What Lips These Lips Have Kissed (I Have Not Forgotten)

Can you tell which of

these haikus is meant for you?

Listen up, lovers.

III.
I warned you my hands

were sweaty; More from your gaze

Than anything else.

IV.
Do you still take

Pictures of the girls you fuck?

Or was I the last?

X.
When I see your smile

I can’t help but wonder if

You’re still suffering.

XIII.
I bet you’re so proud

To be my first boy kiss, but

I define myself.

I.
Sometimes I’m shocked there’s

No string around my finger.

I still feel the pull,

XI.
I can laugh because

Kissing in a pizza shop

Really hit the spot.

XVI.
I’m still trying to

Erase the damage that our

Selfish lips had done.

VIII.
Even kissing you

In creepy elevators,

My fickle heart pounds.

XII.
We should not have met

In your West Side apartment,

I almost hate roofs.

VII.
Now did I fail you?

Or did you slowly decide

To destroy yourself?

VI.
I still ache, thinking

Of my shiny new nose ring

Getting caught on yours.

IX.
You were so damn drunk,

You shouldn’t have driven home.

How did I miss that?

XVII.
I do, I promise

I remember your name, I

still see faint bruises.

XIV.
Your face was priceless

When I first told you that sex’s

Not all about you.

XV.
I feel nothing for

you, but I won’t deny it,

I want you again.

V.
I’m sorry I can’t

Love you. But I’m glad that you

Accept me for it.

II.
You will never know,

How I admire your every

Eyelash, blink and tear.

Slant Couple(t)

I know you don't love me
No, really- it's fine,

But I just need to know,
Was it true at the time?

2014

Your Skyline

I am familiar

With the

your skyline,

Although I have

Never seen it,

Because night after night

I imagined you

traversing it,

Fluttering between streets,
Wine with your mother,

Or between friends,
Bra straps gliding

Gracefully down off

Your shoulder,

You merrily

dragging it back up

To kiss your collarbone,

Thinking of me,

Imagining my fingertips
As yours grace the shoulder
They belong to,

In my mind you

are the skyline of the city

you are learning

To call home

Sometimes jagged,
Sometimes piercing,
Always resisting stagnation,
Sometimes fogged,
Sometimes teasing,
Always resisting temptation,

And those lights-

I'm sure
they still

think of me,

As they go on

Twinkling,

Far far from here.

One So-Called Second Heart

As a child, I was often faced with the unavoidable question that all children must confront at one point or another: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answer sprang instantly from the tip of my vehement tongue in each and every instance. I wanted, indisputably, to become a nurse. When asked precisely why this occupation appealed to me, I told my simple truth, “I want to help people.”

When an authority figure found the audacity to address my seemingly incontrovertible dream with a cheeky, “Why not be a Doctor? Why not a heart surgeon?” I was quick to explain that which was so obvious to me, “Doctors cure diseases,” I said, “Nurses cure everything else.”

Anatomically incorrect as it may be, my mother always told me that inside of every individual beat two entirely distinct and separate hearts. The first was an organ governed only by the canon of biological principles within the human body. This heart distributes blood to each finger and toe of mine. This heart is integral to the circulatory system, and is sometimes tragically plagued by disease.  However, it was this mechanical metronome’s brother, the “second heart,” although fictitious, which interested me to a far greater degree.

This particular component of the body, according to my mother, was the heart that might be found bruised or broken. This is the heart that sometimes hardens, or is said to grow cold. This is the heart that I can feel so tangibly in my chest when something seems to leap or ache or swell or sing between my ribs. In this vein, I came to understand the idea that sickness is not exclusively restricted to the functionality of the body.

Discovering precisely how or why people become who they are has always engrossed and enthralled me. This, I am certain, is the very reason why I have always been so notably captivated by literature. I have thoroughly enjoyed delving into fiction with a group of like-minded, talented, and bibliophilic peers, but in Psychology I have found a peerless passion that I cannot let fall by the wayside. I plan never to relinquish the fire that burns within my heart of hearts at the prospect of pursuing writing, but I cannot help but yield to that which satiates my never-ending curiosity.

I once believed a nurse’s responsibilities entailed repairing the second heart of which my mother so often spoke. Therefore, this occupation appealed to me because this “second heart” appealed to me, and there seemed no occupation more noble or rewarding than its restoration. Although fainting at the sight of blood may have taken me out of the hands-on arena of medical professionalism, it never extinguished my ardent hope that one day my formal education would allow me to remedy, in my office, all that plagues the human mind; and, in my novels, all that swims within even one distraught reader’s so-called second heart.

[Insert Name Here]

is waiting for the bus

is walking through the snow

is watching Tangled!

is bored

is picking her nose

is crushing on her Starbucks barista

is crying in a public restroom

is falling asleep alone, 

thinking of you.

is skipping meals

is sitting on the floor of the shower

is smashing plates

is bandaging her thighs

is breaking down

is waking up alone,

searching for you.

Bilingualism

She kisses me

In English,

But we fuck

In Italian,

Her pecks
Are something

I can understand,

Without translation,

Something natural
And inherent,

Her tongue
I can comprehend,
When it moves
Slowly along my lip
Like a drawn out word.

