Voicemail

Listen, I know I once wished to kill myself just so I could be reincarnated

and come back as your left lung to finally feel a type of breathing

that didn’t hurt, but I am done being the seconds between lightning and thunder.

I am done being the debris after the tornado.

I know it’s getting late and the stars are starting to wish upon themselves,

but before all is said and done, I just wanted to tell you-

I am the storm itself.

My mother once told me that skies are just a reflection of the ocean

but I am no longer a reflection of what you did to me.

I used to believe that on his bad days God or whoever’s up there

would switch the clouds and the seas around just to get a change of scenery

and for a few seconds the water would get to feel

all the pain the sky goes through at not being able to touch the ground

but here I am, telling you

that I am fine

and I don’t want you to feel what I feel anymore

because water doesn’t have the right to touch the skies it once tried to drown.

So I hope you memorize the sound of this dial tone after I hang up

because if you ever hurt another woman the way you hurt me,

that’s the only thing you’ll ever hear when you try to call her back. 

suicide hotline

Hello I can’t sleep, I’ve fallen in love with all the monsters inside my head

because they’re the only ones in my life who have cared enough to stay.

The other night I read about an old woman who died crushed beneath

a pile of her deceased husband’s suits and ties

and was only discovered three months later

by which time all the moths had flocked to eat holes in the clothing.

Don’t let that happen to me, please.

Don’t let me die crushed beneath this sadness

Waiting for all the monsters inside my head to flock like vultures

at the chance of finally being able to be let out.

Hello I can’t sleep either and this is why I do this job.

Listening to strangers on the other end sob.

I have monsters inside my head too; sometimes they sound just like you.

They whisper that everything is hopeless

and there’s no way out.

But they’re beautiful too.

As are you.

Because no matter what happens tonight or from now on,

they’ve found something they love and that, that is enough,

to help them stay.

Princess and the Frog

Princess, one day fuck will only be a swear word in your vocabulary

and someone will make love to you the way you deserve.

There is a difference between making and taking.

and there is a difference between a man who will kiss you like a promise

that he intends to keep

and a man who will kiss you like a promise that he will break

the same way he snaps a heart in half without wishing on the longest piece

of the one bone that’s left intact inside it.

Princess, one day that same heart will be the one you don’t cross

and hope to die on, but the one you choose to live on.

Wait for the ghosts that haunt you not with bad memories

but with so many good ones that they fill your brain with confetti

made up of all the most beautiful experiences you’ve ever had.

And let ‘em shower down on you til you understand that partying

doesn’t always have to involve parting ways

with everything you hold near and dear.

Sometimes the prince is disguised as the frog.

Sometimes, princess, you learn more from the crash landings

than the seatbelts.

So the next time you open your mouth to another

wait to make sure there’s a poem inside.