faces like yours aren't meant for touching
and i'm beginning to think that closed-casket funerals were created for you
and sometimes the overwhelming desire to share something of yourself with someone--with anyone--is too much to bear

and suddenly i understand every spraypainted feeling under every freeway
or sharpie sentences scribbled in bathroom stalls
or muttered comments or notes in library books or songs on repeat played a little too loud
and i understand why pretty girls write stories on their arms

you were never the type to tell the truth
you were always talking
you never understood the way i looked at my feet when you laughed or how i spoke in hushed tones


some days are better than yesterday and some days make me question tomorrow
some words make me question you

today i wonder what the bigger sin is

is it your lying?
or my hopeless belief in words i know aren't true?

words are meant to be spoken and hands are meant to be held and love and sorrow and anger are meant to be felt and enjoyed and EXPERIENCED
and everything has meaning
everything but you

You are buried in my pillow of fever
And burn heavily in my eyeballs. Your odour
Pervades my bed, and will not be laid.

Though you offer me an orphan future
Which I leave untouched on an unknown doorstep
Medicine is the touch of your lip.

If you called as you do call from the bottom of the sea
I would hear you in my grave easily
I would step down to join you happily.

Brushing the lies aside I shall leave my bed
I shall find you under the Rumanian dead
Under the wreck, still arched for attack.

i wrote about you so often that every time my ink pen scraped a piece of paper the pen bled your name

When I found the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.
My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived.
I liked
the glimpse I had, though,
of their obscure
gestures. I liked the sound
of such private voices. Next time
I'll move like cautious sunlight, open
the door by fractions, eavesdrop
peacefully.

i thought it’d be poetic
to leave you the same way i found you,
with a contentless text—
a simple entered space
(i knew you wouldn’t catch it)
although you seem to be someone
who thinks very deeply about all someones,
your thoughts about me are puddles
disguised as over-complimenting oceans

and i really do not know
what i am or what i’ve been to you,
or if i’ll be able to keep myself away
from you, or why you’d drive hours
to see me in the middle of the night
when you “plan on kissing at least one
girl in the next three months,”
(could care less if it’s me)

"what would i be waiting for," you asked.

i’m barefoot, chasing a train i know
is on tracks that lead away from where
i want and need to be (but i liked the way
it felt when your hand touched mine)

glad i never gave you any piece of my heart,
because you’re the type of boy who’d
rip it to shreds, hide your claws
behind your back, and tell me that
i should’ve seen it coming
(though you would’ve been right)

maybe you’re just bored,
and that’s why you decorate
your skin with ink and don’t care
about whose lips you’ve touched,
and i wish i could figure you out,
wish i could draw a perfect portrait
with my words (or even just
my thoughts) of who you are,
but i won’t pretend i know you

i hate you and your ***** tattoo
(but i don’t really hate you,
i hate the way i let you make me feel.)

John Keats
John Keats
John
Please put your scarf on.