What We Miss Most

it is sunny outside but there are still thunderclaps
inside my eyelids from all of your outbursts
I am coming to terms with the fact
that I was afraid of you

and the questions now remain:
do I forgive you?
and are you sorry?
or are you satisfied?

you are sticking to me like grass burrs
latching onto my sleeves and pricking my fingers
when I ask you to leave

and yet, you somehow still slip through me like beaded water
nothing about you lingers the way it used to.
the ways you hurt me slide through my hands
and I cannot keep them there long enough
to remember why I am angry

it took so many months to uncover the ants
in our sheets, and I have grasped
at fleeting straws all this time

so some nights, I only want to hate
the dirt off your back with my tongue
some nights, I want to find what I missed
in your mouth. some nights it is all I can do
to stay a room away from your bed

until the thunder rolls in
and I remember

so I sit across couches from you
and your guitar, and it hurts most when
you play music, or when you dance.
I used to be your reason for both.

and I became the villian
the moment I said goodbye first
because your bruised hopes let you forget
the shredded heart between my ribs

and so the questions remain:
do I forgive you?
and are you sorry?
or are you satisfied?

it is difficult to say.
but I have a hunch that you
only miss the way your thumb felt
with me underneath it

Expect The Expected

you hear thunder above your window
and all you want is to feel the atmosphere on your skin
and taste its electricity just before the lightning kisses the ground
just after everyone has finally fallen asleep, and you are sure
you will be left alone to breathe in the fresh air
for the first time in weeks, maybe months

and then you'll ruin it all with cigarette smoke
because you tend to fuck beautiful things up that way.

Everyone Seems To Be Washed Out These Days

there is nothing between my skin
and my bedsheets now, and I am looking
at photos of you on your blog, and God knows
where you live, you could be a thousand miles
away or maybe you live in the next town
over, but all of your photos look washed out

everyone seems to be washed out these days
but it looks wonderful on you, and
your nose reminds me of a tulip
(which is especially romantic, considering
 everyone told me when I was young
 that my nose looked like a tulip)
and it is round on your long face
and your lips look sour in the best way

the point is, I am falling in love with you
and I have no idea who you are.
I tend to do this fairly often.

You Did Not Want Me To Forget, And I Didn't.

the ridges of your fingerprints
were razors. my skin
is still torn from where
you touched me.

and I became porous
and soaked up your toxins
when I should have let you run
off my shoulders,

because you were candle flame.
you used up the last
of my oxygen, and
you made me a moth in a bell jar.

and the burns may not
be healed yet, but I
have stored up oceans
in my hands now.

I am armed and I
am no longer so
very afraid
of you.

109.

sometimes I see what looks like blackness
or spiked void out of the corner of my eye
and I think it is a picture of you

so I sit in the bathtub with my laptop
because it reminds me of the feeling
of being in your arms: deadly and electric.

these are the days when I miss you -
my first, my oldest lover who took everything
from me, who taught me how to hate

and how to cherish. there was nothing
to forgive. you were always a poisoned apple
and if you were offered to me today,

we both know
I would relish the chance
to have you in my mouth again.

Walls

the truth is that falling asleep alone
has burned a hole in me. I would like
to be steely and unaffected by solitude
but I am a companion by nature.
I cannot help but wait until I am held tightly
by something other than bedsheets.

lately, I find myself repeating
the same songs seeping
into my pores and leaking
out through my tear ducts.

I suppose all I can do now is bathe
in saltwater and continue to glance
over my shoulder, just in case
I missed someone
because looking forward
to finding romance
has only brought me a pocketful
of hurtful lovers and regret.

and I have given up on giving up
because the only walls in my path
are the ones I have built
to keep myself safe.

they are not working anymore.
I am neither comfortable nor satisfied.
I am merely lonely.

108.

on the one hand, I look forward
to the day when my body dissolves
into flowers and food for smaller animals
but on the other, I suspect I can help many
more things grow and find the sun while I am
still alive, while I am still capable of loving and
tending and gardening and caring and nourishing
so perhaps I should leave the house today in case
there is someone out there who needs my green thumb

