a:

This is the story of a poet. Scratch that. This is the story of a wolf in sheep's skin. Scratch that. This is the story of beauty and monsters and sweatshirts in July and going to sleep with a partner but waking up alone. Scratch that too. Scratch that. It's not important. What's important is not the story. What important is not what happened. What's important is…

b:

Take me to the tree tops by the river and show me the flowing melody, where the sirens swim upstream and sing nocturnes while the water turns to blood. Drop me from the tree tops and let me learn to swim in the crimson tears within the earth, just as I begin to remember the night I broke someone's heart and a light bulb because you said that all I needed to do in order to find love was turn on the light and illuminate the possibility. So I turned on the light in your bedroom, and the bulb blew.

Now, fall behind me as I begin to drown. Show me that light bulbs can be replaced, but love cannot. Show me that blood is a metaphor for something good because it is warmer than flesh. And when I rise to the surface, and I look like a monster, tell me you love me anyway because it is just a temporary illusion.

c:

What if the fruit that Eve ate in the garden was a poisoned fruit, and it killed her? What if a kiss from Adam could bring her back to life? What if Lucifer was the evil queen, who wanted to kill Eve and become the fairest in the land, but true love foiled his evil plot? No, life is not a fairy tale. Sin doesn't kill us; it just makes us wish we were dead.

d:

A wounded lamb sat in the stable, and the shepherd locked it up and told it to stay still. He said the lamb would be safe from the wolf if it remained there, but the lamb felt vulnerable and useless because of this and only looked at the shepherd with sad eyes. The shepherd left and locked the door to the barn, leaving the lamb alone in the stable. Hours passed, and the wolf could never get inside; but that did not keep him from prowling nearby and watching the wounded lamb with lustful eyes. So the lamb cried all night, and no one heard it because it was alone in the protection of the barn.

e:

She is beautiful. She is more beautiful than any funeral home or battle field, and she wears her hair in knitted sorrow because the saddest stories are the most beautiful stories in the world. She washes her eyelashes in tears; this is important. She flies a love letter on a string instead of a kite; this is important. She loves her loved ones upside-down; this is important. She sleeps under the Golden Gate bridge and drinks her own tears; this is important. She dreams of turning someone's life around and giving that person a shooting star; this is important.

Today, the drunk woman in the bowling alley is her sky because she will never forget that she was sitting in his lap and holding his hand as she turned around and wished for that woman to pass out already. Tomorrow, this picture frame will be her sky because he held it last time he was there. He said he recognized the frame from his brother's room, and a photo of a dead person had been in it.

And a spoonful of sugar helps the sorrow go down, go down, go down…

f:

The first time she kissed a man, she woke up with bruises and cuts on her neck and arms. She was in the corner of the closet, and the shoulder of her dress was torn. She was hideous, but beautiful; She assumed this because he came back to kiss her again. Yes, anyone can love a monster. We monsters are so vulnerable and sacred, and we would do anything to make someone happy. We only desire to be loved, after all.

g:

She receives flowers and puts them on the windowsill. They are beautiful and lively, but they begin to wilt over time. She cries as she realizes she is like those flowers. They grow and become these gorgeous plants, and then they wilt and die. Once a flower dies, there is no way to bring it back again. She wonders if she will ever feel alive again, now that someone has killed her insides and left her to rot away.

He tells her she is not a flower, but she is the soil beneath their feet. She provides life for all things that are beautiful; and even though the sun may drain her of water and life, the clouds will come and rain down on her restoration and perfection.

h:

I remember the night I stayed up all night and made brownies for a party because I thought I was in love, and I wasn't. I remember questioning my sanity and crying over spilt milk as I crouched in front of the kitchen sink, longing to feel the heat of a human's voice and the chill of cold fingers on silk. All night, I cried in the kitchen. I cried in the kitchen and into the pan of brownies. Everyone at the party ate my tears.

i:

I pick a flower and remove the petals. I love, I love not. I love, I love not. I love, I love not. Etcetera.

j:

