I wanted you to like me so ******* badly
So I dressed up all pretty and I did my makeup way too dramatically
I just wanted you to just notice me
I wanted to make sure you s a w me

And then you did

Only sort of
You saw me as pretty, you saw me as attractive, as ******

But you never noticed me losing control
You never noticed me getting high and pretending everything was ok
You didn't see how I would take 6 shots of ***** back to back just to get through the night
You didn't notice as I would black out and pretend everything was alright
I was not happy
I was numb

But hey, at least you thought I was pretty.

If you still have the people you love most in your life today-
Hug them
Hug them tighter than you ever have
Call them and tell them you love them
Never ignore their calls
Pick up the phone and call them first
Make sure they know

They have to know
They have to know that when they're gone you won't be able to sleep knowing they've gone away
They have to know that all throughout the day you will cry when they have gone to sleep forever
They have to know your heart will be missing a piece when they leave
They have to know before they're gone

You have to tell them while you can
You have to tell them that they are special to you
You have to tell them that you will forever miss their voice and their laughter
You have to tell them you will miss never seeing their face on the caller ID

My God, please tell your loved ones you love them


I love you, Dad. I love you so much.

You're supposed to feel happy for your old lovers when they find someone new
But that feeling is so foreign to me
So I pretend, so I lie, so I cover up anger and jealousy with "Oh wow how wonderful for the both of you"

But I would be lying if I said I didn't wish them perpetual misery
I would be lying if I said I didn't wish them both mediocre *** where nobody finishes
I would be lying if I said I didn't wish for their oven to break halfway through making a Thanksgiving turkey and not to notice until it's too late
I would be lying if I said I didn't hope they both get called into work every Friday night on "date night"
I would be lying if I said I didn't wish for every drink they have on the rocks to taste like straight water
I would be lying if I said that I didn't hope their internet cuts out every single time they try to Netflix & chill
I would be lying if I said I didn't dream it rains every time they plan a wondrous beach afternoon

I would be lying if I said I didn't care
And so I fake smile every time he tells me how beautiful her smile is, and how happy she makes his days, and how her voice is like an angel's

Oh wow, how wonderful for the both of you.

A young girl stands in front of the mirror
Her hands gripping on to her hip bones
And she still believes that she is too fat
She is holding her breath and ******* it all in
Her lips are pouting
Her eyes are wandering
Her face is flushed

She asks herself :
"Do they like me?"

                                                                                             Do you like you?

When you tell me that you love me
Do you really mean you love that I am so reckless and lacking of compassion

When you tell me that you love me
Is it really you saying that you love how long I let you keep your hands wrapped around my throat when we are tossing around in my sheets at 3 AM

When you tell me that you love me
Do you really mean you love that I am so cold and so bitter and so devoid of feeling for anyone other than my own, selfish self?

When you tell me that you love me
Is it really you lying and saying you love me just because you know I could never love you back?

I knew there was something wrong with her when I was 10
I found a magazine report about borderline personality disorder
I was reading in the school library and I started crying
I could never have put a word on what was different about my mother
But there it was, plain as day
The way she could stay in bed till 3 in the afternoon with the blinds closed
The way some days we would laugh as she asked me if I wanted to play hooky and skip out on school
We would go grab frappucinos at Starbucks and rummage through countless thrift store shelves
But some days, some days I would be screamed at until I cried
Some days I would lock myself in the bedroom until I needed to come out
Some days I would stay at school extra long and just put off going home altogether
Some days my brother and I were burdens
Some nights we would get to order pizzas and drink Coke and some nights we were told to find food for ourselves
Always with the paranoia and the headaches and the inability to do anything
Consistent with the anger and the depression
Consistent with the exhaustion and the impulsive natures
The pills never helped, the pills never made things better
Fourteen years later and things are no better, things are no easier
Things have made no progression
Fourteen years later and we don’t speak

I said sorry over one hundred million times for being upset you hurt me
I kept being naive and letting you proceed to cause damage
Yet, you never said sorry for the damage, and you never apologized for the hurt
I learned to forgive you even though you never expressed the need or want to be forgiven
I learned to accept an apology that I never received and never ever will receive
There has got to be so much strength in that.

