white lace and
fishnet stockings, baby
soft lips and wide
green eyes. she ain't naive,
she's resourceful, using
what God gave her. burns
cigarettes like incense,
just to make dust
fall on the shiny redwood
dresser, float like
ghosts in the air. it's how
she knows ghosts
are real—how she knows
she's real.

I’ve been thinking about
How they’d find me if I’m the next
Set to sleep in a velvet-lined box.

Clear nail polish,
Wide eyes and porcelain skin,
But a tattoo hidden beneath my white
Ralph Lauren blouse,
Just below my right breast.
I got it when I was sixteen, searching
For reasons to breathe.

There’d be slits in my wrists
From a watch that was always too tight,
My hair would be knotted, frayed,
Out of place for the first time, in tatters
And freshly women patterns
Of thread, home
To a spider or two.

Maybe they’d look in my purse,
Hoping for some ID,
And they’d find the pack of condoms
Tucked in the zippered compartment,
Or the Lortab saved from my trip
To the oral surgeon’s—God knows
The pain didn’t go away.

My feet would be covered in dirt,
And there’d be scratches on my
Bare legs. They’d take pictures, shake
Their heads, tsk

What a waste,
But I’d say
Nothing at all. To me,
The alley behind the smoke shop
May as well be a velvet box.

“Love is short, forgetting is so long.” –Pablo Neruda*

close your eyes, keep them closed.
take an ice pick
and blind yourself to any reminders
of his flyaway hair or wrinkled jeans.
pour antifreeze on the memory
of the way he used to stroke your arm
before the kiss, and the cauliflower soup
he brought over when your dog was hit by a car,
and your eyes were swollen shut from crying, and
you wouldn’t get out of bed.
Keep a bottle of ***** nearby
to numb the area as you carve yourself
into a shape he hasn’t seen, skin
he hasn’t touched.
don’t breathe
until you’ve lost enough brain cells
to feel something again.
when you no longer see him in the face
of the cashier at the supermarket, when
you no longer recognize your reflection
in the tinted windows of an all-too-familiar white
sedan, you’ll know that you’ve finally done something
right.

If open books suddenly close,
So the fears I've written can never escape
And the creases in my mind where you marked your place
Once again become whole,
I'll fold what remains
And carry it in my pocket;
I've never met someone who could turn a page so lovingly
As you.

Glass wasn't made to shatter;
Paper wasn't made to tear.
Fragmentation is a side effect of carelessness, not of life–
Not of love.
A rose is not meant to be crushed, pulled apart petal by petal, simply because it is soft.
The doe, graceful and wide-eyed, was not created to die at the hands of a man indistinguishable from a snake in the grass.
The monarch does not flutter with lithe wings to be caught, classified, and pinned to a page,
Nor do the leaves change hue, turn crisp, and fall to be crushed beneath an entitled foot.
I do not paint my eyes so that you can watch me bleed black and gold down my cheeks,
Nor do I wear my heart on my sleeve so that you can rip it apart valve by valve.
I am not your window pane, nor your blank page; your willow tree, nor your frozen stream.
I am the rabbit sleeping deep in her borough; I am the bluebird flitting between trees.
I may be fragile, but that doesn't give you permission to break me.

My philosophy professor posed a question:

Mary, an expert in color—

The way light bends through rods and cones and the use of electromagnetic radiation—

Is blind to it, unable to even imagine the beauty

Of your sea foam eyes,

Rose petal lips. 

Does she, knowing every fact, every formula,

Truly know color? 
It got me thinking,

(I guess that’s the purpose of philosophy)

Did I really love you?

You hold me tighter than you used to,
But I don't mind—Not at all.
Somehow forever feels like I could count it on one hand,
And love is a word that can't even touch its own meaning.
I'd thank God or the stars, but you are so much more than a miracle—
You are the drop of rain before the storm;
You are the wind that whistles through the leaves.
I find you in everything: you keep me sane when the thunder hits too hard or the air gets too thin.
I want nothing, except you;
You in every form, every breath, every light—
The only person who could see the fire before it burnt me,
The venom before it stung me,
Change it to a smile and a heartbeat,
And still tell me that I'm lovely.
I could have a thousand chances, and I'd choose you every time.
I could live a thousand lifetimes, but only if you were by my side.
You are the exception to every rule that I made,
Every breath I take is for you—You and your soft eyes, sweet disposition,
Love as powerful as an earthquake, but as subtle as a snowflake melting on the tip of my tongue.
I've spent all this time running,
But you caught me, made me believe that you're here to stay;
Sweetheart, I promise you the same.
I hold you tighter than I used to, but you don't mind,
Do you?