Sun Won't Show Up

it's about damn time I stopped
trying to be so poignant, in fact
I might as well chuck my fancy words
out the window as I roll past all the shit
I thought was important.
black seems to fade over my eyelids anyhow
so why bother? see, today I drove right by
the hospital, while my therapist waited inside
for me to come cry on her shoulder.
or to learn some Healthy Coping Skills
or like, Stress Management
or whatever.
the thing is, I think I've decided
I'm not interested in health these days.
it takes a hell of a lot of work,
trust me, and I always end up
with tears running down my face in the end
no matter what Skills I use in the beginning.
and the nightmares
still wake me up every time, no matter
how many sleeping pills I take.
let's be real.
it's about damn time I stopped
trying to be literary, see,
I'm up to my knees in trash and memories
I wish I could throw away. sometimes
Nice Poems just don't show you that stuff.
yeah, I'd much rather toss out
all the pretty words I clung to for so long
like they'd pull me up out of my own psychoses.
it seems pretty stupid
when you really think about it.
seriously, think about it:
I spend all this time trying to kill my brain
with whiskey and weed and sex and Mood Stabilizers
and whatever else, because all I want is to stop feeling,
and then I sit in front of my computer
once the sun goes down, and I try
to type out all these Meaningful Poems
with intention and artistry and sincerity
for other people to read
(but nobody ever does, honestly)
and I fool myself into thinking it makes things better.
I fool myself into thinking that if I write enough words down,
the searing pain behind my eyes will finally dull
or my hands will stop shaking when I cry
or I will stop being a victim
or something.
I'm tired of all of it.
some days I just wanna
drive right past the hospital
and keep driving
and stop giving a shit
about whether or not some stranger
reads my blog.
everyone knows at the end of the day
we all end up falling into bed
and praying the sun
won't show up
tomorrow,
anyway.

107.

you are frothing behind your lips
with words you did not say to her
warnings and chirrups that might
have kept her away from him

but he is hard to catch, and you
of all people should know that no
one wearing rose-colored glasses
suspects the rainstorm before it hits

it will be too late for her, but
there is nothing you can do, save
waiting for her to shoulder past him
like you did in the end

Summer Solstice

so the sun reached warm into your pocket
and you decided to spend the afternoon swimming
in a hot river, bathing in the beams on hot rocks and
drying yourself with a hot towel. but soon, afternoon
had faded and 4 PM yawned into 5 and 6
and the sun carried on.

you remembered halfway through the evening
that it was the Summer Solstice. today the sun
would not relent, and you had no choice but to stay
in its light well past 9 PM.

for most, it was a day of celebration, of worship
to our Fire God. and you are no non-believer, but
lately your days have been so long already
that the sun only burns you now.
and night may not bring you peace,
but at least it cools you down.

but on Summer's Birthday you decided to stay outside
and try your best to befriend the light again. you held its rays in your hands
and spread red singes down your arms with your teeth grin-bared,
and yet, with hours stretching into days stretching into weeks stretching into months
and no release from the pain of living with silent tears down your back
from nights you are glad you do not remember
and days that last for decades

you could not help but hope
tomorrow would be
shorter

Fool's Gold

help me learn to stop learning the hard way, baby,
I promise this time I’ll get it if you just
curl your legs up next to mine and wait
for the silence to start. I am tired of filling up
the space with heartbeats and dripping sounds, because
all they do is kill time. I am just about ready to stop
being ready for disaster. I am just about ready
to be ready for something sweet to touch my lips
all of a sudden. at this point it is hard
to say what winds me up anymore.
maybe it is the sound of the clock ticking or maybe
it is only the anticipation of the moment it will break.

and I swore to myself I would never write
drunk poems again, but… tonight the trees look fine
and long like the spokes of a wheel I want to turn,
like something is happening under the moon, and
I want to be a part of it. I have not felt this way
in a good long while. maybe I should
snatch up the moment while it’s still here.

so be with me in this starlight sentence between
stanzas that don’t make much sense, because
all I want you to be is a teacher. help me understand
that life is often a bag of rocks, and you keep
reaching in expecting a fleck of gold,
but every time you pull something out it is only
another gray chunk of stone.
you tell yourself, “this time, things will be different.
this time I’ll get lucky. this time, this time.”
but you dig around again and come up short.

and I’m looking for that precious metal
in your eyes tonight, baby, but I think
it is only fool’s gold, like it always has been.
but there is a strange toxic comfort
in knowing you will be wrong.
at least you can count on something.

so it is 3 am and I am asking you
to fool me. glow yellow in the night sky
and pretend you are a gem. just teach me how
to un-learn everything I have told myself.
because I am hunting for twigs on the forest floor
and I keep finding moss but missing
the crunch underfoot.
I know the little branches are there, but

my fingers fumble over them and I settle
for rocks instead. I’ll keep reaching
down into that bag.
maybe this time, this time
maybe this time
I’ll pull out the gold from your green eyes
and melt it into a necklace for you
maybe this time I won’t be so
damn foolish.

maybe this time.
maybe.

