when you love, you love with mercury. your love is acerbic, abrasive, acidic. you are poisonous. you expand in my heart and spread like branches through my veins.

your love suffocates me with every minute, and as i start to lose oxygen, i hallucinate and i start to believe in you, believe that you are good for me. your love tightens my throat and freezes my blood. i lose circulation, start going numb.

y o u   m a k e   m e   n u m b .

you love me with mercury, corrosively, scraping my skin off with every "it won't happen again". but baby, there is no cure for this kind of poison.

-m. j. g.

when i die, i don't want a funeral.

i want a celebration of my life.
i want someone to plant a tree in my honor,
or name a new star after me.
my death should be conveyed through a form of life,
not through my body sitting and rotting in a wooden box
as people shuffle past me and pray monotonously.  
i don't want everyone i knew
to come and mourn my departure together,
comforting each other, wishing i'd had more time on earth.
i don't want people to tell their children at the funeral,
"you don't need to see her if you don't want to."

i want to be cremated, but not just sit in a jar over a fireplace.
i want my ashes spread all across the world.
i want my ashes to reach places that i could not when i was alive.
i want to be sprinkled over a volcano and dashed over the aegean sea.
i want my heart to be in egypt and turkey,
my arms to be in paris and new york,
my lungs to be in haiti,
my spine to be in greece,
my legs to be in antarctica.

i want to travel even when i no longer can.
i want my death to be the extension of my life.

-m. j. g.

do not fall in love with a musician because they will play you like a symphony.

they will get to know every enchanting note of you. they will find parts of you in which they must get improve but in the process they will resent you for this.

they will caress your heart with their suites and sonatas. they will gently hold your hips as you would the curves of a violin. they will *******, sweetly, slowly, then presto, with fire. they will make love with you, but not to you. they will play beautiful concertos with your body but they will not dedicate a single note nor rhythm to you.

they will finish playing you when they become tired of hearing your melody. they will leave you in a folder or a case somewhere where you will never be played again.


-m. j. g.

our lives do not collide.

you think we have always walked along a thin line,
separating the two relationships we could have,
but we crossed that line a long time ago.
we are not lovers. we do not love. and never will.
the most we've ever exchanged are words and smiles,
****** expressions and eye contact.
but i love you more than you'll ever be able to comprehend.

we are not meant for more. years take up the spaces between us.
you are responsible, you are kind,
you are a warm sunny day in the summer time,
that perfect day that's not too hot and not too cool.
i am childish, abrasive, loud and boisterous,
i am a tornado, ruining homes and cutting power lines,
i am foolish and young but so are you.
despite the differences between our lives we are still so compatible,
but our timelines will never cross any further.
the universe has been doing everything in its power to keep us apart.

i pray the universe is wrong with this one.
i feel important with you and you are important to me.
when i think of you, flower bushels start to grow in my heart,
their branches intertwining with my ribcage.
i start to feel love, the thorns fall off and i feel clarity and serenity.
you make me a better person, i never want to lose that,
but we can only tiptoe around this for so long
before we have to walk out of each other's lives.
maybe we really do walk on that thin line.

and one day that line will blur and you will leave me.
the hours we have are limited.
i love you,
but we are not lovers. we do not love. we never will.
our lives do not collide.

-m. j. g.

we walk on thin ice covering a lake of sharks and serpents.
i feel like i'm loving you through time.
we are not from the same era.
your soul is old and wise and mine is young and foolish.
we are so far apart yet so compatible.

i love you through time
but every day that time decreases a few hours.
i am counting down the days
where our time difference will reach close to 0
and you will have to decide
whether or not to let the difference go to 0
or break the clock.

i love you, but we are not from the same time.
we are spread apart by millions of minutes,
minutes full of emotions and love and happiness,
full of sadness, pain and heartbreak,
full of you and me.
are there enough to stay afloat?

i don't want to wait until 0 seconds. i need to know before then.
i don't want a broken clock.
it will break as the thin ice over the lake.
i can't use a broken clock.
i can't out-swim the sharks and serpents.

i can't lose you,
because i will be broken
and i won't know how to fix myself.

the clock is approaching 0.
is this time that we've spent saving ourselves
greater than the time we'll spend
together on solid ground?
i don't even think our converged timeline is a possibility.
we are not from the same era,
and i don't think we will ever be.
i feel as if i'll always be loving you through time.
this thin ice is breaking and i am the one without a lifesaver.

-m. j. g.

i am now 258 miles away from home which in retrospect wasn't my best idea because that's 258 miles of land and water and trees and cities that separate me from you.

i don't remember what it was that first drew me to you because there are more reasons than numbers in existence and i wish there weren't any reasons because now all i think about is you.

some say that holding on to someone who left you is pathetic, some say its tragic, and some say it's romantic.

personally, i don't know what to think because sometimes i find myself crying into my pillow because i'm so disgusted with myself but sometimes i daydream about us and what we could've had.

but most of the time i either feel everything at once, my feelings crawling around under my skin and in my muscles and bones, trying to claw their way out and expose themselves

or i feel nothing, as if my body has suddenly stopped producing hormones and chemicals and i'm just a dead man walking. it's been 4 months and i still haven't figured out how to manage myself.

i'm coming home today which is great but in retrospect it wasn't my best idea to buy tickets because now that's 258 less miles of land and water and trees and cities to separate me from you.


-m. j. g.

here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty