• (1) pencil
• (1) laptop charger
• (1) small t-shirt
• (∞) dust bunnies
• (2) socks that did not make a matching pair
• (2) lighters, one with an eyeball and the other abstract colors that you said if the Bic lighter company had asked me to design a lighter it would look something like
• (1) fallen rose petal and
• (1) pair of pants with my
• (1) pair of underwear still tangled in them from the way you took them off.

I don't drink white chocolate + caramel lattes, but tonight, I did.
And I put hella whipped cream on it like you asked
and I cried with each swirl: the cup, the espresso inside the cup, the little tulip I made from whole milk, the spiral handled spoon, the can of whipped cream, a fluffy spiral staircase right into the feels.
I took two sips and set it down because there was work to do and smiles to fake but I won't pretend I didn't microwave it later and finish it to the last drop because I knew you would
and I just wanted to pretend that you were there at that counter, caring about every twirl I made behind the bar, like a captain of the ship, as you wrote poetry in bars with every steamy sip.
But you weren't and I'll learn that no matter how hard I try, I just can't do white chocolate + caramel lattes.
You're the only way I want to drink anything these days.
But that's the only way you'll drink it.

I'm dipping my paint brushes in my flower's water hoping the natural beauty will leak onto the canvas in the form of your wilting lashes and withering affection
because as tortuous as it is for me to watch the slow growth of your apathy, watching the spread of stems, sunflowers and red little buds that I'm not sure the name of, sitting in a mason jar on my coffee table, somehow manages to  romanticize it enough for me to look at the roots being planted and see the leaves come autumn. If only I could use these tiny tips accurately to articulate how I feel in detail, so that I didn't have to use this tiny voice who always uses the wrong tone to convey how I feel to you. Maybe then you could read the painting instead of my face to know that I'm decaying too.

But perhaps I'm not the flower, I'm the vase that holds it.
Or the "not-quite-a-vase-but-it's-the-only-thing-I-could find" that holds on to you.

I find I have so much to say and never the composure to say it.
You should know what you do hurts.
But I'll let you use me because it creates the illusion that I'm wanted.

While you were reading "the Word" in that hotel room in new mexico or California or wherever the ******* slept with her that night, you should have been looking up passages on forgiveness or some other godly, holier-than-though horseshit that's supposed to make you into a better person.

I don't need a bible to tell me that what you did was wrong and I definitely don't need one to tell me that I should forgive you.
Because despite the horrific time we spent together, I know it wasn't all your fault. I've learned to forgive not only you, but also myself.

I don't need an angel to pull me out of depression. I don't need an angel to tell stories to of every glorifying good deed I've done in my life to get me into the gates of Heaven. I don't need Satan telling me I'm too good for Hell because let's face it: none of us really are.

I hope you know that when people ask about you, I tell them how lovely you are, that you're genuinely a good person who's dealt with more struggles than she deserves, who I treated poorly when she deserved her feet washed and her presence bowed to.

So when you tell those same people that I'm a pathological liar,
perhaps maybe you're right.

But I'm not lying when I say, I hope for happiness in your head.
I hope one day you don't feel the burning need to fill others' with pity for you and hatred for anyone you feel is against you,
that burning desire you have to destroy yourself so you throw everyone else into the furnace? Yeah. You know the story.

I hope you know I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
I hope you know I never wish I hadn't.
I hope you believe yourself when you say that I'm a liar so that none of this makes you feel an ounce better about yourself.

In Jesus name I pray,
Amen.

I loved her because she made me a morning person; we'd wake up and make peanut butter banana toast and have days to spend together before night fell.
I love him because he makes sleeping in until noon feel productive, his soft sleepy breath like an oxygen tank, and when he pulls me close, I no longer feel the freezing air around me. My blanket of yellow and blue flowers isn't nearly as warm as his precious hands, the tapestry he covered the window with blocks the wrong source...
I love him because even at noon, when the sun is directly overhead, beaming its brightest and fighting to be the center of attention, he makes darkness feel like heaven and I swear I could sleep forever.

It is odd for one to wish
to have skin made of crystals in order to captivate your interest,
an aroma that fills the air and lingers, so that an opened door tilts the head back,
a hazy effect on the mind and thought processes that leaves the thinker in awe of his own self,
to know one's worth, how much per gram of soul
and to appreciate their craving and need for you to be in the palm of their hand, or rolled up and inhaled euphorically.
It is odd for a flower to wish she were a ****, however, some gardens aren't meant to be watered, rather, they are destined to become forest fires.