i always find myself
laying my heart out to
the people who love stomping
on my heart for the pure fun of
watching blood pour out

but it wasn't always this way
it all started when my dad started
promising me security to constantly
watch him walk out the door
but every time that promise was
proposed, I always accepted it
even when I knew it was a **** lie
hopeful little me, how adorable

manipulation, that's what it is
finding reasons to get rid of me
i guess i do that too
but when it's consistently happening
to you with every new friendship
or relationship?
you find clarity and warmth
in the words
"i won't be leaving anytime soon"
and it becomes a twisted cycle
of just
constant
manipulation
the manipulated becomes the manipulator

when your newest begins the manipulation
tactic that you were taught at the age
of 5 when your dad said
"I'll be right back" and doesn't for days
that's when you're all ears to your newest victim who says
"it's so nice to find someone like you"
i wish you didn't say that
ever

there's a lot to say here
i don't want to write about you anymore
i have been trying to force myself to forget about you
but there are too many seconds in a day and a quarter of that is accidentally dedicated to wondering what it would've been like if we never dated
the other quarter is spent wondering how I got through my days before letting you past the wall I never let anyone through
the rest, surprisingly isn't spent on you. it's spent on things I've worked hard reaching for.
im not going to sit here and blame myself the whole time, and not you either. it was a mutual effort, you know? two very busy, emotionally unavailable, hot headed misery-ridden people trying to get in a relationship was a very silly idea of ours.
I know you and I were meant to be in some stupid way. I wish I didn't believe that. As we always said, timing was everything. We just never got it right.
Yes. I am crazy. I am crazy due to my past. I am crazy out of fear. There is physically nothing I can do to snap out of it. You knew this. I also know that you are afraid of any change, and any commitment scares you. I would apologize for how I am, but that's why you fell in love with me in the first place amongst a few other key factors.
I fell in love with the way your eyes glistened green in the sun and when it was dark out, it was brown. There was never a real in between. I fell in love with your doofy *** smile. I fell in love with the person you faked to be for one and a half months and you turned into a selfish human being shortly there after. I fell in love with your touch and how you would pull me closer to you when we'd be sleeping.
I've known you since the beginning of spring. I still remember the day we locked eyes and the butterflies there after we're crazy. Just hearing your name at the time made me smile. I couldn't tell you why. "Why are you always smiling at me?!" Youd ask. F, I couldn't ever tell you. There was something about you that I wanted. Your heart was mine for a short amount of time.
I remember the day I got mad at you because you were mean to me again and you refused to let me leave at all and kept apologizing and reassuring me that everything was okay. You pulled me as close to you as possible and told me you loved me. I don't remember the last time you did that, babe.
It's all gone now. I want to say, "until next time," but I think that ship sailed. I wish I could say that it was great until the end, but I have never felt worse being in a relationship or partnership that felt like it was consistently hanging on an emotional thread every single day. Like I said, I wasn't forever. I wanted to be. That would've been nice. But I had to go. I had to run. I couldn't continue waking up every day wondering what today will bring me. It's time for me to love myself. I deserve the happiness. And so do you. I know you'll find it. And I know you will read this.
This is my final letter and post about you. Like in that movie I love, eternal sunshine. I am erasing you from my memory. I hope everything works out for you and I hope you find that someone that will satisfy every need I couldn't meet for you.

Goodnight, angel.
-B

I've heard angels sing but when
you let your voice be heard
I swear it's like all of heaven's angels singing about letting a soul be reborn
Souls.
Two souls.
We met two years ago on a whim, and
we were unseperable
Momma said it was because we were
twins once before
I didn't believe it until I noticed everything we did was similar
Then I pushed you away, and the demon
came out again, and again until you ran
But I know one day we will be okay

I just have to forgive myself someday.

All of the people I tried to fix ended up being open cases
That the judge would skim though and laugh at
You can tell a lot from the bags under people's eyes
and how the light glimmers in their eye when they hear the words 'thank you'

Momma always told me that I was one to try and fix the impossible
I found comfort in the word "thank you"
and drowned in the words
"you can't fix everyone"
the second I see a broken soul, like a magnet
I am a positive to a negative
playing devils advocate without the devils sign off

I fall for the ones who say I remind them of their angel figure in their life
I fall for the ones who can quickly resemble my parents failing marriage
I'm my mothers daughter,
I am a dreamer, an unconditional lover
I believe in the ones who don't need believing
I am my mental health's own worst enemy.

