There's nothing against that in the contract.

Contributions can be arranged.

But you'll have to bring me these
In person.....

....come to me.

Leave me in my own abyss.
I've been thrown plenty of ropes, trust me.
But it's hard not to use them
to create my own noose, you know?
Leave me be, then.
Whatever.
Not like anything will change.

It's there
You may not be able to see it, but you can hear it;feel it;smell it;taste it;desire it

It's here
In my veins, running strong like liquid gold that can melt souls and burn hearts

It's everywhere
In the minds of the young that hold our generation in the palm of their hands and in the eyes of the old who watch the world they knew deteriorate

It's there
It's here
It's everywhere

I need to put out
My love for you

one single, solitary tear
it will always be alone
few drops may merge on its path
but the wind will separate all

and to what do we owe this
separation, this displeasure?
Pushiness, infatuation. Love.
Five days, and it's already gone?

i love that it took 30 slits for you to realize I needed help. Thanks for leaving me at the emergency room by myself. Don't you ever ******* dare touch me again. I just want to die.

"Ma! Ma! Did you see her? Over there!"

"See what my child? Tis impolite to stare."

"Ma, Twas an angel! With fiery red hair!"

"Dear one, come now,  please halt your stare."

"But Ma, see Ma, o'er yonder she stands!"

"Impertinent child, you heard my demands!"

"Dear Ma, sweet Ma, see you not her flam'd strands?"

*"No child, I see naught. Now meet my demands."

It's not the taste of his lips
It's the smoke they imply
that keeps drawing me
in
i  n
i        n

Pressed between two walls
of written words;
Barely breathing between paragraphs
of love and hate;
Drying out between words
of confusion;
My petals are dropping
and we are none
the wiser.

I often do that a lot.

Find words that mean what I wish she'd say.

But the real question lies thus;

who was that meant for?

I won't fall in love with falling*
But somehow,
Gravity and I have become
Best friends.
It's entirely your fault....
....thank you.

The reflection in my glassy irises
wasn't what I wanted
I envisioned us going places.
We didn't. It's alright.

I just wish I knew
what you think of me
now that everything is through....
and I'm long long gone.

I'll repeat and repeat and repeat
it wasn't your fault, the blame's on my mind
and though everything you said was sweet
My brain decided it meant more.

So please forgive my starry eyes
they know not what they do
the hurt they earned was no surprise
because of the hurt they caused you

I really hope you don't
take this as pushing it
But I hope you know
-in a non-weird way-
that you have someone to
turn to when things
get messy

I mean, I'm much more
of a mess than anyone has
the leisure of knowing
but if I can help someone
else clean up theirs
mine doesn't seem
so overpowering

But you said, she whispered, her voice laced with poison and smoke. *You said dragons don't exist.
I never said they didn't exist, I breathed, the snow melting beneath our twitching fingers. **I said I'd never seen one. Until now.

Tis no more a question of life and of death,
tis no more a query of "what if" I had left,
tis no more a concern of thy troubled mind;
tis no more a thought. Darling, leave me behind.

Just thinking of me
Wearing one of your tee shirts
Gives me chills...
I might need your jeans too.

My face is square
My eyes are almond
My nose is triangular
I must be a freak of nature

To define the ever changing facets of love is to pin a crashing wave upon a rock. In the same way, to tie you down by your wildly streaming mane to a gold ring; how on earth would you survive?

Your soul’s sustenance is the freedom which comes at the cost of only the deepest and most committed type of love which rarely chooses to show its face to the world. Your racer’s tan marks all you do, your love for being out in the open permeates the very fabric of your being, stains it with an irreplaceable scent of the grass blades rustling in an open field, uninhibited by the struggles and chains of this modern world.

But then where am I?

Apparently, my phone has a problem with my listening to Hamilton...

If you can hear me
AND I KNOW you can
help me
throw me a vine
pull me out

I've asked so many times
and have received answers
made of titanium refusal
Give me a gain that I can use
to stop myself
from lighting my own fuse

her mind was a rose bed
and he was a new bottle of roundup

What if I told you that silver tongues speak the same language
A twisting of deceit
And turning of adrenaline

What if I told you that my silver tongue
Is lying in wait
To meet yours?

feigning righteousness did he
abhor in all its majesty
yet killing off discrepancies
adds only to her scheme.

Give him your eyes
Let him stare for h o u r s

Give him your lips
Let him kiss them till they're cracked

Give him your mind
Let him rampage in your thoughts at one in the morning.

