Morning.

You should press your lips on mine like you want to devour me.
Twist your hands viciously
in my hair and
tell me I'm pretty
In your tobacco kissed voice.
Press your hip bones into me
While my tongue
Leaves fire trails
Down your neck.
You know my darkness.
You don't seem to mind that I
walk the grey
That I can't say no to trouble.
I don't want to be undressed carefully,
I want to be torn into
Like an early morning Christmas present
But first,
take a moment to admire
The wrapping paper.
Trace your fingertips
Over the lace and straps,
Aware of
The gift I'm giving you.
My hands are grabbing yours,
I'll show you where I keep my secrets.
I need you to crash into me,
Fuck me with the intensity
Of a dying man
Seeking god.
I'm no longer asking,
I'm demanding.
Break me
Build me up
And break me again
My body may be a temple
But yours is that of a god,
And I'll
Look you in the eye
when I'm crying out
Your name.
When we're done,
And you're curled up next to me
And our eyes close in sleep,
Know
round two starts in the morning.

Freefall.

Shit.
I swore up and down that I really wouldn't do this again,
But here I am, up late at night,
Writing you poetry
That you'll make me read you later.
I think you might have found out how
Honest I get,
Even though I'm still trying to hide behind
Metaphors and anecdotal prose.
Well,
Go Fuck yourself.
You're pretty,
But go Fuck yourself.
I'm still trying to figure out how you did it.
You keep me on the phone for hours,
Talking to me about everything under the sun.
And I'm pretty sure the fact that I hang on many, if not all of your words, gives me away.
I'm trying to behave myself,
But somehow I know you can see right through me
And let's be honest here,
It scares the fuck out of both of us.
You, reformed bad boy,
Devil may care attitude
Me, sweet on the outside,
Hellfire on the inside
And we're pretending.
We're playing the waiting game because we made a promise.
I'm not saying we shouldn't,
Because we definitely should
What I'm saying is I wonder
If you wrote a song about me.
If you wake up in the middle of the night and think about
What it would be like to wake up next to me.
I wonder
If you think about holding my hand
Or if you think about what it would be like
To know you had all of me.
I sat and thought about the fact that you might go.
And you don't want to hurt anyone
And you really care about how I feel.
But I wondered,
If that happens,
Would I be upset because you had to go,
Or would I be upset that I never gave you these parts of me?
I'm still not quite sure how to answer that question.
Because I'm starting to get the feeling I don't get to have a say.
We can change the subject or I can stumble over my words but the truth is..
The truth is...
I'm starting to feel my feet slip
And I know the ledge is right behind me.

Pretty.

Tell me I'm pretty.
You are man of many words
And I love to listen to all of them
But there's a lot you don't say.
You ask me all the time
If I'm ok,
How I'm feeling,
How I am.
And you're actually interested in those things but
I sometimes wonder if you're trying to read between the lines.
So my suggestion here is to read between these lines,
These verses
these stanzas,
Read between them.
Read them like I read you.
You're everything I didn't ask for.
I was just giving up again on finding someone to
Understand me.
Someone who was who they said they were
Someone who I had that momentary flash of connection with.
I was so pissed and disappointed the night you bumped into me I actually forgave you for not calling me as I was giving you my number.
I didn't think you would and that
Really,
It didn't matter. I was never going to see you again.
Right?
Just like,
That time we were just going to hang out and watch shows on tv that first night, but instead ended up naked and free and alive in your bed.
Just like
I was never going to stay the night at your house
Just like I said you couldn't come over
And then like.. now.
Tell me I'm pretty.
Because when you tell me I'm pretty I hear you say something else entirely.
I hear you say all the things you can't say. I hear you say all the things you might not ever say and it's
A really good thing you don't tell me I'm pretty often because otherwise I'm pretty sure
Pretty would lose meaning
And I don't ever want to be anything less than pretty
To you.
And I shouldn't have to apologize for being pretty.
Because I know you think I'm pretty.
And I think you're pretty too.

Named.

