You were never a cure
Only a distraction
When I felt the need
To fracture my January skin
To see if I was still living
You lit my smokes
And talked about my laugh
How it stopped time and moved glaciers
Even God himself couldn't budge
You weren't what I needed
Late nights, Vicodin off the streets
White sheets and pillow talk
You were only the in between
Never the start or the end
You were not my cure
I don't have one,
Terminal battles
Cut into pieces by the fun
You gave me

One day I'll talk about the pain
In retrospect
And I'll talk about the way I healed
It won't be a stretch
One day I'll talk about the pain
Like an old friend in high school
Familiar faces focused on the has-been
But only for a little bit
One day I'll talk about the pain in retrospect

Why'd you have to
Show up on my comedown
And ask if you could hang around
Like old times, 4 years ago, flew somehow
Who was I then? Who are you now?
Why'd you have to
Show up on my uprising
And act so very surprised
To learn I was giving goodbyes
Did you think I'd wait forever?
Losing you was an endeavor I could not
Heal from, instead I had to run
And why did you have to ask me if
I was happy? Or if I was having fun?
Please don't pull me back
I've no time for your conundrums
Why'd you have to change for the good
Second guess the way I'm dodging you in this state I fell in and out of love in
All In a year
Why'd you have to come back here?
I felt so ******* strong

*** without being in love
Another ghostly counterpart
to fill myself up
Says my body is lovely, my sounds are art
Can't see way I knocked over my cup
On purpose to distract him,
I needed it to end
I stopped having fun
6 months ago in a room in Boston
I thought I was filling the void
With attention,
A habit I learned in early
Adolescence
I was making it bigger
Confusing my soul
The men I sleep with are empty and foul
*** without love
Is an act of sin,
Not according to God
But to the person within
Myself, I am sorry
I give up on it
*** without love
Feels meaningless

The longest day,
The deepest breath
You always knew me the best.
My second spring,
Without you here
I wonder who I'll be this year.
The greenest grass,
The bluest skies
I hide the ugliness of my insides.
The warmest sun,
The afterglow
Of a girl whom I'd like to know.
The longest day,
The deepest breath
I won't wait for you again.
The time is now,
No room to wait
Gaia dealt a brand new day.

I was 16
I asked you for understanding
You said you'd never pity me
So I stopped reaching up to
Where you placed yourself
Above me on a throne framed
In ivory. Tusks like fences,
You said you didn't feel sorry for me.
You never cared who or what had to die
To make yourself happy.
I got blood from my wrists
On your stark white gown.
You kicked me out for being messy.

I packed my clothes
And cigarettes
I'm moving to the South.
I always romanticized the North East,
And North West but the middle seemed draining and sure, I'm scared. I'm bound by my youth here and I have this exaggerated passion to travel I decorate for the sake of feeling adventurous but I'm actually comfortable with my feet in concrete boots, climbing back to you. You asked if I'm happy and said that it's sad that I'm leaving, we have so many memories. I felt the same way a year ago with you so I said I didn't know if I was. I don't know if waking up every day past noon to down a pill just to leave the room is happy but I know I'll live three miles from the Atlantic ocean, from pink sand in three weeks and you know I always romanticized the way nature could heal a shattered soul, so I'll go.

I hate that you asked me if I'm happy right before I go, I hate that I'm over you but that still make my insides coagulate and tear apart my stomach lining, I hate that I'm lying about why I'm leaving.

I said I'm starting over but I just have some things I haven't let go of, and I can't. So I'm running from them instead. I'll live on the beach. You won't pop up in the coffee shops I pretend to like dark roast in. I won't see your face in public when you aren't really there. It's unfair that I don't know how to go anywhere but towards another person but I'm hoping those morning beach walks might teach me how to go towards something scary instead of something safe. Maybe happiness isn't safety, maybe when you said you missed me that pain in my stomach was irony because a year ago I collapsed in class on a white tile floor when you said you'd never love me the same and now I'm leaving behind white walls and a white door I never painted because I never picked a color that made me happy.

an ode to what I am not
convenient
or skinny
organized
or welcoming
an ode to what you beg of me
all of these things I cannot be,
I will not be not ever
forever is a long time
to spend bending
your image of me
into something
that fits in your wallet
an ode to what I am not
gentle, rose colored china
sunday mornings with herbal tea
your hope or step in your 12 to get up
a beam of light at the edge of blackness
an ode to what I do not possess
healing powers like some 2,000 year old man
you pray to every day and beg I do the same
patience for another human who whats to change
who and what I am not
so I can play the part
I did not even audition for
an ode to what I am taking
back, my life
all of me, front and center
of the floor

I keep having dreams
Like I used to but
In black and white
I still had butterflies
In this one we got married
We were still nineteen
But when the time came
For you to kiss me
I fell sick with agony
Your kiss was laced with venom
I walked the aisle to the blues
The trumpet numbed my ears
I fell out of love with you
But you're still in my sleep
Why do you still make me weak?

