butterflies in a net
wings beating for resolution
but good art would never be so kind.
And that is
the great secret of it all -
we thread our magnificent tapestry using
strung-out pain
woven between our veins.
That is
why the artist's story is
a tragedy
why the crowds swarm the
gladiator stadium
and the boxing ring.

I find myself lost
when you move,
a drop flung
from your tear-soaked sleeve
to sizzle on the hearth.
I called my mother yesterday
to tell her I'm falling,
but not in love
just sinking in syrupy fascination
while you starve hollow farther
below.
I stir pity and romance
knowing we’re both lying purple
aching to feel love that doesn’t bruise
and I've been too scared to believe
it could be you.

We do not say
what we mean, because
what we mean is so heavy
and gravity is so real.
We are not strong.
We cannot utter the words
that press so heavily on our tongues
until they gag us –
instead, we savor those
artificial sweeteners as
every day we grow thinner
and make no progress
toward lifting the weight of truth.
It bides its time in that dark corner
listening to the tales we spin
laughing at our efforts to clothe ourselves
with lies.
Once in a while it pokes out its head
timidly
but we are too prone
to smacking its ugly head
back into submission
and talking louder, louder, louder

in the light,
the mirror was never as kind to me
as my mind's eye when
the shadows swept in
when my pupils expanded and the
blackness spidered in my veins
and i painted vines atop them
so the light might
smile on me again
instead it pierced my sordid skin
showing its squalid, shameful state
it broke my bones and tore my tongue
i scorned its heat
and stumbled into the cool, black night
to feel my nerves numb once again
to cover my new unholy scars
slapping self-indulgence to my skin
as it stung, i ignored my muscles and
continued to do what i do best —
run

as you hold me here,
shaking in your arms,
I’m afraid
to tell you, I’m afraid
that if you relax your grip
intentionally or accidentally,
if you let me go,
I’ll be ripped away by the wind,
never again to find
a place to rest -
if I leave your orbit, I’m afraid
I’ll go spiraling, directionless and destinationless
with only my fading memories
of you,
the way you
pin me down
and smooth me out,
absorbing my tremulous shockwaves
calmly, evenly, always
reminding my erratic lungs
of the gentle rhythm called breath.
Your decided pace makes cyclical
my erratic nature;
you breathe steadiness into the
desperate urgency that
seizes my unwilling chest.
Without even knowing,
you refine me
just by being who you are,
by occupying the space you have always held
in my past
and present
and, with every ounce of hope I have,
my future.

If you read this
carefully, you’d know
it was about you
and you’d mention it
the next time you saw me
you’d say just the right thing.
You don’t love to read
or even like it at
all, sometimes.
It's in the reflection of your
eyes, glassing over as
you trudge through
your morning news articles
but you finish them
anyway.
If you read me
carefully, you’d know
I am all about you
even when your eyes
glass over as
you pick me apart,
trying to figure out
what makes words
so **** important.
I’ll tell you later
that you already know,
if only you’d read
between the lines
of me and you.

and in an instance,
time sits still
Or rather,
it lays on its back
and stares at fan blades
frozen between moments
of air.
It closes its eyes
and forgets how to listen
for ticking
and beeping
of second hands
and alarms.
It forgets
its personification,
a dehydrated runner
who knows nothing beyond
the ache of concrete
against its ankles
and the quiet screaming
of its muscles.
It forgets
what it is or isn’t
supposed to do or be
and suspends the world
in a flash of serenity
too quickly forgotten.

what for the shallow waters
that we called love?
the kiddie pools that
kept our tears salty?
we should have looked on
to bigger whirlpools and stormy seas
with welling gratitude
for our wading pools
instead, there we splashed
like children,
making believe
that our ships were sinking
that we were drowning
that we had to save each other
it was long overdue
when i stood up
stepped out
and dried myself off
a lifetime ago

I wore you with hope on my chest
and all you could ever give me
was the naked, baleful weight
of your own self-importance
and in the end, it crushed me.

Months I spent
building our dream
on the words you spoke
your promises,
my solid foundation.
You watched me labor,
encouraged me.
It was a beautiful dream,
but I did not know
it had always been larger than reality.
You were never interested
in something so fantastic.
The sigh I breathed
was enough to send it
crumbling to the ground
and reveal underneath
the rocks that I had built upon
were sand from the beginning.

