Give her chance. Meet her for coffee. You'll never know if you like the way her shampoo smells, or the way her nose crooks slightly to the left unless you put down $2.25 for a cup of burnt mouth and laughter so loud that the entire cafe wonders what kind of nerve you two have.  

You'll never know if you prefer her hands draped over your arms, or mine wrapped around your cheeks. While discussing spider legs and thigh gaps, the dead, the dying and the decay of classic rock, you might find that you like the way she tucks her hair behind her ear, but hate the way she inhales through her mouth and sighs with the flits of her eyelashes.

Maybe she's the Wednesday obituary. Maybe she's the Sunday paper with all the colored funnies your inner ten year old desires.

Maybe she's your glass of wine. Maybe she's your shot of whiskey. Or maybe she'll flow through your body like ice water. You've never been one for alcohol anyway.

Give her a chance. Meet her for coffee. Watch how her *** moves in her jeans. See the gleam of her little chiclet teeth when she smiles.

But don't think about me. Don't remember the way my hips curve. Don't think bow of my lips or the Cupid's arrow that once punched you so hard in the mouth that you smiled for an entire year of your life. Don't put that white paper cup to your lips and pretend that your tasting the way words dance around my tongue.

Go out and love someone. Love them for their mountains and valleys. Love them through their stormy nights and sunny mornings. Love them like you run. Full force, breathless, exhausted to the point of happiness. Chase after them until your lungs and legs give out. Just don't give up, and don't give in. And don't forget that I loved you first, but you loved me most. No matter where your feet or heart take you, that will never change.

Sometimes you can't just scream
and let it all out
because you can't always
take a big enough breath to
equal your pain

Remorse in the way your older brothers taught you right from wrong when they told you to stay away from their friends and them.
Laughter in the way the moon told me jokes while she was sleeping beside you,
guilt in the way that I taught you how to drown while your were trying to teach me how to swim,
death in the way you lose people who are still alive.

Absence, the way my father was absent from my life the way a child with cancer would be absent from school.
Horror, the way she probably screams and writhes with your body, and here I am screaming and writhing with a blade again.
Empty, the way my body was on August 25, 2014.
Full, the way the bottles never were.
Dread, the last breath of desire.
Happy, the way I was on the day it rained and your mother forgot my name.
Broken, like the skull of the animal I ran over the other night.

Love, love me like I love inflicting new wounds upon myself,
tolerate the way her breath doesn't make you moan when it moves down your neck,
my breath was like a ghost.

Sadness like that first day of February.
Time change like a car wreck you can't look away from, we call it depression here.

Family.
The way blood means nothing and smiles from strangers mean everything.