Give him your body
Let him touch what he wants to keep his sanity

Give him your sanity
In exchange for sanctuary

Give him your soul
Just so he won't hurt you

But he does....
Luckily, you didn't give him what you value most.

You didn't give him your heart.

Were you to give it to me
I'd protect it till I died
I'd wrap it in my loving arms
Until the morn was nigh.

Were you to give it to me
I'd hold it now and forever
I'd make it sparkle like the sun
And feel light as a feather.

Were you to give it to me
I'd give you all in return
For your love, my dear, I think you see
Means more than you'll ever learn.

Thank you.
Thank you for leaving me when I needed you most.
Thank you for being disinterested in my scars.
Thank you for dropping me when all I needed was to breathe.
Thank you for letting me drown in her patronization and sitting aside.
Thank you.

he threw fistfuls of stars at the sky
and they sprinkled back down onto his hair
how could he have known that to be in love
first you have to fall

It's like walking on clouds, he said.
It takes all your insecurities and spins them into whipped cream.
whether whipped into sugar or whipped into submission, we will never know.
but that blanket isolation-where will I go when it's swallowed?
it's necessary for people like me.
We alight on hydrangea petals like a sprinkling of ash
and suddenly disappear into shattered glass.
They say feelings such as mine will wreck minds,
put a wrench in the construction that is happening between two people.
One figment ventures to peep about my own development plans, but I bite my tongue and swallow the thought.
Does the whipped topping permeating my words pass your lips still disguised?
Or can you divine why it's there to begin with?
I hope you know, he pleads. *I hope you know you're my biggest insecurity.

To love his guise is to love a god
Of gold and emerald hue
I want your skin - is that so odd? -
As well as the rest of you.

He had golden eyes
Though some say they were green
They marveled and they wept
Over many a lovestruck scene

He had golden eyes
With violet titanium hue
And steely determined devotion
And love that's loyal and true.

He had golden eyes
That filched their tint from sunlight
But daydreams never do last-do they?-
And he was gone when the time wasn't right.

If I wear a gold chain
In my hair
Instead of around my neck
Am I gangster?
Stereotypes
****.

Gone are the days
When life was a ride
And I just grinned
From the passengers side

Gone are the nights
When life was a dream
And I could follow
Someone else's scheme

Here are the weeks
When life is full force
And I have to push
Like battle worn horse

Here are the years
When life becomes death
And I gasp my last
Living my final breath

Good mourning.

Just woke up without his face next to me...
How can Fate be so cruel?
Is she alone too?

Change yourself,
do what you like.
You'll always just be
the same old Mike.

Be what you will
your actions are past
no one can judge you
memories won't last

I know you think
they're too strong to forget
but I know you enough
to know you regret

Regret is a tool
used to make better a man
so don't tempt forgetfulness
You are you. So stand.

It's hard rereading.

You can reread your history
or your notes on physics,
the life of Marie Antoinette
or the dead Mayan mystics,
but you can't reread
your own poetry.

Why not?

When you read anything but
the things you have scribed down,
the emotions don't fly off the page
or take your heart to town,
high on the feeling that
rereading your own poetry brings.

But how?

My poems are usually written
about loves I once had
and that meant the world
until they soured into bad.
These vent sessions don't normally rhyme,
and take lots of time to write.
But I still reread them.

Terrible as they are,
guilty as they make me feel,
I reread.
and reread.
      and reread.
             and reread.
                    and reread.

My whole being feels stuck
on the bottom of someone's shoe;
forced to go down the path I don't want,
sticking to the past,
stuck to the future,
and unable to enjoy the present
presented by the present present.

*rereads

Oh, no.
You don't want these hands.

Worn and weary from many a night they've spent tapping against a tabletop, waiting for an inspiration that almost never shows itself...

Not these.

Battle scarred from wars fought against an ivory foe, the checkerboard pressure staining them a white and then a red deeper than Macbeth's blood....

Trust me.

Full of pain from furiously scrawling onto shredded napkin bits hopes, dreams, and fantasies that can only be revealed by the power of the pen...

They're broken.

They do not expect
       Think
                  Want
                            To be held in another's.

But then, there's you.
Just you.
How?

I see you.

And suddenly, my hands-worn, weary, battle scarred, full of the deepest pain imaginable.......

Suddenly, they're not empty anymore.

I'm holding you.

Harder than ice, I believe
Stricter than the Amish
Colder than the Artic, I say...

You can weave your best iron together but it takes
little but a rainbow glint from my eyes to see through it.

I know you, best not to say so. I know more than I let on.
I know, I know.

So weave your titanium shield and hope for the best,
and I'll sit here harvesting rainbows and waiting for a sign, a break.

