Every woman I have ever spoken to of love describes it as a masterpiece,

a finished project,

something that if you work hard enough you can achieve alone.

I never understood this, doesn’t it take two?



When I was young the bed time tales my mother would read described the women as soft, something to be

touched gently

The men, always so brave, fighting against dragons and demons, but could touch porcelain skin without leaving a mark

I never understood this, doesn’t love leave a bruise?



When my mother fell in love with another man

she said he touched her like she was stamped “fragile” in red letters

he talked to her in a way so as never to belittle or blacken her

I never understood this, this was not how my father loved her



So, maybe this is why when I dream of love

I dream of being thrown against the wall, shattered into pieces so small I could lodge in his skin without him knowing

when he tries to touch me like something that may break,

I have already broken,

of words that leave marks so strangers can see that I am taken



Love isn’t a masterpiece, it is a work in progress and my canvas has been repainted 9 times, with only a few lasting more than a night

It is never a finished project, nor a porcelain doll, it is

a work in progress, a barbie missing an arm

It isn’t something perfect,

It is something that if you are lucky, in the end will leave you glued back together

how to get over someone that was never yours to love:

step one: remember everything, savor every moment
remember the time you went long boarding and you crashed, breaking your ankle and he offered to carry you the rest of the way home.
remember the time he told you he loved you but you were out of his league (you should have disagreed)
remember when he let you cry on his lap when his best friend told you he hated you.
remember everything

step two: hate them,
hate what they wear and how their shirt hangs loosely over honey comb colored skin
hate who they talk to when they are consumed in a conversation
hate their smile and eyes and lips and finger because they are the parts of them you loved most

step three:  cry your heart out,
dry out your tear ducts until all that falls is ash and dust,
drink until your blood turns to alcohol,
drunk dial him a few time and tell him exactly what's on your mind
finally tell them you love them because maybe you don't know it but they may love you too

My heart has shattered like a piece of glass
Fragments lodging themselves in my rib cage
With every move I make I feel the shards threatening to cut deeper
There are moments when I like the pain because it makes me feel alive

And I am starting to think that maybe I am to blame for breaking my own heart by hanging onto the what could have beens

Because, my love, I could never blame you even if I so badly wanted to

And if you try to puzzle piece us back together one day, be careful not to cut yourself on this glass heart

I am sorry I dug this grave between us

I never meant to

I lost myself somewhere in between the thin white lines on the table
Constantly chasing the high of feeling something

And maybe you don’t get it
And maybe you will never understand

But now
I see

I have ****** up in total

and I pray to god that you will be happy

Even if it's without me

He looks so out of place curled alphabet pajamas against pale blue cotton sheets
Leaving me intravenous tube tongue tied
Wishing it was my veins the poisons were running through
Cause this green eyed baby doesn’t know the opposite of life yet

Shattered glass whispers from the hall slingshot my heart into my throat
At six this reality should be as far away as Pluto
This word that consumes life
It should be tucked away in the closet behind any monster that lingers there when the lights are off

He isn’t ready for the liquid filled lungs to take over and steal his breath
He doesn’t yet know any synonyms for love or how you feel invincible in the arms of the right person
He doesn’t yet know the imperfections that fill the world
He still believes in the magic that spills out of his favorite books
And still trusts without question
He hasn’t had time to grow into the person he was meant to be

I am not one to believe but lately I am thinking that
Whoever fills the sky
Please
Let it be my lungs
Let it be anyone but him

Fly over me phoenix
fly
love me tulip
let me grow through the dirt and soil my petals
reaching my buds to the sky
offering my leaves to grow

sun warm me
warm me
call my name
feed me with your rays
and fill me with your light

my nightmares are full of disappearances
and lately I have been losing myself

I wake up gripping for any remnant of who I was
only to roll over and find you white knuckle gripping the girl I really am

straddling the fine line of past and present under a seamlessly perfect blue sky I was hit breathless with the thought of existing

ever since I began trying to comprehend the fact of human existence
my world has gotten fuzzy
right has become left and my brain has been set on fire

