
How I Wish You Were Here...I saw you yesterday. I've missed you, you know that. You saw me too, but turned away, which is understandable, I guess. But that hurt. In the thirty seconds we spent in the same place, I was drowning in my memories, holding back and not giving anything away.More Like This
I saw the times we stood together, not seeing the rest of the world spinning by, ignoring the stares of strangers worn out by the love they'd never had. I remembered wrapping my arms around your neck and your hands on my back, and my waist. I remembered that feeling in my chest when your soft cheek rubbed against mine, and I felt your kiss on my lips. Did you remember that when you saw m

Dinner And A ShowTaking a deep breath, I slowly climbed the seven steps onto the stage. "The lucky seven," they called them, although whether or not they would be lucky for me was yet to be determined. I could feel the burning heat of the stage lights on my skin, instantly causing me to feel slightly more faint, and making sweat seep out from beneath the many layers of stage make-up I was wearing. My outfit was carefully selected for this night, weeks ago - a pale pink silk dress that fell smoothly in a pool around my feet and tied up around the back of my neck in a tiny little bow. My hair and nails were perfect, my make up, though heavy, appeared natural anMore Like This

...I've been listening throughMore Like This
these walls
so long.
We've formed an intimate
relationship.
A sensual embrace
the plaster, and my face.
I've heard murmurs I've
mistaken as heartbeats.

encephalitis.she asks, "is it weird to have one day where you really intensely, for no good reason, think of a dead person?"More Like This
-
the intercom was the one to announce that his body had finally given up. i don't remember what i was wearing that day, or how my hair looked, or what noises fell out of my mouth. death has dulled the sharp edges within me. this is what i do know: some people burst into tears and some people sat frozen and pale and some people simply got up and left the room.
"are you okay?" someone asked me, and i found that i was lying on the floor, though i couldn't understand how i'd gotten there. the overhead lights were buzzing and humming

and i'm wonderingI'm excited and terrified.More Like This
and I want to ask how bad it hurts
(but I know, I know, I already know exactly.)
and I'm sorry
and I haven't even done anything.
I want to touch the bony ridges of your body.
I want to dip my hand inside you, caress what is left.
We'll take your bad thoughts,
fold them into origami, send them sailing off roof tops.
Raining on all the happy people.

sticks and stones.broken people like to write poems about how they are broken.More Like This
they like to turn people into words because no one's heart
has ever been punctured by parentheses, but by god it's not
for lack of trying. in a poem, broken people can have hangnails
and they never have to brush their hair because the tangles
symbolize the time they lost their virginity and there are no mirrors
unless they write about one and force themselves to look into it.
-
broken people also like to use cliche metaphors
but that is okay because when you are broken
sometimes cliche metaphors are all you have left.
"i am a rose and you think i'm beautiful so you

inchworm.I have a riddle for you, you said, and I smiled,More Like This
twisting my hair in my fingers.
good. I like riddles.
if theres a worm, you said, stuck at the bottom of a thirty-foot well,
and every day he climbs two feet up and
every night he slides one foot down
he gets out of the well on the twenty-ninth day, I said.
I know that one.
now:
I have one for you.
you sat back a little and your lips twitched.
okay, you said, hesitantly.
if theres this relationship, I said,
stuck in a huge rut,
and every day it takes one step f

distraction"do you still love me?"More Like This
you asked, worried. i answered,
"HEY LOOK OVER THERE"

Lab RatAll his words echoed,More Like This
rumbled and ricocheted
in a runaway renegade mind scape.
Love letters screamed failure to my face.
I was experiencing heart break.
Razorblades ripped paper skin.
Couldn't tell where love ends
and obsession begins.
The disconnected dots only made a labyrinth
where even lab rats couldn't find an exit.

EdgeSometimes I want to tell you you're uglyMore Like This
so you never talk to me again.
I have all the symptoms of a fever
without the temperature to justify one.
I don't know the color of my father's eyes.
I don't care, he's not my friend.
Today I wished I'd never dream again.
I can't sleep.
I can't sleep.
I can't sleep.
Get out of my head.

on loving lengthwisei.More Like This
in my near-nineteen years of life i have never wanted something, someone so much.
[no, i swear, not even death itself]
ii.
waking up without you hurts.
even though you don't have one, i slept with my webcam on last night so maybe you could catch a glimpse of me sleeping.
you say i shiver in dreamland, and i tell you that's because i hardly dream --there is nothing in my mind then but grey matter and cold air, because even with the heat blasting at seventy and four fleece blankets, i have trouble making my own warmth.
you told me that even so, i was smiling. and i said that though i don't remember, the only explanation would be that i was dreaming of you --before you were mine, you were my only dreams worth remembering. now, you're the only ones i ever have.
iii.
going out in winter seems colder than ever without you here.
it makes me think of years ago, when i found that without flesh, it is impossible to insulate bones. you would sit next to me every morning on the bus, and f

RosesYou love too much, I am told by a man with a briar heart, thorny sinews and collapsed ventricles bearing down on him, hardly beating in his tight chest. He looks at me with flat, slate eyes, chipping and eroding. His hands are dark with cigarette burns and rough with calluses; I feel them on my shoulders as he looks down at me, face collapsing in at his eyes like a dead man's.More Like This
For the first time, I realize he is dead. His briar heart dried up when winter killed his rose; my father, he is all thorns.
He squeezes my shoulders, too tight. You look like your mother, you know, he whispers, eyes shifting to the garden, to the yellow rose I plante

