i think i started five poems just now
trying to find the right words
some days they flow with ease
some days they sound
strained
the backspace button shows
the most wear on my keyboard;
i wish there was a
backspace
for life...
i stared at the screen too long
and it went black
tired of waiting for me to
think of some clever combination of words;
i never set a screensaver
there's something weird about those.
i read a poem the other day
by a poet telling us
what it takes to be
a poet
but i think anyone can be
whatever they want;
who are we to judge
when we are always writing
about those who
judge us?
our species is endangered
in this age of mindlessness
we are the catalyst
for creativity
the embers of the fire
started by the great minds
of ancient times...
will we let it die completely
or will we succeed
at rekindling its
greatness?

She's been trying for days
backspace, erase; can't find any ways
Its the kisses he gave before their lips met
has her caught in a daze, thoughts stuck in a net
But who can expect
the other not to dissect the moments during, the minutes after,
the hours proceeding a kiss?
From prologue to epilogue is to reminisce of bliss.

I can't stop the hurting by hurting.
at least,
not with cuts nor burns these days.
because I will pay if there are scars that stay.
but at least no one notices
just how much I weigh.

Everything I write, everything I draw; delete

The things I create, I cannot complete

Is it being insecure or being lazy?                                                            ­                                                                 ­     

I don't know how to be a productive lady                    

I feel stupid                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                                  

Since I can't anything executed

My work lives in the recycling bin

It's close in resemblance to a din

The backspace key is faded

My soul is abraded

I hate that I can't articulate

Does anyone else relate?

At least this poem is finished but it has no real end                                                              ­                                

I hope it shows what I intend

I was going to write some
Raw truth
Alas the backspace overpowered
And my ugly truth
That I fail to accept

was erased

It is a fun game
That this keyboard
This black ink on this temporary white screen
Can so easily disappear
Can so quickly be erased
Without a single trace of it

And I pity this page
My page
That can so easily be erased
By this electronic eraser
That clears my ugly truth
That I can never seem to...

And ****!

You will never know the words I was going to say
For they were just erased
And deleted
From this electronic white page
By my electronic eraser
That distorts my ugly truth
That....

****


It's like a magic trick
This thing
You'll never know my final stanza because
Of my contemplative fingers
That too easily erase.

**** **** ****
The writers' fingers go
They race
I can hear those backspace buttons ringing through the air
Of this dead, echoing night
Erasing their thoughts
Because of
hesitation
Doubt
Contemplation
The worry that they won't care
About that last line you were itching to write

Tell me
Do you hear them
Loud and clear
In the drumming air

****! ****! ****!

The writers' words
That will
Infinitely
Be
erased.

i tried to write an open letter to your new girlfriend. i sat for hours, writing draft after draft, typing over backspace after backspace, all in vain. i realized at the end of it, i had no words for her. i had no wistful compliments, or tips dipped in nostalgia, or even warnings -- i realized none of those are mine to give. i remembered that there have been at least a dozen girls between me and her; you are no longer mine to giveaway. i am no longer the ex. i was never really the ex, but i am no longer the anything. i'm a girl you used to know. years ago. a girl you'll come across in the yearbook, decades from now, and blink -- was that really her name? you'll swear to yourself that it was more beautiful, back when you moaned it in my ear. you'll show me to your kids, or even your wife, laughing and saying there's my high school . . . you'll pause and stick-in the word 'girlfriend' because it's the closest thing that fits, but we both know better. i was never your girlfriend, i was just your ******* girl.

there is no fondness to this story. there is nothing for you to tell your kids, unless you're ready to ******* jade them; there's the girl who starved for me in year nine, there's the girl who didn't say she loved me until it was over, there's the girl who couldn't function with or without me.

there's your girl. one of your girls. a notch in your belt. now that i think about it, maybe you'll just flip past me in the yearbook. and maybe, if we ever see each other again, all you'll do is blink.

