in my experience, there are two types of boys.

the ones that quickly forget everything they told you in the shadows, the ones that you spend many months and drunken nights obsessing over, wondering if anything could ever happen. the ones who make your heart speed up to the approximate tempo of a discotheque. and who wink. always run from boys who wink, they know exactly how powerful they are.

the other type of boy is the one who immediately messages you about how sorry he is for doing something stupid, something you barely even registered, something endearing. the one who is just funny looking enough to make you smile every time you see him across the cafeteria. the tall boys whose limbs are stretched out to the point of ridiculousness. the ones who you have no idea what to think about, but who you think about anyway. 

sometimes i wonder which boy i really want. which matters more to me, the ease of a relationship that’s clear and understood or the one that will never ever try to hurt me. why is it that every time i decide, i wonder? why can’t i just make up my mind. maybe there are two kinds of girl too? 

It’s midnight. but the poems keep pouring out. They only come at nightfall, when the rest of the world is quiet, leaving empty space in the sky for me to fill with words. I have to wait for them to fall asleep in order for the letters to creep out, one by one, like ants climbing out of a tiny hole in the sand. 

titles falling off of ancient jaundiced french literature

diaries written backwards and forwards from years past

broken shards and plastic photographs

i can’t bear to separate the neighbors who have sat next to each other for years,

slowly gathering dust on the shelves that have been the one constant

in the cycle of countries that is my life. 

and it scares me more than you know to see this 

odd jumble of things, 

stainless steel pasta machines and cracking old carpets

stacked up in precarious piles,

little islands for you to take with you.

i want to wrap myself up in a cardboard box,

on a bed of packing peanuts, 

marked fragile, because that is the only word left

to describe my heart at this moment.

You’re the one who reads Shakespeare in

a cafe au lait bed in Paris, on

a cerulean sweater couch in Seoul,

who does all the voices but never seems to get all the way through Hamlet.

The one who’s been carved up and sewn back together,

with a couple of pieces missing.

I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this.

I can’t even read a book without crying.

How could I ever say goodbye

to the man who matters

more than anyone else.

And suddenly your left foot is utterly numb

and you’re wondering if it’s worth the pain of 

flexing, feeling all those little needles pricking your veins

from the inside out,

little butterflies biting at each blood vessel.

or should you just wait until the pain must come

when you take that first step?

sometimes I wonder if you are my left foot.