Category: Poetry

we’re all growing up broken-hearted
but we make it okay, get along just fine
and i read this weekend that someone should be trying to save us
instead they tell us its not that bad
and we’ll be okay
tell us to grow up: these are the best times of our lives
maybe that’s why i consider dying all too often.
but whos to say what is too often on the grand scale of things
i know not when i’ll die
only that i am done living.

i’m sorry you can’t fix it.
i’m sorry i’m like a problem
or a prescription without you around
i’m sorry that the only thing i did was drag you down
maybe i could fuck around with him
behind her back: because you were special
and she is special-er (so i won’t)
but you’d know you’re not the only one
and you weren’t the only one
(and he wasn’t either but can i bring those words to my lips?
can i erase these lies from my face?)

maybe i’m just sad today
i don’t know what to tell you
when you aren’t here, you aren’t here, you aren’t here
and secretly i hope you live forever
so that i don’t have to confront all of those girls after me
while the dead body that i don’t recognize looks up at me
and i know why she hated me
(when i think about it i hate me too)
maybe i’m just sad today because it’s april, and i’d be with him
a year ago if it weren’t for you
or maybe i think i’ve made a mistake
i should’ve kept lying
unreal and happier that way.

you were a figment of my imagination
without a personality, i wrote you how i wanted you
and i should’ve killed you with my pen’s words
but i didn’t and you go on
we all leave the theater
feeling downcast at the end of the movie
and we’re all growing up broken-hearted

subtle, or not so
subtly i take your hand
pull you down and away with me
you feel like silk
you feel like fire
but i’m not burning
not quite yet
and your eyes they seem to tear through me
like you know all of the cells from exlovers
that were torn from their back
and cleaned later from my fingernails
don’t worry, darling there’s room for yours there too

my clothes peel away
like the skin of an orange
and you dive in to my pulpy center
piece by piece so sweetly
but my juices sting your lips
and the scratches on your hand
(from where you dug your fingernails
on the nights when you couldn’t have me)
i’m humming some tune,
thinking in my head that if you ask me
“goddamnit its not rap its hiphop”

after my writhing is complete i collapse on top of you
while my heart condition acts up
and my eyes close softly
your kiss crashes onto my lips like a wave
breaking away my coast line until my los angeles sinks
we have no negative consequences
and i kiss you again
more passionately
and you let yourself become me
once again and i become you
and we trade
as we roll, roll, roll, roll, roll

when i fall asleep at night,
i’ll only think of you.

i used to talk of oceans
?????????and now i see white rooms
i used to feel warm, sunbaked sand
?????????now just cold, hard wood floors
i used to remember what boys felt like
?????????now i don’t even remember you.

i’m not saying its a bad thing
its just a new expanding sensation
to get used to.

i never want to get used to you

if i weren’t here you’d be face down
on the ground or on a bed
i don’t remember the surface only the motion
but it didn’t feel cold there
and you were wearing that same goddamned gray shirt
you’ve got in on today
i want you out of my mind,
i want you out of my mind.
but i told you about it
(and left out the details)
i told you it was weird, i told you i didn’t understand it.
you just laughed a little
shrugged my hand from your wrist

she reads me like an open book
that is a book that tears her apart
she doesn’t understand that my feelings
can’t be shut out by the dark
and even with the lights on i see her face
in the closets of a french room
and her ceiling in the binding of a book.
i know her colors so well
but i float (face down)
and she’s so determined to drown me.

i just wanted to tell you
????that you are like a waterfall
????????and when the rain falls hard
??i fill up in you
???but when the earth gets dry
?i’ll try to bring you back with tears
?the salt from my eyes can flood over me
????if you won’t.

you folded your hands
tightly around me
and i choked and suffocated in your grasp
while you said iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou
you crushed my little wings
and i couldn’t have flown away
even if i had tried
and i was too dumb to try that

now you want me back
or that’s what they tell me
long after you left me bound and broken
you call my name alone at night
once again, i’m sorry to say
i cannot be your savior
i cannot be your lover
you’ll say those words again
ask me for forgiveness
you fucking bastard, no one died
no one died for your sins against me

and i said amen a long time ago.

you hold me
the way a cloud holds lightning
(well before the storm)
i need your electricity
like a warm blanket
of soft words
so don’t tell me that it’s over
just rock me to sleep
&turn the light out
sing me a lullabye
leave the curse words out
and sprinkle thorns between my sheets before you go
you can keep the rose

when i am with you,
i feel content
and i use my breath to tell you
that with you is the only time
that i don’t vehemently seek change
you say something in response
but i don’t think that you believe me
maybe it would hurt to much
if you thought that i was wrong
or maybe you believe him, i don’t know.

he was around and explained it all to me
i think he’s full of shit because
that’s going to happen every time
unless it doesn’t, i hope it won’t
and there’s no reason not to dive in
because there might be water.
and i listen to him and refute the arguments
but i don’t really care
i am just a joey in your pouch
and everything is wonderful
now
even if its not wonderful later, i’ll love you the whole time and i will never ever forget you. you’re just too beautiful for that.

when we’re apart
i try to write it all down
because i never want to forget you
and i never want to forget this
but i cannot do you justice
especially with words.

i like to live in the past
those happy moments
(the ones you &I created)
where the minutes felt like seconds that were smashed down hours that told lifetimes
and it is there that i find myself
it’s in these times
when there is no one talking,
only my fingers typing and my heart beating
and my lungs breathing
searching for the air of you

i like to live in the future
those beautiful moments
(the ones we will create)
where the comforter feels like silk and the pillows are just clouds to rest our heads on
the wooden floors will feel cold in the cool breeze of the morning
and our nightgowns will make us look like little girls
we’ll still feel that innocent
i’ll hand you a cup of juice and a pomegranite.
and say “let’s just stay home.”

i only like the right nows that you’re here for.

on tv the man is talking about baseball
and the shelf above it is kerouac
–finally talking to me
my computer beeps like warning
of red-handed slight of hand.
but i hear nothing, despite the calamity.
in my head i just see quiet
almost like i want it.

and i miss you so much right now.
you’re a beautiful girl
and your eyes write nonfiction
while your hands trace poetry
and your hair whispers music
the words you say when we’re together
are the only words ever created
that i ever want to remember

when it gets so quiet around here
i hear my heart beating
i hear the keys clack-clack-clack-ing
and i only want to hear you
someday you may come out
tell everyone that you’re a liar
but right now you speak such pretty words
and i’m inclined to believe you

don’t let me down, angel
the piercing ugliness of silence
is more than i can take