age

When did I become aware of age my current age?
Was it when I realized I had full hips to your friends 20"?
Was it when I realized my breasts were more than they will see for 5-10 more years?
Was when I realized I was admiring their "young" skin?

For pete's sake, I'm only 27!!!!!

%&$#

Here’s the thing.

You were never nobody. I know you’ve always felt that way. It’s come out pretty hard in this past few years, after we moved back to the city. The jealousy, the resentment, you acted with only survival and 10 more minutes on your mind. I guess I told myself if I just loved you enough, maybe you’d be able to love yourself too, but it frightened me to watch all my love disappear into the black hole of your self loathing, to watch you stop taking care of yourself and hide. I suppose I knew it was going to end about two years ago, when I stopped being able to tell myself that you were the man I wanted to marry. I didn’t stop loving you—I’ll never stop loving you, it comes as easily as breathing—but I knew. I was just slow to give up.


You always had a hard time coming home to me, I keep trying to tell myself it wasn’t because I wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t because I wasn’t everything you wanted, it was because you couldn’t handle me loving you when you didn’t love yourself. I feel like you almost hated me for how much I adored you, but would panic whenever you felt my adoration waning because how would you feel loved if I wasn’t there? And when I wasn't there...

You will always miss me. You will never meet another woman like me, and you will likely never feel this way about anyone again. You will feel other ways, and you may fall in love again—you may find happiness if you’re willing to work for it—but a part of your heart will always belong to me, a part that I know you will always take great pride in.

These are the things I keep telling myself.

I’m past regretting you, and have moved on to licking my wounds and trying to exist without the opiate feelings of companionship and understanding that I used to have with you. My hope, the one I told you about on the phone, is that we could be friends someday, dig out and salvage the amazing part of us after the pain has gone away. I’m just trying to put as much time as possible between who I am and who we were, and to believe that I am an amazing individual who deserves what I want. I just hope that when I’m ready to know you again, you won't be a hollow, haunted man anymore.

Like I said, I never wanted to change you, I just wanted you to be who you were rather than a product of painful memories.

The World's a Scary Place, I Guess

Again, arose at 6 PM
to torture, and disease, and puppy mills.
just one sad story after another.

I sleep through each day
and then re-live it, fast-forward
via internet and news,

And most days,
It seems like a mercy
just to sleep through it all.

johnny and june

you were supposed to be my johnny
and i would be your june
in spite of all your vices, 
you'd have to become the man i wanted
because your drive to love me
outweighed your drive to self destruct
our souls would be so entwined

when i passed on, you'd die to be with me

but life's not so romantic
i see that now
i'll be your june in memory
i have to put space between you and me
leave an empty imprint on your side
for you can't be my johnny 

A Haiku for my Topsy-Turvy Sleep Schedule

To sleep with the dawn,
Sun cresting over the bridge.
A poem in light.

anymore

you think about me now, you say
a little late because our ground has worn away
you say you loved me but you
couldn't be the man that hurt me
anymore

at night inside my little room
i think about back when your voice would make me swoon
and how it shattered when your
demons came to haunt me in my
lonely dreams

someday i'll
be better
i'll see you
and all the pain you caused me
it won't feel like hurting anymore
someday i
won't miss you
we'll move on
and all the life you witnessed,
it won't be the only life i've lived
anymore

i'm moving slowly, at a crawl
sometimes i cry and then i cannot move at all
sometimes i talk to you,
in mirrors or in windows, but you
can't reply

i bought me flowers yesterday
i did the dishes and i put them all away
it's all these motions that
i use to pass the moments of
my empty days

someday i'll
be better
i'll see you
and all the pain you caused me
it won't feel like hurting anymore
someday i
won't miss you
we'll move on
and all the life you witnessed,
it won't be the only life i've lived
anymore

since i can't hate, i wish you well
i hope you climb out of your open prison cell
these words won't find you
but i cannot be your sweet saviour
anymore

the grass is always greener with the other jesus

Pleasing you

How far do you go
to make people like you
to have people say good things about you.

When is it too much
too much sacrifice of what you really feel
and who is there to tell you to stop?

You feel unwanted
and that you burden people with your presence
even while they compliment you (as you please them)

So it's not really You they like, is it?
Do you dare show them who you really are?
Or will they not ask for you again...