A hand on a throat, where if all fingers touch, the throat
turns to ash. The villain of an anime I now watch
clutches the hero with his middle-finger aired
before the vital moment. I jump
on holiday off a cliff
and my chest stumbles with simulations. My body angled
poorly as I could slap headfirst. I was warned that my feet
should sink first if I merely fall. If I dive, my fingers
should first touch the water. I am depressed
the months before. College student, America. So far off, so cold
from the landlock of my birth. And the summer
study-abroad, double-abroad. In Italy
I was watching the Creation show itself on old ceilings
in marble-rooms, looking for some culture
that might have been ours if not for the pillagings that brought
gold and bodies to shape that gold into buildings like this. So I jump
and fall. And shiver emptily. It is the same feeling as the nights
on the bed thinking of futures without this self. Thinking as if
I did not exist. Ignored emails from therapists. And here this
feeling!: it made me want to live. So I jump again
on the higher ledge. My friend afterwards asks if I'm okay.
I'm shaking slightly. I'm without words. I laugh
with the same absence as any birth. A baby's confused cry
without tears. A long way down. What blue-green water,
as if dug for in the earth and sold for courtyard dances.
It glimmers all over my body, frizzes
up my hair as my ****** curls soak it, squeezes it down my face,
down towards my neck like fingers.
The villain walks away. The next time the hero sees him
he should be careful. He will have decided to **** me by then.

It's the way she holds her head when you talk
The way her eyes light up when she sees a dog
The way her hair frizzes around her head like a halo
The way her body will melt into you when you hold her
She's beautiful

It's the way she talks to the voices in her head
The way she walks
The way she talks
The way she takes care of you

It's the way she holds you when you've had a long day
Or how soothing her voice is when your demons come to play

She's beautiful
But you never told her.

Is every word you say a lie?

Every moment we spend together truth?

Cause all I see sitting here

is someone hurt, then someone oblivious.

One person sits at their computer,

looking and waiting for the online green.

Eyes droop, ***** sweat,

hair frizzes, nails chip.

One lives their life in denial,

not caring what the other feels.

Money spent, laughs heard,

gas burned, not a thought.

This is hurt

This is aggravation

This is disbelief

This life

here's the thing:
I know I am needy and jealous,
and my skin is only pretty in the summer,
and my hair frizzes more often than not,
and my nose is too big for conventional beauty

I know that I talk funny a lot,
and my body is disproportionate
(just like my music taste),
and I never really know what I'm talking about,
and my hands are always cold and clammy

I know that I apologize too much (sorry),
and that I usually make a big deal out of nothing,
and that I usually look angry,
even when I'm happy

I know that my exuberance is hard to handle,
and that I am easy to disappoint
and easy to be disappointed in,
and that I lose motivation too quickly,
and that my smile is too often late and clumsy

I know all these things aren't so great,
(and I know of many more),
but I know that
I am caring and loyal
and my skin gets tan
and warm and filled with sunlight
and my eyelashes are long and full
and when I smile for real,
it is sincere and warm and genuine

I know that I hold myself to higher standards,
and that I get very passionate about little things,
and that I read a lot more than most

I know that I am compassionate and considerate,
and find happiness in the smallest details

And I know that I am hardworking
(when I need to be),
but I also know how to relax,
and I can handle my own burdens
(as well as some of yours)

so between the pros and cons,
I hope someone will someday
find it in their heart
to fall in love with me
as I have done with you

why do you even like me?
4,432 miles away
and you still find a way to make me
nervous.
I calculate my words
and find that they are lacking.

Our romance is long division.
Did I forget to carry the one?

what is it about me?
Is it the way my hair frizzes when it's wet?
or the fact that my teeth are still slightly crooked despite my having had braces?

No.
Surely it's my flirting.
And how my attempts at **** come off pathetic.
I'm sure you find it endearing.

I didn't notice that face,
the one I make when I'm concentrating -
until you mentioned it.

a bit of me is bothered,
bothered that you notice my embarrassing habits.
but another bit,
and a more prominent one -
is flattered.
flattered that you're watching me so closely
that you can see things
that I haven't noticed for 19 years.

