i need to look stunning tomorrow
so the first thing you think when you look at me
is not about how we are fighting
but how lucky you are i'm fighting with you
and no one else.
and how you just want to kiss me
like every thing is going to be ok.

My back is firmly planted against the concrete wall
and I try to drop the left over ballet arch to my
lower back.
Will it always be there?
This gap you can slip your hand
between my back and the wall into.
Almost sensual when you think of it
More than almost when you brush your hand around it
claiming in that silent way of yours.
Not for others sake,
but for mine.
I am your secret
And I am yours.
You won’t let me forget it
And how you made me feel
and how you’re the only one to ever
Make me feel like that
(yet)
I imagine all the bone and fluid and vessels
And leftover whatever
flowing out my body from that lower back spot
and I can feel it relax against the cool wall slightly.
It will be back later tonight
but that is of course later.

cant write
cant think

too angry, too sad.

i am perfectly willing to admit that i spent some quality time with mr.s ben and jerry

we don't make sense.
but i love how you laugh and
how you make me laugh.
we're wrong for each other
but i want you.

lets play a game
where i paint over the scars on my body
blue and green and orange and gold.
what’s left anymore?
i wanted a life beside you
and you wanted my skin
airbrushed and retouched daily.
what can i give to you?

lets play pretend

that if i leave
it will be more than one big giant
punch to your ever inflating
ever suffocating ego
that i am a slave to.
that when i go you’ll see how i
wanted so much and dreamed so much more
than what we had

i am not ready to face it
because i don’t want this to be wrong.
i can’t face another failure.
i can’t face that kind of knowledge about myself.

don’t think it’s you, oh, though it is.
every night i want to push you away and pull you close at the same time.
don’t make my mistakes
and don’t run away.
but sometimes i just want you to go.
don’t let me push and pull.

perhaps i can tie myself down
handcuffs,
so my arms can’t move themselves or you around.

can i stand that vulnerability
(outside the bedroom?)

where is the line anymore?

i'm a realist
i'm a romantic
i'm an indecisive piece of shit

do you even understand
how it felt to be confirmed in you
my worst fears for myself?
i don't want to be empty.
i can no longer believe i am.
i am not some shell to be filled by you.
i am not some empty girl you can toy with.
you say i'm nothing
you say i'm everything.
you say you see me
how can i believe that
when you only see in me what i tell you of myself?

i can't think anymore tonight.

i can't touch you for fear of what you'll feel.

(oh, but isn't it always like that for me)

i got out of your car tonight and walked inside without looking back.
i don’t want that to have been the last time.
i sat down and held back the tears, then got up and made a drink.
you aren’t what i wanted. you aren’t what you wanted.
and it’s the same way with me.
we both wanted so badly to have something and be something that we just
are not.
i can’t handle this day.

i can even only try to write about it in chunks

the affair

With hushed voices on the phone
with hushed fingers on the keyboard
they steal time
to remember how the other tastes
and breathes.
Pretending this is less
than it is.
She sighs his names as quiet as she can
as another moves,
claiming as quietly he can.


I wish this was fair, he said.
I wish you were here she snapped back.
I miss you more than-
And this is so-
And why-
the phrases they avoid
so not to spoil what
little they could steal.
Her bare legs crossed up on the wall she tells him
the pieces of her day that don’t matter.
He knows that what they’re doing right now
is the part that does.



Her partner tells her
that he loves her hair
and she enjoys  the unoriginality and safety of the words.
Her lover creates for her
a new name- a new identity
and calls her nymph and siren- calls her greek and calls her latin.
Calls all of her his own
and everything around her pales to grey
because how did his eyes get so blue?
Love is too strange and too too too
too multi-layered and too
too too
different in a different person.
“I wish this was fair.”


He loves her every hour of every day.
He wants to shower her with roses
wants to worship her
and exalt her
and protect her and give her
everything she could ever want
for as long as they both shall live.
But instead he calls her to let her know
that he has quit smoking this week
and that he bought himself new shoes.


The room they hide in
was blue and small
but it could have been
as big as anything
they would have filled it.
After so much waiting
they don’t rush.
Hands drag slowly
touches lingers
and please don’t let this
Don’t let this end too soon
because I need you here with me.
Can’t do it all on the phone.
And when they’re moving together
she swears it’s never been like this.
He swears he’s never felt more real.
And they bite back the dreaded “L” word
because what can it do for them
besides make this too-

Sometimes while he’s off in his own city
he thinks he sees her-
buying coffee, feeding birds, writing or reading a book.
Messy hair and large wild eyes.
He wants to reach out
but she’s at home
with another
making his dinner and kissing him on the cheek.
She’ll call in two hours and thirty four minutes.
He goes back to his apartment
where someone has made his dinner
and is ready to kiss him on his cheek.
He sends her away, and waits.
-janine may