I'm sorry about the blood I left on your shirt, on your arms, on your neck, on the hood of your car, on the leather interior. I'm sorry you had to see it. I know you never wanted to see me.
I should have known from the beginning that I was in this all alone, because that's how it always goes, isn't it?
Here I am, a stretch of skin over fragile bones, tear-striken and bleeding for you and there you are, all cold eyes and statuesque.
I'm sorry for vying so hard for your attention, for affection that you are so incapable of giving.
I'm sorry for trying to know you, for wanting to learn you, all before I gave you a chance to know me, if you ever wanted to know me at all.
I should have known from the beginning that this was all for nothing, that you'd never want someone like me, so quiet, so unkept. I fooled myself into thinking I had a chance, and maybe I did at first but I lost that, didn't I?
Here I am, a mess of broken bones and pieces of glass sticking out of my chest. I'll take it out and hand it to you, make a chandelier out of my broken glass heart and I'll light up your bedroom with my affection the way your lack of affection lit up a fire within me.
And there you are, leaning against your car with smoke billowing from your lips, eyes in my direction but looking past me; me on the pavement, shivering and bleeding in the moonlight but you're so cool, so coolly pretending that I no longer exist.
Congratulations, you got your wish.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 11:40 PM UTC
you blackout when you're eight years old and lose five minutes of your life, your memory. you open your eyes in a room with a faint blue hue, and a figure standing over you; bulbous head and large eyes, small mouth, a sickly frame. you think about the news and all of the ufo sightings your mother told you were just conspiracies, but you reach out and an alien takes your hand and pulls you up.
"you're okay, buddy," he says in a foreign tongue that you somehow understand. "it'll be our little secret."
our little secret, you remember, and you keep it to yourself for fifteen years, but try your hardest to reveal the truth behind closed doors.
you lose five minutes of your life and spend the rest of it wondering just what happened.
they say trauma takes a toll on the mind and various coping mechanisms include blocking and burying. you rack your brain and search and dig, but nothing makes sense. you remember the blue room and the alien that saved you, and before that, a childish dinner of lucky charms, but nothing in between.
it's not until you're 24, grown and providing for yourself and suffering from a fear of intimacy that you realize what you've buried. you foolishly believed in aliens and spent your teenage years researching their existence, hoping to find answers to your lifelong questions. you go back to that house, that house with the blue room, only to find that no one lives there anymore.
so you break a window and climb right in, sit on a couch that's all too familiar, but you don't remember being here. you blacked out for five minutes when you were eight years old and you think this house is the answer to your memory.
you step through the kitchen and this is the room, the room with the blue hue. lay down on the hardwood floor and look up; there are the cabinets and the golden handles that you remember. there, at the top of the refrigerator, is the dog shaped jar of cookies.
you close your eyes and try to remember, and suddenly you're eight years old again, laying on the ground with your clothes off. it's cold and there's blood drying around your nose and your glasses are crooked. the alien you thought you saw was never an alien, after all.
"you're okay, buddy," he says with a devious grin. he's shirtless and walking on cloud 9, bending down to lend you a hand. "it'll be our little secret."
you wake up screaming because everything you thought you knew was a lie. the aliens, the ufo's, they're just conspiracies. distractions from the truth, from the earth shattering revelation of what really happened.
they say trauma takes a toll on the mind and various coping mechanisms include blocking and burying. you searched, you dug, and nothing made sense because you got it all wrong; aliens don't exist but monsters do.
and he, the one who's secret you've kept, he's scarred you. he's stolen you from you. he reached for your hand as a peace offering. he stole your innocence, your virtue, and you never even knew. but it makes sense now, doesn't it?
you blacked out for five minutes when you were eight years old to try to forget, and you spent the rest of your life trying to remember. you shuddered at anyone's touch, never let anyone near you and you never knew why.
life was better when aliens existed but monsters, they feed on your ignorance, your innocence, your virtue. but those are gone now, and he can't hurt you anymore.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 5:36 PM UTC
i. There are glass shards where her heart used to be. This beaten thing, this broken thing, this fragile thing; it beats while black blood pulses through the little cracks of glass. This heart, what keeps her alive will also be her cause of death and she knows it. It has loved and lost, lost itself in the quells of heartache. It is not whole but it's still there, beating on.
ii. When she places this heart in your hands, I beg, do not grimace at this hollow, broken thing. It's not pretty, I know, but it is hers and when she gives it to you, do not run. This heart is heavy, this heart is weak but if you've made it this far -- made a home in her chest -- I beg, please stay.
iii. She's moody and sometimes much too quiet but this is not to be taken as disinterest. It's in silence where she feels the most at home. And if your home lies near her glass heart, you are home where she is. The quiet, dark rooms in her mind are where her thoughts of you lay safe. All of the things that she'd never say, but she thinks of them often. They are secrets to you, but they mean everything to her.
iv. Sometimes she'll look at you and she won't stop. A lingering stare with glowing eyes and a slight curl at the corners of her lips. She'll look at you like you hung the moon and stars, like you created the constellations with your bare hands. This is how she drinks you in, and when you decide to leave, this is how she will remember you.
v. She won't remember all of the arguments you've had, nor the spiteful names you've called her. She won't remember the time you nearly threw her against the wall in a drunken rage. Accidents happen. "It'll never happen again," you said. "I'm so sorry," you said.
