All of those identities that end in "t" and "r" and "n,"
make us feel god awful and self-conscious.
Singer, artist, writer, musician, mortician, poet.
Who entitles us to use them?

And it's true, your voice touches in between my shoulders,
and melts to the bottom of my stomach when you croon,
but you don't find yourself an apt enough player of the voice box.

And sure, painting the reasons why I woke from your dream,
might seem like I'm an artist, but I rather just say...
I enjoy painting.

And right, we like to etch words into books and alchemize
the desire to question into stories,
but we're just fans of reading.

And you know, when the air cradles the harmonies of your guitar
like newborn unicorns, I want to point and claim,
though you think you know too little to call yourself musician.

And yes, the way we lay our bodies to sleep every night sometimes hopeful we don't rise again,
is much like how we treat our desire to declare ourselves,
but that makes us only those who give the dead away.

And of course, my blood courses in order to stitch and weave worded thoughts like these together,
because they lighten our concerns and brighten our better qualities,
so of course,
yes,
I know,
Right,
Sure,
It's true,
I am a...
I might dabble in poetry, here and there. No big deal.

I want her again.
She's the rush that always hit you first, and made you less wary.
Takes any edge of yours that cut me, off clean.
Gives you no reason to be mean.

I want her again.
She dampens me quicker
than you could think you're not enough without trying.
Goads you into wanton wanting.

I want her again.
She pulled us closer together and then made us grateful.
You claimed she was synthetic,
but to me, she was my love undressed, tenfold.

I want her again.
She may have been fueled by chemicals,
but pulled your guard down for a little.
Just long enough, for my magic to work.

I want her again.
She set me free in your eyes.
But mostly
because she let you want me.

There
Fresh page
Devoid of lines
Yesterdays writing shows still
But only in faded reversal
And with every new word inscribed
The past becomes that much more illegible
Unless pen is dropped page is turned back
Or if tears are spilt all over todays entry
Upon remembering the concerns worth writing about the day before
So fill blank spaces with ink and dont stop
To read the woes of previously recorded thoughts
Until the book runs out of pages
Or your hand is too tired
Pen out of juice
Then you can
Read back
Again

I guess I'm just not the type of girl you'd write pretty love songs about.
It's much easier to write about how I'm a strong wind of fabricated concern in your mind,
rather than your golden girl.
How I enchant everyone but you.
How I must do it on purpose,
Because I love the attention.
I love the applause.
I love the lust and your love lost.
But if you read just one chapter of my own book of songs,
You'd see crayon writing that led to you all along,
outlining your salmon voice,
and your coffee eyes,
the kissing of your peachy skin,
my feelings you compromised.
But you needn't sneak to see,
I wish to be a silver spirit
that lives in your sight alone.
I worship you when I'm not on defense.
When you're not on the fence,
Walking tightrope, with me in your right palm,
while desires, goals and worries, doubts and fears,
and your book of scarlet nightmares are all in your left.
Teeter off and lose your footing.
You know I'll hit the ground first.
Soften the fall for you and your words.
Write on free faller.
Let's call it all off.
You pretend to be grey and modest.
You must do it on purpose,
because you know
I hate losing your attention,
I hate your forgotten applause,
I hate my lust for you
and here, your love is lost.
But even now that my stare is fixed
on you and your book
You still won't turn to look
because you don't believe in me
and you don't believe in ghosts.

Do you want to come with?
Would you accompany me?
Care to come along?
I'd like you to join me.
You could be my date.
Come with me.
How can I ever come with you, love,
when you haven't invited me?
You float declarative plans in the air,
and I'm left to jump and catch them, hungrily,
eagerly in a craze to see you, to feel you,
to hug my thighs to your waist desperately.
If I do so, I'm left waiting for my plea to be seen.
Waiting for you to be clean.
Waiting with no self esteem.
But this is our love.
And I will oblige, and not be stubborn
like you call me.
I will succumb to your efforts to be "cool
calm and collected," and unaffected by me.
Is that not it? Is it because you fear of rejection?
You tell me you don't know how to ask for my companionship.
Do you want to come with?
Would you accompany me?
Care to come along?
I'd like you to join me.
You could be my date.
Come with me.
It's not like I'm not your lady, and you, not my man.
How can I ever come with you, love,
when the air is a bitter cake around us?
Our comfort is a milk we squeezed from my *****,
and now I've only drips that your sighs of frustration
soak up every time I express my desires.
I've learned to swallow my words,
because I am lady, and not mama or baby, but the trauma
from the near past has made me wary.
No, I do not want to wait indefinitely for your ideas to play out.
For you to accept my plea to come with you.
I rather know when to be ready, so I can be myself,
and not be your beg-to-come pet.
Does it bother you that I want to be treated with respect?
Or from you, is that too much to expect?
Am I too much, is this too much, what is too much in your head?
Too many questions, to you, enough is said.
You treat me with silence, and I treat you in bed.
Whose anger is healthier? I don't know either.
But lets start with questions we can both answer.
Do you want to come with?
Would you accompany me?
Care to come along?
Yes,
I'd like you to join me.
You could be my date.
Come with me, love, so I can come with you.

The night storm washed up infant squirrels at my doorstep.
One by one, they crawled inside, their heads too heavy to hold up high.
I watched them paw at the carpet, their tongues searching.
Their claws find your sweater, within it they scamper,
they are hungry.
They rumble by my stomach, and poke their faces out of your collar.
To stop their crying, I feed them raisins, and we look to you for more.
But they see your eyes are meant for your thoughts alone,
and fall off my skin and out of your clothing.
The squirrels have grown up, and yearn for expanse.
That's okay hon, I’ll return them to the forest
first thing tomorrow morning.

I stepped in through his ears, covered in hot mud
and rolled off his tongue clean as a whistle.
I was no longer a whisper, he uttered in a painted mirror.
Scratching out two eyes that saw nothing but themselves.
He came to wonder
if there are ants in my stomach feeding an army
off the peaches I couldn’t eat for six summers.
Three winters with no springs yet, the snow up to my neck.
My eyes spilt pearls like a Japanese ghost, onto the white cold
he buried me in.
and when that melts into the lush green we’ve yet to writhe on,
I hope there are limbs left to entwine us,
I hope there are streams made to wash us.
My body unchilled is sight for him to absorb,
and record and plan a trip.
Diction may be a skill he knows
that I have learned to be versed in,
but no matter the assemblage of my alibis,
he finds me guilty, so I choose to make quiet familiar,
and comfortable and the stringy nerve endings I've grafted
into his skin and his kiss when I love him,
are threatened to be severed with scalding water,
poured from the darkest kettle called
doubt.