I can't tell you
How many times
I've hit backspace
Trying to write
This.. this.. poem
About you

About your death
And how it sits
So uneasy
In my blood cells

The horror of it
Plays in my mind
And I wish it didn't
I wish it couldn't

I see it all
Everyday
So vividly

The violent rage
Fueled by psilocybin
That you went into
As you slammed your
Fist through glass

The faces of the
Officers as you
Bled to death
On the floor
In front of your mother

The screams that ring
Through my ears
From that night
Slice through
My unstable soul

I miss you
Plain and simple
I wish there was
Somehow more time
Or a way to
Trade

I don't think that's
Possible

But I really would
Trade

Because the thought
Of my best friend
Losing her
Brother
Of sixteen
To drugs
Simply

Haunts my bones

sometimes
words come out wrong and
hang
there
sparking
in the air
ripping shreds of whatever
might have gone right
and though youd like to take
it back
the words are out
to stay

what a gift
to be able to type
long trails of black and white
and take it
all
back
switch and rearrange the letters
create paragraphs you dont want
nothing will last
make a beautiful picture
and then make it
more elaborate
adding swirls of blue and green
changing the shape
guessing
second guessing
mistakes vanishing into blank white space
open for a second chance

The backspace on my keyboard has been broken
for well over a year.
I drank beer, *** and orange.
Smoked hash spliff. Felt better about this wrongness

that surrounds my view of the world.
Desperately in need of some chemical respite,
Serious consideration given to antidepressants as
a way out of this and into fitness, all the viable options.

Ah, perhaps some poems should leave well alone, but
this is the truth
so bear with it. I don't feel like I choose to see what I see,
Nor think these gossamer thoughts.

I am the typewriter and you were
backspacing backspacing backspa
all my words as if I had never said them.
You knew I meant
every letter I slammed down
furiously into the keyboard
writing about you
about your lack of making time
closing me off last minute
ignoring any plans we made at all.
I don't get why you had to leave my
thoughts as if they were not validated.
If someone cared for you as much as I do,
I sure hope you don't backspace on them
before they can get a word out.

It's been another cold summer
with the
air conditioner running nonstop -
Yeah I am constantly caught up - at screen
Racing thoughts I capture them
plus
nightmares are right there
to deform ideas, but ideally
I'd die for, my ideals
Yeah
So I try to warn my peers to keep it real
But honestly, my fear is
it appears that no one wants to hear
About that ****, rather just amount to ****
Pout and *****, sulk and disconnect
I'm ******* repulsed by it - so I choose not
To follow suit and instead chase my heart -
Call a ***** a ***** and just make this art
Yeah rather that than rage for days
Yeah I'd rather work away the pain than relax distracted from the fact that we are each a slave - in one way or another

He texts me.
It’s impersonal.
What was I expecting it to be?
There’s no real connection except that of a single flame in the altogether too dark caves- or cavres- of our hearts.
I almost backspace it all.

He texts me.
He tells me I’m cute.
Cute is a compliment that’s too easy.
There is nothing in cuteness except that of a noncommittal compliment but it’s meant to make my cheeks blush.
It doesn’t. Nothing does.

He texts me.
It’s nothing at all.
We aren’t saying a thing.
There’s nothing worth saying when you’re talking in circles with a man who can’t understand that you’re more than a surface you show to the world.  
So I say nothing. He says nothing.

He texts me.
We say goodnight.
What was I expecting to feel?
There is nothing in these feelings except that which reminds me of you and I hate that that’s all it is.
So I sit down and think.

And I write you a message.
Every line I want to tell you, everything everything everything that makes me sad that you’re gone.
Everything everything everything that makes me well up in tears- in emotions I thought I was finished feeling.
So I sit down and I write and I write all of everything down.

And I backspace it all.

tread lightly on the frigid ground,
or crack the ice and quickly drown.
I died a long long time ago
in hell-sent, burning, freezing snow.
it felt like heat, the cold that blew.
and why it did I never knew.

