i read at the end of books
      acknowledgments
                           and in most of them
there's a thankyou
         directed at their "loving" "supportive" family
how they made their love for writing
    and helped them every way possible
                                                        ­                 i have a cat
                                                                ­         but he doesn't help
                                                            ­             support? i guess so
                but no, my parents and family
    they ridicule me for my writing
   it'll never be worth my effort and time

                            i'm scared that one day
        what their trying to say
             will finally get through to me
                                      i'll realize that my writing isn't worth anything
                                                        ­               it's not worth effort
i don't want that day to come
and no you're not going to be
in my acknowledgments,
my cat might
you wont

Trivial they may seem
one worded acknowledgments
provide the greatest of hopes

sing into my seashell
slung around my neck
it tremors with my heartbeat

lay vertically on my pillow
and let the coolness
influence your words

acknowledgments of
temptations of the past

tormented fields of
inappropriate flashbacks
memories of wanting
evolving into a new
self

We write the most beautiful things
and then, so abrupt is time, we end; pass on
after our deaths, we're dead and forgotten
unacknowledged, unmissed; just simply gone
every one of us lives this life with the need to be loved
each of us goes through life craving to feel as though we're needed
so we can write our lovely sentences
but it's worthless, for we can't escape our fate, and in the end we'll still die
the beings we were to become, no more than mere ashes in the wind
not worth even whispers to carry on our memories
so hurt thus fell these, our flowing words
our hearts consumed with bitterness; grey
years will continue to pass, none will visit our graves
our pages, our legacies shall sink; take solace with us in the ground
so we mourn now, thou still alive; oh how we sit, sit and cry
we don't really make sense
for why wouldn't we be loved by another when we for another can ourselves love?
perhaps unconscious self-contempt leaves us craving to feel neglect for our return
or perhaps we're just so terrified of being broken
we use our fears, rejections, anger and abandonments to write our most magnificent verses
why punish ourselves so, when time will still in the end overbear, and we'll all eventually perish?
oh, the merest of acknowledgments to such notions may as well rip our hearts from our chests
we may have fled truth, begging, pleading as we birth rivers of our blood, sweat and miserable tears
all alone then, without another soul in sight to wander with us while we roam deaths rocky beaches
So it's all of us who are broken, after all...

I want you to be like cracks in the wall
Splitting, terrifying, acknowledgments of age.
But full of character.
The kind of wrecked up building
Hipsters want to take photos of.

I want you to be a condemned factory
In some rundown New Jersey Industrial district.

I need you like the worn lines on some film reel.
Getting in the way of the best parts.

You could be a dress completely destroyed by cigarette burns
Or the stains on an important document.

You could be my anti-Christ to perfection.
And I’d crucify you with the best intention.

You’re like a car with old bullet holes,
Or that rug everybody is afraid to touch.

In the end you’re like some decrepit ruin of a vast civilization.
Old and broken.
But eternally majestic in my perception.

we all rely on the gravity that pulls us back into the earth when our heads are caught up in the clouds. the world is one gigantic living and breathing organism that latches on to the beliefs we so speak. but what separates me from you are the barriers that position us in places where we're out of reach. and all i desire for is to be able to meet you, see you and acknowledge the fact that you are real.

i move from place to place until i lose count of all the people i encounter and i feel as if we may have crossed paths on the streets or the grocery store or daily hour. i'd be lying if i say that i never get tired of searching for you every day but i believe the world moves in mysterious ways so that one day those walls will crumble and disappear and everything else will fall into place, and just maybe you might be real.

i drag my feet across concrete and daily routines often forgetting that the world is indeed too unfathomable to explain. you could have been that person gazing out the window of hotel rooms or vehicles. you could have been the person in front of the line, counting your change before making your way. you could have seen the scars on my arms or my vacant eyes and how you wished you could have approached me in some way that wasn't odd for you and i. maybe you could have said hi. but such acknowledgments are often dismissed with eye contacts and smiles, sometimes not even our senses could be leaned on. our true intentions disguised with glances, subtle hand brushes and complete negligence.

quickly enough, you are nothing but just a stranger walking past me unknowingly with only the thoughts of daily routines clouding up your mind. you may forget the order of things and misinterpret a stare as elusive, wishfully hoping it could have been an introduction to a greeting. i apologize for not initiating on to the next step and only admiring how lonely a human being could get, standing alongside me and many others yet our bodies seem to respond only to each other intensely but subtly to the eye.

we both know the holdback is agonizing and we wish for the day when we would be running our fingers through the rubble of the walls we tear down. for now, what we believe in will remain as thoughts. the world will always contradict with our stream of desires, dreams and feelings. you and i may not know of each others' existence but everything else on this earth is alive, living and breathing, and in time i will be able to look at you in the eyes and know for sure that you are all that is real.

n.j.

