You stab your own heart
to make sure it will bleed
when others ***** you.

A slow crawl up the hill after our lovers' goodbye,
Just to reach the top and realize,
The view isn’t as great without you by my side.

If I peek under the bed,
And give the scary thing teeth,
Will it swallow me whole?
Or tell me a story?

My mighty moments made me mistakes,
Making miserable memories.
Minding my mouth means mending.
Mostly.

You’re my fever dream.
Sweat soaked sheets,
Aching hearts,
And sometime in the night, we break.

When the sea’s churn is endless,
And all comfort’s denied,
Let me live on this tongue,
And by its words die.

“I was a vessel from tempest.
I was your chance to transform.
Yet in the inky swells recess,
You still shied from a storm.”

No rough edge made smooth,
No dull thing made to shine.
Every ridge and harsh groove,
I own to be mine.

And to the mouth of the shell,
From whence I was spit,
I’ll parry this truth:
Some pearls aren’t worth ****.

The scariest thing,
That I wish I’d never done,
Was give you those words.

I joined the occult,
Paid some very hefty dues,
Then they kicked me out.

the god of small things let the lights be green and the hair look perfect and the clothes fit right.
the god of small things smiled at me in the grocery store parking lot and offered to take my cart back for me.
the god of small things left a daisy on my car today, so that I could think of you.
the god of small things said yes when the answer was no and told me to go instead of stay.
the god of small things did not carve mountains with rivers, but did let a stream move over rocks.
the god of small things let me fall asleep in your arms with a lullaby on my lips.
the god of small things said, “this is what we have, and this will be enough.”

Like a thief in the daylight,
I saw you coming,
And you still stole everything I had.

Is it love
If it doesn’t rattle your soul
Demand the world
Break your heart

Is it love
If all it does is whisper
“I will hold you together
While you’re falling apart”

I lost myself and I found myself.
I lost myself and I rebuilt myself.
And when I did not like what I had made, I rebuilt myself again.
I carved out, and uncovered, and restored, and outgrew.
And I, and I, and I.

And I still don’t have it perfect.
I’m still not who’d I’d like to be.
And my shadow still comes out more often than I’d like her to.

But I, and I, and I will continue to try.

You said to plant roots,
But instead I grew wings.
You called me a wild, untamable thing.

We crossed line after line,
Before you threw up a hand.
Betrayal hurts like a punch right after it lands.

You grew thorns on your edges,
Let fear consume like a flood.
I’m not surprised that you finally drew blood.

I won’t plant any roots,
Can’t stay on the ground.
Now that we’re lost, I finally feel found.

You kissed my lips,
As the sea kissed my toes,
I could drown in you both.

I sat on a Large Rock
While you hunted Little Rocks
The sea lapping at both of our feet
At different elevations
In different places
Connected by the sea
Our invisible string

It is the cruelest twist of fate to be made sick by the things I hold most dear.

The sea.
Love.
Home.

The way your eyes change colors with the sky
The way you bring me flowers on random Tuesdays, because you were thinking of me
The way you worship my body, soft, where I wish it was hard
And the way you open my heart, hard, where I wish it was soft
The way you whisper my name when we’re connected down to our very souls
The way that you are a complete person
And the way I am a complete person
And the way that together we are two complete persons who continue to choose each other over and over again
And the way we are better for it
I never want to forget the way it feels to be loved by you

If grief were a tangible thing, I would wrestle it from your arms.

If grief were a tangible thing, I would store it in a bottle and throw it out to sea with a note that says, “please don’t open me.”

If grief were a tangible thing, I would place a bookmark before your least favorite chapter, and let us come back to it another day.

If grief were a tangible thing, or a wound, easily seen to the human eye, I would be able to stitch you back together with something other than the words, “I’m so sorry.”

If grief were a tangible thing, I would wipe it from your eyes, like the tears that fall.

If grief were a tangible thing, I would be the first to hold your heart while we tie it up neatly with bandages.

If grief were a tangible thing, if grief were a tangible thing. If.

I didn’t come tonight,
Caught up in thoughts of you.
Your lips pressed softly against someone else’s neck,
Your arms tight around their waist.

I didn’t come tonight,
As hard as I tried,
I couldn’t muster up the energy or enthusiasm.  

I didn’t come tonight,
Your mouth, praising someone else’s name, worshipping.

I didn’t come tonight
And you didn’t make me.

You died of cancer today.
It knocked you down before we ever even knew it existed.
When we first found out it was living inside of you, and as we waited for the biopsy results, we prayed.
We prayed in our homes and our cars and our temples and your hospital room.
We prayed it would be the good kind of cancer.
As if such a thing existed.
But you can’t pray to change the nature of something that has existed in the shadows for so long.
No amount of prayer will undo the mutation and multiplication of cells that has already happened.
So now we pray for peace.
As if such a thing could be so easily obtained.
And we pray for those you have left behind.
As if they will ever recover from losing you.
We send up prayers to a god who has seemingly forgotten your name, except for the moment he called you back home.

