I sat for an hour in my car, in the cold, in the silence. I went through pictures of us until my thumb went numb. I let the life drain out of my phone battery and then I let it drain out of me and then I began to cry. I don’t know why I get so sad sometimes, I just do, but I wish I could stop it. How come every time you drive away it feels like I’m never going to see you again? How come my heart breaks with the weight of missing you when you’re only a room away? I don’t want to need you. I don’t want to do this to you. I love with no point of return and no intent of returning and you ripped the map up the night I made you laugh for the first time.

So much of me was lost in the fire. There are days when I can’t help but go looking for those pieces, but please don’t follow me. Just be there when I come home, because I will always come home. Please be patient with me, I am still so broken and sometimes I forget how to love. Don’t let me start fights just because I feel numb, I will hate myself so much more in the morning and you will get sick of my constant stream of apologies. You’re not him and you never will be; you are a million times better. Please don’t ever compare yourself to my past. Sometimes I cry for no reason, just hold my hands no matter how hard they are shaking and don’t let me drown. Forgive me if I ever flinch away from your touch, this skin of mine is not used to kindness. There is a black hole buried inside of me; be careful. I will write about you until my fingers bleed, I will follow you to the ends of the earth, I will make myself sick with loving you. I will turn myself inside out with worry. I will run, I will push. Oh my god, I will push. I will hurt myself and I won’t call you because I don’t want to need you. I will confess in tears on your bedroom floor the next day and I will feel too guilty to even look you in the eye. Please tell me it’s okay, even if it’s not. I promise I am trying, but I still fall sometimes. Let me be the little spoon, let me hog the blankets, let me steal your fries. I will always talk during movies, I will forget that it’s impolite to point or to stare, and I will never learn how to whisper quite right. I will try and tear myself apart and then beg you to help sew me back together. I will pretend I don’t need your help even when I do, don’t let me push you away. I will always feel like a burden, “confidence” is not in my vocabulary. I am light years past overly sensitive, and nearly everything hurts my feelings even if I don’t want it to. I am stubborn, and I will get mad when you tell me what I need to hear even though secretly I am so grateful. I will make stupid jokes that fall flat and laugh too loudly at all of the wrong times. I will trip and knock things over way more times than either of us can count. I will say “I love you” too much, I will say it in between every sentence. I just don’t want you to ever forget. I will tease you for how loud you snore, even though it really makes my heart swell. I’m going to get you sick, I’m going to steal your clothes, I’m going to make your life Hell. I have a lot of baggage and a lot of drama, and no matter how hard I try to keep you out of it I can’t. I will probably ask you to marry me at some point, and I know I will talk about the future even if I try not to. Always pretend you don’t notice that I’m embarrassing myself. Tell me what you dreamt about, tell me what you saw on your drive to school. Tell me what you and your friends did this weekend, tell me what movie you and your parents watched. Tell me everything, I want to know everything. Tell me what you think about the world, tell me what you think about God. Don’t let me forget who I am. I love you, okay? Even when I’m bad at showing it.

I live in the shadow of a girl who never existed. I exist in the wake of a love lost. When the fire came and took everything, I was the only thing that remained. God was there to pry the dagger from my trembling hands. He looked me in the eye and said "it's time to let go now, if you don't you'll never learn how." So I thanked him for this second chance he had given me and I left, forgetting what I thought I didn't believe in. I thought the worst of it was over, but no time spent in Hell could've prepared me for Earth. But then I found him, and I found solace in the corners of his mind. I tried to help but there were so many bombs and only one of me and I am so small. I fell from Heaven's Grace with ease but I was not prepared to fall in love. I was scared, for a King could never love a peasant. If I had to choose, I would fall from Heaven a million times over before I would willingly choose to fall in love. Because I know what to expect when I hit the ground, I know how to brace my small body against the dirt. But I do not know how to protect myself against a broken heart. The first time he took me out of his head and put me in the light I was petrified; I had spent so much time knowing his every thought that this foreign uncertainty made me feel sick. But there was beauty in it too, a small spark of heat growing somewhere inside of me and that was the most terrifying part of it all. That night I begged God to let me back into Heaven, but he told me this was my home now. So I learned the ways of life in this small town, I taught myself to be polite and to laugh at all of the right times. I made friends and eventually lost friends, I got in and out of relationships so fast it left me reeling. But every night, my Brothers and Sisters would come to me and tell me that I had to go and find him before it was too late. So I left, and I wandered until I found Him, and I told him I loved him even though I wasn't sure what that word was supposed to mean. I gave him all the parts of me I thought were lost forever, I let him see me naked, I let him see my Grace and where my wings had been before I Fell. He kissed the scars on my knuckles and told me I was beautiful, and as the old human saying goes "the rest was history." This is my home now, we have a beautiful Nephilim child and a tiny house in the woods. I feel human in my heart, because he has planted the seeds of love in me. I am writing this as a letter to myself, so that I can read it whenever I need, so to never forget where I came from and how I got here. I don't miss Heaven anymore, I have found true Nirvana in the way our daughters' eyes light up when he comes home from work. I used to be mad at my father for sending me down here but now I wish there was a way to let him now how grateful I am, though I have a feeling he already knows. We are expecting another little girl in May. We're going to name her Amriel - or Amy, for short. I know I said that I would never willingly fall in love but if falling in love means a perfect husband and a daughter who dreams about Angels and draws clouds on her walls, then I would choose to fall in love over and over again.