Watching your eyes shut and twitch on your final hours of life showed me that you really weren’t ready for a life of responsibility and maturity. Your skin was flushed white and translucent like snake skin, and your legs blown up like balloons, your veins popping like your eyes after you snorted ******* on your dashboard from your arms , bruised and black like your tarred lungs from the diabetes and poor circulation. You weren’t ready for this lifetime, your soul wasn’t ready to become a parent or a husband. You tried your best as a father, but your inner demons told you otherwise when you left your youngest and second youngest alone with your cancer ridden wife that night. The drugs pumping through your body as fast as the ambulance lights could go when your wife found you on the floor having your second heart attack. Every single day, your wife and your youngest daughter spent in the hospital making sure you were well taken care of. Your inner demons told you otherwise. Your demons told you to tell them to go **** themselves and to leave you alone on the third week. Your youngest continued to latch onto you for years after. On your death bed, your siblings and your youngest crowded around you. Your brother was red in the face with tears, like a little kid who wasn’t allowed to have candy before dinner. Your sister in law who followed the footsteps of your brother. And your mature younger sister, sitting there with your youngest daughter trying to get you to at least open your eyes and see who was there. You knew who was there, your soul wouldn’t allow you to. You strived to open your eyes and mouth to speak. The only words you muttered was, “I need to get the **** out of here.” Your siblings preached about how this could’ve been saved, your youngest said otherwise. She said, “there was nothing left to do,” she held your hand sobbing quietly, knowing you were going to pass away less than 24 hours later. She forgives you for not being the father you were supposed to be, because your soul wasn’t ready for this life. Your soul was meant to be free, short lived, and spontaneous. Your inner demons took over young, and led you to a long painful death. You know how they say, when you die your life passes before your eyes? Wrong. Everything you didn’t do when you were alive that you regret passes in front of you while your soul emerges from your body. You regretted having children and raising them to be codependent while your wife was the complete opposite. You regret dropping quarter of a million dollars into drugs. You regret beating your children and listening to your inner demons again, and again, and again. You regret beating your wife when she had cancer, and prior to cancer. You regret losing the house because you wanted to buy **** with the mortgage money your wife specifically told you to pay with. You died with these regrets at 11:30 AM on February 28th 2014. Your youngest forgave you, but has a constant thought of killing herself since you left this earth. She screams out, ‘why didn’t you take me with you?’ to the sky at least once a month. Your oldest daughter abandons her family to marry someone who she feeds lies to about her family. Your oldest son stays with someone as emotionally abusive as you. And your wife lives with regret, lives in a rental with her boyfriend and the youngest. 5 years in remission of breast cancer. She will always love you, but will never forgive you for what you did to her children and to her. You died with these regrets.

My inner demons have looked me in the eyes for the last time yesterday.
They screamed, clawed the floor for help.
They pointed to my head, my heart and my stomach as they are all golden like they once were.
I named them all after bad habits and bad addictions.
Their eyes are red and their skin is black. They never spoke, but one of them told me in a soft voice, 'I hope it all works out for you.'
Thank you, guilt. I hope so, too.

the waves will crash down over the
message in the bottle I will sail out to
sea tomorrow
and the message will entail how I wonder
what mutual love feels like
and how often I play the scenes over in my head of the times I told people I loved them
and blue birds would sing and chase each other around my head and morph into butterflies into my stomach
while they would say they loved me back
and I would wait for the blue birds to move to their head
but I forgive them when you accept
that I may just be unlovable

And when someone finds the bottle
they may find me
for I will wait for someone to love me the way I know I deserve to.

all my dreams are coming true
and some of it
thanks to you

there's no longer enough sleeping
medication to put me to sleep for a couple
of hours
the doses aren't strong enough to knock
me out of staring at my fears on the
blank ceiling
toss
turn
bury my head
check my phone
repeat
i still can't escape the fears
the ones that i make up in my head
and the ones that happened once before
my biggest fear?
losing you again
but i believe you when you say
you're not going anywhere this time
and knowing that puts me to ease tonight

there was a lot that
you left behind on that
dreaded day

i don't really recall
being truly sad when
you passed

but i recall 18 years
of mental rehab and
5 years of on going
drug addiction
i replaced you with

my fuse remains
short and i remain
happy within chaos
that's all i remember
when you left

i know, i know
i know im getting
better without you
but mom and i's
relationship remains
dangling from the
warpath you created
between your 3 kids

i just have a lot
of questions ill never
have answered. i don't
think i miss you, though.
i just wish you could've
fixed the bridges you
destroyed before you
left.