I feel like crying and I feel like screaming.
I feel like falling back into day dreaming.
I feel like pining and reminiscing.
I feel like lying, so I guess I’ll start writing.

Your name,
Repeating in my mind,
A syncopating rhythm when the nights are long.

Your name,
Providing solace, hope, and longing.

Your name,
Belonging to every iteration of who you have ever been, and who you’ll ever be.

Your name,
Containing multitudes of wonder bestowed to its owner.

Writing is muscle memory.
And the muscle in my chest remembers you fondly.
Every beat a memory,
And when it pounds loudly,
The words flow seamlessly.

I wrote 22 poems last night,
In honor of you.
I’m not saying they’re all worth reading.

But every year that has passed,
Without you here,
Is a year I feel like retreating.

I want to give up the fight,
Get back to you sooner,
Finally see your smile.

Heaven’s too far,
But if that’s where you rest,
I’d walk through hell, every mile.

I was told the Refiner’s Fire
Would make me shine and glow.
I wish I had I known, that long ago,
The true Refiner left open the door.

I could have stepped outside,
And realized the sun is even warmer.
Into a new light, enters my soul,
And instantly I feel calmer.

Free from all the control and lies,
I was told as the fire was lit.
The choice that was always meant to be mine,
Was stripped away bit by bit.

It’s Healing and Grace, I’m needing right now -
I can’t find in the walls of this church.
The fire holds no love for me now,
The sun is what I deserve.

I’m standing in sunlight, still fully loved,
Without fire licking my skin.
After decades in a constricted cell,
I’m breaking out from within.

The refiners fire was always manmade,
A way to foster control.
The sunlight instead, beckons me in,
Bringing me back to the fold.

Careful.
I’ll construct worlds and dreams,
Based on the color of your eyes.
I’ll memorize words,
That you didn’t write for me.
And with every single repetition,
I’ll convince myself your hand fits perfectly in mine,
When we are never destined to touch.
Be careful, love.
Because I’ll never recover from the idea of you.

typos are their,
to sea if you care.
your the only one,
whose going to dare.

if you're reading this,
and you're feeling alone,
if you're reading this,
and you're feeling unknown,
if you're reading this,
and you know who i am,
if you're reading this,
and you don't give a ****,
if you're reading this -
and i know that you are -
if you're reading this,
you're still the brightest star.

Knock knock.                     “Are you home?”

Text chimes.                         “Are you alone?”

Phone calls.                       “Are you alright?”

Face the signs,              “Let’s call it a night.”

Back to back.    “We never said it was love.”

Drawing lines.                “But maybe it was.”

They tell me stick close,
To the devil I know.
It has to be better,
Than facing unknowns

But the devil I know
Doesn’t kiss like you do,
Doesn’t hold my heart carefully,
And promise he’s true.

The devil I know,
With his familiar face,
Doesn’t captivate me
In all of your ways.

Just one more hit,
One more night spent alone,
And then I’ll go home,
To the devil I know.

I’m a little out of order.
I am slightly out of sorts.
I’m done trading thoughts for pennies,
When they’re worth so much more.

I think if you just tapped me,
Or put a pen inside my hand,
Turn me off, then on again
Or tell me your demands -

Then maybe I’ll get better.
And things won’t seem so hard.
I’m a little out of order,  
But my wounds will someday scar.

So run your fingers over me,
Think of how I used to feel.
Trace the marks from left to right,
And know that love is real.

I’m just a little out of order,
It’s nothing I can’t mend.
So lighten up, refill my cup,
I’ll be fine, my friend.

Imitation and replications,
Concentration on reputations.
A combination of limitations -
Fascination turned frustration

Admiration and dedication,
Morphing into a damnation.
We’ve lost all sophistication,
By giving into our temptation.

I envy you.
The poet that’s read.
The lover that’s sated.
The giver, fulfilled.

I envy you.
The season that changes.
The ocean, undeterred.
The leaves, allowed to rest.

I envy you.
For you are all the things,
That I thought I’d be.

Nights spent laying in a twin sized bed.
Stories are swirling, filling your head.

My arms around you, as our breathing slows,
Together we drift to the land of unknowns.

Nights spent laying - freckle to freckle.
Your eyes are bright blue, filled with dreams and a speckle.

I whisper I love you as we lay there together,
And I know that my life couldn’t possibly be better.

I’ll hold you for now - while you grow up too fast.
I’ll soak up the moments until they are past.

Thank you twin bed for the space to hold on,
To the boy that I love while we sleep until dawn.

tell me the truth.
tell me i was wrong.
tell me you meant every word and i will never bring it up again.
but tell me I wasn’t wrong.
and we will never go back to how we used to be.
just tell me the truth.