Ask me
You whispered,
Your quiet voice a throaty mix of
Cigarettes and lust.
Ask me.
I was riding high on the
Chemicals of climax,
The fact that I'd told you only moments before
I'd never call you that name.
Never once did I ever think
The word would escape my lips.
But it did.
It slid across the tip of my tongue,
Teeth tried to lock it away
But it slid out from in between my lips,
Easy,
Easy like four hour conversations,
Easy like the first kiss
Easy, like bumping into someone at a bar.
What is difficult,
Is finding where you belong.
See, I've always categorized people into
Neat little compartments in my head.
You don't fit in neat little compartments,
That much I knew the second I saw you.
And now,
Now you have a name.
I name I wouldn't have given to just anyone.
And I'm not sure if it's just because of the lust,
Or something else.
Maybe it's because there is something primal lurking in you.
And the animal in me
Sees the animal in you.
This isn't about bringing them out,
Because I'm not quite sure if that's where we end up going.
I don't know where we end up going.
I do know,
You asked me to name you.
And I did.
For now I'm happy wondering,
If and When the time comes
If I ask you to name me,
If the notes of your smokey, throaty voice
Will just as easily
Call me by name.

Heat.

I woke up at a quarter to twelve.
I padded into the kitchen,
Made coffee just the way I always do,
Cream, sugar, steaming, strong.
I hummed some song
I'd heard on the radio
Driving the 10
When I was 20.
These floors are cold.
Into the bathroom now,
Turn the water on
Scalding
And
Then I think about you.
I don't know if you even exist
In reality
But there you are, in my mind's eye
Watching me from the mirror.
Laughing at the mess of hair piled
Haphazardly on my head,
Smirking
While I burn the roof of my mouth
On scalding coffee,
Rolling your eyes as I curse like
The gypsy woman
I was never raised to be.
I test the water with my fingertips,
Wipe down the mirror
And breathe in the steam.
I don't know if you exist
Outside of my mind,
But the belief that you're out there,
Maybe thinking about a woman,
With hair piled atop her head,
Who wakes up at a quarter to noon,
Burns her mouth on coffee
And swears like sailors she never met,
The belief that you might just exist
Keeps me alive.
People in my life,
They think I'm the girl who needs to be protected
From the world,
From my own poor judgement calls.
I was raised in an ivory tower
Sheltered from the big bad,
It's no wonder,
When I climbed down,
I lost my virginity to danger,
Ran with wolves and
Breathed chaos.
My blood boils
With passion.
My heart doesn't beat
It fires bullets of primal heat
That scream through my veins.
I have never been more alive
Because I believe in something out there
That is mine.
I don't know if you exist outside of my thoughts,
And if you do I don't know
Where you are,
Who you are.
But I know
Your heart doesn't beat.
It burns.

Countdown.

18.
The age I met you at. I just moved in with my high school sweetheart and you let me borrow your lighter outside of a coffee shop.
17.
The exact amount of minutes it took me to ask you if you had a girlfriend.
16.
The amount of cigarettes I went through the first time we hung out one on one.
15.
The number of weeks from the time I met you, to the time my high school sweetheart and I broke up.
14.
The number of days before I took you after that to rescue your girlfriend.
13.
The number of days it took me after that to be able to admit to myself that I was in love with you.
12.
The number of years it's been since I met you.
11.
The number of times I have thought about you in the last three days.
10.
The number of miles we drove to feed the ducks.
9.
The number of times I have wondered if you still have the cd I gave you.
8.
The number of years since I saw you last. 7.
The number of times I have admitted to you that I loved you.
6.
The amount of unpublished love letters I have written to you and never sent.
5.
The number of times we've tried to see each other but never made it.
4.
The amount of times I have actually written about you in poetry form.
3.
The number of times I have asked you to marry me.
2.
The number of times you have asked me to marry you.
1.
You are my one.

Denial.

I have earned my freedom.
It doesn't matter who was right and who was was wrong,
I made the choice to leave
And start a new life
Without you.
But I keep finding myself
Reading through old emails,
Text messages and
Facebook posts
Trying to find some semblance
Of the good people we were.
And the truth is,
we weren't.
You made me defend every decision I ever made.
And every decision you ever made.
You conned me into believing you'd love me forever.
And I took the bait.
We were fire and oil and we burned too brightly and too quickly,
Though neither of us could contain the blaze,
The truth is
I enabled your bad decisions.
You tried to enable mine and when I tried to stop short you'd push me further and further toward the edge.
Until I made the right decision.
To leave.
But you can't let me leave.
You'd rather lie and con your way back into my life.
I've had worse.
I've had worse.
Don't think I haven't had worse.
I'm a survivor.
And I will survive this.
My track record isn't perfect
And my legs are tired from running,
So I'll meet you head on.
And when the fire burns out I will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.
I will rise above you and this and fly.
I won't turn around.
Not for fear of turning into a pillar of salt,
No.
I won't look back because you don't deserve it.
I have earned my freedom.
I chose freedom.
I won't be looking through old love letters anymore.
I won't be hanging on to misguided hope.
Do what you have to do.
You just don't have permission to drag me down with you.