I'm just going to start off with this
a fairytale that was beautiful all filled with bliss
You and I is what I miss
I miss your touch and your kiss

Perfection was never found between us
but we created it but then we fussed
I got comfortable and lazy
fueled with bitterful lust

I lied to you hurt you but where did it end?
A broken heart, tissue boxes
Love that cannot mend

To wish that I was direct
is all that I should have been
acknowledged there were problems
where else I was keen

I lost my sight of you
I lost a part of me
Thinking this was a dream
believed to have gone green.

Now that you are gone
I know that it's over
To think you and I'd come to an end
I still wish upon a four leaf clover

It was both of us
things didn't work out
nature took the course
it's not what I'm all about

I wish i'd hit send
text you what i'm thinking
but i know it'd just annoy you
the hazard lights be blinking.

I know that if this went to your phone
Our love is absolute wreckage
but I'd type backspace before you'd know it
it's just an unsent message.

I'm tired of missed calls
Undelivered texts,
Removing digital evidence
Of an ex.

Typing '****' when
longing to howl
Pressing like, acting,
you're on the prowl.

Weary of condensing my
message
To just on small
passage.

Tap it all out,
Just to backspace,
like what you need to express,
Is a plain old waste.

Look up from your paper thin,
Retina display,
Don't let technology
Get in the way.

Take chances, soar
ignore the device
that makes your life
so impure.

Throw away the shackles,
Reconcile,
Cry on shoulders,
Whisper, wander for hours,
Whatever you do,
Ignore the iPhone's powers.

Love love love,
And don't feel bad,
For not getting a text back,
Is not the worst pain you've had.

Be truly elated, this time
don't pretend
put down your mobile,
As for now, in this moment.
Technology needs to end.

Sometimes you want to text your girlfriend
“how are you, baby” but then realize you’ve
never called her baby and now might be a
strange time to start so you backspace
four characters and now it says “how are you,
love” but then you realize you haven’t
said you love her yet and tho she’s said it to you
now might be a strange time to start, so
you backspace and say “how are you” and pick out
the male zombie emoji and send
and
a few
minutes later
your phone pings
and she says she’s reading about ears

I wanna take it back
to ‘99

When my best friend was all that mattered
and the future we dreamt about
under the effect of minds altered
was tantamount to our freedom
to roam and ride ***** through the streets of silk city

When an unhampered day felt like
the beginning of time
and walks through east side park
evoked a natural high--
because I had no business holding hands
with the boy from the other side
of the tracks

Stacks
Of opportunity
Not yet known and unwasted

When I was nineteen
I learned to procreate.

Sparks were flying and fears were moving and hearts were beating and hands were racing and bodies were sweating and hormones were raging. We were wrapped up tight in your Target sheets, gasping for each breath as if our end we would meet. Our eyes averted. We were so nervous. This new act of pleasure drove us deeper and deeper. We hoped we would stay, we hoped and we prayed and we loved until that day.

I said no more. You cursed and slammed the door. This wasn't for us, I couldn't take it. I wasn't tough.
You begged and pleaded to be forgiven. I was done pleasing and was ready to listen to reason.
That day was the last and I said I ain't coming back. You kept pulling me down so I said **** it and I turned around.

Around to my other guy, because I wasn't happy with the one by my side. To my back up beau waiting for me after school. He was there on the long nights as I wiped my tears from saying my goodbyes. He held my hand and listened to my plan of the two of us finally making it after two years of struggling and suffocating in our relationships, our individual emotional abyss. This was our time, our time to shine. Time to let go and be happy and be free and be who we wanted to be. All I needed was him and all he needed was me.

But that crashed and burned.

What we thought was forever was only a game. Heartstrings were pulled and heartache was made. Disaster full on. Before I knew it he was gone. Two years of my life were erased just like that, like a single mistake where all you had to do was backspace. I cried my eyes out and I banged my head and I avoided you and I wished I was dead. I gave you my heart on that very first day and you kept it for two years and then you threw it away.