I tried to imagine a life without you
A life where we never touched hands and clenched them too tightly
A life where we never exchanged gazes in hallways
A life where our lips never touched in the dark under the covers
A life where we never sat up on the phone until the whole world was asleep
A life where we did not once share every secret in our books
A life where I never knew your family and you never knew my heart
A life where my skin never got to know the pleasure of your graze
A life where I never prayed for you because I never knew your struggles
A life where I never went to the games and never cheered you on from the sidelines
A life where I never sang along to the love songs you played on guitar
A life where I never even got to know your name

I tried to imagine a life without you
And I would rather die than to ever think of that life again

Did you know I felt that our lives were undeniably tied together, irrevocably?
Like even if we fell apart and strayed too far away our paths would cross once again?
I felt that our bond was star-crossed and our connection was meant to be regardless of our star signs and past loves
I felt that our love was a story to be told through the ages and one to write down in the books
Did you know I felt that every single time we kissed the stars aligned and all the words I knew finally made sense for once?
Like even though the world was falling down and the things I knew were crashing down everything was okay because I had you?
I felt that you could grow to love me again despite having some girl at home wanting you to love her
I felt that our love story was almost too good to be true even though we only had relations through our kisses at 5 in the morning
Maybe it is me and my blind intuition to trust a stranger
But also, perhaps it is you and your need to feel a connection through past experiences with loved ones
Either way, I miss you

I'm bad with dates and names and numbers
But I know the color of your eyes matches the sky in the middle of June before the rainstorm hits Florida
And I know that your skin is the same shade of tawny as the deck on the porch of my mother's best friend's vacation home back in Michigan
And I know that your hair is just as soft as the kittens I pet in the shelter where I cried because I had to pick only just one
And I can pick your scent out of a lineup of boys with every single variation of Axe body spray spread among them
So I can't remember the day we met, or the name of your grandmother or the number of times we have kissed or held hands
But I am a writer, and the essence of your life will never die as long as I have a pen and a paper

My throat is aching with the words I cannot fathom saying to you
My hands are shaking because I wanted to hold your hand so ******* badly
My eyes cannot see straight because all that I am seeing is you and your bright blue eyes
My heart is racing so fast and I cannot catch my breath because you are making me laugh too hard

And then I stop
And then I remember I am not the one
And then I remember there's a beauty at home waiting for you to text her goodnight
And then I think about how she went to sleep alone, and I got to have your attention to myself for once in seven years

My voice is shaky as I tell you about my family and hold back tears because things are getting just too **** personal
My skin feels hot as I sit there and wait for you to touch me back
My legs quiver a bit as I hike my dress up higher so you can see the black lace on my *******
My smile forms a smirk as I think about you actually taking the bait and grabbing my face tightly and kissing me

And then I stop
And then I remember "just friends" do not look at each other like that
And then I remember "just friends" do not touch each other that way after dark
And then I remember how you're going to break her heart the same way I broke yours seven years ago

