we are who we'd most like to be
we are what we project
we see but what we want to see
the real becomes suspect

we read a life between the lines
that may/may not exist
confessional or fictional
the reader takes the risks

readers fall in love with words
and think they love the poet
the poet fills a fantasy
and rarely will they know it

the poet seeks a balance 'tween
their lives, their art, their craft
controlling readers' impulses
would drive most writers daft.

so if you think you know someone
by reading line or four
the romans have a line for you
it's "caveat emptor".

I followed your footprints for nearly three miles
before I realized what I'd forgotten, and by then I was three miles away.
It was neat, clean, and all in order,
but that didn't make it any less wrong;
you know all I want to feel is right.

I keep having this feeling that you love me, but you're afraid to say it.
It's almost enough to make me free,
and I've been liberated before, but not the way I am now.
Everything's new at this point, which puts you in a different section of my life,
and my heart.
I still wish you wouldn't change who you are
just because I've changed who I am.

It's that moment of seeing something you never saw before,
or the second where you know your hand fits perfectly into his;
the way you sound when you sing,
or look when you dance,
or feel when you cry from happiness,
or eat a something you made yourself,
or clean your room,
or shower,
or fall in love.

The light coming through my window streaks the ***** floor,
but there's something in the floating dust
and the garbage on the carpet
that is infinitely
beautiful.

I stopped feeling anything almost a week ago,
you said that was normal for someone like me who always bites her nails
who doesn't like to shut up when people tell her to,
but I feel like you were just trying to make me feel something,
or maybe just feel better.
I still bite my nails so nothing's changed.

you eat equations as quick as you eat watermelon
and spit out the answers like seeds into neat rows and shapes,
trying to impress me because you think you can,
but I'm watching your sister and she's picking her nose
and she still looks like an angel.
you're trying too hard to get me to love you,
that's not how it works.

when I touch you I can hear your breathing;
it's disgusting.
(hold something in for once,
your thoughts, your breath, your laughter, your answers)
and when I woke up yesterday, you were silent.
I danced a little bit, until I thought you would wake up soon.
I wanted you to try and excuse your actions.

but you didn't wake up until noon and by then I was thirsty
and I was too gentle.
you told me that you felt something last night,
felt like I still loved you underneath my sarcastic skin
and you tried to prove it by touching me.
you only proved that you're gloriously stupid.

I can't smell the night air
because your lyrics are getting in the way
and I don't like them enough to listen,
but you're everywhere, it seems.
And I don't mean to be rude,
but you're being very rude.
Just thought you should know
in case you thought you weren't.

And I can't see the stars because, crazily enough,
I can't see through solid objects.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
But you must think that I can
because you sit with your back to me
like I'm Superman or something,
when really I'm less:
I'm nothing (to you).

She leaned in close to me
and She whispered, "there is no secret"
but I turned away,
and I held my hands closer than love.

She leaned in so close to me
that our noses pressed against glass,
and She held my cheekbones in the curve of Her thumb
until I was light
and pulsing
"there is no secret." She told me
again
again
still I did not believe Her.

She held me closer
until we were bone against bone, our flesh
unbuttoned and heaped on the floor.
but I turned away, bones clattering
we were just two skeletons in a closet, and I yearned for Her
"but there is no secret" she would tell me,
so I closed my eyes and wept, waiting only
for a simple answer.

“there is no secret”
She hummed to my cold, solid tears
Her thumbs held where my cheekbones had been,
eyes gleaming with my emotion,
“look at yourself.”

in a dark, cluttered room where nothing shone before,
Her fingertips glowed,
and I felt myself
covered in feelings I distantly recognized.
She unbuttoned my shell and laid it
on the floor next to my skin and bones
smiling, She said “there is no secret”
and I held Her, nose pressed against glass
nose pressed against nose
nose
nothing.

the boots could stand without a body
or lips to kiss
her essence was in them full like water
she would shout and not be heard through all the smoke
now it is clear, but she is silent

there's always too much to figure out or trust or not trust
when you're seventeen and gorgeous and sorry
but he should be sorry, not me,
he never looked at my **** like they would fit into his hand
or into my eyes like they were oceans/moons/something surreal
milk tastes better with chocolate syrup
until you get older: you like bitterness in your hot mug
and in your eyes

roll up the bible like a pillow in your lover's bed
you are your lover
i am my lover
we are lonesome
scared of touching feeling lying asking knowing scared of being scared

now i'm tired of not feeling things that need to be felt
I see it in so many crevices like bookshelves
and cd cases
hiding behind some sort of transparent anger
and now it's about him again and his thick fingers and immature, un-trusting ways.

i keep trying to make things about you,
but maybe I need to stop looking with my glasses on.
there are no secrets, only words that mean nothing.
I collect them in tiny jars and cabinets.

he held my hand like he deserved it
and i'll hold yours like I want it
if anything in the world made sense then i would stop trying to figure it out
but i'm here listening to my parents yell at my brother for sleeping
and listening to my brother say **** and **** and ******* and words that only sound good in the daylight

if I wasn't alone on this couch,
things would make less sense.
but we are
and I am
with **** yous seeping through the walls to remind me i'm at home

You told me I was **** when you touched me
on my chest and stomach,
but I am sure that I wasn’t **** at all.

I have memories of you
cradling me like a lion with his cubs,
except there was nothing paternal
to your touch or words,
and I felt no safety when I was
in your bed.
Not even when you told me not to worry,
not even when I came to you
to escape my nightmares.

You didn’t seem to understand
that you simply led me into new,
scarier ones.

From lip to lip your secrets transfer,
sincerely, I am sorry for kissing so much.
Love is sitting somewhere behind my teeth,
cordially waiting, legs crossed and hands folded.
Your friend reached down my throat.
Respectfully, it didn't even feel good.

Thank you for the blame and pointed fingers.
Take care to clip your nails where I don't dream and
write soon of some excellent ****** endeavors, for
my best regards are long gone, along with
yours.
I miss you when we hate each other.

Wishing the best of every moment is childish,
thinking of you is even more so. But somehow we
always seem to sleep in each other's arms.

I'm tired of the same licence plates
over and over,
all the padlocks, all the nods
from my neighbor over here.
Why must you ask me questions when I say some
people are more beautiful than others?
You are full enough
You will go home and eat at least

two more meals,
you will pet your cat and yourself and have a bowl of cereal before bed.
dreams like chocolate
silk. fingers like bear claws on trout
or salmon
from upstream with last names
coffee shops. They try to

warn you and you let them lose their cries
to the wind. They think
of their grandmothers.

When you ask me to hold your
hand I wonder if you will wash it before we eat
kiss make love
(you don't always warn me if you're

not clean)
In your chewing I hear the words
I should have said before dinner with hands
clasped, heads bent, feet flat
on the restaurant floor. The waitress
is younger than she looks, I
try not to laugh because I'm sure she's worked here for ten years
no
benefits
no
raise
no
tip over seven fifty.
Her eyes are strong from all the tears

but her words sound like
swing sets
half eaten dinners:
merciless.

Her teeth are the San Andreas Fault:
tired of opening and closing.
Tired of fake smiles, nicotine gum, chattering in the cold of other's
glares, all the nods from her next door neighbors, the same streets
with the same cars with the same licence plates. So she'll press them
down over her tongue, and curl her lips back slowly
until the day someone touches her the way she was touched
before claws
salmon
chocolate silk

before she was fat.