I knew a girl who used poetry as a weapon.
Who broke hearts for fun, only to dip her pen in their blood and write lines in the sand.

I knew a girl who used poetry as a shield.
Who thought her words were justified if she dipped them in honey before she spoke.

I knew a girl who used poetry as a blindfold.
Who hid her betrayal behind selfless lines and artful lies.

And she called me her muse and I thought it a compliment when really it was a curse.
Because I knew a girl who only wrote poetry about broken hearts so she let me fall so she could watch me drop and describe the sound of my impact with honey-coated drizzle.

Because it’s my heart that was pen-dipped.
My ears that were darkened by honey-covered lies.
My eyes that were obscured by a blindfold of silk.

And when my blood dried and the sand was used up, she went for another boy.
A broken boy.

One she didn’t have to break to write her twisted lines.

Lab coat on
I stand in a cold morgue
Scalpel in one hand
My heart in the other.

Hands tremble
Making the first incision
Cutting through the sweet memories
And stripping it from the bitterness
you left behind

It lays open
Displayed on a silver tray
Tied down by your half truths
And compassionate lies
Held down by the “I love you”
And trapped by your “Don’t go”

A beaten heart
That no longer beats
No longer pumps love
But instead is filled with tears
And regrets

It has lost its color
A vibrant red
was turned into
a Coal-black
As dark as the bruises
You left behind

Yet
Flatlined
And without pulse
I still live
With nothing on my sleeve
And an empty hole
on my chest.

I am dutiful, a docile child.
Mother tucks me in, again and again.
She need not keep me under lock and key,
So long as she knows that all is well.

I swallow my eternity,
Once in the morning,
Twice at night.
It is a bitter thing that drains
Ebullient, frightening laughter from the maw
And eats at all solemnity.
I am pleasant on the mind and secure,
A safe with nothing to hold.

Inside, the oven is out.
There is a storm turning,
Two cities over. Nothing to fear.
Someone has closed the shutters,
Venetian blinds blinking.
The tenants are sleeping, the house is cold.

There’s an “e” in your name.
2. It’s also composes a syllable of it.
3. Things will always empty, no matter what. Even bottles, for example. Especially ones that contained alcohol. You seemed to enjoy emptying those quite a lot.
4. Once, I emptied a pen of it’s ink while writing about you.
5. There is no “e” in my first name, but you pronounced it as if there was, replacing the first “a” with an “e”.
6. I always, and still do, get annoyed whenever people mispronounce my name, but never when you did it. I always knew that you were the one calling it. You were the one thing I was always sure of.
7. The other night, I tried to think of other things that started with “e” and “a”. I found “always” and “eventually”. Just as you substituted the “e” for the “a”, we substituted “always” for “eventually”.
8. Or maybe it could stand for “eventually an alcoholic”?
9. I just wish that you could have emptied your heart out to us just as easily as you could empty a bottle down your throat.
10. Ever since you told us that you drove home drunk I’ve been thinking about writing an eulogy.
11. Please don’t make me write one. Not while we’re so young.
12. Eventually, everything expires, like our patience, our vitality, and our days.
13. You haven’t spoken to anyone in months, and I don’t know how to reach you, or if you even want me to. When I saw your mother this past October, I wanted to ask her if she knew had badly you had been struggling, but I didn’t because I know that you would have hated me for it. There was a reason you had tried to keep your addiction a secret.
14. The letter “e” is the most used letter in the alphabet. How can you ask me to forget you when nearly every word I write has a trace of you in it?
15. I would never pick up a pen again if it meant that I could hear you mispronounce my name one more time.

Every night I lie awake
And every day I lie abed
And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
Confering at my head.
They speak in scientific tones,
Professional and low—
One argues for a speedy cure,
The other, sure and slow.
To one so humble as myself
It should be matter for some pride
To have such noted fellows here,
Conferring at my side.