Alone in my head,
I'm feeling so low,
You wont understand,
No one can know.

My eyes are so tired,
I can't sleep at night,
Your face haunts my dreams,
When I turn out the light.

It happened so suddenly,
It happened so fast,
I knew all at once,
That none of this would last.

Was I just a game?
Was this all just for fun?
Did my feelings matter,
To anyone?

"This didn't mean anything",
That's what you said,
As I was so shamefully,
Getting up from your bed.

I held my head high,
As I walked by your side,
Tears welling up,
I was dying inside.

Weeks have passed,
Keeping secrets, telling lies,
I don't have the strength,
To look either of them in the eyes.

My heart has been broken,
Not once, but twice,
Once by my best friend,
Once by the love of my life.

Deep down inside,
I know it's my fault,
So I'm just going to lock it,
Away in my vault.

Sometimes I still think of you,
When I'm lying in bed,
Still all alone,
Inside of my head.

I'm tired.
I don't want the false claims
Only for you to forget and go on
Because ******* you promised me
And I need you now
As I lie in bed
Crying to sleep,
How you told me you wouldn't
Be the cause to my pain
But here we are
And all I need,
Even as I lie here in the everlasting bottomless pit of melancholy
Is your arms.
Even though I want to hurt you so bad
Make you feel my pain...
I just want you to hold me.
Tell me it'll be alright.
That you've changed.

Guess something never change, huh?

step one:
do not look at their mouth,
for you will expect to see rivers flowing from it,
poetry slipping through the space between their lips
in the same way that the wind slips through the space underneath a door,
but instead you will only see spit and saliva
and a tongue too big for its home.

step two:
do not look at their hands,
for you will expect them to craft cities from marble right before your very eyes,
but instead it will be just the thumbs,
the twiddling of thumbs,
the aimlessness, the senselessness,
the lack of experience with building empires.

step three:
do not look at their eyes,
for they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul,
and when you see that the curtains have been drawn,
you will feel so very alone.

step four:
i did not love you.
you have to repeat it.
i did not love you.
i did not love you.
i did not love you;
i loved what i thought you would be.
i thought you would be eden,
but you were only the apple.

step five:
i suppose i am to blame here
for digging holes too big to fill,
for crafting shoes too big to fit in.
and for that i am sorry.
i am sorry that i expected more from you
than i even expect from myself.

step six:
human.
human.
let the word roll off and around your tongue,
let it cover every inch of the inside of your mouth.
say it. over and over again.
say it. like it is foreign and you need to know what it means.
say it.
and when you have said it enough times and it feels
dull, old,
disappointing,
you will know that we are nothing more than flesh and bone,
and that as much as we wish there were gods among us,
flesh always rots in the end.
this is the beast of truth that we cannot outrun.
hands cannot craft cities from marble
if only given clay.

step seven:**
do not let this frighten you.
clay, after all,
was meant for molding.

(a.m.)

You never really know how strong you are until you're alone,
crying and forced to pick yourself up off the floor.
That is when you can truly see how big your emotional muscles are
and I promise
they are bigger than you ever thought possible.

She kisses the boys and girls
that pay the most attention.
The boys play with vapor
and her girls play with tension.
I wish I was the only one
that she will decide to touch
but I am who I am
and, in a way, that is too much.

Sawblade-sunflower petals
wrap around an earthy cushion,
and the humidity hangs in the air
as her beige body is crumpled
and I feel too sober, pushing.

Baby yellow falls apart,
in her hair the flower starts
to trickle onto sheet and pillow,
decorating the absences
that define how hollow
she and I have felt before --
******* like an endangered species
on the killing floor, I whisper once,
I whisper sweet, "Don't you wish
that we didn't meet?"

She kisses the boys and girls
that give the most attention.
I played with vapor
and she played with tension.

this is an alphabet of all the people
who have dug holes in me,
and of all the people
who are still digging.

this is a gardening guide
for would-be lovers and pretty faces
who do not even realize
that they are carrying shovels.

this is a weather forecast written
from past experience,
a reminder that winter
is not kind on crops,
no matter how firmly you pack the dirt.

this is me,
reflecting on seeds planted.

this is me,
reflecting on seeds left to die.

A,
i suppose it is fitting that the first letter
is also the first person to show me what it is like
to have seedlings sprouting up from inside you,
the first person to show me just how deep you really have to dig
to make the sting last.
you never came back to water what you planted.

H,
i’d like to say to that i ripped out your roots with my own two hands;
i’d like to give myself some credit in all this.
you don’t look as lovely as you used to.
you say i’ve grown distant.
i’m sorry.

J,
you always feel like being on the verge of something big.
you feel like summer, like a deep purple,
a bath of darkness.
you are everywhere that plants do not grow well.
and i have always felt — and still do feel — 
that that is such a grave injustice.
still, though you cannot speak the word “devotion,”
i beckon for more seeds.

P,
my greatest heartbreak.
heartbreak, though, is but a flesh wound when seen from afar.
and so i thank god for the miles between us.
i can feign forgetfulness when you are far away.
after all, what is a shovel in your hands if those hands cannot reach me?

S,
you are but a bud waiting to bloom.
and yet again i find myself so very afraid of growth.

(a.m.)

I’m ashamed to say I’ve become a bit of a thief;
A pickpocket of sorts.

It started out small.
A few roses from our neighbors’ garden, every now and then.
I knew it was wrong to take something that wasn’t mine,
But I fell in love with the way your eyes lit up
when I held out those little bits of stolen life, stolen joy.

It soon escalated after that.
I saw the way you gazed lovingly up at the moon,
and I became determined to make it yours.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried,
The moon remained unattainable.
(There is only one, after all.)
I figured I’d aim for the next best thing, so
I hope you like the stars I stole for you.