I ended the only relationship I've ever had.

After four years I told him I didn't want to get married.
"So you want to get married but just not to me?"

I revisit that day in my sleep every night. The day that I took the plane to do it right. Boston far below.
"You have completely broken my heart."

My brother by my side at the departure and arrival. The sumner tunnel under construction and $300 in jet fuel later.
"I want you to be gone when I come out of the bathroom."

A few months prior he told me that dating me was "bliss". I knew it hadn't been that for me.
"Is this it? Are you done with me just like that?"

I told him that he was taking me for granted and I couldn't talk to him when I needed him most. Hiding my mental illness should he think I'm broken.
"Just because I don't ask how your day is does mean I don't care."

He flew to Boston not 12 hours later. Even during his grand gesture he couldn't help but criticize me.
"Stand up straight."

He told me he thought suicide was selfish. How was I to tell him I had considered parking my car on the highway bridge over the Merrimack river and jumping off? A women did that the first week I lived here, so I knew it would work.
"I thought about putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger."

My best friend told me he asked her for her name. I'd been dating him for three years. Pop quiz: Who is your girlfriend's best friend and roommate? Did he even listen to me speak at all? Did he even care about my life at all?
"Whats your name again?"

Three months later, I only see you when I sleep. I'm haunted by this memory. I never dream we are still together and I wonder what that means. I've broken up with you a hundred times but it doesn't get any easier.
"Tell me everything you don't like about me. Give me a list."

He says
We can’t have *** until I love him
So when he says
I wish we could have ***
He means
I wish you loved me

Are you okay? She asks me.
I nod yes but look down
She knows I am not

My past still haunts me
when night circles in
darkness never fleeting

In class I sit with my psychology professor's voice
somewhere in the distance
"What does anxiety feel like?"

Anxiety is the cheese steak
I threw in the garbage the fateful night
my friends in college told me they hated me

It is newly 14 year old Erin
looking over the side of Narragansett Pier
on her birthday thinking what if her head hit those rocks

The fear that no one will love me
I will continue in this world the way I came and will go,
alone.

I don't know how long these memories
will haunt me
my soul forever altered

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

I told my mom today that my best friend was experiencing depression.
She is studying abroad
and wakes up everyday feeling like she wants to be dead
So I said to my mother
Liz is miserable and wants to come home
She said to me
"Its home sickness she should stick it out"

Sometimes I still miss you
Sometimes is a lot of the time.
I don't know why
but I see you in my dreams

Sometimes you say that you want me
and I say me too
but in other dreams you say her name
and I wake up in sadness

My heart aches
for someone to love me
I don't know why it is so hard to be loved
no, actually, so hard for someone to love me