numbit is two o' clock in the morning and i can't sleep. or i sleep too much. one of the two, and the pills make three. they stew and burn the back of my throat; the chemicals dissolve and form words.

the medical literature didn't say anything about that. or the numbness in my arms and legs. the tingling has crept up my right leg for the past week, weaving itself between my toes and nipping at the back of my knee. maybe it's a side effect, or maybe it's diabetes. or a blood clot. maybe my foot will need to be amputated, and i will have to hobble down the aisle for our wedding.

he coughs beside me, still fast asleep, and i touch one of his eyebr

summer 1987i hope you pull out old photo albums
and your kids notice the ones with you
and me - k i s s i n g - i hope they ask
who i am and what happened to me
and what happened to us.

i hope you struggle and try
to laugh it off, "kids, she was just a girl
in high school with too many cooties to go around."
i hope they ask for more and i hope
you get frustrated the way you used to
when people asked too many questions and i hope
you break down in front of your wife because
she probably hasn't seen the side of you i tried to fix.

i hope all you can find to say is
"well jesus christ i don't know ok i just don't know.
we were hap

11:11 p.m.just a minute too late
there's no going back tonight

i might be the author
of my own destiny
but i cannot erase these mistakes
and we all know
my spelling's no good

i cannot fall apart
if i choose to
say otherwise
after all, it
is my choice but just
because i'm
the author doesn't
mean the words are
mine

another night
another dream
one more wish
sealed in another empty letter
on it's way to you

You can't have all of me.I hope you'll understand,

I've parcelled my heart
up in postcards
and back-alley blow jobs
and I might
still want to kiss
other people and
touch other people
and love other people

but I'll never want to
come home to anyone else.

to give up the ghostit's looking like one of those nights
sad sad lonely sad bluesy blue,
tired of this who's-fucking-who
and me-not-fucking-you and
even daisy fucking duke-
i'm tired of her too.

it's looking like one of those nights.
and i'm looking like one of those girls-
sexually charged, conceptually aware of
her sexually aware of
me. that barely there, scanty underwear

na-na-na-boo-boo you weren't the last to fuck me!
na-na-na-boo-boo my skin is scarred where you touched me.
and my cheeks are red when you blushed me. and my hands are
shaking where yours brushed me. this wasn't supposed to be about you,
you've already fucking ruined me. sta

you inspire mei’ve never met the optical illusionist that started me with
writing poems on my mirror
and my hand
and my jeans

but i think that if i did, we could be best friends.
except maybe we wouldn’t
because if she’s anything like her poetry
she would be so full of vivid-disturbing-wonderful images
so full of heart and thought and elegance
that i would be frightened of drowning
in the depths of her eyes

and i also might hate her just a tiny bit because i admire her so much.
because she can take thoughts
(even the difficult-to-see ones with the fuzzy outlines).
she can take them and spin them into
tapestries of woven words

the noblest of crimesi have a mental
list of songs
that i would kill
myself to.

and with each song there is a-
how, a where, a when, and a why.

the most recent horror i inflict
upon myself in this shitty second-rate
cinema of an imagination is cushioned by
What a Wonderful World,

and i'm sitting in my car on the blue ridge
parkway completely stoned, my mother's handgun
on the passenger seat

mama bought it to keep the devils away
little did she know it would incur them through my own hand,

and Louis Armstrong lays heaven delicately on my ears-
the absolute purest knowledge in the world
is the Beauty of it-
and even at that moment, i do not deny

'til deathit occurs to me that maybe i will grow up and get divorced. i will love you as long as i can and eventually, we will wake up and not love each other anymore. i guess it won't happen overnight but it sure as hell will be intolerable one day.

our kids will be grown. they will be surprised because they often saw us drunk together at family functions and honestly staring into each other's eyes. and they sometimes heard us having sex. and they found the love letters i wrote to you in high school. i will be brushing my teeth and you will be smoking a cigarette and then we will be looking at each other in the mirror. i rinse my mouth out and look u

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

Riding BikesGoing off medication is like riding a bike.

The doctor holds tight to my handlebars and lowers my dosage. The training wheels are off, and oh hey, look at me go! It's like flying but not, and I'm doing so well but then there's a horrible accident and I'm somehow upside down at the bottom of the sea with both wheels still spinning.

"Help," I say, and my doctor pats my head, puts a band-aid on my knee, and writes a note on my chart.

I've balanced by myself for months at a time, but I always end up hitting a fucking tree or falling off a cliff or something equally catastrophic because I am a catastrophic person. Except that is an exaggeration

alivei want to be buried in
a grave made of water
because i write poetry
but don't understand it

because i know how to feel
but not how to cope
or how to tell you what
it feels like to die

my mother will cry and
her garden will still grow
but she will not take down
photos on the windowsill

she will age dutifully and
retire, travel the world and
i will only regret not being
able to see her finally happy

my brother grow up without
knowing how much i cared
but he will still think
of me on his wedding day

his eyes will be a window
not to his soul, but a world
of pain and loss and he will
wish that i could say sorry

and the

Thank You, Slater.I used to go to the nearby campus coffee shop in the early evenings, armed with a pen, a blank notebook, and writer's block. The sense of loneliness was unspoken but well accounted for.

I always shared coffee-counterspace with the same boy, who never smiled or talked and who had a penchant for bedhead and argyle sweaters. He liked to lean back on his stool, balancing precariously as he read novels, and I liked to pretend I wasn't watching him watch me. We coexisted in quiet companionship, thrived quietly under fluorescent lighting which sometimes caught his thick-framed glasses.