Twenty one today and I've come a long way from the girl that cried over broken hearts and broken minds. I'm strong and it's true, I love someone, I do but it's in a different way because today's another day. I don't have to live worrying about what ifs and the past. It's gone and it's over and I'm thankful for that. You both made me cry, my arms up to the sky pleading and begging for something so dear, but how did I know I would find it right here? Now I've got my heart together and I wear it on my sleeve, proud but protected from any would-be's. I'm happy and I'm healthy and I feel joy and I want to sing. This life I am living, I can't imagine any other thing.



*September 20, 2013

I have been trying to think of ways to say 'I love you' on paper
without writing outside the lines.
There is much more to the way the blinds paint sunlight on your body
than beat up notebooks and chewed up pencils.
I make a lot of mistakes,
the kind that rubber only smears but doesn't erase.
I didn't mean to crumple your delicate skin like paper.
I know that paper comes from trees,
yet all the poems that make me think of you do nothing
to help me breathe, and your touch only proves
that my breath is easier to take away than you'd like to believe.
Forgive me for being comprised almost entirely of errors and mistakes and strikethroughs with red pens,
While you are so clean and refined.
I think of you in cursive.
Take my trembling wrists in your strong fingers
and guide me with a steady and patient hand.
Teach me to love you in bold print and I will underline it three times,
and again,
and again,
and again.
In my head, you are a million brainstorms thrown into waste buckets,
and if for some strange reason Helvetica is the only way to make you almost understand my thoughts,
then I am typing furiously and waiting for you to see them all.
All I ever wanted was to fill the doubles spaces between your fingers with my own,
even though sometimes you wish you could
backspace the words you didn't mean to say to me
while I pretend I don't remember them.
I have been trying to think of ways to say 'I love you' on paper
without writing outside the lines.
Then I ripped up the paper, scribbled it on a napkin,
and wiped the blood off my face with it instead.

We're all so captivated by the moment
Letting it slip by as eyes lit up by phones.
We've created sadness and happiness
In rectangles that connects those alone,
Except it's just a different kind of loneliness;
Hit escape, backspace, redefine the definition
Of what it meant to be alone.

We're all connected, we've forgotten
Whether to check or uncheck the connection,
We've lived as circles on a square nothing
More than bits of bytes for an avatar;
Where we witness *** before driving a car,
And we're caught in some lie the world built
That we are so enchanted by thoughts of
"The single ladies are in your area"
So we build blindfolds on what truth the lie beholds
We're all just bits and bytes of data.

So how much more of mankind are we
Where our eyes are glued to a screen
And chatrooms are as far as we've ever been.

We're all striving to be  in the latest social circles
That we redefined circle to mean a locked box.
So hit escape, backspace and in either way
we'll always find ourselves unchanged.

In a world of wires and threads
Of bits and bytes of data
How alone have we become?
Where information superhighways
Are all full of passing cars.
Tragic that traffic keeps moving
And we'd forever remain friends
But yet strangers all in the like.

Hello, old friend,
whose semi-permanent smile
laces my vision like toxic ranks of pearly whites.

Hello, old friend,
whose sparkling eyes blaze
like the funeral pyre of my pride and prejudice.

Hello, old friend,
whose apparent ineptitude melts like happiness
as your name burns in black on that page.

You signed my yearbook like a death certificate,
wrote an affectionate note in the shape of nothing
worth knowing.
The lines bleed, multiply, crackle and shine
in the dull light of this most tiring expanse of computers.
Their brains function better than mine.

Hello, old friend,
whose pen now swirls across the work you were assigned,
work you pursue less like a lion
and more like a cougar,
if you get my message.
(There’s no taking the jungle out of you, Amazon.)

Hello, old friend.
Keep snapping pictures with your iPhone,
like it’s New Years and you just kissed DiCaprio in Times Square,
wearing a dress with all the greens of envy
splattered across the fabric.

