Here is where the waves spray
Into your face and slide down,
In the sun it seeps inside and
You can’t get it out.
...
You left me alone to
Swim inside of our memories
Until I was pruned all over,
Until the scars didn’t show.
......
You didn’t want me before those
Thirty days into summer
When you waded out too deep
And felt the current sweep you back.
...
You kept your head down, like mine
You ****** in what was two molecules away
From your salvation, a salty, unholy substitute.
Always drowning yourself with all the wrong substances.
...
You swam back ashore two months too late,
After I was cocooned dry,
I was not waiting for you by the lighthouse
It shouldn’t surprise you – you never asked.
...
“It had always been my plan,”
You breathed into my side,
To leave me too far in the depths.
You are the reason why I learned to swim.
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
I told him I wanted love and
He told me I was delusional.
You climbed into the clouds
Before she said you’d fall out
Of them. Stars shattered on the
Sidewalks, and their dust painted
Over by layers of graffiti.
He told me that this was it.
I said,
This cannot be all
That there is.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
“Stay happy!”
I guess we didn’t.
I leave in a week and
It just feels weird.
You were in my dreams last night,
And the night before.
“I don’t believe you”
- It’s still true.
You’ve started a war.
It actually isn’t bad,
Just some moments.
Good bargain.
“Do it for me!”
It’s okay,
Time will tell.
“I’ll see you again one day.”
(Eventually.)
Did it hurt?
It’s still better than before.
“I’ll win.”
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 12:57 AM UTC
She has always been loud and angry about
Her sadness.
She reaches into our rooms, plucks us up,
Sends our arms around her body
And piles her tears into the nooks of our clavicles.
I never learned how to reach like that.
My position was always upright, tense,
Resisting as much as I could
Without going back on my role.
I’m still not used to people touching me out of happiness.
I’m still not used to
Touching people, period.
I was brought here the same as each on both ends:
Large mouths and balled fists always on the verge of ready,
But we knew how to retreat when the world
Bound itself inside of you, heavier than
Your own heartbeat.
I’m not entirely sure which to call normal.
The way that she pours herself into our emptiness
And refuses to back away,
Or the way that we know to suffocate ourselves
Before ever, ever
Moving this into someone else.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 3:47 PM UTC
He asked if she danced
She said, "only in my red" -
He asked if she bled.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 1:55 PM UTC
Our story never
Began, which is why I know
It is not over
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 2:41 PM UTC
You found yourself on
The bottoms of coffee mugs
You filled them back up
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 12:59 AM UTC
It is May again;
And this means you are coming back.
You have registered once more for your territory in my aortas
As if you never left,
As if there was never a five-month ache
Before the last beat
Was heard again.
You’re back just in time to celebrate
The anniversary of our high school hookup
That you expected me to find my way
Out of
On my own.
Part of me likes you because you are
In no way condescending.
The other part wonders how you could
Possibly think that my skin,
That you touched, that I thought you knew,
Could ever be malleable enough
To be full one moment and empty the next.
The hole you opened inside of me waxed and waned
For months,
And I found someone else to slow it,
To fill it until it was still.
But here you are again,
Back as an echo,
Reverberating throughout me,
And here I am divided.
Still alone; because it is May again,
And this means that I wait until you decide
You want to be back.
You always do, but only in
Bits and pieces,
And you stack our memories together as stones,
3 piles high all around me,
Dulling the edges so that
I will not remember being made your
Sacrifice the last time.
I wonder if I should be worried that I
Already want to talk to you every day again.
I shouldn’t feel so lonely
After six hours back with your words
Not wrapped around me.
I shouldn’t wear our conversations like
Tattoos, and feel off-center when I cannot
Touch what you told me.
But it is May again,
And no one is surprised.
I am still alone, but
Hope whispered that you told her
You were on your way home.
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
I never thought it was my fault
Until everyone started telling me it wasn’t.
I was a little girl with two left feet and a
Right hand that shot up before everyone else’s
In class.
Now, I keep it in my lap,
Tucked safely beneath my left.
This is what you left.
This is why on Christmas, I get an email,
And you don’t get a response.
This is why, when I talk to boys,
I don’t see love until I know
Where their hands go during a fight.
I never thought I was damaged until I saw
How the other girls lay their heads casually
Down on warm chests, and
I realize my neck does not bend that direction.
This wasn’t an issue while I was strong,
But time is too long, and there are no
Body-sized indentions for me to lean against
On the walls that I stand inside.
I never thought you would be gone for seven whole years
Until each day, you didn’t come back.
Apr 29, 2013
Apr 29, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
But that doesn’t cancel out what I feel right now and all the space floating around with nowhere to go but deeper down inside of me, waiting for the right words someone inflicts upon my sensitive eardrums to bring it out again. And the words will come and the pain will return and I’ll think back on this moment with a different perspective than the one I’ll have tomorrow.
And I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s smile because this right now feels more real than anything and I don’t want to forgive them even if they deserve it and I don’t want to cancel out everything I feel now as a distant memory because it’s so strong and it belongs here. And it is justified, even if that’s just in my own mind, and I don’t want them to go on believing that
I
am
indestructible.
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 8:23 PM UTC