I wear pearls and over use glitter and I don't know a thing about makeup
My face tells you how I feel about you way before my mouth gets the chance to do so
I drink coffee exclusively at 5 in the afternoon, and by the time I am done with it it's a lot more like a cup of cream and sugar than coffee
My heart is big and full of love, but also full of rage and anger for the things I cannot control
I am five feet tall, but my attitude and my drive makes me feel like a giant
My drinking habits could make a grown man cringe and I could out-drink you in any competition
I say hello to every animal I see on the streets and I go so far as to try to pet them all even though they want nothing to do with me
My eyes and my hair are so dark that they are almost pitch black, but my mother swears I was born with baby blue eyes
I do not have any idea how to control my laughter in uncomfortable situations and I have no filter around small children
My demeanor gets sad and lonely every time it storms, and it's not like I was in some terrible rain innitiated accident, I just get scared sometimes
I stare at myself in every mirror I pass and my mother used to tell me I was such a narcissist
My love for everyone I have ever loved has never diminished or passed and somehow that makes me feel vulnerable and weak
I grew up in a city full of crime and gun shots and children with next to no education and I flourished despite that all
My mind knows how to organize words and sentences into exquisite works of art, but do not ask me how to do PEMDAS and do not ask me about photosynthesis
I know the lyrics to almost every song I have ever heard in my entire life and I can sing you any lullaby that makes you fall asleep
So, in conclusion my "About Me" is long and awkward and damaged and perfect in some kind of absurd and silly way

I don't want to talk about the weather
I don't want to talk about how humid it was today, or how it rained some time last week
I want to talk about if you think the aliens are real
I want to talk about which type of flower reminds you of your mother
And I want to talk about what song from the last five years reminds you of summer
I want to talk about the pets you had growing up and their names and the marks on their coats
I want to talk about the first time you fell in love and what her smile looked like
Did she have crooked teeth?
Were her lips painted red the day you noticed you loved her?
I want to talk about what kind of toppings you like on your pizza
And I want to talk about how you like your coffee in the morning
Do you prefer more sugar, more cream?
Black coffee, or no coffee at all?
I want to talk about your stance on immigration laws or abortion or gun control
I want to talk about where you have most felt at home
Was it the basement at your mother's place, where you first got laid?
Or maybe it is the baseball field where you scored your first home run?
I want to talk about who you are when no one is looking, because that's when it counts the most
Do you always spare a dollar for the homeless man under the bridge at the intersection by work?
Do you hold the door open for old ladies with six bags in their arms and a coat full of cat hair?
I want to talk about everything and anything except the weather

I want to write about the sunset, how the rays hit the ocean and it was so beautiful that I could almost shed a tear
But all that I can write about is how handsome you looked with your back to me as you stared at that same exact sunset
And all I can write about is how much I loved you at that exact moment and the sun could have fallen down and I probably would not have noticed

I want to write about how melancholy the rainstorms make me and how I get so lonely and depressed each and every time the sky cries
But all I can write about is how your eyes are the same exact color as the night sky right before a rain storm in the middle of July
And all I can write about is even when the sky was having a mental breakdown full of rain all I could think about was how content I was being wrapped in your embrace

I want to write about how genuinely happy and bright I feel once the Birds of Paradise start to bloom in the spring
But all I can write about is how they are the flower I could see from the porch swing at my mother's house where we talked about our future children
And all I can write about is how much I miss talking to you at four in the morning when the rest of the world was asleep, everyone except for us and those Birds of Paradise

I want to write about nature and beauty and the weather and happiness and I don't want to keep writing about you
But it's you.
It's never anyone or anything else, but you

On the night on the beach you laughed so hard that you snorted
I knew then that was a laugh I could listen to for my whole life
On the night on the beach you kissed me so hard that I stumbled
I knew then that was a kiss I could get used to feeling for eternity
On the night on the beach you cried ever so softly that I could barely even notice
I knew then that was a type of emotion that I could not get from many men
On the night on the beach you told me you loved me so much you couldn't move on
I knew then that was the level of  love that I couldn't pass up on twice

On a separate night on the beach you held my hand so tightly that I knew something was off
I knew then that was the kind of grip that said "I need you too much that is causing us emotional distress"
On that night at the beach you mentioned that you would die without me
I knew then that was a kind of feeling that compelled me to feel so suffocated
On the night on my bedroom floor you cried so severely that I could not even look at you
I knew then that I was not the type of woman you should be with for the rest of your life
On the night you left you looked at me with a passion so desperate and pleading
And I knew then that I could never look at you again in my whole entire life