I can remember when we used to lie in bed
and make love for hours on Sundays.
Duvet days where
Breakfast in bed
Lunch in bed
*** in bed

I remember taking in every part of you
tracing my finger along your back
committing every curve of your spine to memory
And reminding myself
that this wasn’t a dream.

I can recall those times I’d wake up
at midnight or one or two
And I’d sense your eyes going right through me.
I’d take a peak and there you were,
staring at me long and hard
with those baby blues.

There was a moment I first realized you loved me.
It was in a room full of beautiful women
and all you could do was stare at me
with that ***** smile plastered on your face.
And I knew I was ***** smiling back at you.

I was shocked every time you took my hand
when we were walking down the street
Because the one before you never did that.
He was ashamed of me.
You wanted the world to see us together.

I fantasized having a child with you
Tiny, perfect and beautiful
with my sandy blonde hair
And your tall, lanky body.
We’d give him all the love in the world.

All I can remember are those moments.
But I sleep alone in a Queen with dark, cold sheets
and you’re no longer there.
You’re my own personal ghost
who will follow me until eternity’s end.

All I have left of you
is how we once were.

He came up to me
on the street
Looked at me long and hard
with chocolate brown eyes
that stared right through me
And said

You’re strikingly beautiful.

I gave him a soft smile,
Shook my head.
And said

No I’m not.
I’m a ******* headcase.

His turn to smile softly.
And he said

well you do the ******* headcase thing gloriously.

And he walked away.

I stared at corner where he turned for four hours.
Because it was the most alive I ever felt
and I didn’t want it to end just yet.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare give up on me.
I am helpless. I am flawed. I am undeserving.
But I am here.
I am one of us.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare push me aside.
I can be a ghost. I can be a fly on the wall.
But I am steadfast.
I am a sphinx who cannot be moved.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare ignore me.
I am faceless. I am unwanted. I am forgettable.
But I have presence. I have substance.
I exist.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare betray me.
I am shameful. I’ve made mistakes.
But I deserve trust.
I don’t want to turn to resignation.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare forget about me.
I am invisible. I fade to black.
But I am a person.
And I want to be remembered.

Don’t you
Don’t you dare
Don’t you dare ever stop loving me.
I am incapable. I have walls. I am scared.
But I don’t want to be empty.

Sad girl rock
Fills the room with hopeless longing.
Rootless dreams take off out of the open 2nd floor window.
Cold Coffee.
Ain’t nothing
To a Cold, Cold heart.

This isn’t how the story ends.
Cryogenic stasis.
A general lack of brain damage.
Neurological bliss.
Goosebumps when it’s 90 degrees.

If a tree falls in the woods….
Questions.

Paralysis in analysis.
I understood more before the literary critique.
Lost.
We’re all lost.
Thematic speeches
and character monologues.
Overbearing landscape descriptions.
It’s all so oppressive.

Characters who walk around and around.
Past street signs. Past Monuments. Past that same newsstand again.
Circles in grids. So squares, then.
The time of Ulysses is near
So we can all be thoroughly confused together.

Absence.
Lack thereof.
Without.
Lost.
Forgotten.

Absence.
An empty bed.
Lonely hearts club.
A party of one.
Quiet house.
Not even a stir.
Miles cracking as he spins and spins
Rain drop drops down the windows,
down walls
down me.

Absence.
Not good enough to be remembered.
Boring, lackluster, too easily surpassed.
A hole in the heart,
Weakness is showing emotion.
Blank face.
Death in Life.
EXILE.

Absence.
Tardiness.
A minute too late.
Detention.
No, absence.
Not here at all
was never really here
was never ever here.

Absence.
Seeing what is wanted
Not what is had.
What is had
is absence.
A lack thereof.
Nothing really at all.

Those eyes.
Those angry, angry eyes.
Those angry eyes are the last thing I see before I sleep.
Inspiring the thought that is there for only just a moment,
and then slips into my subconscious,
Low beneath the surface where it will stay buried and withdrawn
and it is this:

You will always be this way
and I will always have to live with it.
It’s that thing I hate about you and love about you at the same time.
You’re full of passion, you’re zoned in a moment, you let your knobs turn to 11.
Emphatic, impassioned, ****** energy
floats in the spaces between atoms in the world around you.

But when you turn to anger…
I see a madman, with fire in his belly and hate in his heart.
The same man who storms into the flames
and barn burning antics consume his mind.
The switch is on and it won’t turn off,
it is single-handedly the most petrifying disposition you have.
and I know you will always be this way
and I will have to live with it.
and every night as I go to bed,
I hope to God I don’t see
Those angry, angry eyes.

Hey remember that night when we chased the burglars in the front and back yard
and you almost kissed me?
God, I wanted you to.

I submitted a Post Secret of two young French lovers kissing in the rain
and I wrote “This will never be me” over the woman.
******* Parisians.

Once upon a time,
I bought flowers for myself just because I wanted to.
It was the most empowering thing I could have done.
But for the two weeks they sat on my window sill,
I was constantly reminded no one bought them for me.

Long ago, in a land far, far away,
I used to believe in miracles.

This one time, We sat at the Spanish Arch,
the one the Conquistadors built,
comprised of ancient old stone that caught the tears of the heartbroken,
heard the tales of the old salty men coming home from the bar,
and saw the transformation of an old Irish city into a new, artsy town.
We looked up, saw a shooting star, and wished on it I would be with him forever.

I was 19 once, and he sat on the beach with his flicky blonde hair
and a Corona and his oversized tee shirt hanging off his body
and we sat on that beach for hours, in the eye of the storm, soaking it all in.
It was the first time I realized I could love.

We were 22 and he was in love with somebody else and I loved his soul,
but I wasn’t in love with him and we found out we’re in the same boat.
We will always love each other but we can never be together
because we cannot give each other what we need.
He’s the only man who has never let me down.

As a child, I thought I could fly.
Not physically fly, but Peter and Wendy inspired me,
and I knew I could fly as a dreamer, and soar through the skies
like the hawk or the raven or the finch or the ******* pterodactyl if I wanted to.
And I wanted to. And I did.

I wrote a story once about a girl who ran several miles at two am when she couldn’t sleep
and the personal demons kept haunting her and taunting her
and the whiskey wouldn’t shut them up.

Every once in a while, I clean the house naked.
Sometimes, I kinda wish the UPS guy would catch me.

Every day, my life is filled with sullen, sunken, exposed regret.
I wish I did what I didn’t do.