Heartbreak:
seeping in between
moldy ceiling tiles and their
blissful indifference,
reaches me with rueful claws
and ***** my unsuspecting eyes
dry.
I don't have room for thirst
anymore,
I'm tired of water:
my feet are shriveled past prunes
from standing salty puddles
in which I'd hoped
I might drown.

look at me.
I’m wretchedly uninspired
mouth dry
tongue drab
you: droll
as ever, pelting
me with erasers
while I impatiently
demand paper,
peppering me
again
confetti sprinkles
this time.
They stick to me
sugary and sweet
just like you -
I fluster and flush
red. Colors
run down my skin
in a melty, childlike mess
you laugh
and I want to scream
for everything unclean.
Sprinkle sludge
inches closer
to the words I
haven’t yet written
I press my lips tighter
together until
I can’t hold it in
and I’m laughing too
surprising you
surprising me
infuriating me
distracting me
what was I doing again?

For years I dreamed in black and white
then you appeared
flaming red
burning quickly and furiously

I couldn't take my eyes off of you
you were the only color I knew.

But fire was foreign to me
its warmth so intense
I should have known better
than to stick my hand in.

You should have told me.

The feeling of your fire on my hands
the sight of my burned skin
brought tears to my eyes
and I begged for my shades of black and white

but colors are sights we cannot unsee
feelings we cannot forget
words we cannot keep quiet.

I learned not to look too long at you
for the spots in my vision that followed
I learned not to mistake hellfire
for heaven's white lights
I have discovered other colors since
none of which have yet blinded me
quite like you.

My skin has healed from your fire
my nerves are far less sensitive.
The rain washed away
my last sentiments for you
and in its wake
a rainbow waits.

Do not convince yourself
that dreaming is loving
do not make the mistake
of falling in love with a moment
and thinking that you're in love
the memories become daydreams
the daydreams become feelings
but those daydreams are a shadow
and those feelings are shallow
do not lose yourself
in the idea of love.

This porched morning stretches
oceanward,
until it rains.
This is no happy summer:
it is weighty pondering
it brings heaven to earth
in a bolt of lightning
it electrifies the sea and
casts airbrushed stripes
of light atop the horizon
but it does not rain
yet.
The shore is
damp from the night before -
a thousand half-thought words
pattered down
smack, smack, smack
little bird feet running
towards and away.
They smell rain,
coming soon again
they love the wind preceding.
The air is expectant,
whipping pages
back and forth and back
and forth
the book will finally
snap shut when it rains.
The ocean rears and curls and sways unsteadily
nature inhales and bites cold.
It feels almost wrong
to be here, now,
solitary
without sun
awaiting the rain.

i gathered all the things that mattered most
and made a list.
i traced it in the sand
and carved it in a tree
and stamped it on my skin.
and then you
came, with your fire and flood
your tidal waves
your wildfires
your torrential deluges
you washed away those fickle memories
and i danced in your storm.
i danced on a barren beach,
by burnt trees, as the
ink trailed down my arms.
but your fire did not burn for me,
your rain did not pour for me,
you just were
and i
had the pleasure of dissolving
on your shore.

like a wreath, wretched over
my front door.
Pray, do not enter
nor seek to tempt fate
(she showed me her hand long ago).
It begs me,
always pleading,
listen, listen, listen.
Words cannot heal
the wounds they painted on your skin
and as you turn your shining
eyes toward mine
and you waver
on the precipice of past tense,
and the beating on the door grows
louder and louder.

i wanted you
to reach beneath my ribs
and touch my heart
but your fist fractured my feeble bones
your jagged fingernails scraped
the insides of my lungs
my nerves screamed but i
could not find the breath to protest
as your hands ripped vein after vein
my cracked lips shaped forgotten words
but you weren't looking at me
you were admiring your scarlet skin
when you caught my lip between
your teeth i
could ******* own blood
you promised me this was
how it was supposed to feel
but when you pulled back you
left my heart hanging
in my ribboned chest
it was months until i
learned to believe that
i would ever find
breath there again

After you moved out
I cleaned my house
top to bottom
I rid it
of every little thing
you threw away
here.
I found pieces of myself
that now bear your name
etched deep
a permanent reminder
of you.

Some things I could not bring myself
to burn.
Those I locked away
up in my attic
invisible to my mind's eye
yet there nonetheless.

Now others walk through my house
wondering how lonely
I must be
but I have long needed
living space
for myself.

So as I sit here
just my thoughts and
me,
I cannot help but wonder
what did I leave
in your house?

The lights went out
with my pen mid-stroke,
and me
mid-page, mid-chapter, mid-book:
I had thousands
of words left to write
moments hoped for and
testimonies yet to be shaped.
At first I convinced myself
it was an error of chance,
that I could write a beautiful book
I could make a happy ending,
if only I had more time.
But I had already written
too many indelible words
and the tear-splattered pages
dried bitter and resentful
devoid of life and love
and begged of my fingertips
to leave them alone.