Ready, Set

ready, set, stop.
I am fucking tired
of setting myself up
for failure
and writing love poems
to ghosts.

I end up sitting stagnant
smoking cigarettes and
bleeding onto paper
hoping for
something
different
to happen.

it is astounding
how wrong
I always am.

everything that has hurt
me should prepare
my stupid heart
for the shut-down, but
I am still here
writing
and waiting

and fucking
myself over
and over and over
again.

ready, set, stop.
it is time
to let go
of the stench of
yesterday
and all the bullshit
that has built up.

I am over
being over it.

I want to be ready
but I am set
on stopping.
help me
learn

to start.

Four Things

do no let your mind forget the lies you tell yourself
to help you fall asleep with the lights on. bring them
back around when things are looking up.
trust me, girl, you cannot afford to feel
better. you’re not cut out for it.
so keep those lies, like...

for instance.

number one: you are made of steel and nothing
can crack your skin. dare someone to try
but do not stick around to see what happens.

number two: you can fight off the sharks
that smell your blood. you have lost your sense
of vulnerability and you hit hard.

number three: you don’t need a single thing
from a single person. you are comfortable in your
emptiness. stay there. like it.

number four: your pumps are your best defense.
put them on and you are six-foot-fifty
and you don’t give a damn about nothin’.

in truth, they are not always lies. there are parts of you
that steel has kissed and you have survived.
iron rubs off on skin and can be contagious, so yes,
you are made of metal here and there.
and you bleed a hell of a lot, so you are used
to sharks swimming around your ankles. you have made
friends with most of them, and they have shared their secrets
with you. you do hit pretty hard, but it is not the sharks
you need to worry about. it is the leeches
you should fear. and yes, you have used your
emptiness as a shield and your pumps as swords
for a good long while.

but it is possible that the walls are crumbling now.
perhaps it is time to try lulling yourself to sleep
with a few truths.

for instance.

number one: your skin is mostly made of cream.
steel is brave, but cream is lighter to the touch.
plus, it tastes better.

number two: there is no need to fight off the sharks.
you are one of them now. swim in the sea
and let your hair grow long.

number three: forget need. want instead.
want ferociously and fearlessly and
let yourself be wanted back.

number four: keep the pumps. wear them out.
keep walking tall but do not lose sight of the ground.
start giving a damn or two. cross your fingers.

so try turning the lights out. close your eyes
and let yourself be afraid. let the anger you have
clenched like a curse wash over your back
and let it remold you into something
mobile. break your paralysis.
stop lying to yourself.
you can afford to feel a thousand things
before stumbling. you are cut out
for greater things
than you think.

Alone No Matter

the dust settles and you can still see
the sweat on your face from last night. it doesn’t take much
to get you reeling again. and your heart is twisted
into something frantic and panting, just like it was
in the dark. my advice?
pick up your shit and run.
put as many miles under your feet as you can, and
only look back if you have to.

you have resorted to burning blank sheets of paper
because you have run out of things to say
but you still want to watch something go up in flames.
sometimes you just throw names
in the fire. and the smoke smells sweet
like chemical memories, but you can’t help
wanting to wash the soot off after you finish.
it is all just a coping mechanism.
a way to keep breathing when the past
is standing on your chest.

and you see women walking by in green dresses
and you wonder why you are still wearing black.
but it all comes down to the soles
of your shoes, I guess, and whether
they take you from point A to point B.
hell, yours even dance for you sometimes.
I suppose that’s worth hanging on to.

but the dirt in your eyes is hard
to ignore, even under spotlights and fog machines.
you are beginning to realize that getting a stranger
to buy you drinks in a bar
does not actually improve your self-esteem.
you still feel hollow at the end of the night,
even with a hundred lips pressed
against your body.

this is what starts the reeling:
the recognition that you are alone
no matter whose bed you are sleeping in.

and that sweat on your face is starting to look real ugly
now, isn’t it? so follow my advice
before it’s too late. pick up your shit and get out.
slam your feet on the pavement until you can’t feel
the hurt anymore. maybe this time
you’ll finally outrun
yourself.

No Competition

This is what you get when you put all your eggs in one basket:
he's fucking your best friend while you're crying yourself to sleep.
You can only imagine their twined fingers as they rise and fall
and you are trying not to wake up your roommates with the sound
of remembering. And now you know for certain that what you had
with him was only ever sex, and it was barely even that to begin with,
and you wanted to slow yourself down enough to stop seeing
rose-colored circles in his eyes and to stop making him
into something he wasn't, but you tend to pick up a crush
and run with it. I mean sprint.

