bffn (best friends for now)

and when we're clicking
like none other at 2:33
(a.m., bitches. cool kids don't sleep)
and talking about all the
things we mutually rage at

those are the moments I regret
that you and I can never be what we could be
despite the sameness that lurks in our souls
we'd be the best of best friends, yes we would
if you weren't so far away from me
(if I wasn't in love with your boyfriend)

onetwothreefour...

if you call my name in
the next five seconds (these are the crucial

breathes, you better make them

count) one two three four...

dammit

I can't help wishing

because despite what I tell my

girls (for them I have to be strong, because they

have been so recently shattered)

I would go back in a heart beat if

it was you

who called me there

but dammit

you didn't call my name (you never call)

you don't write (I want long letter spilling out your soul

like when we were shiny

and new like shiny new things)

I know you could make the effort

I know you could

I know you

goddammit

it's not hard

just four letters and an exclamation point (!)

so I know you mean it, so I

know you want me to turn my head and come back to you

c'mon, babe, just try it

it won't

hurt a bit

one two three four...

"i smelled you on my shirt today"

my dreams of you are technicolor extravaganzas
complete with the taste of you in my mouth
and the smell of you on my skin and clothes

we grab at each other like we always used to
in these dreams you would never turn away walk away run away
like you do now, everytime we touch

my secrets slip off your tongue and back into my skin
i whisper all the things she'd never be able to tell you
and you whisper all the things you'd never really say



i am rudely awoken
and spend the day driven to distraction
the distinctive smell of you so strong in my soul it makes
my stomach turn with excitement

i only laugh when you ask me what i dream

Withdrawal (not like I'm in love or anything)

It's not like I'm in love
with you
or her or him or anyone.
We use that word
too much, you and I,
when really it should be
used as sparingly as
strong spices.

But I don't deny
that my heart races
like
I've just ingested too much caffeine
or some strong spices
when your name appears
online.

I don't deny
you are my drug of choice.
Your words
are the high I keep on
chasing.

But, God, the
crash is hell.

"every living creature dies alone"

we have never been friends
not really
but in this moment of chaos
of crisis
of crumbling
you find me and I offer
all I have to you
comfort in this time
of the breaking of your heart
I offer
myself, my soul, my body
in the hopes that it will heal your cracks

but you hand me back
reject my offerings, my whole damn self
because you need to fall apart
without me
you nourish the holes in your beaten soul
spread them wider
making Swiss cheese of your will to live

In Memory of a Palm Reading

almost
six months and it
kills me that I have forgotten
almost nothing
about you, not your voice or
your arms around me or the
details of your hands
(there's a spot,
yeah, just there,
that I noticed when I read
your tanned and scarred palm.
told you it meant
that you would fall from
"a Very Great Height."
this was right before I
pushed you from the table
where we were perched.
don't bitch at me, that
was totally funny.)

it makes me wish that I knew
there was someone
out there in the world,
who was memorizing me
like I have memorized you.
who would remember the scar
below my eyebrow and
the stupid stories and the sound of
my laugh.

Me, I'm a lonely addict. You, you're just gone.

my day is filled with
coffee and Cake (the band, silly,
not the dessert) reminding me
of the days we once spent
inseparable

but now I drink my lattes alone
blast my music on headphones, because you
aren't here to listen with me
and you are just a spirit and a gravestone
that I talk to, tell my
dirty little secrets to

come back to me, darling dearest
return to your place in my speed dial and
my broken heart

you were never supposed to go without me

it wasn't that long ago
I said to you,
"I would still love you
even if you threw me off a fucking cliff
and stole my imaginary boyfriend"
because it's true you know
you could do no wrong
when it came to me
and I was the same to you

you replied, a smile in your words,
"I'd never steal your imaginary boyfriend
and
if I threw you off a cliff...we'd totally go together"

so what happened, love?
what happened to that
cliff we should've come to together?
you slipped away,
when I wasn't here to save you

or maybe to follow after
when I wasn't here to grab your hand
as you free fell
clutch your fingers on the way down
that long drop off that figurative cliff
with our imaginary boyfriends close behind