I love the way he talks, whisky parched with a little deep tone.
I love when I talk too much, 5am turn the radio up.
Blood, sweat, tears everyday, what do I have to do to get a donut?
My glass is full of wine, ring on my finger I feel imprisoned.
Love it when you're too cool for school, stop being a gangster.
Pop my *** up from a garbage can, wake up shirtless with red scratch marks.
Smell of citrus on my lips, standing too close to the TV screen.
Do I need a lil break tonight? I feel my body tensing up.
BBQ stains oh his left shirt collar, kissing in the rain till my hair frizzes.
*** in the city to the crack of dawn, Eggo waffles down my shirt.
Sipping tea on the back hot porch, singing blues every dreading Sunday.

**** with it.

Loving you is so sweet
like the delight in finding something you lost
after you've looked forever
and become accustomed to the fact
that is was forever gone
Loving you is so sweet
if I could blush any harder
the blood would spur from my cheeks
How you make me feel
makes my heart flutter with wings
that never go the speed limit
You are the compelling reason
I seem to always crave a little risk
because why live life in the middle
when there's an edge
Loving you is so sweet
but the process is slow
like learning to play an instrument
knowing that through it all
every endeavor, every new discovery
we are making something beautiful
Loving you is so sweet
You seem to somehow occupy
every empty room in my mind
Every vacant space is filled with the memory of you
Your smile is tattooed on my brain
Loving you is so sweet.
So when I arrive at your house tonight
and you try to pick out the perfect shirt and tie
Just know that I am not worried about what you will wear
or how much the food is going to cost
or if my make up smears and my hair frizzes
Loving you is so sweet
That it is understood that
all other things
sand behind that sweetness

in the twilight of dawn
I can already hear the shower.
quietly I wonder where the
time went.
I turn over and face the
peeling paint on the wall,
trying to grasp those
vestiges of a dream which
faded to air motes and half-light.

okay, I'll make breakfast today,
and I hope you like oranges.
no, I never bothered to memorize
which fruits you like
in the morning. I know
it's been years, but
I'm not superman and
you knew that when you said
I do.

don't tell me not to
grumble quietly to myself;
I need this bubble of
relative sanity
if I am to survive
5 am showers for
nobody.
you are fresh and clean,
an angel,
and your blowdried hair
frizzes out like a halo.
not a hint of gray.
must be a new color
you're using.

all right, fine,
I won't light a cigarette,
but I also won't
change my shirt.
I like the sweat stains.
they make my profession seem
like work and not
like poetry.

I retreat to
the backroom
where my typewriter sits
upon its unholy altar.
the radio beside it
stands presently silent
amidst the ashes
and crumpled pages.
I would sigh as
I sat down on my sagging chair,
but I am not
a sighing man.

instead, I groan slightly
as my joints protest
in their groggy morning voices
and rest my ***
upon the threadbare cusion
of my favorite
wooden chair.
I find a station on the radio;
something Haydn composed is
floating through,
and I talk to
my secretary.

her voice clicks and clacks
and rings when she breathes.
she's speaking in stanzas
and only I
can silence her.

but this ***** ain't done
confessing just yet.

Long black hair
That frizzes in the heat
Eyes a chocolate brown
A gaze long since lost its shine
A smile that hides no pain
A sweet tooth
That won't be outgrown
Unlike cotton attire
A heart grows dull
And cries unnoticed
Behind that unseen frown
On a good day
She looks like a woman
Like any other
Like every other
Like no other
Like no one
On her best days
She is a cool breeze on a warm day
Unseen, unrealized
Noticed after she's gone
A scent
A feeling
The absence of
Nothing

Sixteen year old girls hold
the answers to life.

They have ***
(with boys who have girlfriends,
across the front seat of an El Camino,
parked two houses down from her own,
where her parents await her return
no later than ten, unaware
that while they watch Jeopardy, their daughter's
hair rubs and frizzes against upholstery
that is older than her, and her head
occasionally bangs against the dark sidewalk
facing window, with a deep,
but gentle, thud)
and call it love.

There's this boy...

(How to start every bad poem ever)

He has curly brown hair that frizzes and
stays in perfect little curls.
He is funny

The muscles in his back make perfect sense.
When he reaches up to pull the curtain I want him to be pulling the drapes in my livingroom.
Cutting us off from any interruption.

i wonder what he thinks about me

maybe i am just really vulnerable right now
but I think i have a crush again

When I rest my warm hands pinkie to pinkie with his,
he doesn't move away.
I moved past, my cheek brushed his shirtsleeve and i liked the feeling.

He's pretty. I am also pretty. I wanna make out with him.

I will never speak
With her voice,
My words don't waft an air of intelligence,
They neither hypnotize nor engage you,
As hers do.

