I may never change the world with words.
I may never write a string of syllables  
that a high school kid will be forced to memorize.  

But I know that I must try
because the world is a wonderfully awful
brutally beautiful place and everyday
I look at something I saw yesterday
and still it shakes me.

And maybe I write too many poems
about too few different things like
women that get stuck in my head
the way poems sometimes get stuck in my pen
or... did I mention the women?

But I'm going to keep writing
about the same four things
or the same one girl
until I can read it back to myself
and instead of it reminding me of what I ment
it will show you what I saw.

Because in the end you gotta do
what you gotta do and I HAVE to do this
and I don't care how much I was
called a ***** in high school or last week.
And it doesn't matter if I meet somebody in a bar
and when I say I'm a poet they smile and walk away
and never look back.

Because I AM a poet
not because I made the choise
but because I was born this way

and before you comment on how
I'm stealing the slogan
of Mamma Monster
I'm going to say that it's not about
being gay, or the wrong color,
or being sluttier than most people like,
or being crazier than most people can handle,
it's about absolutely owning who you are,

because deep down we're all a little queer
and you can let your oddities make you invisible
or you can make them turn you into a monster
and let you be the thing that goes bump
in the middle of the day.

And if you don't like it
I apologize for this unpoetic end
but you can go **** yourself.

He told you
He wants you to be sluttier.

If he loved you
Like you want him to
Like you love him
He would
Never
Even
Think
About asking you to change.

Why can't you see?

He's ruining you.

He eats at your soul like an earthworm
hollowing things out in there

He's done it to girls before.

Why can't you see?

He's using you.

Why can't you see?

In seven days
six hours
twenty three minutes
and 5
     4
      3
       2
        1 seconds

I will lose you.

I will lose you,
because you will be farther
than we already are.
and we will be more broken,
than we have previously been.

We will be distanced,
by time,
and days,
and hours and minutes and seconds.

And I will lose you.

I will lose you to a world,
of higher education,
wilder parties,
and heavier drinking.

I will lose you,
to sluttier girls,
and drunken weekends,
after a long 5 days of studying.

I will lose you,
to stressful days
and sleepless nights,
and 19 cent ramen noodle meals.

I have lost you.
Physically.

But mentally,
loss seems unreal
You will always be on my mind,
and in my memory.
But in six days
five hours
twenty two minutes
and 5
     4
      3
       2
        1 seconds,
        
I will no longer be in yours.

You will lose me.

In another life
I am some bodies lover

Not wife, not girlfriend
Lover
The one he crawls to in the middle of the night
The one you hide away
The one you hold when you're  to tired to deal with all the baggage at he
And I am okay with this

Our stories intersect one day as I was walking in the fog
In an outfit 'sluttier' than I had anticipated
He's out there on the road
Trying to escape his same old home
And he sees me
He recognizes me

The same can't be said for me
I've always been bad with faces and places

But you see me
And walk up to me
As I'm walking to a cafe on the street

We'll return pleasantries
And then ill recognize you
You'll  walk me to my car
Even though I'm determined to walk alone
(Always too determined to walk alone)

I lean in
to hug
You lean in
for more
And I go along because that's me nature
And why the **** not

You'll call
Even though I didn't give you my number
We'll meet in hazy cafes
Dreary bars
All the the places your wife won't go
All the the places that seem like my second home

On our fourth meeting you'll hold me too long
Swear to yourself it's not anything more than longing
You'll doubt our arrangement
I'll be too strung out to see your internal battle
And you will see me
In that moment
As the broken thing
As the special project
That only you can fix
The mess
The that only you
Can hold together

I won't care about the ring line on your finger
You won't care about the *** you see on my kitchen table.
(Or the needles in my bathroom)
You won't care that I open the door in tears
I won't care that you can't stay the night
(But we both really do
Care
About everything)

You'll break down and tell me you love me
Even though you know it's the last thing I want to hear
You tell me
But I refuse to truly
Hear it

It comes through the too short grapevine that she want kids
And that's the notch that hits my trigger
Because children are the one
True innocence
Left in the world
And the second a minor enters our play
Is the moment I make my final exit

You lose me
Because I won't be found
You'll knock on the doors of my dealers
Call the family who turned their backs on me too long ago

I'll try to get it together
(And mostly fail)
I'll listen to too much Carole King
(Don't worry- I won't realize the irony)
The truth will come too clear in the eighth shot of Jameson
(And the nth hit)

The truth I hid from
Those frighteningly cliche three words

You go back to your perfect wife
I go back to my means to an end

You find me again
One night
(I let you find me)
And the accident that created
brightens my world
Wondrously

He becomes my life
The candle in the fog
My own perfection
My reason to feel the dreaded L word
I don't share him though

I'll give him everything
But you
(I'll thank you for the gift
everyday)
(I'll thank you for the love
Every second)

always disappointed to see my sluttier posts get attention and drive anything meaningful that I show the world into obscurity