snorting coke makes me feel closer to god
she sung to me as i turned the lights off
and walked out of the room,
an aching in my back.
the only year i can remember is 2014,
before you grew your hair out,
and i didnt know your real name.
my sister is in her bedroom asleep.
having ******* dreams mixed with codeine.
i want to die in your basement.
as the footsteps are over my head,
we wont be sleeping tonight,
i’ve stopped getting high.
the only year i can remember is 2014,
and how your lips were cold.
and the times i lied and told my mother i was sick,
so i could lay in bed
and pretend the sheets were your arms.
but since then-
i have learned my bedsheets cannot touch my face and kiss my cheeks.
i am not in love with you anymore.
as flowers rot in-between my toes
and i watch explosions on tv screens.
nothing is real.
the only year i can remember is 2014.
i am not alone.
you are making me hot chocolate
and looking at the snow through your window
as the granite countertops reflect your figure,
i am holding onto to nothing-
and there is nothing all that important in my life I’m afraid of letting go of.
i let our knees touch in your basement.
i am completely vulnerable,
you are close to me.
but now you feel so far away, as i see you there by the pine trees.
i want to tell you how there is so much i remember about you that has been
sitting dormant in my head,
and how every moment with you seemed so beautiful, and how you will always mean so much to me.
the only year i remember is 2014.
we are meeting for the first time,
and i barely know anything about you,
not even your real name.
not even what your voice sounds like.
i sit next to you as you show me your favorite songs.
and i tell you about my favorite things,
as the autumn leaves fall on concrete,
the suburbs feel endless.
my voice doesn’t shake around you.
i don’t think much of it,
maybe you just make me feel different.
maybe i knew i’d have a tough time letting you go,
maybe i still am.
for many years,
i told myself we met at the wrong time,
now i am not so sure of that.
it is November 2014
and i am crying in your parents basement
i cant remember anything that had happened that year,
i was so alone,
but i feel you put your head next to mine.
i have something important in my life i am holding onto,
and do not want to let go of.
i should’ve held on tighter.
its December 8th 2017,
and I’m sitting in my dorm room,
throwing cigarettes into my trash can,
they have been making me feel sick.
all i can remember is 2014,
and how much every moment meant to me.
the girl i loved back then isn’t real anymore.
i see her sometimes, but she is different.
i am glad.
i pull my covers over my head,
knowing i am missing someone who was never really mine in the first place,
and doesn’t exist now and maybe never did.
i have nothing left to hold onto,
and nothing I’m afraid of letting go of.
i am alone.

its four in the morning.
you pick me up in your car
and i ask you where we’re going.
you say you don’t know.
the streetlights brighten your face,
i forgot how you looked in the daylight.
yesterday i forgot how your voice sounded,
i called you, just so i could remember.
maybe i will not be here tomorrow,
or maybe i’ll just sleep
i say as the light hits your cheekbones,
you clutch on the steering wheel
and reply
the way your voice sounds when you're about to cry-
is still one of my favorite things

I came home for the weekend and realized i am still in love with you.
i don’t know why this came as a shock,
because this  happens every time i come home.
especially in the autumn.
nostalgia really hits,
and i find myself walking in the neighborhood you held my hand in,
going to the cemetery you kissed me in
and driving by your neighborhood on the way to get coffee.
i guess i feel pathetic more than anything-
repeating to myself
“it doesn’t feel like two years ago. i can still feel your breath on my neck.”
i don’t tell my mother-
but that doesn’t hide the fact i was crying in my bedroom.
when the weekend is over, i find myself slugging to my dorm room, without a thought of you in my mind.
autumn is almost over.
i wont be home for another three weeks.
i repeat this to myself as i walk to get a cup of coffee.
pour over.
dark roast.
anything to make me feel warm and fuzzy.
something bitter.
my soul was pastel purple when i met you,
the perfect combination of blues and reds.
now it is a dark navy blue,
i smoke a cigarette on the way back,
i wonder which one would be easier to give up.
as i open the door to my room nothing feels familiar,
my bed has held people who are not you-
they were supposed to make forgetting easier.
they didn’t.
i turn on my bathtub
and stick my feet in long enough to burn my skin
your favorite song plays on repeat inside of my head,
i look at the coffee sitting next to me-
and wonder-
i take off the lid and pour it onto my head,
it slowly flowing off the edges of my face,
filling my nostrils until it’s all the room smells like-
i don’t feel anything,
no warmth-
no fuzziness-
you were all those things-
you - burned my skin when you touched me.
i remember all the times i said no,
but the coffee surged onto my scalp anyway.
you fill the room,
this is how i remember not to miss you.

last year you tried to **** yourself on thanksgiving.
this year-
you didn’t come over for dinner
covered with the bedsheets
in a cold basement-
you told me how you tried to be more poetic-
softer-
stronger-
louder-
i put my head on your shoulder-
this thanksgiving -
you did not try to **** yourself.
you just stayed in bed & cried.

I’m speaking with a ghost
as you record me your new song
onto a cassette tape.
and i think of how beautiful your body looked like-
draped in leaves
and first kisses
and how you lost your virginity
in a cemetery
you float by
your voice beautiful and sad
how it cracks and shakes.
singing about how the first girl you loved
took your soul-
and won’t give it back.
it wasn’t yours in the first place.

I tried so hard to you make you a ghost to me.
As i ran my fingers down spines that weren’t yours,
and listened to heartbeats that did not belong to you.
you kept it alive,
as your fingers traced along the keyboard,
and wrote the word unlovable on my arm,
i did not flinch nor pull away-
it stuck so easily,
felt so familiar
and i felt the ink crawl onto my legs-
unlovable.
the next time i saw you was a year later,
i felt that same exact arm shake, and i tried to hide the writing that was still there
as your lips curled into that big toothed smile.
as it didn’t happen -
i am ghost to you-
as you struggle to pronounce my name,
then asking-
“what’s your favorite sound again?”
yours is trains.
i still remember have much you love the sounds of trains
as I’ve forgotten how to take care of myself,
or how to write a poem
or how to play my favorite song on the guitar
or how to breathe when i am near you.
i still know- you love trains
and how you take your coffee
and how you loved when i called you sweet.
you’re still alive next to me-
as i can hear your heartbeat across the room,
i can barely feel mine.
i’m writing this to ask you-
how does it feel sitting across the room from a ghost?
does it scare you- how easy it has become-
to lose all the feeling?
to hear the voice you forgot for a year?
to tell you the truth-
i’m beginning to forget what my voice sounds like too.