“I CHOOSE TO FEEL” should be
emblazoned across my chest
like a badge of honor
reclaimed from the badge
of shame it was
intended for.

Tethered, you held onto me,
flame you heated in me-
subtly feeding me
more and more hope.
Today the game has died
your mouth would open wide
gaping in stark disgust-
when someone thought love was us.

Twenty-nine poems too much-
outside, I had quit after “no”-
but inside, a fledgling hope
kept fighting on.
A wish for us did survive
and the Universe urges me,
“Let that want fall asleep;”
“Please just let go.”

If dreams be brief and solemn-sweet
content is in my making.
If dreams be drawn and rip’ed rife
more mood is for the taking.
I’s fine for week till suddenly
dreams crash upon my brow.
Awakening in my running heart
that life is just a sound.
or the nobody I’ve found.
Or all I fail to do.
Or who I want and cannot have.
In a gentle way, I shake my world
inside me when nothing’s really ******-up
Conflict is in my default settings
so I revert once the battery’s
used up.

my hips, my ***, the insides of my thighs
I tried to give him tips
but they were tips he never tried
And he would always ask
(nothing wrong with consent except for here)
I told him, fine.
and that action’s
never wrong.

Then there I was, upset-
The question hit me straight-
Was there no chemistry between him and I
or was I the one to blame?
Tiffany, you useless lesbian.

You were a poem I always wrote
You were aflame and I felt bad
She was a future yet unknown
“Us” was in view but not to have.
I didn’t know Her, nor myself
but I knew you, and then I was irrelevant.
It felt like a breakup
but up-close
I don’t know you and I
don’t know what we had.

It was a look in her eyes I'd never
seen in his-
Taken a bit off guard but
looking, as it is-
Respectfully, she's got respect but
don't know how to read a room
Respectfully, after a year she stopped making me feel desired
Broken finger, love still as tombs--

I miss that look in her eyes.
She became for me what he was.
Took me a bit off guard but
also built up over a year or two-
Respectfully, I wouldn't ****-talk her but also sometimes she was mean
Don't know, did she intend it?
Or are we all needlessly cruel things?

By the end I felt disgusting.
The beginning was sublime.
I read these poems and realize,
we did it right, and she was mine...
But I see now loving isn't always enough.
You have to work at it.
She tired of working.
I had to leave.

What a love it must have been,
to have blackened the skies in its absence
and to burn through the nothingness that was once my heart.

The love between us was but a moment in time
but has carved itself a piece of eternity.

When I look to the stars,
I know they belong to you,
for the divinity of your eyes has looked upon them.
And so through the stars,
I shall always find you
looking through.

What a love it must have been.
For though you are now gone,
my heart shall always beat for you,
and even when my mortal body is through,
I shall shine through the night skies,
for you.

Can you feel me
rush over you,
as I drown myself in your absence?

Void of color, my lips seep red
as I kiss upon the roses
that you placed upon my bed.
My sheets saturate by the blood of your thorns,
hidden by the beauty of your rose.

Your absinthe courses through my veins;
I am a slave to your elixir,
lost in the prison of my mind.  
Yet I remain within the labyrinth of the memory of you,
for only in my mind I know
you will not go.

As I look beyond the veil,
I cannot distinguish dusk from dawn.
Only through this absinthe
can I bear the weight of your absence.

Before we met,
a stone mold held me hostage.
When we met,
you showed me the cup that
I had hidden deep within myself.
But I was not alone,
for your cup was hidden deep within yourself.

When we removed our stone masks,
with hands shaking,
we offered our cups to one another.
Each of us filled the other's with glycerin.
With each sip we took,
our hearts began to listen.
The waters buried deep within us were brought to the surface.

To not drown in our own waters,
the glycerin we gave one another needed to cease.
So we stepped aboard our separate ships, with our own cups,
not yet completely full,
but glowing with a glycerin
that at long last, had finally begun to flow.

I wouldn't simply flick the brush
in regards of painting you;
You're more than that to me.

I'd stare up high looking at the real ones
and use them as reference,
to at least be able to paint you in the same league...

You've captivated me
unlike any other nebula I've seen.
To the point, that urging myself to look away
and move on comes to the scene—

Because my mum told me
to never look at the sun directly.
Funny, how I never listen
knowing I got blinded by you.

However,
I also think of you as the moon.
Cold and very far away,
Unable to reach you.
I'm no astronaut,
But if I could—I would.

You've got me wishing for you,
Like lovers longing for each other.
But you are a star,
and I am but a man.

I'm nowhere near
the level of other women,
I'm mediocre at best.

But, I would have painted you better
than any other woman could.