Take it, it's for You

 I Googled How to Love

I love him

Sometimes I hate her because she talks too much

She stuffs her opinion into the cracks where it doesn’t belong

Like hate mail.

That used to make me love him more

The way he talked to me

Like I was the only person that could hear her.

That may have been the only time I’ve ever really loved.

But I don’t know

I tell him I love her now

She has disappeared

Taken by time and its confidence

She doesn’t need me anymore.

I thought I loved him

He sure as hell loved me

Or was she only ever really after another girl?

Was I just a palette cleanser?

I was afraid of him, of her,

Because his feelings were so strong

Because he knew what he was doing.

She didn’t have a plan.

He’s a different person now

He dyed his hair and moved away.

He’s grown into a person that I love to resent

But could I ever really?

He still has those same owl eyes,

The same kind smile,

He still sends me poetry.

Did I ever really love him?

I don’t think so.

She brought me temporary satisfaction.

The angel boy. 

I made him cry.

I’ve caused her so much pain. 

He wrote songs for me

He let his hair grow out this summer

He held me like he was afraid.

He knew that if he let go I would slip into the arms of the wind.

I fall,

He props me back up on the pedestal where he thinks I belong.

I stay out late almost every night. I’m breaking laws. I work and sleep and think and think and think. I’m drifting, drifting, drifting away from the people who ground me. 

I don’t read my emails, I’ve stopped running, and my room is a mess. 

I’m losing weight but I’m too big for my skin.

I need to stop. I need to cut myself off from everyone.

I need to burrow in my hot bedroom and think things through for the next four months.

I need to walk alone more and I need to stop telling everyone how I feel and what I think.

Is this who I am?

I wish I was blonder,

I wish I was skinner,

I wish I could drive,

I wish I wasn’t so happy,

I wish I wasn’t so narcissistic,

I wish I talked to my sisters more.

The angel boy doesn’t think he deserves me?

The new boy is controversial

He was reserved and I liked that

He was normal and I liked that

She made me live like a movie

Staying out all night watching trains and stars

Comfortable love

I think I did love him.

I love her in a different way.

His beautiful freckles and his lazy eye

His smile that tilts a little too far to the right

Her untamed curls

The way he pretends he doesn’t have a limp

Now he loves me too much

I could never feel as much as her

It scares me

I’ve set an expiration date 

Am I heartless?

Am I meant to be alone?

I haven’t left him yet

I’m scared I’ll regret it

But our lives are just too different.

The new girl thrust her feelings upon me.

Everything is different.

I don’t know what I want. 

I don’t remember who I am.

I don’t know anything at all.

She knows about him

He’s hurting me.

She’s twisting me up and feeding me music

I don’t know how to feel.

I wish I could just stop feeling.

I have been replaced.

I waited too long to understand.

Little Bird

Look at me with your yellow eyes,

Bless me with your bittersweet smile, 

Tell me about your day, 

forget the ravens for a while.

Sing to me your cardinal songs of sorrow,

And Little Bird, 

Please...

Let me fly with you tomorrow.

We can touch the sky together,

We can ride the wind,

You’ll be safe with me forever,

Little Bird, 

Just let me in.

I want to make you happy, 

I want to see you soar,

Little Bird I owe you this,

Because with you, I’m not a sparrow anymore.

You taught me to spread my wings,

You showed me how to fly,

So in return my Little Bird, 

I’ll catch every tear you cry.

We can touch the sky together,

We can ride the wind,

You’ll be safe with me forever,

Little Bird, 

Just let me in.

Little Bird I love your yellow eyes,

And the hint of sadness in your smile,

Let me protect you Little Bird,

From the ravens for a while.

Please look at me and tell me, without saying a word,

You need only look at me,

And I’ll know you love me,

 my Little Bird.

She

She was the smell of Chanel N°5 on a Sunday morning,

The sweet taste of ice cream before bed, and the feeling of soft socks against soft blue carpet.

 Unlined lip prints, a pair of hotel slippers, a red coat on a wooden hook.

She was the biting gravel beneath bare feet on a winding country road,

The faint glow of orange lights through a second story storm window, and a chirping cicada.

