in this manner

i love you the hard way, the way that clings stubbornly to what isn't there -
jagged fingernails biting into soft earth and i'm dangling over cliffside,
fighting a freefall. right? that's the way i love you. the hard way, like
giving birth - hours on end of pain and pain and pain, needles, antiseptic
latex hands, spread wide and i'm bloody and aching and vulnerable. you
see how i love you? faking it 'till i make it, deluding myself into believing one
lie by telling myself it's the truth - shiny veneer stretched over a cracked surface
and i'm nothing like an angel, nothing like a sweetheart, not if being an angel means
never wanting to taste you on my tongue, not if being a sweetheart means never wanting
to kiss you unconscious. it's the hard way. and you'd like it. if i loved you hard, body crashing
into body, heated words, a rushed litany of every dark, dirty, needy desire - it's a craving for
pain and power and control and i'd be on my knees steady and unwavering. the hard way i love you is all about wishing long past sunrise and lighting candles long after the magic's gone -
hold me tight when it means nothing - i'm smiling like i know it but on the inside, deep
deep inside, i still love you like a disease that doesn't ever die and it's a hard way to live.

she of the unhappy endings

abandon all i've ever known on a whim,
on a chance, taking a risk on you, there,
standing against the horizon, outshining even
the swollen sun and powerful as the
breaking waves.

sip potions made from extract of
heartbreak, one shot, three days and
if i fail at this there is nothing to go back to,
home is a fading memory, you are
family now.

sacrifices made, i'm losing my self,
losing my voice, ripped apart from root to
tip and your smile is all the balm i get
to slow the pouring of salt into these
human wounds.

worth it, god you are worth it,
sweeping me away with kind words
and gentle touches, the love you feel
for me waxing like the belly of the moon,
drawing close.

lightning strikes hard and fast in
the shape of her curves and the softness
of her hands and she is your princess,
your priestess, the one who has
your heart.

as the sun sets on the beginning
of your happily ever after, the clouds
come calling and there is nothing left
for me to see or do or be.
i lost -

and cry myself quietly to foam.

one step forward, two steps back

heels click off linoleum and i have a destination -
going somewhere, trying to get to someplace.

you're two feet in front of me, the back of your neck
pale and perfect, teasing and taunting me.

you take one step - i take two - i make no progress.

the overhead lights are harsh, do you no justice,
but i think you're beautiful.

there's a smudge on your shoulder, dark brown,
imprint of my foundation, my blush, my mask.

it's the closest to claiming you as mine that i will ever get - i could call that progress.

i still feel warm from when you hugged me from behind in
front of my friends, embarrassed by the look on my face after.

i still feel tingles from when we held each other close and
spun in a circle and your thigh nudged its way between my legs.

i breathed you in - you breathed me out - i made no progress.

my heart's in my eyes when i watch you because i know
you won't see it there but i'm scared.

i'm scared because my heart isn't just in my eyes, it's in my hands
and my feet and my lips and my soul.

you stole my heart and in doing so took all of me.

but you don't know it, don't want it, don't see me that way.
i fall harder - you feel nothing - i've made no progress.

dear so-and-so

just wanted to write and let you know how much i hate your smile and the way you move your hips when you think you're being funny and the stupid way your face twists when you're telling silly jokes. i hate the width of your hands and the pads of your fingers and the way they feel when you hold me close. i can't stand the way you sigh when you hug me or the way your eyes linger sometimes because i know it's all in my head. there's the way you look in your police man's hat, playing pretend, and the sound of your voice when you sing. you laugh too loudly and you smoke too often and i hate every second of it but

mostly i love it all a little too much and there's no one to blame but myself. you're the cartoon-watching-marijuana-smoking-life-loving-door-holding-sweet-smelling boy of my dreams and i'd take you home with me but you don't want to come, so i leave you at the door. you're the baggage i can't haul on stage, the dark thought at the back of my mind.

you make me as happy as you make me sad and i think i could fall in love with you but i need to land out so

i lie and say i hate you instead.

please don't take it personally, but you'd hate the way i look at you if you knew i was fibbing when i said let's just be friends.

better this way, i promise,
me

p.s. never stop - i almost like the way it hurts because at least it's something and that fills the voids left behind by hands less gentle than yours.

meanings of the word

it's better: in a word,
better like it's better to be beaten bloody
than killed outright.
better that you let me down easy,
baby into a cradle of reeds and set
adrift on choppy riverwaves.
is this for my benefit?
better not to break my heart down
the road, better to spear it here,
now, roast it over an open fire
and lay it on bed of cloves when
you nudge it back in my direction.

if i'm looking at you in shock, it's only to say:
it's yours now, why would i want that back?

but its been yours before and before that it was his
and before that it was hers and it was gnawed on
by ravenous wolves or passed over by spoiled
and choosy cows and now here i am with a heart
dotted with puncture wounds in the shape
of someone else's careless teeth, with stamps
of disapproval over the font - side - back.

do you look at it and think it's useless to you?
i think it would serve you just fine.
she's a good heart, she's just been trampled on
a few times.

if i'm looking at you funny it's because i don't understand -
she's yours now and i cleaned her up nice just so you wouldn't be ashamed
to carry her around next to yours.

better, in a sense, but only because you said so
and not because it's true at all or even a little bit.
i hurt as badly as if i'd been scalded by bathwater or
choked by an aggressive lover - no better.
no worse.

the us-ghosts

slay me
with all the things you really are
covert and stealthy sweetheart
second kiss and I felt nothing
but I dream and I feel it now
and I don't get how it works
or why I just know that every
time I close my eyes I see you
and you're kissing me and
loving me and protecting me
and it's backwards you and me
not how it's supposed to be or go
when I love someone else this time around
and you're not looking in my direction
anymore and it's better this way us
as friends and me not wanting to feel you
against me and you not dragging me down
just to build me up again sick cycles in
a fucked up courtship and that's all this is
is fucked up and I can live with that but
I can't live wondering why it's you loving me
when I'm sleeping when it ought to be him.

post-it

Thanks for:

underwear
on the floor
crumpled up fabric black and blue

holes in the lace
in the shape
of your thumbs

& bruises on my hips to match.