when someone thanks me for writing the things they wish they could say out loud I apologize for hours until they stop wishing and ask me why. I usually tell them the same thing
"do you know when you're driving alone and that one song comes on, you know that one. that one song with a million different memories dripping off the tongue of that one man who sings like he never got on that airplane and so he didn't not make it back to the ground? and you're thinking about crashing and when you're thinking about crashing you almost do crash, because you were distracted about crashing and you get scared and realize that you just want to not want to crash? well that's how I feel all the time. Even when I'm completely still. Or when you're in the bath and you see faces in the ceiling and you wonder if the faces you're seeing are significant? like maybe you're seeing their face because they never meant to hurt you or maybe you took an extra 20 milligrams today and you're just a little out of sorts."
I'm not done explaining why I'm sorry, but this is usually around the time they interrupt, all "no, I apologize" all "I shouldn't have asked"

they're saying "all you do is drink and cry", "I think you're bad for everyone" and you're not saying anything and I'm saying I love you,
I ******* love you
And maybe I needed something to bring me back to reality maybe these bathtubs are always a little too deep for me but I fit so perfectly in small spaces because I learned when I was 14 that i was never gonna grow into a butterfly
but my aunt still calls me hers and I'd still flutter my eyelashes on yours while the earth turned to ash because I like things ending so softly
and you are a ******* miracle if I've ever seen one I want to sleep with you so badly, on a trampoline in the summer and I want to watch you do bad things and smile so sweetly at you and you'll know that I don't give a **** what you do as long as you're still loving me while you're doing it because baby we've got this one life and I've been loving you as long as I have known what love is and I know it's in the way you whisper and I know it's in the way you say you're my world and if the world stopped turning tomorrow we'd be the only things still moving with excitement you make me so nervous and calm and nervous and calm and deep breath you make me nervous I bet you'll make me nervous when we're older and I'm making you pancakes and I feel your eyes on me and I burn my fingers but you always kiss them better baby
you're an alleyway and the kitten that sleeps there
you're the rain on the windowpane and the water breaking the levee
I'm drowning in everything I have ever said to you so if I say one last thing one last thing,
while you're not saying anything,
I love you,
I ******* love you

sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.

- m.f.

this is a poem about how you sleep,
how your body grew cold like a corpse in a mortuary.
how it felt wrong to reach out and touch you.
did you know that you turned away from me
every time i tried to face you?
did you do it on purpose?
maybe you were afraid i would be able to see
you were dreaming of her,
that i would read it on your face.
lines by your mouth like obituary,
like roadmap, her bedroom,
the destination, mine, a pitstop.
loving you was like attending a funeral service for myself
and sitting in the front row. no.
loving you was like watching you pick out a casket
and call it practice. ****.
i know how sensitive you are about death.
i know it still hurts.
i know how everything hurts.
i am sorry for just being another thing that hurts.
i think i'm afraid to let you forget that you used to want me.
like if i can somehow dig deep enough,
wound you into remembering me.
i keep weapons-grade nostalgia in my back pocket
for the days i can feel myself slipping from your consciousness.  
i was born with scar tissue where skin should've been.
but this isn't about me.
this is about the way you sleep
like you're waiting for someone to close the lid,
cover you in dirt, and read a psalm.
this is about the way i tried to sing your pieces back together,
and the way my voice gives out
when i read the things you write for anyone other than me.
lover, friend, stranger,
i just wanted to show you how to love your darker parts.
i never meant to become one.
i am so ******* selfish.
but i swear i am trying to unlearn the steps.
and you used to think my two left feet were charming.
i am out of time in more ways than one.
i keep stepping on your toes.
i can't seem to stop tripping you up,
hoping that you'll fall back into whatever this was.

- m.f.

I know...
I am not one of the pages of your book
or the words in your poem
But...
I will tirelessly watch over you from every nook.

I know I am your never
but you will forever be my always...

I know...
I am not the potrait you are painting
or the inspiration behind your masterpieces
But...
in my heart , it is your name I am engraving.

I know I am your never
but you will forever be my always...

I know...
I am not the reason for your smiles
or the tickles of your laughter
But...
for you, I would walk a thousand miles.

I know I am your never
but you will forever be my always...

I know...
I am not your shining star
or the light in your life
But...
till forever is through, I'll admire you from afar.

I know I am your never
but you will forever be my always...

I know...
I am not the one your heart beats for
or the one you desire
But...
my hearts says as long as it brings you happiness,
it wants nothing more.

I know I am your never
**but you will forever be my always...

i won’t call because it’s best for both of us
a sickness isn’t sanity until you dress it
you’re a scalding shower
good even though it hurts
and the leftover steam in the bathroom is a
bright enough question mark to bring me back
every **** time.
the best things aren’t planned
but waiting is driving a knife into my skull
i’ve laid pieces of myself at your feet
i never even knew were there.
do you realize you never returned them?
and i’m not even sure i want them back
i’ve grown so accustomed to being riddled with emptiness
i might tremble to the point of destruction at being whole again
although that wouldn’t explain the tremor
that always works it way down my arms
and into the ends of my worn fingertips
fingertips that pound keys and grip ***** pencils,
that trace my face, like an echo of your return
but that’s just a sick joke that lives in the pit of my stomach now
dark and small and smooth like a stone.
how do you open yourself up to someone you hardly know
when the pages of your mind
give even you nightmares now?
there’s this riddle about letting things you love go
and it’s making me wonder if that’s why you never chased after me
but i can’t call you anymore
i won’t
because its best for both of us.

-*k.c.

sure glad everyone else found someone
i'm sitting in tornadoes of chaos and not making a sound
i’m full of all this undirected yearning which means i’m
full of ******* empty
and what a death-ridden paradox that is
everything seems like a riddle these days
but i’ve lost all energy for solving and its not like
anything could be worth solving when you are not here anyhow
open fields are caging me and i want a release
there are chains around my bare wrists and you need to take them off
where did you go anyway
i’m stumbling along clean swept paths
i’m tripping over nonexistent obstacles
i’m grabbing for a match because i’d rather burn myself
burn it all away so i won’t have to see all the things that aren’t there
namely you
and all the bleeding black that’s left
constant headaches like a companion and i’m begging to be blind
penny for the pained?
someone sit me down and explain the idiosyncratic theory
of why we make people into homes
and why we remember the nightmares but can’t grasp the dreams
where is the warmth to reside within
and why did you leave?

-*k.c.

how do you stop yourself from becoming a living contradiction? what do you do when no one has taught you the proper way to respond to the pain sprouting through cracks and seams and overgrowing the gardens of your mind, suffocating the beautiful because there is simply not enough room, what do you do when you’re trying to swallow the panic bubbling up in your throat? where does that heat come from, that builds in the backs of your eyes like all the hurt you bundled up for safe-keeping because some fights aren’t worth having, even when you can feel your heart breaking, a little at a time? why is the emptiness and the darkness always so much bigger than anything else? when does it stop feeling like a form of torture to leave the house and when does everything stop representing him in small and insignificant ways, every hour, every minute, every second? how do you stop the deep pit from forming in that area of your chest every time you accidentally stumble on a song that holds echoes of him in it’s crevices? echoes that escape like whispers of smoke and riddle holes in you, relentlessly and eternally? how the hell is someone both everywhere and nowhere all at once? when do you stop waking up in cold sweats because you are so achingly alone? where is the pavilion of shelter? when does it stop feeling like a war that you’re only fighting with yourself?

-*k.c.