Blue cheese chunks
Peanut butter chest pains
Name a food right now
I'll promise to ruin it for you
6 cups of coffee past your limit
Your heart ripped itself out of your
Ribcage an hour ago and is running
Sloppy joe laps around the park trying to ground itself
Angel hair pasta before you break it
Into boiling water but it still has chills
Spoiled milk in lucky charms,
Sugar sticking to the side of the bowl
Pulling at your skin like Colby jack strings
Picking at derma like an orange
But you aren't sweet or refreshing
You're wilting like that salad you bought
And let rot for a month
Because THIS was the last time
You'd start over your lifestyle
Almond bark emotions
And candy cane apologies
Name a food and I promise
Anxiety will ruin it for you

I remember my first panic attack like it was yesterday I was 17 laying in bed with the person that loves the boy I loved rather suddenly I didn't feel safe I blamed it on him because I didn't know what was happening I got mad so I started throwing things has your books and blankets because my arms are tingling and I couldn't stop couldn't shake that feeling that so petrified I slept with my mom and dad until I can finally feel my feet asking me what was wrong but I didn't have an answer everything nothing to do with it

I must sound
Like a chocolate wrapper
Crumbled up with cliche intentions
But oh, the sun is so healing on Saturdays
The weekend's bounty fueled by her light
My glacierlungs start to melt
I feel alright
On the train
To see my best friend
Soaking it all in
Finally unbroken
75 degrees in February
Never felt so incredible
I don't feel terrible
Anymore
I must sound so redundant
But you would play the same song 100
Times a day if it made you feel alive,
Wouldn't you?

in the springtime
   all the ice is melting
so fast you feel like
   you're drowning
but the flowers are budding
   watch where you step
some lakes look like puddles
    you spent months climbing
to the tops of snowbanks

when pinks and greens
    saturate your feet
they make their way up
   to your flowerbed brain
please let them in to stay
   you spent all winter erasing
colors from your memory
   now the sun cannot
brighten your greys  
   not alone

when the bees in your head
   stop swarming around
you saw each one fly away
   and out with each seed
you planted here on earch
   where you haven't felt
calm in a year and now you're breathing
   to the rhythm of the sun

You were born from sin
Lustful kisses in fields of chamomile
Sweetened tea on the fourth of July
You were made from wrongs that felt right

You were born from sin
The devil was once God's favorite angel
But I wondered what it would have been
Like if it went backwards
And he was terrible first?
Like we were

Vengeful tactics made for unfair fights
You were made from wrongs that felt right
Lustful kisses in fields where homes
used to be before
the brave men bombed them
We celebrated death
like a birthday for a child-
wildflowers grew
where libraries once were
you held my hand
When I couldn't understand
Why freedom looked like a fire escape
Instead of running in a meadow barefoot
you painted pictures I hung on my walls
Of Poe and forests where trees die but do not grow
I always stayed in tune
To see what came next
Every move was a guess


You were born from sin
And I loved you for that very reason

What does it mean to be happy?
Do sunsets fall slower then?
will I know the exact second
I am happy again?
Was I ever?
closest I have been
when you said "forever"

The times last year
you stole my body
I remember vividly
As that day grows near
I feel hatred growing in me
Something I have not felt
For anyone but myself
In the longest time
I wish I could show you
What your theft left me with
Or go back in time and
Lock the door though
you climbed through the window

Did you think I would have let you in?

Your confidence smelled
Of Cologne mixed with power
Your alpha hands grabbed my waist
And I have thrown up every day
Remembering how you called me names
For telling you to stay the **** away

I still see it sometimes and I hate that
No one, not even the witness believed me
I have yet to fill what you dug when you stole my body from me

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I could take a blow like that
and get back up in a minute
those scars heal like bandaged paper cuts
though they hurt like hell at first, you **** it up
your skin covers its own trenches in amazing resilience

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I could handle a few bruises on my arm
over endless nights of hearing your words that cut like knives
but the wounds do not go away,
they get deeper with time and everything I try to cover them with
too, is covered in blood

Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
because I would not hurt a year after leaving
Sometimes I wish you would have hit me
I fear the easier one to heal from is a physical beating

