To the old man buying oranges,
          We have never spoken,
                    But I owe you my thanks.
You wandered into the store,
          Locking onto the produce section,
                    You demand the honor your age grants.
Carefully you inspect the fruit one by one,
          Examining every dimple, checking every rind,
                    Scouring for flaws in your beloved items.
Placing the chosen few in your basket,
          You set out for the lines,
                    And ****** yourself into my spot.

Because of your age, I do not object.
You transfer your citrus treasures to the belt,
          Locking them in place, between the dividers.
You glance back at me with a scornful expression,
          I look away feeling guilty, for what I didn't know.
You release from your wallet only what is required,
          And quickly bury it back out of sight.
You hand over your money sourly.
Latching onto your bag of chosen keepsakes,
          You march out the door glaring at the ground.

I pay for my items and head out as well.
As I exit the store I see it in an instant,
          Your tiny frail body tumbling through the air,
                    Landing onto the car that almost missed you,
                              But sadly it did not.
The crowd rushes toward you, lying there quietly.
          It all happened so fast.
I watch as your oranges flee from their bag,
          Rushing away from the tragedy that freed them,
                    Tumbling quickly away with your life.


To the old man buying oranges,
          We have never spoken,
                    But I owe you my thanks,
                              For taking my place in line.

When I first met you your light changed me,
         this girl bursting with energy
                                                   communing with nature
                                                                                    and bleeding poetry.
I felt alive when talking to you,
                 comparing your serene coolness to my cheap imitation
                                                                                 must have looked foolish,
but it was innocent and lovely.

Right about then you threw up in my room.

Everything I learned about you just sparked more desires.
      I caught myself writing poetry to your praise
                                                  and leaping at you with blinders on to anything that I didn’t care for.
Your smile evolved from what I first felt was charming
                                                                                   into something deadly and seductive.
You gave me chills and left me
      gasping
            for
              air.

We ****** but you hated when I called it that,
      you used cutesy words and danced around all of my advances.

We ran out of small talk questions as time rolled on,
       settling into philosophy
               and debates about how people are alike and different.
We took turns falling into the pessimist role and donning the cloak of the eternal optimist,
         I was always better at the former.
I caught a glimpse of the shadow cast hiding behind your shining light.
            Being that it was a part of you it naturally interested me,
                    and I pressed you for more and more.

You drank yourself unconscious at a party and I held you in my arms.
        I nursed you back to health and we “fricked” for the entire night.
I didn’t even care that you smelled like puke.

We filled in the blanks trading blows of what we considered our darkest secrets.
          Yours always won and they made me see you in a new light,
                   almost as this delicate beauty majestically growing in a dark void.
I understood you better, and I almost wished I didn’t.

“Sure I can bring some over,
                 I’m just glad to see you.
     How have you been?  
          No I don’t have anymore.
                 Yeah I’ll leave.”

I started to hear the same stories;
                     I still laughed at your energy and enthusiasm in telling them.
    I saw you less and less and when I did you seemed different,
              like you were just donning some mask, playing a part just for me
. That’s when I first noticed the split in you.
       The tired lines stretching from your cheeks
                                                              holding up that delicate smile,
               I was determined to erase them.

You still banged me from time to time.
     So like a pilgrim to a holy land I kept showing up
            bringing alcoholic offerings as a sign of good faith.
We never talked about poetry anymore,
       but I didn’t mind.
We hid in your basement and ******* about the world,
             until the beer ran out, or you passed out and I left.

Your eyes hurt me then.
    What I once saw as a mirror like shine filled in,
              and now seemed glassy and shallow.
I started drawing when we hung out to have an excuse not to stare into them anymore.
        Life raged on and it seemed like the waves were slowly eating away the girl I knew.

I realized that I was your fix.
       When I called you on it you laughed and seemed surprised it took me this long to get it,
I didn’t stop coming,
    it actually felt good to get rid of the pretense,
           it was like a show, watching you drink away your soul.
Some friend I am. At least I wasn’t a drunk I told myself.

