couldn’t pay me enough
to go through with it again—
child-lock everything myself
since no one else would ever
have the guts to tame you—
you really are just a boy after all—
easy piano & slick guitar riffs
across the glittering snow
like magic dust—
falling on my ****
over & over
just to keep up with you—
getting into the worst
while you waited for me
to be lonely,
just so you could
make me lonely.

thumb popping the socket
once...twice...

little green circle
heat flash

lungs of short-comings
throbbing and flushed

flashback fast forward
rewind playback

and what was it all for?...
the risk the writing the songs

oh boy...
maybe i'm not interesting anymore (?...)

whole walk
for nothing

frick.

it's not me
and should i ask another question?. . .

it's you.
so sorry for showing it

hand over heart
yep, it's still beating

a little too fast
*too much

and yet it's never enough
always hungry for more

drive safe
but hurry

time's hands
postponed

take your time!
(:

she could be
my knite

in shining diamonds
& a brand new car

swoop in
pull up

save me
from her

from leaping
from breakfast

in the same kitchen
as her

pour gas on the light
fuel the fury, arrow aflame
to stop me in my tracks

but i have learned to be faster

you never knock, just fling
the door wide open

memorized your footfall
as if i were hiding some grotesque secret

no secret, just emotions
hiding, from you

have to cover my ears
to block the shame
from funneling in

i wouldn't wish you upon anyone.

Whoever said tender is the night had never had
their heart ruptured. On one knee
one moment for you, on both the next,
like Dickman. Pray if I must, but you refused to sit
in the pews with me—Pews full of peace and agony,
of lace and thorns—thorns my fingertips never bled for
because you never gave them. I filled you
with my nectar, you gave back your milk—"and I can’t help but feel
I am only meant to show you
how to love so you could love someone else,
better,” I said to you through fingers
like earthquakes. Eyes kaleidoscopes of Want—Need
that you’d shut up and say don’t go…stay…don’t
grow old without me in your faded, navy and gray
plaid pajama pants, the ones with little lint pills all
over them from washing them twice a week—
“I will pray for you” even though you never drove me
around because you said your car was a mess. Eight months
and you never cleaned it, not once. I wanted you
until I didn’t until I do. I will pray for you—like when I made
eye contact with a drunk man walking his rottweiler
or realized that I was the punchline. Salt on the rim, the sugar on the knife,
the one I bought in that convenience store we inconveniently stopped by.
Losing you was my doing—my undoing. “Sister moon,” he said,
I always thought she was a boy, a boy like the one I won’t get
to entangle my touch-starved limbs around when I lay my eyes
down to dream of the planets growing along the horizon
or violently shifting our orbit—we tasted worlds between our lips, didn’t we—
I will pray for you, what you look like
when you’re asleep, what expressions would give away what you are
dreaming about, limbs twitching, eyes darting
back and forth like a tennis match
I was invited to but chose not to attend. Prettiest Girl
in the Psych Ward, I take a pill “to help you sleep” but it only gives
me nightmares—where you’re still here, dancing with me under
the pale stars like the glitter across my collarbone
with cheeks the color of my bra. To bite into you,
even though you taste like a lemon. To hollow you out, until your rind is
all that’s left, my Hell.
I will pray for you and Holly Beine
and “one day” and birthdays when I don’t have to
not bake you a chocolate cake
twice because I burnt it the first time.
I will pray for you. I will pray for you.

My skin has been breaking out lately.
I blame my bad skin on my diet
My diet on my stress and my stress
On you. YOU ARE HERE and you aren’t here.

You who brush your hair when it is still
Wet, it used to look better, healthier
Before you turned twenty-one. Getting warmer…
There you were, unbothered, stump jumper.

And you never drove me around
Because you said your car was messy—
Eight months and you never did clean it.
PUSH FOR HELP, button-mashed, bleeding finger.

I am uncertain about everything
I was certain about. YOU WERE HERE.
Electromagnetism…and I never
really knew what you mean, but I wanted to.

we were like seeds
from wildflowers, scattered
without intention of growing
into something beautiful, but we did
unknowingly, i left myself
like the curdled ketchup
in the cracks of the concrete, never
knowing if that's really what it was.

i take a photo of the food i made myself for dinner with quiet pride.

only this time, i don't send it to you.

i have to write this.
this is torturous.
[insert word i am not allowed to say here]
this is all your fault.
joy...happiness...
something i do not feel now,
something i haven't felt in
twelve days since we let go.
takes a lot to get there,
joy...happiness...
takes leaving what once made me
joyous...
takes leaving what i once made
happy...
to get somewhere i can maybe,
just maybe be joyous and happy
then, now, and always.

it gave me something to write about,
not the first thing i would have chosen...

i fear we made a mistake,
but even moreso that we didn't...

i showed you the garden,
it had been too long.

