She was a sapling,
Small and shaded by
The branches of  
One hundred year old oak trees
Maples and Evergreens

Wilting without sunlight,
The rain never reaching the dirt around
The places she buried her roots

The sky was a dream
Clouds she could not see
Through the thickness
Of birds’ nests and tree forts
Nestled in the arms of
The great plants surrounding
The seedling, starving for sustenance

I was a sapling, dying alone
In a petrified forest
Surrounded by what seemed
Like no hope for hope
No chance for survival

Then along came a woodsman
Or so I thought
Ready to put me out of my misery
Cut me into kindling and
Burn me into my next life

But a woodsman, no
Instead he was a farmer
Come to hack and saw the trees around me
And cultivate my species

Nurturing and sacrificing
He cleared the air around me and
For the first time I found myself
Breathing in

He cut away the branches
Prison bars that held me
Back and down for so long

Released me from a doomed fate
I had nearly begun to accept and  
Because of him I drank the tears
That fell from heaven
And for the first time
Felt alive

And then one day I realized
A farmer you were not
But instead like me
You were another tree
With vines that grew towards
And with me

You brought me back to life
You know
Reminded me of why it is
I wake each morning and
Lean towards the sun
Soaking in her rays
And living

It is Sunday and
there is nothing but the newspaper
and last nights clothing
scattered on the floor

A trail to the bedroom
from the front door
where little feet and big feet
are tangled, hanging off
the edge of the bed

Sweat on your brow and
my ***** fingernails
from when we crash landed
inside of each other

Seeking safety
in the middle of the night
and I can still taste
the salt of your skin
where it lingers

And you can feel me
from your shoulders
to the small of your back
as I trace
with my lips,
the road maps of where I have been

It is Sunday and
there is nothing but the newspaper
and the way you make me feel
like I am drowning
in the sweetest painful joy

It started with a whisper
And ended with a bang
A cliché ending
With a waterfall running down my face
And a rock where his heart should have been

Well I tried to fix the broken things
That ate away at your soul
And in return you looked at me
Like you couldn’t believe that I was real

But I guess you can’t give everything
Because if you do they’ll **** you dry
And it’s just such a sad story
When enough is not enough

I guess you cry. You grieve. You curl into a ball, clutching your blankets so hard that your knuckles turn white, and you let that pain roll through your body like an earthquake, sobbing and sobbing and drowning in that sweet agony that consumes you until you can barely breathe. You let all of the pain and suffering leak from your body and into the world, and far, far away from you.

You don’t eat because your throat is so tight, you’re choking on everything, and your stomach feels like a rock anyway. You avoid the radio and the TV and reading books because there is always a song or a kiss or a quote that reminds you of him.

You wear the same clothes two days in a row, forget to brush your hair and write a lot of bad poetry. You take all of his things and throw them in the trash. And then you take them out again because throwing them out feels too much like admitting that its over. You don’t want to hold on but you don’t want to let go.

You barely sleep at all and when you do, you dream about him. You dream about the way it ended and wake up aching and when you think that it can’t hurt any worse, you fall back to sleep and you dream about the beginning. You dream that you are together, pushing his hair out of his face, grasping his hand while your heart beats its way out of your chest. You dream about your lips pressed up against his, and your bodies tangled together. You dream about how it all started, and then you wake up crying because he’s not there and you can’t change that.

You want to call him, send him an email, ask one of his friends if he’s even sad. You want him to suffer, but your heart breaks at the idea of him being in any pain. You want answers, closure, things you deserve but will never get. You want to yell and scream at him. You want to know why. You want to understand.

You hate yourself. You blame it all on yourself. You go over the last night you were together in your head a thousand times. His words echo in your ears. You pick apart your dialogue and think of all of things that you should have said, or done to fix it.

You cry so hard you nearly make yourself sick. You want to puke because you want him out of you, but there is nothing in your stomach anyway. You tell yourself that you want to erase him from your memory. You pretend that you wish you had never met him.

You swear that you will never trust again. You will never let another man touch you. You think that you are damaged goods and no one will want you anyway.

You’re friends listen to you cry about him, and vent and complain, for a few days before they cant handle it anymore. They think you’re overreacting. For days or weeks or however long you need, you grieve. You want to die some days, but you pull yourself back before it goes that far. You feel like you’ve gone crazy. (You really haven’t). You feel like no one understands.

It doesn’t matter what your label was. It doesn’t matter if he was your boyfriend, or your best friend or just the guy who led you on. It doesn’t matter if you dated for three years or fell for him six months ago. Your pain is real and it is valid.

He took a peice of you when he left, and now you have to learn to live without it. Now you have to remember how to breathe again. You have to let yourself stop wanting him, which takes longer than you want. In fact, you’ll probably tell yourself that you’re over him before you really are.

When your relationship with someone ends, it is the death of something. It is a tragedy and it changes you forever.

But you survive it. You learn from it. You forgive, but you never forget.

My point is, that you’re not alone. You are not the first person to feel this way, to suffer through this. I am not the first person to ache this way.
And I won’t be the last.

So if you can’t sleep, and you’re up looking for someone whose been aching like you have and writing about it, then this entry is for you.

Everything that you feel is real and it is valid and you are justified. It is okay for you to feel like this right now. Its okay for me to feel like this too.

You’re not alone.

I'm not enough butter
Spread across too much bread
Pinned like butterfly wings
Trapped in a frame
I'm looking out from underneath
And I've got water in my lungs

Screaming but no one hears
Over laughter and clinking glasses
Alone and surrounded by everyone
Suffocating and frozen
I'm on the outside
And every word is a dagger
Stabbing my insides
I'm bleeding out

So what about me?
Exhausted and empty inside
Missing the rush of blood
Like it was only yesterday
Cracking like an egg to watch
The yolk stain my sweater sleeve

But I won't go back there
Tired of pulling apart my seams like
The creases from an envelope
Unfolded and exposed
So the world can see
That there’s nothing left inside
        Unshackle your heart from my memories
I know now that I'll never get inside of you

Restless but exhausted
But the sleep will never come
And when it does its riddled
With nightmares and monsters
Cold sweat and tears running down
The sides of my face but I can't wake up
And when I do I'm still crying
Because I am the option
The second choice, the forgotten
I am a mirage, I am invisible
So what about me?

I am not enough butter
Spread across too much bread
I am not enough

Tell me lies for just
a little bit longer
let me live in a dreamland
where my wishes come true

Gut me with the truth
too soon and
rip me from my reverie
I'm wide awake now and seeing
what I should have seen

And my tears drop like
rain on a rooftop
running through the gutters
and down my cheeks

Splat on the sidewalk
where the rest of me lies
waiting for the time
when I can pick up the pieces
and pull myself together again

because you weren't supposed to be
another name on another list
of reasons why I should be hopeless

and I wasn't suppose to be
another scratch on a bedpost
or a name in a little black book

and I'm not sure how
I got here this time
but here we are now
here I am.