I find comfort within the tall trees and long blades of grass. I feel my soul singing when I hear waves crash and the splashes gracing my face. I long to live for chasing the stars that the universe creates.

well, im back

not on good terms, really.
this has been a week from hell- start to finish
i want to think this is temporary, you and i.
we talked about forever like it rolled off our tongue like spit
we planned next year -
we had all of it planned.

of course, that didn't last. this is, temporary right?
countless hours spent on your couch at night
searching for places to be free
and run away to
i wouldn't just say that to just anyone, michael

you are going to be the first one i have really
cried over and cried into my moms arms for
everything feels like pins and needles

every time we fought i felt daggers shoot through my heart and begged for the pain to eventually numb out
what the **** did it matter? this is what love is right?

love is when you stick through everything through thick and thin.

love is giving every last bite of your food you have left, even if it was the first thing you ate all day after a long shift.

love is rolling through the punches when you see a light at the end - but what is love when you run away when help is available?

i hope and pray this is a nightmare and I wake up soon,

because another minute without you hurts as much as the first minute.

I eventually found clarity on clear nights
The nights where the stars would tell stories of myself
One star told me that she saw me crying one night on the shores, she didn't have the heart to ask me why
Another star told me that she saw me pacing back and forth in my backyard asking myself why I was born
But there's one star that told me this story where he saw me laughing on the beach with some familiar faces. He said it was the first time he saw me smile that season. He saw me smile again when the meteors showed their face that night.
A meteor chimed in and said, 'We took our time that showing up that night because we saw a love rising. Multiple, actually. We saw your face light up more than our trails did every time he spoke."

i spend more nights
dreaming of us being
joined together in
holy matrimony more
than i spend sleeping
in white noise

the best way for you
and I is as one
we are art
like the sistine chapel
and our love is bright as the new moon in libra
but darling I'm growing scared for us
and I'm accidentally detaching myself
because I don't want to feel pain again
like I did for many years
except this time
it's going to feel like cupids arrow shooting me through my lungs

i never want to run back to you again

They say missing someone is
a lot like pins and needles into your heart
but I don't remember missing you
when you were gone,
I missed you when we were together
I feel nothing but emptiness I filled in the spot where you once were in my heart

and that's comfort to put my pale skin to the mattress from now until the rest of time

I want to find
pure happiness
on the mariana's trench
deep with all of the other
shipwrecks like myself
The ones who couldn't hold
it together even when the water
was calm

I want to find serenity
between the tetonic plates
where the two continents
were separated
like two souls on a
bone chilling winter night
like you and I were
when I saw the glimmer in
your eye fade away
a star died that day,
did you know?
I named all the prettiest
ones after you
3,888 stars
one dying every
day

You're never really
told about how to deal
with loss.
"You'll be okay."
what is okay?
I never really learned
what "okay" was. The
first time I heard okay escape from
someone's lips was when my mom
began accepting her failing marriage
and asked how she felt.
"Okay".
**** that word to hell.

I hate how
you still make me
feel warm like a summers
day like you used
to

i stare into the sun a lot now
i know the consequences of that
"you're gonna ruin your eyes"
what's it matter now?
you were my sun and now you're
setting into the depths of where
i see you less and my heart doesn't
skip beats anymore when i hear your name
i don't know what to say or do,
you know?
i went months looking at you like
you lit up the earth and gave me oxygen
but now you're just becoming another
star that has lost its shine
well, maybe by looking into the sun
id feel the warmth you once gave me
all I just feel now is pain when I look up

you showed me how to laugh through the pain
and what unconditional love is
your golden eyes shined through my soul every since day
and you must've received 100x more kisses than the days since we rescued you
but heaven got the angel they were begging for since the second your soul was given to a beautiful puppy today
and I hope they treat her well

there's a photo in an old photo album
and it's of a birthday party with my family
only the kids are smiling
the relatives are looking at each other with disgust
and that's not the first photo I've found like that