caution:
please don’t tell me I’m beautiful
because when you leave I will let the tracks of my tears stain my face for so long they will bear holes in my cheeks
and I will sit in front of a mirror and draw on it with lipstick all the features you loved but I now loathe
please don’t tell me you get lost in my eyes
because then I will have to dig them slowly out of their sockets and throw them in the ocean so I don’t drown in them
don’t tell me you love kissing every inch of my body
for then I will have to place an X on every space until I am covered in marks and no one else may ever kiss me where your lips touched that X
please don’t hold me too tightly
for when you’re gone I might have to wrap tape around all my limbs to remember what it felt like to not fall apart
don’t cook for me
even if it’s my favourite: grilled cheese
because when you disappear so will my appetite and my palette
don’t tell me you love my new tattoo because instead of a heartbeat I’ll see your name next to my heart;
the sharp and blunt sound of it causing irregularity in my rhythm
don’t tell me you dream of me
because when you’ve left I will try and sleep forever so maybe I can find you on a school bus or an amusement park in my dreams;
you’ll become a monkey
- mon petit singe -
don’t send me pictures of your face in a content expression
because it is tattooed on my brain and when you choose to go it will be a slideshow of your face gliding its way in front of my eyes
I wish you wouldn’t tell me you want me
because as soon as you said that
I wrote letters with all my stories and sent them floating to you on the lake you go to every night
and I documented my face in all of its varying emotions to assure you that sometimes you may not “want me”
and I called you – long distance;
the space stretched over miles –
while you were watching planes land
and with every word I said I felt like I was nosediving on that plane
I’m stretching my arm so far I can feel my bone separating from my muscle,
expanding across the distance to touch yours
even if I only feel your fingertips
I want to graze them;
feel the spark,
because when we met that spark was dancing around us,
taunting us, breathing us in, zipping past our faces
and I thought you wouldn’t kiss me
I thought maybe your face wouldn’t mould against mine
and I was foolish to think that this was what I had dreamt of
but you asked to kiss me
and when you did the reverb made me lose all thoughts;
I was emancipated from thinking
-- from thinking --
but caution:
please beware,
if you place a thought into my mind it grows roots and sprouts and branches and the leaves drift to the base of my skull
and I am filled with them:
you coming to me
you staying with me
you holding me
the branches grow stronger,
critters stay in there from the past
the birds carry the old memories and sit dangling on the tree,
bearing them;
new and old,
beware my thoughts
caution: do not read
but although I place this disclaimer,
I want you to rake the leaves and climb the branches
and water the roots
and sit by the trunk
and read the book of my thoughts
to absorb all my information, acknowledgments and table of contents
don’t flip through:
read
but beware:
do not plagiarize them to say to another
and don’t copy them word for word
and please don’t highlight them
my leaves are falling around you
smell the bark
and breathe me in.

I’d like to think that the universe gave me
You
To let me feel all of pain I’ve felt
It watched and waited around for all these years
Tapping its fingers in anticipation
Prompting me to write my book and hand back the finished copy
There was a gift for all three of us in beginning of this
But if there is one thing that you and the universe have taught me
It’s that this gift is no longer yours for the taking

Last night, I finally cried for the first time in 7 years.

I finally remember that gut wrench feeling and how your eyes have that slight burn.

I wasn't alone however.

I had 2 amazing friends by my side,
They were the first people who I ever told my horror scene of memories to.
I felt kinda bad because one of my friends cried with with me,
If there is a God, then bless her with everything good, she's such a sweet heart.
On one hand I like that she cries because it releases stress, but it pains me to know that she has stress in her heart.
I just hope she knows she can always talk to me and tell me everything no matter what day and hour.
Same goes for my other friend,
Most other males would have judged me, instead he handled it like a real man,
Understanding and acknowledgments of Loyalty.

I love both of those wonderful people to death,
And I will die before ever letting anything happen to them.

When you read my book and you find your name between the cracks
Of all my words and promises
Please do not think you’re in the acknowledgments
Know that none of my tears were yours to dry
They washed my skin and healed my wounds
That every time I’ve spilled my guts to strangers
They've all promised that there is a world of where you exist
But you’re not at the centre
And they were right  
I watched you walk away but this time I didn’t cry
Because after all the years I’ve spent invested in a love that is one sided  
I finally found myself in the reflection of your glass walls
I put my clothes back on and I left
It took me five years to see right through you
And you didn’t do a **** thing to get me here

Two wicks in
my earthen lamp. Love was
sprayed on my wings.

The gender quote
was inappropriate. You of
you and me of me were one.

The door shuts for
any god. The flowers
speak of religion.

The evening song
was a prayer. Name
was on the lips.

Sea salt was
piling up. You muffle
my hair to awaken me.

No acknowledgments were needed.

It's like when you're driving on the road.
You're going one way,
and there's another driver coming the opposite way.
And at one point you stare across to the side
And they do the same.
And your eyes meet.
It's that stare,
that connection.
You don't know each other,
there are no words,
no feeling,
no acknowledgments.
Just in that moment,
an glancing exchange,
and then it's gone.
No retention of feeling,
it just happened.

It's like a wall.

No, with a wall, you cannot see anything.

A window, then.

I suppose yes...a car window. Seeing without.

A poet of prowess, of power
Soars words on the edge of her tongue
Fluttering, soaring, stuttering
Free
Or chained.

Words hold no meaning
Without intellect.
Emotions hold no feeling
Without recognition.

We assign these names
These courses of action
Bullets
And bouquets.

True meaning
Is defined not by the humane.

For we only can know
What we are taught.

Yet our acknowledgments
Are our own.