MIDNIGHT

I hope you remember me
in the midnights of yourself,
in the ten half moons that
cupped my face and confessed
your love for me on the
last Sunday of April.

How unpleasant it has been,
to only be seen by you when
the Sun has set and Nyx has
stained your vision with her poison.

Even at our best, it was always
with the help of another woman
that you saw my worth,
however temporarily.

I am beautiful too,
you know,
in the vulnerable streams of
daylight, the muted mixture of
sunshine particles and
exhaled pixie dust.

I am magic—
a witch, a deity, and a minx,
yanking oceans with the
center of my own gravity,
undoing the shackles you have
clasped around my ankles
just because I can. 

Sunnyside

Her bare breasts spread flat onto her chest like two forgotten puddles of spilt ink, rising and falling with the steady tempo of her lazy heart. Gentle orange from the streetlights below soiled her face with the warmth she did not want to feel. Couldn’t feel. The accidental boy with the blue eyes and sneaky smile who stayed two nights too many circled the palm of her hand with an unsuspecting finger. Even in the sea of sheets against his fiery chest she felt herself shiver. Round and round he went, tracing the same spiral she tripped down last summer when Frankie fell off a cliff somewhere in the forests of Washington state, and then again in the fall when Angela was diagnosed with cancer. Fucking cancer. He nuzzled his stubbled chin into the neck he just met, dribbling with sweat and perfume, now covered with love bruises and the kinds he will never be able to see: the bruises that formed the mornings after the screams clawed their way out of her narrow throat, making their desperate escape into the black night. He painted pictures with dirty words of empty rooms where they could be alone, and half-whispered promises of eggs in the morning. She turned on her side and felt the depleting universe inside of her pool in the socket of her right shoulder. He weaved his fingers into the spaces between hers and she let him, her calloused hands unmoving. Little did he know that she did not need strangers’ beds to be alone, and that it’s been a long time since she’s felt the sunny side of anything. 

It's All Fun and Games

Your NFL team won tonight, and I couldn’t help but smile and congratulate you in my head. Smile about your adamant belief that if you wear their jersey five minutes before the end of the game, you’ll help them win. Smile about how hard you kissed me when they did. Smile about how when I asked you why you root for them when you’ve never even been to Colorado, you replied that as a little kid, you liked the colors of their uniforms: a vibrant orange and a navy blue. And it just stuck. Now you’re theirs forever.

I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m jealous of them.

Because somehow, falling asleep in each other’s arms every Sunday night turned out to be a ritual far too difficult and complicated to follow. Somehow, kissing me with other eyes watching became too strange. Somehow, even though you swore that the color of my boring brown eyes is your favorite, you’ve decided that you’re tired of looking into them. Somehow, it’s easier to commit to a bunch of burly men who have no idea you exist than to a girl who has forgotten what it’s like to exist without you.

The Next Time Around

Maybe it’ll be better the next time around.

Because we’ll have grown into the people were were destined to be—- it’ll be so deeply rooted in our souls that even the strongest wind won’t be able to shake it.

And we’ll have grown into our skin and known what it’s like to fit into it perfectly, all on our own, without having to feel like we’re missing a limb whenever we’re apart.

And we’ll have known what it’s like to breathe without our lungs intertwined in our chests and our legs in the sheets and for the first time we will breathe fresh air that is not polluted by toxic love.

And we’ll have seen ourselves in the mirror for who we really are, and stared at reflections that are only ours, not yours and mine or mine and yours.

We’ll be whole, and we’ll be ready, and we’ll be better.

Because we must find peace as two before we can find peace as one.

At least that’s what I’d like to believe about the next time around. 

Everything He

I.

He was strong in the way that he carried me into his bedroom every night, like a bride and groom on their honeymoon

But he was weak in the way that he didn't know the weight of the words he had spoken much too soon

II.

He kissed me with the taste of forever on his lips and  "I love you" on the tip of his tongue

But he touched me in a way that he wouldn't ask me to stay if I ever decided to run

III.

I wanted so bad to live life knowing that I'd never have to live it without him again

But he wanted so bad to live life on his own, and that was our tragic “The End.”

Junior Year

I bit his lip

and filled his mouth

with my girlish laughter

because I was thinking
of the last word I said

before he planted
his boyish kiss on me:

Schizophrenia.

And I thought to myself,

wrapped in the unjustified murky air

of my parents' newly renovated basement,

Could I be schizophrenic?

Or maybe I had multiple personality disorder;

all the crazies melted into one big psychotic mess

on the glossy textbook page anyway.

 

Because this isn't me,

the girl laying
on the one-star quality mattress,

with his fingers
expertly unhooking my bra

and my amateur hand

trailing down the inside of his pants,

his zipper chipping away

at the $10 manicure I got last Wednesday.

This isn't me,

the girl drinking stale beer

in the back of a rundown Irish shack,

watching him empty
his confidence-infused brains

into a garbage can twice his size,

letting him nuzzle my neck

even though he reeked

of last night's home cooked dinner

and today's early lunch.

 

No.

 

No thank you,

this is just a version of me,

a deluded,
affection-hungry one;

the shell that was left
after you pushed me

out of our perfect nest,

with so much haste and fervor

that a few twigs made the trip down with me.