If everyone left me, I'd jump in the lake. I'd jump in the lake and forget how to swim. I'd stand at the edge of the pier and sing a serenade because musicians write music when they fall in love. I would wonder why so many songs were sad, and then I would remember that everyone left me, and then I would decide that maybe hibernation is a metaphor for misery and that blood is a metaphor for how the warmest love kills you in the end. I would compare the black water to your eyes and think of sunsets. I would let my hair down, and then laugh at this because I always thought I looked more beautiful with my hair falling around my shoulders. But at that point, I would be a monster, and I would be the most miserable and hideous person in the world. And then I would jump off the pier and lose myself in the darkness of the lake. I would sink to the bottom and lose sight of the surface because you can't see the sunlight when you are six feet underwater.

k:

The day I felt rejected was the same day I fell asleep in a darkroom and felt naked, even though I was layered in sheep's skin and wool. That was the day I dreamed of a thousand hands clawing me, and there was a rose garden, and the sun turned red and made the sky bleed. The sky bled, and I remembered sitting in the backseat of a car between two arguing boys and having to choose sides. It doesn't matter what I do, someone is going to be unhappy.

I saw a skylight and thought of nightmares. Symphonic voices of a ghastly winter echoed through the stone walls of the sinister palace, unknown to mankind. Non-existent resonance traveled through non-existent walls. Darkness consumed all that seemed real, and hatred devoured any light of hope which still remained in the shambles of my already broken heart. Not even God could deny the misery I felt as invisible suspensions held me there in the shadows to wither in the pale luminosity.

How awful do I look today?

Sick. Sick as a cancerous broad in her mid-nineties, begging for death. Tomblike and cold, pale and wretched and monstrous; but, oh, so beautiful! Beautiful as an urn full of ashes and an antique table sitting in your basement, long forgotten and collecting dust.

l:

Final moments seep under the door, stalking silently through the empty bottles and hearts, which are left in a dusty old room somewhere I've never seen. Seraphic light consumes me with loneliness--how ironic that is. I open my eyelids because they are drawbridges, and we are all bombed out bridges anyway, right? The borders of my fortress are now gone, and I cling to nothing. But it's all okay because I know you are with me, wherever you are. Wherever you are.

How am I to live in a world without you, where walls don't stand and mirrors don't reflect and birds lose their wings and my eyes are nothing but windows to a winter wasteland? But snow is so beautiful. Why?

m:

When I was younger, my male cousins and I would play at our grandmother's house. We would write our own stories and act them out. I was always the beautiful, young maiden; and the boys would always feud over me… But I never married either of them. In the end, I always died.

It isn't so bad, all of it. Even when we drank December from Romeo's cup. Even when I screamed at everyone in a Mexican restaurant. Even when we didn't speak for one entire day. I stand at the top of your staircase, crying. Some of my latest messages are of people telling me I am a horrible person. Reality is just a slap in the face away.

n:

Oh, she's a flower. She's a flower of the rarest kind. She is the prettiest flower in the meadow, and everyone who sees her falls in love with her. But they know that flowers only have two main purposes: births and funerals. They know that a flower is too beautiful to this world, and the only reason one would pick it would be to kill it.

"You are too beautiful for this world!" They tell her this, and she feels disgusting. They humble themselves before her and tell her they are not worthy, and she degrades herself and allows the sorrow to fall from her eyes like cracked paint.

She feels like an angel, so she looks for her wings, and she wonders if she was cast out of Heaven and cursed with a miserable life. She thinks of Alexiel from the old story she read and laughs because she always thought she was a lot like Alexiel. Oh, Alexiel acted like she hated the world, and she was vicious and cold. But, the truth is, Alexiel cared entirely too much about people, and she was cursed to be reborn over and over again and die a miserable death after having lived a miserable life. Yes, Alexiel was beautiful. She wonders if Alexiel was a flower too.

Her mother comes in the back door and sets a collaboration of flowers on the table, and she begins to weep. Her mother asks her why she cries so much, and she tells her that she just doesn't know.

o:

I want to scream.

I wish blades of grass were actual blades, and then I sometimes think they really are because we used to lie down in green fields and watch the sky. We used to lie down in those meadows and love each other, but then we stood up and found ourselves covered in wounds. When I think of this, I think of Christmas parties and coffee shops and the colour blue. Someone once told me that blue is the saddest colour in the world because it represents lonely nights and empty springs and wishing wells. Don't you know wishes never come true?