Hello, old friend.
Keep telling me you hate it when I act like this,
when your eyes turn to four points and your skin to letters
from colleges begging like a forgotten lover
for you to take them and make them home.
The home you’re leaving for next month.

Hello, old friend.
Today is now solemn in so many new ways.
You achieved higher than the skyscrapers in the photograph
next to your eight-line submission.

Hello, old friend.
No.
Revision time.
Revision like the backspace key and the scribbled lines
over inadequate things I wrote
to try and climb your Olympian pedestal.

Revision like the eraser on the pen,
revision like the keys thumping as though this machine
had a heart,
as though mine wasn’t broken
because I’m never good enough for anybody.
I write my best poetry when I’m angry.

Ironic that poetry made me angry.
I can taste the paradox spinning like the clock hands
that tick, tick, tick until the day when you sit in a car
on top of a thousand suitcases
and a few well-wishes from your confederates in college.
I can taste it like a toxin.

And now,
now you’re going
and there’s only time to say:
good-bye, old friend.

My life is like a keyboard in
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
I try and Esc those who are poison to my life
where I just need to Tab and skip ahead a week
or maybe a month
that doesn't always work so I try and find an Alt way
if all fails
push through to the End
Shift to the new chapter
and delete them from your life
phone
social media and all
I like to enter into a long dream
so I can wake up and start over
some days feel like I am on caps lock and everything is drastic
or way too exciting I just need to scroll down a bit to save some energy for the rest of the day
Some days I need not be alone
but to insert myself into healthy groups
full of positive vibes and energy
if I stay with healthy relationships
my f8 should be well off
but don't quote me on that
if I ever get to crazy
feel free to tell me to backspace
and just chill
I don't want my life to be just okay & full of JK's
but rather full of spontaneous adventures
while trying not to be a jailbird one day
I know we belong together
for that is why W and E are next to each other
like U and I
but don't #perfect us for we are like many others
so if you could let me clear my mind
and focus that would be great
for I am @ a point
where I shouldn't be worried about $$
and the % I make
to help do things for you and I
because it isn't about
money but taking
one letter one word at a time

If you want flowery poetry
Hit pause, backspace delete.
I write on a lot of subjects;
Only a few could be called sweet.
I’m not into swirling windstorms
Or describing billowy clouds.
Not into extolling autumn leaves
Or conifers standing proud.

I try to select the human things
Whether good or even bad.
Sometimes I wrestle with
Life twists that make us sad.
I try to speak for everyman
And that includes the women.
I try to reflect life circumstances
And the results the travel with them.

So, crooning polysyllabically
Is seldom my favorite tune,
Nor is waxing limerickally
About June, and spoon and moon.
Instead I’ll probably take to task
Those who live in sappy hope
A prince shows up in their life
A proper romantic dope.

I write the rhymes about crooks
That steal from your children
And the supposed leaders
That ****** and abuse women.
I write about parents who
Ignore what their children need
And instead find their joy
On selfishness and greed.

After so many millennia
We really need to stop
Waiting for someone else to come
And be the moral traffic cop.
It is us who need to change
And teach our children accordingly
Because the way we are fixing things
Humanity is progressing dismally.

So keep your butterfly couplets
And views of rain on hedges.
We are falling apart as humans
And it’s visible on the edges.
It will only take a few crazies
With power enough to wield
And this planet, and us of course,
Will no longer have a shield.

weathered fingertips in sensual crescendo
arouse blitzing keystrokes to commove
wild Js and Zeds, Ks and Is too.
harmony of the king's three-thousand acre jungle
swallowing the stormy orange cyclical stew

and tantamount to its feral cavities
thrushes whet jagged spinal bones to split
news of the no-rhythm, sambas of new religious canter
infiltrates the **** cavernous walls

This inner ear and greater sound
knew to find sanctuary here.
Lends its awesome craft to the next
And next, and next, and next;

beautiful unboxed melodies
new unused sweet single-reeds
threading that 20s centrifuge.
Saxophone. Incantations unfolding

Aloof in its ***** it unwraps
The veil of green, a costume of black coffees
Cigarette stained curtains exhumed to greet
Thick plumes of albicant sinewy smoke
At the heap of its glorious song

Uniting the funnel of eardom to consecrate
Bliss. Intrinsic and purple
An irrational knot of Portuguese drum
Met over by African toms and rattles

A glue imbued into those unmistakable
Chakras of this spell of mourning and reversed
Names of starlight girls and their other'd selves
These are the weapons of our new key strokes.

