Justin

You let me down so gently from my perch
my feathers didn't have time to ruffle. There are days
where I tire of singing your song like a broken record
because my voice box has forgotten how to warble
the syllables in your name every night like a hymn.

Sometimes, I grow tired of the metal bars
surrounding my body that dig their talons in so deeply
they carve your soul into my flesh, but I remain confident
that someday, I will fly again. (If I concentrate hard enough,
I can count the twelve steps towards addiction and rehab.
I can't help but wonder which one you bring.)

However, I missed the herald angel that descended upon me
sending good tidings my way while I was delicately perched
on your arm because my wings were clipped by your bluntness
and your pleas fall on tone-deaf-song-bird ears
that are too tired of aural persuasions,
so all I have left to do is wonder why I still sing.

match tips

Tonight is not the first time I have heard country songs
written about people like you. It is not easy,
but I have finally found the time to admit to myself
that heartbreak has taken a toll on me. There are days
where I burn camaraderie like bridges so efficiently
I use the flames to keep my worn out joints from aching.
My body has become expendable between your fingertips,
because the tips of my hair are coated with brimstone
& when you rub me between heartbreak and trust issues
I have no choice but to ignite. I confess to growing weary
of being your emotional crutch guiding you like the moon,
but although I am weak I have found the only thing to do
is hobble, so I keep walking. There are times where I find
my subconscious searching for your pathway, but the souls
of my torn up feet are tired of searching for your heart
amidst the briars and I hope someday I can content myself
with waking up alone.

I hate the taste of caution in my mouth.

There is a road less traveled that I nibbled
into the nape of your neck like a cliche,
but the fictions I wrote with eskimo kisses
can't recall the dead space she created.

Sometimes, I want to apologize for my innate hyperbole
when I see your inability to understand my caustic nature
shooting through your corneas until color deficiency
destroys your technicolor dreams.

Last night I found myself wanting to swear by
the sparkle in your star-struck irises
that reflected fervent hope so desperately
my pupils shrunk instinctively in fear,

but I am learning slowly how to let you hold me
while your trembling digits cautiously wander
the lining of my broken soul as if it was the first time
you learned how to trust.

midnight yell

You terrify me. I have nights now where I find myself pacing
the newly minted gravel road that is so meticulously lined with concrete
and the souls of fallen stacks and angels it makes me wonder
if I can burn a portal to my hometown in the backs of my corneas.

There is a burning desire that lies deep within my heart for tradition,
but I find the struggle upwards towards my faith in people
slipping on the edges of fallacies that lie in my path like good intentions.

I showed up at dark thirty and wrapped the midnight sky around your wariness,
but I remain suspicious of your claims about your lack of emotion
because I have spent my life shedding away disloyalty
and wearing the scars of abandonment on my fingers
like gold rings symbolizing camaraderie.

That night, the field was too bright to register coherent thought,
so I dragged my heels along the yard lines & curled my toes in the grass,
hoping for a moment of darkness when I would become brave enough
to close my eyes. My throat ached from yelling so loudly to calm my nerves.

I remember how terrified I was when you swept me off my feet so quickly
the battle fatigued me, but I found it impossible to camouflage the sparkle
in your icy-blue-moon-stony eyes that left me so breathless my heart forgot how to hurt.

Ever since your lips grazed my apprehension,
I have found myself constantly worrying that I am better off waking up alone,
but you carved insomnia so deeply into my cerebral cortex
that daylight has lost its context in the natural rhythm of my life.

Nowadays, I find that he thought of you grasps the aura of my soul firmly,
leaving the scar of your talon. Twelve hours ago, we encased ourselves
in between red bricks and locked lives like mouths that knew better than to ask
the alchemy of our chemistry to clip the wings of destiny,
and so all I can do now is learn how to fly on my own.

Doherty

Sometimes, I wonder if I dig deep enough with
abyssal gazes into your soul whether your
existential-bordering-on-Nietzschean
nihilist rantings that pave the concrete we follow
late at night can learn to embrace your suffering as a joy,
but I am not naive enough to think that you
understand the philosophy behind my poetry.

Tonight wasn't the first night I felt your third eye
peering into my soul curiously, but I am tensed up too far
to let you hold me without fear of you slipping away
the same way that concrete edges ate at my shins
when I scaled roofs so high I grazed the floors of the heavens.

I counted seven-four-twelve flowers
in your irises like a locker combination,
and I sometimes wonder if either of us
can ever outgrow the maturity of high school,
but I continue to remain confident that come springtime,
our ability to communicate shall flourish in the plant beds
I painstakingly dug next to where I found your soul.

