It burns. So deathly excruciating.

It's like a never-ending, heart wrenching feeling, that separates all other emotions, all other pains, and all other scars apart.

That feeling of regret and fallen memories, colliding with each other and dragging you down so low that Hell appears to be Heaven.

Why? Why after so many years?

After so many others have managed to steal my heart, even if it was just for a moment.

Why? Even though I know those days are over, that they could never begin again, that there will always be a broken link and I will always shatter, fall, and crumble once more.

Why are these emotions still here? Why do they linger like a black cloud, suffocating me and chaining me down like a wild animal?

I know that you are only a memory, so then why are you still here?

Why do I think about you, dream about you?

Why even though I know all of your flaws and your undeniably inexcusable actions do I grip at my heart and say "I still love you"?

Even though time after time I have told myself the very opposite.

Time and time again I have banished you from my life and yet hoped there was still a chapter left of this dark story.

Why after so many countless times where I have been defeated by you, where I have fallen once more for the ****** games you play,
twisting your black fingers around my spine and seeing how far you can go until it breaks?

Why do my forsaken eyes mistake you as an angel, when you are the devil himself?

Must I continue to have hope, wishing that I could try again, even though I know you're going to once more watch as I lose all sight of the truth?

Sinister and vile as you are, relish in my delusional state, knowing you have me in your claws which scrape at my back and leave scars that not even God could heal.

Do you even know how disgusting, how sickening and maddening it feels to know that you can't even see the pain you have inflicted on me? Sure you can see the bandages, but are you really that blind to the truth of their nature?

How deep these scars truly run? How badly and desperately I screamed and begged for help inside as you dug your claws into my flesh and carved them out yourself?

Can you not see the depression, the hopeless battered soul seeping through my eyes?

I pretend I am strong. I live every day breaking at the cracks and somehow manage not to collapse into a pile of broken pieces.

Tears are dried out and the ache of a heart that has been stomped on so severely that it bleeds gray is only a small burden compared to all of the rest.

I walk on a path where there is a light just in reach, but the path vanishes once you have come close enough to that hopeful light that you can brush it with the tips of your fingers.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to look in the mirror and have to remind yourself every single day that you were never good enough?

That you are a wasted canvas, painted beautifully at first but then crumpled and thrown out because you never had a chance at being satisfactory.

You will never understand that my own emotions are poisoning me.

You have grabbed at my throat and shaken me so violently that I am unable to move, paralyzed in shame. Paralyzed in sorrow.

And yet, as I look into your eyes, I am mesmerized by your face, I fall into a trace, trapped in your spell. Trapped in this deadly cycle.

You have dragged me down into this pitiful thing. This choking, lifeless relationship where I struggle to stay alive while you climb higher on your pedestal.

And despite my previous errors, I willingly fall into your hands. Blinded by the false light you shine above your head.

as a child, i was more of a
hide-and-seek kind of girl;
i had no mind for playing
pretend.  

yet here i am now, and these
past three months have been
my greatest show yet--

but ****,

               where
      have
                                 you
                                             gone?

because i've been seeking for too long,
and i can't find you anywhere.

Everyone says love comes with pain,
As if its impossible for there to be sun without rain
But to me, that just can not be right
For love is good, purer than light.

What hurts is when that love is gone.
That is when you wish you could run.
You want to catch it, hold it, keep it.
But trying to hard will only break it.

Do not blame love when you are broken
For it's your own fault for always hoping.
Love does not hurt, it heals a broken heart.
For its the absence of love that tears it apart.

Do not blame love when you are in pain,
It is not the sun that makes it rain.
Instead blame the person who took love away
That's how you were broken, there is no other way.

"i heard you crying in the shower," margo says.

i put my book down beside me.  i blink, margo blinks.  her hair drips beads of water onto my carpet.

"yes," i reply.

"does that mean you're still sad?" she asks.

"no...yes- well, not really. not in the sense you're thinking," i say.

"oh."

"yeah."

margo makes her way from the doorway to my bed and takes a seat at the foot.  she's still wearing a towel instead of clothes, and her skin is pink from the heat of her shower.  she looks like she has more to say, but i don't ask, so she doesn't tell.  instead, we just sit and watch each other.  i wonder what the hospital has made me look like to her, and she probably wonders if i actually love her enough to get better this time, or if i was just saying it to make her happy.

"since when do you wear make-up, kiddo?" i ask, hoping to break the silence.  the black lines underneath her eyes are suddenly the only things i can pay attention to.

"i don't know.  i guess right after you left," she says.

"oh."

"yeah."

i heard a girl once say,
if i could
i would drown
in poetry.
i would throw myself
into a sea of verses
and sink in splendor.
oh, no, i thought -

no you wouldn't.

if there was a sea of poetry
the coasts would be ringed with barbed-wire
and electric fences,
and signs that yelled warning
keep out
undertow
and swim on risk of death -
the beach would be littered with broken glass
from all the drunks that took their last drink
on the edge of a stanza.
the water would be turbulent
and *****
and cold,
and you might admire it one twilight,
when the sun is drowning and turning the sea
red,
and you'd say, oh
that's beautiful.
and you'd take a photo of yourself
grinning with the sunset at your back
and leave.

i heard a boy once say,
if i could
i would drown in your poetry.
oh, no, i thought.
no you wouldn't.
why is drowning such a common theme
in the minds
of readers of poetry?
i imagine it seems
romantic,
in some twisted morbid way -
but i think seeing a bloated corpse
pallid with seawater
missing a limb
or two
would put these delusions to rest.
i imagine seeing
the corpse of a poet
missing a heart
or mind
would put these delusions to rest.

you don't want to drown in poetry.

you want to watch me drown.

i heard a boy once say
if i could
i would drown in your poetry.
so says the boy who calls himself an artist
because he can play
'hey soul sister'
on guitar
and will prove it every chance he gets.
you don't want to drown in my poetry,
and even if you did
i doubt you could -
if poetry was bodies of water
you would throw yourself into a hotel swimming pool
miles away from the polluted lake
where i wash in stagnant water.
if poetry was bodies of water
you'd have someone build a koi pond in your backyard
and call yourself a poet.
if i could
i would drown in your poetry,
he said
and i told him to prove it.

if i could
i would drown in poetry,
she said.

the only people who say
they want to drown in poetry
are the people who don't know what it means.

the only people who drown in poetry
are the people who have no choice.

I tried to
write
a poem about you
but instead
I scribbled a
big, orange-ink blob
and I figured
that made
just as much sense.