Blame it on
Your absent father
Your addict mother
Your unexpected children
Blame it on
Anyone, and anything
So you never have to
Take responsibility
For your own actions

It's the whiskey
That hit me
It's my own shards
That tore me apart
It's a malevolent God
That lied about love
'Cause you don't do anything

Blame it on
My fragile psyche
My insecurities
My "impossible" needs
Blame it on
Anyone, and anything
So you never have to
Take responsibility
For what you've done to me

It's the cigarettes
That stole my breath
The weight of my expectations
That broke my trust
The spinning of my own wheels
That drove me into madness
'Cause you don't do anything

For some reason,
I dreamed of summer,
a lonely beach,
the waves crashing against my feet,
sounds of thunder and rain in the distance
- the perfect sensation -
I was at peace
at that little place in my mind
that no one could ever enter,
no one.
But then, there was something in the air -
a fragrance;
so familiar, yet so distant
It reminded me of that
sandalwood perfume and
leather on heated skin and
chocolate cake that leaves
remnants of sweetness on my tongue and
old books I wished to read
with pages I longed to touch
And suddenly, my world,
my place,
was crashing down around me,
my head spinning
as strong hands cupped my shoulders gently
as if shaking me awake
but,
for some reason,
when I woke up,
I expected
to see
you.

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds