i wish this body
would melt off of my soul
like a popsicle on a hot summers day

i wish this body
could unzip itself
like a hazmat suit

and i could float out and leave my tarnished anchor behind

and they looked at each other and
yes it was a look of love but
it was also more because it was like
they saw through each other to
the bottom of their soul and
found that there was
family there they looked
at each other like
they were their hope and
their strength and
heart and mind and
everything in between like
they prayed every night that
death would claim them first so
it was not simply love and
friendship it had to be
something else and
i can't quite put my
finger on it

the cynic in me wants to brush it off but
i'd never seen anything like it before

i looked up synonyms for self-love today
and apparently someone who loves themself
is narcissistic,
                          self-absorbed,
            ­                            ­                conceited . . .

how saddened i am
that this is how we perceive those
who live without doubt

your hand was a star
glowing
and begging me
to hold you
to feel your warmth
and let it seep into my fingertips
let it crawl up my veins
let golden heat flow up my arm
caress my collarbones
let it spill into my eyes
and make them flicker sunshine brown
let it stroke the crown of my head
twist around my hair
and weave in tiny daises
that smell like rain
and your shirt
and alcohol
let it make me dizzy
dizzy enough to grip your hand a bit harder
and start the cycle again

i wish i was a soft girl
the ones you find in movies
with tears of honey
and kindness that warms like golden sunshine
dewdrop flowers with ambrosial petals
blooming with unwavering patience and soft lips

instead i am just a girl
with a chest of steel
and i am angry
that i foolishly keep waiting
for someone to lift the curtain
and maybe see me
as a soft girl too

i don't need to find somebody to love,
i already found them . . .

now i just need somebody to love me back.

who ever thought

that life could become

    so

              incredibly



                     ­                 lifeless.

for me
you have become
many things
you are a mirror under my bed
and the rotting cross over my doorway
you are the velvet midnight sky
and the honey air sneaking through my window
you are the half moon cuts on my palm
and the empty gas tank in my dying car
you are alluring sheets of my bed
begging me to return
you are sweet and tempting
you are my lover
and my prescription
my savior
my greatest friend

whatever form you take
    sweet
           sour
                 stale
                      a cup
                              a can
                                     a bottle

they are just vessels
you are always all those things and more

i wonder what i am to you?

us poets are far too arrogante for our words
we speak of intangible things
with such sincerity
convince our readers that we have discovered some sort of truth
tricking them into a false sense of understanding
we think our words and our thoughts are grand
grand enough to be shared and listened too

but perhaps this is okay
perhaps our vague writings of love
and power and greed and anger and sadness
perhaps these poems are not arrogante answers
perhaps we are not tricksters
maybe, just maybe, poets are the translators
of human emotion into ink

but what would I know?
i am just an arrogant poet

there's a wisp in the shape of a father
and he stands outside my door each night
sometimes he takes human form
just to pour a glass of wine
i've started to see him
in the palms of your hands
and i am so shattered
when i look up to see it isn't him

i just want somebody for some time
it can be a short forever
as long as you're all mine
whatever you got in mind, i'm down
just hold me for a moment
make me feel a little more found

and i'll go to sleep tonight
so i can dream of a boy
who just might love me right

the perfect ugliness
was ruined
by a broken women
who created beauty

he was an angel, you see,
and that was the problem.

by being a poet
i have condemned myself
i have sentenced myself to silence
a clean cut to the throat

by being a poet
i burned the bridges
i ****** myself to the tallest tower
where no one can hear my screams

by being a poet
i've been tried and convicted
i have only this page and this pen
this is my freedom and my prison

i think about the time when my parents just loved me for being their daughter.
now i have to prove that i am worthy enough to be loved.

they have their hands all over my body
from miles away
across the country
no, across the globe
they have groped my chest
like children with a shiny, new toy
wrapped chains around my stomach
kept the key out of reach
deciding themselves that this is their right

they have given me an impossible standard
and no matter how much self love I have
i still think of starving this chapel
until what protects my body melts away
like a popsicle in a hot summer's heat
i hear behind closed doors
the way they can define me in a single word
they way they reduce me to a single caricature

. . .

it is scary
how many of you do not realize
that you are the "they" i speak of

i seem to always be waiting
perpetually counting the seconds
the minutes
the days
the months
the years
until someday comes.

i am tired.
i do not want to wait anymore.

and i was never told about lust
and the way that it makes love rust

- FELIVAND

I am not my weary bones
that drag me through the mud.
Nor the arms that hang beside me
or the beating of my blood.
Nor the cracking joints and fragile skin
that breaks oh so easily

I am not my tired muscles that strain
and beg me to lie down
My worn out eyes that long for sleep
but can’t let slip my crown
I am not the tears in my eyes
that glisten and wish to weep

What am I, you ask?

I am my beating heart
that pounds like a giant drum
my aching soul, my twinkling laughter
my courageous spirit next to none
I am my brilliant mind
that doesn’t know where I’m ending up,
but I know what I am and I know what I’m not
and for now I think that’s enough.