You don't touch me anymore.

We lay on your bed and watch MTV,
you right behind me -but you don't touch me anymore.

Two parallel tracks cutting through a familiar road;
once we collided, since then you've stayed on track
-now I'm a trainwreck.

How many times can I cross your path,
how many times can I wait until you pass
before my engine explodes and I scream?
So close, yet so far -why don't you touch me anymore?

The difference between you and I
is after the collision,
you've had passengers,
and I've only had test drives.

I'm trainwrecked.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

The perfect world exists within my head,
and it has become my own personal hell.

To be so close, yet so far away
from the only thing you want,
I can see it, I can feel it, I can hear it,
but I can't grab it.

My refuge has become the cause of my tears;
the only thing that makes me happy makes my cry,
my daydreams have become my own personal hell,
my utopia is killing me.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

More than once I've tried to push open a door that said pull,
I suppose it's not a coincidence that I have never pulled thoughts
from my head without at first trying to push them away.

Safety precautions say that most doors should open outwards
from an enclosed room, says that it's easier to escape if there were a fire
-there's a fire inside of me, but my door opens inwards
and I'm locked in the corner of the burning room I call my head.

There's a sign over a door in the building I work at,
it says 'exit' in a red light -which I found quite ironic,
if red means stop, and exit means leave, where do I go?

Most of life is spent in anticipation and haste,
anxiety and fear of mistake;
what changes have occurred that have made life a competition?
We were taught as children that 'slow and steady wins the race,'

so why am I speeding up at yellow streetlights,
and running towards red exit signs?

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

There's something about your smile that frightened me,
all of the sudden the butterflies I've long since released -came back,
but not in the same way, this time, they weren't fighting;
they seemed as if to be fluttering around comfortably.

Your laughter is subtle,
but it was loud enough to scare away most of the shaking in my bones,
loud enough to draw my attention to your face, your eyes;
for a moment we made eye-contact, but I couldn't hold it.

They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul,
I don't trust the gate-keeper,
and so I quickly lock my eyes to the ground.
What would you think if I told you that I, for a millisecond,
thought you were the greatest thing in the world?

I didn't want the night to end,
but the sun will surely rise.
And we are clouds just floating by time after time.
Maybe it's best, you can't lose what lingers,
but I'm thinking of lighting up the sky with you,
thinking of being the wake-up call for the early-birds with you.

What would you say if I told you
I wanted to do nothing, and everything, with you?

(NJ2014)  ©All Rights Reserved

I want to live a life where I can wake up
every morning to the sun rising over the ocean,
and a place I can watch the sun set over a forest.

I want to have a German Shepard jumping at my feet
when I open the door and get back from work
work -nothing extraordinary, just something enjoyable.

I want to be able to kiss my significant other
and run my hands through his messy hair
and hear his sleepy voice tell me he loves me
just as much as I love him.

I want a simple life,
but simple seems to be the new complicated.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

You must forgive me for avoiding eye contact,
it's hard to stare into the eyes of a world I want to experience,
it's hard to be so close, yet so far.

You must forgive me for avoiding you,
it's difficult to pretend I feel nothing
especially when your hand brushes against my skin;
if I'm not near you, that can't happen.

You must forgive me,
I want so badly to find a way into your heart,
but you're just planting more roses around the door
and the thorns are ripping way too deep.

Pardon me if I walk away.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

What am I to do when the words are screaming within my head,
when the arms of the letters are engaged in a wrestling match
and they're ignoring the referees constant pleas to stop;
what is the referee to do when they're driving him mad?
What is he to do when they're driving him crazy?

The fights only exist in the ring, in the head,
for they don't even exist in the outside world.
Spoken word is nothing but dressed up thoughts;
nothing but children in costumes on Halloween night.
The referee can not exist outside,
neither can the battling words;
so how is he to get any peace of mind?

What is one to do when the things he's meant for drive him crazy,
what does one do when the only thing fueling him holds him back?
How does one free themselves from themselves?

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

He threw me against the wall
and swore he loved me,
and the only way
he could make sure I loved him too
was through bruises on my skin.
My heart was spilling,
but it was more blood than love:
more black and blue than pink.

Then I met someone else,
and he ran his fingers through my hair,
down my arm, over the curve of my hip,
he kissed my forehead,
and followed the path to my neck
where he whispered sweet nothings:
but he was gone with sun rise.

I remember his hands as bandages
after the fight -but they only cover so much.