I know it hurts now
but hear me out
this year will heal your wounds
your scars will be flower beds
your pain I will be sunshowers
and you will be writing love pieces
by the time winter comes again

I know it hurts now
but hear me out
I promise it won't when you're with her
as she holds your scars like your favorite jar
picking up the pieces you left after dropping it
because you were too tired to pick them up yourself

I know it hurts now
but hear me out,
I promise it won't when you let her in

promise me you will let her sow her seeds
in your garden you let weeds take control of
last summer when you died inside your bed

promise me you will water her roses
and hold her hand when she plants
lilacs over pieces of land you didn't know could host life

promise me you will let her love you
because you need it more than you show
promise me you will love her back
and that together you will grow

I put myself in debt
taking classes to learn how to
fix the world's problems
and when I got tired
I tried fixing smaller ones
like broken tables and
broken homes
I paid off loans
to take more lessons
on how to make the world
hurt less
but I did not learn
how to clean up my mess
I tried to learn my pain away
and put all my energy into
saving populations in far places
but never mended my own heart
there isn't a class for that

my friend told me once
the hardest thing to fix
was a broken heart
and he was right
i have 6 degrees
in subjects i loathe
but the thing i loved
i know not where to start

I want to see the west coast
feel ***** SanFran sidewalks on my feet
and redwood forest air inside me
I want to glide the coastline
and drink expensive smoothies
fall a few times surfing
and laugh until I'm hurting
I want to see the west coast
and forget about my worries
I know it sounds redundant
but California calls me
I want to see the redwoods
and look up and feel small
I want to know the desert
and meet a blonde haired boy
I crave the west coast breeze
the sand between my toes
there is something out there I am missing
what it is yet, I do not know

when I talk and it sounds more like a scream
and my soul lay scattered on your bedroom floor
I will tremble as I hand you the bones I took out of my closet
but take them still

when I cry and you get sick of that high pitched whine
and my tears stain your favorite white shirt
I will shake as I hold your hand and tell you what hurts
but listen still

when I make loving me more of a chore than a game
and my panic attacks interrupt your sleep cycle
I will apologize as many times as I can until you fall back asleep
but listen still

I have talked to no one for three years now
and my hands have been uneasy since I was sixteen
I won't hold your hand until you promise
to hold mine back and to hear me

I remember how it felt shutting down
not like when you turn off the lights
and leave a vanilla candle burning
as you read yourself to sleep
not like it feels to turn off your phone
and just listen to the waves hug the beach

I remember hitting the floor so hard I still have a bruise
and I remember 567 outgoing phone calls,
to you
I remember you telling me you hated me
that you never loved me back in three years
I remember crashing my car into a tree
going 103 miles per hour, the doctor telling me the impact should have killed me
sometimes I wish it had
I remember you telling me you wished it would have
in that same ten minutes but still not feeling
that same pain in my chest as the steering wheel
broke three of my ribs and the prerecorded message telling me
to leave a message at the beep was the last time I heard your voice

I remember shutting down
and how I could **** a thousand gardens
before I'd have taken enough lives
to have mimicked the feeling when I thought mine was ending
but those flowers would have died
I only shut down
I still live with it
every day and I don't know
how much longer I can take the pain
I remember shutting down a year ago today
but it still hurts enough,
I'm still tired enough to feel like it was yesterday

I ran out of cliches to use in my writing last year when you ran out of patience for my problems,
It was around the same time that we ran out of gas in the car because I got sidetracked again and instead of stopping I just kept driving because the song on the radio made me feel like I could breathe for once, and I planned our whole future when I went out to get milk but you were angry that I forgot the reason I left home, I came back empty handed and I still wonder now why you left me. It doesn’t feel right knowing that a year has passed and nothing that I have planted has grown or even budded, I starved some because I got distracted and others I smothered and they got overwhelmed and crumbled. I watched my lilacs collapse last Spring the same week you abandoned me and I’m sure I should have healed by now but it hit me only last week that I don’t know how. I don’t know if I’ve ever healed, or what it looks like outside of bandages and scars that I could watch turn white so I started reading about these homeopathic remedies for diseases I don’t have and I remember feeling like my body was going to give out every time I saw you in the summer and I blamed it on the heat but I spent most days inside in the AC. I wonder what the remedy is for that feeling because instead I tried to **** it and just felt weak. I would throw up and blame the alcohol and when my doctor asked me if I drank recreationally I told her no because there was nothing fun about blacking out to forget you and me. Last Valentine's day we had a bottle of wine and it only took me a cup to start crying and I remember you telling me you were disappointed when I didn't want to have *** which should have made me upset but I think what actually did was the fact that three months later I could drink an entire handle of ***** before throwing up and another half before I gave up on trying to kick this feeling that you might come back some day or the thought that I would take you back instantly when you never deserved me.  I know that and still wonder why I feel so empty when I see old pictures of us in our teens.