Perhaps one will never come.

Can you hear me
Are these words wafting
Off the printed page
To your fallen face
Into your eccentric ears
And heating your heart?

My heart is having a hard time staying in my chest where it belongs.
But it can't just keep floating around like this-
soon, it'll run out of oxygen.
Give it a temporary home?
Or maybe not so temporary.
I digress.

It'd be easier to cut into me
All the words I wish to see
For the time I waste writing in vain
Does naught but cause me uncouth pain.

This pen's too heavy, my arms, too tired
And through me a mistake is wired
Too long my cogs and wheels have turned
Without due love to be returned.

Emotions flow too free and too wild,
Like the hands of an impish devil child
Too strong and too deep, they rage like bears
Shouting loud as they can, yet no one's aware.

For, feeling things as I often do,
Often what hurts is the ilk that is true.
A false word would save me the strife-
Oh! See what my heart has done to my life!

Can't you see that my white flag is folded up
And safely hidden within the recesses of
My deep gown drawer?

I didn't want to be rescued.....

And now, as you smile and you dog and you pine endlessly....
I smile and I fake as I wish it weren't me.

I wish it wasn't me who captured your heart
Who made your heart sing
Who stood apart

I wish it wasn't me who you chose to rescue
But that's just your fairytale
I'm helping you make true.....
Even though it makes me blue.
This ache is for you.

Darkness.
That’s how it all began, wasn’t it?
And that’s how it will end……
…..I think…..
I’ve been falling forever.
No start.
No end.
It’s all the same now, really.
And who am I?
I don’t dare answer that.
Names, addresses, pictures….
They all swim through my head,
Without warning, with no preset destination.
And the silence.
Oh, the silence.
It deafens me.
Slithering like an eell in and out of my head,
I quake at the sound.
This frightens me
I am never scared.
Sheepish, determined, maybe.
But never afraid.
But wait!
What is that?
……………….
…….a light………..
And it’s calling to me.
I know this voice, this figure, these eyes.
And I am not afraid.

To what extent will wonders cease?
They fail to bloom, fail to please.
When I have folded every last crease,
He’ll be flown like a flock of geese.

He sees not tears in these brown eyes,
Feels no sorrow for our goodbyes.
I fear he’ll someday break our ties,
And leave naught but deceit and lies.

Who can tell why loves goes away,
Why yesterday is not today?
Who wants to live that darkening day
When for our lives, the price we’ll pay?

We have just hit a milestone-
I gave a secret of my own.
To you, from my lips it has flown
To be read in your baritone.

Your voice is music to my ears
Through the silence, through all my tears-
You’re the sole my conciousness hears
As the time that we reunite nears.

I wonder what will happen then-
Will we kiss? Or be apart again?
I guess I’ll just have to pretend
That no love there will be there to defend.

His eyes block out all that is wrong,
Brown irises sing their own song.
A song of love, forever long,
That shows his heart, where I belong.

But yet, he says there is someone,
Who he does love more than the sun.
I thought that I had finally won
But yet my work has only begun…

And now my heart in hell does burn.
It seems that I shall never learn.
I watch couples kiss at the stearn
And know that now, it’s not my turn.

I hear him laugh, I watch him smile,
They make me wish he’d stay awhile.
Instead, I choke down bile
And watch my tears fall onto cracked tile.

Nothing is broken, Nothing whole;
The price of love’s a heavy toll.
It takes your all, leaves you a troll
To go home crying to your dark knoll.

Hello.

How are you?

Nice weather we have been having, yes?

How is your husband?

I hope this letter finds you well.

Openings.

They are always there, permeating the parchment of a letter, staining it with insincerity and dullness that melts into a void from which no one can escape.

We try to gloss it over, putting lipstick on a pig whose true identity shines through, no matter how deep the hue, how expensive the brand, how thick the application.

Why do not we push and pull, rage and scream, asking each other what really matters?

How is your mother doing?

--when we really want to ask--

Has the cancer killed her yet?

There are ways to get around this just by rearranging a few words.

But NO.

That'd be *way too easy.

Hey there.

I'm really not doing so well.

I prefer rainstorms, this sunny weather bores me to pieces.

My husband died eight years ago, Janet.

You know full well that I haven't been truly well since age seventeen.

Perhaps since the openings **** us...

...we can be brutally honest and **** them in return.

With honesty---

---the same honesty that those who write the openings omit, feign to recognize, shove off in a corner somewhere.

Honestly--

*Hello, how are you?

When someone needs you and you're too far away
or when you're not sure if you're what they need to stop the hurt
or if you're what's causing it