And I remember his cigarette breath
-I hate cigarettes, but I wanted to smoke him so bad,
and when he was gone I felt like I had been addicted all along.

The bandages are gone,
it no longer smells like cigarettes,
and I'm no longer left with bruises
-so why do I feel so lost?
Isn't this what I want?

Is care synonymous to hurt?

Why do all who claim to care
leave me with marks to bear?

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I wish I could say that I told you I was fragile,
that the last boy who loved me left without a goodbye,
and that in the midst of trying to bring him back home
I realized I was nothing but glass and ended up falling to the floor,
left cracked and scattered.

I thought you were the broom that could sweep me back together,
but you only made a path so that you could walk by unharmed;
you left the swept up pieces in the dust pan,
I didn't know you'd soon throw them away.

There's little pieces of me still sliding around on the wooden floor,
I should've known you wouldn't try to put me back together.
I wish I could say I warned you of my sharp edges
and the amount of tears I've accumulated,
but you saw the flowers I held,
and I didn't think much of the dirt;
nor did I ever think you'd create more weight.

You watered the flowers so much they drowned,
and you left them to wilt; you left me overflowing.
I wish I told you to leave before breaking me again,
I guess I forgot.

But mosaics are just pieces of broken glass,
and by breaking me you've only made it easier
for the next person to find me more disastrously beautiful.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

I like to think the sun has it's moments of strengths,
along with it's moments of weakness.

There's times when he's on top of the word,
shining brighter than ever, striking everyone's eyes.
At these times, he knows he is setting,
but the sky is his stage, and he's ready to put on his best show.

Other times, he's fragile and broken.
The sky, his cheeks, in which tears stream,
lightening the colours into soft pastels;
his complexion a blushing pink,
eyes a subdued blue with splashes of gold cries.

Even beautiful things have their days,
but even at their times of struggle,
though they feel not adequate,
dependent on perception,
there's someone who
finds them beautiful
beyond belief.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I remember sitting on the swings at the park,
you rammed into me and carried me away,
and we fell to the grass.

Your hand found it's way to my throat,
and toyed around with the charm around my neck;
it was switching from purple to red without your touch,
and two different shades of blue within your grasp.

Still on the ground we learned the meaning:
purple means romantic, red means nervous;
dark blue meant lovable, light blue meant relaxed
- is it true, he asked? are you feeling romantic, he teased.

if there was a colour for 'yes, but I'm embarrassed to feel'
it would've changed right there.

I never wore that necklace around him again,
not for any reason, I just never thought anything of it
- strange how a moment is beautiful after it passes.

I wish there was a colour for 'I don't feel a thing for you anymore'
and I wish I had let him hold it each time we were together;
I wish I could see the dark blue fade.

-now I'm left with this solid hue,
this purple charm, and he's no longer around.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

Darkness teases and invades,
the sun runs away.
Stars stay the night,
but leave with morning light.
The sun not screams with jealousy
but hides behind the mountains;
the moon shines in the dark,
but even still can't hide his crescent
-half there, half empty- heart.

And though the moon spends his night with the stars,
by morning he's back to chasing the one he's always loved;
but he'll never admit that she's the one,
he'd rather hide behind the mountain until she comes up.

The sun and moon are more than friends.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

When you look into her eyes
I hope you find yourself drowning in the middle of the sea.
Her eyes may be pretty,
but they're no life-raft.

You're a cliff-hanger,
flirting with danger,
and I'm the jealous rocky mountain
about to lose her last rock.

Don't hold on to me.
(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

How can you look into my eyes and tell me you care
when your gaze is burning holes in my brain?
You held me close and ran your fingers, searching for delicacy;
I thought it was because you wanted to protect me,
you knew it as a way to control me.

When you locked your hands in mine,
you said you promised you'd never leave;
I didn't know you meant it figuratively;
please, stop haunting me.

You spoke sweet nothings,
made me smile, made me happy,
but I only soon found that they were just that:
sweet, bitter, sugar-coated
empty words of nothing.

How can you hold my hand
and dig your nails so deep
into the creases of my fingers
and invade my blood-stream

only to tell me to forget you.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

I'm ready for something real.
I'm tired of being the curtains that are pulled closed every-night.

I once gave a boy my glass heart, and he held it dear,
and then, he moved away. And I was packed inside a box,
it was labeled, 'fragile,' 'handle with care.'
It wasn't for months that I saw the sun,
and when I did, I couldn't tell the difference
between artificial, and sunlight.
Once again, he held me in his hands,
but they were rough and calloused;
the security was gone.

