The neon sign's piping glows cool amber
through the glass's core like an unholy
halo, drowning in the now half-empty
bottle of Miller. The liquid calls me
home, sliding down my throat, tickling my tongue.
As I see her slight figure framed by light—
dipping at the waist, my fingers begin
to trace the curves, her body full, alive.
"Picture" by Kid Rock comes on the jukebox,
while the guys knock down a last round of pool.
She sweats through a humid night in Fort Knox.
Drops sit on her neck like pretty faux pearls—

I cradle the bottle like a blue sin.
Taking another sip, I drink her in.

Sometimes I picture myself in a red prom dress,
with converse under the tulle, and glitter
covering my eyes as I nervously glance
away from your face, inches from mine,
trying not to stare at your crooked bow-tie.
Sometimes we’re jumping over the tide’s
foam, under the moonlight, licking the salt from our lips—
my saddle shoes on the dunes, your jeans rolled
above the ankle, but my curls falling loose around my face.
Sometimes we’re moving black and white photographs,
1920’s with fringe and silver canes,
and sometimes

we’re like this. Naked on your mattress,
with the ceiling fan at a standstill, sipping
stale beer from old bottles you left lonely
on the windowsill. And sometimes I know better,
but tonight I answered your call and I came over
to your lazy bones on the sunken couch,
watching the lava lamp’s goo stick to the bottom,
yet still lighting
the entire room with a neon glow.
By now, you think I would know

that I can never count on you unless it’s cheap,
and convenient, and broken, and me. It’s only
ever me, but I can’t just haphazardly
stay in the spaces of your life that need filling.
I picture us, hugely, with a white house,
blue shutters, little kids building towers on the porch
just to knock them down.
The whole bit, picture it! But all
you ever see me as is figure
that you can reach if you squint hard enough—
a mirage that you like to believe
only you will ever hold.

Funny, how sometimes butterflies
skip over your skin without ever landing,
how basketballs spin
around the rim without swishing,
or how things never seem to work out.
I’ve been wishing

for moments of high tide, gravitational
moons that would draw me to you,
in the middle of May on Coney Island.
I want you to pull my pigtails like it’s preschool.
I want to bleed neon, shout pop tunes
to accompany my words that sound like
a poem we all had to learn
to recite from memory.

Funny, how we store meat behind our popsicles
in the freezer, how we tear up things
before we throw them away,
or how defeated we feel when we wake up
to zero new messages.
I’ve been reaching

for the plug in the drain,
sipping champagne,
hearing your name,

when all I really want is lunchboxes,
the kind your mom leaves notes in.
I want to beat you in four square,
color on my Converse, catch crayfish
in the creek behind your house.

Funny, how we tone down our souls
to fit the mold, or interview each other
based on pieces of paper when we are
alive, and breathing, and it’s funny
how we save money for next time,
plan for tomorrow before we’re done with today,
count our accomplishments before our scars.

Funny, how all we ever wanted
was to finally be exactly where we are.

Your tears on my shoulder sleeve, your footsteps
pacing in the kitchen where I know
you’re making a cheese sandwich underneath
the refrigerator light, and cussing to yourself
because you forgot to buy mayonnaise at the store.
Your makeup, your purse, the thousand receipts
in your glove compartment where I know
you stash a carton of Marlboro cigarettes
to indulge yourself in during afternoon traffic,
while blaring James Blunt from an old acrylic CD.
Your mornings, your coffee creamer, your head.
Please, come back to bed.

I’ve watched you balance jelly beans with boulders,
gorgeous dresses with your sweats, and your idea of love
with everything your mother has ever said. I know,
by the way you tense your arms around my rib cage
or how your toes curl against my shin, that your nightmares
are only apparitions of childlike separation. Your fears

clarify moments like this, my hand tucking hair behind your ear
while kisses trail your collarbone like a dotted line
you dare not sign. You see a reflection of damage in my eyes.
Your bags, your memory, the rain that gathers in speckles
on your windshield every day. I’ve tried to lighten
the black in your life, but things have scratched at your soul
and now it’s dead. Please, baby, come back to bed.

I’m so exhausted and burned right to the fingertip,
blistering, painfully, every time we dare to touch.
You’ve worn me down, dragged me through
your loops of excuses and confessions and please,
try to understand, I never meant to hurt—
Yeah. I know. I said it’s alright.
But it was never alright to show up drunk
on a dinner date while I spent hours
on my make-up and you forgot to brush your teeth.
I’m so tired, baby. Have you ever had to look at yourself
in the public bathroom mirror, choking
on every tear and all the things you know
you should say, but don’t because you just want to be loved
at the end of everyday? Have you ever spit your emotions,
literally, into the sink, watching them swirl down the drain?
And have you ever had to tell yourself that you deserve this?
That this park bench is a coffin and you’ve killed yourself again.
That maybe, this actually is alright, because there’s things like
second chances, karma, wishing stars, and a bright side.
I’ve been here, not exactly, but in different ways that still felt
like I couldn’t breath right if you were here but I would die
if you were to leave. So I pulled my sweater sleeves over my hands,
sniffled while you weren’t listening, and laughed when you tickled
my ribs. Because this isn’t so bad. It could be worse. It’s alright.
I think I’ll have an iced tea.

The ***** of my eyelids fall,
delicately dripping onto my cheekbones,
powdered, ripe with a pink flush,
matching the creamy pigment I smooth
between my lips before a cacophony
of laughter runs up my throat and out
my mouth. My lashes, black, have been curled
neatly in a spiral that follows my green irises,
my gaze landing on your hands—
but that’s not it.

Just know, I am more than a pretty face.
I am more than the picture you have in your head
of the clothes peeling off my body
like a cocoon—watch me morph—
in the dead of your blackness, calling sweetness
to the surface. I am more than this exaltation.
I am more than the late night phone calls
or the kisses on your cheek.
I am in the breath you lost when I smiled, and I

am in the scratches on your back, the fickle
end of the lock you latched. I am in the noise
that fuzzes in your head, the empty space
haunting you in your bed. I am more
than what you expected—
but that’s not it.

I am also the beat behind these words, the puddle
that gathers from the spill on the floor. I am the mind
that molds. I am the truth that finds. I am the beginning
of every bitter end. I am more than a pretty face.
I am the exhale at the end of the race. Here I am.
I am the kind of hurt that’s still sore, and one day
I am going to be so much more.

I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
The sirens rang, red flag tear ducts, and I
was just waiting for the bomb to drop.
I felt it, in my gut as they say,
like a paperweight, and choked
on all the tears before I even knew
they were coming. Here’s the thing—
you asked me. The rest spoke for itself.

The dress, the earrings, the phone call, the couch,
your gym shorts, glasses, and answering machine.

But we went to dinner, and you called me beautiful.
You threw croutons over the table, made me laugh,
let me hold your hand while they brought my iced tea.
I even found myself picturing you next to me.
I spread my palms, open, but I didn’t ask for a thing.
Yet, you kept defending yourself, explaining everything,
and I just wanted you to pay for the two of us to eat.

Your face is all that I see. Then why, why do I find myself
time after time again in these situations
where I keep plugging myself into equations
that obviously aren’t meant to be? You’re so sweet.
But if you searched through the crowd,
I’m not sure you’d want to find me.

I should have left you on the couch. Honestly,
I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
But I kissed you a million little times,
let your tongue explore my silent confessions,
willed you to find yourself
through the spaces of my mouth.
I should have just left you on the couch.

You’ve dammned yourself to hell,
crawled weakly back, back, back—
you knew where to find me.

I know, because I’ve dealt massiveley
with the way you’d hold me backwards
upon a plateau of lies that smell like liquor,
like liptstick, and like twisted lullabies.
No one should have to fall asleep at night
to an I told you so or the just let me go to sleep.
I know, because I’ve been hit without being touched.
I’ve catapulted through your dense disguise,
getting stuck in the aftermath, losing
myself in a realm of make-believe promises
to keep—
*******. Just keep yourself away from me!
I know, because I’ve loved you.
And maybe not in the cause and effect wedding band way,
but the kind where I was immersed, evolved into madness
from your lips on my lips or your hands on my hips.
I know, I know that you’re upset
with who you’ve finally become, because I know you.
Terribly enough, I know you.

So when the white blankets you slow with silence,
an invisible massacre, I’ll know—
I’ll know because I’ve almost been there—
that my face turned soft with glow
will guide you home
because I’m the only real thing you’ve ever known.

You better kiss me,
your mouth parted and lips
wrecking into the vagabond breath
that escapes from the center of what
I've been talking, and talking, and talking about
all the while you're trying to just shut me up.
So you better kiss me, kiss me
with your hands below my hips
pushing the skin from my bones
and pulling the sins from my mouth
just to spread them on our bodies.
We collide, half-inspired and arching
my back with your hands cupping the dimples
above my tailbone, jumping over my vertebrates,
reaching for my neck to press yourself, harder,
into me. Lights out, sheets to the end of the bed,
I sigh into your ears, XO. Again, and again, and again
gently until I'm bruised and ripened, soft,
pulsing on the verge, releasing our glow
crashing into you, kiss me, kiss me
you better kiss me.

Reconciliation shots,
Grey Goose and Ciroc,
pouring one by one in chipped glasses
on your microwave with the door locked.
Shabba remix on the stereo,
your cotton boxers and my lace underwear
contrasting in the ****** overhead light.
I pursed my lips after the first,
you slapped my *** and said
Don't be a *****! Take it!
without a chaser and without
hesitation you once again
pushed me fearlessly into fate
like all the times before,
when I'd wake up from a graphic nightmare
with resonating touch and hallucinations
from an LSD-like perspective
and you'd hold my head into the crescent
of your neck and tickle my spine
like an instrument
just long enough to calm me into sleep again.
Or when I didn't want to go to that party,
or I was afraid to give that presentation
or I lost all ambition due to past lost confidence.

You kicked the back of my knees so I'd fall
straight into uncertainty,
but that doesn't mean my fragility
has been numbed by your persona.
You're standing in your dress clothes,
but I'm the one fixing your tie.
You get an A+ on the paper,
but I'm the one telling you what to write.
You're the one upset,
but I'm the one who ends up hurt.

So we take our clothes off and apologize
for being whatever we were that day
with reconciliation shots,
cheap Grey Goose and ****** Ciroc.

I’ve found religion in your smile.
Trusted the way it curves, practicing
the lines in my mind with delicacy,
ripening your image until it’s sore.
Your throat baptizes me,
replaces the devil of my intentions
with sweet, rosy breath,
curling my inhibitions until they dive
back into me and I express my very desires
openly on a blanket--
and it’s no sin
because I love the way your spine stands
like a perfect cross, carrying me
to the vision you have of a better me
than what I used to be.
I’ve prayed for your thighs in naughty ways,
but you’ve taken my hands,
folded them into shapes I can’t comprehend
and kissed my fingertips until I was crying
out of confusion and catharsis,
finally understanding what it feels like to count
people, you, as a blessing.
I see God when you make instruments
out of blades of grass, or how that strap
slides off your shoulders when the wind
graces the moment with a whisper.
He gave me an angel disguised as a woman
with too many pillows on her bed and coffee breath,
but you pull me from point to point like taffy,
slowly, lagging, molding me into the gift
you never wished for. I, bestowed at His feet,
unwilling found a soul and a heartbeat
louder than any of my unforgiving words.

