simple little thoughts.

The lawn gnomes had all lost their hats
and the one that was my favorite, the one
that held a flower, had walked away from
our lawn after he pulled me into him
on my doorstep after our first date.

I pictured the gnome's little face twisted
into contempt as he started at this man
who had held my door for me all night
and smiled at me as I bought a book
in the middle of our date inside of a snow globe.

I used to have dreams that lawn gnomes
were hiding under my bed waiting to kill me.
As I grew up, the gnomes became much
scarier and moved from under my bed to
filling my mind completely with insecurity.

But I told him I hated mornings and that
I look horrible when I roll out of bed.
He looked down shyly and whispered
that he thought that would be impossible;
I'm happy my ring got left behind as I left his house.

It wasn't on purpose per se,
but I smiled knowing he would find it in the morning.

via *

What They Were to Me

A night of milkshakes and split latex.

A wasted wedding in all senses,

A tired and slipping drive home,

The smell of cigarettes buried in my hair

follicles, broken air conditioners.

Unanswered messages and easy

Conversations gone silent after

Confessions of President’s Day.

One night in summer snow watching

Deer skirt past the truck.

Casual coffee. Nothing serious.

Awkward movie nights with

Christ on the walls watching.

Wiffle balls and baseball bats.

Midnight walks in small towns.

Lost socks, broken shoes, laundry.

Broken ribs and suffocation. Suffocation.

A jacket shoved in the back of a closet.
A pot of flames burning memories
one by one, realizing how small he made me.

Moving forward. Drinks in bars.
Memories of two years of different men.
Different hair, different skin.
In my bed, my skin. And in the end-
I am better for it, even alone.

via *

remembrance and morphine

I'm not ready to write him.
Not ready to let him come
back to life.
I don't want to remember the good.
I don't want to relive the bad.
If I don't cry about it soon,
tears will have to start seeping
from every pore
and fall from my lashes like
snowflakes blown off of telephone wires,
buzzing, alive, alone.

I miss the beautiful destruction.
I miss throwing myself onto
hot coals for another human being.
Feeling another's glowing embers
embedded into my flesh,
eating it away.

But I do not miss any of them.
I don't miss the first one I loved,
his turquoise smell or loaded kisses.
I don't miss the second,
his day-old scruff and deceit.
I don't miss the third,
lovely and loving and lost.

Even though I don't miss them,
there are some I cannot bring
myself to write.
Still too fresh, still too bright,
still too real and sharp.
The pen has turned into an IV,
and it's full of remembrance
instead of morphine.

via *