I feel the summer heat rising through my pores
I'm day dreaming of the nights where
I can count the star constellations and compare them to things you've said to me

I've called the shooting stars old friends
the ones who brought me to realization, which I thank constantly for.
They'll take me back to a place I called home for a long time,
but that home is far condemned now
And I have become a nomad within my heart
for I have allowed myself to walk the streets of the outside of my home
and saw the definition of condemned when I looked at the youth of the ******
maybe this is a cry for help,
or maybe it's just what you wanted me to see

I get it, but I signed the paperwork to knock down the home for safety
I mean; who would want to live in a home that gives you heartache every time you walk through the door way?

Well, as far as I know
The shooting stars have said they've found blue prints for me
'It's an idea, you see'
They showed me what a safe house was,
It has blue window panes and a fence
Where the other had an off-green window pane and looked like world war 2 happened all around and inside.
'I know you don't know much about repairs and new, but maybe this is best for you. Ya know?'
Maybe you're right,
but all I know is fear and uncertainty.

It's an idea,
I'll read through these notes later.

I want you to take a globe
spin it as hard as you can
like you would spin me around with your twisty turny words
and when she slows down I want you to focus on that country
tell me what you associate the third world country with
do the battles between your head and heart sound and feel as similar as the countries in constant battle?
I bet you could tell a lot from the way the dirt pavements look in the back roads of the capital
they've seen fear, blood, sweat and death
much like you, except you haven't seen death except for the light your soul once had before you let your heart take over your head

Summer came without you this year
The sun was so bright without you
but I wish it wasn't.
I'm watching the days grow a little shorter
and I'm searching for you in the moon
but all I see is two hundred and thirty days
of mixed signals and my skin fading through another woman in front of me
That you swore you had no emotions for

I guess I deserved that after asking you to open your heart up to me.
The word love is nonexistent to me since I found out it wasn't just me in your mind at night.

the sun will always
set and rise --
but my mind is endless
it can't decide what weather
it wants to be today

well, yesterday it was sunny
even though it was cold and rainy
it was beautiful in my eyes

with my love, it's a montauk beach
day that's perfectly sunny and warm
drinking piña coladas

but god, when im not with him
it's just like yesterday's weather.
it's so cold, sad to be outside

maybe that's the weather today,
except no rain
it's just sad

Cigarettes are minty and smooth, just as were your breath on my neck. Warm as a heater on a freezing cold winter night, just as were your hands when you would touch mine.

There was always something
about the way the moon would
illuminate the roads before us
when our minds couldn't rest
that always gave me more comfort
than the blankets on my bed

Hours, days and weeks
my car was found on the south
of the island searching for where
you lost the sparkle in your eye
when you would talk about the
sunset, and how you would
make the sun your infinite lover
and how I should meet them in the
morning with you one day
and the moon was a frequent lover
that you studied his every move

you used to say how "everything
will fall into place,"
and maybe that's what I need to hear
tonight
but for now, I'll just look up
and hope that you're going to make
it through just one more night
because you told me not to
look for you.

tell me why the word forever scares you when no one else promised you no more than a year
why do you sit in the dark but let the television illuminate the room and entertain the blank canvases you call walls
what scares you more, the thought of me leaving or me yelling at you to wake up

I'm searching for your loving gaze
in strangers eyes and shots of *****

I lost the sense of butterflies the day
you told me you didn't know what love was
after telling me days and nights how much you loved me

i don't have any photos from when
we were our happiest together
but that's okay, because I have memories
of us when we never fought
and little spots around the island that can
take me back to a time that once was

too many times I can count where your little heart begged for me back
when you knew I could wake up to
an unfamiliar face
for another day
and I know if I gave you a third opportunity to
hand you my heart on an IV and stretcher
only for you to tend to it for a week and
forget it was ever there and make up excuses
as to why you couldn't care for it

so tell me why you cry for me the most on late winter nights
and search for me in your sheets to grasp my last lingering scents
when it was you from the moment I met you
up until the spring solstice
but it was you who couldn't tend to a heart that needed the love in the first place

