my hometown is a love story

when I look up at the sky in the evening at the right spot in Texas
even skyscrapers blocking out the twilight can't hide your eyes

eyes that sparkle like capitals at night
letters spelled out with irises that
shine like stars in skies that organized themselves alphabetically
and sang me to sleep with country songs under blankets of moonlight

and the personification of your location terrifies me
because you are nighttime for insomniacs
love songs for those of us waiting for the dawn to break you like a heart
watching rays of hope creeping over the horizon
splintering thoughts of you like sunrises kiss the evening to sleep
because I know there is no sunset for you to ride into,
no vindication or happy ending to this country western
set in a state that leaves me so lone-star-struck

your city hides gems like liberals in the I-35 corridor
and your highways are endless roads that my hands will never lightly graze
because you got stuck in deeply personal MoPac traffic jams on the way to my heart
and 6th street meanders like alcoholism
through the arteries of your downtown as a result
I can never understand the grid of one-way synapses in your streets
and I find myself ramming my head up against roadblocks
in an attempt to unlock the way you think

your poetry resides in Ruta Maya's
because the first all nighter where I spilled my soul to you
was writing verses in the floorboards of your coffeehouses
since I could never sleep in a city that I can never finish exploring
and deep down, my heart longs for the southern comfort
in the blue moon pupils that offered me once in a lifetime

but morning wakes up like inevitability
so I will drown your words in vineyards to ferment hope
because my emotional immaturity runs rampant through my veins
so I will drink to every memory of you until the alchemy of my stomach acid
turns my esophagus into a new heart

because every spot where I think of you is the right place in Texas
every time I quit you I end up a half-breath short of salvation
coming after skyscraper high dreams in a city too tired to sleep

dear harvey dent

even dreams drenched in chivalry
can't save you from barren realities like being des(s)ert(ed)

the sugar overtones are just saccharine;
artificial hope eating cavities in the teeth you whistled between,
promising you'd be incorruptible

but we lost our ability to transform into forever the first time we kissed

your riversides were harmonies that sang of deltas like loose change,
but even your happiness sounded like broken guitar chords

coins jingled in your steps and
I wish I could have stored optimism in the blue moons you call eyes

the storm beat down on your temples like a migraine
created deities my lips worshiped as I tried to melt away your bitterness
and I for a moment, I could see God looking at me through the eyes of an atheist
because eternal forgiveness shone in your smile
as if I had served enough penance the last time I fell in love

but the rain washed the sandy flecks in your hair away;
eroded your river banks and made that furrowed forehead that angry tides dug into

and you built up your levees to protect yourself from people like me,
but honey, your heart lies at the mouth of the Mississippi
and nothing can stop the water from wearing down your willpower

because your soul loves like New Orleans,
collecting resentment in bowls and
fishing for wrongdoings in muddy waters
hoping your toes can sift through the silt to the bottom of things

and years from now, children will wade in the shallows
trailing reeds through my memories of you

metaphors for armageddon

Women are bitches

boys, you’d better watch out
because nice guys ALWAYS finish last

so those strippers, those girlfriends, those hookers,
or that girl you picked up at the bar last night
fuck you
because they are out to get all the males in the world
with diseases like chlamydia and AIDS ... and heartbreak
but it's funny, because guys like you taught me
that if you fuck a person

over and over and over
you gain power over them
and I hate being under your influence
because I have given up on happy endings
and settled for instant gratification instead.


The only love letters you ever wrote me
drip down my thighs like comfort
and honestly I find it strange
that I am so empty
when you fill me up like this.

I saw that you wrote reminders
of yourself into my sheets
in case I forgot what it felt like
to bleed affection out the morning after.

I keep memories of you like trinkets in my pockets
fondling the edges of photographs to remember
what I'm supposed to be in love with
when I'm alone in the hospital writing worn out sonnets
spelled out with morning after pills and RU-486.

You glide past me like napalm sears the skin of war victims;
held my arms up at crucifixion and
pressed me up against the wall with eskimo kisses
where your tongue(s) snaked into my ears like foreign languages.

(If only God could spare me from the judgment I put upon myself,
because I'm still waiting for that day to come.)

You came into my life like a violent whim
winds blowing grit into my eyes like sandy caresses
and I can only hope the nacre can cover up remnants of your devotion
devotion, like holier-than-thou attitudes

because we are both just broken souls
and the glass shards we've walked on all our lives
have embedded themselves in our veins

arteries like highways clogged up by traffic accidents,
flying through windshields because we
make love without seatbelts on.