i've only got one friend anymore,
and it's even sadder than it sounds
if i told better jokes and left my house more,
maybe the rest of them would have stuck around
but it's okay
because my only friend, she's nice and she's pretty
and she lets me braid her hair

i spend more nights than i'd like to admit,
crying and watching re-runs of friends all by myself
my dog died last summer, i've still got her ashes in a little jar up on my shelf
and that's really ******* weird, and i'm really ******* weird
but it's okay

i don't know what i would do without pretentious poetry
or strawberry ice cream or female-fronted bands

i'm an artist but i can't draw, i just cry and pretend it's something
i have an ex-boyfriend who eggs my car every weekend
i've made more enemies than friends,
i'm the most popular girl at my high school, and that's why i stopped showing up to class

maybe i'd be happier if i did yoga and said words like "peace and love"

my love is a double-edged sword screaming “**** me harder” until your great great great grandmother’s ears bleed. I’m sitting in the shade of a tree outside your college campus and even though the weather is nice I can’t stop thinking about dying. I watch as a little quail barely ducks out of the way of some ******* driving a little white Honda civic and at first I feel irrationally ******* that they were driving so fast in a ******* parking lot but that little white civic makes me think of my mother before the drugs rotted what was left of her brain. and I start laughing because it is just so ******* funny to me the way birds look when they run and the way someone looks when they’re high for the first time. I don’t think birds were made to run though, and I don’t think my mother was made to fly. there’s something about watching the person who brought you into this world take themselves out of it. I can’t tell you what it is but there’s something, it’s something with claws and razor-sharp teeth and nothing but jagged edges, it’s something that tears you apart from the inside out. an addict is always an addict, it doesn’t matter if they’ve been sober for ten years or ten days and I know that it is only a matter of time before she leaves again and I’m trying so hard not to spend this time hating her but it’s so hard to love someone who does nothing but lie. I’ve never known my mother the way I know hurt; I know more about broken hearts than I do my mother’s hobbies but it’s made me who I am, I guess. I don’t know how to cook the man I love breakfast but I do know where to cut him open, I know where the weakest points on a person are, I know how to hide mine. I know more about holding knives than I will ever know about holding a lovers hand and if you asked me what love is five years ago I would tell you a never ending fist fight, but now that I’m older I know that sometimes a hand on your cheek doesn’t have to be soft for it to feel like a kiss and that’s not always bad. you have to be careful when ******* me, there is something evil inside of me just waiting for someone to light the fuse. if you find your way too deep inside of this broken body you’ll be able to see where it hurts the most, my darkness will surround you like the dead sea. I will teach you a whole new meaning to the word “envelope”, I will draw you closer and closer until you don’t have to think twice about letting me eat you alive. you will never hit me or **** me hard enough, but your soft caress is what scares me the most. I want to be loved in the same way my mother loved heroine. I want you to need me, I want to ruin your life. I want to put my blood in all of the places you are hurt, I want to stitch up your every wound with my baby hairs. I want you to never get tired of the way I taste. I want you to crave my flesh from the grave. I’m going to practice necromancy and get so good that when I die, I’ll be able to put my skeleton back together long enough to come find you. and when I do, I will lay down softly beside you and finally put these bones to rest. in hundreds of years when archaeologists or aliens dig up our grave, they won’t be able to tell my femur from your tibia or my mandible from your vomer. I wish we would be able to see the looks on their faces when they try to figure out what the **** we are, I know you’d make the best jokes. I can only imagine all of the crazy things they would come up with. I can see our skeleton being the scientific mystery of the century, and I would wish I would be able to knock one of those future scientists on the head with my funny bone and say “hey *******, we were once two people in the living world but I loved him so much that our bones fused together into one, it’s really not that hard” I’d take a deep breath (even though I don’t have lungs) and continue, “the after life probably isn’t real and you guys probably figured that out ages ago but at least me and him are spending eternity together in some way, even if we have no consciousness to comprehend it. do you guys have soul mates here in the 29th century? have you guys cracked the code on love? do you know why that happens? can you explain why sometimes we fall in love with people who don’t love us back? can you explain to me why my mother fell so deeply in love with drugs?” and then you would probably have to come and drag me back to our crypt so that I didn’t ramble myself into a second (or third?) death. I don’t know if soul mates are real and I’m only one tiny speck of a girl, but if I could I would put my hand in your throat, wiggle my whole arm down into your esophagus and through your ribcage until I found your soul, and then I would pull it out so that I could softly kiss it and then put it back, or maybe I’d run away with it and never come back and you would search the earth for me endlessly, wandering around in circles, not knowing what you’re looking for but not being able to stop. every time you smile at me I have to look away so I don’t throw my heart up into your lap. I don’t know much about love but I do know that I’d gouge my eyeballs out if I could never see yours again, and I still don’t know that much about soul mates but I’m pretty sure that you’re mine and if there’s really a God I hope he’s not too big of a **** and made me yours, too.