my nightmares are full of disappearances
and the first the to go was me

wanting death is a poison
it takes over selfishly  
the slow seduction of the devil
the encroaching madness of the clown at the carnival
a stampede of stallions running straight at you
and snow whites situation doesn't sound that bad

leaves become razor blades hanging off of brittle branches
laughter becomes nails on a chalk board screeching into your ears
the wind bites and slices you to pieces
and no matter how fast you run hell is at your heels

wanting death is a poison
it takes over selfishly
but all of us in here want it
all of us in here are selfish
pinning for the first dance with the devil
for the first sip of poison

the woman in the bed next to me hears voices
the cackling of the clowns in her face
she tries to sleep and in her dreams she's running towards death

the russian woman in the 34A is screaming for someone to help her
but help her from what?
no one knows
she is pulling her maine of hair out
which was once so pretty when she was a young lady

the boy in the bathroom is trying to throw up lunch like purging will make him more of a person
now he asks me for a breath mint pretending like it's our secret
the next day he took a bite of the poisons apple hoping prince charming will find him one day

I kept begging to turn back time because i didn't belong here
but when I found a girl who's scars matched mine we told stories of the devil's diseased trees
and how laughter become painful noise

we talked of how the wind began to hurt and whisper to us
it would tell us that the only way to escape was to pick the leaves off the trees in the forest of hell

she made me realize death wasn't what i was running from
she made me realize that hell may be at my heels but it doesn't mean that i have to keep running
she made me realize that if i want to i can turn around and look the devil in the eyes and say
you won't be the end of me

Here I am
Exactly where I belong
It took many changes, trials and tribulations to get here, but look
everyone
I made it

I made it

maybe not to my peak
because no doubt I am still climbing
and I will keep on until I reach that peak
At the top of the mountain
I imagine the air is clear
deep breaths come naturally
and the sun is rising.

he wears cowboy boots to bed
and says "yes ma'am" like sweet tea pouring from his sunburnt lips
once we went up to the lake hitched our horses and went skinny dipping and he left his hat on

he removes his hat as a sign of respect
he holds a hand over his heart for the friends he left behind
he taught me to ride like my soul was being set free from that castle walls that were built

he two stepped with my mamma
when the music rang out through the grass
but that didn't make up for the time I was late for dinner because we couldn't pull our eyes from the stars

he shook hands with my father over burgers on the grill
high fived my little brother and called me baby
but that didn't make up for the time that we drove out the canyon and danced our way to the top of a mountain with no reception
we danced and swayed and stayed until the moon called me home

He wears his hiking boots to bed
and feels at home in the pines
he feels his heart hurting as he looks across the glacial lake thinking that this is the only place to be

he dips his feet into the river
and casts his line with the grace of a dancer
he calls to the fish to offer themselves
handing me the rod when one takes the bait

he starts a fire and breathes in the smoke
sets up his tent and bows to the wind that whistles his favorite song

he pulls me towards him
and we ponder the stars
where we came from and where we are going

this is it
this is him
this is us
and this is our forever

Hey babe.. Or maybe hey stranger is more applicable..
Because there is a lot of room for change in 619 days..
And enough time for a life where “you and I” existed to become past tense leaving two
individuals tied together by nothing but fragile strings of memories that will inevitably fade
enough to be painted over by a brighter color
Anyway,
I woke up last night gasping for air
Reaching for the ghost of you
Choking on the memory of how you made me feel whole
Sometimes I find myself wishing I had stayed home that night
Begging my brain to forget the first time I saw your smile
Or how your lips moved when you called me by the wrong name
My name you have since said thousands of ways and perfected in every tone
But I can't forget
I can't let go of the little things like how the freckles that pepper your shoulders get darker in the
summer
Or the story behind every scar
One night you traced a map to our future across my skin with black ink claiming there would be
no end
But the marker wasnt permanent
Eventually washing away
leaving me lost
screaming pleas of take me backs
Trying to retrace my steps
Waiting on something that has already disappeared

You left a hickey on my neck- claiming that it was your way of telling every other glancing boy that I was yours
But you never wanted to get ash on your clothes from my fallout and it just kept coming
you said you loved me like a friend but ****** me like the enemy and now I find myself hating Thursdays because watching you drive away from me in the lightening storm made me hate myself even more
In an instant I had become everything I told myself I would not