Sometimes it was as if she sipped chlorine
from little bottle caps with yellow nails,
tilting her skeletal neck back,
balancing it on a vertebrae that popped
through the top of her pastel blouse.
Really though, she ate media on sandwich bread;
believed anything in bold with twin quotations.
She was a hint of a woman, blue eyes. Translucent,
fair, a suggestion haunted by her own demons
that she dreampt about after I stayed up, waiting
for the sleeping pills to kick
in. After the baby came she obsessed
over her thickness, was confused and destroyed
as she called it by the miracle I laid in the crib
every night. Old photographs weren’t memories,
just reminders of how she used to look.
She would scream, explode with frustration,
when the baby wouldn’t stop crying, begged
Why doesn’t she like me? But it’s hard to hold
onto a ghost, sweetie. So she swore,
and she swore that tomorrow would be better,
she would get better. But I know
that once again I’ll make her a breakfast she’ll never eat,
rock the baby back to sleep,
and loop myself around another sunrise
just to feel warm again.

I know about the necklace.
How you re-gifted a leftover reject present
from a buddy who mentioned it the day before,
and I know about Lyndsey and the book of YOUR
favorite poems you bought for ME. I know you call me baby,
but I also know that I’m not the only one.
You demanded a certain elegance
that I always thought I carried, but really
I was just a bag of apologies
for simply existing in the same space that you were.
You know the night that I got drunk on cranberry and *****,
called you twice, and cried into a box of homemade
chocolate chip cookies? That wasn't the first time
I sat at your chair in your sweatpants
waiting for you to return from wherever
you said you weren't. I know about what you've done.
But, of course, as you so eagerly expected,
you’ll come in with a sigh and sleek smile,
and I’ll unclothe myself as I talk about
every detail of my day even though I know
you never bother to listen. I’ll lay naked
in your bed as you cradle what you believe
is your biggest mistake, while I silently hope
that faked ignorance can mask the reality
of how beautiful I should be and how ugly
I never wanted to admit you were.

A lot can happen in for years.
I said, but you begged
You don’t think you’ll come back?
Not even for me?
Not even for you. Not even for you,
but you see this is just a ghost town
haunted by the very memory
of your wild existence,
calling a teenager after curfew to your street name,
a few skipped breaths in bed,
kid skin and little bellies
trapped by wide-spread fingers and an innocent
lust. *A lot can happen in four years.

Twenty two sounds a lot older when you’re eighteen
and beautiful, but really
we’re all just chasing cars, multiplying the distance,
confusing the circumstances and rebelling
against the plan. This place isn't how you left it.
I’m not the glass-eyed girl in your driveway
telling you I’d never change if you would just stay
within my reach. I know I missed a few calls.
I know you did, too.
But honestly, what more could we expect
from a dreamer and trailer boy with alcohol breath?
We’ve had our roles from the beginning.
We were unlucky crossing paths, supernovas
whose rubble fell together on the ground in a coded map
that only our hands could read.

You don’t think you’ll come back?
You said, but now
1,910 miles between,
I know that it’s you that won’t come back for me.

You didn't hit me, but you might as well have
because silently crying
on the other side of your turned back,
holding my breath so the sobs
would kamikaze themselves into my ribs
hurts almost as much.
And maybe I should have red-flagged
the skipped goodnight kisses,
or even made you apologize
for leaving me alone in the library,
waiting at an empty table with two red apples
because I figured you skipped dinner
but by the time you got there,
I was just a core.

But I stayed in it, and I let you **** me
in the way I thought meant I love you
even though you never said it,
and in the way that meant
I'd be alone, again, waiting for you
to deliver yet another polished excuse
and a look that swears volumes, punches me,
guilts me into solidly believing
that it's my fault after all, because
space is just as important as answering your calls,
because independence outweighs how attached
I'd became to your lust and ten cent compliments.

Now, I've become rust in my hometown,
afraid to ask because I know the answer
and bitter, frozen and bitter,
because honestly I should have known.
I just should have known.

We broke up a week ago, but
I still sleep in your bed every night
because there's a sink spot in the mattress,
your sheets smell like Old Spice,
and you hold my hand underneath the pillow
until our circulation gives, and the needles
***** our senses, pausing the blood flow
until we roll to our separate sides.
But when our hips collide,
hands playing my ribs like a harpsichord,
kissing your scruffy chin and collarbone line,
my dream begins to slip and I'm reminded again
how good it is to forget.

Coming to you is like coming home,
all washed-up and beautifully damaged.
So I draw the curtains and I turn on the fan
to lull us into another hand-painted, night design
where my lines intersect with yours,
the comforter overlapping us,
shadowing the fact that I shouldn't really be here,
but you dare not ask me to leave.

I can't drink a Miller without the taste
of a backyard, bonfire
raising and your name
only catching speed
in my throat before I gasp
too many, too late confessions. I can't
let the liquid rest with me,
just before I swallow,
or else I'll drown in reminiscing.
So I gulp.
I ferment my own mind and I punish
bottle after bottle even though
every breath after just reminds me
of inhaling your own
when we'd wind ourselves back up
after a drunken escapade
in your bed after everyone else
went to sleep and our dreams
had no chance of catching up to us. I can't
think of you too long
unless I balance on distance
and YOU'RE NEVER COMING BACK!
That's it. I can't
decide whether I'm happy that you've grasped
something so real and sturdy
after all the times I've played the crutch,
or if I hate you,
still, for leaving me by the fingertips,
dangling on a prayer for your safety,
basking in the light of your brilliance,
only to find myself here
in my shower
with a Miller
and an old country song on the radio.

It's not my fault he liked me even though I wore overalls.
Kind of sad, isn't it?
That someone could be so desperate
as to hit on a sorry excuse for a woman
who strode confidently in a white tee and jean
overalls with gym sneakers.
But maybe he found the way my collarbone
stuck out of the top of my shirt enchanting
or even fell dizzy imagining
what I would look like underneath.
Perhaps, he hoped I had something ****
on beneath the big **** pockets.
(I didn't, in case you were wondering).
Yet, he asked my name after I noticed him
watching me examine an avocado
for the bad spots, checking to see if the pit
was still green. He laughed, slightly,
when I told him it was
None of your **** business why I have
ten cans of Spaghetti O's in my cart!
I was polite enough not to question
why he had a Cosmo magazine in his,
or if he was making tacos for dinner
based on his pound of ground round
or the wrong brand of bagged lettuce
resting next to corn shells and salsa.