You love my eyes, my smile, my hair—
But what of the dryness of my hands,
The birthmark on my neck?

Am I still beautiful at 2 a.m:
Makeup smudged, hair undone,
Eyes half-closed?

What of the wetness beneath my eyes,
My swollen lips and cracked apology?
Do you still think I'm pretty
When I'm crying?
When I've got bruises on my knees,
Blisters on my ankles?

It's morning-time, mid-spring,
The time of freckles, bee stings,
And sweaty cheeks.
If you want me, you'll take it all—
I will not shatter myself
So you can love one piece.

The same houses, the same desks with little chairs, the same road signs,
But nothing feels familiar;
And the people, heaven knows who they are,
Are smiling and laughing and kissing and
I'm so sad I can't breathe.
I've always wanted to be far away,
But now the distance breaks my heart,
And there's no comfort in coming home
Because I don't have one. I don't even know who I am—
I am tired, I am crazy
I am lonely.
I am a girl who can't stop thinking:
Why is everybody so different
And how did I become this person without noticing?
The worst part is that no one sees how dark things are—
They wake up married with two kids who wake up married with two kids, And then they're alone in a house by the beach
Because everyone said they would be happy, but they're not
And no one really is,
And they just want to do it all over because
All the **** houses, desks with little chairs, and road signs are the same but nothing feels familiar.
I'm just so sad I can't breathe.

There is a love I wish I'd never known;
Its bitter taste still burning on my tongue
Like steaming coffee sipped in haste.
I held my air tight to my chest, but you
Ripped it from my lungs with no warning,
Replacing it with your breath, old cigarettes,
And fumes from gasoline-soaked memories.

****, I was eighteen and had nothing left,
But you lit me on fire. You took more of me
Than I had to give, then left me alone
To create someone new out of my ashes.
Little did you know, I'd fill my cracks with gold,
Forge a new heart, then let the old one melt.
Babe, if love feeds on pain, devour someone else.

I thought I saw you on the bus today,
He had brown hair, like yours
Or was it black?
His eyes blue, but
Not as blue as yours.
Were your eyes blue?
I can't remember
How many times you'd stir your drink before taking a sip,
The hand you used when running your fingers through your hair,
Or which cheek dimpled when your mouth widened into its crooked smile.
The boy on the bus,
He knew. He was more of you
Than you ever were.

I'm so tired of where I am,
But I'm terrified that leaving would be to rip my heart out
And still beg for it to beat.
I can't find a better way to love myself
Than to hate someone else,
And I'm so scared that I will never bleed any color other than red—
That I'll never breathe deeply enough
To fill the empty spaces you left in my lungs.
I may be running away,
But running means you still care, and
**** it, I do.
I may not know where I'm going,
But I know what I've lost,
And I refuse to believe that the light that burned so brightly in my eyes
Will forever be smoke.
Why can't I be happy?
Please, just let me be happy.

They told me to open up,

So I ripped my heart out

and sewed it to my sleeve
,
Only to be told that

it was ugly.

I rearranged the valves and the arteries;

Changed its beat,

Until someone told me it was beautiful 
and stole it from me.

I searched for years at every street corner,

In every alley way and 
‘I love you,’

But I couldn’t recognize it. 

I met a man

Prepared to exchange my heart for his,
 but I had none to give.

I stumbled across it one day,
 alone and sitting in a gutter.

It was bare, cheated, broken—

It felt right at home.

He cries, tells her it's the last time.
Cherry lips and violet eyes,
She lies because she's so broken
She can't remember how it felt to be whole.
A boy too small to fight,
Though that doesn't stop him from trying;
A little girl who will never know that love doesn't include bruises and broken bones.
She could leave,
But she knows he'd find her as he has so many times,
Wandering the highway somewhere between the 5th and 9th time
She ponders whether it hurts worse to live or die.
Her baby in her arms and one trailing behind,
A shotgun aimed between her eyes,
She'll climb inside his old blue pickup truck,
Which is somehow colder than the October night.

