She used to be the one
who was by my side
through all of my potentially
bad decisions,
but now it's you.

She was there through
bad haircuts,
tattoos.
piercings,
and daring outfits.

But she always held me back,
****** back the chain
and reminded me
that I can't just do things,
I have to be afraid first.

Now you
cheer me on,
and hold me
when it doesn't go to plan.
The decisions I'm making are better,
and I'm less afraid.

It’s a small town,
A Silhouette of an eyelash
On the horizon,
“Sneeze and you’ll miss it.”
It’s home to the bustling store
Where I worked.

He came in with his daughter
Some days,
He gets her on the weekends,
Sharing custody with his almost ex
Wife.
Dave, he’s tall at a telephone pole,
And he tries not to eat sugar,
He hates IPA.

This morning he came in,
And announced that anyone
Who tried to put structure in his life
He ended up leaving.

I like structure.
I like lists,
Things that match,
Objects having a home,
A balanced finances book,
And color coding.

When I was young
I coveted men like this,
"free spirits"
who come and go as they please.

I am still young,
but old enough to know,
I want more.

It’s easy for me
To forget the severity,
Until the tunnel vision,
The shaking,
And the vomiting
Start happening.

It’s easy to brush it off
And call it an old problem,
Just because the triggers
Are becoming fewer and farther
Between.

But they still happen.
They still hurt.
I’m strong,
And I’m fighting to gain control,
But losing it feels like failure sometimes.

I don't know that most people
believe me
when I say I've changed.
I took surviving my suicide attempt
as an opportunity
to try and never get to that point again.

I realized
how lonely
my body was,
with my heart so far away from it.

I crashed back into myself,
and felt the sting in every
nail bitten
finger tip.
Inspected all the sore parts of my body,
touched my temple
and let myself think again.

I've been walking around
as a body
with the rest of me dragging behind,
Because I wanted to hurt less,
but so
much
more
damage was done.

Yet,
it's still better to be back
and feel the pain
than it was to run away.

I tell people I've changed
but they don't know
that crashing back into myself
changed me so much.

I took what could have been an end,
and made it give me new life.

He’s beautiful,
Isn’t he?
And for once in my life
I feel as if
I may be on the right path,
Even if it happened by accident.

He kisses my hand
Every few minutes.
He lets me be
Whatever I need to be,
And he’s always there to open the door,
Or help me close it.

His room is a museum
Of curiosities,
They make me feel at home.
Like something inside him
Matches something inside me.
Every detailed interest,
Every phase of life
So lovingly given a home
And displayed.
I want to run my fingers
Down the spines of his books
For the simple pleasure
Of the feeling.

It’s the first time
I’ve felt calm,
The first time,
I fit in a family,

I’m not afraid of any
Monstrous part of him,
Only praying nervous prayers
That I get to keep him.

He’s my
Good decision,
My happy thoughts.
He’s my love.

Lips that had never been chapped
By liquor,
Or seasoned with smoke.
We had everyone to blame
But ourselves.

You had bubble gum pink hair
And a goody-good attitude
With a hidden mean streak.
I had choppy hair I cut myself
And an in your face attitude
With a hidden kind streak.

I rarely told the whole truth
And you were proud of yourself
Whenever you kept a secret
More than a week.

You told me best friends hold hands
By holding pinkies,
But when we got our first tattoos
We gripped each other’s five whole fingers,
Because if you’re going to make a potentially bad decision
You may as well
Do it wholeheartedly.

We walked dogs
And giggled about boy bands
It was nothing too unusual.

But I had a feminist agenda
And you wanted a boy to tell you
What to do.
Your mom always told us
We’d be happy when we have a man
To make the hard decisions,
And I never bought it.
You never objected.

There would be nights
I couldn’t handle
The sound of my phone vibrating
To announce your messages,
and I couldn't handle looking at them,
I worried if I didn't take care of you
that you would fly into a thousand pieces,
your messages were evidence of that.
But sometimes I still needed to sleep,
or breathe,
and I couldn't guarantee those things as your friend.

When the summer turned my nose pink
and brought freckles to the surface of our faces
we shared milkshakes
and giggles about boys.
We wore each other's shoes
and pajama pants,
did each other's makeup,
and wouldn't buy clothes
without checking in
on the other's opinion.

It was all so ordinary,
yet so abnormal
and painful.

In our early twenties
we starting drinking together,
and that quickly became
one of the only things I could do with you.
You didn't want to go out,
or talk,
or anything.
Just go to work,
come home,
drink,
and watch TV.
I had to be a part of that world
if I wanted to be your friend.

I wanted more,
and that's what killed our friendship.
I wanted more than everything
being your way.

I could blame your boyfriend,
because he was more important to you
than I was,
but it isn't his fault.
His only fault was not being able
to handle other people.

If you ever go looking for reasons why,
know I don't hate you.
I remember camping out in tents in your front lawn
and I know that I cannot do anything
but miss some of those memories,
but I needed more,
and less.

More friendship,
less dysfunction.

I didn't know how to rebuild it,
and I tried in all the wrong ways...
but I would've thought
that you'd still be there
if I needed you.

Who would've thought
that I would be the one
to fly apart,
but I did,
and suddenly you weren't there.
You couldn't look me in the eye.
You'd demanded my help for the majority of my life,
but all you could muster the courage to do
was send me a text,
a text that if I read between the lines properly
told me
that I wasn't your problem,
but you wished me well.

I think that's a good way to end it,
you got it right.

You're not my problem anymore,
but I wish you well.

Naked felt good
When my consciousness
Was just a kite
I flew far
Above my head.

The feeling
Of revealing
My darkest secrets
To a crowd of people
In a dimly lit pagan bar
Used to be the things
Fantasies were made of.
Because they didn’t matter.

The darkest parts of myself didn’t matter for a moment
Because I was so far away from the world,
So detached from myself,
That the adrenaline
Almost roused me to wake up
From my daze,
And the feeling was addicting.

I fell down from the sky.
I fell hard.
I came back,
Hardly able to walk
For a few days
It was such an impact,
And suddenly things matter again.

Strangers kissing me in the dark
Doesn’t sooth me,
It hurts to even consider it.
Because I was so lonely,
And it was just a glaring reminder
That I was so
Lonely and dissatisfied.

But you carefully unwrapped me,
Gently tugged at the folds
So not to rip the paper,
And you looked at the bare body inside.
I’m raw.
My skin is pink and burned,
I feel pain even at soft touches.
I left my body behind
For so long
I didn’t even know
The damage that had been done.

You run your hand
Along the curves,
The cuts,
And the bruises.
You kiss the dry
Cracking skin,
And I feel truly
Naked,
Vulnerable,
And released.