It's not my fault that I'm a two drink drunk.
He's the one that bought the expensive wine,
and asked me to join him for, you guessed it, tacos.
I hated the way he kept his socks on in bed,
but he didn't stop holding me when it was over
and he never asked me to leave when I woke up
in the morning. He brought me coffee, black, and sat
reading the paper like a gentleman while I
asked to turn on cartoons. He had the jaw line
of an actor and hair that could be in a shampoo commercial,
and I hadn't shaved my legs in three days, but
he still drew circles on my knees as he read.

I ran myself through the shower to dilute the blame.
My phone rang all the next day, no pick up.
Just burning noodles in the *** and picking
at my nails as I sat alone in the kitchen.
I threw that morning's paper away.
It's not my fault that I love the rain.

I cut a negative hole from your earlobe
down to your shoulder blade,
and used the space to mask the personal void
between my separate ventricles,
pumping the breakup through, slowly,
in small doses.
The sculpted edges of your figure
kept close to my soft curves
holding together what you could salvage
from my tears and breathless begging
for a different set of circumstances,
but your bed

still smelled like sweat and *** from yesterday's,
I guess farewell, love making. And my baby blanket
covered your legs as I nuzzled into your bare chest,
drowning your pecks in sadness.
You kissed my nose twelve times, little nibbles,
like a button in a nursery rhyme,
lulling me into a coma of over thinking and restless
slumber.

I don't remember leaving in the morning,
but I remember ironing my collar, losing
the back of my earring in the carpet,
misplacing my books for my 9a.m.
I remember you holding my hand
under the table at breakfast while you dunked
pieces of hash brown into hot sauce
while I picked at the top of a blueberry muffin
barely able to say bless you,
God bless you when you sneezed.
But you carried me, my dishes I mean,
to the end of the line and you smiled
when we said goodbye.

I spread my fingers through her hair, all in knots.
An empty pie tin lies on the floor, binged and dropped
from her side. I'm propping her on the dream she's slipped in.
Cherry goo stains her lip. I thumb the remains,
wiping it on my jeans as she breathes
stale, sugar crust. Her mascara clumps
underneath her lash-line, eyes blinking
like a monarch's wings.
I peel her socks off, cold toes resting
in my hands. She curls beneath
a layer of down and ratty, baby blanket.
Quietly, as she ties herself to another
panic-induced slumber, I flush
her ***** down the toilet and clean
the rim of the bowl with bleach
and the towel we wrapped
each other in the night before
after our shower.
She wakes at the sound of me *******
the lock on her bedroom door, begging
Do you really have to go?
I fall into the falsetto of her trance,
tasting her paleness before I've even
begun to kiss her skin to sleep again.
She sighs as I fit the mold,
wrapping my arms around her frailty,
tucking this Saturday night episode
under the bed skirt.

I fell out of the top bunk once
completely naked
right onto the linoleum floor
of your dorm room,
praying that your roommate
wouldn't roll over and see my ***
at 3a.m.

I quietly crawled back up to you.
You cradled my spine,
I'm never letting you go again, I promise.
I told you I was fine,
so we both started laughing.
I had to cover your mouth
or else you'd wake the whole floor up.

You blare Kanye West from your speakers
when you're signing checks
or finishing that last math problem,
and I'll just sit next to you and grab
a piece of scrap paper to doodle on
while asking you stupid questions
just because I want to get you talking again.
Sometimes you take it out on me, but

sometimes we have cereal after ***.
You spoon feed me while I sit on your lap
in just our underwear
gasping when the cold milk
drops on our skin--
fruit loop kisses
and detangling my hair with your fingers.

I wear your Polo pull-over backwards
to the boys bathroom sometimes
just because it's closer to your room
and because my name is no secret anymore.

And on Sunday's I fold your laundry
on a gray blanket I lay overtop my ***** carpet,
because I love the smell of clean boxers
and you don't know how to iron dress shirts right.

But you kiss me with your mouth open,
and you hold me when I fall asleep,
and you're all I want to wake up to.

Remember how I'd smoke after school
outside your classroom window
watching you pack up your briefcase,
pulling your arms through your blazer sleeves?
Four cigarettes in a ring
between my thumb and fingertips,

an "okay" sign.
You preferred jean dresses with the hips cut out,
knee-high fishnet socks,
my hair wrapped curiously in bandana red
with my eyes outlined in black.

I stole condoms and Twinkies,
brought them to your apartment
after you'd call to unwrap me

like penny candy
on the mattress in the middle of your floor,
each tear in synch with the teeth
of your zipper releasing.

A green wrapper
and an empty trash can
next to my book bag.
You licked your fingers
after the last bite.

She hides her Bible underneath the ****** box
because he doesn't want to have kids,
but she still prays
for his keep
every night
after he pulls long wings
from her back to her ribs—
deep passion inscriptions and hieroglyphs
with his nails as she whispers fake, unholy phrases.

She tripped into his superstition
watching him fashion his weapon—
a rosary noose
to choke blessings and psalms
out of her throat.
He rarely remembers to say goodnight,
but she traces his eyelids once he's asleep

like crop circles
making a thin bridge over his nose
connecting pinpoint constellations.
She kisses his neck and chest
over and over again,
secretly hoping
he wakes up and puts his arm around her.

She paints in the basement
with an old light bulb
listening to the hum of the space heater,
gagging on the acrylic fumes,
because he thinks all art
is useless
and all power is manmade confidence,
and the stars are just coincidence,
and he only married her
so they could ****,
finally.
Sometimes he doesn't come home,

but she makes the bacon the way he likes it,
and she presses all of his shirts twice.

My boyfriend used to take me to Pizza ****
(as we always called it)
after every home basketball game.
We'd fill up on bread sticks,
box the leftover slices,
just so they could sit in the back seat
of his green Chevy jeep
while we made out in the parking lot
with Eric Church's new CD on the stereo.

I told everyone the bruises on my thighs
were just an accident,
when really he pushed me
into the tires
after he had a few or dozen beers
at the party down Bear Run.
He never did like being told
what he shouldn't do.

We'd lay down the seats
and sleep on sweatshirts
with a cooler lid for a pillow
until 10a.m. on a Sunday,
an hour late for mass.
Silently we'd ride
until we'd reach the power plant.
He'd cough and I'd sigh,
quietly singing until we'd reach my driveway.
He never did kiss me
whenever he'd drop me off.

I came back spring break
the following year.
The jeep in his yard with a for sale sign
propped against the hood
and his cell number
written in blue window chalk
just above the windshield wipers.
I saw his little sister
peek behind the curtain
when I knocked on the door,
but no one came to answer.
So I lit a cigarette and drove home
listening to "Springsteen."

"I wish we could have came into each other's lives
at a better time for me."
Because that's how things work.
It's all about timing,
and you ran the clock.

*** alarm,
wake up call.
I didn't even take my shoes off.

You talk so loud but you never say a thing.
Just push me against car doors
in the parking lot outside your apartment
with the lamppost's reflection blurring
on the rain covered pavement,
a ***** mirror
smearing our shadows together.

I yell but you only answer
with the breath from your open mouth
as you kiss the frustration out of me—
suffocation.
Your tongue speaks a language
only I thought I knew.

Turns out she did, too.

Sometimes I would go out to my grandma's
and bring her lunch.
She didn't like cooking for just one.
We'd eat hoagies from Vito's market,
bag of Lay's chips between the two of us,
and sweet tea she had in her fridge
using only the plastic cups
because we couldn't have glass around the pool.

She'd point to necklaces and cashmere sweaters
from the new JCrew catalog,
dog earring all the pages she loved
her tan hands steady on the corners
with several silver rings on her fingers,
big diamond on the left one.

I hated to leave her with only the sound
of the Pennsylvania state flag flapping
against the pole,
or her neighbor's lawn being mowed.
But she smiled something huge when I waved goodbye
from the sidewalk
slowly closing the catalog,
a sympathy wind chime scoring her steps,
walking back inside
to no one sitting in the arm chair
and the TV on mute.

He had his fingers down between my thighs.  
I shook my head back and forth-
Eskimo kiss.
"No?" he asked.
We kiss again.
"Alright, that's all you had to say"

He never called again.

One finger over the other,
strands lacing together in blonde streaks
pulling the shadow back away
from my face,
tugging
at the missing pieces
until they all tucked neatly
in the right places.

You yelled at me last night
after we both got home.
I was in the shower, the steam
suffocating my already
weakened breath.
I could hear you shuffling
through the medicine cabinet
above the sink
"****!"
when the pills
spilled
all over the white tile floor,
and you without glasses
blindly searching for the pain relievers.

"I think you're taking this whole thing the wrong way"
you stated as I turned the faucet
all the way to the left.
The pressure of the shower
stabbed my back like hail
as you kept defending yourself
from the other side of the curtain.

I cried but you wouldn't be able
to tell which droplets were the tears.

I was silent the whole way through.
Pushing my hair back and massaging
my neck with my fingers
as you slammed the bathroom door.

I crawled in after I dried myself
with a towel I found in the hamper.
Your feet were hanging out of the covers.
I tucked them in and lied awake
until the alarm went off this morning.

I ran my hands down the crisp sides
of your baby blue pin-striped
Ralph Lauren button down.
The lines leading straight to your hip bones.
I wrapped my arms around your waist,
pressing my head against the chest pocket
as you smoothed my blonde hair
with your big hands
kissing the top of my head
slowly
as I breathed in your body wash
with eyes closed
saving this moment
in my kaleidoscope.

Sometimes I'll sit on the edge of your bed
and watch you fix your hair in the mirror
in just your cargo shorts.
Sometimes when you're sleeping,
I'll write stories on your chest and draw
little circles around your eyelids
or trace the curves your lips make.
Sometimes you'll wake up,
roll over, and kiss me silently
before you're back asleep again.
Sometimes I'll shout,
"Wake up!"
because you're so cute and I don't want
to be done playing yet.

I know you've seen my demons
follow me like a bad shadow,
but you've proved
that sometimes you need cracks
to let the light shine through
And guess what.
I really like you.

You said you wanted to take me on the roof to see the view because it was beautiful and so was I. But I never made it there. I never made it to where you are or where you were and I think I've decided that I never will.

My mom used to blast
the Any Given Thursday live album
out of a 1996 silver stereo system
that sat crooked in our clear library cases
at the back of the living room
with cracked CD cases stacked
on top of each other like a forty story tower.
She would accompany John Mayer,
making every song a unique duet
as she dusted the shelves and used lemon Pledge
so the cabinets and coffee tables would shine like new.

I used to sit at the top of the stairs
in my pajama bottoms and one of my dad's
old undershirts
watching her dance like a ballerina in a theater
across the floor with a vacuum for a partner.
She was so lame.

I'm fifty two now and my mother doesn't sing any more.
Instead, I just play
"Your Body is a Wonderland"
over and over again when I'm cleaning
around my son's high chair or the seven
peppermint candles I have lit on the counter.
My daughter asks me to turn it off.
"Mom, no one listens to him anymore."
But I know she will one day.

I heard them rummaging through your drawers,
the click of the stopper
pulling them all the way out
searching under shin guard socks and boxer briefs
for the warm companions
of the beer cans they saw you throw
from your dorm room window.

I heard you knocking on your neighbors door,
begging them to hide your bottle of ***
in exchange for something
you'd think of later.
A slurred IOU.
A "pretty, pretty please."
Dear god, how could this be me?
I heard you exhale through your smile
after I kissed you
on the other side of your closed door
stealing my heart
weeks before you got caught.
I heard my cotton t-shirt move against my skin
as you rubbed your hand up and down my back
smoothing out the knots
and pulling me closer.

I heard my phone ring after security left
your room. I watched your name glow
on my screen through sleepy eyes.