“One in one hundred.”
She says, “Those are some slim odds,
You’ll bury a child”

“One in one hundred.”
But countless are gone too young -
So don’t count the odds.

“One in one hundred”
Doesn’t provide any peace,
When kids become ghosts.

you fill the space where i should be with thoughts of yourself.

coercion is not only the absence of “no.”

it is also the “yes” that is given when the option of “no” is stripped away.

please don’t forget that your “yes” was not a “moment of weakness” or a “sin you have to repent for”

you said “yes” because “no” wasn’t an option. and that’s not really saying “yes” at all.

a boy once told me he loved me.
i told him i needed space.
he begged me not to hurt him.
i hurt him anyways.
a boy once told me he loved me.
but i chose to love myself instead.

You came to me at an interesting time in my life.
You came to me when I chopped my hair into the style they call “butch.”
You met me when I moved out of my parents house and began paying bills and buying
my own cold medication.
You came to me when summer turned to winter, bypassing the fall, and I bypassed the
transitional stages of adolescence straight into adulthood.
You met me when I was faced with the decision of whether or not I would stand up, or
stay face down.
You met me many nights, when I sat alone with the pills and contemplated the dosage
that I’d need to either feel okay or to feel nothing at all.
You were there every time I put the pills away and went to bed instead.
You’re still one of my closest companions.

Every day it seems you come to me and say “Hey butch. Things will get better, including
your awful haircut.”

pick up the pen
crack open my chest
see the ink instead of blood
know that every word I write
is for you

when i was young, we played in the garden behind my house.
you chased me as i chased my brothers and the wind tugged at my braids and freckles stained my cheeks.
you were there as i giggled as my father spun me around and let me dance on his toes.
you came to me in the summer, with endless nights spent skipping rocks at the river.
you came at christmas every year until recently and you came when my mother learned to laugh again, after that dark day in May.
you were there.
you made saturday morning cartoons with uncombed hair the highlight of the week.
you started coming less and less the more i learned about the world, but you were still found in things like chocolate oranges and butterfly kisses.
i find you now, in the phone calls home and the care packages filled with sweet notes.

i've realized that you come in the form of people and places rather than exquisite actions and success.

it’s always this place I come back to.
a broken heart and broken promise lay at my feet. and instead of walking away, i pick them both up, tie them together with a ribbon, and put them both back in my chest, with the hope that next time you won’t break them in the first place.

I miss you most at 4 am.
Waking up from another dream of you.
A dream where you wanted me.
A dream where we were together.
Even after all these years,
My heart remembers you.
And ****. It misses you at 4 am.

25 hour movie marathon and I am still not tired of holding your hand and feeling your fingers lace through mine. You feel like home in this galaxy.

we’re circles and synonyms,
dancing round and round,
never getting to the point.

Anyone who says
They don’t count the syllables
On their fingers, lies.

There it is. The spark. The heart racing, heavy breathing, if I don’t write this line of poetry my body might explode spark. Closely followed by intense examination of every single syllable to determine if what I think is poetry is something that someone else will think is poetry and will they shun me from the poetic society of poets if they disagree? Hah. Followed by slight laughter at my own cunning demise because that’s the thing about poets. Whether you call yourself that or not, you’re a part of this creative community. You’ve decided that you have words to share and **** it you demand to be heard and then maybe you wonder if what you’re feeling isn’t all that big of a deal at all. Maybe it doesn’t deserve a line, a phrase, or even a poetic thought.

But it does. Because poetry is not poetry if it’s censored and molded and charmed like a snake into fitting into someone else’s landscape. Poetry is not poetry if you don’t feel a piece of your soul being exposed with every cascading turn of phrase. Poetry is not poetry if it is a robotic reiteration & regurgitation of what someone expects you to feel. Poetry is not poetry if you don’t believe in what you’re writing.

So write the things you want. Write the things that are hard to say. The things that choke you and trip you up and expose scars and flaws in your physique. Write the things that are begging to be written. I promise not to laugh. I promise not to report you to the creative commission for poor writing. Write the things that demand to be written, because you demand to tell them.

There’s a lot of questions I want to ask.
Did you love her as much as you claim to love me?
Did you ever really love me at all?
Is convenience and accessibility a foundation that prevents doubts, temptations, and storms of life from dragging you back to a sea of discontentment?

No.
I don’t believe they are.

But you’ve made the choice.
You’ve chosen convenient and accessible and you’ve committed to memory the tender moments when love felt genuine.
But soon the winds will shift. Maybe I’ll be the one to float away from my own poorly constructed foundation.
And you’ll be left asking,
Did you really love me? Or was I just convenient?

I wish you’d write something, so I could know how you’re really doing.