vi. She will remember you smiling. She will remember you laughing so hard that you couldn't breathe, she will remember you looking down at her with a twinkle in your eye when you first told her you loved her. These are the memories that she stores, the ones that play on repeat in her broken glass heart; images projected on the walls of her chest and with every beat comes a ripping tide of black blood.
vii. She may call you at 3am, just a little drunk and very lonely. She'll tell you that she needs you and that she's so sorry for being the way that she is. She's so sorry for making you want to leave. She's pleading and there are tears in her eyes when she opens her front door but she hurls herself at you, arms tight around your neck, but you don't move.
viii. This is desperation, this is how she tries to win you back. This is when it's almost unbearable to watch her. The beautiful girl you knew replaced by a lovesick drunk. But you're here and you know her, you know better than to leave her like this. So you stay and you watch her, ensure that she doesn't do anything stupid.
ix. You sleep in the same bed and her legs are tangled with yours. Her head lays on your chest and for a moment, it's almost like nothing's changed. But these walls reek of love scorned. These bed sheets are a straitjacket. The girl that was once your home is a noose.
x. You wake up as the sun begins to slip through the blinds of her window. She's still clinging to you, and it's almost like old times but you get up before the noose gets any tighter. You try not to wake her, try to leave undetected but her sleepy voice stops you. Her eyes are still closed and her arms are reaching for a man who isn't there.
"Stay, don't go. I'll eat you up, I love you so..."
But you're already out the door.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 4:46 PM UTC
He smells like cigarettes and cheap whiskey.
He smiles something radiant,
and when he kisses you,
there are fireworks in your head.
He takes your hand and says,
"You are so s p e c i a l."
Says, "You are so b e a ut i f u l."
Says, "You are so p e r f e c t."
And you wonder how many times
he's said those words to other girls.
How many other girls have stood
in the same position you are.
But he's saying them to you now
and that's all that matters, right?
He plays your favorite sad song while he drives you home
in the dead of night, but you don't tell him.
You don't tell him how many times
you've cried yourself to sleep
with those words playing in your ears.
Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face.
You don't tell him but you hope that
somehow, he knows. Somehow.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
there are cinder blocks
hanging from your rib cage
and you're still wondering
why it's so easy for you
to sink so d e e p
into the
ocean
f l o o r.
but it'd be better if they were
less of a metaphor
and with me now,
pulling me down into the dirt
where i'm supposed to be
instead of breathing still in
m i s e r y.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 6:57 PM UTC
I wish you’d stop finding your way into my dreams
So I can stop waking up to a throbbing emptiness in my stomach.
You’re not there, your arms are not around me.
Your hands have never held mine.
Your fingertips have never grazed my spine.
You’ve never looked at me with that look in your eyes.
The one that says,
'How did I get so lucky?'
But I look at you that way all the time.
And you’re not even mine.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 9:20 PM UTC
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 4:47 PM UTC
I.
I have spent far too many nights with my head in my hands,
Shallow breaths in and out,
Shaking and choking on the sharp threat of tears.
There’s a hole in my chest that aches with each breath;
It expands and expands more and more,
Threatens to tear me whole.
Maybe if the stars shined a little brighter I’d find hope in that small light.
Maybe if the moon were closer I’d feel better about being under it.
II.
I feel empty and inadequate.
I feel weak, I feel small.
I feel like I’ve lost myself.
It comes in waves every now and then.
The sudden wash of a ripping tide crashing onto shore -
into the hollows of my bones and crashing
with a force that chills my entire body.
It’s not welcome here but it keeps breaking down the door.
I have tried padlocks and I have tried iron and steel,
but the water creeps in through the cracks without fail,
and it’s not long before I drown.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 10:43 PM UTC
she wears sweaters and knit cardigans on hot summer days because they cover up the crimes that her hands have committed.
the things that she can't undo, the sins that they are covered with; sins that took place years ago, covered in a dormant memory that's festered and growing every second, every hour, every day, every year that it goes unacknowledged.
and she bites her nails like she has a secret, one that she's dying to unearth but the consequences are heavy if a single word escapes her lips. but oh, does she have a story to tell.
a story that brings a wealth of shame to her, to her family. a story only heard on crime shows, the sympathetic SVUs and CSIs. but it's her story and it's his, but he's long forgotten.
and the memory never left her.
scarred her, maybe. the words are all at her fingertips, scrawled out on her skin threatening to blow and spew from the ink of her pen but should she allow it -- no.
instead she wears sweaters and knit cardigans on hot summer days to cover the sins of her hands and she wears sundresses to prove that she still has her innocence -- what little there is left.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 2:25 PM UTC
If I fall from the highest peak of the mountains nearby,
Will you remember me in five years?
Or will I flee from your mind,
Only to return when I'm mentioned,
If I'm ever mentioned again?
If I disappeared for awhile,
Cut all ties and communication,
Never contact you or anyone else again...
Will you worry for me?
Will you wonder where I've been,
Where I'm going,
If I'm alive?
Will you come running for me?
Will you care to, anyway?
If I told you I was nothing, I was no one,
Would you try to convince me otherwise?
If I told you that I hated myself,
Hated who I was and who I am,
Would you agree?
And if I bared my soul to you, would you run and hide?
I would.
But I doubt if you'd ever come running for me.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC