War is hell.
Nasty nights.
Dangerous days.
Wounded...
Almond eyes.

i love how it feels to be underneath you.

i send you messages like these because i
know you're at dinner with your friends,
know you're out in public.

we're miles away, but i wanted to
make my presence known.
i wanted to make an impression on you
and make you want me there
when i wasn't invited.

i want to leave you hanging by the end of the night.
i want to start to make it hurt for you.
i want you to realize what is happening and reach
out for more, realize i'm not just smoke.
i am real and i can be lost.

and even if it didn't make you want me
like i intended for it to do,
at the very least you thought of me
for a moment like a front-page headline.

My childhood bedroom walls are painted bright blue, green, and pink.
I regretted the decision less than a year after it was made.
They remind me of stale candy,
of consumerism in the form of clothing stores for tween girls
who forget they’re still children.

I am in the eighth grade, it is 2007
and it must be three, four in the morning when you walk in
stand in the doorway and stare at me
light blue eyes wide open
like you saw a dead cat on the doorstep
I think about how I’m the only child without blue eyes
You are still standing in the doorway
unblinking
as if the doorway didn’t exist until you were under it.

The air is metallic, and as I ask you I taste it
want to wash my mouth out, spit as far as I can into the hallway
“Are you okay?
What’s wrong?
Jenae. What’s wrong??
You give me the bad news
through silence
and your blue eyes that seem to be held open
by someone else’s ***** fingers.

When people asked how you were doing the following years
I wanted to spit metallic at them, too, sometimes
the same stuff that clung to the walls that night
when you walked from the doorway into my bed
blue eyes as wide as a scared mouth at the dentist

They forgot that I was still a child
and that it took a long time for the word “Rehabilitation Center”
to be released from my parents mouths
like a stray dog from a cage
but the words didn’t crawl around on all fours and
bite at our heels like we thought they might
you just can’t let them
Until then, I wondered where you went for days at a time
how you slept for days at a time when you came back
why you stared through me and not at me
where my camera went, and the neighbor’s cell phone
How you became an event rather than a person.

The night of my eighth grade graduation,
a ceremony that felt exceptionally monumental for little reason,
they found you in the car
screaming to yourself
gripping the steering wheel like a lover’s shoulders during a fight
releasing what was never actually yours,
but was given to you by the drug
the skeleton in its closet that won’t stop shaking
its bones made too much noise against the wood panelling

Those were the years before I stopped praying
I would talk to God like an authority I questioned but obeyed
promised I would not make Drew cry again
or lie again
in exchange for you coming home
“Dear God
please take all the lies I would make in the future,
and build them up into a pyramid or ladder that my sister can walk on
that leads to our front door
and make sure I can hear the old springs whining
as she comes home
only this time it won’t be whining,
but applause.”

Each night you did come home
I would lay my face deep into my pillow and thank him
give him another lie,
because I knew you were alive another night
I could breathe and not have to count down the seconds until
I would come bursting into the garage and make sure the car
wasn’t running and the windows weren’t open and you weren’t
sitting in it
And you weren’t
And I’ve never felt more pride push up through my chest and throat
on my mouth
when I knew that ladder had been built
but you built it yourself

I will always feel like a savior for no reason.
My photo and essay and drawings are on the wall next to your bed
I can’t help but feel like my smile is burning a hole through the back of the wall
All I ever did was tell you I loved you
All I ever did for you was feel scared shitless that I might wake up without a sister
and that I wouldn’t be able to carry that emptiness inside of me
All I ever did was pretend I knew what I was doing

You called two weeks ago
to ask if I had ever heard of some song you heard on the radio
I have,
I said
And you are worried about our little brother
He will be fine
I said
These conversations groan on like a train coming to a stop
I check the time, pull the phone away from my ear every so slightly
wonder who will take care of your bills when our parents are dead
breathe in deeply
try to be the person whose face is on your bedroom wall
still love you
still am so proud it hurts
still am so scared it hurts
still am pretending
still love you
still love you.

I would like to kiss somebody
it doesn't matter who
I would like to kiss somebody
anybody in particular would do
I'd like the feeling of lips on lips
a body pressed together or two
maybe I'd finally feel what it is to really kiss
since no one's ever shown me, I never really knew.
I'd like to be desperate for somebody
feel their chest pressed against mine
I'd like to want somebody
to fill my soul with unadulterated vice
I would like to kiss somebody
I would like to get my tongue entwined
I would like to lose all inhibitions
on the devil's table, dine.
I would like to kiss somebody,
it doesn't matter who.
I would like to kiss somebody,
in particular, you.

Times are tough, times are harsh but soon he shall return to the earth.
Imagine the Awesomeness of our One and Glorious King and Savior.
He whom took my place at the cross, shall that I would have a place with him in Heaven.
He whom bored my sins on that cross , so that I could inherit his Spirit within me.
I see just how beautiful this Love story truly is to all of his people.
For he had a choice, yet he choose to take our place on that cross.
There is no greater love then the Love of a friend taking our place.
For Christ accepts us with all our faults and brokenness as well.

My life
Is leaving you behind.
You, in that little town,
Me, being tugged and stretched
To fill an enormous world.
When I am across the ocean
When I live alone and leave everything behind
What then,
For you?
My life is leaving you behind.
But I can't.
I shouldn't still love you.
I shouldn't still wish for you.
And sometimes I don't...
But you have something of me.
I can't explain it.
There are new loves.
There are better loves.
But you are the background.
You are the foundation.
You're in the air,
You're on my skin
And you would never even touch it.
But somehow you still own it,
Every inch,
And I know what grief it will be
To see you grow up and fall in love
With someone else.
I know that to be near you forever
I will have to endure
So much more of that,
And on my weak days I wonder
Why everybody else gets a whole chance.
You, in that little town.
We don't belong to each other anymore.
But I will always belong to you.
I know there will be days
On London's cobblestone streets
That I will be unable to forget your face,
That I will worry and wish for you,
And I wish I didn't know
That I'll love you until the day I die.
I wish I didn't know
I'll be writing you poems when we're old and gray
And married to other people.
But I do.
I know it.
At the end of the day,
When I am stripped of everything
You remain
And that is the most comforting,
Devastating thing
I know about myself.

Ill take a hundred years of hell I deserve then a year in paradise I didn't earn.