His novels changed while my notebook remained the same; his do

heart crossed.

"who's that kid?" i ask, pointing at the boy whose hair cannot decide if it is red or gold. he holds a basketball in his small hands, bouncing it, once, twice, before putting it through the hoop in a perfect arc.

"james," the counselor responds, and leans closer. "he's a foster kid, you know."

i don't know.

the boy turns at that moment and catches me watching him. unthinkingly i form my thumbs and index fingers into a heart and flash it at him. he nods to his teammates and leaves the court, climbing the bleachers to where i sit.

"did you see my shot?" he asks.

"yes." pause. "i'm kelsey."

"i know," he says, and runs back to his game.

at

dahlia girl.i used to let you backhand me across
the face because crying turned you on.

your palm stung and burned my cheeks
bright red, but it was strangely beautiful.
you called me your little dahlia, your little
candleflame, and kissed my jaw where
your fingers left treadmarks.

you said:
"love means making sacrifices."

i said nothing, just wiped away a few
premature tears and traced the fireworks
blooming on my face.

you used to fall asleep in the grass with
me, and we'd wake up with petals stuck
in our eyebrows and grass stains on our
lips. our lazy kisses tasted like rain.

i say:
"love means throwing handfuls of grass at
each ot

thirteen ways of looking at--one crow sorrow
two crows joy
three crows a wedding
four crows a boy
five crows silver
six crows gold
seven crows a secret
that has never been told.

---

i suppose my secret is that i never told him that he is a blackbird.

he is all sleep-crooked eyelashes, dark and glossy, and his wingspan
is over seven feet long which seems big enough to pull down the sky.
i could tell him about birds as cliche symbols but his mouth is forceful,
his body is warm and needy and there is no room for literature in bed.
my hands flutter needlessly against his shoulders and i hope
i am a bird of paradise but in truth i am no bird at all.
i gue

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no one warned the little girls

by ~estallidos, May 4, 2012, 1:31:56 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

sometimes you will fall in love with
the hands or with the jawline, not with
the penis. watch out for boys whose eyes
are rougher than their voices. little girls
love hard and fast, and it is a lie to say
that words will never hurt you.

kissing in the rain is not romantic. it's cold
and wet, and your nipples will be like pebbles
digging into his skin. he'll wipe water from your
lashes, and, if he is polite, he'll pretend
not to notice his thumb blackened by mascara.
later as he sleeps you will watch his lips,
unable to feel anything except your hair
curled damply against your skin.

when you were young, sex was strange
and scary and unreasonable. when you grow
older, that doesn't change at all. please,
do not use the flavored condoms.

getting married tastes like a wedding
invitation, heavy cardstock and eggplant ink.
if you cut your tongue and bleed all over
the calligraphy, it's bad luck. when you speak
your vows and look in his eyes, you will still
feel the blood in your mouth, warm and metallic.

maybe you won't want a child, but it doesn't
matter. your body will change, your heart will
change even faster. you are already pregnant,
mother of all the things you wish you didn't know.

12,340

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no one warned the little girlsby ~estallidos

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about loving little boys.

-

in the interest of not leaving anyone out:
maybe someone is willing to write "no one warned the little boys about loving little boys" or "no one warned the little girls about loving little girls" or "no one warned the little child about loving everyone."

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Submitted on: May 4, 2012
File Size: 1.5 KB

Views: 12,340 (2 today)
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~DragonFlyTears May 16, 2012

Wonerful!

~ItalianInNaziTrainin May 8, 2012 Hobbyist

lol! They aren't gay but.... It is not so enforced in my country. I guess I will enforce it though. Thanks~

~DreamsLive May 7, 2012 Student Writer

I can see this happening to alot of people. It's thought inspiring. ... But sometimes there is also joy in fear though, exhilaration, enlightenment, excitement. Not all of those decisions have to be dark even if they are overwhelming. Lol, I take things too seriously though. XD Well done on this one, I really like it!

!talesofasunsetrider May 6, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

wow! amazing!

only one day and 761 favourites. impressive

~ItalianInNaziTrainin May 5, 2012 Hobbyist

Das true~ I am still so young but I already know that. I guess this counts a lot in morality. I know a 10 year old who is dating 21 yr old. I tried to tell her it is wrong but.... I can't do anything about it. I guess this can help her.

~Hipposaurous May 4, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Man, this poetry just got me horny. Imma let little boys put their ropes in my lamp oil covered bombs and haz some kids.

~crazyfangirl2 May 4, 2012

This poem really speaks to me. I am almost 15 now, and I have absolutely no interest in having sex, having children, or getting married. People always tell me that I will change my mind, but I hope I don't. Because I don't want to become the kind of person you described in the poem, someone who is a slave to what is expected of them by society and by their partner, despite what they do or do not want.
At least, that's what I got out of it. It's a wonderful poem, and I love your writing style. I'm really glad it got to the first page.

~DepressedFangirl May 4, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

This is really amazing. It speaks the truth.

!RosettaMadeth May 4, 2012 Student General Artist

so can relate to this. you have a marvelous skill.

!Anora-the-Not-Artist May 4, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Holy fudge. This is the best love poem I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

BTW: "kissing in the rain is not romantic." Very true. But kissing when it's raining outside, while you are safe inside, listening to the sound of thunder and pretending the lightning is fireworks beneath the darkness of your eyelids is quite close to perfection. . . Hmm. That sounds fairly poetic. Might I borrow your line?

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