This poem is an ashtray
grey, round, and chipped on the rim
***** and wasted from your countless cigarettes
whose burning embers were smothered
into its swollen belly.

This poem is an ashtray
broken, tired, and scratched all over
who sat on your patio
used to fulfill filthy habits
in times when stress and emptiness conquered you.

This poem is an ashtray
abused, weak, and out of place
a secret kept from parents and friends
something you ran to when there was no one else
to take you inside and turn you upside-down.

This poem is a crumpled note
written quickly
and then smashed into a small careless ball
tossed angrily into a black trashcan
never to be read by any pair of eyes.
It was a note for you,
the man who makes my palms sweat
and my heart twitch between my ribcage
but who barely glances in my direction
as we cross paths every morning at 8:56 am.

It was that feeling
you experience when falling down
the drop
of a rollercoaster.

I’d lost my breath
as it escaped my ribs
hand in hand with my voice
and in that moment everything went silent.

An old fashioned film played slowly
in the back of my head
as we staggered between
two vehicles of fatality,
deaths forewarning tapping mockingly
on my shoulder.

Blank eyes
on calloused hands
my fate sealed as I pressed
myself into his body.

Our sins
smoking off his tires
evidence through charcoaled black lines
on glistening pavement

my heart stops being for an instant

and I finally know the truth.

Someday a man will look me in the eyes
and I will not see myself reflected in his pupils,
but the best version of myself.

The tangled parts of me I’ve kept buried
deep within coursing veins,
pieces even I don’t understand
but can be unraveled by his hands only.

My ******* will not be symbols of my ability to ****
but will offer warmth and support,
a nuzzling ground fit for only his temples
and the warm wet mouths of our children.

My hips won’t just offer smooth curves
of lust and temptation,
but will prove strong enough to survive
all the wrong paths I took in finding him.

My *** won’t be bragged about in locker rooms
nor silenced by sharp thrusts and stabbing bites.

It will be real.

That thing they call love with entangle us
together in unison and we will be
equals,
making love to pouring rain
dancing barefoot through emotional hallways of our future.

Someday a man will look me in the eyes
And see me as I truly am.

Since you’ve left
My pillows are lonely
They ask me over and over
When you’ll be back
And find my response
In the tears that stain the plush of their fabric

Since you’ve left
My sheets are tundra’s of empty landscape
Searching for traces of your body
Moaning for your touch
They ask me why you’re gone
And find the answer
In my sleepless nights
Tossing and turning in your dreamland

Since you’ve left
My blankets are useless
No point in masking my features
When no one is home to appreciate the sculpture
They question what I did to make you disappear
And find the reasons
As I smother myself beneath their arms
Hiding from what I don’t want to know

Since you’ve left
My bed is cold
Swollen with absence
And strained memories
If a love we once shared
Now forever lost in an ocean of sleep

My hands quivered like morning stems
unable to control myself
I hid behind my fears
untouchable.

He couldn’t stand tall enough
to steal a peak at me.
I wanted him to climb,
waited for eager eyes to
undress me, greet
my lips with the
deep green voice of the moon.

But no. Still cold.
I sit alone. Untouched,
desired but locked up
in too eager breaths and
words that cut through skin.
I tuck her into hopeless
pockets, and pray she
won’t look up again.

My flower yearns for you
in quiet moments, folded
beneath journals of misguided truth.

My life spins by in fast forward
I look down upon myself
and I tremble,
one feel so alone on October nights.

I remember your lips
tainted with coffee and cigarettes,
I’ve never been a smoker
but I liked the taste
and now I crave it through photographs
swollen with lust.

I’m crying in the bathroom and
I wish I could tell him everything fogging my thoughts,
keeping me pinned down from reality.

I find myself slipping away
more often than less and
my daydreams yield more satisfying than
theory lectures and structured papers
how does one make themselves noticed
in a world of so much corruption?

Hidden under fields of lilacs
is the truth—
my truth.

Wrapped up in twine and buried in the deep blue earth are
my memories silenced by songbirds.