She hears the whispers—
Illegal. Dependent. Brainless.
Can they not see their own reflection in her tired eyes
And realize that if the stars aligned differently,
They could have been the one wearing sweaters in the summer
And sunglasses in the grocery store?
As she pushes the shopping cart home,
She says a silent prayer that he'll be gone,
But he never is.
When her nose bleeds on the tile
She no longer cries,
Just syncs the pounding in her head with her heartbeat, screaming,
It's over. It's over. It's over. It's—

Count to ten, then come find me
Tangled in the curtains, as always,
Trying to hold still.
I get so distracted by the birds out the window,
Shifting from branch to branch,
Always singing a new song, taking off
Whenever they please;
Sometimes, when nobody's looking,
I try to fly too, but of course,
I never land on my feet.
When I hear you laugh that you've found me,
I pull the curtains tight around my shoulders before I
Count to ten, then come find you.

We ache so much,
Our hearts look like paper snowflakes,
Worn as badges on our sleeves,
They scream—
We are still beating.
You've got a laugh like a helium balloon filled with too much air;
I've got a smile made out of paper mâché.
We walk a tightrope just to meet in the middle.
We're not acrobats,
But we want to believe that
Falling together is better than standing on solid ground alone.
You promised you'd hold me until the lights went out,
But sweetheart, it's been dark for so long,
We've created our own spark,
From the warmth of our breath
And the steady rise and fall of our chests as one.
We may break each other's hearts,
But we stay and pick up the pieces,
And though we have cracks,
We'll fill them with gold—
I swear, they'll write about us one day,
Long after we've forgotten
The wind rattling the glass,
The kettle boiling over.

Do you remember my wool sweater:
How the fibers used to catch on your wristwatch
And tangle themselves in the buttons on your checkered shirt?
Those loose threads said what I was too afraid to—
Don't let go;
Stay just a little longer.
Fiber after fiber, they unraveled,
Until that old wool sweater was tattered and frayed and scattered—
Softly curled strings on shirt edges and neckties,
A memory begging not to be forgotten.
Even after all this time,
I'd bet you still find specks of red on your pillowcases
Or on your jacket as you ride the bus to work.
I hope you do.

When there are no cards left to play,
We start a new game.
There's never a winner,
Just two broken hearts and
Smiles that don't crinkle the eyes.
Do you remember when I buried my face in the plaid cotton of your shirtsleeve and cried,
'What do you want from me?'
'Everything,' you whispered into my mouth,
Your voice muffled as if we were breathing underwater,
Though we were both unprepared to drown.
Darling, if only we'd realized that when you took it all,
There'd be nothing left for me.

I might miss you—
Every hole in your jeans
And flyaway hair;
I might have saved that crooked smile,
Kept it close,
Carried it with me to the bus stop
And the bakery that makes my favorite egg sandwiches.
Maybe I counted every stutter, every heavy blink of your eyes as you fell asleep.

I might have stared your demons in the eye,
Kept them away during the night
(I've never been scared of the dark).
I could have kissed the scars on your hands,
The bruises on your knees.
It's possible you meant more to me
Than the autumn leaves
And the stars that stay frozen in place outside my window.

Maybe you knew me,
My bright lipstick and lack of self control,
The pale birthmark on my neck;
You might have memorized every curve of my lips,
Pensive sighs,
As I let you see the fear behind my wide blue eyes.

Maybe you filled the cracks I'd never admit I had
(It hurts just to say it now),
Found the fragile pieces and wove them into a blanket to keep me warm.
It's possible you saw the lies I carry,
The spiders with their gnashing teeth and blood-red eyes,
And stood by me all the same.
Maybe you called me, suddenly, on your way to work,
Surprised to find yourself wanting me, though we'd just left each other.

We might have been in love,
But those three words burned in our throats,
We could only choke out ashes, not even a spark.
Now every trace of fingertips across our hearts only brings up dust,
Settled deep in chambers and arteries for heaven knows how long,
Made from the memory of my lipstick, the holes in your jeans,
And everything we might have had,
If only we'd allowed ourselves to recognize it.

I'm so tired of my heart,
The way it breaks and wants and hates and
Feels so **** empty,
Despite all the love being dropped through the mail slot,
Signed and sealed,
Though left unopened in piles by the door—
None are from you.
I'm so sorry, I just can't
Whisper into phones late at night
And hold hands under blankets and
In the backs of cars.

I'm tired of your emails.
Give me longhand, scribbled out parchment;
Show me the ink smudged on your palm,
The ache in your wrist.
I used to think that mysteries were more beautiful than absolutes,
But it's so much easier to love you
In the afternoon—
Windows open, sunlight streaming in,
A warm breeze kissing my neck.

You gave me empty pages;
I filled them with poetry.
Darling, did you ever love me?

