me this time.

Oh to be delicate.
ethereal and elegant.
mild, muted, and tender.

Oh to be a mystery.
A coy, perplexing symphony
of esoteric refrains.

If only I were strong enough
If I sang our song enough,
You would have remembered me.

If only I were eloquent
oh the letters I would have sent
to tell you of my love.

"And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives."

nada.

I have no right.
I have no right.
I have no right.
I have no right.
I have no right.

What a selfish girl I am.

Your lips betrayed me.
My fingertips betrayed me.
I have to believe that you are not being cruel.
Just helplessly naive.

You exercise as much freedom as I do self-control.
Let's pray the ratio stays even.

Beloved.
Come to me.
Be still.
I can make you feel.
With my carefully placed kisses
soft lips
and willing hands.

Forget your day
(weekmonthyear)
and be with me here.
Let me help you
Be still.

I can make you
love
me again.
hush while I whisper in your ear
secrets delicate and sweet.
hold onto me.
so you won't forget
that I'm here.

Slip your hand
Into my hair.
Kiss me deeply.

Let me help you to remember
the way we love.
Let me help you forget
what we've become.

When I kiss your collarbones
and each fingertip
your shoulder blades
your eyelids
your hands


I'll kiss away each painful moment
Every dark hour
Any remnants of your broken heart

My fingertips will brush away your heaviness.
My lips will wash away your pride.

Come to me, Beloved.
I can make you feel.

coulda shoulda woulda.

All we were was potential.
The only thing we could ever be was conventional.
I know this now.
Now that I can see you.

Bitter was all that I could be
Once you stopped singing to me.
You all but shattered my rhyme scheme.

You used to touch me so gently,
as though discovering something delicate and wondrous.
I was a mystery.
Oh how history
Repeats itself.
(you wouldn't lift your voice on my behalf.)

When we were new and lovely
Fresh and whole and naive,
On the nights you loved me
It was so easy to believe
That our youth and beauty were enough.

when music was our lifeblood
when the ocean was our home,
the sand our bed.

"hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"

I stopped loving you
the night you wouldn't sing to me.

practice.

How I became your mannequin,
I will never know.
You clothe me in your poems.
You adorn me with your tenderness
with your passion.
I am decorated by your songs.
You whisper sweet things into my plastic ear
and run your fingers up and down my plastic arms.
Knowing(thinking) that my heart is as plastic
as my limbs(you'rewrong)
And that I will model your love to the world
because that is what I, your mannequin,
am here to do.

One day, you will not need me anymore.
I, your practice lover.
You will, unknowingly, strip me of what has
kept my plastic body together.
your words, song, touch...

Maybe that will be the day
That I have needed(dreaded) since the day
you claimed me.
Perhaps that will be the day that,
when I have been stripped down,
layers of practice-love peeled away, and I stand before you,
you will know me.