If  you took my writing alone as the inner workings of my mind it would lack complexity.  

I know he wants attention, he wants to feel wanted.  

I wish he didn't have to play games to be able to elicit that sense that he thrives upon.  

I love you.  I feel sorry for you.  

Definition of the Soul

The attempt to separate my soul from yours
is like wringing out a handkerchief
wet from something spilled.

I remember the burned-down house
where a wreath still hung on the door,
a wreath, stone-white to our surprise,
useless, forlorn, like a life preserver
nailed to the shore's churning rubble.

You said the flames went off somewhere,
strengthened, more vile than ever,
perhaps seeking a child's crib.

When speeding tires lofted street water
onto your dress, I admired how you....

And afterward, I brushed your hair,
as you lay dozing on the couch,
your lower lip, a perfect, promising V.

The attempt to separate my soul from yours
is like the creaking of a lamppost
against a sapling in the wind.
Soon someone will come
and hack through the more fragile one.

JOHN SKOYLES

Suddenly It's Evening: Selected Poems
Carnegie Mellon University Press

ablating the vessels

He says it's not about someone else but we both know it's not true.  Instead of working on our relationship he's in his head with someone else.  And she's invited herself into the recesses of my mind, too, edging her way into nightmares and restless sleep.
But fuck him for using her to destroy our memories.  Fuck him for making her into something she's not instead of seeing me and letting me be the person I am in daily life, the person that draws other people in and radiates light.  He's turning me into a monster, something ugly, so he can pull away and make his fantasy that much more erotic.

And yet still he is the only one, my sun and my moon, my best friend and confidant.  He is both the creator and the destroyer, ablating the vessels flowing from my heart one by one until my heart can no longer flow to any place.

into the abyss

It always seems easier this way.
To go from intensity of feeling that scares me in its depth, to the inability to comprehend anything, let alone feelings--sitting in front of a canyon of nothingness, dropping stones that never sound.
Then it cycles back, and it's all a rush.  I want to smoke a million cigarettes and feel the smooth black squares beneath my fingers as they sail over top.  I want to feel vodka burn my throat and step over the yellow line waiting for the A train.  I want to taste your rejection and wear it like a cloak of bruises around my throat.
Then again into the abyss.  Waves of emptiness crashing into nothing.  I am so barren I never knew the feeling of fullness.
And so it oscillates, the blind man becomes the sniper, the perfect shot becomes the glossy-eyed cataracts receiving all and comprehending nothing.
The tune varies, yes, but the madness is always lying in wait beneath. 
Come to me, the voices say, come and know no torment such as this.

every Morrissey song I know

Jean Rhys

Related Poem Content Details

BY E. R. KENNEDY

I'm preparing myself for an extended period of loneliness

That will begin very soon I think

I've illegally downloaded two new depressing songs

I've placed a copy of Good Morning, Midnight under my pillow for easy reference

I've printed out the tablature for every Morrissey song I know so I can sing them to myself

Alone in my room

Just a few things are needed really

To make me calm

While I figure out a simple, clean, and effective way to kill myself,

With minimal stress for the person who has to find and dispose of my body

But I'll probably never think of a way

Because I'll probably never kill myself

I'll just lie in my bed suffocating myself with my pillows

While listening to the four songs you said were your favorite

And maybe burn myself a little with the iron

On special occasions

And the next time I'm in a subway station,

I'll stand a little further on the yellow line

Or maybe the next I'm at your apartment

I'll try a little harder

Ellen Kennedy, "Jean Rhys" from Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs. Copyright © 2009 by Ellen Kennedy.  Reprinted by permission of Muumuu House.

Source: Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs (Muumuu House, 2009)

only me and the two telephones

The Breather

Related Poem Content Details

BY BILLY COLLINS

Just as in the horror movies 

when someone discovers that the phone calls 

are coming from inside the house 

so too, I realized 

that our tender overlapping 

has been taking place only inside me. 

All that sweetness, the love and desire— 

it’s just been me dialing myself 

then following the ringing to another room 

to find no one on the line, 

well, sometimes a little breathing 

but more often than not, nothing. 

To think that all this time— 

which would include the boat rides, 

the airport embraces, and all the drinks— 

it’s been only me and the two telephones, 

the one on the wall in the kitchen 

and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2008)