I searched for your empty touches in menthol cigarettes on nights we'd argue
over why you never had the time for me in the first place
but would drag me out to sea to find all of your shipwrecks you allowed and applauded
when all I wanted to see was the stars above the wrecks

i miss the mask you put on in the summer that faked smiles and affection
but I got the harmful tattered mask you put on for your enemies
I just wanted to take off your masks and see the real you
the one I know is under all of the sadness
the one who I could've loved
maybe you'd understand too if I showed you the masks I burned of my own
but I burned them the day I came to terms that my heart was taken by you

don't you get it?
I'm not coming back
but my heart keeps wanting to drag me through rusty needles
to convince myself you'll let me in
but my heart and brain have the same conversation every day
brain reminds heart about the long nights of crying and heart says she can do it again
but I don't want to
I don't want to be hurt anymore by you
I don't want to be turned down anymore by you
I don't want to be reading your poems about me
When it was you that pushed me away for the third and final time
And expected me to run back with open arms for you to love me for a week and throw me to the side again
And have my friends yell at me again and again for taking you back
'Because I love F more than words can make sense of it'
I can't even finish this without saying I'm done
because it isn't done
because you
won't
free
me
after
you
cut
the
chord
you won't let go
when I said "I'm not going anywhere unless you force me to"
didn't you hear me?
you pushed me away, f.
you pushed me away.

i name the things
that cause me
the most harm
after
you

There's over a million letters like this one I'm about to write, but this one is very specific.

I've played games of tag,
the game of tag that I call "you're going to be my problem now"
hundreds of burdens that I loved to take on;
my favorite was the type that was heartbroken.
maybe I could fix them,
I could be their savior!
no no, well I could try to show them love
the definition of
unconditional love;
loving someone regardless of what they appear as.

that never really did me any good
I did that for 20 years
"your pain is mine now,"
I'm now 21 and I'm learning the definition of
self love;
caring about yourself unconditionally.
releasing the ones who won't let you grow

the ones who never reach out when you're screaming for help
but only a comfortable excuse to manipulate you
and tell you that you're
in capable of being loved.
I didn't forget that one.

the ones who use you as a verbal punching bag
and imagine you as their mirror to yell at
themselves.

its been a couple of weeks now and I learned
that I know where my heart is and where I want
it to be,
and lord knows it's never going back down.

down where it once was dragged for many years.

i was driving to a gathering
the other night and realized the cancers of my
life were sifted out almost completely
I think that was the first time I cried
tears of joy.

It's only up from here, baby.

the new season came without you
this year,
felt like the sun was in my eyes the whole
time
and bugs crawling through my skin eating me alive
last winter was only warm because you wrapped me in your
clothes when my skin would raise goosebumps
i loved you in all of these seasons, two springs
two summers
one winter and one fall.

"let the dead bury the dead"
how?
how do you just bury a whole year
of loving someone when they were only
aware of you loving them for 1/3 of it?
how do you just throw out all the memories
just like that?
the only thing im burying is my head under
the sea of blankets to hide the shame i
carry every day knowing i let the love
of my life slip through my hands.

******* it

i find myself lost
in your brown eyes
more often than i get
lost in my face paced mind
where everything gets lost in
translation

but you,
you make it so simple
through the traffic
that occurs in my
anxious little brain

ive never been too good
at expressing my emotions
other than loud bursts or
even being quiet.

but,
God - you're the only one
who understands it.

you dismissed my fears
and make me want to
be your wife some day

a sentence I never expected to write.

thank you.

we have a long,
long journey ahead of
us
whether we love it
or hate it

i'm ready for whatever
it is
as long as i
have you
by my side

theres something about the word 'comfort'
that's just a little off to all of us

some find comfort within silk sheets while
others find comfort within a back hand to the face
because injury and insults are down blankets and dim lit hotel rooms

love, that's another word that everyone has a different definition for
love is sending letters to the one you adore even if they live 5 minutes away
and love is half answers followed by minimal intimacy

we accept the smallest things in life based on how we surround ourselves

i only want to accept the highest forms of love and comfort,
because all i believe is pain and dismissal

please tell me this is temporary

please