i can't bring myself to write about anything other than us
we were so perfect
so flawed
the four of us were so great
even through
the cigarette burn i left on your car seat
the night it took two hours to find you in hide and seek
the days when it was always either
three in the morning
or noon
every **** day we jumped off the high spot on the bridge
and never got hurt
the times we spent our money on cigarettes
and forgot your car didn't have enough gas
to go anywhere but away from home
the night it was just the two of us
your hands didn't belong around my waist
but they found it anyway
the only witness to a crime that didn't happen
was the moon
once again the four
then the three
and then the light left us
and it was two
no more three in the morning
no more bridges
no more moon
all it is
is two
and a cigarette

i love the way
i can take off my skin
i  spread glue over the surface of my hand
and tear it off
and right then
it isn't glue
it's my very own layer of skin
to start anew with

My hands are shrinking
my body grows smaller
you are filling every pore
replacing all the elements
with you.

when i really think about it
there wasn't anything we didn't get to do
we told all the jokes
jumped from a bridge we shouldn't have
listened to all the songs on all of our ipods
but yet
we're still missing that something
we're missing out on doing everything
more than once
and that's all i need
is to do something
just for old times sake

I knew I had so much to see
when I saw the gutted homes on the outskirts of the city
I knew I had so much to learn
the day I asked my mother why there were so many tiny houses
and she told me they were mobile homes
I know I have a lot to learn
because my head is brimming with questions
my heart aches to know what else is out there
what lies beneath the foundation in that gutted building
and why people would ever want to live in such tiny houses
why the people of this world act the way they do
how many of us really do try our best
and how to be myself when we're all everybody else
I have so much to learn.

you're scared that i'll
"do something stupid"
and i can't say i won't.
i can't promise you that i won't
hurt myself
and i'm so sorry.
i am perpetually sorry.

Sometimes being a poet
means being very sad
yet being very sad
does not mean
that people will know that
and that
makes me very sad

When I was 8, my mother tried to leave home.
I packed a trash bag holding only blankets
I was fully prepared to go with her
she broke dishes trying to get all her things into the car
when she was on the last bag, I wrapped my arms around her waist
and offered her every hug I had to give for her
but she told me
"Not a hug on this earth could keep me here"
but I knew I could do it.
I held her until my dad got home
they talked for hours
and my mother
stayed
I still wonder how my dad did it
I still wonder why I was prepared to go with my mother
I still wonder why I thought a trash bag full of blankets
was enough to live on.