And upon the cortex it reveals this lift anew
Where death greeted me to intervene a place
Where sound and silence meet, and new strikes
Put my hands in halves. Pear-shaped birds pecking
At the joints, and where bowl-shaped tones bring

Their impeccable limbs to atone with auburn and cerise soils
Beneath the high ridges of doom- the empowering backspace
Does not exist, only new nothingnesses and their hooves
Splashing into each step into the next, and the next, and the next,
And the next.

2 years, a month, and 9 days after I saw you last,
I found 'our song' on youtube.
Now I'm listening to it for the first time
since I'm not with you.

The words are still sweet,
but has the melody always been this sad?
And if it was, did we pick it, because we would always
know it wouldn't work?

I haven't seen you since august 3, 2014.
The morning that I got in an airplane.
The morning that I no other option but to leave you,
even though it felt like I was leaving my life behind.

You left yourself too.
Left your roommate to deal with the leftovers.
Your clothes, your laptop, even your both your passports.
Looking back, I have no idea which version was really you.

But when I left you,
I could have gone back.
I knew the airport, the bus, and the walk to your apartement,
forgiving you could have been my next mistake.

When you left you,
you left me too.
You left my backspace.
My loneliness had been finalized.

Even though we finished, it felt unfinished.
Weeks after I left you ceased to exist.
Your memory got hazy by my teary eyes,
and all the mist of your lies.

There are rumours,
you either became a boat refugee or got married.
You're supposed to be in both Greece and Germany.
And your real name, was even something else.

I suppose I stopped missing you, over time,
but maybe I never became whole again.
I left a part of me with you, and I will never know
where you are.

I keep a little notepad in my car to ensure writers safety
Because words spontaneously throw themselves around in my mind
Without a conscious thought to
But I still lose a few lines every now and then
And I can't help but wonder
Where do the lost words go?
The beautiful lines we'd love to recollect
Our own thoughts
Ones that will never be told to anyone
Or read anywhere
I wonder if they come back without us knowing
I wonder if they make up the lines that don't exactly fit anywhere else
The ones that we want to backspace
And erase
Backspace
And erase
Until they're gone again
I wonder if some things
Are not supposed to exist
Until they do
If some things just do not fit

So I write in pen
And I undo all the backspacing, too
Because I also wonder
If maybe everything has a place
And we just have to make them fit

Its disgusting..
How we see the future being stoped and skipped.
Life is no Dvd player
Whether you poor,rich,fat or slender,
Its life that we talking about
There's no restart or backspace.
If you not ready to be a mother
Nor a father,play safe
You always have a choice
Some say its free
I say its up to you.

Who are you?
To **** an innocent soul.
Is God you?
He or she wasn't the cause of whatever you going through!
Its a child for heaven sake
You eat stake
And ask "what's for desert"
Because you know its ***
Now face the consequences
Man up,and face your responsibilities

My heart aches when I see posters in streets written "One day Pain,SAFE ABORTION"
They even have guts to write it in capital letters
Where is the love?
I always look above
And say "Lord forgive them,they do not know what they are doing"
"Call Dr.Naidoo on 08ABORTION"
Do you call that normal?
Well educated people call it abnormal.

You shout Vote,vote,vote!
Its election time now,I won't vote no Cope
Until this stops!
Who will vote when you allow Doctors and fake Doctors to **** our sons and daughters?