I think you should know,
I poisoned the daisies.
I told you it was the dry soil,
that they always wilt this time of year.
You cried, but you'd never
let me see.
I knew anyway.
I knew you'd cry
I knew before
I found the pages you crumpled up
and threw away,
unforgotten in the wastebasket
and burning still with your body's heat.
In the moment,
I touched a fragment of you
from a thousand thoughts away
and realized I wanted you between my teeth -
like vengeance seeks death -
like fire craves destruction -
and it splintered me.
I couldn't help but
get stuck in your thumb.
I knew it would swell and
ache like me,
I knew you’d have something to blame for
the tear-stained pillow
and wilted flowers on your window sill.
I’m not asking you to
forgive me,
I know you never will,
which is easier
anyway.

You strip me down
to my trembling core,
and hold me still
fixed in your gaze
pinned beneath your thumb
your body begs me
to forget my creeping fears,
to forget that you see things
I don't even see in myself
I'm blinded by you
and your brazen assuredness.
You don't know Doubt like I do,
you don't lay with her at night
and let her ask you her incessant questions
until you can't remember
what you really look like
to anyone but her.
Sometimes she asks me
why you're here -
did I really think I had anything I could give you?
Her questions hang over my head
a dark cloud drooping, oversaturated with
the weight of the unknown
reminding me that it could burst
at any moment, and shatter me
it threatens to take the shape of my every mistake -
why did I do that in the first place?
what kind of person does that make me, then?
And I almost crave the downpour
just so I don't have to wonder anymore
what you think or how you feel or who I am to you
so you don't hold the power to crush me
with just the ghost of a word on your lips.
But that's not how the game is played
you can never know how it ends, of course
and I can only pray
not even to win, only that
I can make it to the finish before the game breaks me.

I'm
an overthinker
and overtalker and
sometimes when I speak I spit
and it lands on
a piece of paper and
the longer you stare,
the more it starts to
abstract from reality
into modern art.
It isn't amazing. It’s
a diversion,
something to look at
while museum wanderers whisper
behind the back you've turned.
That's vain,
right? Not to mention gross -
it's
embarrassing to
put your saliva on display,
but when you
frame it and see
your reflection in the glass,
shame cracks over your head
and dribbles down
with a twinge
of pride and
you think to yourself, maybe
I'll make another
if only for myself.

i wrapped an anchor 'round my ankle
and dove into the ocean
in march
when spring blossomed and the
ice fractured beneath my weight
i swam not for shore
but for the ocean floor
the pressure crushed my frozen skin
i followed your map, encrypted
in riddles and cacography
and there, submerged in the fathomless deep,
it occurred to me that
perhaps you did not want to be followed
so i opened my mouth and closed my eyes
i let the water suffuse my tired bones
and i sank, as
gravity drew me closer to
you

I lay down on a bed of thorns
to be next to him:
roses are quite romantic, they say,
and they were once my favorite flower.
My skin became sticky with blood
but I never cried, because we
bled together.
Later when I scrubbed my body
and the water ran red, he
was nowhere to be found.
In the aftermath I realized
my scars would never fade
my skin has stayed scarlet and sensitive
and now my tears betray
how my nerves scream at the touch.

I searched for him;
maybe he would assuage this pain —
but all he could give me
was months of bleeding silence.
It was only when I finally gave up
that he camped outside my door,
fists pounding against the wood,
hours upon hours, screaming
that he loved me.
But he looked like hell,
like he hadn't even washed his hands
since that night.
How could I tell him
that he reeked of acid?
That being close to him made my stomach churn?
That he looked like the worst mistake I ever made?
I said nothing;
I locked my door
and listened to him break.

Loosen your grip
around my heart:
my chest, now collapsing,
burns at your all-too-familiar touch.
Why do I unravel
into your arms again?
How do you fold me
into you, so deftly?
as if I had not perished here
a thousand times before?
as if I did not know,
despite your absolute claim on me,
that you would not
could not
ever be mine?
I wanted you,
not for true love,
I wanted to conquer you.
I was inspired by
fantasies of my independence
those dreams long awaited, now still
unperturbed in a *** from which
I cannot tear my eyes.
Morbid curiosity, or
fascination
masquerading as devotion
still tugs at my heart
with the warmth
and the force
of your touch.