I was placed in a corner where I was rarely touched again,
and one night something terrible must've happened,
my smooth exterior seemed to have sharpened at the edges,
and he placed me in a bin, never to be seen again.

There's vases that hold flowers,
and there's vases that are placed in china cabinets;
I'm tired of being falsely decorated.
I'm tired of having to hold everything in,
and be expected to be the beautiful centerpiece
for everyone to glance at, and walk by.

I am beautiful, but I am not a centerpiece.
I am also a collection of flaws;
I'm translucent: all my emotions flood,
and I'm fragile; I tend to break at the slightest touch,
and I'm empty,
until someone fills me up.

But I want something real.
I don't want to hold plastic flowers,
that will never fade away.
I want to hold the beautiful rose
and at it's prime time,
though I will cry,

I can say it was real.
I can say he was mine.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

every boy that has ever ran his fingers on my skin
crawled up from under my bed and invaded the darkness;
he pulled the blanket up over my shaking body,
and brushed his fingers through my tangled hair.

a creature of the night providing me comfort;
he laid his head on the empty side of my pillow
whispering into my hollow head,
signals which would flow through my dry veins
and start the pumping of a disintegrating heart.

his demons kept him awake at night
just as the monsters of my past have me;
his eyes were like a flashlight in the dark room,
this creature was my savior.

but morning comes and he is gone,
my troubles glisten in the sun -everyone runs.
you can't fix by morning what haunts you;
I only date monsters -they keep me company at night;
when my flaws come spilling out but not in bright light.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I want to say I'm an unopened novel on your bookshelf,
but that would mean I'm the Harry Potter series
(if I remember correctly)
and I might be, I wouldn't know -I've never read them,
but I've been in your hands enough to be a bit worn,
and there could've been so many chapters of us
if you had just opened the first book.

I'm an encyclopedia of a subject
you never got interested enough to read;
so much information, so much to learn
but my cover is plain, and my words are complicated
and there's magazines on your brother's dresser
of beautiful girls and little words,
so why would you ever waste time on me?

But I'm a wine-box full of scripted letters never sent,
and you're downing liquor as if to forget something,
and I hope you never try to forget me.

I wish you downed me like you did of that bottle,
but like old-wine, my cork was tight
and you didn't have the patience to open me.
Old wine has more flavour,
at the surface I'm sober;
at the core, I'm drunk.

We could've fallen in love
if we had taken the time to learn each-other;
but we started as strangers, and ended as strangers,
except now I'm left collecting dust on my own shelf.

I've been writing letters to a stranger
I swear I could have loved.

(NJ2014) (© All Rights Reserved)

clouds move as night arrives,
shape-shifting in movement.
looking for a new home,
soft and slow,
fragile,

but still hurts.
still abandoned.

float away like a cloud,
it still leaves me dark.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

porcelain skin chipping away,
thick and durable, but still decays;
eyes of class ricocheting, stars dying bright:
scratches seem to never fade,
the wound is deep,
but inner pattern stays.
lasts longer than the marble tile,
will ever a sock slip down these miles?

(NJ2014) all rights reserved.

You came to me with little baggage,
you placed your hand in mine
and your lips on my forehead;
soft, not heavy. Fragile.

The only baggage was that of your past,
and your eyes screamed with experience.
I could never find the ghosts that haunted you.
I spent months trying to read your story;
found that you were a novel of suspense and mystery.
You spoke very little but your breath smelled of alcohol,
and that's when I knew there was something unknown.
I tried to find what burdened you, tried to sink beneath your skin,
but like floorboards you creaked and were full of tight nails;
I tried, but too much force could break you apart,
I never wanted to hurt you.

I could never crack the case of you,
your windows were too fogged to see through,
and then I thought that maybe you'd left them like that purposely;
who am I to knock down your walls?
Who am I to peak into your corners?

I never did find what burdened you,
and I feared of becoming a part of whatever that was;
in some ways I hope you left with less baggage than you came with,
but sometimes I hope the scrape on the window reminds you
that someone once tried.

If you don't want me around,
please, lock your door.

(NJ2014) ©All Rights Reserved.

All she ever wanted was someone to look into her eyes
and tell her they would rather get lost in her milky way
than in the blue skies of another.
She wanted arms to be wrapped around her in the way
the cover of a book would its pages: tight and secure,
but loose enough to let her story build on.
How many times can a person fall in love and not be loved in return?
How many words can be wasted on people who will never read them?
Why dress up sadness in beautiful metaphors?