Buphi ubuntu?

i never have liked uppercase i's
i know it's absolutely stupid
but they always make me feel more important than others
like i'm always saying I, I, I.

see even that was weird
way too many eyes
so i spend half my days, proofreading my lines
to make sure that i'm exactly the same size
as everyone else

when i first met you it absolutely blew me away
to find someone else who lowers their eyes
i'm serious, it's amazing to find someone who wastes as much time as yourself
hitting backspace, and
cursing auto-correct for not allowing this behavior

but after a while i noticed you stopped with the i's
maybe it was around the time **** got weird
maybe it was a fad; or i have some absurd superstition
but it's cool
You always were the bigger person, anyway.

I keep hitting backspace
But I only want to move forward
With you
The problem is I don’t know how

I want to make you see
See that I’m all you need
Well maybe not all you need
But I can get you everything else you do

Run away with me
Move to New York, Boston, anywhere really
We’ll ride trains & planes & magic carpets
Just to get there together

I’ll love you till the end of time
When both our bones have rotted
Our skin nonexistent
But our memories float in the air

Kiss my skin and leave marks like ink
I’ll hold you close to me & just breathe
We’ll crave each other’s voices
And reach in the dark for hands & hair & love

In my eyes you’re perfect
And this may sound cliché
But it’s all true
And I think of you everyday

So I will stop hitting backspace
And type my feelings here for you to read
Because maybe one day you will see
That I really am all that you need

A slam poem


Your contact picture was taken the day you forgot to buy me a Christmas present
And when I scroll through my phone and see your name I remember crying until my pillow was painted black with streams of dashed hopes and childish mistakes.
On our third date you took the clip out of my hair and put it in yours and I haven't worn it since. Now I keep that clip in a desk drawer and try not to remember the way your voice cracked when you whispered my name and breathed your secrets into my mouth before trying to rip them back out through my heart when you decided you'd had enough of laughing over clips in your hair.
At night I lay awake and command my mind to conjure up any thought that's not you in your grey tuxedo, you in your painted skin that you outgrew when you smoked your first cigarette, peeling layers of who you were when you still filmed ghost hunting videos and touch-ups of who you are now, with your tears like rare prizes I wish I could collect in bottles and auction off to every past girl you've ever loved. And ****, there's a lot of girls.
But in the grand essay of your every past love I am the typo on the third page that knocks down your grade two points, the ****-up you would do anything to hit backspace on, the messy extra letter that somehow is overlooked by your meticulous eye because it's 2 am and you stopped giving a **** at 10. I am the coffee stain that gives away your procrastination like a badge worn across your chest, like a bruise on your forehead she may notice when she leans in to kiss you, like a tear in your favorite tie that she will see when she slides it off your neck and slips it sensually onto her own, not knowing I think about hanging myself with that very tie 1036 times a day if only I thought for one second it would awaken you from the slumber you fell into when you found whiskey and me that one December night on the countertop that wasn't even our own.
And I awake every morning drenched in heartache and heavily breathing out the rhythm your heart would drum as I lay at night with my head on your chest and my heart in your hands and my body in your mind. I was the glass sculpture you couldn't resist playing with no matter how many times you were warned not to, I was the wet paint sign you couldn't resist testing, I was the fire alarm you just had to pull.
But I would burn my tongue on coffee watching the sunrise with you again and again and again if it would resurrect the Christmas lights that burned like dying stars in my stomach in the fleeting moment where I truly believed you could love me, your kisses like butterfly wings that became bats all too quickly, your love like a fever that broke too fast- sweating and crying in bed at 2 am-I MISS YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I NEED YOU.
Yet maybe I knew along that this would happen. Yes, maybe I saw you as an opportunity to rekindle my old romance with anger and pain and depression, maybe when my friends told me you were bad news, I rejoiced in the idea of my old friends returning so much so that I opened the door and said "come on in," arms opened wide, play dough mind in their hands.
Or maybe I just really loved you.