there was a time before I left the town we called home where I would visit you every day, repeatedly approaching you with a proposition to leave with me and never come back. you, being afraid of any change were always so quick to change the subject and it took all of my self-control not to scream at you “do you not love me?” over and over and over until the words were echoes in your head and then maybe you would listen to them. but I never did and that was what I congratulated myself on every morning I stood patiently on your doorstep, and every single **** time I left, I told myself what a wondrous person I was thinking only of you…knowing you wanted that and needed that because you were a self-centered hole and I was a gift basket. after a while I stopped visiting and then eventually I was gone and you were more than a memory but less than my past. the first few months we wrote letters twice a week and I congratulate us on that also because it meant we were taking time out of our lives to think of each other, and it did take time because your letters would be pages and pages long. but it couldn’t last forever and I wasn’t surprised when it became once a week and then once every two weeks and then by the tenth month of us writing letters I hadn’t gotten one from you for two months. so I sent back one letter on one piece of paper, cardstock, with one word spelt out in my best calligraphy with a pen my new boyfriend had bought me…I wrote goodbye and sent that letter to you. I’m hoping you realize that by me spending time writing that goodbye I still care about you, I still want you to think of me as a decent person and not awful ex you couldn’t stand. I don’t want your tongue and breath to go bitter when you say my name because someone who is not a close friend has asked of my whereabouts and you have to answer. I don’t want that but I suppose if that’s how you feel then I cannot change that mind of yours, because I’ve never been able to before. you are stubborn and I do not miss seeing you but I miss the sound of your easy breathing as we lay watching a movie. my new boyfriends breathing is too harsh and we do not watch movies we only ***** I guess it’s nice when he’s sleeping but he never wants to hold me “I’m too hot” is what he always tells me, trying to cover it up with a lilt in his voice like he means it as a compliment when I know he’s very serious. I don’t want you back so don’t think that to be the reason I’ve wrote you back after so long. I just happened along a shoebox full of these things and it made me wonder and it made me cry but I never felt fuller than when I covered that box in gasoline, lit it, and watched in burn fast in the parking lot of my new ex-boyfriends yard.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 7:51 AM UTC
I keep trying to find a song that can describe
how I feel with the hope that
maybe it will make this emptiness seem less empty
but you can't rhyme
"scars" with "I'm sorry"
or
"sixteen" with "alcoholic"
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 7:59 PM UTC
The ***** hasn't kicked in yet and I know I shouldn't text you again so I won't because the ***** hasn't kicked in yet but maybe when I'm drunker I could send you a text about how much I hate the fact that I lost my virginity to you or how much I hate the fact that I still text you when I'm drunk that would be pretty **** meta my throat burns but I'm trying not to drink too much water because the ***** hasn't kicked in yet and I'm trying not to cry because my parents got divorced two years ago and everyone else seems to be coping fine but I still break down when my dad talks about how much he loves my mom and he's getting married soon and I wonder if she knows she's his second choice and I wonder if it breaks her heart as much as it breaks mine and my parents haven't seen each other in months because it makes my dad sad to see what he is missing but I think if he saw my mom more often he would realize he isn't missing much because since he left she's been drinking and he never liked her when she drank because she gets too honest and cries too much and she told me my friends were weird and I used to think drunk words were lies but that boy told me he loved me and two years later it turns out it was true and I wish he had told me sooner because it would have saved me a lot of heartbreak and maybe we could have been something and I would text him right now but he never likes it when I drink because I remind him of himself and that terrifies him and he got back from rehab a few months ago and he's been different ever since and I don't like the new him and he used to hate people like him but I guess he's happy now I hope he's happy now I thought he'd stopped drinking until he mentioned grabbing a beer I don't know if he's still taking pills but I hope not because I really do love that boy like a brother or a lover it changes a lot and he's going into the military and I want more than anything to kiss him good bye but I don't know if he still wants me and I don't want to make him sad and he's been pretty mean lately but I think it's just the boys he's been hanging out with and my brother says he's changed so much they hardly ever talk now and I remember when they used to be best friends and I hate what time does to people and the ***** is