But you didn't hear me answer it,
and you didn't hear me ask you to stay,
and you didn't hear me ask you anything.
I didn't ask you for anything.
All you heard was what you wanted to hear.
I'm really done listening.

You made me stop believing
in who I was.
You slapped my *** with your shower caddy--
blamed it on invisibility
with a smirk and a wink in my direction.
I saw your reflection
in the hall mirror from the corner of my eye.
Your body was full and half-clothed,
your imagination molding me
as I stood there innocent
trying to view myself
the way you saw me.

It was a dark shadow you cast.
I bathed in your deception.
I saw my own reflection--
in my bedroom mirror at midnight
with your hands on the nape of my neck
and your fingers cradling my skull,
flattening my spine into
what you would fit into your figure.
There was your lips on my ear and I heard
a backwards whisper of a promise you swore,
you swore was true.
It wasn't--
and didn't like who I saw.

Your hat was pushed back on your head
so your hair could stick out in little tuffs
like black duck fluff
shadowing your forehead in crazy patterns
that I liked to trace with my eyes
because they'd lead me to your eyes
which were always cool.

You were always cool.
I felt that.

You made me feel pretty and you tempted
all my senses with the way your hand
would linger around my hips,
one finger dipping into
the backside waistband of my jeans.

I used to bite my lip but now I just bite yours.

Then you cut me out like the bad part of an apple,
biting around the soft parts just to get to the core.
I never saw you unless it was by some accident
that your reaction to my presence solidified
my conception that you'd do anything to prevent
having to pass me.
And now I'm not sure if you ever even looked at me.

You never really cared--
I was junk
that you could play around with until the rust set in,
until the shiny parts dulled,
until you were done and needed a new one.

I'm not sure if you ever even saw me.

The winter gleam of the sun
off the snow, gray clouds dulling
the sparkle, shined through your window
onto my pale cheek at nine in the morning.
You were laying down as I sat up on your bed
trying not to lean back onto your feet.
Your black hair stood up on one side,
a giant curl falling just above your eyebrow,
and your thick lips parted just enough
to let out a small breaths that smelled like
stale beer and a ****** memory.
I pulled my feet up on the metal ledge
that supported your bed,
resting my elbows on my knees
so my hands could cradle my chin.

I pushed back my hair as I saw you move
out of my sideways look,
you rolled on your back, arms above your head
a false halo made of your hands,
baring your scruffy chest and chubby waistline.

I played with the corner of your sheets,
folding the flap up and back,
your snore my metronome one beat off
of my heart.

You took a big part of me and I'm sitting here
scanning your room trying to see if you
stashed it in a corner or if you hid it
somewhere I can't see.
You took a big part of me.

We sweat out the holy stuff.
You used my ribs like one uses
the rough side of a matchbox
striking up your fingertips
to light the rest of my skin on fire.

I'm glad I was just another burnt tip
in your collection.
I'm glad it was an easy discard.

I took a mental photograph
of you in that moment--
Bare chest, pulling down your boxers,
holding my face like one molds a statue,
bite marks on my jaw line.

I smoldered in your sheets,
you kicked me out of bed.
This must be what Pompeii  looked like
after all the ashes cleared.

I'm glad I was just another pretty girl
you liked to watch go up in flames.

I'm glad you didn't ask me to stay.

I packed you perfectly
like one packs organs in ice
to preserve them--
to keep the memory breathing
in a box of souvenirs from our six years
fragmentally put together,
until I'd need to relive them again.

I scanned our pictures like x-rays,
the bones glowing silver linings,
blurred and blue.
You always light up.
In any recollection,
you will always be the clarity
I connect to.

I have my moments-- Don't you too?
Nothing is what I thought it was.
I feel you pulsate like blood
under a bad bruise
I packed you perfectly.
You didn't move.

I know you hear my zipper tab click against the teeth
of my boots when I walked down the hall,
and my ring clinking against my glazed coffee mug
with the Hello Kitty sticker on the side.
I know you see my shadow pass in the space
of the door you left cracked open.
I know you hear me hum Springsteen,
the Eric Church kind,
while I let the filter water fountain fill up my cup.
I walk past your door ten times a day,
and you have to know I don't actually drink that much tea.
I just want you to notice me.

I hope you talk about me when you're slammed,
laying in the hall playing soccer at 2am.
I hope you see my reflection in the smashed mirror
from an aggressive kick you missed blocking.
I hope my shattered complexion reflects
in the broken glass
like a soft reminder that beckons you back
to your bed. A memory from a week ago rises,
when you were singing me a song
through your lips and cradling my expectations.

I played keeper and you were just trying to score.
Our roles reversed.
You dribbled me for a good while,
spinning on the ground you drug me on
just trying to catch hold.
I already had stains; I didn't need new ones.

I hope you talk about me when you're sipping
on something that will numb you seven different ways to Sunday.
I hope people have to stop you from calling me,
"It's all ****** up," you whine
with your eyes closed
about how you messed with me--
what happened there?
Take another shot.

I hope you talk about me.

You pulled long wings from my back to my ribs-
deep passion inscriptions and hieroglyphs
with your nails as I whispered unholy
prayers into your ears with your mouth closed.
I tripped into your superstition that started with a kiss
outside your door after midnight,
pressing my shoulder blades into the palm of your hands.
You said you didn't try any games.
I said I didn't like to play.

Be careful, supernova, you'll burn out.

I attacked you right from the start.
"Shut up, would ya!" you'd say with a smile,
laughing when I'd scream back at the television commercials
when they'd ask me stupid questions.
I drove you insane.
But when you'd fall asleep I'd trace your eyelids
like crop circles with my fingertips,
making a thin bridge over your nose
connecting pinpoints like constellations.
Sometimes I'd ask you to read the stories
that you wrote on my skin.
You'd pass the message along through your lips
gently against mine the way a shadow sits
on a figure.
I'd sigh when your hands skipped over
the space between my thighs.

Be careful, supernova, you'll burn out.

I took a chance on you.
You didn't bid on me.
I guess it's true that some things
burn too bright.