you used me for ***
and I should be upset
but it's you I laugh at
because you ****** in bed
I faked every time
and I don't feel bad, not a bit
you used me for ***
just wished you'd be better at it

my love was sugar
in your tea but you preferred it black
it never stayed hot very long  
you left it on the burner regardless

my love was a mess
in your home I was scattered shoes and broken glass
I asked for time to plan out my escape
but you held the door open for me

my love wore white instead of red
it did not hold hands or smoke cigarettes
I stayed about the surface for most of our time
because I was scared of not doing it right

my love was an open home
empty hallways for strangers to rome
a place to lay their head or put up their feet
it was a soup kitchen for those who were hungry


and I starved myself to keep them full

I'm stuck inside myself
I got scared and called for help
but a year of pushing friends away
left me yelling to nobody
I missed all of my exits and now
the road looks unclear before me
I've forgotten what I learned in driving lessons
and I keep seeing signs of you and me

I'm stuck inside myself
waited too long to ask for help
a year of deviating healing
and speeding down roads I carved out of skin
I should have shed months ago,
how will I know?
What does healing look like?
This intrapersonal fight has fogged my eyesight,
and the roads are snowy now since it's winter again,
I fear I won't ever win,
this intrapersonal warfare has left me on the field,
wounded and silent, afraid to reach out,
I fear I might not ever know what it's like to heal

a letter in messy script
a script with too few hits
a hit with too much smoke
a smoke with too few drags
a drag with too much hope
a hope with too few moves
a move with too much step
a step with too few directions
a direction with too much detail
a detail with too few truths
a truth with too much love
a love with too few touches
a touch with too much hand
a hand with too few shakes
a shake with too much promise
a promise with too few pinkies
a pinkie with too much trust
a trust with too few people
a person with too much love
a love with too few words
a word that never made it past a letter
a letter that told it all
everything, that never got sent

*******,
so angry I could collapse on the floor
but I swore this year I would stop
passing out when I feel like lashing out
so *******
for nailing my feet to the tile floor
and turning on the sink on your way out the door,
I am drowning in your mess
and have to swim with wounds on my feet
so *******
for doing this while telling me you love me
and pouring salt on open cuts
and making sure you had enough air to breathe
while I struggle to make ends meet
so *******
for doing this to me and
for draining me of the energy that it takes
to collect myself and hold it in and not scream
*******

build a bridge
so others can walk to you
and you won't drown no more
in waters that swallowed you before
so others may reach out their hands
and so that they may save themselves
build a bridge so you find help
no one can heal you
if they are tired from swimming upstream to

I remember a year ago
like it was last night
and I was searching our empty fridge
for anything to fill the void I could
barely identify
I worked out for hours
and negated progress with
entire boxes of granola bars
and laying in bed for days
man, I remember like it was yesterday
but I forgot how much, in that time
I have changed

A year ago I begged for a reason to stay
Today, I create it every day
I talk to God in new and scary ways
A year ago, fear plagued my mind,
Today, I value time
for what it brings me in the form of healing
though it does not always look like so,
but, oh,
how I have changed

A year ago, my tank was empty and I was jaded
today, I fuel my body and am thankful
that with each choice I make from sunrise to set,
I can mold my life and make myself the best,

or better than I was a year ago, at least

rejoice in wine
that you sweat out
while singing songs
out of tune with best friends
on unusually warm February nights
rejoice in the feeling of feeling alright
for once in a while
rejoice in laughter
that hurts after an hour
but you're finally smiling
about how much you love your friends
rejoice in solace
that you find in the strangest places
like the floor of your old dorm room
or the bottom of a bottle of moscato
you don't remember finishing but have videos of
rejoice in love
because you don't need a single other person
in bed, that way, to feel the same glow in your soul
rejoice in knowing that you're okay
rejoice in that concert hall when you lost it all
in your favorite song
you realized there you hadn't quite lost everything yet
rejoice in knowing what you've got left,
and love it

I listen to new bands
that sound the same but
sing different words
so I know I'm still hearing
what I want to, just in different ways
I still need that security,
I need to feel safe
but I can't do that when I picture you listening with me
so I listen to new bands
that won't make it big
because they sound like everyone else
and anyone who listens feels the same
they only want familiarity and to feel safe

if the first real heartbreak is the worst
does that mean that the first love will always be
the one worth hurting over?
will they never be better?
will I love him forever?

