when we kiss it's fire, burning our lips and tongues and teeth. we can't pull away, can't look away, my eyes lock onto yours; your kiss trails down my neck, leaving fire in its wake. your breath makes me shiver, your whispers linger in my ear.

i love you(r touch).

you make me fire, you make me burn, fiery and passionate and bright, until i can't take it anymore. until my fingers are burnt at the tips and i cry ashes and my hair smells of smoke.

i hate you.

we do not love each other. there's nothing in your eyes but desire, and it burns me to look.

the warm touch of love is soft and sweet, leaving butterflies in its wake and honey dripping from my fingers. but this is lust, and it burns and hurts and chokes me until i can't breathe,,, but i can't let go of you,

i want you

to burn me. x

He screamed and shouted. Raised hands against skin that wasn't his. Cause tears and pain and felt trimuph. Broke hearts, bones and true belief in happiness. What joys for him. So I left.

Six weeks later....

Why does three minutes determine the rest of my life? A lifeless box, discarded like everything that happened before it.

pathetic. horizontal and hungry

I stained my new blanket with three days

worth of mucus

a lingering fire in my eyes

and a hovering shadow on my spirit

finally to be lifted by a new authenticity

and mutual freedom

my heart never broke

because it was small and pale,

wilting like a white rose

left in a shadow

or spilled milk

fading solid

wrapped in sheer walls that made me think

I could pretend

it was free

Hey, it's me

It's 3 A.M.

You're out again

I wish you would have called.

But I'm not mad

A little sad.

Is it so bad I worry?

Hurry home.

It's not safe out there alone.

Me again.

It's 5 A.M.

The sun will be up soon.

No sign from you.

Couldn't sleep.

Thoughts too deep

with wonder

What you're under

In a ditch

Or beneath covers of another.

Let me know you're on your way.

Say you'll stay

Say anything.

Third times a charm.

Morning alarm.

But still no you.

Are you ok?

Are you alive?

Were you out all night?

Talk to me.

Let me in.

Something isn't right.

We don't feel like we used to.

Please, I don't want to fight.

Another night alone.

I can't do this anymore!

I'm sick of talking to my phone

I'm sick of feeling so unsure.

If you love me, make a peep

So I can get some fucking sleep.

Do you care?

Are you there?

You said that you'd be chill

You promised you'd stay in.

But I'm waiting on you still

Please tell me where you've been

And let me follow

Feel so hollow

Like those pills you always swallow

I'm so tired

Yet feel so wired

You better fucking grovel on your knees

Please!

When did we become this?

I miss...

I miss us.

*Caller cannot be reached. Mailbox is full.

I've tried to forget and erase my past, leaving it on the side of the road or at a strangers side in a drunken night. Yet still she comes, never on time or with rythym or rhyme, my own little nightingale. It baffles me still, the will of a mind gone wrong, for none but the severely broken would do this to themselves, still after so many years.

A wife, and so much is stuffed and packed and jammed and crammed into that simple word. You hear the vows and bells and laughter and yells and bills and kids... but still so much, in every case, for every person, there's more you don't hear, you don't see.

A man alone, abandoned at birth, loved by the ones that took him in. Still a hole was created and its bottom never filled. Then the world told him to hate himself, to despise himself, to hurt himself, not only was it expected but demanded as right of law.

So he did, he hated and reviled, cursed and cut, gorged and ripped, until the sneer he saw in the mirror was as natural as his hazel eyes, the ones filled with hate. He grew and set that lesson, etching it into his very soul, carrying it with him as he left.

It was in the desert he heard her call and refused to believe her honesty. She spoke of blasphemy every time they talked, he was deserving of love, he was handsome and smart and everything he knew he was not.

She widdled and weaseled, broke and crashed, struck and hammered until those walls had come down. All this is contained in that one word, and all the warmth and love she brought to that man, until the sun set once again, and the world laughed.

He had ruined the one good thing that'd ever noticed him. With lazyness and arrogance, pride and sloth, he wore at the thing that had saved him. Until she left for another, one that was better, for surely all are better than this man.

It's a fate he deserved and deserves still, so why is he shocked when she visits his dreams, coming with warmth and coquettish smiles and love, only to leave him freezing in the morning light, tear stained pillows the only comfort left.

This little life.

This little life that I cherish,

much to the amazement of spectators and strangers,

brims with more love

and strength

and fight

than one little soul should be able to contain.

And I find myself thinking how apt that is,

this amazement.

Because I see courage

in her fearless leaps, her scaling

of the giants who populate her world.

I see such faith in her sweet face

when she is caught by my hands

before she can fall,

and she tempers herself

in no manner for that

trust.

She exists so brilliantly

and she burns so brightly

and it moves this heart I thought

was stilled.

They say though she be little, she is fierce

and my God, isn’t she just?

Fierce in all things, in all aspects

of her fragile being,

she hums with exuberance

and thrums with unburdened joy

and she is little

but she is

amazement.

And she is fading, my sweet girl.