Daydreaming of someone looking at her as if she was the metaphor
for all things beautiful and sad in life,
how though a rose may be sharp-stemmed
he'd endure the thorns and adore the petals;
dreaming of finding that someone
who will see the pink beneath the red
and know that though passionate as she is.
there's a fragile little girl hidden, scared.

How many times can you watch the sun set and rise,
only to build up fantasies and beautiful lies?
Dancing on a field of green under the colours of the world;
I swear there's a colour that has not yet been observed.
I dream I dance beneath it, with his hand in mine;
I identify with a colour that has not yet been inscribed;
who would hold a hand of one that is not confirmed?
Who will see the colour if neither can I?

She writes poetry in an attempt to become a poem herself,
in the eyes of someone else.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved

The thought of you was crocheted into my mind
by the needle of false hope and blinded romanticism.
I thought I could cover myself in your soft words,
and fill the empty spaces with my shivering limbs,
but there were holes in the pattern of the blanket,
and I was a fool to think I could ever keep myself warm
under open stitched thread.

I wrapped myself up tightly
in the way I wished your arms would of me,
but I got tangled in a mess, and I never got comfortable.
How can I find comfort in the arms of a stranger?
How can a warm night leave me shivering?
I sewed another blanket in an attempt to keep warm,
but two unfinished cloths can't shelter as one.

It took several nights of tossing and turning
to discover that you can't keep warm
under incomplete relation,
beneath unfinished stitching.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

Never look into anyone's eyes.
Always make eye contact.
But never look into anyone's eyes.

I remember looking at your eyes
and seeing different shades of green;
and splatters of gold and blue.
(or maybe they were just green;
I haven't seen you in a while,
and I have a tendency to romanticize.)
But I never looked into your eyes.

Like a prison, lines cross  your pupils;
I know if I slip through them I will be stuck,
I will be locked up and held hostage;
but curiosity is a delinquent
and he's made a home inside of my head.

I've always been drawn to sadistic and broken,
love the idea that I could be the medicine needed to satisfy;
but truth of the matter is, despite my efforts to try,
I'm only a placebo and you know so.

I've never looked into your eyes,
but I've looked at them,
and man, how I've thought endlessly about
what lies behind them.

Call me intrusive, because I am.
I want to know when you last cried,
and why? Is that why there's blue sprinkled on your eyes?
When was the last time you smiled, genuinely?
'Could I ever make you as happy
as the moment you are trying to relive
when you're downing that bottle?

I've never looked into your eyes,
but I've thought and made it so.
I'm prison-bound.*

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

june 10, 2014*

his eyes are like grey marbles,
sprinkled with green ivy.
his hair is like sunkissed ocean waves ,
his hands are tsunamis.
he's beautiful and dangerous,
his hands leave the ocean screaming;
his voice ***** like the water hitting the shore
-it acts as a nerve, 'cause I can't help but smile.

when he sings he sings out of tune,
but even still the birds are in awe;

how can something so disastrous be so beautiful?
how can something so right be so wrong?

(NJ2014) all rights reserved.

I want to believe you,
but I don't.
I want to hold you,
but I can't.
I want to kiss you,
but I won't.
I want to let you go,
but I've tried.

I'm a second chance that never comes,
but maybe, just for you, I'll stick around for the third.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

When I kiss you I will do so
with the intensity of all my bottled up sadness,
with the amount of desire
I have yet to give to all I want but cannot have,
with the hidden passion I have
for all that I am restrained from doing.
When I kiss you it will be soft and careful
like the pieces of me I hide,
and then I will gradually feed you all the anger
I’ve suppressed for the sake of others.

When I kiss you
it will be full of emotion.
When I kiss you
it will be for all reasons;
desire, anger, sadness and happiness

When I kiss you it will be for all reasons,
except love.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

Maybe the reason she flaunts herself
is not because she's confident,
but because her hourglass figure
fits nicely in his hands.

She feels secure when his fingers
move slowly from her ribs to her hips,
like the way wine racks keep glass bottles
from smashing to the ground.

She's fragile and transparent,
but he fills her with feeling,
and for that moment,
she doesn't feel empty;
she's vivd and colourful,
supplying liveliness.

Maybe she flaunts herself because
eyes turn glassy and watery,
and at least she can influence something.

