beauty, it lingers,
         ~like cigarettes beyond the boundary~
         the cosmos, the constellations, and the milky way.
         She is my dragon princess,
         draped in stars and wounds.
         She bleeds
         the somber color of night.
         She is royal, yet alas
         "The queen didn't come
         without a crumbling castle.
                                                                ­  (Three)
                                            (So take it in, don't hold your breath)
                                                      ­   Beneath the arc of her spine;
                                                         Is where Earth plays
                                                         poker with her bones.
                                                         It's such a shame,
                                                         that her ace is her 'unkempt heart,'
                                                         and she lost it to a pitiful bet,
                                                         with a certain ghost I once knew.
               (Four)
                               (The bottom's all I've found.)
            Her fingers gouge through time's fabric, and her hands
            remind me of Mars;
            Powerful and ******,
            Oblivious to what she's created;
            I'm afraid
            the phantom
            she wishes so dearly to see,
            is only getting hungrier.
(Five)
               (Diamond wings were meant to be torn)
Jupiter is the core of her anxiety,
and she basks in it every day,
never by choice, never by desire.
Muscles and skin of iron and goldenrod,
they carve out our very own Aphrodite,
which is you,
it's always been you.
A rabid angel,
a calamity of chaos,
frothing with  blackened fear.
                                                        ­       (Six)
                              (Spill every flower from your garden of thoughts)
                                             Subtle depression lurks between the
                                             the crooked sea of her ribcage,
                                             it's Saturn smoking rings,
                                             brewin' up the cinders.
                                             ~I reminiscence in the white lace~
                                             of the cobwebs that hold her
                                             heart together.
                                             I've plucked them,
                                             those strings play a mournful
                                             sonata, with her name written all over it.
        (Seven)
                          (Promises bend at every funeral we attend)
              In the graces of her palms we found Uranus,
              like teal teeth
              and whimsical witchcraft,
              I watched her thread magic into this world.
              Her hopes shift-shape into 'nocturnal fairies',
              and 'grim reapers' with broken music boxes.
              She is naïve, but that is
              a trait she needs to survive
              in our world of
              metallic dreams and navy nightmares.
                                                    ­(Eight)
                                       (Rejection is a survivable heartache)
                                                   ­  And so what if her heart reminded me
                                                      of Neptune the most?
                                                      The royal vastness
                                                      of­ blue and ivory;
                                                      ~rip­tides on the walls of her soul~
                                                      I want her to know that ambitions
                                                      l­eave more scars and
                                                      tear more crystal flesh;
                                                      tha­n her polished wishes ever will.  
      (Nine)
                       (Have you ever seen blood and water in love?)
And her lungs,
they remind me of the honesty of Pluto.
So small, and docile,
like an elliptical smile of grey fire.
Would you lay with me a while,
count your unconditional lovers;
like our burnt stars in mason jars?
Struggle is the birth
of the void and the 'rapture'
~Your king and poet will wait for you,
in the radiant abyss of our ink-hearts~
I will guide you to his open arms,
              a hug awaits my dragon princess.

                                                     ­                   He wears the stars for clothes,
                                                      li­ke an outlaw,
among the banks of the universe.
               Where disease can't reach him, or she,
                                          Cancer can't harm you anymore,
                                                       ­          "Not anymore, Belle."
...

there’s something unsettling about convenience stores. the fluorescent lights resemble some planet far away from here. neon signs with a letter broken, now flashing “be r,” beckoning the broken, the damaged, the lost boys. the home of those who don’t fit in. they buy the greasy pizza, rubbery hot dogs, and chemically nacho cheese which imitate something edible but scream danger on the tongue. haunted by the souls of the the pimply teenagers working the register, lips stained blue from blue raspberry slushy, slaving through the evening for the nocturnal souls buying milk and bread in the wee hours of the night. hushed arguments on the phone about forgetting to buy toilet paper and why don’t you ever pay attention to me. the pungent smell of hair dye boxes, the stink of attempting to be someone you’re not. skeleton children with messy hair, ***** fingernails as well as thoughts, up to no good back for more cherry cough syrup and furniture polish. soon after 3 candy bars will be found missing from inventory. detergent bottle caps, once neon, now faded with gathering dust, residing next to a dented can of campbell’s chicken soup. an organized chaos. the land of misfit toys.

His name is elegance
He is the roses on your mother's kitchen table
He is the tie around your father's neck
He is the slow rise and fall of the sun
His name is laughter
He is your grandfather's old jokes that don't make sense
He is going over the railroad tracks too fast
He is late night conversations we never remember
His name is joy
He is the first bloom of spring
He is the fresh lemonade on a hot day
He is listening to your favorite record
He is a good afternoon nap
His name is love
He is kisses good morning and coffee on the balcony
He is holding my hand under the covers
He is lighting candles in the dark
He is a sweater fresh out the dryer
He is lying down after a long day
He is love
He is love
He is love

The city screamed from far away, carnivorous call,
As those neon lights illuminated nothing at all,
I saw my whole life written on a face with no name,
30 minutes, 30 years; it still feels the same,
On a subway platform, I wore the streets as a cloak,
With murderous indifference, nobody spoke,
Adrift in the hum and shuffle, I circle empty squares,
Swimming in electric fire and unoccupied stares,
As moonlight cut the misty haze, scratching my eye,
I found myself the beginning of another goodbye,
Standing tall among the skyscrapers, drowning in shade,
An encore performance of a mess that I made,
And on the ride home, an old man played the Rising Sun,
Reminding me of the only thing I still can’t outrun.

My friend Sarah sits alone at night and scribbles on a page,
Turning each line into a battle, a war that she must wage,
She writes about getting out, fear and doubt, her failure to fit in,
Seeking metaphors for moonlight as she bleeds out through her pen,
But she keeps her poems in an old shoebox so no one ever knows,
Because she gets more like on Instagram by taking off her clothes,
Don’t call it a plea for popularity; she’s establishing a brand,
That’s all that matters when the world fits in the palm of your hand,
As she spends every day surrounded by the people she’ll never please,
She can’t help but look around her and despise the world she sees,
Her parents can’t afford the artificial life for which they strive,
But orange is the new black, and forty is the new twenty-five,
She watches them sacrifice a future that was never theirs to lose,
And walk around all day technically blind, staring at their shoes,
Meanwhile her friends all speak in memes, aspiring only to be seen,
A million tiny little lives lived inside a million tiny little screens,
As corporations burn down everything they cannot steal or sell,
And politicians fabricate the facts to justify the lies they tell,
The television markets manufactured rage, advertising decay,
Meanwhile Sarah fills another page, and tucks it safely away.

you say, 'be careful with yourself'
i feel my hands shake
and I reply, 'I don't know how'