I put you together with a song
the shape, the sound, the length
two months before you were gone.

You didn't really feel that far away
because I still thought of you
as that close,
hand beneath my head above the pillow,
pictures on the nightstand,
kissing you in my dreams.
You were still that close to me.

You didn't really feel that far away
until you got far away.
Until the distance wasn't a number
it was me not calling every hour
it was me not tracing all your steps
it was me starting to
not forget
but just
push past it.

You feel really far away from me now.
Like it wouldn't be just a plane ride.
It would take a lot more than an old photo in a frame
or a backwards hat memory
of something we loved when you were here
and you were mine.

You feel really far away from me now.

Shivering fingers, cradling a cold clay bowl
with dull roses surrounding the rim.
A Klondike bar cut like a grid on a paper towel.
My grandma used to let me eat one in the living room
"careful of the carpet"
on her yellow couches covered with sticky plastic.
She would play the Elvis Presley Christmas album,
To Ginny written in black sharpie on the sleeve
with a Love always, Mom underneath,
over and over again
while she hung bulbs of wood on the bottom branches
so her Welsh Corgi wouldn't break them with his paws.

Slate slabs with handprints
in purple paint every year for the holiday.
She'd set death aside in a coffin ashtray
to kiss my cheek.
Presley played in the background.

She'd rock
on the front porch in white wicker
coughing into the lid of a Pepsi can
until she'd catch me pressing my nose against the door glass,
tell me to turn around and sit on the couch.
It was too cold for me.
She'd only be a minute.

When we played, I'd hide between the two baskets
in the closet that held her hair products.
I could count all the bottles three times each
before she'd say she was too tired,
put on her coat, grab a white box, and hit play.
I always hated that album.

I knew it the moment you looked at her.
The tender slip in your jaw line
fall faint with a smile
showing teeth like secret treasures
in your worn leather chest.

Her hawaiian hello tasted sweet on your lips.
Hot pink tank top ribbed in rings
around her tiny waist,
flat, tan stomach peeking between
her top and dark short, short jeans.

She followed you to the parking lot
after you passed her on the curb.
Her tip toes visible underneath
the lift of a 2014 model truck between tires,
rise and fall,
leaning back into her heels when you set her down
shadows behind tinted windows.
I saw it all.

In my dreams, I pretend I made it up.
Cuddle next to an empty side
trace the moon's sideways outlines
on the sheets.
Breakeven.
I knew it the moment you looked at her.

A blue bubble blew up
on my screen one night at 12:31.
I knocked a glass of melted ice
onto the carpet and it bounced
like rubber off the floor,
rolling under my bed and hitting the box beneath it.
Your name like a gunshot through
my insomniac mind, crippled
with dreams
I swear
really happen sometimes.

"I need youu tto buy me a ** tel"
As if I could instantly flip money from my fingertips
and have it lie in the palm of your hand
to slide over the marble counter for a key in exchange.
"I need to get out of here honestlyy"
As if I could come carry you myself up the stairs
because elevators scare you.
"No you come here"
I can't, sweetheart.


As if I could be on a plane in the next ten minutes,
fly so far to where you are.
As if I could land in your arms one more time,
and promise you that everything
would be okay--
tell you that you're fine.

I can't, sweetheart.

He pointed to the 4'' by 7'' framework
with two teenage girls faces pressed
against hers, an overbearing smile in the background
of a boy caught in the mist of poor lighting
and ******, drunken photography.
She told him about the field
laid green and black blades wet
from central PA rain and smashed,
meshed clumps of mud sticking to the rubber mazes
on the undersides of old work boots.
How the fire billowed over hazy introductions
and pressured joy of seeing someone no one
really ever wanted to see again.

She told him about the drive with two girls,
how many stops
it took to reach the county party
and how many times she counted the circles
on her thumbs before she was distracted
by another person wanting a picture or another beg
for a beer.
She laughed as she reflected, glancing up at the photo
then back at him as his hand
lay between the crease of her *** and thigh.


He was from Durham and didn't get it.
But she painted it so vividly with her tongue
as it danced over the summer memory
that he felt he could be there
if he let himself.

She unwound for him like a yo-yo
to which only he could pull her back up again.
Unaware that she mindlessly
let him control all the strings.

As she talked, jumping from picture to picture,
he noticed her leap frog
from each. She skipped three or four in the middle,
and even thought it seemed
as if she could open with the press of the right button
there were still some things she wouldn't let him
really see.
She held her breath when the story turned bad.
He saw her eyes balance on the phrase,
he now noticed, she carefully chose next.
She was no outburst. This was no plea.

She had a plan and undoubtedly knew
all that she wanted him to know.

As she flipped to the next page
he counted the seconds between the pauses
and moved his hand to her shoulderblade.

I write you letters on yellow notepads,
tear them out and use the other side,
my ****** cursive slanting the entire page,
adding things in the margins,
drawing hearts in the corners,
ending with our special
"See you then"
instead of a goodbye,
or a sincerely yours,
or an "I love you always."
That line said it all.

I didn't have an address to send them to
because you just moved and stamps cost a lot
for a broke college student who's just trying
to keep in touch.

You told me not to call you.
Not to ask you how you'd been.
So I didn't even bother asking for some place
to write on the outside of my envelopes.
I just kept writing them.

I get why you didn't want to come see me
before you left
because it would just make it harder to say goodbye
all over again,
and I get
why it's hard to talk to me
because you're busy and because you're two hours behind
and because this and because that.
They're just excuses.
You don't really want to talk to me.

And I,
I get that you're halfway across the country.
Don't you think I've memorized the distance by now?
I know exactly how far it is between your dot and mine
on a map.
I get that it's going to be hard and that it's probably not even worth trying,
but what you don't get
that I do
is that it's worth it.

I've kept bullshitting with you since I met you.
I've kept you around this long.

I'm not going to tell you how many times I sat up crying
about something you said to me, or something you didn't say
that I knew you felt
because it will just push you away.
You've known since the beginning
of whatever this is
that you're no good for me.
You're not good enough for me.
That's fair.