You laid me like I was a floor,
and the rooms below us shook when we quaked.
The drywall trembled as I walked you back out at 3 AM
because you don't want to see my face in the morning

and who can blame you?

but how dare you judge me for my decisions over my own body
this isn't for you, this is for the girls who use sex as a weapon
because we forgot the flaw in playing by the rules that oppress us
forgot that sex hurts, and it's a survival tactic

and
it
is
power

and we are so goddamn sick of feeling powerless

johnny truant writes a sonnet

Her face was beaten
from the air beneath butterflies struggling to fly
with lashes made of pollen grains
that insects kissed her eyes with
and she dances with fluidity in her limbs
like virus could never flow through her veins
but for now, she settles
for painting the town red
watching sitcoms at 3 in the morning

But she is ballet in a way that makes me born again
watching her wings uncurl and flutter lightly in the wind
because I
have never seen anyone handle uncertainty
with as much grace as she does
teetering on 5 inch heels
fending off judgments on street corners in our mind
where she caters to our every desire
she is frolics at midnight under the moon
and her skin radiates pearls that make oysters jealous
I’m forced to admire her every-day-ness
right down to the crooked toes that I kiss to sleep at night

and the splints society puts her in
only hinders her from spreading her wings,
painting skies with feather tips of perseverance
caught in limbo between honey and vinegar

Her name is Bambi
and she's innocent
like the deers in headlights grinding on your grill
when you’ve got the brights on like diamond studded teeth

She swears she’s not a slut,
she’s just earning her way through college
college – that useless liberal arts degree she’s paying for herself
cause her parents gave up on dreaming long ago

It’s just killing people in different ways, she reckons
dancing on bars like prison cells
in limelights that crust over like deposits on that shower
you swear you’re going to clean out someday
but the calcium keeps beating on your skin til then
so in the meantime,
make it rain on my scarlet letter
cause she uses the wrinkled dollars
to buy a better future

And baby, I’m in love with a stripper
she’s tears after a particularly rough feeling-up
and she’s pin up glory with breasts that surgeons pay to touch
and I love her body like you abuse it
I’ve seen her at her most beautiful
sculpting her face with sink water in beat up jeans
beat up
the way her last boyfriend
used the radiator to love her bones
so I’d patch her up face with concealer and Eskimo kisses

So I will vindicate her from society
because she is written in the arteries
that remind me the rest of my body how to live my life
cause she’s just another chrysalis
that will evolve into an angel and fly
and someday she will spread wings like legs
and take off into the sky

for what it's worth

Every time I loved you
Was another song in the soundtrack of my life
Found poems of
Missing beats,
Off key -
Strokes are playing on the radio;
Oh baby I feel so down
It turns me off
When I feel left out

Trading broken souls for records the size of my dreams
Piling up in the archives
Being scr-scr-scratched with my fingertips
Skipping like hearts that pump a little too fast when I’m around you
Cut grooves in my fingers from stand up bass strings
Just a little too heavy to bend without catharsis to the key of A minor

Every time I loved you
Was a story for each of the frets on my guitar,
Grinding down like my teeth at night
Hoping it’s not the last time I hold you

Lost souls
Step carefully over the broken glass now
The fish that swam in it are long gone;
Our years have become desperately held kisses

I know you’re leaving
Please don’t leave,
I’m quaking like the tectonic tremblings in imogen heap melodies
That the speakers next to my ears scream
As you try to drown out my pleas
With warfare onscreen

Every time I loved you was
A major city whose name I carved into my veins just in case
I forgot to visit them before we became terminal
Sitting in airports for arrivals that will never land

Because loving you never had false pretenses of
Chocolate and red flowers delivered to the doorstep
(but not roses, they’re too cliché)
And if I could cliché a romance it’d be
Flower petals with sonnets of stardust hieroglyphics written on the insides of pistils
Stamens shot up like heroin in hopes of getting high off of a better future
So baby, objectify my sexuality like a katy perry song


And after you
I sang myself lullabies of Joseph Heller and Aldous Huxley to stop from wilting
And I saw it as an extended metaphor for all that could have been
Like metaphors that had given up on being great and settled for being a simile

After you
I found love poems to you etched as scars in my esophagus
And the ulcers that stomach acid should never cause in my mouth
Because I loved you past your expiration date
And the putrid stench of sour milk still lingers in my nostrils when I lean over the toilet
Purging thoughts of you that comforted me like laxatives never should

After you
I found solace in early morning emergency room visits
From bleeding you out a little too much
There are cuts so deep on the insides of my thighs
They sing romance and objectification like r&b songs


But now I cradle self-affirmation as my prophecy
Holding confidence between my fingertips like rosary beads

I am self-improvements from slashing you out of my veins with optimism
Sonnets written on the insides of my wrists like stigmata
Telling stories of triumph and survival from deconstructing myself
until I had broken down to rock bottom
Whistled breaths of confidence between buckteeth waxing nostalgic
Waning moons pulling in tides of change like loose coins stuck in childhood piggy banks
Cashing in every time I loved you
For what it’s worth

math like poetry

I want to write away wrongs.

