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.

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.

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.

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 wish I loved you more.

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.

This is the only advice I’ll ever give:
you cannot fall in love with people
who don’t know how to love,
so please, for the sake of him,
and your mother, and expensive therapy bills,
don’t even try.

You can love him, all you like
but you cannot fall in love
with him. You can fall in love
with the idea of him, and fall in love
with the idea of finally fixing him,
and his arms wrapped around you
while you sleep, chasing away the nightmares
that started when you met him.

Love, you deserve a person who
will make you see that the Sun is ready
to heal you all over again each morning,
and who will open your eyes the right way:
with kisses and a cup of tea, someone who will
try their best to love your friends, your family,
and the stranger carrying their groceries.

Don’t allow him to keep
any more pieces of your already cracking heart.
He doesn’t deserve them, not yet.
If he learns to love, and love himself, and learns to
be with people without nearly destroying them in the process,
then rejoice, because you can heal together.

But he doesn’t want help, he doesn’t want you,
you cannot fix him - you can love him, and please do,
I encourage it, but do not fall in love with him
and don’t think you deserve someone better,
because you will not stoop to be bitter and petty,
it’s only that you deserve
someone who is ready.

I thought I was fine,
but I was only coaxed in
to the lies upon lies,
the same lies my father drowned in.
My habits are like chained skeletons -
they’re bound to the ground,
but also to me so
by the time they decay
and let me be,
it will also come my time
to host a party themed with black.
So welcome, my old friends,
I thought you’d gone and left town.
Stay for awhile, please, let yourself in,
before I gather enough strength
to push you back in your coffins.

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.

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.

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.

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 are a lifeguard.
I jumped in the pool today,
and I almost didn’t
come back up for air.
I thought of your hands on her hips
and his hand smacking my face,
leaving spots and scars
I’d have to conceal for weeks.
I thought of my mother crying
all alone in her bed,
and my father
with his face buried in
that other woman’s hair.
I almost didn’t
come back up for air.

I did, though I was choking
and coughing and wishing I didn’t
as I tried to dispel water from my lungs.
You are a lifeguard
because the months
you spent tracing and kissing and healing,
guarding my heart against days like this,
whispering, breathing, sighing at
one, two, three in the morning,
‘I love you, I love you, I love you’
all came rushing back
and reminded me
that I am not weak
and I don’t waste time,
and that I don’t need you
because you could never save me -
you guard hearts
but He saves them.

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 absolutely hate planes
but I love airports.
It’s because I hate sloshing stomachs,
empty eyes, and broken bones
but I love freshly cut sunflowers,
kneading bread, and healed paper cuts.

No, I am not okay
because I’m a bush airliner
and you are an entire airport;
I am constantly failing to make myself
into something lovely,
just a landing pad.

I can’t make myself into a home
or even find a place to land
because the harder
I try, the higher I fly, and believe me when I say
I do not like
to fly.

I only want to land
somewhere new
with you. I want to be loved,
I do, I promise, and I promise
that I don’t break promises
like planes break bones.

(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.

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.

He doesn’t owe me the very breath I just savored
so I yell at the stars,
“I think He owes me a favor.”
He does not.

Yet, there's mercy.
Even more, there's love,
and still I spit
on jewels wrapped in burlap
I don’t need You.

What more, I plead and bargain
for light to peak through a crack
in the crevice of your soul
that cannot feel, nor love
because precious, precious jewels wrapped in burlap
do not compare to an explorer’s find of Alexandrite
in the cave I call your soul.

A fool, an explorer – one in the same,
there was not one jewel in burlap,
but many.
What imprudence! I still long for
one glimpse of Alexandrite
hoarded under hate and lies,
deception and malice.
What nerve! To demand for
light to leak in caves
that are not mine to reconnoitre.

An explorer is a demitasse
for when she is graced with eternal diamonds
she selects coal instead.