i feel that i'm doing something wrong, i'm not being a good survivor. i won't call my ****** out by name, i'm too scared to speak up about it. i feel like i'm a bad feminist, i see the other girls falling for the man who ***** me and i feel like it's my duty to warn them but i don't know how. he goes through girls and drugs and every time i see a new one, the vice grip on my voice gets impossibly tighter. i should be protecting these girls, i should be warning them and standing up for them but i am a coward. i'm a ******* coward. i'm too scared to say anything so i sit here and i don't sleep and i worry and i make myself sick. i'm a bad feminist. i'm bad at being a girl.

he liked my hair long so I cut it all off. i don't regret this. i've thrown out all of the clothes i used to wear, the ones that lived on his bedroom floor. i don't regret this. sometimes you have to burn yourself to the ground to forget someone ever touched you, sometimes you have to become nothing before you can be something again. that's okay. i've ruined every place he's ever been before his memory could ruin it first. i shed the skin he touched but it took months for new skin to form, i was raw and i was sensitive and it wasn't pretty. it needed to happen, though. i needed to be raw. and sensitive. and most of all: untouched. i want to forget it but i don't, i want to remember. i want to stay angry. i want to hold onto my anger forever, i want to start a revolution with it. i burned myself to the ground and now it's his turn. i shouldn't have had to deal with this as long as i have, i have been punished enough for a crime i did not commit; a crime i did not deserve. i need to teach myself to believe that: i did not deserve this. this is not my fault. it's hard to stomach that someone you used to love is a monster but it's harder to stomach a lie. even now, a year later, i'm still protecting him. subconsciously. it's a natural reflex for me, but i don't need to do that anymore. he doesn't deserve my protection, i am strong and i am powerful but not for him. never again. i don't want to be afraid anymore. i am strong, i can do this. i'm going to tell everyone what he did, because i don't need to feel ashamed of it anymore. i never did.

The night we danced on your grandparents’ roof while the sun went down
I thought to myself, “could it ever get any better than this?”
We loved each other as much as any fifteen year olds could,
Painting each other’s toenails sunflower yellow in the middle of June.
I said “forever” for the first time that night and meant it.
I lost myself in an endless summer,
Drinking the rest of your dad’s Cabo in the pantry with the lights off
and giggling like he’d never find out.
We walked around with our chests puffed out
and talked like we knew something nobody else did.
You referred to me as your “beloved” and everybody laughed.
My sweaty hand never left yours
and, even just for a little while,
We owned the night.

You lit a fire in me and I tamed one in you.

Sometimes my heart still aches for the person I thought you were.

But,
You are not God, and this room is not burning.
You wanted love in shackles and I gave it to you,
Willingly (or not.)

For four years, you were everything.
And even though life is long,
I still wish I spent less of mine with you.

I thought what we had was love but I’m pretty sure love is supposed to make you smile more than it is supposed to make you cry. I cannot hate you for not knowing how to love me the way I deserve because you are a 16 year old boy, not Romeo. I think if maybe we were older, wiser, and more mature maybe things could’ve worked out but I’m pretty ******* glad they didn’t because who wants to be stuck on their first love forever? It isn’t romantic, it’s Hell. I’m really sorry because I know we had the potential to be really good together, but I’m not quite sure I would like myself if I was what you wanted. I’m trying to find a happy medium. I cannot hate you but I cannot love you, and I know you will never truly be out of my life. You always try to say that “maybe one day”, but I’m counting on a different “one day” from someone else. Though you will always have a special place reserved in my heart, I do not love you the way that I used to and I don’t think I ever will again. I hope you find happiness, I hope you fall in love and smile everyday, just not with me. You gave me a year of your time and we never should have tried for more. First love does not mean best love and just because I promised to love you forever when I was 15 doesn’t mean that I have to. Not all promises can be kept.

I tend to shut down, intimacy and touch have never been my strong suit and I usually retreat into the safe crevices of my mind, and that’s how I know you’re my gift from the Universe. My one special thing. When you kissed me, it’s like I finally woke up. Everything has been dull and muted and only halfway there and I’ve been hiding for so long, but I’m not hiding anymore. You followed me into my mind and we got lost together and I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get you out and that is something I am completely okay with. I’ve kissed too many boys and too many girls but nothing can compare to you. None of my past loves matter, it’s like they’re not even real, just a ghost from another life. All that matters now is you and the fact that you must be some sort of miracle worker, because the walls of my mind are far too high for me to even climb out of but somehow you found a way in. Everything is beautiful with you safely tucked away in my heart and my head and I’m not scared of anything anymore.

