when i skipped in the street
and you blinked your flashlight fifteen times at me
my high beams bursting through the windows of the neighbors,
i started to feel like she wrote those songs for us
and for our teenage recklessness.
can you teach me how to stay,
how to sit still and just love
with no shame and no repercussions?
because how are you so close in my rearview mirror
and then so much farther than you appear?
i would’ve cranked the heater, the same for you
the same simple cares
that you bestowed on
someone as wretched as me.
i would’ve called you my favorite person,
denying your insecurities and making them seem insignificant,
just as you had.
i would’ve laid in your lap retrieving my phone
as we laugh with our entire stomachs
and your friend says there must be something between us;
how does that make you feel?
i would’ve said it was finally time to go if i saw you sleeping,
almost too tired to drive home.
i would’ve asked you to drive safely for fear of deer around,
the same as you had.
i would’ve invited you to my cracking house,
just as you did,
answering the doorbell and smiling,
“you can take your shoes off”

“i love you as you are”

in the morning, i will feign ignorance,
pretending to be fast asleep and unaware
as you pull on your shirt and socks

we should have been theater concentrators, like,
if we never talk about it, it just never happened
you're just so nonchalant, and i'm just melodramatic

and i'm never satisfied unless it's something tragically comic
so tonight, let's pretend to be enemies, let's become lovers,
let's drown in shared regrets, get too familiar with each other

after all, tomorrow, when we wake, it'll all be over
your missing friends and my crushing hangover
will, once again, inevitably, reduce us to strangers

Though the loneliness sets in, among the crowds,
Here, within themselves, they find their solace;
Euphoric events have now lost their appeal;

Mindfulness is the key to rest, they recite;
Exaggerated were their extravagant emotions on the dance floor,
Losing themselves in self discovery;
Over-sensationalized was the persona,
Diving into the depth of purple elixirs;
Rave, rave, rave,
As the sun replaces the strobelights,
Melancholy rises with her rays,
And suddenly, life seems meaningless;
The melodrama,
It strikes;
Cleaning up the champagne glasses, after the catastrophe

what scares me
is that
even scars disappear eventually
please
just don’t get tired of me

My little friend is now gone
My tragic life must go on; despite that
His evil eyes and his cheeky smile still burn in my mind
He no longer exists except
For my memory of him
And I rejoiced
When I heard the news
Still I can recall how I sobbed
When he gave me his evil eye for the first time
When he hurled glass and other projectiles at me when he was hungry
When he spent hours upon hours pondering the fabric of society
I hated him
I wished
For his death
I was depressed
It was like paint peeling off a wall
It was like finding a dead leprechaun at the end of a rainbow
I was expecting some sort of remorse when he left
Funny how heartbreak works

Now read this in reverse
Because sometimes all you need
Is a little change of perspective
To truly understand someone

i.
an ailment of the mind,
incorporeal, a ghost that flits between
worlds, festers and grows —
a thumping tumour.

ii.
sick, but not really sick.
(does it hurt? paracetamol might help).
you are exaggerated and foolish.
count your blessings.

iii.
potent to change reality.
stronger than any mushrooms.
a single thought, the words and the images,
gunslingers to misery.

iv.
hook that reels in,
boding some ominous fate.
fish out of water —
flippity-flop; people sunbathe around.

v.
plodding is what it is.
plodding through a tempest,
freezing, crackled skin,
watching everyone else walking in sun.

vi.
you want to scream but don’t.
you want to explain but don’t.
you let them form their own ideas
and agree. you feed on it.

He drives into the desert in a Toronado,
Dust in his eyes from the open window,
Sun on the burned skin and black mascara
That augments his vivid gaze.
Black orbs that stare at the burning sand,
His mouth is defiant and morose,
He turns off the path into the sage and saguaro.
The car is like a black beetle on a carpet of tan.
He lifts a shovel from the trunk, looking crazed.
Digs a shallow grave in the sand,
He rips a talisman from his neck
And declares he is looking for something
Unclear and he slurs a chant.
“Something is coming”, he seems to say.
He buries the necklace and drives away.
Will he come back for it or leave it
for the spirits of the desert?
No, he will come for it every day
Bury it again and again
Until the spell wears down,
The perfumed season is done,
Or perhaps the spring floods
Wash it all away.