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.

When I was three
My mom woke up
In the middle of the night
To me crying profusely
In my bathroom.
She freaked out and ran in,
Thinking I was terribly hurt.
“What’s wrong, hunny?!”
I sat on the sink counter
And turned my face from the mirror
To face her, wiping
The tears with my shirtsleeve
“Nothing,” I smile
“Just practicing my fake crying”

The perfect man for me will not mind that I sometimes snort when I laugh. He will love the way I sneeze in threes and think I am beautiful when I cry into my shirtsleeve. He will love me for the naive way I think all people are good and he will pick me up when I realize they aren't. He will laugh at my stupid jokes, watch terrible movies with me, and always kiss me like it is the last time we'll touch. In the middle of the night, when only the pale yellow moon can see us, he will hold me close to his chest like I am going to disappear in his arms. When we make love, I will be able to feel the passion on his skin and the world will slow to a near stop. The perfect man for me will tell me when I am wrong and admit when I am right, he will love how I wear my heart on my sleeve and will not be intimidated by the passion I live my life with. He will look beyond my past and embrace a future with me. He will kiss the bruises others have left and admire the way I refuse to accept defeat. Most of all, he will love me in the same way I have been willing to love my whole life.

always on the outside i'm still looking in
behind ***** windows of desperate chagrin
step lightly on the surface of memories that fade
a nomad lost in my own desert of elusive shade
branches crack under my feet like broken bones
blown about by storm winds searching for home
white light still graying in the perspective of time
endlessly tolling my  heart beats with the chime
and i'm constantly fleeing, afraid of my fate
i breathlessly watch as the days still grow late
slip on the ice spinning out of control
i'm an ember yet glowing but turning to coal
ashes fall from the sky swirling before me
colors are reeking but the sound still tastes sweet
frostbitten feelings march forth from the past
and i still use my shirtsleeve; rub a hole in the glass
but still i am waning the wax slowly drips
sweet terrestrial wine, a dance on my lips
tips the balance and spills clever cunning away
and still the moon rises, ending the day

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.

it's sinking deep within
under the skin of mine
turning this black and white
it's sinking deep within
behind my shirtsleeve
with words too thin
and it might be right
to give it all and fight
but as it's sinking deep
I'm afraid
it might drown while asleep

What is this? It feels vaguely familiar.
Is this Solomon's "Noonday Demon"
establishing residence again?
Melancholy? The dejection
of a scolded child?

I am carrying my sadder twin
with me wherever I go.
My shadow has finally caught
up with me after a long while.
Like an unloved cousin, it has
tailed me all day long.

Coming close enough to murmur
in my ear. What it is saying is
unintelligible—whispered sibilant half tones.
The lamentations of dying mollusks
stranded along the sunbaked shoreline.
The grieving call of an un-mothered fawn.

What can be done? Is there anything that
should be done? Are we in danger here?
Is it possible we could drown together?
The two of us bound as one like
Paolo and Francesca in Dante's underworld.

Me, making the motions of trying to live a life;
it doing the only thing it knows how to do—
clutch my shirtsleeve and groan in tune
with the cicada’s last few bootless
serenades to the empty woods.

so scraped my bleeding heart from my shirtsleeve
it fell to the ground and i saw you
your laugh
your heartbeat
your gentle smile as you broke my heart
this is not fair
i should get to be mad at you.
i can't be mad at you
because even in shattering all i had built in us  

you did it perfectly.