Written Upon Being Reminded Just How Excitable You Make My Stomach Butterflies

I would be happier,
even still stuck here in my broken skin
if you would just be my
everything. The friend that I need,
the lover that I want so bad it
wakes me at night and causes me to
say silly things to you
that I never meant to mean.
You were meant to be featured
on the acknowledgements page of my
effed up life. Didn’t you know?
Don’t you realize that you
should need me, god need me so much,
need me as much as I
hate to need you.

Losing My Religion, all for you, babe

there are not words yet
i try to find the proper song lyrics
the right poem
that carries the weight of all that i wish
to convey to you
wherever the hell you are now
no, wherever the heaven you are now, maybe
(because i always said i don’t believe in hell)
(still don’t)
my mother thinks you believe now
in everything you shunned
the trinity of god, jesus, and your father’s sermons
but most of me still believes you are
my girl
the one who showed up
still drunk
for her confirmation exam
and passed anyway, though you were never confirmed
not that i think that matters anymore
this rambling pretentious poem that i
really hope you aren’t reading from
wherever you are
has lost it’s train of thought
maybe i’m not ready to write
about the space in my life
that used to be you
because it’s a damn big hole
that a thousand poems
could never ever fill

A Slice of Summer Love (july 2008)

This is how this is going to work

Take your shirt off
Close your eyes
And pretend I’m not here
Can you do that?

Play a few random chords
On the guitar your sister gave you
Because really you don’t know how to play any songs

I will put aside my pen and paper
My camera and my film
This is not a documented moment
As
Of
Now

So you can put aside your pretenses
You don’t have to be the
Boy that they want you to be
When you’re here with me

And I have abandoned almost all my clothing
I’m singing Avril Lavigne for you
(why’d you have to go and make things so complicated)

These are the moments that I will remember
When I leave you here
Shirtless, with your guitar and your uncertainty

This is how this is going to work

Put down your guitar
Look me in the eye and silence my lips with your stare
Kiss me
Yes
Like that.

Untitled.

I lust after the way you
include all the same smileys that he uses
into the comments you leave me.
The way you hold cigarettes in your hands.
I find pleasure and safety
in lying under tables telling you secrets
jokes, and stories.

Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be.
Maybe the hard-to-breathe feeling means
that finally finally finally finally
someone likes me back.
But for you and I
the road to possibilities is littered
with the sharp broken pieces of relationships
gone bad, or simply faded.
And I have no need to scar my flesh today.

I lose myself in your careless smile.
The lyrics of a song we both love.
And then I stand,
and hug you one last time.
Pretend it doesn’t hurt like it always does.

When I turn back, on the stairway
you are bent over the cigarette and lighter
in your hand.
Glancing up, I see the distance in your eyes
and know that we know
this is all what it needs to be.
But all I can think about is how much I wish
a good bye kiss wasn’t so out of the question.

It Was Better Without The Lipstick

take my hand, boy
i will lead you away
from the voices that
taunt and tease

i will lead you
with my feminine wiles
(unused for so long)
and show you
the ways in which it would be
so much easier
if i was by your side

lipstick
and black & white photographs
stolen kisses
and lose yourself in my eyes, darling

it was simple when we
were but little children

when i was
nearly
almost
as much of a boy as you
but now we are words
like
man &
woman &
sex

adulthood
creeps in
in the dark of night
leaving
uncertainty
depression
and lust
in it’s wake

Eight Hundred and Fifty Four (poem for a boy)

