"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

which is why I crave your gaze on me.
You think I'm beautiful when I don't
love myself quite as much as you do.

Assay my fears, take apart my doubt,
let me look through your eyes to find I'm lovely.

Take this insecurity and turn it inside-out
until you don't need to tell me I'm pretty
because it's simply there in how you look at me.

not to put too fine a point on it

Touch me.
I won't ask twice.
Let your hands go where your eyes wander.
Do what you like.
I'm saying yes.
Yes.
Please.
Please me.
Don't overthink it.
Let's make this happen here and now.
Want me.
I know you want me.
Don't you know how I want you?
Take me.
Make me yours.
All I want is to be yours.

a new high

I cling to sobriety like a last resort
rather than a first line of defense.

Intoxication has failed me once again,
wine tying my tongue into knots instead of loosening it,
weed dragging me down rather than getting me high.

I'm swearing off the lot of it.
I'm pouring liquor down the drain by the bottle,
I'm throwing baggies onto bonfires and walking away.

Only one thing works any more.
I'm strung out after one hit, trembling for want of it,
shaky like a junkie just remembering that trip.

Just put your arms around me and let me feel your warmth.

Kiss my lips once more and send my head spinning through the stars.

future retrospective

Is this the legacy I want to leave?
A year's worth of lovesickness,
the slow progression from thwarted desire
to almost-fulfillment and back again?
What will my heirs think of my college notebooks?
Will they know the source of my inspiration?
Will they blush to read about his kind hands,
or roll their eyes, dismissing my words as hyperbole?
Will anyone take the time to pull out my yearbook,
searching through faces until they find the one?
Or will they decide it's someone it wasn't?
All the passion, the frustration, the longing,
misinterpreted, utterly misunderstood?

Does it matter if I'm misread?
My clumsy interpretations of the masters notwithstanding,
so what if no one can pin down my Maud Gonne?
I'm no Yeats, my muse starts no revolutions,
my love ignites no firebrands, just the solitary torch I carry,
my little candle guttering as summer draws near.

Still, maybe one day he'll pull out my chapbook
to show to a daughter or a son with an artistic bent,
or take it down from a shelf once he's gone grey
to remember the woman who loved him so long ago.

lullaby

close your eyes, dear one
let me quiet your mind
lay your fears to rest
talk you through the dark hours
convince you you're all right

whisper legends in your ear
catch your favorite constellation
and hang it from your ceiling

to watch over you while you sleep

xenophile

I'm talented at seeing things from others' point of view,
but I don't know how the world looks through your eyes.
You're a foreign language, mellifluous and incomprehensible.
You're a different species, the last surviving gentleman.

You're a recipe with one unreadable ingredient-- I can't get you right.
So I ask and ask and try to interpret the look on your face,
checking eyebrows and lips against my mental lexicon,
deciphering your expression and frequently getting it wrong.

Forgive me when I say "you look tired" or "are you okay?"
Forgive me when I study your features like a map.
Forgive me when I get lost in translation--
I may be an expert at reading people but I'm a novice at you.

Talking to you is like walking on the moon--
exhilarating and terrifying, cut loose from gravity.

why I write poetry

I can't be honest with you
looking into your eyes,
which isn't to say that I lie
because I never lie to you--
except for when you ask
"what are you laughing about?"
but the words I can't speak to you--
that's the source of my poetry.

One day, my beloved muse,
one day soon I will hand you my poems
and you will understand
why I laugh,
you will know the truth
of why I smile when I see you.

One day when your golden hair's gone grey
you will take my chapbook from the shelf
and remember the woman
who laughed out loud
and honestly loved
every terrible pun you told,
every wry twist of your lips,
every time I couldn't tell you something

and poured out poetry instead.