staring at the shattered glass
of my mom's wine
I dropped on the kitchen floor
thinking that deep red
looks good on white tile
and thinking maybe I deserve this,
in fact maybe I deserve to
lay on the scattered shards,
one piece of glass in the back
for lying to someone I love,
one in the thigh where he
kissed me while she was gone
for the night...
thinking I'm being eaten
inside out and it's only a matter
of time before something comes out
      about it.
twenty minutes later there's
wine on my socks and
the front of my shirt is wet,
with tears I guess,
but all I'm thinking is
guilty
guilty
guilty
I don't think
I can fix this.

I can feel myself slipping
slipping
slipping
and I don't want to
think about how I feel
(like glass in the bottom
of a kaleidoscope being
mixed up and up and up)
and I don't want to
think about you
(even though I still
wear your shirt when
it's late and the night
seems a little too long)
I just want to drink
until the bottle is as
empty as I am
and I want boys who
don't love me
and I don't have to pretend
that I love them
too.

when I first saw you
I thought maybe
you were an angel
and the way you looked at me
gave me my own set of wings...
well you never showed me
gates of white
but lines of ******* did
look almost heavenly.
what's the harm in sin
if we'll just be forgiven again?
like I forgave you
again and again and again
(your lies went down as
smooth as the pills)
how was I to know
the space between you
and your sheets
wasn't the palace
I had been waiting for?
you left open your
closet door-
white feathers, broken
and mangled, strewn on the floor,
a hundred other angels who
had been here before.
angels don't cry
angels don't cry
but if you were ever an angel
you fell before I met you
and maybe now
I've fallen
too.

I can be content
with daydreams
because I love
the longing and
I'm addicted
to the distance,
suspense,
I prefer your
touch when your
fingers are ghosts and
your lips hold
whatever secrets
I want to be told

I can be content
with the
anticipation,
hallucination,
existent only in my
imagination

I can be content
because
this way it
never has
to end.

sometimes I only feel at home
on empty streets

sometimes I pick up the phone
just to listen to the dial tone
(it sounds like the absence of you)

sometimes I fall asleep
hoping I wake up
and sometimes
hoping
that I don't

I don't recognize
the face in the mirror
Something in me
is lost,
something vital
familiar
And I think it left
when you did