As your life spiraled downwards from your addiction it brought you to a lot of painful places.
        Places with bars and handcuffs,
                  places with straps,
                         places with tubes connecting your tiny frame to big machines.
I wasn’t there to see you in those places, I couldn’t.

I started yelling at you,
       trying to wake you up from the slumber you seemed content to stumble around in. 
 I lectured you and watched as you let it flow right past.
          I called you on your lies and refused to be your delivery service.
I hoped it wasn’t too late.

I want to see that girl who bleeds poetry again,*

And I’ll wear my best suit to your grave.

it was one of my shirts
large, even on me,
but you loved it

the green matched your eyes
and it reminded you
of places
we would
one day visit

and each night
you’d strip off your day clothes
and pull that oversized shirt
over your beautiful *******
and lead me down
to the place
where
my best
and
worst
memories
were made

I think my name would be safe in your mouth.
I wouldn't be concerned about you
misusing it
or putting other names with it.
I trust you
would keep it secure
between your teeth.
There would be no worry
of you spilling it out with vicious words.
I'd be sure that you would treat it with care
and only use it
when the setting is perfect.
And you would sing around my name.
Songs I probably won't know but
that's okay
because my name would be
somewhere good.
I imagine you
would only surround it
with words like
"careful" and "forever"
and "here, take my hand."

You look at me, like the last time, with eyes not revealing much.
Another drag of your cigarette, the            s
                                                ­              m
                                                 ­                       o

                                       ­                               k
                                ­                                             e
Curling around your patronizing stare.
With a flick of ash the sky turns to gray.
You whisper goodbye,
but I just wish you would have decided instead,
                             to stay.

I’m the type to holster mental index cards of things to say on a first date
But no matter how much I study, my words never withstand the test of time.
Eventually, sweet nothings cause ear canal cavities from sultry words too often indulged.

Love made me want to rip my pulsing heart out of my chest and place him on a table just for interrogation.
I would ask, why he would trust so easy when he should know better than anyone that no love, melody, or beat goes on forever.

But what an exceptional construction worker you’ve become.  
Demolishing hearts as if the blueprint to my soul has become obsolete.
Words spewed from your mouth with the power of a wrecking ball that collided with my 5’7 frame.
So unpredictable that I doubled over from the pain.
I crumbled as if I was an ancient building way pass my prime.
And I’m still searching through the rubble to find any salvageable pieces.
Maybe I can recover a missing part of my smile and plaster it back into place, though it will never fit quite the same.
You ****** slowly on my bone marrow and your lack of concern made me insane.

Before I slept, I sprinkled immaculate images of you on my eyelids as if I was the Sandman.
Thoughts of you embraced my dreams, and it was the only way I could find serenity in my slumber.

I will never again activate the synapses in my brain that saw you as a god that descended to earth.
You ripped my psyche to shreds like a cannibalistic cupid who lost sight of the agenda.
To create love, not to pierce it with vindictive arrows.  

Now all you are to me is this poem.
A poem.
Letters, words, and stanzas.
You don’t even deserve the time it took me to write this.
You do not deserve the effort of my joints smacking the keys when I find the next thought of how you hurt me.

Like sacred paintings in newly discovered caves, I tattooed the inner walls of my cerebral cortex with memories of you.
It would be there forever. Waiting to be discovered by the next person that walks into my life with a torch filled with hope.
Illuminating my dark, damp and lonely cave.

When the next woman crosses my path and wonders why I get a verbal tic from the word love, I will unlock those same chambers of my mind and show her the walls that you’ve left your worthless signature on.

I hope she will be able to understand that I can let her onto the front porch, but it will be some time before she gets to see my home.
Because, it’s really messy in there.
***** dishes in the sink, books thrown on the ground, an unkempt bed, and my confidence and self-worth hung up to dry on the clothesline.

You cannot just rent a space in someone’s home and then leave without a month’s notice.

You were my addiction,
I injected your ******* essence and I was high on life when you were near.
So close that you coursed through my veins and made me feel alive.
Every now and again I get that familiar itching of an addict.
I am itching, just to text you.
Just a simple hello.
I get urges to find you.
To cop another one of your addictive glances straight into my two liquid pools of inexperience.
I never thought addictions were this hard to kick.