if teen dreams were teen novels

there was once a boy who had all the write words to say
with all those fancy allegories, metaphors and similes
and antonyms of synonyms, like rails and snares and storms
and organs and trains and drums and hurricanes and
hearts,

and she was only a girl with plain words, the kinds of things
that are only found in piles of papers and pens, books
she keeps where she sleeps,

that will only break when he leaves in the morning,
but she shares everything, like a boat shares a bard,
like a cigarette shares a lung, like a mouth shares other mouths,
like an artist shares her heart.

but there is a running in her heart:
not that type of beat she got when she was a little girl
and her favorite boy gives her a kiss on the cheek, but like when
he first shared his words with hers,

the kind of thing she gets only with naked skin,
and not like that kind of naked skin, naked, but before that
when she looks up and his eyes shine in that kind of way she thinks
might've happened when shakespeare was a teenager, as if romeo
were professing to juliet right there, as if julius cursed brute just
before he died, as if all those unwritten sonnets in his head
were intertwining with hers,
a sea of poetry before they even touch skin,

but now he looks at her with the same eyes and he
speaks, "if you loved me with all of your everything
why would you not give me all of your everything with it?"
and before she knows it she's one of those girls she hates
on tv, and he is one of those boys she loves on tv, and rhymes like them
but not really, but only if she lets him: and her extra skin is dead
on the floor, and wow his line breaks at all the right places
           
but, only
if, she
lets
h
im

and slowly she forgets how to use commas and dashes
and periods feel like they've never existed, and all those books
she read dissipate before her eyes,
and suddenly she knows everything and everything she's been told
was all a lie

and not even writers keep alliteration in their pockets,
but there it was on the floor, with the white left on her jeans:
not naked name numb naked nothing null, not
love lading leaving lie lamb lust labor late laugh live living lone left,
or
breathe bones breathe bend breathe breast breathe brunt break breathe, but

gone.