Pain tastes a lot like love
Get a drop too much of either
on the wrong day, and you'll unravel
Desperately

He was porcelain skin,
designed with pretty ink lines
and attentive, crystal eyes

His words filled the cracks
in my foundation, one by one
until I was built to depend on him

He's so far away from me now
But the debris still settles all around me

It rained all morning
I missed class to lie in bed
And I said,
Some days will cut you so deeply
You won't feel the pain
Until its too late to
nurse the scars away
Today is just one of those days

I just want to be okay
I'm so alone and it's hard to be okay

and ****,
here it goes again,
that violent shaking in my knees
and everyone in this town knows
that i fall apart too easily
and you can say that
i don't deserve this
every single day
but i didn't come here
on purpose
so what the hell is the difference?

I'll stay awake all night
rubbing my ankles against your ankles
if that's what you want
Or I'll turn side ways
and let you slump your
scarred arm over my tired rib cage
if that's what you want
And if you feel like coming out of your skin
And if you can't lay still
we can take laps around your living room
if that's what you want
Or if your home doesn't feel like home
and you feel scared of
the pictures on your walls
then I'll drive until the sun comes up
and if the sun comes up
and the thought of pulling back into
your drive way makes your stomach turn
we can go to the city for the day,
I'll take work off
I heard there's a show
at the Electric Factory,
but if you can't be in a crowd tonight
then let's just sit in the alley by
my old place
and drink some whiskey,
pretend we're still gutter punks
like we were when we were sixteen
And if your eye lids start to feel heavy
but you're afraid to sleep
cause you can't swallow
the bad dreams and
what they mean anymore,
then you can rest your head on my shoulder,
I promise I'll whisper kindness
into your ear all night
so that all that's floating
through your skull
is laced in lilac and yellow
with no black spaces in between

i drank a bottle of wine in bed/that does not make me romantic/i slept for sixteen hours today and i am still so ******* tired/i drove around my neighborhood chain smoking with burning eyes/i stood in my swimming pool and starred at the sky and wondered if i was losing my ******* mind/i am not peacefully sad;there is no such thing/i moved to a city where i thought id finally get to know me/i ran home bandaged and shaking five months later/i keep swearing to myself im gonna get better/i used to believe me/but i dont know how to anymore/my pain is not a ******* trend

the first night you wrapped your arms around my waist and kissed my forehead, i cried myself to sleep
and the first morning you called just to say "have a good day", i failed a math test
the first afternoon we spent lying in your bed, i screamed with the window down the whole way home
the first time we fought, i smoked a pack of cigarettes in my drive way with my hands shaking violently and my knees pulled up to my chest
and the first time we made up, i spent three days writing poems about the skin on your fingertips and the shadows under your eyes
"i didn't get home until pretty late, so i didn't want to wake you, but if you get this in the morning, i hope you have a good day at school... call me when you get home.. oh, and...
i love you, i love you, i love you.
okay"
i listened to that voice mail every day for the first week that we did not speak.
and re-read text messages for the first month and a half.
i still remember deleting it all. she held my hand and said, "you can't keep torturing yourself." i held my breath and said, "well there, i'm free."
but i felt the walls caving in on me.
and i couldn't understand why i needed the sound of your laugh more than the roof over my head.
and i couldn't understand how my skull fit into the bend of your elbow with more ease than my tempurpedic pillow.
"i'm sorry i haven't gotten in touch with you. i wasn't sure if it'd hurt you to hear from me... but i do miss you a lot and i hope everything is okay."
your name danced across the screen of my phone,
one time at 2:00 A.M. and i felt nauseous all of the following day.

my sister and i
swam in the hotel swimming pool
last weekend when we were away
and the smell of chlorine in my hair
made my stomach turn, because
it reminded me of the summer
we fell asleep on the floor of my living
room, with our bathing suits on
every night for three weeks straight

most days the sense of longing
is so strong that it knocks the wind
from my lungs
and i'm just afraid
that i'll never learn
to breathe easy again

there's a place at the bottom
of my swimming pool,
at the edge of my bed,
in the backseat of my car
& in the old church parking lot
that hold all my darkness
but they're just places
and when i leave them,
they don't follow me

i've realized that i don't
have to live inside of them
anymore

there is chlorine
that doesn't smell
like the summer we spent
wasted on tile floors
all over portland

there are sheets
that don't feel like
the rough skin on the back
of your hand

there are cars
with leather seats
that i don't feel nauseous
peeling my thighs off of

there are parking lots
that aren't vacant
monday-friday...
parking lots lit
by street lamps
where no one can hurt me

there's a universe outside
the pain
where boys
with green eyes
are gentle

a universe
where he touches my
shoulder & i don't flinch,
where he whispers
"i like you"
into the still
scranton air
& i believe it

i lived
with my limbs
all tangled up in your hate
for so many years
but i'd cut off
every last one
before i'd wrap
them around you again

I can't really focus on
the cigarette between my
finger tips because the
neon sign in the window of the
smoke shop across the street
is always flickering in my peripherals

And my mom called me
from Delaware as I was
walking on the beach
behind my apartment

I can hear the waves crashing
through the phone as she
struggled to speak over them
And I wanted to be five,
holding her hand across
the shoreline

I miss the way
my mom smells
when she gets out of the shower
Like warm melted sugar
And vanilla extract

The poppy flower
tattooed on my ankle
is distorted under water
and I wish I were sitting
on Poppy's lap in the kitchen
while Nonny dances between
the stove and him

I just wanna be held again,
Frozen in time where I am
always safe, always protected

I stepped on a sea shell,
lying side ways and my
foot bled into the wet sand
And I wondered
if I'd ever feel warm again

Not the kind of warmth
you get under the Florida sun
mid-July on your way home
from work

The kind of warmth
you get when you're
smaller than your mother
and curled into a ball
on her chest

I wanna shrink
so my dad can lift me
from the couch to my bed
while I pretend to still be sleeping
in his arms,
I don't open my eyes
because I don't want him to put me down
against the hard wood,
I know I can walk
but why would I?

I wanna shrink,
to the size of the fish
splashing through
the shallow water
near my toes

I wanna swim against the current,
I wanna defy gravity,
I wanna stop time

My mind is racing now,
and I'm not sure how to slow
it down

I wanna sit in a sail boat
on Lake Winola,
watch my cousin
in her life vest
floating in the water,
Soaking in the sun

I'm positive that I'll
never feel the peace
her hands gave me,
when she'd braid my
hair on her bedroom floor
in the spring time

There is a distance
that's greater than space,
a distance further than
flight schedules or
gasoline prices,
A distance that
grows over time,
even if we stand still,
A distance that forms
along our spine,
It straightens our
stature and refuses
to let us crumble
into the arms of our mothers

I miss standing on the couch
with my sisters, waiting
for my dad to yell,
"Don't wreck the furniture"
through his bedroom door...
We loved to wonder
how he knew what we were
doing without looking...
I liked to imagine
there were strings between
our hearts and his,
he could feel when we moved,
when we stood,
and when we sat

I wish those strings hadn't
deterorated as all of us aged

I wanna feel safe,
just one last time

Blowing kisses to the Carolina's,
I have a migraine that won't give.
I thought if I took my body
955 miles away from your body,
I'd lose interest in the contents of your soul,
But I was wrong again.
It feels like I'm wrong all of the time lately.

And I keep telling boys with pretty eyes
and traditional tattoos that
I love them,
and I wanna believe that I do,
that I'm even capable of loving
any man that isn't you,
but somewhere in the back
of my skull,
hidden under the debris
of every foundation I tried
to build over the memory
of your chest,
there is a sink hole
that I keep pushing them into.

I kissed a boy with black grease
on his finger tips, tan skin,
and big brown eyes.
For a moment I thought
I wouldn't mind
taking care of him.

But I woke up in the middle
of the night,
his arm slung over my rib cage,
his dreaming breath against my neck,

And I didn't wonder what
the pictures behind his eyelids looked like
or what his voice sounds like first thing
in the morning when there is still a bit
of sleep caught in his throat.

