The Grudge Poet

I can't believe how crazy life can be. It has this way of repeating itself. Of showing you why you are put here in a sense. It's baffling to me. It shocks me. At times I just cannot understand it. What saddens me the most.. is the fact that I can never go back and relive the things I wish to. And yet I am reliving them everyday just in a different place with different people. For some reason, I attract this structure of three. Me with two other men. And how we interact and how we function repeats itself. And I am not sure why this happens but it does. I think what I am realizing is that last year was one the best times of my life. And everything, no matter where I am, tries to relive it. But it cannot be done.
I am coming back to Chicago soon and that is weird. To finally see everyone from last year. I am excited because I know I have changed very much. It's crazy how much I've changed. But how much my life is dying to be the same. I think that there is something out there. And I am up for it. I am ready for the change.

Current Music: Broken Social Scene-Guilty Cubicles

we pass on through
and of course i don't mind
being silent,
but even this seems silly
loving
someone who doesn't exist,
of course only in children books
and harsh fairy tales parents tell
friends and friends write in poems
unable to rhyme
yet able to be void of remembrance.

is it okay to pine
to pick through lies
and love the truths beneath them,
i watch you writhe
and i do not condemn
loving
and leaving
feelings for poetry books
for words that need ink
to thrive.

I want you back
I want your tongue
and your face in my hands,
and I want the image
of my skin on yours
and my finger nails chipping
and the sound of you sleeping,
although you really are awake and
watching me sleep.

words that others have made for you
become your own
but you’re not stealing
only trying to move,
packing boxes,
sealing,
making love often
and feeling good
about drinking, even when you vomit
inches from the toilet
on yourself
and your skin
sings that it is
“peeling……..”

if this love would wait
I’d be patient for it
and let no boys
find me alone,
crying
pasting stickers on the top
of tables
underneath the cloths,
constantly i feel odd
for succombing
for wanting and wanting
and not admitting to love
that i am selfish.

I didn’t think I’d cry,
but I hoped I would.
yes they come
and they stain and dry hard,
like knickers laid out weeks after the rain.
must I grow up
must I love myself and not wish at times
to be as beautiful
as the summer flowers
bees only let bloom
for minutes, and we
only worry about getting stung,
well I don’t mind the pain.

and you don’t mind
the compliments
bowing
pretending you are not beautiful,
equating beauty with the smallest quantity
you are so young to me.

no
matter how many times I look beyond the mirror,
beauty feels far,
and what i want much farther.

but poetry saves lives. and with bad days
there are good days, days when I am inches
from you, and you breathe me in. days when
my skin gleams
and the darkness is my beauty.
yes,
i pour out my water,
i have changed.

no you don't mind
shooing me off,
being kind making me feel
rotten
for hiding under rocks
looking for toads
dying to be princes.

I do not wish to talk
yet you insist you know me so i
allow you to believe.
although santa has been dead
for some time.

in the bed
i watch your skin move
and i feel blessed, yes blessed
to love you. and somehow
just the way you won't touch my tears
makes me feel as if i could
be a pretty girl, blind. like an anorexic
unable to see its bones.

you love well
you wrap me in goodness and
i am better, yes i am better
and my rules
even my reasons are dumb.
it is okay
to love when love wants you
and deny hate
when hate is as convincing
as you
and the day
hitting the corners
of the bed.
you love well
I applaud you
I want you
and I want you to believe me,
but yes
I want to believe myself.

in earliest part of the morning.
mother notices i won't let her touch me, and she
says
i am ugly and i need
therapy to cure
19 years. father looks at me
he says there is age on my face,
as if I am the mother
stroking his back,
mending the pieces broken. they
look at my eyes
and they tell themselves
she doesn’t want help,
she’s better off
she’s losing
yet I don’t mind
imagining what happiness
would be like
even when they all have left the party
and the best song
has ending cords.