Our souls were made of
the same stuff, perhaps literally
I can feel it when you cry
or hit the brakes too hard.
And you -
you've always known
what I needed before I did.
You would trip me and
break my fall in the same breath
and you knew I'd
do the same for you.
But somehow decades of
sharing clothes and video games
kitchen fights and hospital visits
twin beds and ***** dishes
brought us here
to an airport
and even after you leave,
it won't be real
I'll still be waiting for you
to walk through the front door
and tell me to do the laundry
and you'll be in a bigger bedroom,
wishing for the chair from
your parent's house.
But we'll still watch the same movies
and I'll be there when
you break your leg or
your heart and you'll
still call when
you can't remember what that
one song is called
or just to say goodnight.
Because without you
I couldn't have ever been
myself, and we
know somehow that we
haven't really
ever been apart.

We've found my pressure point it
seems, it's
every inch of my paper skin.
I'm sorry I
look like this,
my red cheeks slick with
tears that freeze
before I can follow them upstream
and dam the corners of my eyes.
I'm sorry I crumple
and can't stop apologizing.
They'll tell you love is
hard work, but
nothing of the weight of fear
hanging over the time
we spend apart
and woven into words I want
you to say but you
don't.
I'm sorry, sweetheart,
I'm a writer and a pessimist
reflexively narrating
everything unspoken between us and
I don't know if it's your fault
or my fault
or neither or both
that I flinch at uncertainty, expecting
it to strike me in the most painful way:
when the fear is as bad as the thing itself,
it can't really get any worse, can it?
The scariest part is the
maybe.
Maybe there is
no such thing as enough
no such thing as certainty
that it will be okay,
that you love me,
when I've lost
what it feels like
to love myself.

Eugene sits caddy corner
to the girl in the library.
He doodles in the margins of
library books,
and sips quiet rebellion.
Every so often, they make eye contact
for a split second,
and spill a hundred thoughts
across breathless space.
Eugene listens to her music,
loud enough in her little earbuds
to silence her thoughts.
He knows she's left-handed,
smells like coconut and sea salt,
and takes her coffee black,
but doesn't quite know her name.
Today she might be Jolie,
tomorrow Jasmine,
yesterday Genevieve.
They are just lonely enough
to never speak,
to starve on crumbs of
stolen glances and
shared songs.

I never told you how
your room looks just like you.
I can't help but notice its
soft edges and
angles,
and the way the mountains swell
determinedly outside the window
across from your bed.
When it's quiet enough, I can hear
your heart beating like music
from your chest of drawers.
The mismatched knick-knacks atop
your tenderhearted wooden nightstands
and I
watch you as you read, and we
try not to smile
as the lighting obliges
to make you
the central, most beautiful feature.

my life is yet untitled
and i do not want your name
scrawled across the cover
when you did not
sit here, writing
for hours
through splattered ink
and broken lead
and calloused fingers
and cramping hand –
that was me.
yet i continue
to doodle your name
in the margins of my pages
i am slowly realizing
i am the author of this book
i am not obligated to you
i am pulling out my eraser
because i have work to do

Your shirtsleeves are wet
with every word I wish I didn't say
and I look away, hoping that if
I don't see you, then you won't see
me.
But you stare,
and you do what I should,
thinking hard before you speak.
When you finally do,
I could cry all over again
because I still taste love on your lips
after I've ruined myself again and again
and again you show me
you are heaven on earth
as the dirt from which my soul was made
is flooded with the stardust in yours.

My legs swinging at the counter
your soul sizzling in the skillet
my cheek pressed to cold granite –
is time running still?
Funny how the night turns
my palms to melted wax
they're stuck on your skin; I
dissolve.
We drift intertwined,
smoke into the detector
and
I'm sinking through the floor,
if you care.
If you don't
I'm gone,
and I was never here,
I never shuddered from your warmth
or cried into your pillow.
You could look for me but you
don't, do you?
You sit redly in the cold,
waiting for Love to love you.
I would be remiss if not to inform you
she is not I
we are not even acquaintances,
her heart and mine.
I am where you aren't searching
she is seated next to you,
waiting for you to give her
what you never gave me.

Autumn is an expired favorite
of the sad lovers, sitting apart
with forearms stuck between
forehead and tabletop.
Tired souls shake off old skin
with the shifting of the seasons
and some call it a fresh start, but
it only ever feels like wasting away.
The desperate optimists grasp for beauty in
changing colors, but every leaf falls with a tear,
each
a dreary reminder
of all the once-lovely emblems
that decorated the golden days.
"Once upon a time" no longer evokes
the sweet nostalgia of fairy tales,
but carries the melancholy weight of
better days fading from
memory to myth.