starting to kick in now do you see what time does to people I still have some left I poured myself a juice glass of grapefruit flavored liquor and I don't know how many shots it equates to but I hope it's a lot I need to stop thinking tonight I want to puke my guts out I want a hangover I want to teach myself a lesson but I never ******* learn I don't know if I'll ever stop drinking sometimes I want to die by the time I'm 25 and I think maybe if it's an accident no one would be so upset so if I got in a car accident no one would think I was depressed if I drove off an overpass people would use my story as a drunk driving prevention program but they wouldn't think I left them on purpose and that's all I need I will live my life quickly and leave just as fast because I hate what time does to people and I do not want to be a victim of the clock
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 7:58 PM UTC
whenever i hear a wind chime i think of your voice. i wonder what it's like to be your bedsheets. what it would really be like to understand the jargon in your head. i ******* want to kiss you sometimes and then others i really do want concrete between your hands & my skin. i can't think straight all the time so i wonder if it benefits me at all to explain what it means that i don't want or expect anything from you but if we accidentally liked eachother in that middle school "sort of way" then i wouldn't say no. i want to really understand what you mean when you say "stay" to me in our texts. i wonder if your sleeping pills do to you what they do to me. i'm thinking again about "stay" and maybe i'm choked up on you leaving for school up north but i'll never tell you because get the **** out of here and don't look back especially not for me. stay. your smile, genuine or not tears me in two. i wish every face on the planet had your smile and i am god **** afraid of you wearing lipstick. i'm terrified of your bare skin and goodbyes. i hate farewells and see you laters. i knew the first time i saw you interact on your phone while drinking coffee the way you text people and how i now do the same thing. i get around read receipts. i sometimes want to hear you say you want.. not so much me, maybe me, but my company. theres a park near my house where i've imagined us paddle boating. i got written up at work once for daydreaming about it. what the **** is in a friendship anyway, decency in a human isn't biological. i get hung up on knee jerks and gut reactions. i want to know what the **** you are thinking about when i look up and you are looking right at me. but then again, i don't. as long as i'm wondering. as long as the door might swing open or closed. stay. go. run. **** your collarbones. **** your chest and skin and lips and everything i hate but crave and might like about you without say so. stay. sit down and explain to me why it is that i care anyway. i am afraid that if i say i want to **** you, you'll think i mean ******* and not ******* i wanna know if any of this sounds familiar and i here i am back to wondering what the **** is going on and why you're looking at me. the hair on my neck stands on end when you do and another thing... **** poetry. i cloud my feelings for you & anything else with the abstract so you'll never really know if i ******* hit rock bottom or not over the fact that i know we will never kiss. somebody just said **** buddy" on tv and i think sometimes symmetry between irony & circumstance. i have harbored some of these thoughts since the night you said hello to me. i'm sorry i had to get over the fact that once upon a time i wanted to save somebody, and you weren't going to let it be you. i do sometimes think my hands might break you, that you spend your day painting a picket fence in your head that you can't get on one side or the other on. i felt like you didn't want to get up from dinner and i rushed it out the door because i am afraid to start a sentence with so. so stay. i am sorry my words often wear brass knuckles. your smile shoots to **** and if i ever die while you still remember my name i want you to read this or read something at my funeral. i don't know if these butterflies are waiting for me to jump or sit down but they speak up when my phone lights up & it's you.
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 6:04 PM UTC
and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ********** with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC
**** those people who said it only gets better.
They lied to us.
They lied to you and me
and all the other kids with tear soaked cheeks
and problems with substances/self harm/depression.
It gets better
but its got to get bad first.
It took me years of tears to realize
that things will get better.
They will.
They may get worse first,
they may stay the same for a while,
they may get better and return ten times worse
but they will get better.
They have to.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
Reflections.
Reminders of something
In you I dislike about
Me.
So far from selflessly
We pat the shoulders of our
Loved ones when they
Remind us of our own
Rewardable sides.
We did good when they did good.
We harvest from their
Achievements.
I suppose mirrors are
The eyes of the
Soul.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:50 AM UTC