There are vines that snake their tendrils up your red brick walls,
and I have moments where I yearn to reach for the tops of the leaves
on trees lining your sidewalk, but my growth towards the sky
has been stunted by your pessimism,
and so all I can do is look towards the stars and wonder
if I will ever be brave enough to kiss you.

Dorm Seven

There are moments
where I can hear the echo of your boot heels in strange(r)-passerby,
but I have learned better than to acknowledge such curious presences.
It's amusing to me that such jaded cynicism in ice-blue-moon-stony eyes
that reflected the stoicism of gargoyles has been replaced
by such eager inquisitiveness, but rest assured
that no doe-brown-fawn-eyed boy can convince me
to stray from bitterness. However, I find a sort of magic
in having come 'round full circle a year and a half later,
wandering into the paths of alleged hopeless romantics,
but I have learned that sometimes,
life is safer when dwelled as a homebody,
because the outdoors has left me lovesick
with desire for optimism just out of my reach.

thompsons

In a lot of ways, I resent my ability to pick out scent like a hound
because I have moments when I pass by your cologne
and it knocks the wind straight out of me, but I figured I had developed
enough willpower to resist the urge to fall for another one of you again.

There are moments when I can recall the way your heels
clicked against the tile when you paced the hallway in your boots,
and the noise resounded against floorboards and echoed
in slapboards hanging on the ceilings, but I have learned
from my experience with ladykillers, and nowadays, I am wise enough
to avoid your red brick walls that still sting me with a vengeance.

I remember promises of semper fi and silver linings that gently caressed
the sides of commissions, but your second coming never arrived
because when I tried to remain always loyal, I found that seizing opportunities
ended up closing doors and shattering windows for me.

One night in particular, you bled red, white, and blue
and drew the edges of our intertwined mouths,
but I will never forget waking up
crunching glass between my teeth.

Recently, I found that your shadow lies closer to 12 than 7,
and I have had enough of Pyrrhic battlefields, because combat fatigues me,
but your namesake haunts my memories like a calling duty simply cannot forsake.
I found his engraved nameplate and traced your last name
over my inability to trust a new beginning with an old memory.
Even now, I can't help but be leery of mistakes I have made in the past
digging their talons into my soul and overshadowing my aura.

He stalked towards me amidst a crowd of desperate, reverent lighters
and cell phones in the background, and twirled me around his finger so easily
that I didn't have time to recover from the realization of vertigo.

I fell deep into naivete and wondered if royal blues
could whisk me away into skies that painted themselves sapphire
with the optimism of doe eyed pupils. I spun around like
all I could do was hold on for dear life during a nose dive,
but there was no bald eagle to catch me just in time before I hit the ground.

However, I find myself fortunate enough to have stared into
icy blue moon-stone irises that seemed, for once, more apprehensive
about me than I am able to be about my own insecurities.

when you were young

i can't help but find myself love-sick-stoned
every other time i blink my eyes,
wiping away the film from last night

and opening windows of opportunity
i peep at through camera obscuras,
but no amount of underdog championing
can convince me to reign on the silver screen
that we meet on in my technicolor dreams

but hope sneaks up on my ankles
and stays steadfast, hoping to cling to
the remnants of my naivete

beck and call

I firmly believe that God made me so tiny
because my personality announces its presence so easily.
As a result, my heart has never learned how to forget naivete.

Ever since I was a little girl, I caught rays of hope between my fingers
and stubbornly clung onto its fading light the same way I did with fireflies.

Nowadays, my heart aches a little less every time
I watch you slip through my fingers like quicksand,
because my feelings have become karst topography
and I am tired of trying to patch sinkholes you make.

I admit that I still have days where I fall asleep
with your memory tucked firmly underneath my pillowcase like a baby tooth
so an angel can take you away and replace you with a quarter-blue-moon,
but the lunar lady was full tonight, and I'm not sure that God
is willing to wax and wane the same way your inhibitions do.

Even now, there are grooves of optimism carved into your dimples
and worry lines on your forehead. I can't kiss away either. I find
the only thing I have left to do is lay my mouth on your eyelids
and hope that you don't remember how my lips taste when you wake up,
because I am sick of writing you love poems.

military walk

i met your ghost today;
traced his reincarnated footsteps
as if twin namesakes
could

free me from
a predisposition
towards hope

but i find myself walking
behind tap-dance-soles
that wore out my feet
so long ago that my aura
can't find the time
to save itself

from people like you