So, we watched the beautiful, sad sky and made irony out of love. I walk to the end of the road and fall on my knees and cry because blue is the colour of your bedroom, and all I want to do is scream. I think of the sky and the ocean and beautiful eyes and lonely nights, and then I realize blue must be God's favourite colour.

p:

I go to the doctor and take you with me because I must be ill. Your eyes are like seagulls and olive baskets, and I think of the day I first met you. I think of how your birthday digits added together are 2001, and that is the year I met you. The doctor's name is not important, but I leave you in the waiting room, and he tells me I have a disease that kills me from the inside out. I will die slowly, and pieces of my body will fall off every day. I walk outside, and you ask what the doctor said, and I tell you I just have trouble losing things. You don't look amused. A lock of my hair falls on your feet, and you still won't smile.

The next day, a piece of my flesh falls from my shoulder, and then I lose a finger and a pocket watch. You yell at me. The phone rings, and I answer it. The person on the other line is drunk, and I know this because they told me, "You're going to be happy." I laugh at the phone and hang up because I know people always say this when someone is dying. You tell me about your strengths and weaknesses and how you feel so alone in this world and wish someone would love you. I love you. My ears fall off, and I blame the fact I can't help you on that. But then I notice how people tell you more things when you are dying because they finally feel like they are better than someone, and I giggle insanely at this. You think I am laughing at you, and you leave. I wonder what it will be like when I lose my heart or my brain.

The officer picks up a note on the counter and places it in a plastic bag, almost as if something terrible has happened. My mother is crouched over the bathtub, crying. She is screaming and crying, and she's not even intoxicated. She hasn't been drinking at all. She looks in the bathtub and says, "She really lost it this time."

q:

I am nothing but

An unwritten song for the

Love that never came.

r:

Lovers throw rocks at windows. Lovers sing serenades. Lovers become haters because they show up at your house in a tuxedo and later change into a yellow t-shirt. Lovers call your name while they throw rocks at the window, so you peek outside. You open the window, and your lover is standing there in his tuxedo, smiling and holding a bouquet of flowers. You think of that flower metaphor and sigh, and then you see that he has a duffel bag with a yellow t-shirt inside it. Your lover calls your name again, and you tell him he is wrong. Love is not bed sheets or empty sleeves or wishing wells. Love is anything and everything without a name. That which is most nameless is most beautiful. You tell him this.

…Or maybe that's what you wish you had told him. Instead, you jumped from the window and expected him to catch you. He runs away as he sees you falling down, down, down… Falling to the ground and falling in love. He runs away and lets you fall, and you break your legs and cannot stand anymore.

s:

She writes a letter to her mother and her father and her best friend and a hobo on St. Catherine Street. She writes a letter to her lover and never sends it. It's a love letter to nobody, and she likes it that way. No one must ever know the truth. It reads:

You may be reading this as you drink your morning coffee. You may be reading this as you sit on a balcony and watch the sunset and think of how I always preferred the sunrise. You may be reading this as you unlock your front door and find that your family has been murdered, and you are all alone in this life. You may be reading this as you make love to someone and her whole body.

Her WHOLE body. Not less than one person, like me.

You may read this and realize you have made the biggest mistake in your life. I write this as I am dying because, every minute, we are dying. People will never believe you if they can't see the pain. The womb is warm and inviting; that's why babies never want to leave it. That's why childbirth is so painful. Who wants to open their eyes to this world of broken promises and self-destruction and pain? None of us want to, but we do.

The truth is, I am a sinner. The truth is, no one paid me to love you, just as no one paid you to love me. The truth is, without you, I am nothing but a pair of cupped hands without water. That is what is important, even if I am not exactly sure of whom you are.

t:

If you get pulled over by a gullible officer, you will probably not think to talk your way out of a ticket. If you watch a man pull a gun to his head, you will probably not realize he is suicidal until it is too late. If you are hiding under a table from a rapist, you will probably not remember that you have a gun in your hand with a working trigger. If your name means "pearl," you will probably not realize how lucky you are to have known some of the greatest people in the world, despite the fact they take you for granted and are never there for you.

The fact is, we never realize what we have until it's gone.

u:

At school, we read a novel about a nameless monster, and I found this poetic and beautiful. In the hallway, I couldn't think of a way to describe how I felt about you; and--since this feeling was also nameless--I found this poetic and beautiful. Sometimes, I forget my own name. Sometimes, I forget to respond to my name because most people say, "Hey, you!" or "Help me!" I find this amusing and poetic and beautiful.