i see you in everything,
fires, scars, stars, flowers.

you loved the morning glory,
you'd never seen anything like it before.

the scarf wrung it's hands around my neck softly, & hung down my body, maroon, like blood dripping from my paper-cut finger.

the wind went to bed, leaving my hair to it's own devices, wispy & frizzing down either side of my pale face, as if summer hadn't yet touched my skin.

a fawn lept across a yard with only the
light of a streetlamp & the Super Blue Moon to illuminate it's majestic, tawny limbs.

you were my blue moon, my once in a lifetime.
how do we know we made the right decision?
you always knew how to make me laugh.
how do we know we made the right decision?. . .

things we cannot say in person

things we shouldn't say out loud

things we should have said that one time

things we could have said that day

things we're too afraid to speak

things we're not sure we should feel

things we need to say

things we want to tell

things we rehearse but will never spill off our tongues

things we're not proud to express

things we're struggling to put into words

because the words don't do it justice, still.

"i will always love you."
i love that you mean what you say.

"i see you more as a friend."
i hate that you mean what you say.

"I don't think I ever truly felt time until I started waiting to see you. Of course when I'm with you, I don't feel time in the slightest".

the floor tasted like gravel
gritty, cold, & harmful.
the room spun like delicate
threads of sugar as i sat up
slowly. my head pounded
harder than a baker's fist
coming down on a stiff ball
of dough. my eyes showed me
visions of vibrant colors that swirled
and zig-zagged unnaturally
as i rubbed them too hard.
the dark is much darker than
i remember it being. i reach out
into shadow for you only to find
nothing. the butterflies have
escaped, but i wasn't the one who
let them out. you always held the key,
and i always let you rip my organs out.
your ***** fingers dig into my chest,
and pry my rib cage open.
my bones all break, never bend
i still don't know what i did to
deserve a pain seeming without end.

the world felt like a bad dream
that would never end.

the sky, a violet so dark
it looked as black as a raven's feathers.

when the air smelled of
smoke, cinnamon & wormy, damp earth.

i went to the store & bought
a cologne that smells just like you.

you pulled me closer when
i thought you were about to let go.

i normally close my eyes,
but with you i have to keep a look-out.

i promise
to keep you safe, i promise...

the feeling of wanting to go home,
bur you're already there.

my stomach turns like the sea,
churning it's foam & shells to the shore.

in the end, the world will always be
a bad dream we can't wake up from...

a bad dream where
we cannot be together.

i thought there was a gnat on
my arm, so i smacked it.
turned out it was just black fuzz from
my sweater.
i count 3 little cuts on my hand from
who knows where.

i drove past his subdivision for no reason.
or maybe it was to feel closeness, proximity--a new old kind of intimacy.
i deny this. i accept this. i deny this.

my teeth have shifted, i am paranoid.
self-assigned 24/7 retainer again.
i feel as though my lungs are being squeezed.

the circles beneath my eyes seem darker every day.
the bruises on my legs increase in size, darkness, and number.
the scars and bumps on my cheeks have gotten redder.

i feel less and less like myself.
i feel monstrous. unlovely. holistically.
i feel that lump in my throat return as i realize this.

i think of how much i would be okay if he said goodbye.
my eyes are dry.
my stomach doesn't turn inside out anymore.

i play the same 3 songs on repeat.
the moon and i have 2 things in common:
spots. and wanting to be noticed.

i can never look at myself with the light on.
i don't allow myself to stand too close to a mirror,
afraid of the details i will find if i look too closely.

i tried writing today but probably stared at my reflection
in the laptop screen more than the words on the screen.
when will it end?

i scrapped the rest of my chipped nail polish off in the shower.
little bits of pink, lilac, and baby blue flow down the drain.
i forgot my razor under the bathroom sink.

when will this come to an end?
when will i be able to breathe again?
when will my eyes close and close for good?

i keep waiting for summer but what if summer
never feels like summer?
what will i have to wait for then, if not summer?

i forgot that it was your birthday.
i think that's a good thing.

and even now as i tell our story,
it sounds like fiction
rolling jagged off of my tongue.

so unthinkable
that i have to remind myself that
it really happened.

yesterday was two years ago.

you told me the only difference you saw was that my hair was longer.

you saw parts of me, blacker than the ink in the well.

i saw you. faced you. lungs aflame with vibrations of anger.

stood, bags packed, one palm on the glass door, one extended to keep you at arms length.

and i still loved you.

more than i loved myself.

our love is like bruised fruit--
irreversibly-damaged,
sickeningly sweet,
& difficult to throw away for fear of wasting something that may still taste good.

2,429 miles couldn't make me
love you less, even if it tried.

no amount of states or streets
or the dozens of times i've cried.

you always make me smile
& comfort you never lack.

i love you more than words can say,
across the seas and back.

google search:
"what counts as physical assault?"

