i'm tired

i'm tired of love, and loving.
give me infatuation.
give me admiration.
give me cruel, thoughtless passion.
give me carnal knowledge and give me sin after sin after sin.
give me anything monstrous and thoughtless.
irrational, irrevocable, one-time romances.
just don't give me love, with its pitiful dedications, its trust issues, its poet's tears.
love is for the birds, and i'm barely human.

i've realised how much everyone's happiness depends on other people.
and perhaps i'm far to young to know better,
but my impression is that you cannot be whole without another.
although you are born whole, innocent, a virgin soul-
throughout life, you'll leave parts of yourself behind
in places, people, things.
what is left of one when all is said and done?
how much of oneself does one give away with every separation, every loss, every accomplishment?
although you might think to yourself
i'm fine.
i've got a home, a job, i've got my poetry.
a little part of you will always, always be missing.

little victories

little victories are
milk swirling in a cup of tea
beds and blankets and the breeze from an open window
cheering with cheap wine in a paper cup
dreaming of paris, skipping school, kissing boys, petting cats on the street.

insomnia

insomnia has been a part of me for over a year.
self-inflicted, never-ending, darling insomnia.
what happened to you? what happened?
are you leaving me too, old friend?
who am i, without you?

i miss having to only smoke one cigarette before it made me dizzy.
i've thought of putting them out on the soft, peach-skin of my forearm.
on the soft peach-skin of my thigh.

i sit on the roof overlooking my mother's window and tremble.

after-party

you're my best friends at parties.

you're my soulmates when whiskey or gin blurs my speech.

you swear you'll marry me as we exhale green smoke into the night sky.

you kiss my cheeks and hold my hands and we dance dance dance to elvis together.

but you're all subjective.

all of you will be gone next year, or the one after.

you'll be gone and i won't remember you and you won't remember me.

your promises were made as you drowned in vodka.

will any of you think of us running down the dock at the crack of dawn?

of us sleeping between flights of stairs on new year's eve?