It all comes into focus now.
He only chose you when she wasn't around.

And your throat is itching to scream that you are not interchangeable
with her. The two of you may share a first name
but you are not a fucking package deal.
Nobody gets a medal for sleeping with both of you,
although he certainly went for the gold if there was one.
And it stings now to remember when you were alone with him, and
he tried to make you feel special by calling you by your last name instead,
only he slipped up and used hers instead of yours.
You wanted to believe it was an innocent mistake at the time,
but looking back it's pretty damn plain
that when he put his hands through your dark hair,
he was wishing it was blonde like hers.

And you feel little now, like
a kid on a playground writing love notes in the sandbox to the boy
who's across the swing set pulling someone else's pigtails.
You should have seen it coming. There were too many bad omens,
but you had too many eggs and not enough baskets and you figured
it might just work out this time. What you didn't plan for
was the blue of her eyes shining just a bit more brightly than yours,
and the way her laugh tingles the spine while yours just sounds
like a punch in the gut. You are shirtless, writing poems alone
in your room again while she is texting you
to ask for his number.
And the grime of last night is still on your skin
and all you want to do is shower, but you know the water won't wash
away all the things you wanted from him, the things he never
intended to give you, and you don't want to look
in a bathroom mirror right now anyway.

It all comes down to this: you have always hated competing with her.
Mostly because you know at the end of the day
all she has to do is smile, and then
there is no competition.
You can't blame him
for figuring it out.

Eve After The Apple

Daddy I’m sorry I am, I tore my dress on thorn strewn branches, all these flower petals falling on my shoulders
I brush the cinders off my crooked teeth but no I wouldn’t tell you why, no I would not, oh and you’d love to hear me talk about my sweaty crumpled jeans wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you
That look you give me
That look, look, look
Look, I’m a teenaged slut and you’re taking out the trash

No no, it really isn’t fair it isn’t ever fair is it, I wouldn’t say it you wouldn’t hear it, and I guess I went and did something stupid didn’t I, didn’t I
yes Daddy I did blood stain my pretty white laced skirt
I’m sorry, I knew you wanted me to wear it for Easter but
it looks like I’m too gone for God now here and He saw the juice run down my chin and I just smiled didn’t I, didn’t I (only I wish I could say Mama 'cause a She god sure as Hell wouldn’t blame me for a little apple slice)

Either way I look too gone for God but not for golden idol streetlights and cigarette butts into ashtrays are my alters, yes
Cloudy little wisp of smoke me
(or maybe more like fat snake slithering through desk chairs and knocking over the Good China oh dear, did I do that?)
My poor knees, I think it's growing pains you said or it might be the weight of that secret I kept up between or maybe I spread them too far...
Oh yes and I’m sorry Daddy, Daddy, I did stain that white little dress, won’t you buy me a new one?

I should have bitten my tongue until it bled or sewn my lips with purple thread, and I should have I should have done a great many things but I didn’t
and I bet you look good with those hips in a circle Adam, oh, I bet
I bet you’ve looked looked good take a good long look because baby needs her spotlights, heaven knows
Okay I tripped over my own toes, I did, I skipped the cops and maybe I grabbed his leg but
The stars seem explosive when you’re drinking trees and toxins together from one jug don’t they, don’t they
And I just let my hair grow past the floor, let it grow right past the floorboards and in with braided flowers leaky pipe roots twisted and someone’s broken bottle glass, I did
Oh but Daddy I can’t twist it up for church now can I, can I

Bless me Father for I have skinned my knees on carpet writing love songs to the wrong end, I shouldn’t have shouldn’t have, and I got blood on my clean little skirt and I shouldn’t have, I know you bought me that nice white sheet and I promise I still wear my bobby socks with ruffles on the lip
Yes yes, they still match my saddle oxford shoes only I’ll have to rub that little red droplet off...
But Daddy oh I did, I brushed my skin caught little red droplets rolling down my leg drip apple juice right on my ankle and I tasted them didn’t I, didn’t I touch them to my tongue
Red apple rich sweet honey and I just skin smirk stroked and smiled didn’t I
Didn’t I kiss the bosom borne fruit, didn’t I
Didn’t I bite a dozen more
Didn’t I
Didn’t I

Good Advice for Bad People

Swear to yourself you will not
write another poem for that person,
the one who made you feel dry like ash,
and then open another document
and start writing.
This is what you will be left with
at the end of the day: a pair of
someone else's boots and a tired mouth.
I want to promise you
that it will feel fresher after dawn
breaks, but my promises don't stick
very well these days.