I will never look like a movie star as she did,
My hair doesn't fall softly around around my face
It curls and frizzes,
It's wild, not calm,
I can't mesmerize you with my glamorous beauty,
Nor catch your breath and hold your gaze,
The way she does.

I will never hear your words float on air to me,
A song so sweet, like her,
Closing your eyes as you sing, your muse takes shape.
My fingers don't pluck your heart strings like hers,
Your songs are for her ears alone.

I will never spark your love the way she did,
Your passion for me will not produce searing flames that crackle and burn, sending fire burning through every inch of your being.
Instead I burn my fingers as I kneel at the edge of your dwindling fire, trying to ignite some sort of fire from the embers of the flames you once shared.

I'm playing with fire and I'm getting burned,
But no cream will heal my wounds
So by your fire I'll stay, and play
Until someday you burn what's left of me
And scatter my ashes in the the dust.

Do you remember when it would rain?
We would all go outside,
Excited to jump in puddles and
Run around like crazy, just to get soaked
Not caring for our clothes and hair?

Now we bolt inside as soon as we hear it,
The big boom that opens up the sky
It comes crashing down,
Creating huge puddles of terror
But it's just water

We are afraid to get hit by it
As if a single drop is a lightning bolt
We drink it and touch it all the time
So when it falls, why do we run?
So what if your hair frizzes or you get a little wet, it's not the end

Is it so bad to sit back and watch the rain?
Is it so bad to get wet?
Why can't we enjoy the rain like we used to?

-MMM

we meet at midnight (or maybe one) and you’re wearing the same
hoodie you’ve been wearing for three years. the wind nudges us
apart but somehow still you’re soft and smiling. i don’t have a
scarf. there’s a snowball down my shirt and then there’s
this noise ripped from me like i’m gasping and
laughing at the same time and it’s the
ugliest noise i’ve ever heard. i try
to chase you but you’re faster
and it’s okay because
you and i both
have such
terrible
aim.

we’re both just glad to be alone.

there
are beds
i’ll never lie in
ever again and that
is for the best. i remember
there was a time i’d wait for you
i’d sit and literally gaze out my window,
see kids on bikes and the sun passing by
but never you till i conned the moon into friendship
and she introduced us. i’d start arguments to hear you talk
but sometimes (and only sometimes) i would breathe and think,
i wanna fall asleep standing on this salted sidewalk and never wanna
wake up. sometimes you look away when my lips move like you can’t
hear. but i follow you. i teach you to paint and you teach me to dance.

it’s always the same. we get inside. you
hand me bread. we sit on the couch.
i skin my knees falling to the ground
just to hear you laugh. you shift and a
part of me wants to know the rhyme or
reason why but you roll your eyes when
i tell you poetry doesn’t need to rhyme
and i am a happy hypocrite. the bottle
is warm where your hand's been killing
it. it’s dead when i hand it back.

when i fall asleep your eyes are with me
and when i wake up you’re holding my
wrists. my skin is petrichor and yours is
smoke. suddenly there’s thunder bridging
the distance between the moon and sun,
matchflame and cumulonimbus clouds
and the carpet flips over as i pitch toward
the kitchen table. you’re photokeratitis
and i go blind. i make snow angels.
i need. i need to close my eyes.

you make me tea. i put my head in my hands.
my hair frizzes under lightning. there are no
blankets and no conversation. i pretend
to sleep on the floor and in two long hours
i’ve made friends with the spiders under
your bed. you haven’t met.

--

the alarm whispers. i pick myself off his floor. i steady myself.
i can’t look at him for too long, can't say goodbye. i glance.
his eyes are closed. there’s no way to wake him without
feeling like a wolf, or maybe a sheep. my wrinkled coat
is tangled in the rug. it's dawn. red eyes. if he was up
he would call me a mess. he's not. the sun drapes
over his sheets. i am freezing. my hand shakes
at the doorknob and i think, wrong, this
is the ugliest noise i have ever heard.
the bottle is on its side next to him.
it says nothing. i never opened
a door more slowly. i run
like there’s something
behind me. i lose a
minute when i sit
on the stairs. my
my eyes bleed. i
laugh. i told him
i hate love songs.
it's not like he
follows my
*******
spotify.

it’s always morning here
and always so quiet;
it doesn't let me say goodbye.
he's asleep but i’m alone and the air
is still. there are no stormclouds,
no suns
or snow or crescent moons.

the sky is
blue

my mother
Has short brown hair that frizzes up in the heat
And warm brown eyes that inform
An eisteinian brain
She is beautiful
Inside and Out