You’re never going to see this but I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU. I am in love with your lips and your teeth and the way they’re always chewing on something (and the way I always wish it was me). I am in love with your eyes and the way they scan the room. I am in love with the way you analyzed Where The Wild Things Are in seventh grade and the way you say “ketchup”. I am in love with your crude humor. I am in love with your hands and the lines on your palms. I am in love with your fears and your worries and your passions and all of things you love and all of the things you hate and all of the things that fall somewhere in between. I am in love with your fingers and the way they tap on your knee and on your steering wheel, the way they flit across the piano like that’s the only place they truly belong, the way they rake through my hair sending shivers down my spine, the way I wish they were inside me. I am in love with your body, the parts I’ve touched and seen and the parts I haven’t (the parts I wish to.) I am in love with your voice, how it washes over me like sunshine when you’re singing in the car, how it drips onto my body and my heart like candle wax when you’re falling asleep, how it whispers like my favorite song softly near my ear when you’re waking up. I want to love you, I want us to love each other, I want us to make each other better. I want to show you how astonishing you are, inside and out. I want you to be able to see your beauty. You are something cosmic. I want to hold your hand like it’s the only thing keeping me from floating out into space, I want to kiss you just because I can, whenever I feel like it (which is always). I want to breathe with you, I want to breathe you in. I want to taste you, I want to feel you. I want to ******* like it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart in your hands and hold you afterwards like I am holding all of the stars in the universe, because I am. I want to tell you. Everything. I am in love with you. You have my words. You have all my words.

You told me that you had ruined me for him. You told me I would never fall in love again without the constant reminder of what we had. You told me nobody would ever love me like you did but you never even loved me at all. You told me that I could never be with anyone else, that if I ****** anyone else you would find out and I would be in trouble. You say you've never loved anyone like you loved me but your love is black and blue and I never wanted it. I have let you go but I know I can never out run that night, and I guess that's alright because I am in love. Oh my ******* God, I am so in love. He meets me at the bridge. He meets me at the bridge and he doesn't even have to think twice about it. I feel that you have ruined me but he still manages to find a light in my eyes. I have to thank you for everything you did because if you hadn't left me on that bridge, God knows where I would be today. I would like to be able to say that this is my last poem about you but we both know that isn't true because for some reason addressing you in this way makes me feel better. In person I can't even hear your name without being reduced to a quivering leaf but when it comes to words, I am finally in charge. I have control over what happens here and you cannot hurt me. I could say a lot of things about you. I could say that you hit me, that you used to try and get me drunk so I wouldn't put up a fight, I could say that you ***** me, I could say that you cheated on me, I could say that you manipulated me, I could say that you tortured me. And while all of these things are more true than I would like, the worst thing you ever did was make me believe that I didn't matter. But you know what? I ******* matter. My therapist says I stayed with you as long as I did because I had Stockholm syndrome and you even said so yourself, that I only wanted to love you because you hurt me so badly and I thought I could save you. But, you know what? Consent is important. Safe words are important. Love is important. I am important.

i always say i wouldn’t care if you died but honestly i’ve never really thought about it. would somebody call me to tell me? would it be your mother? who would apologize first? would i cry? would i feel relieved? would i blame myself? would i still be as angry as i am or would i have to figure out a way to let it go and move on? would i be invited to your funeral? would i go? it would probably be the nice thing to do considering who i am but i don’t want to be that girl anymore. if i only heard about it in passing or through gossip in the hallways, would i pretend that i didn’t care? like i didn’t even know you? would i feel sad? what would i even be mourning? the boy i knew, the boy i loved died a long time ago. would this be the closure my therapist always talks about? how would you go? i bet it would be doing something stupid. or maybe you actually followed through and really did ******* shoot yourself. who would find you? what if it was your little brother? if he saw me in the streets, would he hug me? would we cry together? or would i just feel awkward? so i guess i should stop saying that i hope you die because i don’t know if i do i just wish that you never existed, at least in my head.

When I met you I was new, raw. Unkissed, unloved, unfucked. I was equal parts young as I was stupid. The day you left I ran around my house and counted every hole in the wall; did you know that not a single one looked like you? My mom is convinced you are a psychopath and your father thinks I was just a crazy ***** but I think you just weren’t strong enough to handle the hurricane that I am. Remember when I swam too close to the boats and you saw your life flash before your eyes?  You taught me how to clean a gun, and I wonder if you knew I thought about what it would be like to shoot you. You weren’t the first person to over-sexualize this body but you were the first person this plump, over-sexualized body loved. My therapist tells me that trying to remember the good times will help remove this lump from my throat but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. I don’t want to remember the time we danced on the roof as the sun was setting and I laughed so hard about what a cliché that was that I almost fell, I don’t want to remember the time we laid side by side in your room with the lights off and listened to music, I don’t want to remember the night I broke, when you pressed your forehead against mine and swore we would be okay. I don’t want to remember how it felt to love you. I loved you so fully I don’t think I will ever be able to love like that again. I killed myself for you. I guess I’m bitter, I guess I’m broken. I guess I’ll never be the same, but I’m still really glad we broke up. Because for every ounce of love I had for you there was a gallon of fear, and love isn’t supposed to hurt. Love isn’t supposed to be black and blue, and that is the only “love” you know. So yeah, I’m glad you left. I’m glad you ****** her. I’m glad I kissed him. I’m glad we got away from each other before we went too far, I’m glad we got out before it killed us both.

but you went anyway.
you went to the ends of the earth.
far away from
broken homes
and
****** dish towels
and
leaky faucets
and
the one person who could forgive you.
you took love with you when you left,
replaced it with something vile.
something that resembled love
but not enough
to keep me.

all those mornings spent together
and not once did we ever watch the sun rise.

i was always alone.

