when punching mattresses gets old

she asked me
what inspires you the most?
i had to think about it for a while.

i mean, creatively, a lot of things.
i sleep. the sun rises. i get out of bed.
i brush my teeth. i plan on taking a shower
but end up forgetting. i contemplate existence.
the sun sets. i fall asleep again.

you see, some things
are better left to your imagination.
this may be one of them. this may be
something i should take
to my grave.

i simply told her
everything can be poetic if someone
is brave enough to write it down.

i entertain a dream
where you hold me, but not hostage.

when i say
i want to dance with you,
i mean it. we can sway to the music
and pretend nothing bad has happened.
everything is alright.
nothing bad has happened.

i am something of
a hopeless romantic nowadays.
some things are inescapable,
and some things i don't ever
want to leave behind.
i would follow you to the ends
of the earth if it meant writing
another poem about you.

tell me your favourite song.
i will spend my nights wishing
i wrote it. tell me what keeps you up.
i will spend my nights wishing i knew
the right thing to say.

there's just something about you.
something finite. something inexplicably
human. i have separated myself
from myself for too long,
like oil and water. i think, in the end,
that is my downfall.

i think, in the end,
we could be something more
and i'd be content with it. what is love
if not sacrifice? who am i
if not your hero?

(this may be a mistake,
but i am all too fond of mistakes.
you know this.
you know me too well.
i guess it's just in our nature.)

my lover doesn't write poetry.
she doesn't put her heart into things
like i do. she doesn't
understand me like i do.

she tells me i was cursed to be a poet.
i don't believe her. i wasn't cursed
with the ability to write,
but the ability to believe
what i write means something.
where there is potential, there is
everything that keeps us mortal.

i want to tell her "all of these
words i have written are about you."
maybe then, she will see what
i've been trying to say.

i am not a selfish man. i am not
afraid to share my soul with someone.
if anything, writing poetry is like loving;
we have been doing it for years
without knowing.

let me down gently,
so you don't haunt me for years
to come; my ghost girl.

don't do that, she says.
do what, i say, and i'm nervous
and empty as always.

try to be him, she says.

the first man she loved
did not write poetry about her.
sometimes he talks to me,
tells me how to speak to her,
how to hold her,
what to say and what not to.

i don't know him though.

she takes my hands,
holds my wrists, reassures me
that everything is okay.
i feel loved, and for the first time,
finally at ease.

writing poetry is like loving;
we have been doing it for years
without knowing.

!!! Love these lines especially.

can i ask you a question?

if it came down to it,
would you haunt me if you were certain
i'd never know it was you?

(it's about time we stop
chasing ghosts and start chasing
futures.)

Spoiler

wrote this yesterday, but forgot to post it.

does woman love woman
on the same floor,
or is it merely that
men get to their knees
and place themselves beneath
and weep about the sensation of
being beneath?

weathervane wrote:(it's about time we stop
chasing ghosts and start chasing
futures.)

!!! "stop/chasing ghosts" in conjunction with the stanza above, just. Yes. Quietly scathing, in my reading.

i imagine
breaking each other's noses.

she's not a poet
or anything close to it,
so she can't describe it like i can;
cartilage on cartilage like a car crash,
or something else you can't look away from.
it's horrifying what love can resemble.

we are finally close enough
to touch and not feel guilty about it.

i clean blood off the walls
somewhere just outside of los angeles.
i remember how she smiled, how her
fingernails made their home in my ribcage.
i still feel the way we breathed
as our spines collapsed.

(don’t touch me don’t touch me
don’t touch me don’t touch)

my mother and i have a conversation
about hunger and wanting.

i show myself to my mother
in my purest form. i show her
all the ugly parts of me,
the parts of me that are mean and awful.
i told her i am scared of this body.

my mom says there are some things
i got from him that i can’t escape.

i find myself wanting
to create distance between
myself and the soft parts of me.
my mom says sometimes
my eyes go black like my father’s.

i know now that
no one else will protect me.

Spoiler

wrote this at midnight, but i'll still count it for yesterday