I still try to replicate
that tingle in my skin
I got each and every time we'd kiss
and how I never, ever felt it with another
and now I'm scared I simply can't
and that you ****** the magic right out of my lips
and that every man now will live in a shadow
of something that no longer exists
and it scares me, still
after all this time,
to want you back
to call you mine

never meant to feel this way
though I knew this day would come
it looked like cookie dough and fuzzy socks
not bleeding knuckles or holes in walls
bed ridden for weeks and dehydrated veins
i never meant to feel this way
i never thought love could hurt this bad
especially after the superpowers i once had

how many men
do i have to fill myself up with
before i am able
to get the feeling of you
out of my chest

I zone out sometimes and in the back of my mind
I can still hear your whispers that sent chills up my spine
and though they're three years old I hear them boldly,
quiet hushes play louder than music I turn up all the way
so that no one can hear me screaming about how it's been a year
and I have not healed yet
sometimes I wonder if I ever will or
if this is what I am ****** to forever,
I asked god once if he was real simply because
I could not feel anything for days,
I searched frantically in cigarette boxes
for cement feelings gone and lost,
I found ***** change and pocket lint, but
not love, nor pain and I thought
only he could take that away
but it went and came
in viscious waves
that drag me in and
tides that drown me in memories
I forgot how to swim for survival when I spent years
with my head barely at the surface just to catch my breath
I tried to leave behind last spring in hallways of buildings
marked "condemned" now
and I asked him what it meant, God,
to not believe in him but to want to
because someone had to be at blame for this pit in my chest
I tried to map it out by pinpointing stars that mimicked sharp jolts
on my heart but I only connected old words you said
into sentences that still eat away at my brain in my head
and I wonder what the **** I did to deserve this
unbearable rememberance
for someone who forgot me well before they even left

you said alright
when I said I was leaving
and I should have known there
to pack my bags and stop treating it
like some well-written romance novel,
because your care was fleeting the first time
you saw who I really was and I forgot what it was
to trust someone with absolutely everything
because when you left I had absolutely nothing

another time
you told me i was the reason
you didn't want to live
and i haven't felt
another way
other than pain
since

****** in the back of
my friend's dad's car
on a february night
after three **** packs
A dozen fake laughs
Mild smiles that seemed convincing
and I still don't feel a thing
except for your words
from years ago cutting into my spine


I'm tired

one time
in your best friend's basement
you told me that you never wanted to love anyone the
way you loved me
and I haven't heard a word
the same way
from anyone
since

numb to pain
and what a sweet freedom she is-
liberation from sinful, teenage lust
broken from chains
that once held me to mountains
i climbed to prove my love

but i don't know her anymore,
i can't feel her anymore,
she left last year in a panic and
i remember watching her eyes fade
that time i told her i could hold her hand forever
love was scared to stay
and so i blocked her out
one brick more every time she left and came back


and now i see her on the street
everywhere, in new towns and old
but the world does not warm up when i spot her
i don't feel flutters in my stomach and
the sun does not shine brighter as she walks by
i simply smile to be polite
i don't know her anymore


numb to pain,
how lovely a skill
to detatch from everything you once loved
at the snap of a finger
and to watch the repurcussions crush worlds
without batting an eye- how graced to know pain enough to beat her
how lovely a skill
until you wish you could just feel something
anything, at least once more

I ran out of things to write about the same day I ran out of almond milk, and I thought, well man, now I'm ******.
My cereal was dry and my hands were shaking as I tried to put into words how you made me feel dead for three years but how I thought that was living. My cereal was dry and I tried to make sense of all the ways you stole from my bounty and painted me as a thief. My cereal was dry and I still blamed myself for you leaving.

People ask me what went wrong,
And I can't tell them because I don't know.
One day I was crying because you weren't next to me, the day before you told me I was the reason you were falling apart so I spent 6 months trying to put you back together and the last three sitting in my kitchen eating lucky charms out of the box with my hands and trying to piece back together what you left, my cereal was dry and I still don't know quite where we went wrong. But oh,god am I sick of answering when people ask if you ever hit me.

You didn't have to.
Your condescending attitude left bruises I still ice on nights when I wish you had hit me instead. At least those wounds heal and don't resurface every time I hear one of the thousands of songs we listened to in three years.

I lost my whole music library when I lost you and someone once told me that the love of your life comes after the mistake of your life but never told me how to heal from the former or what to do when you realize they never had to.

My cereal was dry and I've been sitting here for 10 months now wondering what to say to people when they ask what happened. I didn't know back then and I fear I never will. My cereal is dry and I'm just sitting still.