Maybe she just hopes that one day he'll hold her
as tightly as he does that glass of wine.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

The cigarette in your mouth burns away with the flame,
and you toss it to the ground once it's done
- but there's a little light still burning,
and to make sure it won't go ablaze.
you stomp on it until it's completely gone.

I was hooked on the way your hands handled me,
the way you could set me on fire with a simple touch of the mouth;
I was burning bright and you were satisfied -how could it be wrong.

Time grabbed you by the hand and took you away from me;
I was growing smaller and smaller with distance,
but from where I stood, I was the same.

You could no longer keep squinting to try to see me,
especially through the smoke of your cigarette.
You could not stand to see the light at the far end of the road,
nor tolerate the tiny, what seemed to be weakening, spark

and so you shut your eyes,
and tossed the cigarette aside.

The cigarette was still burning,
but not strong enough to set the road in flames
and bring you back.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

Suitcases of the past flooding from my closet
burying you beneath it;
I am sorry.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

your smoke lingers on my clothes longer than you linger in my life,
and I cannot rinse, wash, and repeat the cleaning process
to rid the stain of you from my mind as I can the stench of your cigarettes.

the first time I met you I mixed the harsh colour of you
with my white dedicates -and now I wear a cloudy grey.
my eyes have been washed out so many times
they're a new shade of brown I've never seen before.

I can't tumble dry the stained marble of my eyes
and I can't fold my sanity as neatly as I can my shirt;
and I can't put you at the back of my closest until I forget you exist.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

bruises like clouds after sunset,
heart like ice after it's been counter set,
fingers like branches in a hurricane,
eyes like condensing windows in the rain.

one beat, two beat, two beat, two beat,
can't count to three,
my mouth is weak.
can't stop shivering,
trying to speak.

my head is screaming,
and my arms are outreached,
but my voice has broken,
and their palms are in fists.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

All the weight that once rested on my shoulders
dissipated into the air and was swallowed into my lungs.
My heart still beats, but not without struggle;
it pounds beneath the weight of my regrets.

I never should've let you get so close.
You searched me like a cop in the night,
shining your light on cob-webbed feelings,
and broken down fantasies.

You cleaned me up in hopes to find something,
beneath the law you cannot speak details
and I never knew what it was you were searching for,
but either you found it, or did not,
and never needed to come back again.

You were always a bit messy;
you left fingerprints on my skin,
and evidence in the form of thoughts;
you breathed life into my heaving chest,
only to take with you the rest of the air
I needed to get back on track.

Now I'm covered with yellow and black tape
labeled endlessly with the words 'crime scene,'
and I'm not even putting up a fight.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

Your eyes are beautiful landscapes,
though I see cracks that sprout through them like vines;
it seems as if you've planted roses in the spring,
and come winter you've had nothing but fallen petals to hold.

Your hands are shaking from the intensity to preserve
what is not there anymore, to hold what once filled your skies;
like rolling clouds of thunder; something sharp, something heavy,
disappearing as the sun begins to rise.

I've found myself standing at the archway of your garden,
my hands are calloused and my arms are weak;
I can't promise to be the rain and wash away the remains,
but if you would let me try,
I would love to plant puruvian lilies (they rarely wither)
and help again brighten the garden I call your eyes.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I'M TRYING TO BE ART
BUT MY CANVAS IS WHITE
AND THIS PAINT IS WHITE
AND I KEEP PAINTING
BUT EACH STROKE
LEAVES ME FEELING
MORE B L A N K.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

You're a locked door with the sign 'do not enter,'
but there are duplicates of the key you lent out once.
The sky becomes a blanket, and the sun is no longer out;
and strangers come through the door -gone by morning.

There's only so much company that can be found in an empty bottle,
so you make it two empty bottles, and grab an empty hand
and dance under the flawed moon,
and like an hourglass fall slowly into familiarity
-by morning you're left with the same empty feeling
(and a terrible headache.)

They come waltzing in uninvited,
friends of the unconscious mind,
and enemies to the sober.

You're a locked door with the sign 'do not enter,'
if I was offered the key I would not take it.
I patiently knock.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

You wore a wrinkled white shirt and distressed jeans,
your bed-head blonde hair and pink eyes screamed exhaustion;
your eyes as hazy from last nights liquor as the hanging morning dew.
but there I was stumbling over speed bumps
while you effortlessly lit a cigarette and walked on by without a problem.

Each time I stumbled, you laughed
- would you continue to if you knew it was because I was nervous?
Or did you find it humourous
that I was tripping over something stable
(you're not stable, but by god, you could fool anybody.)

