i want to be a poet

you are the song on repeat in my head.
i've been saying that i want to be a poet, i want to be a poet.
it's not like you haven't known that for every breath i take means another phrase passed through your lips.
it doesn't get much better than a handful of tacks, taxing in nature, sleek in design.

you are the thief that stole the thoughts in my head.
i want to be a poet, i want to be a poet.
you mirrored my actions by taking my supposed profession.
good thing i'm decent at adaptation.

i want to be a poet for the pasty faced kids who trail fingers across their many lovers' lips and tell them that nights are nights in all their rights -
nothing is as perfect as the slap of skin and the lyrical breathing of being in heat with the windows open during the winter.

i want to be a poet for hisorher brittle bones, that creak and shiver when it snows.
desperate to be covered in innocence but not so innocent as to be covered in desperation.

i want to be a poet for all the hearts riddled with holes, busted at the seams and displaying their cotton stuffing like a badge of honor.
"look at me, i'm damaged goods. that should make you love me more."

i want to be a poet for you.

the applicant

you do the best you can with the lifelines that you have, and you maintain that all the failure was due to the fact that your hands were tied behind your back by your associates.
it's called can i get a liar on the line for 200?
it's called an acute sense of sniffing out cowardice.
it's called an excuse is not the highest form of flattery.
never have i ever felt so -
all too scripted and polished when it comes to interchangeable endings.
if they find out your plan you have to have an alternate solution.
weak.
petty.
dishonest.
heartless.
brainless.
spineless.
breathless.
faithless.
ruthless.
we play the game better than the one who invented it.
fall for everything you see.
a visage.
a facade.
ntohing more than an empty shell.
but you knew this all along, didn't you.
you were the applicant that never finished processing your paperwork.
the one who became my ghost.
i split my dead ends and my soul in order to keep you alive.
wake me up from this living coma and this deathly life.
you are not the walking contradiction when the contradictions walk all over you.

don't

the only thing i've ever wanted to know was when your heart became so cold that it wouldn't even melt if i stubbed my cigarette out on it. ashes to ashes. dust to dust.

it's more like setting the scene up and then folding it back away like a circus act.

now you see him, now you don't. trick of the eye.

he's a mouthful of cigars, a heart full of tacks. a head full of static and a handful of sand.

intangible. reading all these zeros and ones have me spiraling into oblivion.

don't you want to feel my heart pressed up against yours, chest kicking and lungs screaming for air?

don't you want to feel alive again?

don't.

a sonnet

The stories her heart reluctantly told
Were nothing more than a clever guise
Meant for him to expose his hand and fold.
Darling, she's tricked you with her glass spun eyes.

Mouth full of cigars, head full of fool's gold,
Falling in love with deceitful disguises -
Well, a gentleman has never been so sold.
He thinks he's well aware that sighs hide lies.

The clasp of her locket something he holds
dearly, nearly the reason for his highs,
Understanding his treason is too cold -
Betrayal is the swiftest way to die.

He laid under the decay she would sow,
Buried by all the facts he didn't know.