advice, if you were looking for it

I am a walking catastrophe of unspoken decisions.

Good and bad ones, probably.

And Thursday tasted like the bitter end of a battery.

Music sounded like a hurricane in hell's kitchen,

because karma likes to flirt with them 

while I overstep myself into the parking lot

and their unified laughter sent me home 2 hours early.

The tennis court is a nice place to throw up blood and water

when nobody's watching,

and I still wear my ex-boyfriend's shirt to sporting events 

but his name is only remembered in the muddled anxiety of midnight.

(and it's only because I'm afraid he'll keep appearing at my window)

That anxiety which forms a bomb near my ribcage,

triggered by the glowing, upside smiles that 

karma keeps regurgitating between those two.

And that bomb imploded before I even left the parking lot.

Sometimes ice cream heals the moment 

with more velocity than Neosporin,

but so do tender eyes with twin tears and the girl 

that could only give me good advice.

I used to be unteachable but that's not true anymore.

Actions do not speak louder than words.

Actions eat words like appetizer salads.

To the cunning boy with a hideous heart, 

kisses are contingent with friendship.

And to the other one, they sold the boyfriend title 

because I never knew the definition of it beforehand.

Actions are nothing without words.

Words are nothing without actions.

Someday you'll find a lover who hopes 

to see into your soul like you're some rare specimen.

Who wants to unravel the poems that line your brainstem.

Who wants to hold your hand and doesn't grudge 

the extra seconds you drag into the day.

Mama told me to find friends who watched you 

with eyes that forgot everything about the world.

People with sense & fragments, not in need to be reassembled, 

but rather worth making art out of.

Whose words strike you like the hum of rare instruments,

that chime you like glass to hear you clink,

telling people about you like the art piece they squandered 

with the pretty eyes.

Beware of those who never ask your favorite flavor 

or what you want to be when you grow up. 

(And to whoever sent me the anonymous calla lilies,
they're 19 inches from the trashcan and lost their glow,
but they want to say goodbye to you.)

Look at me.

Now go.