I love you most now
as I kneel on bathroom tile
cold and vomiting, your palm just
above the small of my back
spreading fire and forgiveness
and hope and healing
through every trembling muscle.
I love you from
the sixteenth floor of my apartment,
as I careen towards the pavement below
because you've always been there
with open arms
even when you aren't here.
You wondered one time,
what would it be like
if we started over?
But I know now more than ever
we need every broken bone
and every sawed off cast,
with our Sharpied signatures
in high school handwriting
in order to love each other
as fiercely and messily
and fearfully and soulfully
as we do.
Because you hold all my mistakes
and all my forgiveness
as you envelop all of me
and I you.

I saw her
yesterday
climbing the stairs,
outrunning the blonde cascade
tumbling down, down
down her shoulders
outrunning me. I should have
known I’d never be safe
or good,
or sensible, not
with her in the room
I can’t move,
I can’t breathe,
I can’t speak.
She has me liquified
she’s an artist,
so I let her do
what she does to me
because maybe this is
my highest purpose,
to be her paint
for I love the feeling
of her brushstrokes
so I let her
muddle me into elemental puddles
and I’m glad of it, too.

I'm alone this weekend
just me and the echo
of a plate breaking
on the ***** kitchen floor.
I wish you were here.
I spent the day sideways
wishing for your upside-downness,
how you'd peak at rock bottom.
I'm thinking of inviting you here
so you could take up enough space for
the both of us,
so my pain would no longer be
mine, it would
be you.
You'd ask me to
slow dance through
your field of landmines, because
only you
knew all the right steps
and I'd
trip one
so you could scream about
things you could never understand.
You'd feed me curses
and when I got thirsty
you wouldn't know how to be water
until I was
a grease fire.
But in the end,
I'm alone here because
the only person who loved to see
me hurt more than you
was me.

Melancholy coats cars like pollen,
smudging windows and mirrors,
making vision hazy
dripping from faucets like
incessant spacey teardrops.
It hangs just in front of your
eyes and
curtains their shining irises; it
sneaks through your lips in
whispered goodbyes.
When you leave, it
holds my cold hands
and plasters traces of you
to every square inch of my imagination.
At night, it counts
the ceiling tiles, then the floor
and listens in the morning
to my dreams from the night before.
Melancholy swells for miles between us, keeps
a seat empty next to me, and always
hopes for you.

It took a lot of convincing, but
after a few years she finally believed
that I was only staring because she was beautiful.

because the night burns heavy
like tears hugging
the back of my eyes,
and the seconds run electric
like air buzzing
in the space between your fingers.
Rosy I-love-yous
turn to quick to
thorny goodbyes
stuck scratching my throat
as my lips fight fate.
Give me breath again
show me we were never happy happenstance,
string my soul out into
baskets woven holy
for the sanctity of us.
Drive slow
buy me time to pray
that we are eternal beings,
unbound from time, able to see
beyond seven colors to someday.
But maybe
in the end it doesn’t
matter how slow you drive, because
even after you leave, I’m there
in your car
always, every moment
in memory.

Our divine mandate
fell suddenly, fire from heaven
on a Tuesday afternoon
landing on our tongues,
so hot that it felt
cold.
We refused to believe
our roles were scripted,
but defiance did not make us gods,
it only
proved us illiterate.
We mounted a roller coaster,
knowing in the end we'd
taste dust and blood.
Our calling has
always been progress,
never regret -
and we are nothing if not
debutantes.

he warmed her edges until she
caught flame,
so she might burn bright like
him.
he splintered her spine and
peeled words back from pages,
flung them to the wind.
now the pavement is wet with
the shreds of her,
flushing away the last vestiges
of who she was.
she was once a book
with his name written in red
in every chapter.
each of the stories shared,
cautionary tales
thrown on the ground and
trampled under careless foot —
but all at once,
in a furious storm, he
tore himself away,
and even she cannot make sense
of what is left behind.

we seemed the perfect match:
i loved to talk about you
and so did
you.

Happy makes its tracks
searing, one hundred and twelve degrees
shower streams to skin
and from the corners of
my eyes to my jaw.
It gathers in droplets atop the
jaded pink tiles
that droop along my bathroom walls.
It condenses in distance
between us and words,
and splashes from my cheeks
to kiss the floor.
It bounces off my bedroom wall,
echoing,
slurred like dying art -
it hits me, head on,
brings me to my knees and
burns the carpet below.
You make me so happy, darling:
I'd never lie about that.