Every time I look you in the eye, I see thunderclouds. Yes, your laugh is silver bells on a spring day and your smile could have caused Mona Lisa to grin all the way in, but they’re right. Your eyes are the behind the scenes and your body is a movie. I don’t enjoy watching movies.

2. I can’t keep up with the storyline. Chapters fifteen and sixteen were about homecomings, and now the main character’s digging his own grave again. You never explained to me how he went from dancing in the moonlight to rubbing ash on his head, just when I thought we were getting already to the ******.

3. The wounds are reopening. I thought you knew better than to pick at the stitches.

4. Your heart must be handcuffed to mine. I feel it every time you hurt, every time you pull, every time you cry out and ask God, “Why?” The only difference is that every inch you move away is a sucker punch in my gut. I’ve never had a high tolerance for pain.

5. Do you know how many poems I’ve written about you? Try walking outside at night and count every street lamp from here to the opposite side of the sea. My words burn too, but they never seem to be bright enough for you to see. You’re still tripping in broad daylight.

6. I’m tired of standing behind you.

7. Hope is an anchor, but I’m starting to drown.

8. Sometimes I scream in frustration because the seeds are taking too long to grow. It’s so easy to forget that they will. It’s even easier to forget that I’m not the savior. But I try to be, so I’m putting down this yoke, little by little.

9. Seeds do grow and their trees make enough rings to tell stories to last generations.

10. I heard in a song that love alone is worth the fight. Maybe I’ll continue this battle long enough for you to see that we’ve already won this war, so that the next time I look at you in the eye, I’ll see the northern lights.

When I called the visual appeal of your body topography, you laughed. You misunderstood.
The sharp angles, the planes, the curves and the hollows of your body, of your skin stretched thin over bone, these are what I find beautiful. This is the topography of you, the places I want to map with my lips and teeth. The familiar places, my home within a home, my love.
Your body is geometry, trigonometry, mathematics you hate almost as much as the way I can trace your every rib and vertebrae. Perspective translates your flaws into aesthetic beauty, but your perspective is your own and you will never see what I do. I will love you enough for the both of us, darling, love your flaws more than your perfection just to give you what you deserve.

At least if you don't ask,
I don't have to lie.
I've spent most of the past
few months asleep
on the bathroom floor;
sick of keeping everything in,
too tired to let it out.
"Home" is such an empty word.
I'm not sure why it felt
whole coming from your mouth.
I'm not sure
why I felt
whole.
We both know I'm just an idea
to carve into sheetrock
with swollen fists;
leaving worn out holes that
your heart never fit.
I try not to wake up,
but my body is used to
(everyone leaving)
routines.

I used to like when he hugged me outside my car for
four minutes, how he wouldn't let me leave even if it
was cold outside and i was only wearing flip-flips, always
after our lips were red and chafed and my hair was a god-awful
mess on my head,

I used to like it when he listened to odd future, when he complained
about how ugly he was when I knew he was beautiful, how he was
worried that I would care that his skin was rough, that his skin was rough
that his skin was rough, but I loved his textures, his angles, his curves, never
smooth, never flat skin.

I used to like his baby cheeks and defined jawlines, how nothing ever mixed
with him, but he was milk and paint and oil. Baked potatoes with broccoli and
thyme, rosemary cloves.

I can't point out where all these things ended.

When I started to complain when he held me for too long in front of the door because
I told him he couldn't hold me in front of the car anymore. It was too cold.
When did my lips starting staying pink instead of red, when did
my hair start staying perfect, when was the last time I had held his hand
without being afraid of some boring, ridiculous reason, when was the last
time I laid in bed with him when was the last time I thought that he was the
best thing to ever happen to me, where do these thoughts go?

Overthinked, thanked, thunked? Did I wear beyond use, does my love have
an expiration date?

you effectively deconstruct everything I say
I'm never right in your
drab blue eyes
but I think I have fallen in love with you
shouting hateful words is
apparently a turn on for me
your pessimism
tries to compete with the optimistic noise
I provided
I have enthusiasm
and hope your continue to see half-empty
it sort of completes me
if I forget to dot an i
or cross a t
it is given that you will point it out
your delicate hand points to the mistake
and you say "there. fix that."
and I obey your bitter command
with a half-wish that you will one day
see with my eyes
but in the same way I'd like for you to never change
because I secretly enjoy the spiteful symbiosis
we have attained
I build and you satisfy your need to destroy
and I build again but this time
you take down less
and before you know it you'll be building too
laying bricks
and in your own,
passive-aggressive way,
you are making me infatuated with you
you are my cynic
my blue-eyes skeptic
the one I love to hate
but would love to love
you have denied everything I say
but you have crawled under my stubborn skin
injected yourself into my veins
and grown a garden of ideas in my head
and I know you would say this poem doesn't do you justice
and just this time I'd have to agree

In a hidden corner, I quietly stand
My head bowed down, my eyes stare low
I hear stomping of feet, disorderly screams
Like ones that pierce in unfortunate dreams
My breath grows heavy
My heart, it complains
In isolation, I feel so estranged
"What if I'm found?", I tense with great fear
"Then all would be over." Like death coming near
(silence)


Then quicker than lightning
my chest gets a hit
and with sinister laughter
he announces,
"YOU'RE IT!"

Sitting a row in front, her forehead rests on a tanned hand
perhaps in simple boredom, her thoughts
caged in by the rays of sunlight washing her brunette hair.
The train rattles on, passing empty shopfronts
and two boys racing each other on bicycles
I yawn, breathing the laziness around
'I could sit next to her' I imagine
my eyes fixed on her delicate eyelashes, but
foolishness is embarrassing
so I yawn again.
If love could be defined, it certainly cannot be
two strangers with unacquainted hearts.
That's not love - that's a childish crush, a fatal attraction,
an act of stalking!
Sigh.
OH she's leaving. Wait
Beauty.. Heaven.. Strawberries..!
You.. Me.. love.. Love!


gone

I own one spoon
one knife
one fork
one bowl
and one plate
but I own two mugs
in hopes we'll fall in love over a cup of coffee.