I am your blue river. I am your sky and your blue jeans. You keep me full as a city elevator, and I rock to the sound of your voice like a metronome because you keep me in tune with life. My little musician, you are. My treble clef. My accidental in a measure. Write me a song when you fall in love.

v:

She is just like her mother. He is in love with her mother. She is a lamb, and he is a wolf with a beautiful smile. He tells her, "You are beautiful like your mother. You are a monster like your mother. You are cunning and malevolent like your mother, and you are siren, and I want to make love to you." Everything goes black.

w:

Is the illusion finished? Am I still tainted? Do you still see a monster, or do you see a flower, or do you see a lamb, or do you see a broken poet with mirrors for eyes and glass for a heart? Hearts of glass are the worst kind of hearts to have. How could one possibly beat without breaking? It just breaks.

I want to paint the clouds black. I want to fall apart in your arms and let you put me back together. I listen to music and imagine figures dancing on a lit stage. I want to be one of those figures. I want to interpret my thoughts through motions and lyrics. I am tired of being your ocean, which is much too dark to see any more than the choppy surface. I want to be your mockingbird. I want to be your little sunshine girl and your best-selling novel. I want to be the gentle breeze you embrace in the summer when everything else is failing you, and the kindness of fate is all we have left.

x:

A beauty sleeps in a tower of a castle, surrounded by thorns and roses and dark clouds. She sleeps without peace because she is in some sort of comatose, and she looks more dead than alive. They gaze at the forest of roses surrounding her prison and think of fairy tales, except the tales in their minds do not have happy endings. That's because the sleeping beauty isn't a princess, and there is no prince to come awaken her with true love's kiss.

But they know she is a siren, and they know she is the most passionate person one could ever meet. And so they smile at the rose forest, and they call this sleeping beauty a siren of the rose.

y:

Your words glide from my shoulders like clothing, and your intentions fall to the floor. The final moments seep under the door like smoke; like my house is on fire, and I don't even care. It's like going to the market and expecting them to sell forbidden fruit and getting really pissed off when it's not there.

I used to hide from the world and lose myself in my art. I used to absorb myself in unfinished stories and unhappy endings, ensconced there. Today, I will lead the lost and defend the defenseless. Today, I will walk four miles and forget my smile somewhere and still be noticed by people who claim to love me. I'd like to think it was because of you.

Bright infamy illuminates upon the breadth of the floor, where I fell on my knees and bled tears once upon a time. Truth blankets the surface in jagged blades, and the marionette of hope dances on strings before my eyes. It performs my illusion as words abandon the constant feeling in this hollow chamber of goodbye.

I opened the window, and it led me back to you. It's because you were throwing rocks; for years, you were throwing rocks at my window and never broke the glass. When you finally made a crack, I peeked outside. I extended my hand, but you ran away.

You took a black magic marker and wrote "Love" on my back. But I think there was acid in it because it ate away my skin and left nothing but scar.

z:

When you look at me, I don't want you to see my past or my hatred or the shreds of my brokenness, scattered across a queen-size bed in a Victorian home, where I lost a part of my sanity and became this. When you look at me, I don't want you to see what happened to me because that is not what is important. It's not about what happens to us; it's about what we make of it. It's about how we use it. It's about how we handle the situation and how we better ourselves. If I am murdered tomorrow, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you handle it. What matters is what you say at my funeral. What matters is the fact that I knew you and loved you, and you will be fine whether I am with you or not.

The sad stories are beautiful because it is not the sad parts that matter. What matters is the epilogue that was never written. What matters is not the story, but the author. The sky is important because you can never reach it, but you should try anyway. You will never be good enough; you must always try to better yourself because you are capable of doing so. You are a beautiful monster.

Next time I look into your eyes, I will see more than colour and tears. I will see a vast ocean and a forest and a light bulb. I will smile and think of some of the silliest metaphors you could never understand, and then my heart will whisper your name like a dancer on stage. I will stand at the top of your staircase, crying. I will splay myself across your floor as I shuck myself from your couch, allowing the sorrows to fall from my eyes like lovesick beauties leaping from their windows and falling in love. I stare at my veins and realize they are blue, and the tears finally stop.

I love you.