But what you don't get,
that I do
is that I don't care.

You're the best thing in my life
because everything that I do is only because of you,
only because of you believing that I can have it
all
if I try hard enough.

You told me I was the strongest person you knew.
That I was tough.
That I was going to be fine.

I am only those things because I have you
in my life
in one way or an even more complicated other.
So you can't just give up on me.
You can't just expect
to tell me you're done
you never started
and leave.
Because that's not okay with me.

I won't buy a plane ticket.
I won't talk to you every chance I get
(more likely every chance you get)
and I won't keep myself behind this line
because I'm saving myself for you.

But you have to stay with me, okay?
You have to at least try
to understand where I'm coming from
and you have to,
you have to
keep believing in me.

Because I'm not the strongest person you know,
you are.
I'm not tough,
you are.
I'm not always going to be fine,
but you are.

So I'll see you then.

Two blondes.
One bouncing in the red cushion window seat,
bowl cut, light-up sneakers, making engine sounds
as his small hands hold the body of the airplane
flying it through the October air.
The other sitting on brown hardwood,
soft curls, pink sparkle dress, stumbling over words
as she reads aloud Goodnight Moon in the afternoon.

Grandma's in the kitchen,
smoking out the window over the sink,
telling them that daddy will be home in just a minute.

Daddy walks in, screen door flinging shut, with muddy work boots,
torn jeans, and black hands.
The boy directs his plane right into his daddy's arms
spit spurting from his noisemaker lips.
The little girl jumps into Daddy's other side, resting on his hip.
Daddy kisses her soft cheek before he sets them both down.
They grab their backpacks and strap their sneakers.
Daddy's thanking grandma who put her cigarette out as she heard him walk in.
She coughs and says not to mention it again.
She'll see him tomorrow.

Daddy buckles his kids in the back seat,
listening to the boy ramble on about his day,
the little girl trying to interrupt.
Daddy nods and smiles,
fixes the rearview mirror and drives through the yard
careful not to rip the grass up
as he turns on the main road.
They both fall asleep before he makes it home.

My mom wakes up in a sweat,
calls me on the phone when I'm asleep
telling me all about her marvelous dream
about Daddy and my kids.
Tells me this wouldn't be the first time
she's saw him and I make it to the end.
I tell her this wouldn't be the first time
I believed it either.

I asked you over and I don't know why.
We were lying in my bed in the dark when my parents pulled in.
I put my dress back on and you ran down the stairs.
Sat on the couch, turned on late night TV, and pretended
that you had been there all along.

I sat up next to you with a blanket covering my legs.
You were so mad at me.
My parents didn't mind you were there though,
in fact they thought the scared look on your face was priceless
and they wished you'd come over again.
They don't ask questions anymore
if that's what you're worried about.
They know that even if they asked I wouldn't have an answer.
Because like I said I asked you over and I don't know why.

I told you it was because my grandpa was sick and I was lonely.
Which is true and I really was.
But mostly I just wanted someone who knew my body to hold me.
I just wanted a night where I didn't have to be by myself
contemplating all the time I don't have left and all the things
I've still left unsaid.
Maybe I'm just in love when you're here and you shouldn't be.
And maybe I love you all the time but I hate you enough to not say it.
That makes no sense.
Neither does this.

I'm just screaming at walls that won't listen.
About how I could want you stay so badly but I don't need you here.
Your love's really nothing.
It's just something I've gotten so used to having that I expect it to be there.
All the time.
Even when
it makes no sense
for you to be kissing me like that or for telling me you'd stay up until I fell asleep.
I asked you over and I don't know why.
I'll keep asking you over and you'll keep coming but
we'll never really know why.

But I'd like it if you'd keep your hand there and not care
about what I'll feel like tomorrow or what I'll ask you to do next week.
I don't make sense anymore
but truly, I love you
and neither does this.

I smoked a pack while we unraveled white and black.
Wrapped in your bare sheets I slept best.
Dewey skin in the morning light,
candy tongue
tulip two lips.
Alarm goes off you ignore it.
I loved messing your hair up.
You look better that way.

I danced around naked on the pedestal you plopped me on
as I let you sketch me.
You scolded to stand still and slapped my *** when I didn't listen,
but you looked so cool holding your paintbrush in your teeth,
studying my figure,
peeking around the easel with your big eyes and crooked smile.

I always left with stains on my hands and your jacket
on my shoulders with a new Camel in the pocket.
Your hand slid down my jeans and I bit your lip.
I could have finished you.

You were so mean to me constantly,
and I curiously indulged in your temptations.
Your ecstasy whispers in my ear.
But there's something special about being loved
by someone who hates everyone.

You thought I was interesting.
Thought I was pure in my mini skirt, but tough
because I never cried when you were yelling.
I just yelled back.
Thought I was brave and wildly adventurous,
standing on edges and throwing things your way.
Even I thought it would be different this time.

But I should've probably listened
to you when you used to tell me not to get my hopes up.
That way I wouldn't be here,
praying, which I never do
that you didn't mean it and you didn't want me to ever have
to know
why you didn't come home.

You would rather
it be expected than me be disappointed
when it's the morning after and you're lying there restless
while you're passed out in the back of a van,
shoes off,
shirt hanging off your back,
with cuts from cans on your hands.

*** doesn't make a sound.
It's the loudest way to shut someone up.
It's the silence that cures.
It's the cork stop in a bottle,
but it will glimmer when you spin it upside down.
I'd love to smash it.

I came in that afternoon and burned the edges of your drawings with my lighter,
smeared the charcoal on all your new pages,
and stamped my boot until all your brushes were in half.
I picked up your jacket that I sewn a special patch in
with my initials,
and I hit snooze when your alarm went off.
You didn't move.

I watched the dewy skin of your back rise
and fall as you were breathing,
sheets ruffled,
pillows on the floor,
empty side next to yours,
all alone.

I decided you look better that way.