Monsters

My pillows still smell like you
Even when you’re not here
Which makes me wonder if you’ve
Been sneaking back in
To watch me sleep
Like you used to
When I was still scared of the dark
But you battled all the monsters
And I fell asleep with you next to me
And woke up cold and alone

I’ll miss it
And you’ll wish it
Were someone else
Someone more capable
But you know there’s no one else like me
Because you’ve looked
And I’m still here
Teach me

Because you’re sexy when you talk
And when you walk
And when you’re nervous as I touch you
Even your goosebumps are adorable
As they crawl up your sweet skin
When I trace my fingers along your bones

And I wish you could see the way you look
When I’m taking off your clothes
With my teeth
And how your body twists around mine
When you’re taking off all my inhibitions
With just your lips and your quick tongue
But the sexiest thing about you
Is the way your hair falls on your shoulders
And curls around my fingers

I wish you’d stop talking to me like that
When I’m trying to get your attention
Like you know me
Like you’ve got me all figured out
Like I’m a picture book
you memorized from your childhood
Because you don’t know me

Because if you did then you wouldn’t do
What you do
You’d stop tearing out my heart of stone
You’d stop making me eat my cold words
Because that’s all I do when I’m around you
I have to watch what I say
But all I want to do is look at you
When you dance
And when you cry
And when you laugh
And when you leave
I could watch you leave me forever

Stay and know me a little more
You’ve seen every crevice of my body
And you haven’t seen anything yet
I have so much to show
So open your eyes
And let me take you on the ride of your life

I hate it when you don’t answer me
After I tell you to stay the night and then some
You’d day “I’ll stay forever”
But you never show up on time
And you never answer the phone when I call

You show up unexpected and only sometimes wanted
Why should I let you in again?
I say “You don’t hurt me anymore”
But that’s because I love to hear you say that you do
Don’t sing to me,
It hurts to hear my heart poured out in song.

Four Letter Word

I remember the first time I heard it as a child. I remember the reverence in my father’s voice. He used it only once in all of my memories. And I remember, vividly, the man he used it on. The pride in my dad’s eyes. The smile. I’ll never forget that smile. It was one I had never seen before. Meant for a special purpose. Meant for a special person.
I spent the rest of my life trying to earn that smile from him…

I remember the first time I heard it used on the battlefield. It was just a whisper. He was shouting it at me, but I only heard it as a whisper. I had just temporarily lost my hearing so everything he was shouting at me came to my ears as a whisper. Hearing it made me feel sick. Disgusted. As he sat beside me, laughing about the circumstances, I tried not to vomit. He was envious, I could tell. And that made me all the sicker.


It took me many, many years to figure out that my father didn’t think the soldier was a hero. Not the solider, but the father. My dad didn’t care that the man went to war. My dad cared that he put his children first. That he sacrificed everything for the good of his family. My dad was proud of another man’s parenting abilities. And, looking back, I realize I never stood a chance at being a hero in my dad's eyes. Because what example did I have of being a good dad?