My head was in her lap.
Her friend was driving fast.
Too fast. Way too fast.
She wrapped her arms around me.
It was cold and late and I'm in a stranger's car.
No. I met him that morning. It's fine.
Oh god. Are we going to crash?
She hushed me.
Have I been shivering this whole time?
She laid her jacket over me as a makeshift blanket.
The car is still too fast.
The music is too loud and it's dark.
Am I dying? No it's fine. She's got me.
How long has it been since we left?
Oh ****, wasn't he drinking?
We're going to die. Why did I come with?
She tells him to slow down.
I somehow mutter out a sorry to him.
I'm laying in the backseat of a half-stranger's car.
The leather interior is sticking to me.
It's not as cold as it was before.
…
…
…
Am I still awake? I can't move.
Did I die? No, I still feel her there.
She's rubbing my back, I think.
I'm asleep. Wait am I? Yes.
I think so. It's okay.
We're at her house.
We made it.
I made it.
It's okay.

tonight was a godsend

he plays the cello in parks after hours while i'm smoking cigarettes and trying to think of things to write down later
he sleeps in the back of his truck with a blue blanket when he doesn't want to wake up in his bedroom alone
he climbs on everything and doesn't sit still and ***** girls that i can only imagine wish that he would kiss them too
he went to school for massage therapy and he looks like chris from skins and he was manic tonight and said i made him happy and he's sorry that he used me
i told him to do it again

i am sitting on my back porch with you
more satisfied from your presence than
the nicotine between our fingers, and i'm
holding back laughter to hear yours first
because it's cold out and the sound of it
puts the warmth back into the air and
i can breathe again.

until your leg brushes against mine
then pulls back faster than i could notice
it was even there in the first place

the space between our bodies is a purgatory

this morning, i awoke with a million different things swimming through my brain's waves and wiring that all could be summarized in only four words, picked at, scraped down, and peeled off completely raw:
my heart is hurting.

if the people at that party could physically see it in action, it would be on it's hands and knees, crawling to the nearest and darkest corner to hide in. no one seems to think you deserve me and no one has any patience and no one is waking up this morning, clutching their knees to their chest at the thought of the curve of his smile, making me want to meet god just so i could thank him for it.  

and i think it's almost insane, the way this world works. how i stayed on the porch with him until the sun came up even after he said he'd only stay for a little while. how we talked so loudly of loneliness but hadn't even slightly exhaled the word itself. how he's a figment of my past but he made my world feel new again. how all of the people that want me around are pushing me away because of the way he leaves me and showing their teeth because of the way i want him despite that- there is no kindness here- when the reason it hurts is because he is the most warm, tender person and understands the same thing about me.

it's a dog-eat-dog world and i am a 16 year old human, eating a burrito over the kitchen sink in my underwear at 5 o'clock, monday morning.

the sun in me must be heavy
because waking up is getting harder
i am practicing for the real thing
if we're being honest, i don't
want to see my 17th birthday
because since somewhere after
my 13th one, i have been restrained,
arms behind my back, while he
sucker-punched me in the jaw
i have spent the last 4 years
spitting blood and teeth onto the cement
and saying "thank you, thank you,
this is all i could ever want."

You want to erase father from your life, but that doesn't matter anymore. You can't change anything whether or not you write poems about father. Everything you do it will stay plain and dull, like the child you were, like the child you still are.

You own your body without even you realizing it. It's okay, though. Now I'm telling you that your ******* are yours, that your tongue is yours, that your lips are yours. Your flesh is yours, my dear. It has nothing to do with father's flesh. Only his DNA and mother's, that's all.

You know, your skin hasn't changed much. It's still pure and innocent, just like the finest fabric, just like an angel's. And you know, it's okay to remember your scars, it's still there to remind you something better than the tiny pop of blood vessels. Scars remind you that healing is a process, and not all red will stay red forever.

maybe its the changing of the seasons
but I don't love you anymore