Current Music: needle in the hay, elliott smith

what i'd like to say
is that tuesdays should be hard for me
what i'd like to tell you
is that even though i should,
i can't tell
i can't feel the stench of everything
he's done. i'd like to tell you this,
but you go on,
living. and i am
suppose to love you more,
realize how wise we both have gotten
in this rotten time,
but all i feel
is less need
to be yours, you are my father... (i bet you kiss her
i bet you hold her in your arms....)
but i have never known you.

what i'd like to tell you
is that you're courageous,
that we could be...
so wonderful. what i'd like to say
is that you are beautiful
even without her. i'd like to tell you
that your pain has made you humble...
but you go on,
lying to yourself and there's no way
to save
the pounding
in our
skulls.

what i'd like to tell you,
is that all these goodbyes have not changed
anything
you tell him that...tell him
he has not changed anything.... what i'd like to tell you
is that you smell
so wonderful
but you can't help but
taste
like salt. but you
are so lost, but you
are so lost
in what i've done
that you forget
to hear me.

what i'd like to say
is that i will envy envy
for the rest of my life,
what you don't know
is that i hope you miss me,
even when you two are
walking side by side. you are
so nice to me, even when
i gave you the scars
you cake over
with that ugly makeup, even when
the rain drips it off....(you are kind), and you still try
to be gorgeous....what i'd like to tell you
is that i was ready once
what i'd to tell you
is that she makes me die to be
some ounce of wonderful, because
she is,
she is... what i'd like to tell you
is that you're not so bad. yeah
i'm not so bad, i'm not so bad.....but we are
so far apart now
and my mother
she'll need me, i'd like to tell you
all the thoughts that have
built me up,
that have caused me
to need something,
something so drastically, i'd like to calm your spirits
i'd like to let you hear my voice, i'd like to tell you,
tell you tell you tell you, all the lines
that have been spinning on my face but you, but you...
my god...
but you have become
so lost to me
and your words are always hidden behind
what you want, i'd like to say to you, you are
allowed to.... but you
have become
just like those
flowers...
but you...
but you...
my god.

But I don't care, I don't care...this is what it feels like to me,
I take the train back early in the morning, and I can't get this smile off my face,
even as rotten as I feel, I feel so good, coming in so late, so drunk. Getting to see
the sky dim
and blue.

In the shower I wipe you off, even though I haven't let you touch me,
even though no one touches me, my skin
it tells me it needs the soap.

I prayed, sometimes I prayed myself to sleep,
but that morning, which I made feel like a falling night, I did not pray.
I slumped into my bed and promised not to wake.
I scrunched up covers and thought of
how great it would be
to go back
and
dig
into
myself.
I looked down and
I swore I felt my scars,
but those were Sophia's
and we were laughing then.

I was not scared. I let myself sleep. And during the day...
I had dreams so perfectly ugly.

Maybe I should have lied to you. Maybe I should have lied to myself.
Maybe then you would be happy. And I could want you and I could want you
(and I do want you, but wrongly...)
or something other than
your weight.

I would have liked to change everyone. To kiss them.
To make them mine, to make them love me so bad, so bad..
but I'm bad,
I do such awful things,
but I feel nice,
and in the morning
my body cannot remember
the tears I shed so perfectly the day before,
my body
cannot feel my scars,
it keeps moving
it keeps on. And so by then
all I have are my thoughts and the cold rain.
But I assure you,
I'm bad
and I like to be.

And we'd love
or maybe this is just you,
You'd love
to rock back and forth on a bed that isn't ours for hours
cause that would be so easy.
And we'd love
or maybe this is just me,
Maybe I'd love
to be everything you boys wanted, cause the steps
to where you are, would be much easier to find again,
but, (although I remain in love with you),
my skin peels
and
I never heal after your voice tells me everything I've done,
everything that keeps me as the title of our title of our routine.
And you can never hear me calling.

But
I will fight myself
I will fight my old pain
I will not let myself become everything that's made me
as wicked
as you find me. (I am nice to you,
I bet I am. But I see myself and I cringe,
I kick my insides, I rip at skin, still smiling, still smiling,
and at night, once you leave my room...I lock the door, at night,
once we're done talking on the phone, I cry over and over or I just
lie there
in silence
unable to be joyful
pretending even without an audience
that I am beautiful, but I am not, (am I?)
I cannot be in this way, and so
I let your eyes get to me, and so
I fall
back
and I cannot find the arrow,
I cannot find the cause,
when just moments ago
I held it so plainly.)