What happened to us was something like
what happens to flowers when the vase shatters,
Or what happens to misplaced keys;
Someone was careless,
Didn't pay attention,
And now we're left with empty spaces.
What happened to us was something like
What happens to the moon as the Earth spirals on its axis,
Or what happens to the trees as it starts to snow;
We were inevitable, natural,
But cyclical,
Never able to withstand the darkness,
Or keep together through the cold.
When you left, you took my pride with you,
Swore it was all my fault
Until I believed you.
I let you think that you meant nothing,
But you were the moon and I was the tide,
Without you, I'd cease to be.
In some other life, you'd be an artist, and I'd be your muse.
Long after we'd gone, they'd hang your paintings at The Met and say, 'Look how much he loved her.'
I'd still be a poet, of course, only this time
My poems would be taught in classrooms—Picked to the bone by children who'd scribble verses on their arms,
Wishing for a love just like ours.
Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better, but right now
Everything hurts and I wish you were here.

You ask what I'm thinking, and I give you
Some line I wrote in freshman English.
Then you sit there telling me I'm so insightful,
But, God!—I've got you fooled.
I am not special or interesting or
Different;
I am a girl who reads poems
(Far too much Bukowski) and
Lets the flicker of the TV lull her to sleep.
Night after night it's some new hero telling a girl with big eyes he loves her,
And then they're living 'happily ever after'
Like it's some place you can drop by for a postcard and a bite to eat.
It's *******.
Still, look at me—I eat it up,
Let it sink so deep that it digs through my bones
Until I'm practically made of the stuff.
And the worst part is, I'm running around spouting all this fairy-tale garbage,
Like maybe if I say it often enough, it'll come true.
But, of course, it never does.
You never burst through the right door, and I never cry into the crook of your neck.
I don't love you, and you only think you love me:
The ***** who reads Bukowski.

We were always taking scissors to our paper hearts—
Cutting shapes to let the light in,
Then throwing the scraps like confetti, though,
They fell more like rain.
We just wanted to feel something,
But now we're puppets without strings—
We spent so much time trying to get free,
We never dreamed of where we'd go,
Or if we'd go there together.
Now I'm tangled in your goodbyes and telephone wires;
There's a hole in my chest where yours used to touch.
I see your face when I look in the mirror,
As if I've forgotten whose shadow was sewn to the soles of my feet.
I carry you with me—maybe out of habit,
Maybe out of love.
To be honest, I can't tell them apart;
I don't think I ever could.
When you see the moon
Illuminate the fog,
Comforted by the creak of your porch swing,
Do you miss me?

We were so small,
But we felt galaxies within us—
Miles and miles of open road, splintering off in all directions.
We'd talk all night about how one day
The boys would come running and we'd pick them off like flower petals, humming
'He loves me, He loves me not.'
We'd dream about having our hearts broken,
Just like in all of those movies,
Hoping to one day be shattered so beautifully
Our hearts would become kaleidoscopes
When the light hit just right.
We'd stare at the old women in the theaters who talk too loud,
Ask too many questions.
We swore that'd be us one day,
Kids grown up, husbands at home,
Laughing at the little girls wearing high heels and bright lipstick.
But you found a boy, and he has a car—
He says you must be the prettiest girl he's ever seen.
And I'm not even a single star, much less a whole galaxy.
Time doesn't fly away—it dies,
And I've come to realize that we die with it.

You thought it'd be so easy to love a girl made of paper—
Crumple her mind in your fist, leave your mark on her vacant skin.
You were threatened by her lightness, by the staunch white;
Told yourself she'd be better for the splotch of color, even thank you one day.
Her edges would be thin, barely breaking skin if she cut you back—a quick sting and it's over,
no lasting scars.
Little did you know ink flows through her veins—
Miles and miles of words sharper than your scissors raging through arteries,
Pounding in her ears, crashing like waves against her teeth.
You thought it'd be so easy to burn a girl made of paper—
You tore her open only to drown.

I can't think straight
(Or crooked or sideways).
I'm too ******* tired to invent some new distraction
(You're no good at party tricks)
And too scared to figure out what the hell I want.
The water's filling up your lungs—
A kiss could make it all better,
But I'm too busy blowing bubbles
And skipping rocks across the surface.
Despite it all, you stand and wait
When I fall behind on our afternoon walk
And offer me your arm when the trail gets steep.
You're oxygen, but I'm reaching for novacane,
Trying so hard to be indifferent to the spark in your eyes and the part of your lips,
Though I know **** well it's no use.
I am a moth to a flame—
When it burns too bright, It consumes me.
So I'll turn away before it starts,
Blind myself to every truth except the one I live inside:
If I can't love you, I can't love anybody.