child's play

"it is the definition of madness to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result."----- Einstein

late nights
when all the others had gone home
sitting on my steps
at a calculated distance
his hands fiddling with a lighter
the orange glow caught
in a puddle
the tiny light swaying in the ripples

every time we sat there
close enough to see the tear glinting on his cheek
far enough to avoid accidentally touching his shoulder
i expected not to break his heart
expected that this night
he'd be in love with another girl
this would be the night
his heart would change from my clumsy hands
to the hands of a pretty little-bit-of-nothing girl

and every night
he expected me to be in love with him
expected that this would be the night
where i'd catch his hand in mine
look him in the eye
and then brush my lips
across his

we sat under the wind
sat inside the arms of night
goosebumps decorating our arms
basked in moonlight
watched the lighter flame perform
it's flickering dance

our words twisted into the air
hugged each other
then disappeared
but the only words that mattered
never got the chance to collide

we were just too scared
of ruining the fragile world we'd created

he was my drug
when i was with him
i was a princess, i was superwoman
when he looked at me
i was everything i had ever dreamed i'd be
but no matter how much i couldn't let him stay,
i couldn't let him go

and every night,
while we played our intricate game
where i was x and he was o
i broke our hearts
a little more.

I liked this poem a lot. I just think that you need to add some punctuation. I'll let you decide where, but it definitely needs some.

his heart would change from my clumsy hands
to the hands of a pretty little-bit-of-nothing girl

I would suggest breaking the first line after change and rewording the second line. I get what you mean by pretty little-bit-of-nothing girl, but all those hyphens and extra words make it clunky. Maybe you could just use one adjective, like hollow, empty-headed, shallow, or whatever other synonym you want.

Also some of your other really long lines could use a line break, since most lines are fairly short.

Other than those little nitpicks, I loved it. Great job!

i wasn't sure about that line. it would be great to have some more help on it.

thanks for the suggestions

This is beautiful. Everything is expressed really well, and I love the concept. Just to find something wrong...the second stanza's line-breaks could be re-thought. They just don't fit that well with the rest of the poem. Great work though!

The only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of punctuation and capitalization. To me, it just seems really pretentious and arrogant to not use those, as if you are above the rules of our language. It's good to muck around with them, but don't ignore them entirely.