greenhouse filled with ghosts

5/13/19

you don't get to pick and choose
when to give a fuck about me
you either care or you don't
you don't get both
*
why do you only love me
when it's convenient
*
you make it so fucking easy
to hate you

*

in these poems i want you.
i guess outside these poems
i want you too.
but not quite the same.
in these poems i can make you
whoever i want.
i can make you
someone you're not.
i guess that's the beauty of it.
you're you
but not quite you.
i paint you in different colors.
change your voice.
stretch the truth
so tight it breaks.
it shatters into little lies
that look better on paper
than reality would have.
i guess that's the scary part.
in these poems i want you
the you i made up
the you with bright eyes
and inability to lie
and your braces off.
but these poems are just words.
your braces are just a metaphor.
your eyes are just letters.
i erase them and they disappear.
i control you, here, in these poems
and i guess that's why i keep writing them.
in these poems i make things happen.
i take your braces off. i make you grow up.
i slap you across the face
and then cross that part out.
i kiss your cheek instead.
it's perfect. i can never ruin it.
if i fuck up i just start over.
you cheat on me
and i rip that page out.
i fall out of love with you
and i rip that page out.
we keep having sex
even though we're not together
and i rip that page out.
start over.
make it better.
it's a fucking love story,
make it better.
a love like this
deserves something classic.
something big and dramatic,
like the notebook, like the titanic.
all sacrifice and making love
and making it better.
in this story it works.
in every life,
every reincarnation,
i find you and it works,
like it's meant to, goddamnit,
it was meant to work.
we were meant for this.
you don't just find someone
who sets you on fire
and walk away.
we're supposed to make it work.
in these poems, i make it work.
i stick around long enough
to see your braces come off.
i don't have to make that part up.
i don't have to scratch that part out.
i guess that's the trick.
if you keep going back to the beginning
the story never ends.