But
again
I will not let myself be as
pained
as you say
you hate me to be.
But you really love it, (don't you?)
and so do I.
Cause we're so comfortable
with being so terrible.

i may have problems
but lets have problems together,
lets welcome the happiness
that will come when it must.
oh do not tell me
i have reached my ultimate sadness
because i
look away from you, and feel the wind
as it races across streets,
licking the ends of tires. oh
do not tell me
to find someone to help, i
am the only one
who can help me, this condition,
you have said, is a condition.

we have said,
in one way or another, we have said,
we need something, do not try to send me messages
that i am not allowed to need something from you.
believe me
i have tried to need you less,
to picture you as a monster,
to not imagine
your life behind your door, of
beautiful music, and new
pretty films, and words
made
for
gracious lovers. believe me
i have told myself and you and you
that we will
never see each other again because then
i have no feeling, no emotion,
no condition,
no need.
and we can
keep on
laughing.

but i am wrong
aren't i,
i am wrong.
well
i do not mind being wrong anymore,
i do not mind not knowing what to feel,
i do not mind seeing you look at me, pondering
what i am thinking, what i am really
like, oh if i
could only control
what you see. but i am done
hiding myself
in the hope
to be beautiful
and powerful
and happy. in the hope of something
as stupid as these....because happiness
does not describe her wonderful skin
in the middle of a brown morning
after working for hours in the garden,
because happiness
is not life.

i tell myself now, i do not mind being as pathetic as some
would like to make me
not when
the need
is so much more beautiful,
than the warm dent in the pink bed
of my sorry body
after hours of sleeping
in the middle
of a gorgeous day.

i am sorry
that i must be who i am right now. i am sorry
if you cannot understand
what i have done, to you,
to us, to myself, i am sorry
that i have no more
explanations,
no smiles to plan,
jokes to conjure, i am a dreamer,
but i am my own dreamer,
and when i sleep dark
you are in my dreams. i will live
how i must live, whether in the days
you call my sadness, whether in the days
you see as pain, and i see
as just days.
and i can
keep on living.

tell me love,
what if you find that
i am exactly what you don't need
tell me love,
do you imagine i have this figured out,
tell me love,
i am as attached as i'd like you to be,
tell me love
what if
all this silence
all these words
all these beautiful people i cannot touch
form lives....
we ultimately love living. what if i
form a life
i ultimately love living, (then
you will be forced to love your own pain,
then you will be forced to love your own life),

then
where is all the sadness
you see on my face,
then
where is all the mystery,
then
how will you write about me,
talk about me,
laugh about me,
fuck without me, (oh
you'll live),
we have loved
so many people.
i am in love
with so many people...

oh do not deny me
you know
i adore you.

these days
carry on as terrible
as the ripping of wet dog paper,
they tease me with their promise of summer,
but i do not cry
i do not speak the thoughts in my head,
i go on living these days
hoping for sanity.

he says, "don't get stuck in
PB&Js." he says, "that would be
the worst thing for you." and
i know, and i know. but if i were
strong enough to live, a life
i couldn't see, then i would be
brave like him, then i would be
my mother; then
i would be alone. i'd rather
keep playing along,
keep smiling, keep locking my door, keep
imagining PB&Js then
I won't cut, then
I won't pine, then
no one will see my
face, just
a false me. but "this is what makes you
hurt, this is what makes you want scars."
i will not
allow myself to feel
any longer. he says,
"this is good for my life." his life.
and even on this stage i can tell it is.
if i let myself
feel better,
if i tell myself
to stop hurting,
then i'd start imagining another life,
"probably a life she was always meant to live."
and I'd write terrible
poems again, stay up till 4,
scribble
about cheap apartments
about other hims,
other boys that just can't love me.
and i am sorry,
but somehow i feel stronger
feeling nothing,
looking harder at the mirror
before i go to sleep.
"i don't mind," i tell him, "i
don't mind." cause it's
easier
being alone.
and i am sorry
but i can no longer write about us,
about anything but PB&Js, "she can..."
no longer care,
no longer cry.
and so i tell him, in my head i say,
"i bet you're right.
but we are both afraid, you are just,"
so much stronger....
"you are just
better at hiding."

