Opportunity cost

I love when you grab my hand
When you take me, pull me close
Love when you say that you like me the most

It’s charming, I suppose

Your Canterbury bells laugh
The smoothness of my thighs
I like to keep my body a surprise

Aloe Vera lining the garden
A chimney ridding of our exhaust
With you I won’t dismiss the opportunity cost

In your laugh I get lost

Daisies covering my sheer white dress
Long nails clicking quickly on my phone screen
Sometimes you’re sweet, sometimes you’re mean

Riding downtown, back of your motorcycle
I throw my arms up and embrace the cold wind
I throw my arms up and lose control
Knowing full well you won’t let me
Won’t let me out of your grasp

Sometimes you’re sweet, sometimes you’re mean
On occasion there’s a happy medium, a wavering in-between
But this time you bicker at me like an untamed preteen

Why on the weekends do you get so green

It isn’t fair to me
Your favorite girl
It isn’t what I deserve
I give you the world

It isn’t what I deserve

But I have rose-colored glasses on
I forgive you every time
I want to spend my days
Loving you in the hot sunshine

But I can’t make you mine
I can’t make you mine
But I can’t make you mine
I can’t make you mine

Strawberries

Your condo’s for rent
I’m angry
I only just got my key

I’m standing in the front yard
Wild strawberries circle around my unevenly suntanned legs
I reach down and taste one
It’s sweet, like me
It’s bitter, like you

We embrace
Like it was just yesterday, our first
Inviting me to the midnight blue condominium where we grew basil on the fire escape and almost set the kitchen on fire
Multiple times
Blue – the color of constancy
Dependability and trust

Here I stand now, sacrificing the beauty of these small, delicate berries for my selfish desires
I chew and I swallow and you smoke by the Benz
Swimming across the ocean
Fading into black
Be right back, you say a million times until it starts to ring in my head like loudspeakers in a school setting

Come back to me
Don’t wilt
I’ll be here

Upright position
You tell me not to slouch
I run my fingers through your hair and you purr like a satisfied feline who’s got nothing but comfort in its soul
I want that for you because you deserve it
But the abstract plays a reduction technique within its own self and there’s no room for consolation

We wave goodbye from the Benz
I open the glove compartment and find my make-up bag
My Kohl eyeliner has melted and smeared in its plastic packaging
And I’m reminded that I’m still a piece of you
Mine mine mine is in yours yours yours
Safe to keep

We pick up fresh strawberries from a kind seller on the side of the road
Making our way to a locksmith for me to get my new key to your freshly sealed deal
The strawberries are dripping water and are lush
Too good to be true
They’re sweet, like me and you

G,

Tranquility
Is hard to beat
On fifth street
I can’t remember your former address

Driving by, looking for parking
An absence of road rage
A calmness which brings us closer to our goals
Something I admire in you
Little things like my favorite flowers lining the sidewalk
And my never adjusting to the layout of the apartment complex
Tangled

Laughing like a little girl
When I make mistakes
Like I’m carefree

Driven by your insanity

One ponytail
Hair up high
You pull me by it and kiss me
Like they do in the movies
The movies that haven’t been made yet

Wanting to take stills of you driving
You look so cool
Knees on the steering wheel like you’re out of a classic film
Retro schoolboy that needs a haircut
But I like your hair messy like that
Character

Still wondering after all these months
Who am I to be in your presence
I could be lovely
I could be sweet
I could be soft

I could be driven by your insanity
And drown in it over and over again

China asters

Watering my plants in the morning
After the dew drops have come in
After you’ve made the morning coffee
After the ship has sank

Climb into bed with me
Take your eyes off of the newspaper
Those articles can wait
For the moments I want to share right now

I feel incomplete
You bring me closer to you
Velvet cologne, image of champagne
Scrambling to get ready for work

Incidental surprise
A day off, a trip to the market
White china asters greet me at the entrance
Tell me what I love is always worth it

Is what I love always worth it
I buy the china asters

I wrote you a poem

I am paranoid
That you
Will like
Me back

You don’t want to do that

My spine is made up of orchid blooms
A skeleton thick with unwatered flowers
Discarded and no longer needy
Not asking for attention
Existing without it
But unhappy

The outer states
Like outer space
Like the glamour of inner space
The tranquility found in resilience
In you and me having coffee
The caffeine making us feel
In love

A temporary absence
Me missing you dearly
Notebook pages of the times I want to have
Tongue-tied over the phone
I want to see you lose your mind
Come on, I do it all the time
Your turn

You don’t want to do that

And you won’t
Not with me
Where you are safe