We’re in the back of your car and I’m looking at the stars and it just kind of hits me, so hard it knocks the wind out of me. You’re the love of my life, and I want to tell you but I don’t. There’s a lot of things I think about telling you, but I don’t. You look at me and say “let’s run away”, and I don’t think you realize that it’s impossible to run away when you are my home. I follow where you go. I want to map out your body with the palms of my hands, I want every peak, every valley, every dip, and every curve etched into my brain. I want to ball you up and hide you safely behind my eyelids. If your love was a sea I would swim to the end of it, if your hands were bumble bees I would sing to them always, if your heart was a hummingbird I would grow you a garden full of flowers so it was never scarce of nectar. I can’t write like you do, I can’t move the earth like you do. But I love you, oh my god, I love you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. I know that one day we’re going to die and anything we did while we were living won’t matter, but you will. You’ll be the one thing I somehow remember, it’ll be oblivion and you. The great love of my life.

Mama, here it comes.
I know you can't see through eyes so glassy,
but please try.
Just once.
For me.

Mama,
will you hold me tight?
Protect me from what's to come.
Shield me,
wrap me up with your love.
Brush my hair 100 times,
come on, I'll count with you.
Just like we used to
before the world turned upside down.
It might be gone before we even reach 99.

Mama,
I know you can't hear through ears so deaf,
but please listen to me anyway.
It's here now, mama, do you hear me?
It's here and it isn't leaving.

Mama,
I know you can't love with a heart so guarded,
so broken,
but please try to love me
just one more time.
I need it more than ever now.

Mama,
it's gone now.
I fought it off with my own two hands,
scratched it ****** with my nails
(bitten short just like yours.)

Mama,
aren't you proud of your girl?
This thing you have created?
This manifestation of 9 painful months,
9 clean months,
9 months untouchable by the monster.

Okay, mama,
I have to go now.
I am leaving.
I know you can't speak through a throat so clogged up with apologies you just never got a chance to say,
so I'll say goodbye for the both of us.

She is the first, first love.
The one that I loved before I learned what love really is.
She is the hurt that I don’t talk about.
She had a name like a car
that she drove straight through the side
of everything I thought I had built.

I loved her with training wheels on,
I loved her in secret,
I loved her so much it felt like I was on fire with it.
I took me three years to fall out of love with her
and another to finally call it “love”.

I wanted to lay down and die for her.
I would have given up anything for her.

When people bring her up I laugh and say, “I thought I loved her once”.
She is the name I don’t say.
If there is a past, I have already forgotten it.
If she asks, tell her it’s okay.

some break the door down
others knock tentatively
others throw the door open dramatically and unashamedly
others lock the door and keep it locked
some of us had to pull ourselves out, kicking and screaming and fighting the whole way
some of us still have one foot in the door
some of us still visit it, sometimes

we all know what it's like behind the door
it's where we learn to hurt
it's where we learn to hide
it's where we learn to love
it's where we learn anger, and fire, and fight
it's home and it's not
it's scary and it's dark but it's there where we learn
to make our own light
to be our own light
that we can shine and we can glow no matter what the world beyond the door may say

"love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside"

happy national coming out day to all of us, everywhere

Licorice veins and pancake hands. You've got a universe where your brain should be and a feather for a heart. Your love is like a mountain range, your love is like a crashing wave. I say, "Oh, please ,can we have a wrap-around porch? And a balcony to kiss you on? And a swing to watch you grow old on?" And you say, "In time, darling." And I say, "But I want so badly for it to be now." We drive until our eyes go blurry and I pick you flowers on the side of the road. I put them in your hair, like a crown, and tell you you're the king of the forest, only the forest is inside of me; but I don't tell you that part. We make love in a truck stop bathroom and I tell you that if there is an after life I want to spend it with you. I burn your birthday breakfast (and lunch and dinner), but you kiss my eyelashes and assure me that take-out is fine. You write me short stories on butterfly wings and I whisper 'I love you' through my fingertips. We go to the moon one night and meet God, he tells us we are right for not believing. I ask you to marry me somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, you tell me yes on one condition: I stop trying to change the way I view the world. If we were younger, I would throw a baseball through your window and ride my bike across your lawn. If you put me under a blacklight, you'd see nothing but your fingertips. I want to bake you apple pie-or blueberry, if you prefer.  A garden in the backyard, full of sunflowers for your mother and lotuses for mine. Chocolate chip pancakes with a side of memories for breakfast, and chocolate milk to drink. We can fall asleep and travel the world. Tell me about your dreams, the good and the bad. How many dogs is too many dogs? I want to melt into you.

One of us has to apologize eventually, but God knows it'll never be you so here goes, I guess. Besides, I was always the bigger person. I am sorry for trying to force you into my apple-pie mold when you always wanted pumpkin. I'm sorry for all of the lies I told, I'm sorry for keeping you a secret. I'm sorry that I let you take me for granted. I'm sorry that it's taken you this long to realize what I mean to you. I'm sorry that it's too late. I'm sorry for always offering you my hand when you wanted my ribs and part of my esophagus. I'm sorry that not even everything was enough for you. I'm sorry that for the third birthday in a row you've gotten drunk and cried, usually about me. I'm sorry that I loved you. I'm sorry that I don't love you anymore. I'm sorry that sometimes I still miss your ghost laughing in the passenger seat of my car, high as the clouds singing along to a Frank Ocean song. I don't want to hate myself anymore. I need you to let me go so that I can move on. I'm glad you're working through some things but please, for the love of God, leave me out of it. Throw as many drinks at my car as you want, just please don't contact me. My heart strings cannot take anymore tugging. It's been too long, I need my life back. I'm just sorry, for everything, whether it was my fault or not and I need you to know that.

"Get me out of here alive" I scream,
because only you can.
Only you hold the key, the secret, the missing piece -
of me.
That's what you are.
I knew it the moment we met,
I think,
but my heart hid it away until it was time.
I held my love for you tight inside my chest
until the world was ready for it.

Lay your head on my chest.
Place your ear over my heart.
There.
Do you heart that?
That's you.
That's where I keep you.

I know,
I know I will still exist long after your love has left.
I know there is still a Me without You.
But I don't want to know her.
I don't want to be that girl.

Having feelings for you was like blindfolding myself and spinning around in a bunch of circles and getting really drunk and then deciding to go stumbling through a canyon with only one way out. I knew what I was getting myself into but I am a strong believer in the benefit of the doubt, of miracles. I wanted to know you from the inside out but sometimes I think I only know you from the outside in. On paper, we were perfect. Everyone thought we were made, ****, even I did; but there were flaws in our fabric that not even we could see. I’ve been told that if a writer falls in love with you, you never die but what happens when you fall in love with a writer? Sometimes I think if you laid me down side by side with a corpse you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. There’s a lot to be said about lost relationships, but what is there to be said about almost, could-have, should-have beens? I don’t know if I’m allowed to miss the way you’d say my name like you knew something I didn’t, like there was this big secret about me that only you knew. Sometimes anger and sorrow block out longing, but that’s not to say that I don’t miss you. I hold my breath whenever I see you but I’m not even sure why or what I am so afraid of. You were always the one to pick up the pieces but I’m not sure what to do now when you’re the one that put them there. I know I will be fine, and that one day I won’t exist and nothing will matter, but right now everything matters. I am a veteran in heartbreak, I know what to do this time. I’m a sucker for symbolism, and I think maybe that’s why I opened that fortune cookie last night. I wanted so badly to mean the world to you like you did to me, I wanted so badly to show you that love was good and though she hurt you I never would. I wanted so badly for us to grow, and to thrive. I wanted so badly for so many things but all I’ve got left is a dead rose and a text message waiting to be sent. I’m way past losing track of time. Tracking time. Things that seem so minuscule are colossal to me and every slight shift in your demeanor felt like a hurricane. I remember this one time, I got so ******* high and all I could do was talk about your hands. That’s when everyone knew I was ******, because I was singing songs about your hands before I ever got to hold them. I think I owe it to myself to find closure, but how can I expect to do that when I don’t even know how to end a poem? I was just a bad apple and you are the most beautiful orchard. I never deserved to be a part of you.

The burden of the messes you left weighs heavy on my chest. I think my heart is beginning to slow down because frankly I am not strong enough to stand up straight anymore. I cannot remember good times because you are so rotten that you have eroded every memory of you into a nightmare. My preconceived notion of the pain dying with my love for you was wrong. I am suffering more now than I ever was before. Without the smoke screen of affection and adoration, I see you as who you really are. I see every fight, every hole in the wall, every ignored plea to stop as what they really are. You are foul. You are disgusting. I fear my hatred for you is beginning to rot my heart, too. And that is the last thing I want. I want to be able to love and accept the love I am given without your voice in my head telling me I don’t deserve this, any of this. I may not deserve happiness but I know I at least deserve to rid my brain of every thought I’ve ever had of you. You tried to tell me that I never really loved you because if you really love someone, you never stop. But I know now that is not true in the least bit. I am no longer bound to your disease by some asinine cliche or the belief that I have to always love you because I promised you I would when I was fifteen. Your name has become synonymous with death. Everything we once had, has long expired. There is a tombstone underneath my bed with your name on it, and with time it will collect dust and inevitably be forgotten, just as it should be. I hold no obligation to you, not even the you I thought you were, the one I made up in my head. It’s not that I broke my promises to you, it’s that there was no way of keeping them without killing whatever was left of me. You are an appendix, a tonsil, a fake friend, an extra piece of cake. I never needed you, though at one point I may have thought I did. In two years I will have forgotten your middle name and what street you live on. You are not vital, you are not a necessity, you are not more important than me, and my biggest mistake was ever believing you were. I can talk **** on you up down and sideways, criss cross and backwards, but I know there are things that I can’t change. The things you did to me can never be undone, but they do not have to be redone or relived either. I don’t have to carry these bruises around any longer. I’m not going to carry these bruises around any longer.