I guess you were right.
When you said I've changed.
I see you in the corner of my eye
but I keep playing, keep singing.
I do this to myself
I put everything in things that are barely defined.
Why do I feel so much.
Why do I care so much. You care
but
you don't care at all.
Maybe you were right
maybe I was dumb for thinking
I was strong.
But I could be strong.
My skin tears, but not so easily.
Maybe she was right
maybe I have no feeling left,
maybe my eyes are glassed over
searching for the right emotion
searching for lives
that are already trying to be rebuild themselves.
I don't want to be your little girl anymore
I don't want to go back to when I saw you always
but I suppose I miss
the things I should miss. I am
human in that way still. And if
that makes me wrong,
if that means I'm weak for wanting and wanting and wanting,
ugly for never seeing beauty,
pathetic for missing you after all this time,
after no time,
if that means
you don't know what to do with my eyes
when they see yours,
and mine, in their own loneliness, are still passing,
if that means I'm a troubled soul,
lying here
under sheets contemplating dying,
then fine
so be it...
let me fall.

tonight we rest in easy beds and the night is beautiful in Chicago
it makes me want to rest here forever with nothing.
and all these pretty windows stay so hidden from me
they wear my eyes
those golden browns that I have never seen.
we wait, sophia and I crossed legged outside
smiling, hearing him. and I wonder
I wonder about you how you're doing these days
what it's like to be you;
and when I come back to my room when the night is all alone but
open in its precious way I imagine you here. I imagine skin.

I wish I could take back all the times I left you alone back there
I wish I could take back all those times when you needed someone and I
loved to watch you squirm.
I cannot change him, though if I could I could make eyes see
I cannot change anything, but oh how I wish still...
I don't want to change this, but sometimes
still
I wish I knew then
how perfect it could be,
how I loved.

There are these nights, like tonight, that make me feel like taking back each scar
loving mistakes,
looking for persons that have made me leave,
nights like tonight make me want you, make me want to know you
and the wine that tastes like a pain
that's worth risking your life to admit him
admit him in a life that bears no entry
no purpose but your purpose of wanting and needing
someone so
gracious.

nights like these make me want the tops of roofs; of your roofs.

I slide my tongue over the top of my mouth and I worship the breeze
because she is beautiful.
And in this bed I sleep,
I rest easy.
I know I'm living.

my nails are red
they look like cheeries on the ends of branches
they look so awful to me.
my eyes hang loose, open
watching the good part of day shine into my window
I no longer wonder where you have gone
I curl into bed and enjoy these days alone
I am not afraid, I
look passed my own eyes now.
I know I have not written you in sometime
oh I still love you
if you could ever forgive me.
My own life is coming back to me,
I cannot have you when I want you anymore,
no matter how many times I push you in the back of my mind,
I think somehow you've reached me.

My mother and I eat hot breakfast
and I wish to kiss her face
but I sit apart from her
as I must,
I must let her age
in these graceful years as she has let me
and we cannot
cry for eachother. Sometimes, daddy speaks
and I think of him dying. Of his new baby
girl and I think about
all those times I let him
slap me, all those times
I begged him to. You
don't have any idea what it was like
riding that train,
waiting for dawn to disappear behind me.
I curled up beside my hard bag
and I told myself it was worth it.

I do not care if you do not love me
I am no longer here for you to love
I am just walking past my own door
I smell Tanera and I think she's beautiful,
she tells me I have time,
but I reassure her, I say,
I'm growing.

And all that I knew
is drifting away
from me.

I had funny dreams last night
I twisted in my hot sheets, and I pulled myself down.
I smelled like gracious soap when I woke
and even my eyes
were clear,
now they're clearer.
I may not have everything figured out for us
for myself;
but I will still smile, not broken
but better than we have been in a long time. I will
try to see the beauty in what you do
not to be like you, but to be better. But to be
better than this sorry wilting flower
I have let myself become. This morning,
the sun was so beautiful, it chased me down.
It spit at me from cheap blinds and raced
across my shut face,
and I swear love
we bowed.

you pass so slow
but in that second I can see you
walking
calming yourself by thinking of a life
you'd love to live. you said it yourself,
you said, "one day I will be gorgeous."
and I believed you.

they told me they thought you were wonderful. even beyond the
fake cake of make-up which peeled so softly
like the edges of your shoulders
cracking on the soft white walls
you loved to steer
and peer behind. cracking gracefully like
the old yellow pages we use to soak with cold black ink,
full of the sorry words we loved. I loved you.
I will love you, because we
must survive
in some type of sanity,
and if this love
is all your living for
I will make it yours for you, I will stay.

I'd love
to talk to you. But I'd rather remain here
some type of distant
where I've put myself,
where we've put me. I'd rather
loose
than succumb
to telling. and when I wake
sometimes
your face has been in my dreams and so
even the clouds bear your name;
simple
but gorgeous.

