the heaven
we created
soon became
a hell
we each
in turn
attempted
and each
failed
to escape.

I wish that the first time I spoke to you,
I had one hand wrapped around the leather strap
tethered to my dog's collar,
instead of leaving her home to worry
and allowing my hands the
freedom to tear myself apart in
front of you
because finally tearing myself down
felt like a wonderful thing to do.

I wish I'd had her with me
because she has always been
the one more likely to trust her gut
and warn people like you to stay away.

I wish I'd had her with me,
because I know that she would not
have let you take a single step towards me
even if I wanted to let you close.

I still remember the way you would
sweat nervously
at the thought of my hanging around with
my friends who did not like you.
If you were so worried about them,
I am sure you would have been all the more
terrified of her.
Not because she would bite you,
not because she is dangerous.
But because she is not fooled as easily as me.
She would have sensed the danger,
pulling me farther away
than was comfortable for you to imagine.

I say this not to be cruel,
but rather to speak out loud
a thought which has
fluttered through my mind all day,
the corners of my lips curved
in my own quiet amusement.

My dog wouldn't have liked you very much.

So many instances
I fight the urge
I bite my tongue, my
lips, the words that
threaten to
spill out if I'm not too
careful, if I'm not
paying
attention.
I love you, I say.
I mean come here.
My heart beat quickens,
pulse erratic.
I love you, I say.
I mean don't go.
I love you, I say.
I mean, please be different.
I love you, I say.
I mean, I need you to
tell me again the
words you whispered so
that I am not convinced it's
in my head.
I love you, I say
never out loud.
Each draft my heart writes I will
toss
in the garbage because the
next time I say I
love you,
I don't want to mean I
hope you don't go.
The next time I say I
love you,
I want to mean it.

All my exes know about you
because in severing
myself from them
they only heard me
cry out
your name.

Everyone I have ever loved
and will ever come to love
will sit with me at a
table set for three
and always wonder
whose company
I was expecting.

When I run the next two
relationships to the ground
I will tell myself it didn’t work
because they were not the one
for me.

Still then, I will beg myself
to stop looking in all the
wrong places
just to prove
love is not meant for me.

How many times can you look for
sea turtles in swimming pools and
belonging in half-hearted promises?


How many homes will you build out of paper
yet spend the night gathering every
scream lodged in your throat
to build you the boat you will
escape with in the middle of the night?

How many times will you say
it didn’t work because we weren’t right
for one another?

Didn’t your mother tell you
if you want to find what you are missing
you must not search with your eyes shut?
Eyelids crinkled,
palms shielding you
from every crack of light
begging to be seen.

You will blame the world
before you find fault
with who you keep for company.

You cannot blame
the darkness—
he is the only one
you ever let in.

You told me later
you knew it was over
when I stopped
calling to say goodnight.

On the last day,
you used
every desperate attempt
to frighten me
into staying.

Outside is a cold world,
you would tell me.
but here, you would keep me
safe.

I would have believed you
If not for the chills
shaking my bones awake
reminding me
of the window I
still kept propped open,
prompting escape.

I know someday
I will  have to
answer to my heart
for my mind’s refusal
to trust another,
but not today.

breathe, he tells me to breathe.
his features transform.
kindness dissipates,
darkness remains.
instinct screams not to trust,
not to reason.

i reach for the door,
he slams it shut.
i ache to scream, cry, run.
anything but to stay,
to feel the pressure of that moment.
but i am not allowed.

funny-- i know my place.
i am free to walk away,
free to stay.
but the consequences are what
shape my behavior,
train me,
enforce his rules.
his needs.
my mind is an echo chamber to his words.
sometimes, i do not consider
his needs, his feelings.
sometimes, i mean to hurt him
with my truth.

tell me then why i swallowed
my fears to please you,
to want this as much as i wanted to.
tell me then why i stayed
when you asked.

it would have been easier to sit still
if the caving in my chest did not
mimic cardiac arrest.
it would have been easier to behave
if the gradual onset of dread  
had not distracted me
from finding higher ground.

you had rules for me,
and i only began to understand
when i saw
that these rules
did not apply
to you.

you permitted yourself to be free
and i, weighed down by chains,
knew i was free to walk away,
but the consequences of
my character's attack
were too great a risk.
"a shame," you would say.
"i always thought you were a kind, sweet girl."
i was only the girl foolish enough to believe
it mattered what you thought.
my pride-- my Achilles heel.
you-- my muse of strained poetry.
i should have known better.

you smile,
tell me to breathe,
your fingers pressed
against my throat.
i say,
"okay
i will tear
out this throat
you sewed into my skin,
riddled with
ill-fitted vocal chords
never mine to begin with
to protect myself
from you.
i will have to learn
to speak again,
but at least
i will be the one
speaking
at all."

my only regret-- thinking i couldn't break free.
your only regret--  thinking i wouldn't.

isn't that funny?