But her trembling skin

Is something

For which I haven’t yet

Found phrasing,

As I hear

My own name

Sprinkled

Between her

Romance

Language lips,

I’m trying to

Decipher

The true meaning-

That which transcends

Vocabulary

Application,

There is the schooled
Second language,
Precise and limited,
And then there is
The Italian she knows,
Adapted from
Experience,
Which gives her nerve
To say what she means
Without trepidation.

Come posso dirle
Che sto innamorando,
Senza parole,
Senza parole,

I’m forever trying

To decipher

The meaning of a phrase,

The way in which one

Thing relates to

Another.

Tides and Time

How do I transverse

Amsterdam’s canals

With the knowledge

That its streets are always sinking-

But its buildings are made

So beautiful

By their reflection in the

Rising water?

How do I reconcile

With Venice?

What can I say,

If anything,

Of a city that is drowning-

But has been made

So much more beautiful

After learning to swim?

That which breaks you down

May not always be

Of Tsunami strength,

It may not be a menacing man

Peering into your eyes,

Lips curling back over those weighted words

Which seem to constantly swim

Inside your psyche,

 “You are not good enough,”

That the single drop

Of redeeming rain

Which kisses your cheek

For a beautiful moment

Could just as easily be
The torturous drop

That will drive a man mad

As it drips

Riotously against his
Forehead

For what feels like

Echoing years,

It will be the girl who loves you,

Swinging on the boughs of

This promising landscape that is your life,

Smiling through her sunglasses,

Swinging, swaying,

Saying,

 “Be realistic,”

That which breaks you down

May not be obviously caustic,

But still it may

Render your heart,

And like the whispers of water

That over years

Wear away whole coastlines,

There will be that subtle

Something with the power

To silently erode

The Achilles heel of yours

That they’ll be holding

As you’re plunged

Beneath the rapids,

No,
You cannot sear this out
In the shower,

In fact,

Some days

You may no longer

Be able to decipher

What is simply scorching water

And what are your streaming tears,

As both will seem to

Have been made salty

By your suffering,

But

You may have showered

On that dreadful day

In the same water that

Once sustained

Van Gogh’s sunflowers,

And you may have brushed

Your teeth this morning

With the water that once buoyed

Monet’s lilies,

So when the water burns my skin,

I must remember that hot chocolate,

And watercolors,

And oceans,

And I

Share the same

Primary component,

Oh, that I might be soft

And stolid as the ocean,

That I might find the strength

And the solace

To hold up ships

But slip through fingers,

When I am in transition,

When I am converted
From river to steam,

Into clouds and to rain,
Will you guide

The scattered sum
Of my parts

Back into some semblance

Of this same recognizable

Body of water?

Because 70% of me-
I am mostly water,

But did my birth certificate ever denote
Whether I was meant to boil

Or freeze?
Because ice,
Ice and precipitate and cloud matter-
And steam,

They are water too,
But maybe not the kind you’re thinking of,
No,
Not that kind at all,

So maybe,

Just maybe,
I’m simply not the kind
They all were thinking of,

But still, and forever,

I know I will be water,

That seventy,

And seventy,

And seventy percent,

Of the earth’s surface,

Of the human brain, and

Of my body

Is water,

No wonder seven

Is such a notable number,

Yes,

They told me seven was lucky

Because I was born on

The Seventh of March-

The luckiest day of the luckiest month,

And what a lucky Irish-born baby

I’d be.

And on the seventh of this year,

It will have been seven years exactly

Since

They drained the fluid that

Took my mother’s brain

From seventy

To ninety percent water,

And although they got it out
She will never stop

Wading in the rip tide

Of that irreversible pain,

But March seventh made me a swimmer

With the constellation of the fish,

So it should be easier to endure

My certain sea of suffering,

Because I have gills meant for this,

And with that, at last I could see

What a feisty born Pisces

I’d be.

And I knew it was selfish to ask

But in seventh grade

You are selfish-

So I asked anyway-

Would there be anyone

There

To answer me

When I asked,

Why,

When the inside of my eyelid

Is surely pink

I see only black when

I close my lids?

And when I can so clearly see

That the blood in my mom’s

IV is red,

Why do my veins run blue
Whenever

I look inside of myself?

Do not search for suffering,

As it will find you,

And it may flood you,

But time,

Time is a solvent-

It may not cure all things-

But if you're patient enough,

Your suffering will crystallize

And my god,

What a dazzling mixture

That’d make.

They warned you

Life would not be fair,

But they did not warn you

About this part,

Can you love me for

The subtle suffering

Something

That I hold

Within my heart?

I feel truth anchored

In my sloshing stomach,

And I know I cannot blame the tide

For drawing me in,

Just to push me away

As now I’m on the edge of the edge

Of the first of seven seas,

But starting today,

I refuse to stop swimming,

As the waves that rocked me

In daylight hours

Return as I lie down to sleep,

Singing, singing, singing to me,

"All there’s left to do in this world

Is hope, help, and forgive,"