So have a little hope and then bury it.
Hold yourself down to the bed
and pretend you are not alone.
(You have to close your eyes very
tightly for that one.)

Just trust me: these are the ways
to cope when your fingers
are bruised, and you still
have a few sewing projects left.
Take the things you love, the things
you substitute for air,
and set them on fire. Watch them burn
down to nothing.
And the parts of you that still hurt
will burn with those things,
and there will be plenty
of oxygen left. Only this air
will be free of obligation.

Remember that there are no happy
endings for people like us,
only gray areas
and stomachs that growl in the middle
of the night. Give up on trying
to make sense of your reflection.
Let go of the notion
that you are a sweetheart. You
are not. You are a lion.

Be brave and stop
giving a fuck about the bridges
you burn. Embrace the fact
that your tears
are acid rain. Even your sadness
can hurt people.

Get sunburned.
Peel it off.
Become a hundred different people
with a hundred different sets of skin
by the time the summer ends.
Forget where you started.
And I want to promise you
that it will feel
fresher when dawn breaks, but
my promises don't stick
too well these days.

What I will say is this:
you are beautiful in your destruction.
Try your hardest not to be afraid
to raise hell.

No Promises

my bone-white fingers grasp at memories like straws

the little flecks of you that were left inside my skin

and doubts are cropping up between my smiling teeth 

like buzzards in suburban yards. I wonder what has died

to bring them here, or whether birds of prey are just bad omens

because someone told me once that I would endure

a hell of a lot more heartbreak before I found something

worth keeping in my ribs, and I must admit I am exhausted

already. so I have only written half a poem for you so far, because
I am tired of exploding like atom bombs in my lovers’ skies. trust me
when I say that when I fall for you, I will not land on velvet pillows
it will be violent and harsh and bones will break, and if you try to catch me
before I hit the ground I will only hurt you more. my knees are weak
and weary of carrying too much worry in my hips, and when I ask you
to love me you should know that I am twisting like jungle branches as I say it
my skin is tight with fear like saltwater in a balloon and there are
so many serpents underneath my tongue that kissing me
is a dangerous thing to do. part of me wants you to save yourself
the trouble and part of me wants you to stay, but most of me knows
that I am conjuring this all out of smoke and you were never in my arms
to begin with, except for one night. in all likelihood, it is the only night
we will have. we made no promises to each other. but it was a warm night
and I slept well, and your hand in the crook of my waist as we took turns breathing
felt like a secret I’d been waiting to share. I expect we’ll move forward
and I’ll blush if you ask me whether this poem is about you, and you will find
a mouth without serpents in it, and I will find someone else to fall apart with

but I imagine I’ll remember how, for a while, our smiles fit together pretty well.

Cups

I drink from whatever cups are left on the windowsill.
it has been long enough but I still have not discovered my own
water source. so I find my reflection in small places: little
circular faces peering up at me from day-old glasses of Coke
and halves of bathroom mirrors where I wasted all the smiles
I had saved up for you. instead I watched you walk up stairs
with some other girl, and she was careening into you hard
and her hair was much longer than mine. I suppose that is
a sign. her smiles fell on your face and you brought her
to your lips, and I can only imagine where it went from there.
I was even stupid enough to knock on your door, as if you
weren't smiling into her lips behind it. and of course I am still
sitting here in an unlit room, drinking from someone else's cups
and letting my fingers fumble over this old keyboard rather than
talking to you, or creating enough gravity to make you
careen into me the way she did into you.
maybe this is all in my imagination.
either way, I think the cure
is just some fresh water.

Little Craters

last night I caught a glimpse
of the little craters in your eyes
they gather the moonlight and let it pool
up along the edges of your lashes
and it leaks like silver tears
when you smile

and I am not the only one
who has noticed the shape of you
the way it curves and falls into itself
I do not know how many lovers
have found their own secrets
in the sway of your spine

but I would like a shot at it
if only for a few hours, maybe
I am too wide and too many things
and maybe my skin is too smooth
with no valleys, nowhere
for the light to pool

you have such good timing
and mine is always five minutes fast
we keep missing each other. and I could have
reached out and found my fingers in your hair
a hundred times, making little braids
but something stayed me

it may have been the blue light
and the shadows it cast, made your nose
into a mountain range I could not climb
it may have been the big of your hands
and my fears that my little heart
might drown in them

but with my eyes closed, I bathed
in the craters of yours, in the liquid
moonlight. you were three feet away
and I was dancing in your waters
and maybe tonight I will try
to find your skin
with mine