The urge to run away to a seaside town,
To let the salt air peel the paint from the front of my house.

The urge to settle, to let it sink in, to decorate my front porch.
The urge to let my mind rest and work until my back's sore.

The urge to love you
And to be well.

In that salt air town,
Where everyone knows my name.
Most importantly,
The urge to throw it all away.

You forget.

You forget things
when you're truly sad.

Not the toaster on or the door unlocked,
Not the name of your ex,
Or the name of that guy you met last week.

Instead,
You forget deeply.

You forget how your dog looks at you,
And how much love he deserves.
How your mum's journey was harder than yours,
and how your brothers were too young
to be treated so old.  

You forget,
How your dad is aging 10 years
in the span of 1,
And how you've not been loving
who you need to.

You forget
almost everything,
because you're trying...
really trying,
just to stay alive.


And if you're (un?)lucky enough
to crawl away from the pits
of depression...

You suddenly remember.
It SLAPS you in the face
when you're left alone with your thoughts.

"How could I be so selfish?"

"How?"

"HOW?"

The guilt,
The guilt.
The guilt of forgetting how to care for others,
Of leaving so much destruction in your wake

Is
almost,
Just...
almost,

Enough to make you
Forget.

I've stopped writing the way I used to,
because I've stopped feeling the way I used to.

I can't write the same,
my mind's changed quite a bit.  
I've gotten much older, you see.
I'm the not the same I used to be.

People are not all kind, wandering, lost souls
as I once liked to believe.
Life was happier then,
innocent.

Rural dirt roads bring me quiet joy,
they remind me of my childhood
but they're not realistic, are they?  

The world cannot be all beautiful trees
and unkept dirt roads.

We must advance.
We must get used to highways and airports and cities.

They world is growing,
7 billion people, is it?
The time of innocence is gone.

Conor Oberst said
"I want a lover I don't have to love.
I want a girl who's too sad to give a ****."
And I'm sorry I think it's romantic
to be that girl.
I'm sorry I'm so bad at changing.
I'm sorry I can't love you more.
I have to leave, because the outcome of us is always this:
broken phones, empty bottles,
and endless drives at four am
when we both aren't taking
because we can't talk without screaming.

I'm sorry I'm too sad to give a ****.
I always told you I hated beginnings because beginnings have an end.
You're the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me.
This is the end.
I'm sorry.

You have every right to be scared.
They will all break your heart
and your heart is not a bone.

It does not get stronger every time.

This is how we say goodbye.
I haven’t seen you cry since your aunt died last May.
I wish my eyes could stay dry for you.
I promise I’ll stop talking about drowning.
I don’t know how to be in love
when I only trust you enough to *******.

This is how we say goodbye.
You’re so completely lovely when you cry.
You’re not screaming you love me when I need you to.
I’m whispering I have to go.

This is how we say goodbye.
You’ll find her. She’ll have perfect hands,
and the softest voice. She’ll never date boys
who grab her waist a little too rough
and never walk her to her door.
I love her for how happy she makes you.

I've never wanted people who didn't want me.
But I know one day you won't want me,
and I'll still want you.
I'd leave right now if I didn't love you so much,
I make your eyes light up when I say your name.
I'll keep adding scars to my heart as long as you are happy.

I wish your feelings for me wouldn't drown,
but they will.
You'll find a girl who has a stronger heart and a sounder mind.
It's okay,
I love you.
I'll stay with you for now.

This is a thank you letter,
but also an apology
for how long it took me to thank you
for all the times you never asked me
how I was doing,
or if I’d eaten today.

I forgot to take my medicine
and the world is spinning much too fast.
I just need it to stop.
I had half a piece of bread
and one slice of an apple for three days.
Thank you for not asking.
Thank you for not wanting to know.

Thank you for not caring about me,
as much as I cared for myself
because I’ve healed without you,
and now I don’t need you to move on.

My stomach is full of chocolate
and the world’s still moving too fast,
but I think I’ll be okay.

I just wanted to say thank you,
for never giving a **** about me.

Take me back to your car
where we first moved together in the dark.
I can still feel you under my skin,
just after I told you
I’d never let you in.

Sometimes I get so empty
I think I'm floating
I'm so light,
I think, perhaps,
the feathers will love me.

I am not okay
but I will be okay.
I'll try not to stick my head in the oven
and close the door.
I will be okay,
without you.

Just wait a little, would you,
darling?

You cannot fix me.
You cannot fix me.

I hate when writer's write in lists and tell me what to do. Writers are sad and cracking and I don't want to live my life like them.

2. I am a writer. I am not whole.

3. I will not tell you what to do.

4. Why the **** did I leave him?

5. Do not take advice from writers.

I. You will fall out of love with him. Watch Blue Valentine and cry for two weeks. It happens to the lucky ones, too.  

II. You are the most enthralling creature on the planet. Beautiful and vivacious and enrapturing. You were all of these things before he told you that you were.

III. We might die tomorrow. Don't act recklessly but don't hold back. Be courageous and find a balance. You need balance. Love him back, say you're sorry, you won't end up like your parents.

IV. He will fall in love with her. She is not the problem. You do not hate her. You will fall in love with your soulmate when he's ready to encounter your beautiful soul.

V. He's the best thing to ever happen to you. You're sorry you had to leave. It's better this way. It makes the bitter winter hurt a little less.

(I) promised you I'd stop chasing thi(n)gs -
chasing ***** with ***
and chasing boys who'd n(e)ver satisfy.
I guess I kept chasing to see if you'd care,
how far you'd stretch, to se(e)
if you'd come back after you'd left.

It's my sixth shot tonight
and I can't be your friend.
I'm not sure how to (d)eal with missing you so much
that my brain's too foggy to make my morning tea.
Sometimes I stand in the kitchen and I cook breakfast for two
but I throw it all away because I don't know
what the hell I'm supposed to do in this God-forsaken house
without (y)ou.
  
So I keep kissing boys and
I keep writing with *** in my veins
instead of blood.
It's my eight sh(o)t tonight,
and I don't know how many boys I'll kiss before I forget the way
you said my name.
I don't want yo(u) anymore.

And you loved him so much you often forgot how to breathe,
One, two, three, exhale.
And you thought missing him at night made you think
of all the ways your insides can twist and scream and bleed.
And now you always start sentences with "and" because you're afraid of beginnings because beginnings have an end.

And you loved him so much, but
you walked in at 2:03 am,
you came home 30 minutes early
and his hands were in her hair
her lips were on his face
and he pushed her off, of course,
he didn't love her,
he loved you,
****, he ****** up he ****** up,
he's so sorry,
he promised he'd never hurt you, ****.

But it's 2:03 am
6 months later,
and you remember how to breathe
and his eyes only show you all the ways a heart can break
and he calls you at 2:03 am
he ****** up, he's so ******* sorry,
and you know, he'll never **** up again,
it was just ***, ******* ***.

And you miss him,
and his arms are empty but you want them anyway.

I think it hurts at night
when you're wearing nothing but a shirt
and his ghost slips
around your waist.

I'm writing tonight because I'm not quite sure
what else to do with my hands. Usually you would
hold them, but I left six months ago and I think they've
been cold and dry ever since. I know you're doing okay,
but the snow is almost gone and I think you can come
home. It's so cold outside and I know your arms are
around her waist and your face is in her hair, but I don't
think she loves you like I do.

My doctor told me today,
after the seventh blood test,
and the eighth psych screening,
that she didn't know if I'd ever get better.

I nodded
because I knew this.
Of course, I knew this.
She had tears in her eyes though
and her pupils screamed at me,
"You're too young to be this sick."
I know.

She told me I have to keep trying,
that my brain might heal someday soon.
It's not you, love - you're fine, it's just
your head is so, so sick, my dear,
and I'm so, so sorry.

The cave collapsed.
Jagged rocks poking holes through my windpipe.
And I can't breathe anything but your face,
and you're too weak to save me.
I need You
and I swear I'll never choose him again,
make him stay away from me
and let me out of here;
he's haunted for a reason.

He's too weak,
too weak to heave
the rocks off of my chest.
That's fine,
I spend all of my time
wishing I couldn't breathe anyway.
I need You.

Infatuation is a dangerous thing
and I've been in(love)fatuated with you
since you first said my name.
It wasn't romantic at all,
it was just,
you.

I know you never told me you'd stay
or that you loved me,
or anyone,
and I'm sorry that this has taken so long.

But I'm in love with how
you've never dragged your hands across my skin,
and whispered my name in the dark,
and how you never even think more of me
than your friend with a pretty face and full lips
you call when you're lonely.  

I'm sorry enough for the both of us
that I'm not strong enough
just to say
no.

Someone told me
you can't write (p)oetry ab(o)ut things
you don't want to romanticiz(e).

So for a long (t)ime
(because of w(r)ong people like (y)ou)
I d(i)dn't write drunk,
becau(s)e the(n) I c(o)uldn't
guard my feelings.

But now I'm drunk as hell
and no(t)hing in my life
is close to romantic
and I don't have to explain to you
why (b)oats, oc(e)ans, and words
are the only things
that e(a)se my open wo(u)nds.

I don'(t) have to tell you why
I don't scream or cry or f(i)ght
when I think about how many of my (f)riends
killed themselves.
I write instead,
and it's not romantic.

I am not
in love
with words.

I am
in love
with them
and they're no longer here,
breathing, holding my hand,
and singing me songs about rivers
and how we'll always find each other.

But we won't,
because there's not a
single f(u)cking romantic thing
about how I'll never hold their hands
again.

So I drink,
and I write,
and I do not (l)isten
to people like you.

Don't worry about him,
he doesn't love you
and he never did.

That's okay, love.
He's not full of hate and lust
just because he fell in love with someone else.
It's not his fault,
and it's certainly not yours.  

It's strange, I know,
that you don't scream or cry or even frown
because you can't feel anything at all.
It's four in the morning and you're drinking
his favourite tea and trying to keep your heart
beating without his name resonating throughout your chest -
and you can't do that yet, but you will soon.

I know it's hard
and all the bones in your body
sometimes ache with loneliness -
just don't think of him.

I know it's not much,
but think of how lovely your hands look
when you're holding your favourite mug of tea.

He told me,
'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
And I'm so, so sorry
but what if I don't love myself?

I swear
I'm trying,
and I think I can love them
more than I love myself,
but I'm so, so sorry
if I can't.

I wish I loved you more.

I don't know how to love people
halfway
and I don't know how to stop after the second
shot.

But, I think I'm good at a lot of other things.
You always remind me of that.
And I was happy before without you,
so you left.
And I screamed your name in my sleep
for six months straight.
I'm just so, so sorry
I'm not
what you
needed.

Maybe you're lovable,
but don't kiss me.

Don't kiss me,
I'll break your heart,
not just in two,
but into scattered pieces
and I'll try to help you pick them up
but you'll curse my name
down into the dirt
and down into hell.

I don't want to,
but I will,
and maybe you're lovable
for someone who's better at loving.
Don't kiss me.

You’re the final rope
that’s been cast out to me
in the Northern Pacific
and I can’t feel my hands,
and I’m pretty sure there’s tiny icicles insides my veins,
and all I can think about is
how peaceful it would be for the ice
to make it’s way to my heart.

I can hardly feel my pulse.
I don’t want the rope,
take it away,
don’t you dare pull me to safety.
What’s my name again?
I can only remember yours.
No, I swear to God himself, I’m never grabbing that rope.
Let me rest and wash ashore far away from you.
I warned you, I always told you, it got harder to breathe
away from you.

I need you,
I need you,
I need you,
but it’s far too cold for me
to want you.

I have over two-thousand poems
free of the word ****,
so believe me, I don't say ****
because it's fun,
it's an emotion, but yet,
it's a social construct.

Don't tell me he didn't call me and scream,
over and over into the phone,
at 4 am,
"****, I ****** up
I'm so sorry, ****.
I swear to God,
I'll never **** up again,
just please don't ******* leave me
because you're the only ******* thing
I have left."

Because he did.
And sometimes,
after you find out
he just can't keep his lips off of
that girl's face,
the only word that comes out
is ****.

You say I never write poems about you
so I'd like you to know:

I'm very much
in love
with myself.
I don't need you to crawl into my ribcage
and kiss all the places you think are broken.

But I wouldn't mind
you all over and under
my skin.

A) I'm tired of lists
and writers who can hardly breathe
when they wake up in the morning
telling me how to wash him out of my hair,
and how to hug my father when I'm sad.
I don't have a father.

B) They never tell you how empty you'll feel
when you finally leave him. It's for the best, you know,
you deserve someone who loves you. Not that he didn't.

C) What the **** am I supposed to do or choose or say?

D) You can fall in love with yourself,
but that's not a prerequisite for love.
You are deserving of love regardless
of where you are in your journey.  

E) Stop listening to people who tell you
boys don't fall in love with sad girls.
You don't want a boy, you want a man,
and he will fall in love with you - a woman.
Your depression does not define you,
you are so much more than that, and he knows.

F) Most of all, do not listen
to your friends
that try to explain life to you
in lists.

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.

She’s in heaven now."
What if she’s not?
She hated her own body and
I don’t blame her.
Do you know how many times
he screamed at her that she was worthless?
She was beautiful,
and so am I.
But we both didn’t know
how to believe that.
All we knew were black eyes,
police cars, make-up cheques,
and drunken fights.
We knew screaming and hate and malice.
I haven’t felt love in two years.
I hope God’s sleeping
because if he’s awake
and alive and well then
I swear to God himself that
I never want to know him.

Don’t ever tell me again
that you know,
that you understand -
you don’t and you can’t.
Because you are who I used to be;
breaking hearts and losing count
of the amount of times you kissed someone
just to feel warmth in your frigid, wandering body.
I know who you are,
and I knew before I let my lips breathe your name
the very first time
that I could never make a home inside
a body as cold as yours.
I tried anyway.

You can’t understand.
but just know,
that someday you’ll fall in love
(not with a girl)
with a woman’s collarbones
and freckles, and
sleepy conversations at 3 am.
You will understand,
and you will know,
when she wrenches out your heart
and watches it fall to the bottom
of the Pacific,
because she doesn’t have time for love
or you, or loose ends.
She moves one thousand miles a minute,
and you will understand
what it feels like
to make a home inside a heart
that doesn’t want you.

Don’t kiss me.
Unless you first understand that
I’m fine,
I’m not broken,
but I will break your heart,
(I don’t want to, but I will).
I don’t do commitment,
I do drunken kisses, picnics under trees,
trips to Paris, and sleepovers
in those tents we made when we were kids.
If we fall in love in the process,
that’s fine.
I’m fine,
(you’ll be fine, too)
but I won’t stay.
I’ve heard the sound of too many
hearts breaking through thin walls.
I promise (I think),
that will never happen to me.

So, don’t kiss me.
Not here, not ever.
Unless you’re good at goodbyes
and can cut strings cleanly
(without frayed ends)
when everything we ever had
screeches to halt.

Once upon a time,
my father and mother
tied themselves together
with vows woven under the roof
of a tiny church, and rings glued
onto their fingers.

Ten years later,
the vows were frayed
and the rings cracked
and fell off of their fingers
in shattered pieces.
Broken walls, ****** knuckles,
and bad words I wasn’t allowed to say.
They hushed and hushed me,
but I was only seven years young,
and still I was old enough to know
the screaming and fighting
would never, ever cease until
the papers were signed
and we moved seven states away.

I was only seven years young
and I made myself a promise,
I would never end up like my parents -
I would not end up like them.
I would not end up like them.
So, I will never fall in love with anyone,
not even myself,
and definitely not with him.

I promised myself I wouldn’t waste
another ******* minute
chasing things that wouldn’t satisfy:
chasing ***** with ***
and letting boys I didn’t care about
chase me, but they didn’t care about me either.
I didn’t (and maybe I still don’t) understand
why two people have to be in love.
What if we both want each other,
what if we both don’t want to love?
The thing is, the outcome of that
is always this:
broken phones, empty bottles,
and endless drives at four am
when we both aren’t talking
because we can’t talk without screaming.
I swore to God I’d leave,
two months ago,
but it’s been six months since
you moved six hours away.
I swore to God I’d leave,
but I haven’t been able to pack up my bags
that I unpacked in your heart.

I forget what it’s like
to have my heart beat freely;
you’ve always controlled my blood flow,
squeezing blood with your palms
through my arteries,
softly suffocating -
pump, pump, pump.

I don’t know how it feels
for my stomach to make its way
up my throat, only when I had the flu.
Not every single day, when I see you
reaching your hand towards that girl’s heart
while you distract her with your lips on her face.

I haven’t forgotten how to kiss my father goodnight
and how to spend time alone in the trees.
I know what it’s like to heal a broken heart,
but please, promise me, before you reach in
and take her heart with your left hand,
release mine from your right.
Don’t worry about sealing it back in my chest,
I can do that just fine.
Just drop it right there,
I want to stitch back in what’s mine.

If you still love me, stop.
Run for ten thousand miles,
then row halfway across the Atlantic,
and when you're finally far enough away
from every other soul,
dig down and wrench out all the things
you think you feel for me
and all of those memories,
the ones that keep you up at night.  
Then, when you've gathered them
all up into your shaking hands,
drop them. Watch them fall and float
to the bottom of the Atlantic.
It will hollow out a piece of you;
don't fill it with anything, not yet,
leave it empty, just as my heart was
when I told you
my love for you never existed,
but oh, how I wish it did.

In 1814, my grandfather’s barn collapsed
from the greediness of the farmer’s
haying to their own delight
and stocking the barn to the brim
with more hay than it was equipped to hold.
It broke and fell on top of them,
my grandfather too.

You have to stop letting
the weight of the world
make a home inside of your heart.
You can take it all in,
and shake and sob until
you can’t feel any longer,
but don’t linger.
Don’t stop feeling,
but before every problem you face
and every demon you meet,
reach down deep inside and grab
all the pieces that don’t belong in your soul,
because your heart can break,
and it will,
if you don’t realize you can’t heal the world
(but please, don’t stop trying)
but first, don’t let the dark camp,
scab, and scar inside of your heart
so that you can no longer
see the light.