An explorer never stops exploring.
If they do, they cease to exist,
to be, to live, to be free.
An explorer has to explore,
so what happens when they don’t?

I never wanted to stop searching,
but after two years
of contradictions,
when I asked God to heal my heart
but subversively asked you to break it,
I finally ran out of supplies.

I had to stop breathing light into holes
that you wouldn’t let me tent in.
I had to stop crying at dusk,
telling Him I needed Him to save me
from the jagged rocks I fell on,
and the game of Russian Roulette
I liked to play with the pistol I found buried
under your sand pit, just south of the stream.
I had to stop waking up each morning,
proclaiming I didn’t need Him,
just you, just you, just you.

Just one more mile,
one more night,
one more cave,
one more newly drafted map.
I can’t stop exploring,
because as much as I don’t want to live,
I do not want to cease to exist.

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 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 ****.

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.

I fervently hope with all
the burning passion
of the Sun,
that one day my smile
will reach my eyes.

So that you won’t have
to gaze into empty tombs
and pretend you see
meadows instead.

Please, try to understand
why I couldn’t be there.
I’ve been wrapped
in chains
for nine months
and I’m just now learning
how to squirm out alive.

I pray with all the
hope and optimism
I have left that you will
hold my hand
and expect nothing more,
and that you’ll let me stand
on my own, because
you are not
my Savior
but I wouldn’t mind
if you tried to be.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I knew I promised I’d keep writing,
I don’t break promises,
so I’m writing,
but you don’t know that.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,
it’s only that the leaves started to fall,
and I started to fall in love with old flames and blades,
so I asked God,
if He would please,
put eleven deadbolts on my heart,
and then toss the key in the Thames,
just so I could save myself from you.

My heart is healing
and soon won’t need such protection.
Don’t worry, He can craft new keys,
and don’t even think,
not even for a second
that I want anyone but you
to slowly take off the locks,
one by one, slowly,
one, two, three…eleven.

I promised I’d keep writing,
and I’m writing, and please just know,
that even though the keys sunk to the bottom
of the river, don’t even think that means
I didn’t try eleven times every day
to rip the eleven deadbolts from my chest
just to get closer to you.

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.

When I was fifteen I started kissing
every single boy who held my hand,
because holding hands was simple, innocent, lovely.
How could anything but gentleness
come from a boy who just wanted to hold my hand?

My biggest fear used to be
failing to see the beauty and goodness in the world,
now my biggest fear is failing to see the world
for what it is, and trusting people
that would, without remorse,
run rusted, ragged, knives
through my ribcage.

I don’t hold hands with boys anymore,
because I refuse to redefine what it means
to hold someone’s hand,
so instead,
I’ll redefine myself,
and my lovers,
and redefine who is allowed
to hold my hand.

My mother tried to send herself to hell,
and in turn, my sister did the same.
Only, my sister succeeded,
at 11:03 am, there for the eyes
of her five year old child.

You see, I’ve never known poverty
or what it’s like to drive a used car
because we bathed in money
to drown out the sorrows,
and we tossed our spare change in garbage cans
to try and lose the devil.

What if Shakespeare’s not right,
and all the demons aren’t here?
What if my sister plunged herself into a hole
filled with all of her darkest fears?
I swear to God himself, I hope he’s right,
because I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,
I can’t even imagine.

I stretched myself
into a line so thin that I lost myself
along the way somewhere between you and him.
I became numb to the fact
that my mother’s cancer was spreading,
and I never said ‘I love you.’
and I stopped forgiving my friends,
for all the times they forgot or didn’t care
I couldn’t handle crowds,
and razors, and that I never slept
when I was alone in my bed.


When he told me he could never
want me they way I wanted him to,
I felt something for the first time in eight months.
But whatever I felt was not for him
it was him handing the piece back to me
only so it could ricochet off of the
Pacific and the thousands of miles between us,
because as hard as I try to rip it back,
and seal it to his heart with kisses and *****,
it will always come back to you

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.

