Hookup

I don’t feel bad that I didn’t do it; you smelled like sweat and beer, and there was nothing meaningful about your blatant attempts to forget everything we don’t understand in this world by sharing that confusion with someone else– tasting it on their lips, knowing you’re not alone.  I know the world is confusing. I know we are all trying to be loved, and in desperate attempts to make meaning of the world, we get farther away from what it really means to be alive.

Berlin Wall

She’s closed herself off
behind her walls
because if she kicks them down, they’ll
fall for you
all

     over

          again;

and you will sit amid the rubble,
admiring the way
the sky greys just before the storm begins
in her heart. 

It Makes Music

I write to      release
the emotions and feelings I’m
            too scared
to express.
To see my thoughts
                 on paper. Sometimes
I write to

            remember
and sometimes to

            forget.

I write because it’s the only way to make
my feelings concrete

                                                solid

                        cohesive, understandable.

            When I write, my
thoughts become art
                                   instead of a jumble in my head. 

For those who jumped, and for those who didn’t jump but wish they had

When you jumped, I cried because
I wished I’d been holding your hand as you fell.
When you were gone, I screamed at the sky to
take me, too.
When I was alone, I was wedged
in a corner of darkness, and I had locked myself in.
I’d wished you’d carried me with you, because
I was just as trapped, just as lost; the books weighed me down, too, you know.
I was filled with just as much hate and hopelessness and
cynicism, just as thirsty for nothingness. 

Now, when I laugh with my whole
heart, I wish you were here laughing, too.
When I sit in the sun and feel the Earth kiss my nose,
I wish you were beside me because
I am learning sometimes
it takes a while sitting in the sun to feel its warmth,
and sometimes when we finally
stumble out
of the darkness, it takes a while for our eyes to
adjust to the light.
But when we can finally get a glimpse of it, it is spectacular.
I wish you were here to see it.

Locksmith

Every word from
his lips weld your shackles.
And you stand there, under
his spotlight to be
pinned, poked, prodded,
criticized and analyzed
content with the pain as long as
his eyes are only on you.

For so long you were my monster,
restrained and chained to protect us.
But from here I see you
once willingly locked those shackles
to your limbs, swallowing the key.
But his piercing words
have bled you dry, and now
you cannot leave.
You are in chains
and he must protect himself from the
damage.

Aleeyah

I remember sunny times,
ballet class and nursery rhymes;
times of you and me.

I cry for all the things I’ve lost:
friends and lovers I misplaced in the dark.
For all that I’ve forgotten;
memories fade to dreams and all my past is gone.

I cry for every time I think of you and can’t seem to recall much.
I cry for all the times I’ve woken up, seeing your face
in my dreams, and not really knowing it was you at all.