I can’t light fires,
in this God forsaken house
without you.
It’s cold -
but mainly because
you're two thousand miles away
and I know you haven’t even done so much
as breathe my name.
I’ve breathed, screamed, sighed yours
more than I’ve inhaled the autumn air.

I can’t find the matches,
it’s cold,
stop saying her name,
please,
come home.
And I know you don’t know
where exactly home is,
but it’s here,
with me,
with a heart that beats out the vibrations of your name.
If you’ll find joy elsewhere,
then go,
go far away from here.

But you won’t,
so come home.

1.
I’ve been in love
for three years,
with a heart that rejects
the very thought of my name.
You cannot break hearts
in worse ways.

2.
I’ve watched my dearest friends
bend their backs until
they finally cracked,
and while mine was broken, as well,
I bent down and gathered their pieces.

3.
My mother entered a plan
of self-destruct
for five complete years,
teaching me
your heart can break in ways
that it was not meant to break.

4.
My body has been broken,
my body has been healed.
Take heart!
Take heart!
We are not alone.

I can’t give you lessons in romantics,
but I can tell you how to fall in love
with a heart that doesn’t want you.
I can tell you that you’ll move on,
but never completely, never completely
if you stick around too long.
Hearts aren’t too different from bones,
when you break them,
they never heal quite right.
Don’t go back there, love,
it gets harder every time.

You’ll wash him out of your hair
for five weeks, then months, then years.
If you’ve haven’t told him,
tell him, *******, tell him.
You already know the answer.
He doesn’t love you
he doesn’t love you,
anymore than trees love the leaves they
shed each autumn,
crisp, letting them fall,
decomposing, buried under snow and lies.
He doesn’t care.
Tell him.
You know,
you need to tell him,
or you’ll taste his name
in your blood and on your lips
until you wash your hair
for the final time.

(I)

I pushed the Creator out of my chest.
Jesus wept,
and wept, and wept.

(II)

I kissed your hand instead;
I am not the Prodigal Son,
I never looked back.

I've given this earth
every single day
to prove to me
that I could catch a glimpse of heaven
in stranger's eyes,
in broken families,
abandoned houses,
and bad people
were just good people,
with a vile of poison
injected into every part of their heart.

Not anymore, not anymore.
Because my mother got sick
and she never got better,
and my sister couldn't stop
trying to destroy her own body,
and my father wouldn't stop crying
and my mother wouldn't stop trying
and I swear to God,
I would've let go a thousand times,
if it wasn't for the single thought
that there could possibly be
a place worse than this.

They always used to sit and chat
about what would happen when
the floodgates of heaven
were stripped down to bars of metal
and water and angels rushed through every crack.

You see, I’d locked every feeling
I thought I had for you
into a reservoir in my heart,
secured it with eleven bolts
and dropped the keys in a whole
deep enough to cover
the sins of your past.

No one ever talked about
what would happen when
the floodgates on your heart
were finally bent to the point of breaking,
and water (or poison) invades every
cavity inside of your body,
filling holes that you didn’t knew existed before,
washing over everything you’d tucked away,
silently, in the corner of your mind,
not so silently, always whispering,
breathing, sighing
at one, two, three in the morning,
I need you
I need you
I need you.

I don’t want you to know that
I haven’t slept in three days,
I haven’t eaten in two,
and I’ve put five hundred miles on my car,
because I couldn’t bear the thought
of the world moving faster than me.
But I’m sure you can tell,
here, at 2 am,
because my eyes are black and sagging
as you scream that you’ll never, ever
again put your lips near another girl’s face.
It’s okay, I’m sure it felt nice
to hold someone’s hand
that wasn’t shaky and bruised
from clinging to something that wasn’t theirs.
I’m sure you can tell,
It’s okay,
and really, I do hope that you’ll keep your lips
the hell away from her face,
not because I love you
(even if I do)
but because I hope that girl never does
anything deceitful enough
to deserve you.