I’m scared as f*ck
to want you.

But here
I am,

Still wanting you
anyway.

I like beautiful words
for ugly truths
Whats your excuse?

I let different boys touch me
Because I wanted to know
Even for a second
What it felt like to be loved
Even if the love was cheap
And it tasted like ***
Like the punchline to a joke
I never got because it was me

I let different boys have different parts of me
Parts they didn't deserve
But I offered up willingly because I couldn't give anything else
after you broke me
I was looking for different fingers
to place different pieces and hoping  the outcome
would be a masterpiece
Maybe one of them would find a way
to cover up the handprints you left all over me

I let different boys touch me because I had to prove to myself
you wouldn't be the only one
that these scars marking my body wouldn't define
my worth to be loved
I am not entirely sure  
you aren't the only one who could ever touch me without slightly  flinching

I let different boys touch me because that is all I have been taught
To be a joke
To be silent
To be ready to give until you have nothing left
- they keep leaving me and I am to scared to offer up anything more than my body to get them to stay

I tell people I'm fine
But honestly, I'm dying
No one is there
And no one will care
Whether I'm here
Or whether I'm there
I can not escape
The rays of you
I tried to get away
From the thing
That hurts me the most
But you always come back
Ur in my dreams
And ur in my head
But I'm fine.

I would have poured gasoline on myself and asked for your lighter while you lit your cigarette just to prove how much I loved you and it still wouldn’t have phased you as much as the nicotine would // now I laugh while you light your cigarette and when you ask me why I just tell you sunshine burns bright enough just fine without you anyway

Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t just been the backseat of your car,
Intoxicated. My first drunk hook up. My first. Period.
I picture myself being champagne on Valentine’s Day.
I picture myself being you, nervous in the car, holding Starbucks
because you know I love coffee. Sometimes, I picture myself as her,
calling you a stalker and ignoring your calls,
but then I see myself. I call you beautiful,
turn you into poetry, laugh at your bad jokes,
I see myself as I become your drunk Wednesday night
when you’re sad. I see myself as I say no,
I become a “this is not a good idea”
and you a “we’ll deal with the consequences in the morning.”
We laugh because this hurts too much.
You take her out for dinner and I burrow money
for Plan B because you forgot you don’t like condoms
and clearly have no idea how children are made.
I have already named him. He has your curls and
my anxiety. He is smart. Except, I never wanted kids and
you would be a great father. Instead, you tell her
the beach reminds you of her and I cry in a McDonald’s
bathroom with my friend as relief floods through me that
the test comes negative. I stop talking to you,
move forward, meet someone new and before long
see myself becoming you. Because isn’t that the cycle?
Bad men turn good women into bad women who turn
good men into bad men. I’ll set him free so he can hurt
someone like me, and I drink red wine as I read her
poems about him and me.

The way things seemed
better when
I knew you.

How the breeze would come
when I needed it as a
warm friend
or gentle push
to get me on my feet and
leave me with purpose.

And dusk would
curl and twist
into the messy splashes of dawn
with our laughter hung in the glossy sky
tucked between stars
in a time and a place
where the night and day could meet.

I'll always think of you most
when the fire
cracks and stirs itself back to
life
the way you burned yourself
into mine.