She is growing dimmer every day,

with every labored breath that she

drinks from the air that

is more ocean

for her,

her fire fades and stifles

this little life a little more.

She seeks me out now,

perfect hands grasping at my own,

hands I hope never brought her

fear or pain,

and nestles her face

into the crook of my arm

and she struggles to breathe.

So little time left to this little life

and she would have these

moments with me.

Of all the places she could be,

she searches for this one.

She reaches for me

and I will hold her until she

is gone,

lost in the amazement that

such a little thing

could love so loud.

And I hope I was worthy of this little gift,

of our short days and the years that were

anything but enough,

of the little life

in a little soul

that was

anything

but little.

I have a jar of hearts on my dresser. Most everyone does. My mother gave it to me when I was little. She told me to be careful who to give my hearts to, for one day I would run out. I took her words and my jar and set them down to think. I knew I was only to give my hearts to those I truly cared about and wanted them to care about me.

I felt obligated to give some to my mother and then also to my father. I gave some to my brothers and sisters. I gave some to my best friends and some to my neighbors too. When my relatives flew down to have dinner with us, they asked me for some hearts, and I, of course, obliged.

There were plenty of hearts to go around. I thought that my mother must be wrong, I could never run out. Slowly, one by one my hearts left my jar. I gave them to my favourite teachers, my friendly co-workers, my boyfriends who left without a word, my 'friends' who I would hang with for a week or two before they found someone new. I kept giving because that was what I was asked to.

No one refused my hearts, and so they left me. One by one. People drifted out of my life and soon my jar of hearts sat on my dresser. It had only a few hearts left. I knew what happened to people without hearts. They ended up in hopeless hospitals, waiting days and days for a cure that would never come. Doctors were not foolish enough to give their hearts to patients, there were too many begging for hearts, and not enough to fill their jars.

And so I closed my jar and hid it away. It stays, cushioned between pillows and blankets. Protected in a box from the world that takes.

____

My sister visited me the other day. She took my hand and gave me a twirl. We danced without music for the first time, and it felt better than giving away a heart. She told me about her new job. I only understood every other word, but I loved the way she said them.

____

I saw my old friend from grade school in the deli on his lunch break. We chatted and he asked to meet for coffee. I told him I had given up caffeine, so he suggested getting a bite to eat instead. So we did, and it felt like the concept of eternity being described to a small child. I was in awe and we clicked almost immediately, but I did not want him to stop talking. I did not want him to leave.

____

My grandfather died. He gave all his hearts to the hospital. It was over two million that he had collected. I listened as the speaker described his entire life story with a melodic voice of chimes. It was like knowing him for the first time, and I wished I knew him sooner. Apparently, I had an aunt who died at a hopeless hospital, and he did not want any more to suffer the same fate. I'm glad that some of my hearts went to a good cause.

____

A stranger saw that I was lost and took out his ear plugs and asked if I needed directions. He gestured and gave me landmarks to keep me straight. I told him my thanks and he nodded before muting himself back from the world.

____

I found my jar again. I put it on my dresser, where the sun can hit it and it makes the little hearts that are left glow. No, I do not have a full jar of hearts, but I have something even better. My experiences of people that I do not have to know well in order to love them.

I may not ever understand my sister. I may not ever be able to see my old friends without feeling like getting to know an old stranger. I may not ever be able to live up to my grandfather's passion. I may not ever be able to make an impact on others as they do to me, but I can love them for it. Love the moments that teach me to be kind and to love them without giving up my entire jar of hearts.

It is not that I will never give another heart away. It is that when I do chose to give away my hearts, they will be for more than a reason of obligation or because they ask for it. It will be because I care about them and I trust them to care about me.

In my dreams, I used to dance with Love.

His face was always a blank canvas for a future lover to embody one hopeful day.

I think heartbreak is seeing his face become that of Love.

Then one day, realizing he was not Love at all.

He was a man, with faults like all humans, and these faults outweighed any love I could give to build a bridge to his heart.

I am now on the sidelines in my own dream, watching Love dance with every person but me.

And isn't that what heartbreak is?

Looking into your future and realizing you put all your hopes in the wrong person.

A person who only saw your value through the sadness you carried between your thighs.

I accepted the love I thought I deserved: which is nothing, nothing good enough to build a home with.

I think my heart has broken thousands of times. But he was the first person to trash it.

I have been picking up the pieces ever since.

I am picking up parts of myself I forgot even existed.

Heart break creates a mosaic of sadness so beautiful you can't help but cry at all the pieces you once possessed.

But my patchwork heart still beats. Still rattles out hope that one day I will find all the pieces I once had and then some-

And I will hold my heart with care,

after it has been neglected for so long:

Broken and still beautiful.

From the earliest times I can remember; I was someone's doormat or shoulder to cry on.

From childhood friends who turned out to be bullies,

To people who were only interested in what I could offer them.

I tried not to be jaded;

I tried to see that not all people are this way.

Don't know how well that worked out though....

Here I am writing this.