There we were.
a slightly drunk, lazily dressed boy -looking gorgeous and collected
and a completely sober, lazily dressed girl -a mess on feet
walking together over speed bumps
- maybe I should run.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

I’m the happiest person in the world
but also the saddest
and so I make a fool of myself
and then regret it after it wears off.

- it's like being drunk and having a hangover at the same time
and god, help me, I'm about to burst into tears
at the same time as wanting to dance around in circles
I'm losing my mind.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

You made me feel like I was just another girl,
I know you have notebooks full of rows and the details,
but I was hoping I would be the last of them
turns out I just ended the page and you flipped it to start again.

I never thought we would ever say goodbye,
I guess I was right because it ended with goodnight.

I never saw your eyes again
or held the hands you scarred me with
or wrapped myself in your arms,
or kissed the lips you'd breathe me in with,
you always teased me with it.

You smoked me out,
remains of an ashtray now.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

Please don't walk away.
Understand, I wasn't always this way.
I have a haunting past,
and I would tell you about it but you have never asked.

My past is something I'd rather not discuss.
If you did ask my hands would probably start shaking,
my eyes would go blank, and my mouth mute.
I'd break the silence with "I don't know where to start,"
and "it's a story so long, I wouldn't want to bore you."

But if you're leaving because of something I do,
please don't go without hearing me through.
I've got issues of trust and anxious habits,
lungs of rust, and a heart to match it.

A high-voltage heart with one too many sparks;
someone once set it on fire, I'm too scared to restart.
At first my hands shake, and my heart pounds,
my words dissipate, and my eyes lock to the ground.
I can't move my feet, scared to fly off the ground;
I once rose so high, and fell onto the floor,
scratches and bruises, a concussion, I'm sure;
can't risk hitting the ocean, don't want a parting spark no more.

So before you leave please understand,
I'm not just an attic light that wont burn bright;
it may take time, but it's just a little dust,
I don't mind if you try to clean me up.


The door is wide open, but so are your arms,
if you want to leave, do as you want,
the outlet is empty, and so are your palms;
plug me in before you throw away the key;

plug me in before you leave,
but before you do so, please,
dry your hands.

Give me a chance.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

There were so many hues, I thought it was art.

The colours blended together
in a way I could never understand,
but the confusion and mystery intrigued me.

The frame; so well built, so beautiful;
strong, and carved so uniquely;
bridges and bumps, cracks and dents;
ancient detail and scars.

My eyes wander,
drifting aimlessly,
only to soon find myself lost;
thoughts in different directions.
Landscapes of green, blue, gold;
black starless skies,
and sunny mornings.

A picture framed on the wall,
but I don't feel a thing
if I can't touch.

I guess I was wrong.
I thought it was art.


(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved.

I discovered that the sunrise is almost more beautiful than the sunset;
the colours are so vivid, so expressive in comparison to the black night;
the sunset changes the colour of the sky, the sunrise invents colours.

More often than usual I catch the sunsetting rather than rising;
the early hours of the rising sun are the setting time of my eyelids,
- but by god, when I am awake to see it, I'm lost for a moment.

I have a history of comparing past lovers to sunsets;
each one I described as beautiful, breath-taking,
and unfortunately, each has been buried behind mountains as well.

I wait for a love that'll have me singing with the birds at six in the morning, that'll have me peacefully resting before the clock strikes twelve - I wait for the boy that I compare to sunsets, the boy that will no longer just be a metaphor for the setting sun, but the true sun.

The boy that will be the sun, both setting and rising.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

He's the boy with messy blonde hair and emerald eyes;
the kind that can make you blind after some time.
I wish I had known that before I made space for him
on the shelf I call my heart.
His hands were strong, yet gentle,
and they traced every curve
without leaving a mark.

I'm the girl with obviously styled hair, and brown eyes;
in time's company I'm a stranger -so I must always try
to look my best even when I want to cry.

I found myself holding this novel of a boy in my hands,
and quickly much too quickly fell into the pages;
excitement tore the corner of the sheet,
a scar formed on his nose,
and I joked with him
you can't forget me because I've made my mark.

But behind every light giggle there is a truth;
behind every highlighted sentence there is reason.

Here I am physically unscarred by this boy with emerald eyes,
but each night I find myself wondering why he left without a goodbye.
I could only hope that if I was unable to leave an impression
that maybe he will come across the bookmarked page,
the teared sheet and remember me.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.