Espresso.

I could never sleep with you on my mind, because my nightmares always showed me what was meant to happen, and my dreams always told me what never would.

You were always just that inexplicable shade of bitter, forcing yourself down my throat and burning my achy-breaky-insides with your fierce words and cold glances.

But I had to keep going, I had to keep up, because you would never just leave me, preferring instead to drag me behind you until I could un-stumble enough to get up and walk again.

Maybe I don't want to drink you down anymore, love.

Cosmopolitan

Burning cherries
over weak flames
reminds me
of every waxen smile I would fake
after our fights
and all the arguments we spent up
like countless
blackened
wicks.

Ripping out the heated, dripping insides
takes me back
to when you would do
the same to me,
with your reckless words;
never holding back,
and yet
now I realize
why you always did so
with relish;
triumph tastes so sweet
when it's taken
ferociously.

But the blackened,
e m p t y
shell left
leaves me a cruel reminder
of what I am
without you,
as the bitter aftertaste fights
to remove all sweetness
from my mind--

And tying the stems
into pretzel-heart knots
with my tongue
only makes me miss your kisses

more.

juxtaposed collisions.

Gravity says
we can't be in love
Because
like begets like, and
We only attract
so long as we're
together.

Maybe one day I'll be your other
focal point
and you can wobblespin around me,
pirouetting ellipses in my celestial
dysfunction;

Maybe one day
when your aphelion reminds you
that you're cold without my
tilted, toxic axis against you;

Maybe one day we'll
collide
and blaze our footprints in
the scattered stardust;

But for now, we're not
burning brightly enough to leave
a trail of glamour
across the sky's cheek

But maybe someday, darling
when our juxtaposed collisions become

w e i g h t l e s s

retaliation.

You decided to fight my fire with your own;

So let me take your hand, love,
and together, we'll watch the world

burn.

practice.

stray feathers,
humid weather,

loudly smashing rackets,
smile glued to my brackets;

fingers frozen in position
but not regretting my decision:

playing has a price, as all things do
but it's worth it if it means
I'll be good enough for you.

I'll Be Fine

2 am, and the champagne on my lips
says that I am ready for this;
The most daring moment of my life--
You're dripping out of focus, but that's alright.

'Cause tonight, I've worked up the courage
just to tell you what I have to say;
I know I won't remember a thing, but
I can't do it any other way;
and I just want to let you know
that I, I think I want to let you go.

It's been an hour, and you haven't said a thing
Honey, really, you couldn't take a hint?
I know everything that's been going on,
so don't you bother telling me I'm wrong.

'Cause tonight, I've worked up the courage
just to tell you what I have to say;
I know I won't remember a thing, but
don't you think it's so much better this way?
And I just want to let you know
that I, I think I have to let you go.

Honey, I'm drunk,
but that doesn't mean that I've been blind.
You can walk yourself out the door,
don't worry, I'll be fine.

ricochet.

my Sig Sauer heart
is loaded with
[butterfly venom
and meteorite tears];

your lemongrass lies
and peppermint promises;
[riddle my heart
with high-voltage hurricanes, and you]

and each subsequent
cinnamon-kiss
[will only add
to my reckless recoil],

will shoot me down
and shatter me senseless;
[but your bittersweet breathlessness
corrodes my Kevlar core, darling]

and your ricochet rips at me more fearlessly than
any of your bandersnatch bullets
ever could.

A shot of adrenaline.

I want to be
your autumn sunset
burning bright in your bleeding sky--

You can be
my autumn evening,
stardancing through my mooncalf mind.

We'll be an autumn nightmare, darling
because autumn dreams
don't come true;

We'll leak loneliness away through
anandamide kisses--

A shot of adrenaline,
me and you.

a la jigsaw.

Do you know what it is to be a lover?
To be half of a whole?

Well, I was in pieces,
and you were holding the glue gun
but my electrified
edges
never quite matched--

And you said, it's okay,
baby, you look better that way
but my uneven
creases
aren't so forgiving--

It didn't matter that I was
missing some pieces;
You ripped yourself up and
gave me battle-scars
and patchwork dimples--

But I never asked for you to
fall apart;

Darling, I never wanted you to fix me.

you tried

sticks and
stones
and
bricks and
bones
but
only your
words
could ever break me.

Love is like an open wound--

pain is
inevitable, but
endorphins will tell you otherwise;
and alcohol
will only make it
worse.

Lonely Puppeteer

Are you sad, pretty girl?

All your puppets have gone:
burnt away their strings
and run off--

They've found they can do better
than needing
your fleeting
smile to save and damn them.

And one by one, they have
ripped away the traces of
your glamour,
and learnt
that they are real boys;
ones who can love
unlike you do,
truly and sweetly and
for more than themselves.

Pretty girl, have you noticed?

Every twisted lie
turns you a little bit
more wooden:
you'll be a puppet, too.

But nobody will want
to play on your strings, love:
they've learned to live
committed;
away from you,
they've learned to live.