I forgot to tell you

I love you

before you left for home

I thought I would see you

before I lost the memory of your skin

and the smell of your freshly washed hair

we were supposed to have

every goodbye that we wanted

we were supposed to have

all the time in the world

you and me and our cornucopia

of malfunctions and broken promises

were supposed to have a chance to heal

but no part of me cares

about the talking now

and all of me aches for the taste and the chaos of you

and the chance to say only this:

forget what we were

what we were was a land mine

this is now this is here

and I love you more than

Juliet loved Romeo, because really

what were they but lovestruck teenagers

and we, we are eternity

Maybe dying young is all for the best

it’s always peaceful here
in the wasteland of my head
where thoughts of love and death and everything else that matters
and even more things that don’t
swirl and mix and become
songs
letters
poetry
text messages proclaiming my feelings, that I never ever send
I wonder if it will stay this way
or if my words will fade over the course
of the many years to come
will the cancer (literal)
and the cancer of just aging (metaphorical)
eat away until I can’t make you
turn your head
with just my words and a smile
will I be my mother
writing about my sickness
and my garden
will I still be able to write about love
and making love
and you
for now it’s peaceful here
but if there is anything
you taught
that I cared to remember
it is that nothing stays the same forever
and peace
can turn to a battle for your life and mind
so quickly

A Poem for My Anti-Crush

you are my anti
you are football pick-up truck preppy
silent golden boy
who is everything
every word every molecule every heartbeat
that I have never wanted

though I know deepest down
that you don’t even know
I’m alive
have never acknowledged
my subtle creepy chick in the corner
existence
I feel like you’re watching
and I step up my game

I become more than I am
I become
short skirt hyper punk big eyes red lipstick girl
because then maybe
you’ll look over and notice
the girl who is everything you’ve never had
and maybe that thought will taste good
in your perfect mouth

in my daydreams we become
anti-us
and drift together in a place where
that all doesn’t matter
we just are
and we love it

If you love someone, set them free

this is a turning point
can you see it?
right there
this is where I turn away
lay down my weapons
and fight for you
no longer
(it was a losing battle)
this is it, darling
this is the moment where we
sink
or maybe
steel ourselves
and swim
I could lose you
forever, maybe
or I’ll be ever so lucky
and every prophecy made
by every
cheesy teen movie
sad love song
romance novel
will come true
and you’ll come back
just because
you want me
more than anything

Why I didn't answer my phone today

I hide from you
to protect myself
because if I let my heart
get tangled up in your
hot and cold
there and gone
love me, hate me
it’s still an obsession
world

then I would drown
fade
and die
all because I love you
just a little too much
all because when I met you
I realized that you were
a piece that I had been missing
but now I know
that your piece is too close to my heart
there is too much of a risk
of breakage
you put my pieces back together
only to tear me apart

Fading with you would be positively nautical

if you and I
we’re going to drown
then let’s drown together
grab onto each other
life preservers both
and float in the darkness
as we slowly sift downwards
onto the sharp edged rocks
that await
if you and I
we’re going to drown
we can at least give each other
a little something else to hold onto
though you have yours
and I have mine
when all the world is
obliterated
by waves and breakers
somehow I know that then
it will be just
you and I
who drown
so we will clutch
at each other
hold on for dear life
as she slips away from you
as I slip away from me
baby, let’s drown together
breathe deep the waves
and sink beyond caring

Denial, Tears, and Prayer at Midnight

(darling, this is for you)

i almost called you last night
in the midst of my tears
i lay in bed
cell phone in hand
and watched your number
swim and blur
before my teary eyes
i wanted to call you
because you are the one
who puts my pieces back together
i wanted to call you
the friend you
the almost me you
but somehow i knew
if i dialed the phone
it would be answered by
the you
who makes my stomach knot
the one i can never have
that shiny shattered
made of dreams you
who only appears when i
can’t feel anyone else
in the dark when my
shadows scream about loss
and i hide under the covers
like a little child and chant
your name like i’m praying

and part of me
always thinks you might just
walk in the door
if i cry for you enough
and then i wouldn’t need to call.