Trigger warning: **** scene, trigger warning: domestic violence, trigger warning: strong language, trigger warning: mature themes, trigger warning: grilled cheese sandwiches, trigger warning: big gray trucks, trigger warning: turning left at intersections, trigger warning: bad day, trigger warning: good day, trigger warning: barbecues, trigger warning: ****** movies from the 80’s, trigger warning: the hallways of my high school, trigger warning: my bedroom, trigger warning: my sheets, trigger warning: my hands. They teach you what to do 24 hours after being ***** but not 24 months after when you are still bleeding. They tell you about possible ‘triggers’ but they don’t tell you what to do when it’s your mother’s laugh or your father’s stubble or the way a stranger says your name. There is no pamphlet for this, no 12-step program, no hotline that I can call. I was cut open to the very core and I don’t know if it’s just that nobody sees it anymore or if they’re just used to the mess by now. They took down the caution tape way before I was ready and now I don’t know how to handle any of this. I am too small, my wings were broken and everybody expects me to be able to fly again but I’m starting to believe that he was right when he said I didn’t deserve to fly. My mother’s extra-strength Bounty paper towels and extra-strength love are not enough to stop my guts from spilling out all over the kitchen floor. I’m walking around with a bullet lodged half-way into my skull, my small intestines stretch all the way to my childhood home, I’m dropping pieces of my liver and my kidney and my lungs like a trail of crumbs for the vultures to follow. Every night I dream of my eyes being pecked out by crows and every morning I wake up disappointed that I can still see the mess that he made of me. My best friend is the skeleton in the closet of our love, we take nightly trips down memory lane with our arms linked and our bellies full of laughter (and hatred). I’m not sure how to come back from this. I’ve run out of vices and I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this game of hide and seek. Death is getting impatient; he’s been standing at my door for weeks and I am tired, so tired, and he looks tired, and I think it’s time I invited Him in. You can’t hold grudges forever and my grandma always told me that everyone deserves compassion, even Death.

It is 12:29 a.m. and I can't stop thinking about you and everything you did and it's making me ******* sick. I want to tear you from my mouth. I want to reach down inside of my throat and rip you out. I want every trace of you gone. I want to slice myself apart. I want to live in a body you've never touched. I want to live in a body that hasn't even breathed the same air as you. You are a disease, you are a disease, you are a disease. My veins are itching. My head is burning. I am filled with so much rage I'm terrified of myself. I banged my head against my bedroom wall so many times I've lost count but I haven't blacked out yet so I should probably keep going because no matter what I do I can't escape that ******* night. I wish I had never been born.

If I had my way, you would want for nothing.
I would stop the whole earth from spinning if you asked.

When you touch me, I am the universe experiencing itself.

I have so many strange words tucked away in my vocabulary but still, none of them will ever be able to do you justice.
You deserve a whole dictionary full of new words just to describe the space where your shoulder meets your neck.

My mother asks me how I'm doing and I tell her "fine."
I do not tell about the new anti-psychotic I was prescribed this week,
or about the anxiety attacks that land me in the hospital.
This is how I lie to my mother to save her.

My mother is not like other moths,
she is all "party at Summer's house" and no "party at Chuck E Cheese"
She is all neglect and no nurture.

When my dad left, I was the only one still here to prop her up.
I held her while she cried,
I rubbed her back while she threw up,
I cleaned the house,
did the laundry.
I raised myself when she couldn't even get out of bed.

The only time she was there was when I told I was leaving,
then she would blow dry my hair and let me sleep in her bed.
I kept pushing her,
and pushing her,
and pushing her,
just wanting her to react in someway,
even if it wasn't good.

The last time I told her I was leaving,
she packed my bags for me and I haven't known what home is since.

I've gotten my heart broken before,
I've been through plenty of break-ups;
but none of that could have ever prepared me for breaking up with my mother.
Leaving what I called home with a box of my things,
I'd never felt more grown up in my whole life.
I've been carrying my mother since I was nine,
but when I finally dropped her,
I shattered.

This is how I break my own heart
to save myself.

A  candle or a flashlight?
Do you sleep with the door closed?
What songs did your mother sing when you couldn't sleep?
Did you have an imaginary friend?
Describe them to me.
How many past lovers?
Do you still think about them?
Miss them, even?
Do you like puzzles?
I'm very hard to put back together.
When you hold someone's hand,
do you like your thumb on the inside or outside?
Big spoon or little spoon?
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life,
What would it be?
Who hurt you?
How many skeletons are in your closet?
How many bodies have you buried?
How would you define love?
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "break"?
Does is still hurt to say her name?
How many hearts have you broken?
Is it better to ask for permission or to beg for forgiveness?
Do you believe in God?
What about astrology?
Have you ever looked in the mirror and not known who was staring back?
Could you ever love again,
The way you loved her?
Could you love me that way?