I suck my lips. I will kiss you.
I will kiss my father and his child, and standing still
I will forgive him because I have to. And I will kiss her, and she will call me.

And I will forget what you have done to me, to love you
to want you again; even if, I loose a piece of myself,
pieces I have built
years becoming.
I even told it to myself, I said, “one day you will be gorgeous.”
because although you find me plain
I’d like to be the kind that calms;
something better
than I’ve even pretended.
I even said it to myself, I said, “One day I will be gorgeous.”
not looking into a mirror
but your face
your face
the face I’ve known for years;
because my eyes
were so bright with life then.
gorgeous.

I want you to know you are gorgeous.
I know you know. But I want to tell you in a way
that would make you feel it even when you’re cutting,
even when you feel yourself
speaking words
that are made to break
this violent silence. I want you to feel it
even beyond the pain of being normal,
of loosing
of being nothing more
than someone
worshipping eyes
that are sewn to a body we will never touch,
we don’t want to touch. I want you to feel it
even when loneliness gets to be a routine
of surviving
because it is better
than graciously being surrounded by people
who sometimes
want us. I want you to feel it
even when we puke on them to love us
and they can’t
because they love
how they’ve been taught to love
and that is why
we love them. I want you to feel it
even beyond the beauty of ugliness
that men
tend
to pass as mystery. face down. on your knees.
I want you to hear me
I am telling you, “you are gorgeous.”
because you are.
because you are.

I am fine
but tonight I will let you take down my hair, and we can
grow.
I am fine
but I wish I could say something
that would make us both kings.
I know it is beyond me, being beautiful for you.
although
you’re still crying.
I am fine
even if beyond this pond, there are trees growing.
let me wade
in this shallow end.
Sleeping
like us in one bed,
heads together
backs wet.
I am fine.

And you are fine
without me.

I keep having dreams of you dying.
When I wake up I have no tears under my eyes,
I only feel as if I should crawl back in bed and
put the covers over my body.
I can say I miss you, but in my dreams it is terrible,
in my dreams I lie on beds and wonder why
I'm not dead too. There is pain in my nightmares that
resurface when I wake. I cannot shake
the feeling. Before I sleep now,
I look at your picture. I want to vomit. The room
is red and red and orange and blue.
But before I know it,
I'm back where I started in my head,
before I know it,
it's morning.

It is awful
but i am still lying here,
and i am forced to feel almost everything.
the girls
that hide behind my eyes,
so envious
so small.
"girls...
you know you are electric
you know you'd survive."
the spit is caught in my throat
and i cannot live off of
the things i have not told you anymore.

It is awful
but when i see trees bare
i think of my mother's legs
and how they were so twisted inward,
how she wailed for me to
fix her straight,
my back
aligned with the open door.

It is awful
but sometimes i realize
you'd rather seperate yourself, make the words
harsh, it is not as if you do not care,
you care so much,
like the author cares for his story,
the words my god does he enjoy...
but that does not make you cool to me
does not make you awful either, it's just
something i have noticed.
so next time
i will not feel so hurt and
i can get ready for
the pain that comes after
the memory of telling you.

It is awful
but i sleep with pillows, i
think of my father drowning when i'm drunk. i
think of you forgetting your father, i
imagine there are sacred things with him
you cannot touch, not just yet anyway.
but one day
he will realize
he will look at you and see nothing but a child
he once
said prayers to. and the kitchen table
will feel so lonely without daddy,
and his eyes
and his ideas of loving sons.

It is awful
but i pretend to like myself so
we can carry on and
waking up in the morning
can no longer be the struggle
of seeing my own face,
and the content, yet distant reflection.

It is awful
but i have never been more lonely
and nothing helps
nothing helps.

It is awful
but when i am here alone,
i am sure you all have gotten tired of me.
and i wish it
so i will not have to imagine
the things that might have upset you.

It is awful
to count the days
to imagine scenarios that will never happen, only
they look so good
so polished in my terrible dreams.
and in this respect,
i fall faster
and the days push on
and i never have to remember the last one.

It is awful
but i use to think i'd survive from this
i use to think that others could save
others from dying.
you think i am so stupid.
you think all i want is this
and i am so lost.
i love to sleep,
disconnected from the practices of the day,
the mid-day dinners, and the boys
that hang outside my room
with words i have never heard clearly.
It is awful
but i practice habits
i have known for years.
i say
the jokes i've heard from others
and i wait
for the laughter
that comes, broken.
It is awful
but the cuts leave,
they hardly even become scars
they tease me with their games,
they tell me to
go back to something else.
It is awful
but this is what i must do for now;
the love that i must say loves me back,
it is all right if you do not understand, if you
hate me for what i have done.
you will forgive me
you will realize that sometimes
forcing a type of happiness,
is better than connecting to a type of pain
that only comes up to the surface
when the parties die down so low and
when the dresses are getting shorter, when
the girls bump heads with you for the last time, for my last time, when
every face
is my face
and every word
i've already written
or heard sung
by tori.

Don't get
the wrong idea.
I can only see
bright colors.
They are green,
they are bright blue
they look so funny now.
I use to
run knives
along my sides
just to feel
so much
better.
you think
everything
is about you.
i do not care,
can you imagine
how many other
people are hurting.
I cannot help but
love you.
this is my mistake.
i cannot help but love.
You keep
taking what you can get.
the blood
how bright and full it moves.
How can I
forgive myself for
hearing myself for
liking myself for
when will this end.
i must see him
i must touch my mother's face
and kiss it
like it was my own.
this ugly brown skin
this ugly brown skin of mine
it stands for so much
it must peel
i hope it dries,
it is so pink and foolish underneath.
how come they cannot see what I look like.
She said, "You are so wonderful."
She said, "He said he wants you."
She said, "I think of you when I do this." She said that one
in her head. Alone.
She said, "Come on, move."
She said, "I cannot wait."
She said, " I have hurt you."
Did you hear.
She said, "where are you grandmother?"

midnight comes
and I'm still lying here
in this same spot with no more ideas of how to
better myself
or these loves,
that my new friends call hopeless situations.
you keep changing
and the cold parts of us set in,
somehow
I cannot get upset anymore
you have shown yourself to me.
Is there still time to get out of here
or is everything coming to a close. Because
I'd like to think I'm human,
human enough to want simple things
human enough to wish to fade
human enough to run.
midnight comes
and I still haven't called you
I see your face in my mind
I see everything I love about what I'd like you to be
and you, oh you
how you love to seem,
you have no idea you're ugly;
you have no idea you're running,
you lie, you lie, you lie
you need me to fall back on because
I've always taken care for you
I've always loved you,
I've always wished you the best.
But then
you realize
I'll be leaving
and suddenly the loud music
is only the silence we have begun to share.
you come up behind me
your heat is slow and ready for me
and there is vodka everywhere
and we try to kiss.
And I feel lost
somewhere between the girl who came here,
who baked cookies, hanging her head in the quiet hall,
the girl who listened so lowcal to beautiful cds
always silver from him.
the girl who never wrote, never wrote,
who wore no makeup
because she thought it made her beautiful.
where is this girl,
she is surrounded by these men
who want her in the best way
they are her friends,
they are her friends;
and the feeling is astounding;
they do take care of her well.
midnight comes
and we eat
this table is quiet with chewing
I look at your face
and I know I'll never be here again,
quite like this,
I don't know what to do now.
Nothing tastes quite right,
nothing feels new anymore,
there is no where to run.

I can walk for miles without limping. But all you see are scars.
And I push you foward so you don't have to see what you would like to.
I guess it's harder now to read me. Off to the side in my world of pain.
I don't call you cause things are easier when we meet, and have much more to say.
I can walk for miles without limping. My mouth opens wide. I drink sweet
water that tastes holy tonight. It's funny, cause I should be running.
But my feet can't even pick up. I just keep trailing along.
Waiting to find something in you.
I can walk for miles without limping. My face is new now.
I can hide things I never thought I could.
I can smile though I'm hurting. I can see the blood.
Oh I never taste it. I save that for you.
I can walk for miles without limping. And rest outside my door.
Fooling with myself and the sound of someone's keys.
I do not notice you there. Though you are there complete.
Wonderful as you should be. Wonderful to me.
I can walk for miles without limping. I close my eyes to gray.
And the words I wanted to be prayers turn into air.
They float up and make clouds in the sky.
Same kind that seem to find the nighttime cold
and make everything look painful.
I can walk for miles without limping. I can hear my own voice.
Though you have not heard it in a while. You stroke my neck.
You tell me this is lovely. Because it is what we both need.
And oh how I speak for you. Oh how I let the words come.

