I don’t love you because you drove an hour to my hometown and an hour back just to have lunch with me

And I don’t love you because you bought me lunch at Wendy’s and grabbed extra napkins

I definitely don’t love you just because you left a note on my car that I found when I got out of work an hour late tonight, a note that read YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE

I don’t love you because you snuck in to the back room at work to call me when I was on my way home tonight

I don’t love you because you’re the cutest boy I’ve ever kissed

I don’t love you because you kissed me soft and sweet in the parking lot this afternoon with a minute left before I had to clock in and sent me running through the lot and into the store, short of breath, to make it on time

I don’t love you because you got to my break on time

And I don’t love you because you left class twenty minutes early to do so

I love you because I was grumpy and quiet and you held my face and said “I want to make you laugh, I want to make you smile” and soon enough, we were chasing each other down aisle twelve and were holding hands at the register

I didn’t think I did

I didn’t think

I do

I look back

at old pictures and old posts

old pictures and old pictures

and old statuses and letters and poems
and messages and posts and pictures

and I watch myself
get raped and curl up to die
over and over again

I’m sure you’ve watched your favorite
movie millions of times. I’m sure you’ve
dabbed your eyes at the same old
parts, screamed
at the actress on the TV: “Don’t
go in there”

but it happens anyways. You knew that.
It’s just intriguing, watching
the transformation

Deterioration

Two days after the incident, my facebook
status read “nobody can tell on you
if you cry
in the shower.”

Typical dramatic status
of a teenager. No one knew

what I was referring to, what
images and words and sequences
were about to unfold

but I look back, and I
play God
because I know.

landsinorder:

Your hand full of hours, you came to me - and I said:
Your hair is not brown.
So you lifted it lightly on to the scales of grief; it weighed more than I…

On ships they come to you and make it their cargo, then put it on
sale in the markets of lust -
You smile at me from the depth, I weep at you from the scale
that stays light.
I weep: Your hair is not brown, they offer brine from the sea and
you give them curls …
You whisper: They’re filling the world with me now, in your
heart I’m a hollow way still!
You say: Lay the leafage of years beside you - it’s time you came closer and kissed me!

The leafage of years is brown, your hair is not brown.

The saddest thing
about poetry

is
the gaps between the words

The sense
I forgot to make
in between

the silence
of sheets and pillows
and the crack

in my voice

the craters in the moon

I can’t say I love him
but I would love to

There are
gaps between the words
in this poem

it’s been too long // yes yes yes yes yes