I have nothing left in this world to call my own,
no where safe enough to call my home.
All I really have is my writing stemmed from the thoughts
replaying on an endless loop inside my head.
I believe sometimes that when I write them down and create
that maybe it’s my one way to get them to escape.
My pain is truly stitched into each and every word.
I hope that they will one day possibly be seen, and I can
actually be heard.

You and I would stand in front of my bathroom mirror and
just hold each other, naked, acquainting ourselves
with the strange, biblical union of joints and hair
and skin and crevices and curves that we make
together...

Fingerpainting reverently on your chest,
I'd kiss your freckled shoulder, eyeing your reflection as it melted,
falling for me again-- and you'd
tell me in return
that my eyes are beautiful, and that they are green,
just like yours.
They are brown, I'd say, and
laugh and
leave
you to
confront only yourself
in my mirror.

Every day that I stand again
in front of my mirror alone--
a similar but emptier amalgamation of joints and curves--
I could swear that my eyes
look a little bit paler...
like if I
point my nose up to the high hat on my ceiling,
with the fluorescent light spilling into them
the color could certainly pass
as the same green in your eyes and
I wonder,
and I hope

that being wrong all this time
doesn't mean I was wrong about you, too.

I kiss your lips.
I kiss your neck.
I look in your eyes.
You wrap your arms around me.
And pull me in.
When I wake up you're gone again.

part of me
misses you
and all of me
misses parts of you

When we have stood, cold and raw, cracked open, underneath
the waterfall of time for long enough that
it doesn't burn our skin quite so much
anymore,
I hope that you can repair the heart I
tried to break as gently as I could.

I hope that you find a girl who has always wanted to
name her baby Cody,
who can ski like a demon and
take her liquor like a cowboy and
lives for Silverados and Colorado sunsets.

I hope that when you remember my laugh,
it doesn't sound quite so pretty as hers, and that
when you scoop her up from behind,
it will feel like you are doing it for the first time.

But when she sees you cry and
says she's so grateful to have a boy who knows how,
I hope you are reminded of all the love I gave
to help you learn.
When she hugs you and thanks you for listening,
I hope you remember the time I spent listening to you,
teaching you what it means to be heard.

The way that I love you is not a fake, flimsy kind of love that
floated away when I left you--- no,
I want your girl to be all the comfort and safety and warmth and devotion that I could never be to you...

And if she isn't,
I hope that she reminds you of me
enough to make you leave before
she breaks you again.

Uptight,
Never quite right

Blame the “timing”
Despite countless years “trying”

Futile and undermining;
You’re forever chasing whatever it is you find most mesmerizing.

You’re done now with the tantalizing;
I’ve surpassed my prime,
Disposable-
You’re onto the next.

The latest shiny thing -
The “cool girl” trope;
Some pretty face for you to spit on,
Never for her to provoke.

Frail inside,
Your pitiful mind…

So the next one, just like the last:
A temporary home for you to impose your wrath.
Suffering eternally inside, running from your past;
Continually searching for something that will never be within your grasp.