I had to walk away
No, I had to run
I had to banish you from every inch of my life
You were the dust mites in the crevices of my soul
You were ***** dishes
You were grime, and dirt, and decay
And I needed to spring clean my heart
You're gone, And I am clean

I craved you,
the way lungs crave air when underwater.
I needed your presence, your essence.
I begged for you to be what I needed.

You let me down

When will this end?
When will you release me from this heartache,
this mortal coil you exact upon every fiber of my being?
You plague my thoughts
A specter of my failures in love, you haunt me endlessly.

Heartbreak isn’t a break.
It isn’t the shattering of glass,
Whole one second, cracked and broken the next.
It isn’t the snap of a tree branch,
Or more relatable, a bone.
Its not the fracture you get in your arm from falling off the monkey bars.
No one signs your cast with names and hearts,
No, heartbreak isn’t a break.
It’s a slow burn that fills your heart and encompasses your being.
It starts in your stomach,
Once filled with butterflies, it is now a pit.
Those butterflies have turned to acid and try to escape through your esophagus.
Is this heartburn?
Yes, but not in the way you imagined
Your heart is burning.
Soon there is no oxygen left, the flames used it as fuel.
Your lungs are filled with smoke and you can’t breathe.
Your body, once a forest. Your heart, once a garden
Are now kindling for a fire that you don’t know you’ll survive

Lover take me home.
Turn off the lights,
Take off my clothes
and climb in my ribcage.
Kiss my tears away
and suffocate my pain with your body.
Turn off the lights.
Make me feel loved
While I pretend you are someone else.
While I pretend I am someone else.
Play music in the background
So I can fall asleep to something other than my own cries.
Turn off the lights.
Try to hold me together,
While I try to forget what’s tearing me apart.
Turn off the lights
So you can stop feigning interest
So you can climb on top of me
And forget my sweet sad disposition.
Turn off the lights.
Focus on my body, and not my mind,
Because you forgot why I was sad.
But you remember that I like to be bitten
Turn off the lights.
So I can’t see you when you leave,
And you can forget my face one second sooner.
Turn off my light.

Unrequited love. Two words,
One of which I can not bear to speak
For even whispering that word will shatter my heart
and the illusion I have allowed myself to build
But you are more than just an illusion,
You aren’t limited to the confines of my mind
You have dreams and secrets that you tell only your lovers.
Pillow talk meant for ears that aren’t mine.
One day, maybe I can be your confidant

“There’s more fish in the sea”
a phase that gives me no comfort during lonely nights.
These fish mean nothing to me when I am Ahab
and I am looking for a whale

One day. One day, I tell myself you could possibly love me.
Love me the way that I have always loved you.
I repeat the phrase over in my head,
Turning it over in my mind
Like a stone before its skipped across a lake.
But I don’t throw the stone,
I hold onto the idea of us.
As if it could be,
As if it was meant to be.
But it’s not.
You make explosions in my heart
You are the depth charges in my sea.
But I can’t make ripples on your lake
Maybe it’s because I am still holding onto that stone
But I am not brave enough to find out.

"You're the prettiest girl in the world",
He tells me and seven other people,
Sprinkling complements in conversation like rain in spring.
You told me you loved me once,
But then you also told the girls that came before me.
Those sweet summer lies that drew out into winter.
The nights grew cold and so did your heart,
Killing the flowers in the garden that was my soul.
After the frost you left me to plant my own flowers
But I have no green thumb.
Nothing that compares to your fingers
That made flowers sprout in my mind and body.
Flowers of every hue that danced in the light of your smile,
But your smile faded and without my sun and stars
There was no light to dance in.
Without your voice there was no music to sing to.
But that wasn't the end.
You stuck around until my flowers turned to weeds,
And there were thorns in my garden.
You stayed but I was alone with two hands
Trying to fix a mess built with four.
You watched me struggle
To be something you weren't even sure you wanted.
I begged you to help and you promised you would
But your love was a lie you told with the practiced lips of a con artist.
You didn't help
And I fell apart

He said I was useless
Like chewed gum
Splayed out across the concrete
And like that gum
Too many people touched me
For him to stick to me like I meant something