I have been recollecting our shards
Shattered glass of incandescent past
And I do not care if it cuts
My porcelain hands do not feel
For you have drained my blood
I have nothing left to bleed
But somehow I'm glad that
If you are reading this by any chance
Know that I didn't love you just once
From the first meeting until the last
And all the days in between
My love will stay unthawed
Frozen and locked here



-Petrified Heart, Margaret Austin Go

I don't like to think about it
I hate it
I try not to think about it
But do you think trees try to fall down
things happen
regardless of whether they're planned
so last night I thought about it
even though I didn't want to

it kills me
I didn't want it to
I assumed it wouldn't
but trees spend all their lives above the grass
that doesn't mean they think they'll ever touch
I thought about it
and I hate that
and I hate that I hate that I thought about it

I hate that I love you
I hate that I don't fully believe that sentence
I hate that you can feel something
but not be aware that you feel it
I wonder if trees know they'll grow
they always do
but I wonder if they know they will
Is it possible to not know the inevitable?

I wish I could unthink the thought I thought
it kills me
how the thought of you with another man
makes my stomach turn
but the thought of me with another woman
doesn't carry the weight to lift a scale
were trees previously just one branch
until they realized they had other options

I'm using a tree as a metaphor
because I don't want to talk about myself
because I don't want to make this about me
I want the world to cause my problems
but if i'm being honest
which I will be
I am the root of my pain
I just don't want to think about it

For the times you understood, but said nothing at all
For the days you saw my sadness, and pretended otherwise
For the hugs you didn’t give
For the calls you didn’t answer
For the funeral, stay home.

It’s 1:09 in the morning. I can’t sleep, haven’t been able to in months.
Now it’s 1:10 in the morning, I’ve been trying to put my thoughts together.
I wrote a song about you today, I say that like it’s not the millionth one.
When I hear your name I have flashbacks of your smile, and your eyes.
Those eyes tell a story, one even the greatest of storytellers couldn’t portray.
But I know it all by heart, well what I have left of my heart.
However, you’re not to blame for the broken heart.
I blame myself and my late realization that you were the one holding me together.
It’s been 1 year, and 5 months since we ended things.
I fear the pain has only gotten worse.
Two parts of me died when you left, an evil, never satisfied with what I have part, and the part of me my mother misses most.
If I could explain what I mean by that I would, but it seems to me it’s more than any of us may ever comprehend.
It’s 1:21 now. It’s been 1 year, 5 months and 12 minutes since I started writing this.
If only I could find the words to say.
Your mother never really liked me, then again I gave her reasons not to.
My mother still loves you, then again you gave her every reason to.
I think about you more than I should. I can’t help it, you’re everywhere.
You’re the sun when it shines down just right, you’re the flowery smell in the breeze.
You’re the quiet girl in the hallway with her headphones in.
You’re the girl singing in my gym class.
At least I see you in the things they do, but they aren’t you.
Nobody ever will be.
Sometimes we talk, I don’t know if that kills me or keeps me alive.
I look at your pictures every day.
There’s 22 I’m too afraid to delete on my phone because i’m sure you’ve deleted yours and I don’t want them gone forever.
I can describe them all in detail.
Sometimes I interlock my fingers and squeeze them together like we did to each other when we held hands.
That sounds absolutely pathetic. But none the less I still do it.
My friends told me I talk about you in my sleep.
I dream about you often, 50% of the time I’m awake when I do.
I still text you names of songs that remind me of you or that I think you would like.
Most of those songs make me cry.
That also sounds pathetic.
It’s 1:45 in the morning, I still can’t sleep.
Now I have been writing this for 1 year, 5 months and 36 minutes.
I don’t think I’ll ever be finished.
I still love you.

and if you are still the way you have always been, you're the lucky ones because most of us have taken ourselves apart down to the very molecules we are made up of and rearranged them to someone else's liking

and if you are still happy then you're the lucky ones, because most of us are so depressed we are willing to lather our stomachs in alcohol and burn our throats with smoke for fun, or to forget that person who made us feel like we were sitting in a haystack of needles, stabbing and wounding every inch of our skin

and if you still strive for your highest hopes and dreams, then you're the luckiest ones, because most of us settle for less, and only climb the ladder until we think we have reached the top

and if you're in love, you really are the luckiest of all, because we are all mostly bitter over those we have lost, thinking we are unable to find someone that will bring us the same happiness that the other person used to bring

Every stranger on the street
has sunk deep into the night at least once,
or twice, and I'd wager
that at times their thoughts have unfurled
into black dishrags soaking up
the insignificant amounts
of vivacity-
pouring pride into the sewer,
praying desperately to recover.

Eventually, time pries a crack
into the soul, and peels back
the skin of morality until the lines
no longer meet and the mind
reels- searching for the baseline
of sanity- save me, someone
save me.