He's out of bed
and out of sight.
I lay with my back turned
to the night.
The sheets still warm,
I hold the loss.
It isn't sleep
if his feet don't toss.

Today, we woke again,
nestled
in our sheets and covers.
Our limbs were tangled
with utmost comfort in
Our usual, beautiful,
morning snuggle.
Sometimes, I fear
that I will be taken in our dreams,
and I won't wake to hear
your parted-lips-and-nose-rumbles.
But today, we woke again,
clinging
in each other's arms for warmth,
Our sleepy stares struggle,
to stay open in
Our usual, beautiful,
morning snuggle.
And I know
that this is exactly how
I'd like to wake again
tomorrow.
in Our usual, beautiful,
morning snuggle.

You know when you dont care anymore?
When you don't have emotions to spare anymore?
Yeah, that.
Whatever.

Water
running through the faucet,
can be
soothing
or
unsettling,
depending on how much is
running through the faucet.

Today, I accidentally spoke to a stranger.
Seated at the round table with my laptop,
I stared at a couple speaking my language.
He caught me looking, and seemed confused.
I was embarrassed for staring
so I explained, "I understood them-
there aren't many other speakers that I know,"
and quickly looked back down.
And the feeling of regret welled up inside me.
It was far too late.
I can see him staring at me, now.
Burning holes into the back of my screen.
For a second I thought he might have been mute.
Why stare at me so hard without uttering a word?
I'm not wearing anything particularly interesting.
He must know that I see him in my peripherals.
What if he really is mute?
Maybe he needs some help?
Should I look up? I can't.
Why not? Because that would mean
I'd have to speak more.
You shouldn't have spoken at all.
I was embarrassed for staring.
He should be embarrassed for staring, too.
I hope I didn't "speak his language."
He probably isn't even looking at you.
We're the only ones at this table.
He keeps looking up from his book.
Maybe if I look at him quickly I'll know if he's looking
at the empty billboard behind me instead.
I just looked up.
He's looking at me.
And not a word was exchanged.
Now this is that much more awkward,
I'll never look up again.
I'll just pack my things.
And never speak to strangers again.
But wait...
what if he knows me?
What if he's waiting for me to recognize him?
I don't know him, I'm sure.
He won't stop staring.
I close my laptop
and see my motley stickers.
Some with writing, some with pictures.
Sigh of relief.
Just my stickers.
I'd look, too.
Packed it away
and went to class.
How silly was I, just then?
But I still won't speak to strangers, again.

coated with cushions
fall asleep anywhere
without a single care or worry
wish i knew your secret
Captain Comfort.
everything comes easily
easy to withdraw
easy to release
who cares the least?
Captain Comfort.
i wanna feel what it's like
to be in that soft skin
forgetting what is in
forgetting everything
Captain Comfort.
in your own life boat
is there space for me?
or would it only be
discomfort?

a year ago, my writing was purple prose.
last month, it was filled with forced rhymes and capitals.
yesterday, it was pompous.
today, it's just novice.
right now, it's terribly trite.
on my death bed, I'll know it'll be all I have.

What is a pout?
What is a pout if your lips
are not there to kiss it?
Non-existent.
It isn't anyone's invitation
but yours.
So let blushing pilgrims
host a wedding with
dark colors and no guests
but your lips and this pout.
You may now kiss.

I stare into you, you into me.
And I see a language that isn't written
in the books that you read.
Or even in the words that you had conceived,
and hid away so carefully, to be unbelieved.
In your stare I am told a story, and reminded of a need,
that I also find within myself, for these words to be freed.
And in those eyes I found that these lips came to stutter,
when I asked you how many confessions could a gaze ever utter?
After a night of staring deeply into each other,
you replied, "Many," and made my heart sputter, murmur, flutter,
and then dip into the gutters, and sit in a messy clutter.
Daddy, you made me melt, I swear this isn't butter.
All for a second, I knew, you knew and we knew one another,
and I wished, you wished, and we wished to be called, lovers.

When you live inside the hole,
your fingernails are short and your feet are flat.
The climb is only as high as you let your gaze rise.
The meager buckets of rations fill you until you wait for them.
No longer do you wait for Clarise.
You see his face that once brought you fear of captivity,
But now it only brings you utmost desire.
Your world is the hole and **** because you're limbs are sore and ripped.
When is the next time you see him again?

I was going to sit here on this sun drenched bench,
and write about how upset I am,
but the ample lighting licking my wounds,
the whistling winds kissing my cheeks,
and the colorful campus folk walking around with unspoken stories,
made me forget all about it.

I remember when my feelings for you were diluted with the desire to be drunk and careless.
Part of me wishes to return to a summer night where it didn't matter whether you responded back to my beckoning,
because I'd never be as lonely as that makes me feel now.

I'd forget things,
but they're much worse to discover again.

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.

In what chair was patience seated before we met?
At the long table where acquainted faces were eager to eat
we sat at each end, like king and queen and let the lines of empty dinnerware
and the cattail centerpiece divide our once linked gazes.
But I felt that wary stare peeking between leaves,
your gleaming mouth moving in vehement whisper, cursing yourself.
I see everything, but I pretend to know nothing as I place napkin in my lap,
looking past the guests beside me, into the kitchen door window.
You observe with intent, you assume my watch is bent to our friends.
Dinner isn’t ready, and everyone is restless.
I am quiet, and apologetic for the fellow who chose this venue,
because I know he probably feels no remorse, and only anger,
for the waitstaff spinning around the other tables.
Compassion isn’t a cell worth refueling for this company,
with large brains and demands, but space and time consuming bodies.
Our cups are dusty as our carpeted souls.
I see my fingerprints all over yours, through the constructed cold and cattail,
Clean, round spaces where I really knew
I touched you.
A lonely fool perked up, finally and thank goodness, drink is to be served.
How else would we last while our bellies rumbled with distaste and depravity?
I watched her pick her scabs and toss a pound of flesh to a neighboring plate.
It was yours.
You were too busy glaring at me with loan shark’s interest.
I am but a merchant who didn’t know what to sell and where to sell it,
but closed business when my ship found asylum on an island.
My visage no longer appetizer, you eat the poison on your plate.
It was an inerasable memory that the smell of cooked meat and spices interrupted.
But everyone was too drunk to remember we were hungry.
And I was too sad to order anything, anyway.
So I waited, glancing down, moved my napkin to wipe my lipstick off,
and on my lap, I saw,
Patience in between my knees, on my royal wood grained seat.
I look up, and once again, our eyes meet.

Here is a thimble.
Your finger is protected from ******,
when sewing a passionate garment.
Yet the blood of a tailor,
is a blessing in dark garb.
Discard metal and thread carelessly.
My skirt is wine red and parched.

I can't get through any other way.
My last pen running out of ink is a thousand times worse
than my throat being too hoarse to scream,
or duct tape plastered over my lips.
Because asking "What?" with my voice never gave me a real answer.
Which should be expected, I guess, because "What?" is not a real question.
I do it to ask myself if I am wrong.
I do it to hug myself even if I am.
Or if I have been wronged,
and I need to accept insincere or
unsaid apologies.
I write because the only place I really feel welcome,
Is in between ink and paper.
You'll find me there,
Writing.

There's static in the way my breath falls when you look away.
Your fingers leave mine like an unclear whisper,
but the question remains.
What did you say?
Am I alone? Or will you stay?
Hearing noise and distant chatter-
foreign and unimportant.
All I long for is your story telling.
An uninterrupted electricity.
The sound of your voice,
Pulls on the hairs of my skin.
Don't stop talking to me
But please use some dryer sheets.

You are the darkest my octopus could ever release,
I love that pitch black, sometimes I wish I could swim in it.
I wish I could swim in you, and your darkness, and love.
But I tread black water with white gloves and fear drowning.
Your brilliance on my cold bare skin does not ***** me,
But mark me like tattoos and your ink I adore.
Let me keep your night in a bottle, safe and contained.
So when I feel lonely my skin will be stained.

You cracked it in two and let it slip past its shell into the heat of the moment,
To a fiery hell, it swelled ever so slightly, bubbles escaping its brightly colored center, golden like your favorite star, it was a sunny-side up,
but then you flipped it over and let the runny side down,
you just let it sizzle, hunger provoking scents drowned the room.
and right when it was meant for you to consume,
between two crisp pieces of staple food, you bit down, hard,
until it was scarred enough to leak into your waiting mouth,
creeped into a fading out, of cardiac arrest,
my heart for you was just two eggs, over-easy, at best.
My heart for you was just what you ate for breakfast.
Now, when’s lunch?

I like to take hot showers.
I spend hours standing in place,
with the heavy strings of wet heat beating down my face to my feet.
Soothing. Sometimes I’m brooding,
but this eludes once I meet quietude.
A hot shower is a forgiving mother’s embrace,
liquid form of sweetest praise,
and the warmest lover’s lace.
A hot shower will wash me clean of your ways.