I just squirmed out from under his touch,
rolled over to face a white wall,
and wondered if you were lying on your back
starring into your ceiling,
Or eating chicken wings at
the foot of your bed.
I smiled to myself for a second
imagining you smoking
a blunt in the driver's seat of your
beat up SUV,
looking into the stars longingly.

And then I swung my feet
onto his unfamiliar vinyl floor
and slipped into a bathroom
down the hall.
Splashing cold water against
my flush skin
to shock the pain
out of my forehead.
Shivering to the image
of myself staring back at me
in a bathroom that I didn't recognize,
I wondered if I'd ever
get your fingers out of my spine

I hate who I am
when I'm pretending
not to miss you

But I hate who I am
but I hate who I am
I hate who I am

And I miss you
I really really
miss you

I was easy and soft
and submissive
and kind

I didn't laugh too loud
I didn't drink too much
I didn't have a lot to say

as long as you felt okay,
I felt okay

And you wanted to love me so bad,
You would play your favorite songs
with me in your arms
just to convince yourself
I mattered

You wanted to drown in me,
because you knew I'd never
leave you drowning alone,
and you'd been left to fight
for air so many times
without help

But I am no anchor,
I am not heavy enough
to pull anyone down
so deep
that they can feel
the waves crashing
in their veins

I have never been
an anchor,

People do not
fight for their lives
just to be held down
inside of me,

I'm not enough
to leave you breathless,

I'm not enough to make your
stomach float up into your skull,

I have never been
an anchor,

People come to dip
their feet,

from time to time,

but I am not the one
they dive into

this would have been my year
had i not given up
could've answered all those emails
but i let them pile up
now im in a purple room
with wooden floors,
avoiding certain boards
cause im sick of splinters
and im staring at my apathy
staring back at me in a
pocket mirror,
from a mattress
full of metal springs
and im wondering how
one can be so ******* full
of misery and yet so ******* bored
cause i thought if i learned to feel again,
id go for a walk or a drink
but i haven't moved in three hours
and i don't think i want to
cause as far as i can see
there's not much to see,
not much to see
so ill keep calling
and hanging up
cause i don't actually want to talk
i just want to wake you up,
i just want to know that you've got
your pretty face in that bright yellow phone,
cause that's not much better
than where ive been lately
"where have you been lately"
i can hear you from three states away
screaming into your pillow
and if i focus hard enough,
these black sheets
are the navy blue ocean
and if i focus hard enough,
my lungs are collapsing
and if i focus hard enough,
i can feel calm
maybe for a minute
or two
cause if i focus hard enough,
i sink like an anchor
and where the sun can't reach me,
neither can you

the winter is the prettiest
in the dead of summer,
and your bedroom smells like cherry blossom,
but only when it's 43 miles west of my flesh...
the present moment always tastes the same,
hot blood like rusted metal
collecting in the deep ditch of my gums,
i am biting the barrel of my very own gun,
wondering what i will grieve for tomorrow,
this fear hangs quiet in the still air i inhale,
if it is not growing in my chest,
well then i mustn't be breathing...
shaking to sleep,
i haven't lost a thing
but then why is there this hole
in the pit of my stomach,
so raw that the air penetrating it
feels like a scolding blade?
i have stuffed it full of cigarette buds,
birthday cards,
paint brushes,
glass bottles,
and sterile needles,
but the wind still whips through it somehow
early in the morning
and late at night
when my bedroom is silent
and my eye lids are heavy
and i am starving
but i have filled myself
with so much
that there are
starving artists,
journal entries,
tv shows,
concert venues,
outdoor tents,
decorated novels,
inside jokes,
and beer pong tables
pouring out over my edges
so what do i use
as gauze for these opened wounds
when there is no fabric left
anywhere in the entire universe
of my head
and not a single clue
of how i collected
such romanticized injuries
in the first place,
other than this
constant & sharp
general yearning for
anything but this,
anywhere but here,
anyone but me
?