So you meet this boy, right? And you fall in love and it's beautiful and poetic and he's "the one". But then he leaves you and it's Christmas time and you're hiding in your aunt's bathroom as he screams at you "I don't love you anymore! I don't ******* love you anymore!" and you think that the windows are going to break even harder than your heart because his voice is so loud and there isn't anything beautiful or poetic about this. You tried for many months to convince yourself that he loved you but somebody that loves you wouldn't set you on fire and laugh when you begged for water. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I should have left the night you threw the glass at the wall and I should have never came back.

You bury your head in the bathtub to drown out the screaming, you don’t realize until your mother finds you that the screaming was your own.

on your 15th birthday you took my virginity. on your 16th birthday you threatened to beat me to death but i kissed you anyway because i wanted you to be happy. it's your 17th birthday, i hope its good i guess. my family used to do this thing at birthday parties where after singing the traditional happy birthday song to whoever deserved it respectively, we would sing the merry unbirthday song from alice in wonderland to everybody, it was fun and it was weird but its what makes my family my family. you ******* hated it. you thought it was stupid, and it made me sad but when we would go to parties together id decline when they'd call me up for my turn to blow out the candles, just to impress you. the first birthday party i went to after you left me i asked them to sing the unbirthday song to me twice. i guess i just wanted to say that i've fallen in love with a boy that lets my family scream the unbirthday song at him and my sister rub frosting on his face and he is sincere when he tells me he loves it. i'm doing great, and i don't know i just hope this birthday is better for you than ones in the past have been. don't threaten to **** anyone please, and don't get so drunk that you start crying to journey and calling all of your ex girlfriends.

There’s beauty, there’s magnificence, there’s splendor, and then there’s you. Sometimes I’m not 100% sure if you’re even human, or if you’re this superior race slumming it with all of us apes. I thought I knew what it meant to be in love until you told me about the 3 times you laughed so hard you cried. You ask me if I’m happy with you and I think you’re kidding because, c’mon, you’re the best thing I’ve ever had. I was falling through space when you found me. Well, I say found, but it’s more like we collided. You were Haley’s comet and I was blinded by your light and I stumbled into your path. If I believed in God I would say that he wanted us to be together. Sometimes, late at night, I imagine a bunch of Gods and Goddesses up in the sky fighting over you. I think that’s why we have thunder storms. Zeus is screaming at Aphrodite that he must have you because something so beautiful could only be his son, but Hades is trying to explain why he deserves you because you are worth more than anything money could buy. But I think that I deserve you the most, because even though I’m not a goddess, my love for you is pure and untouchable. I cannot give you the world, I cannot grace the earth with a permanent overcast for you, I cannot make all of your dreams come true. I cannot do anything but stand by you and hold your hands even when arthritis has taken over. I’d move mountains if the sun was in your eyes. I’d change the seasons if the temperature made you uncomfortable. I’d breathe underwater for you any day. But I know you, and I can see how pure your soul is, and I know you could never ask for any of those things. But you deserve those things, you deserve every good thing the Universe has ever created. You are the best thing the Universe has ever created.

You are crushed up candy hearts. You are a song that gets stuck in my head for weeks on end. You are skin on skin. You are heat. You are electric. You are my journal, the one I lost and still cry over. You are forgotten movies and discarded shirts. You are meeting me half way. You are meeting me at the bridge. You are desire. You are coming home after the longest day. You are what it feels like to have your bones settle in. You are sweaty palms and wet lips and sparkling eyes. You are comfort. Have you noticed that all of my poems start with "you" these days? There are two hearts left on your bedroom floor and while one may be mine, they both belong to you.

I'm ******* terrified because I miss you so much my heart feels like it's caving in and I saw you seven hours ago. Looking at your face in the dark I can already feel how badly it is going to hurt when you leave. There are 10-12 hours (give or take) everyday that I'm not with you so in one week that means there's almost 5 days I'm missing out on and in one month that's roughly 20 days spent without you and in one year thats 240 days I don't get to see you. It scares me that I know that. It scares me how much that upsets me. Some days I wake up feeling like you're already gone. I'm already sad for next year. It may be your last semester but it feels like mine too, but its not a relief. I'm stuck here for another year and a half and by the time I catch up with you, you'll be all moved on. I've never been this comfortable and that's how I know I probably won't survive you leaving, and I can lie to myself and say it'll be fine but my heart is already breaking. How am I supposed to change every aspect of my life? I said I wouldn't need you but my fingers were crossed. I think I've needed you my whole life. I shouldn't put this weight on your shoulders, I shouldn't be pulling you down. I shouldn't be doing this to you. I would like to be able to say that I deserve this and I deserve you but I know that I don't. You're a gift from the Universe that I got by mistake but I'm too selfish to give you back. I'll probably be the first to say "I love you" but I know I'll be the last to leave.