slumber parties

Its not him.

Maybe its only your desire

to love and be loved.
He's a muse.

Reading copious amounts of poetry is giving you butterflies in the stomach and raising goosebumps on your skin like you’re a teenager all over again.

You try to take your mind off of him, smoking and dancing to the music playing in your head.

You’re nervous and fidgety, constantly jumping and talking nonsensical cutesy stuff because you cannot handle this teenager any longer.

You look at his hands, they’re wanting to be held.

Your toes poke his calf muscles while you sit in a crowded corner of the room.

That’s the most physical contact you are ever going to get with him.

(You think).

You've been told

that if you repeat a word

over and over

it loses its meaning

So you stay up

countless nights

repeating his name

hoping

that he will mean less to you

with each breath.

summer afternoons

if I wrote you a poem
and rode my bike to your house
because I wanted to give it to you
while it was still warm,

would your door be open?

Would you smile for days?

Me: Knock-Knock!

You: Who is it?

Me: To.

You: (paused and smiled) To whom?

And you wondered how I fell in love with you, deeper, every single day.

christmas wasn't merry and new year wouldn't be happy
with you

the art of self deprecation

when i get a compliment, I always turn the cheek, 
batting it away like it doesn't belong to me. 
Over the years I've learnt to feign a thank you on internet and phone 
but if you say it to my face, i just don't hear it

you may think my smile is the cutest, my eyes the brownest  
or even write poems about the curve of my legs or the sculpted shoulders, 
i may not argue but in my heart i would still brush them off as kind yet silly remarks 
silently blaming the lights, makeup or an eye defect

If i assembled a space rocket, i'd say even a child could've done it. 

I'm a mess and will always be.

between 1:20:09 and 1:20:10

what occupies the moment of silence between the hand of a clock ticking from one second to the next?

an image of you comes to mind, only teeth.  just by the way your cheeks accordion out around the edges of your mouth, i can tell there is a lightness in your eyes-- a reflection of the sun, i think it is. like a glimmer of light that clings to your skin underwater, how even when you pinch your nose closed and close your eyes to go under, it repositions itself to a spot never touched. or maybe it stays in the same place because you didn't take a deep enough breath and you come right back up, laughing with slugs of hair dripping over your eyes, ready to try again.

i have an image of you
on a warm day in july--
full of teeth,
full of teeth,
somewhere outside 
of time.


i miss your smiling face love

too much baggage