Eleven o’clock news static, a lobster-patterned nightgown, a glass of white wine on an empty end table.

But now, she has left me.

She has left me with clouded eyes and tear stained sheets,

With a plastic cross, a wandering mind, and a heart that breaks each time it beats.

She has left me with shaking hands, heavy limbs, and ribs clad in lead,

She has left me with ringing ears that don’t hear that she has left me for the dead.

She has left me with the image of a brain trapped in blood lined walls,

She left me too soon, with only the memory of who she was.

She has left me.

She has left me a child that cries herself to sleep, holding memories too tight,

She has left me a hollow human being, who signs letters off to a ghost each night.

She has left me filled with grief pouring from an open wound that I assume will never heal,

She has left me hating the God that I love for the life he chose to steal.

She has left me.

Second Hand

 I live a fruitful life on a pond that has overflown.

Strangled by tangled weeds that always seem to be overgrown.

A crystal clear sample of Adam’s Ale.

Tranquility found in chaos along the beaten trail.

I try to tame the weeds, but they don’t belong to me.

So I sit watching the flowers die and quietly I weep. 

I water all the lilies and mend the morning glories.

Muttering strings of hollow advice, I listen to their stories.

They suffer everyday, but selfishly I long to see them smile,

Because filling them with happiness is my most relentless desire.

My hands are not calloused, they have never borne the scars,

That the flowers hide with pretty petals and bury in their hearts.

Still I try to understand, as I pull on my thick gloves.

Words slip from my senseless mouth and graze my battered loves.

Pulling up the roots, I bite my tongue and watch them cry,

And I try to help them, heaven knows that I do, I try.

But I have learned over time, that no one can never truly understand,

What they have only witnessed, what they have lived through second hand.

Wherefore Art Thou

“Follow in my footsteps Love,” I whisper through the crack in your window.

The spider web of broken glass that I made the night you didn’t pick up your phone,

The night I threw all those stones

Just to check that you had made it home alright.

“Follow in my footsteps,

Forget the perfect path your parents paved

And follow me.”

“Past the bridge,

Under the stars,

To the divider splitting the lines of I-93.”

“When we reach that line,

We’ll close our eyes and let go of life…

Just you and me.”

“We can let the passing cars and city lights 

Suck up all the air that we no longer need to breathe.”

“Follow in my footsteps Love,

And we’ll let the world know,

That true love never dies…

So won’t you call me Romeo?”

Cliché (Because of You)  

I used to pride myself on my practicality, pragmatism, my rigid grasp on reality.

I used to think myself original,

Different even,

A strong-stalked thistle in a field of leaning lilies and wilted roses.

I could see further than other girls my age,

I didn’t wait for anyone to wish me a good morning,

My stomach crawled with caterpillars,

I never begged for a spare glance.

If I was a critic, why should I care?

I used to praise authors for creative and articulate clauses,

And chastise them with margin notes for every stolen word.

Overdone, 

Too drawn out, 

Lazy,

Red pen, red pen

Cliché, 

Cliché, 

Cliché.

You once told me that when you looked into my eyes you saw oceans

I imagined cobalt caverns of crashing waves  

I find that difficult to believe

How could you see anything but a map of the night sky?

Looking through the hazy curtain of Pennsylvania’s light pollution

I don’t think I would be able to name more than two constellations,

But because of you,

There are little stars in the corner of each of my eyes 

Flooding  my vision with white, hot light.

They make it impossible to see the stop signs while I’m driving home

So I just keep going straight

And ignore the voice in the back of my head that’s always told me that I’d be safer if I keep my right foot hovering over the brake.

Now I hear your name in every sappy love song that plays on the radio.

You rewrote me.

In less than a week, you ripped apart my entire rulebook

You showed me the beauty in repetition

Unintentionally taught me that all great artists steal.

I may still be a thistle in a field of silly, lovesick flowers, 

But because of you

I see roses and violets for what they truly are,

Red and blue.

I may still be a critic,

But because of you

I see myself for what I have become,

A cliché.