I want a boy who speaks math like poetry
but still understands the difference between
you’re contraction and your possessive;
someone who brings mental diversity lyrically

I want a girl that challenges my fictions,
who sings her way past my safeguards
and can explain calculus in simple English
So give me brave new words to explore my world with

I want a boy who dreams of overcoming statistics
Formulas for better futures tattooed on limbs
with warning signs of defying the norm
with things like outliers
because what is popular is not always right,
and what is right not always popular

I want her like diversity in the languages I speak
Tongues like prophesies proclaiming positivity
Liberated from shackles of conventional thinking

I want a boy who’s a distraction
Close captioned in dialects of ingenuity
With subtitles of hope between his lips
Of refusing to let hate cloud dreams of
“girls can’t do physics”
And “boys can’t dance”
Because I was raised in a world where Barbie dolls told me “math was hard”
Where GI Joes were macho and inadequate in more ways than one,
And Rosalind Franklin was forgotten because she was a woman

So I want a girl who can change the world with
The poise of waitresses who balance
broken plates and forgotten tabs
Like a double order of insecurity

Can rise the next day with determination
wiping under eye circles away
Because sexy is changing the world as an everyday person

So I want you like change craves revolutionaries
Unconventional dedication singing hope as its bedtime story
Glory personified in the form of genuine passion
And love like math speaking lyrically

budro

it was strange; how broken you were before we even began
staring into doe eyes that reflected fish bowls;
lost souls swimming in circles looking for their partners

shopping in the clearance aisles for stress relievers and anti-anxiety medication
or perhaps just a really good sugar pill prescribed under your name
you know, that comfort that you try to give me you can barely afford

I try to not mind being lied to because you have eyes
that can't hide your star-crossed lovers from long before
whose amoration thrived on separation and melodrama
sweat and fluids running past thighs you'll never speak of again
breaking out in such a ruddy flush nearing rashes
that people thought you were allergic to each other's adoration

I'm alone, left lying between sheets
staring at spiders writing cob-web love letters on the ceiling
and listening to thunder crooning serenades to fickle lightning
(because real love can only last for a moment
before breaking that rumbling giant apart)

struggling against being a cliche, another love-struck statistic
listening to heartbeats sung by past lovers breathing in your chest
as you lightly exhale sheets of silk and velvety embraces

you are poetry putting together puzzle pieces with the precision of scientists
dissecting emotions with logic as if rationality
could make sense of something so counter-intuitive

poetry stained with the scent of raid
from attempts to kill the ants that constantly crawl over my skin
biting at flustered nerve endings whenever you're watching with

eyes that reflected cataracts your dog lost sight in long ago
golden retrievers that never made it back to their masters
sunset explosions and milky little deaths inside my body
loyalty misguided because sometimes,
I don't want you to bring back your old memories
(Did you know that even false ones
can cause someone to die of broken heart syndrome?)

and it is love like a lie as we lay here together,
piecing together solidarity in the solitude of our sheets
repeating love letters you wrote to past lovers parenthetically

with eyes that hide feldspar grains in the middle of iridescent moonstones
flashes of blue that peek through translucent linens
eyes like parentheses hiding gentle white lies lying next to me the morning after

Siobhan

I was a girl who spoke graphite and dreamt diamonds
Because maybe if I held onto my dreams hard enough, they’d become real
Contemplating illustrations of illustrious illusions
Perhaps of grandeur and romantic visions of importance
Or just the empty bottles in front of me that stand as obstacles to my freedom
Which is locked in memories that cling to me like leeches
Leeches to bleed me out in hopes of becoming a little less sick
A little less allergic to the pollen grains of death and heartbreak

Once, I knew a girl who had eyelashes that batted flirtatiously at invincibility
She hid in heroin overdoses and heads hanging over toilet seats
Because she ate too much and her soul wanted to starve itself

Once, I knew a girl who made me sick
The way that a finger in the back of my throat after a particularly big meal does
Which isn’t to say I found her disgusting,
I just don’t think that love poems are really done justice until you juxtapose
Bulimia and adoration-
And she had that too. Both of them.

Once, I knew a girl who was poetry that comes to you on the toilet seat
Wisdom scribbled on bathroom stalls indecipherable to those that could never understand
How something so beautiful can come from our souls while we’re taking a shit
Or maybe our minds have just been constipated for far too long
And an emotional enema is necessary for our survivals

Once, I knew a girl who was a blueberry blushing shyly
Painting me purple with the bruises that form when my words are choking
Attempts at forming a way to love her the way an anti-oxidant rich fruit deserves

Once, I knew a girl who resided in the spaces between our heartbeats
The breaths between gasps your throat chokes itself for
And her immortality so angered the gods they struck her down with the vices she adored
Driving drunk in empty streets of despair and poetry and alcohol
And really, I will never forgive her
Because it was entirely her own fault
Creating tragedies and catastrophes between fingertips that spoke of
Leaving me a hopeless car wreck at a whim

Once I knew a girl who pushed death past its limits until it wanted to kill itself as well
There wasn’t a single vice she didn’t try and that made her feel unstoppable
Teetering on edges of cliffs to see how long she could hang on
Crashing into stop signs nights before holiday celebrations
Running red lights and egging the police in our hearts to chase after us-
See what happens

And the irony of her end never escaped me
Because she consumed death and ate immortality
Would jump off buildings to see if she could live through it
And it’s ironic that her suicides were the ones she survived and an accident killed her
Something outside of herself within her essence she simply had no control over

And once I was a girl who spoke grains of sand and dreamt pearls
Because I hoped if I covered up loving you you’d go away – and you did