and he said "can we be friends"
                                                i didn't really know. "i have enough friends"

"well what are we then?"      
                                                the silence was deafening. then i wrote my last
                                                poem in the space standing between us
                                                "we are a bundle of photographs in an old shoe
                                                box we put at the tippy top of our closest next
                                                to our old dreams and constellations and
                                                watch it slowly gather dust. and when our
                                                children ask who our first loves were we think
                                                back quietly to the faded memories we shared
                                                and try to push each other from the brain even
                                                after all the years. and perhaps a little bit of
                                                dust gets caught in one of our eyes and we are
                                                asked "mommy are you crying" and "of course
                                                not honey" follows soon after but we both
                                                know somewhere there was an entirely
                                               different universe out there for us to share but
                                               it's okay because we will smile at our respective
                                               children and homes and spouses and you will
                                               say "of course not, it was always your mom";

keep your Love
close to mine
this world does not
define your kind
i'll stick by you
through all you do
even when your
heart is strewn
i'll paint your worries
with my mind
replace your broken
parts with mine
your light
it guides me
so i shine, unrefined
we intertwine
through all time
you'll never find me
far behind . . .

“but i miss him.”

and what can you say to that?
there are no words that can come from
your lips
that will make her forget
the taste of his.

i am learning to love myself
like he never could
and darling
i can feel flowers
growing from my scars
reaching for the sunshine
of my new found smile

s.s

i'm trying hard to
believe in love but
i held my sister while she
fell apart in my arms because
her lover of eight months suddenly told her that
he didn't love her anymore,
and i'm not sure how many times i can stitch her back up
before the cuts are too deep
to be sewn.
i'm trying hard to
believe in love but
my best friend has had her heart broken
too many times to count,
feeble-minded fuckboys or
temperamental tantrums because
she didn't love them back and they decided to
cut all ties.
never once did she get an apology.
i'm trying hard to
believe in love but
every single one of my past
flirtationships
have ended in loss
one way or another,
him or me-- it doesn't matter how
because
i'm still alone.
i'm trying hard to
believe in love but
in a world like this,
it's hard to hold onto something
so fleeting.

my mom turned out the light
and took away my book.
"no more stories, it's time to focus on your own,"
she scolded,
shaking her head with disappointment.
the door slammed shut quietly
as i sat trying to adjust to the suffocating darkness
when the window creaked open
and in you came with a candle of your own,
along with a blank book
with only one sentence-

"let's write our own- no limits."