Did you get my letters?
I wrote to you every night
yet maybe I never sent them
I have been tired and uninspired by this atmosphere without you
All I want is home
and the only place I can have found that is nestled in your sternum
So please come back
I'm homesick

Years ago,
I wrote a poem
warning to "never make a home of a human"

Today,
I find myself a hypocrite
eating my own advice and swallowing it whole

I made a home of you
only to realize it was constructed of straw
and all it took was one huff and one puff from you to blow the whole thing to the ******* ground

Honey, you said
I hope this kills me
not at a slow dance pace
but quickly

Honey, you said
I hope this kills you
not at a slow dance of a pace
but quickly

just tell me...

how do you plan a life with someone
and then one day
act like they don't exist?

i still remember meeting eyes across the bar
i remember the first time we kissed
the day you cleared out your closet to make room for me

and honestly
i hope she notices how you twitch right before you fall asleep
i hope she knows your favorite food
and your pet peeves

i just hope you are happy

but it kills me that it's not with me

I'm calling from every cavern trying to hear myself louder
to make me believe that it's over

I don't want me right now
so how am I supposed to want you

When I was 10 my mother told me that men are from mars and women are from venus.

The next year in science I told my teacher he was wrong when he told us where we all came from,

defending the words I had grown up hearing.

So when my first boyfriend asked to kiss me I simply said we were too far away,

that it would take him light years to reach me.

He turned the other cheek and found that men from his planet were more his type..

It’s been nine years and the only men who have entered me have already traveled here for someone else,

leaving me waiting for the next spaceship to land.

You looked at me like I held your world upon my chest
And god did I want to be strong enough to carry it through this life
But I wasn't
So slowly continent by continent I handed it back to you
Hesitantly you took it
Tucking it away
Waiting for someone else to come along and piece it back together

It hurt.
the way you left
gritted teeth in a silent mouth

it hurt,
walking out those doors
mascara like waterfalls down my cheeks

it hurt.
telling me you wouldn't be home
left wondering if your with her

it hurt.
the way you left
it hurt

Ignore the trembling body that lay before you

Try to forget the sight of her sliver fingers curling around the reapers gift
remember how they caressed your hair last season when the sky was as pale as the skin between her thighs, an oasis that you knew all too well

Don't watch her growing ever smaller, the flesh you once drew your tongue over disintegrating

Finish your joint and turn the other way

You asked me if I was okay.
Not really wanting to know the answer. It was more of a
prerequisite to getting me to your bed.
Watch out.
Caring can be a sign of weakness, a sweet spot to the whole **** building collapsing
Boy, can’t you see how weak you are?
You break bones like twigs, sitting awake at 2 a.m. drunk and alone pretending to enjoy yourself
When it takes all of your courage to face the darkness
And I am darkness, no wonder you could never face me sober
I have been here for far too long, looking for an end,
But all I keep coming up with is a map of this maze I can’t find my way out of. Instead, I find my way to you. Join me,
I will try and save you
But my lips never held enough alcohol for intoxication, never enough to get your next fix
Hurling crushed cans out windows, you created birds out of bubbles and hops
And other **** that made you look like the child that jumped out of the tree thinking he would fly and realizing he couldn’t, and
I wanted to make you fly
You found out and tied boulders around your ankles, willing me to try harder. And I did. Everyday. Until I got dizzy eventually and I will never be strong enough pathetic boy, nor you will ever be brave enough to handle a being like me
In the end the sweet spot gave and the whole **** bridge came down
I gave up on boulders and flying and began to swim
I sure had had enough practice breathing underwater
This time I left you to drown

-KZ

I shouldn't write this
because you might read it

but these words that are threatening to spill from my mouth will be spilled from my fingers instead

and you will be mad that a bunch of strangers are reading this

but

one night you stumbled in drunk telling me i was the only one you wanted to fall asleep next to

this was said after you told me you were tired of me

after you told me I disgusted you

so please make up your mind

I am 21 and i watch as
his hair curls slightly as he combs his fingers through it
he buttons the last button on his shirt and all i can think of is teeth
and how one by one i could so easily undo them and reveal a canvas of  tanned smooth skin