Kill the GodsForgotten gods cluster together like constellations of post-mortem scars forming,More Like This
crystallised ocean remnants,
salt pressed and tattooed on the skin of human history
composing salt crystals and fingerprints and decomposing like dying cells and skeleton leaves.
The tides of us, washed and blurred at the edges,
smoothed like fossilised wood and glass pebbles littering waves of resurrections
reborn and torn asunder
the thunder of their hearts silenced as they
sleep (if gods sleep at all)
in infinity with the fishes on the ocean bed
(the quiet ocean death) of humanity’s collective
consciousness.
I wonder where the ghosts of gods go
where

after you diedi.More Like This
they asked me if there was something
of yours that I wanted to keep
I wanted
to keep your eyelashes, your breath,
your blood
I said this, and they looked
sad, said they meant did I want your
clothes and possessions, your things
I didn't know what I wanted
cradling my head with my arms and
quietly saying no over and over
my mouth
dry with the taste of morning sickness
and old seawater
a month later, I wanted all your clothes
I was scrub-faced and tired
the yellow
of the walls hurt my eyes, buried in wet
towels, sleeping naked on the floor every
night
ii.
I fucked somebody else
after the funeral
"somebody else" sound

My Husband Tried To Make Love To Memy husbandMore Like This
tried to make love to me
.
he was topaz, he was
grim, he was the chalk
and smoky fire
of fear and gnawed-at
angels
-
he was the bright face of fruit.
he was horrible and strange. he stared,
licked and rolled me in his palms
like a cigarette, wordlessly
dragged me from my grassy bed
by the bones in my legs and
pinned me down in that darkly
smiling, jagged place where
he put his hands on me and dragged
the crushed moans from my chest
made me yell
like a dog
and oh how frightened
and trembling
and in awe i was of his caverns,
his black and rolling eyes
how his pomegranates bled
and stung
and trickled, bitt

UnravelledSomeone's stolen my words awayMore Like This
So that I can't speak
Someone's drained me of my strength
Left me frail and weak
Someone's stolen my soul away
And someones stolen my heart
Someone's pulled the unravelling thread
I've fallen apart.

Titleless GesturesAll she says is wasted.More Like This
All she dreams is dead.
All she needs is freedom
from the visions in her head.
All she cries is laughter.
All her screams are tears.
Losing everything she has
is the only thing she fears.
All she feels is wasted.
All she sees is dead.
All she needs is a reason
to even get out of bed.

Sickness.You tied your hair in knotsMore Like This
And on your neck you hung the medals
of forgotten saints
You told me they'd protect you
From bright needles and cold hospital rooms
You've wasted away in reverse
Your yellow skin can't contain
all your bursting organs
Where they float suspended
They're pulling you apart at the seams
If you wrap yourself up in sheets
And lay in the corner
Maybe you can pretend you dont exist
Like the grasping hands, or the stagnant water
in jars on bedside tables
I understand, you just want to sleep
Tired of being poked and prodded
In your tender stomach
By blank faced doctors who don't know anything
Well

MountainHis eyes were coffee stainsMore Like This
but he tasted like wine.
He held me hostage
when all I wanted to do was
count cracks on the ceiling
in hopes it would fall.
The pulling of my hair
wasn't an adequate way
to release the pain.
So I dug it out of me
chewed it up
and swallowed
[all these little white lies]
I don't expect you
to save me again.

Directions to a HeartbreakThis is the way you should break my heart.More Like This
Firstly, you have to call me over the phone, since we're both too cowardly to see eachother's faces. Call on a weekend, perferably a Friday night so I can cope over the weekend and stay home that night to curl under the covers.
Tell me, "We had great times but-" then pause, and let me say "But what? Are you breaking up with me?" Say this, "No no no, I'm not...well...yes and no. I really like you but-" pause again because you don't know why you're doing this. "But what?" I will persist. "Is there someone else? Is it something I did? What?" Sense that I am growing angry, and imagine my face contortin

DreamersShe reminds me that she's a dreamerMore Like This
Her right hand delicately grips a pencil
as she's working equations on a TI-89 with her left
She looks up at me and smiles,
and there are stars, meteors,
spanning across the cosmos of her expression
her countenance reminds me to look up at the chalkboard
that's attempting to teach me how
to make verses sing from pages in a plain 8 by 11 notebook
and I am only armed with
a .7 pencil and a purple pen,
stolen from my older sister's pencil pouch
My hands are inches away from hers
from the desks side by side
like cars parallel parked on a side road
her equations confuse me
until she flips the

ImpossibleI dream of a womanMore Like This
with a stag's head.
Her wrist chained to her antlers.
She parts her lips to speak
but only whimpers

starvingMy whole lifeMore Like This
I wanted
to inspire.
Being an artist is
a unique form of
torture.
It takes a certain
audience to keep
you alive.

Romeo Without a CauseMore Like This
Dear Journal,
Watching him breathing next to me is like a lava lamp. Entrancing. I just can't look away. He's so beautiful with that film of dew and sweat on him, I want to kiss it off and lick my lips. To taste his sweetness again is it's own golden euphoria.
He always calls himself pasty, but with the dying light of early morning illuminating his face he looks like some sort of holy god of the underworld. An angelic Hades who still struggles in English class (hopefully thinking of me).
He's not a distraction like everyone says. He's the love of my life at age 16. Almost 17.
I came into school with the wrong haircut and jeans that were b

The MessageThe MessageMore Like This
Foreign Morse code reverberates
Blinking dots and staring dashes though my
Unconvinced mind.
Poking, prodding, pulling at my shirt sleeve
Like some tear-filled child
Quivering with fear
Of the putrid monsters
Sharpening bloody talons
Underneath her cradled bed.
But my ears are pillow filled,
With sleepy unconsciousness,
And I just don't listen.
Their fever increases
As the sirens grow close,
Dots dashing through my brain,
Like rabid dogs dripping caustic truth,
From foaming lips.
But I cannot understand their alarming voices,
So I just sit here pondering how long
The monster's talon's really are,
Until I am