I know, you’re sorry,
stop telling me you
want to hate yourself
for what you did to me.
I know, I told you I’d be okay
without you.
I suppose it wouldn’t help
if I told you
the nightmares started again
after you left.
It took me eleven months to
finally free myself from you
on the first go around,
and now that we’ve tried and
lost for the second time in two years,
just know it might take me
twenty-two months
just to let someone
kiss me on the cheek,
and touch my scars,
and say,
‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

Stop asking to see me,
if you’re done loving me.
Don’t tell me you care about me,
even if you do.
I’m trying my hardest to climb out of your vines,
but every time you ask,
if we’re going to be okay,
another vine wraps around,
because there is no more we -
it’s just you and I,
and the cord that tied
us together has been frayed
for the final time.

You are not mine,
you were never mine,
not for seven days
or seven hours but
I felt like you were mine
all those times
when we would lie under my favorite apple tree
and we were careful not to touch hands
and you told me all those things
you kept hidden from everyone else.
Why did you tell me all of those things?
Be honest.

I was so careful not let
my cheek brush yours
when I hugged you,
and I never looked at my phone
before I fell asleep or when I woke up
because you had already grown like dandelions
in every part of my life, and I wanted
to be careful that you were not
the first thing that crossed my mind every morning,
and the last thing I thought about before I finally
drifted off into sleep, ensuring that you’d
always haunt my dreams. I was so careful
to not let myself
fall in love
with the idea
of you.

(But I did anyway.)
(Maybe I wasn’t so careful after all.)

Before we leave in twenty-one days,
you should know that I don’t blame you
for all those times you thought you let me down.
I used to dream that my friends and lovers
were matured maple trees and would
awake to find they were always saplings.
I don’t blame you, I don’t blame you, I don’t blame you,
so please don’t blame yourself.
I’m a hard person to please.

All those times, you tried to gently brush my face
but then pecked, pecked, pecked
with your questions -
“How are you feeling today, love?"
I’m sorry because I never had the energy
to talk about it, or you, or life,
or how it was the hottest summer in years
or how I never really got over the last boy
I kissed, or how I locked myself away for two days
with Fevers and Mirrors on repeat
and a bottle of ***,
or how I got so scared of nightmares,
but not as scared as I was of myself
so I bought three more bottles of Jack
just so I could stay too drunk
to find where my mother kept the key
to the drawer with all the knives.

That wasn’t your fault, although you didn’t help
by planning adventures and conversations
and counting constellations without me.
You didn’t help by running away with the
hand of the last boy
I kissed when I closed my eyes.
It’s okay though, I’ve never wanted people
who didn’t want me.
Don’t blame yourself, please, because
it was me, it was me, it was me.

I needed you so much closer
than you were
but it was me, because I never trusted you
or told you about my feelings
or gave you a chance to care for me,
and I never told you why I drank
so much on weekends,
or why I lost twenty pounds in two months.
All of that was not you,
it was me, it was me, it was me.

I wasn’t lying when I told you
I never learned how to love myself.
I’m not blaming anyone, it’s only that
my mother screamed at her reflection
and only God himself knows where my father was.

I loved many people
truly, I loved them as I love
the lake and her loons,
and the Moon and her wolves,
I just never learned to love myself.

I never understood why you could tell me
to throw away my scissors and razors and shot glasses.
I only understood why I could cry
when you wouldn’t throw away yours.
I never learned how to be okay.

I only learned fleeting and fickle,
lonely and lost,
I learned seeping and searching,
because when she picked up
her kitchen tools - I did too.

Please, be patient, don’t say
that you love anything about me.
I know, I know I’m stripping clouds
from the sky when I’m telling you
not to love me, but I’m only saying not yet.

Not yet, love; I need you
(and I don’t need people) but
I need you to wait for me
Please, for me, be patient
because I’m learning how to love myself.