I should have kissed him there

I am 19 and sleep has become an option since the night he told me i was the only one he wanted
i replied with the timing isn't right but told him i loved him anyway

I should have kissed him there

I am 18 and timing is a *****

I should have kissed him there

I am 16 and I thought that there was only one person i could love and it wasn't him
it was his best friend

I should have kissed him there

I am 15 and he is the only one who gets me
he is my best friend

but now he isn't mine to have

I am 21 and
i should have kissed him there

Running towards a freight train headed at full speed towards nowhere is the equivalent of loving a girl with bipolar

It seemed like an adrenaline rush until the impact

My manias go like this;

I love you more than that couch cushion loves your ***

more than that fist loved his face,

more than sense.

because manias don’t make sense.

My depressions went like this;

black was the brightest color I could see yet

I still needed sunglasses to make eye contact with the reaper

It went like this;

last night I tried eating spiders to give myself an excuse to feel afraid of myself

you held me up until my legs atrophied and there was no point anymore

loving a girl with bipolar a game ending in

manic darkness

Darling,

what they say isn't true

the heartache never fades

the sound of her voice will ring in your ears

the scent of her skin will send shivers down your spine

and the touch of her hand will forever stay on your shoulder

try and find peace in these moments

you may not be able to pull her into your embrace

but take solace in the time you had

close your eyes

whisper her name

I wish I could tell you that it fades

but this heartache will never go away

lean on me darling

and whisper her name

I want your last breath
before the unknown of sleep brings your world to a halt
before the nothing of your world is consuming
unapproachable
unimaginable by anyone but you

I want your body
before you give it away to the sandman
before you becoming heavy with relief from a long day

I want your touch just one last time
burning embers against my skin

take me away with you
give me your love
give me your heart
give me all of you

We were ***** laundry
but the kind you let sit in the washer too long after its done
so you have to wash it again...

That was our cycle.
Gentle .
Then regular.
Then just spin.
But washing clothes too many times, you know, wears them out, love.

And I didn't want to be worn out, love.
But holes began to appear and the colors begin to fade
black became grey
white became yellowish
you became the someone you never wanted to be.

The rice is boiling over in the kitchen
and I begin to stare
find the beauty in the white foam falling over the brim
like soldiers in line where they were not supposed to go.

The hiss and silence as heat collides with hotter
and you became the person you never wanted to be.

You know me naked
you know me invisible
you know me undone.

And what happened to that?

know me still
just try
know me still, love

But now I don't know you
your inside out of what you used to be
your upside down of what is coming
you became the person you never wanted to be
or maybe one that I never wanted you to be..
And maybe in time, we will see..

This is what I have learned so far.
1. Home is a burning frying pan with what was supposed to be your breakfast charred and long forgotten because he tastes better than anything you could ever dream of cooking.
2. Love doesn’t live here, love doesn’t live anywhere, she lurks around corners and tucks herself up in the filter of your coffee maker at 5 in the morning.
3. It is okay to be broken, in fact, it is beautiful, never settle for someone who doesn’t see that.
4. If he is kissing other girls, let him go.
5. let him go
6. I still have so much more to learn, but if I have learned to free myself of you, for now, that is enough

Let me in
I have been standing in the lonely for far
too long. My shoes have wasted away and
my skin has wither, flower petal to my bone
rooted tree trunk to this spot outside of your world unfolding in the shadows
a tree branch on your window tracing
silhouette shapes beneath your covers
burn me up to be soot in your lungs
what a beautiful resting place for all of the terrors
that are to come

The fact that he only made you more lonely should have been a clue,
sweetheart.

Stop trying to configure yourself with someone else's body parts,
they won't fit right

leaving you with a phantom limb here
a vestigial ***** there.

You thought it was love because he paid for your meal
and called back when you slammed the phone down,
but this was just because he was even lonelier than you.

He has only ever loved one girl
the last time he saw her she was holding a gun to herself
appointing herself the victim.