                                ~ as if my experience is less than valid to count.

i accidentally typed "ana" instead of my full, real name
into the blank document.

and for a brief moment, i felt like a different person,
like i assumed the persona, the qualities, the life of whoever "Ana" would be.

and in that brief moment,
i felt real, counterfeit, foreign, familiar, and birthed anew. . .

he's a soft place to land,
where the black doesn't turn white
but gray at the very least.

he is the comma in a sentence,
the moment amidst the story
and every time after.

he uses our friendship
to end debates,
his bathroom soap smells sweet like sticky dates.

the world moves south but we go north,
against the current
and we're heading straight for the storm.

a gut-wrench. stomach tumbling like an olympic gymnast. butterflies (not the good kind). feeling the wind being squeezed out of my lungs by hurt like a go-gurt tube in a toddler's merciless grip. the sweet taste of cinnamon coffee cake turns sour in my mouth like month-old freshly churned butter. speechless (not the good kind). my eyes become kaleidoscopes. i knead the ball of socks in my hands that i was in the middle of putting away. "hello?" he said on the other end of the line. but i cannot move. i cannot speak. i cannot breathe. i can only feel. feel the panic. the way it moves...creeps and seeps into every crack and crevice of my bones, blood-filled veins from limb to limb. the panic that i may not be enough. i can only think. think too much. think too much. think too much.

and i miss you 'fore we ever say goodbye
goodbye
and we never had a clue
goodbye
i was never enough for you
goodbye
was there ever something i could do?
goodbye
further apart, apart we grew
goodbye
and i would cry myself askew
goodbye
but now i see myself anew
goodbye
goodbye
goodbye. . .

to feel unloved so he can tell me how much i am loved.
pancakes stacked to my nose, dripping with maple syrup and sprinkled with junk.
a retirement party before i have even graduated.
a wall of blue china plates, the ones with the pictures of snowy
                                                                ­  barns, cows, and bridges.
a whiff of him--plastic ziplock bags, overripe banana, and cologne.
a short-lived sin, intentions so pure it doesn't count.
yellowing pages and broken spines floor-to-ceiling.
a love for my mother, one without fear, fire, or fury.
a sun so generous, that i forget what november ever felt like.

cherry-vanilla soda instead of strawberry vanilla

i drew a heart next to my belly button in navy ink

he never asked me how my day was.

i heard the geese fly by at midnight, peculiar but lovely

the air smelled of october

october: hay, orchard, football games that ended a week or two ago, bittersweetness, and fine droplets suspended in the atmosphere

desserts taunt and temp me but i stay away for now.

easter is not on april fool's day this year

but it's still His best trick yet.

my fingertips dry and raw from flipping through so many pages

she licks my hands until they're clean

"death, he is not mean."

i rearranged my vanity, displayed my new perfume

bought myself flowers to lighten up my sanity

i couldn't see the moon tonight, is that why there's been no gravity?

no gravity for the thoughts

i wish i could say they come & go as they please but they never really go.

i'm thinking about those little white pills again.

sleeping dust: lavender, chamomile, tonka, benzoin...soft like dandelion, smooth like milk slipping down silk

the childhood bird coos and suddenly, i feel better

spring is still cold but warm.

i want to be the sun, i want to be the breeze...

i want the monarchs & swallowtails, the lawn mowers & never-ending birdsongs...

today we laughed as hard as we could, "mission impossible style"

a love letter lost, laying on the ground

anonymous but sacred.

i wish it would feel like it did all the time.

i don't know what happened.

the ambulance screams.

i lay blinking in the moon-less dark.

my thighs warm against my stomach.

but for the first time, i know the only one who can free me, is me.

my head was pounding with nothing, nothing but everything and nothing but everything all
at once, all at once the revolving door revolves again, no revolver to my head, no escape and no
soft bed, i thought my head was in the clear i thought everything had turned to nothing but is
nothing ever in the clear? i know, now i know there is no trigger to pull but the one that’s
already inside my head, inside my head the monsters wake, they taunt they pull they push they
prowl, preying on the “mind-killer”, fear, fear is what i fear, it eats it gnaws it rips it digs
a hole, a spiral hole, a hole with ridges to craft illusion that i’m burning bridges, when i am
actually building it stronger, solidified, worried, i make a frenzied dash out of the brief opening, the
opening that teases a sweet escape a sweet brain a sweet artery a sweet lung a sweet forever
that goes on forever until everything becomes nothing, there is no escape no escape from this
revolution this mind-killer this past this pattern this pool, pool of blood, pool of the same old
stab same old loud eyes same old breathlessness same old heart-race same old panic same
old irrational-rational darkness same old thought-spaghetti same old doubts same old destruction
same old replay of dagger-words same old over and over same old everything same old nothing