If you ever thought you had her. You didn't. She's too off. She has thoughts that don't even appear with you in them. She is bored. She is still pretty though. A quiet gorgeous that cannot leave your eyes. You do not know what in fact has made her so beautiful over these years, to find you here, humbled and desperate, but she is still. And somehow you feel stupid. Just by looking at her. Just imagining that she might be different. That you two could be different together.
It is in your mind that you are just a boy. And that is fine. But you have always wanted to be something more than that. You write poetry that only seems good at the moment. And when you trace over it again mid day, you realize the words are silly and the promises have already become broken. You thought this would be easier. You thought that the words in your mouth were your own. But they are copied and dyed and desperate. You have stollen them from books and endless conversations and films and your broken loves so gone, but the ones that have lasted harshly over these years.

If you ever thought you had him. You never did or will. He's lost in the muscles that move him. That soothe him. The ones that have taught him not to miss your smell or your body when it's warm and right against him. He is in another land. And only in segregated lumps will you be invited. He might be crying to himself. But those tears will never find you. You must know that he was taught to keep them from you. Which does not mean he is hiding himself from you. There just are things he'd rather not show you. It would be too difficult to explain. But you can't help wanting to help him. Wanting to change him. You can't help thinking he might need you. And he may. But he doesn't know it enough to change, and take you. And so he wanders and does not feel so lonely. And so he speaks to you and the words are lovely. And there are no more tactics, no more reasons he must try to get your eyes. He still loves you. In his own silly way.
It is in your mind that you are just a girl. That's all you've ever been. And your trying to be something more stable. But you like it here. You love the pink. And the smells. And the joy it brings. You like feeling small. But you are not small. You're older than you'd like to think. You want to tell him that you are wonderful. You want to tell him you are beautiful. You want to tell him that he saw that in you. Once upon a time, when everything was simple. But you know you do not need to say it. That your words are only prisoners in your mind. But you don't care. You don't care at all.

I.

-I hear your voice,
and it is so beautiful to me.
As it is. And I think about you.
And my dirty fingers
touch my lips and I swallow you there,
with the harshness of the day.
-I put my own self to sleep now.
No mom and dad to tuck me in.
No pretty bedtime story.
I snuggle against
my own sheets.
And I must remember you.
And everything we're doing,
everything we've planned on,
so my lids can close.
So I can stop crying now.
-I love you I do.
You'll never find yourself as beautiful
and good as you are here.
You'll keep forgetting.
You'll always be this silly mess of broken bits and words.
But I will still love you.
Oh this you must know.
-And there are clouds in this distance.
Mixing with the moon.
It tells these clouds to say goodbye.
But they are so playful tonight. They love this jam of cold and blue.


II.

-I walk with you and you seem so much taller.
Your face is dark and good for me. And I feel so old.
Although we're the same
and you do not deny how I try to hold you. You still seem
far off
trying to kiss the day dreams that are so mean
to stop us here
and dare to find you.
-You will never know
how much I fought for us to be
something we both could not believe in.
And I feel bad for you my love
because you are caught in the mess of unforgiving
and you are harsh
to the big pieces stuck inside
that refuse to bend for nights like these,
the ones you know are too comfortable to change for you.
-I love you. I love you.
I cannot say it more.
It will never fall on deaf ears.
You always know.
You always care.
Don't ever give me that.
I know we are still growing but
these feelings will never die
they will just be replaced in time
by new loves and their gracious words.
-You must know what it's like,
you must feel the silence as I do
you must tell yourself, it's worth it.
Cause we promised didn't we.
We whispered in broken lips that it would be.
-These nights are older
but they are timid and light in warmth
they dance away while we are sleeping,
blindfolded by the pain we love,
the kind that soothes us
and will for all this time.
-I bend for you
I bend. I bend. I bend.
My back is full of wheps and scars,
they bleed.
They bleed my love.
But I do not care.
It is no longer sacrifice,
it is no longer pain.
-You have left me
You have left me
like all the rest.
-And I wish
I could be some kind of something
those girls and their fine complexions.
Their fine lips as pink and deep red as roses.
But those girls must remain fine
they must be everything I cannot be,
maybe then I am beautiful and they are the fool
and they will strive to look like me.
I bet they turn at night,
I bet their minds swell tight from just the thought of me
and the fact that only my beauty
could take you here and away.