She was a tragedy of the most catastrophic kind
and he wasn't ready to be a refugee just yet,
but he let you shelter him.

You became the glaring neon sign, flashing "loneliness"

You took the bait, and he kept reeling in the line,
but was disappointed with what he found at the end.

look into my eyes
let the hurricane world fall away
touch my skin
kissed by a sunlit sky
feel my soul
blanketed in stars

Maybe my fault was loving you too much
because, darling, you are such a beautiful human
and our souls will forever be intertwined
but if you must go for now, i understand
just know, on the other side i will be waiting

I have become a maelstrom
ripping down sheltered memories
shifting plates
and drowning secrets in my wake
so, I will start to keep company with myself
go back
spell check the dyslexic scribbles of full feelings
to make the story new
the prologue has to change
contradict my appetite
I am no longer hungry
for you
though I am hungry for
new
I have a way of ******* things up in total
but what if I **** up in pieces
put them together and the story will be whole
I will rebuild the house
rearrange the plates
the ground will stop shaking
and I will leave you in my wake

waves are crashing and in them is me
flames are burning and in them is me
wind is howling and in it is me
the earth is turning and in it is me

one day you will regret watching her walk away
you will remember her as the girl who loved you into oblivion
who withered herself away in the hopes that it would make you stay

one day the memory of her hips will begin to gnaw at your heart
the bitter cold bedsheets will eat at your bones

you will think of her when you wake in the middle of the night
because her memory has become your nightmare

I have screamed her name from the top of this mountain so many times that the echo starts calling back before the one syllable love song leaves my lips


and the shale knows the tangy stick of my blood and sweat as they drip from the tip of my tongue colliding after a five foot free fall, and this is how I make a statement

nobody tells you what it feels like to move on
they don’t tell you that the first time you kiss another boy your body will become electric
that your heart will threaten your rib cage
that your life will feel likes everything is starting and ending all at once

Genes
every one is a gamble
what makes a human who they are
and the terrifying part is so much is still in question

what we will become is unknown
percentages, chances,
the odds are a gamble

and as I watch you
i cant help but pray to god the odds are in my favor

this mutation has taken over your body
shedding pound after pound
each nerve stressed to its limit
each muscle begging to give in

fingers curled and toothpick legs fighting to find their footing
a brain that is losing memories faster than they were created

the body will only endure this kind of pain for so long

and as i watch you
i cant help but pray to god the odds are in my favor

my dear
do not fall for the broken ones
i know what it's like to crave being needed
but just because they are broken doesn't mean you can fix them

my dear
never blame timing
i strongly believe that everything happens when it happens for a reason

my dear
love at first sight is real
however that doesn't mean it will last forever

my dear
let the world bruise you
let it tear you apart
this is the only way to learn that you can heal from anything

my dear
there is no beauty in being damaged
there is beauty in surviving
there is respect in surviving
and there is art in surviving

my dear
never try and fill the void you feel with another's body
this will only make it bigger

my dear
we tend to break our own hearts
loving others too much and ourselves too little


my dear
you have to accept that some people will stay in your heart and on your mind endlessly
but i promise it won't hurt forever

i never thought hands could be so beautiful
calloused and strong
glazing over my skin
you told me no girl has ever wanted to hold them
and i think when there are so many fragile things in the world
hands like that are a novelty
hold my heart in them
tame its beating
show it the value of being touched

Life hit hard that day
I realized you were gone
The pit in my stomach threatening to force it's way out

I miss you

I hear you everyday
I feel you under my skin
I dream of you

And then the harsh reality awakens with me
You are never coming home

you can't just be replaced
i cannot super glue this splintered house of my heart back together
i refuse to let your cheshire cat smile fade from my memory
because i left a little bit of home in you
right between the forest of your eyebrows
when everyone warned me to never make a home of a human

it is said that in the seconds leading to death life flashes before your eyes
but mine didn't

it is said that this disease is a silent killer
but I have never heard a din so loud as the chemicals consume my brain

it is said that 24% of people relapse within the first year

I was a statistic

I wasn't strong enough

but this time
I will not be a statistic
because I am not who I was