I was the candle,
You were the flame,
We worked together,
But never the same.
I relied on your light,
You relied on my wick,
But when you burned out,
What was I to be called?
You decided to leave,
For your patience burned short,
Afraid we might split,
I offered to stay.
You liked the thought,
For you agreed,
But left me here,
A burden to breed.
You never came back,
Low and behold,
New flames danced with new warmth.
But I still miss it,
The way you lit my existence,
Of how I once meant something,
Without reluctance and resistance.
But you still left.

We fell in love slowly,
Not at once.
It was never like the movies where we touched hands and softly gasped,
Never a look from across the room,
We didn’t have a magical moment.
We grew together like the leaves reach for the sun,
We gravitated together like magnets with a light pull.
We danced in empty kitchens,
Sleepily grabbing each other in cold nights,
Sharing the oxygen in the space we occupied together in white sheets.
You made me learn how to love my bed again,
Feel safe in an area I wasn’t made comfortable with,
I found myself feeling okay.

Maybe two years ago I would feel the need to tell you,
"I love you."
Maybe a year ago I would have felt like you were the breath in my lungs when all of the air was knocked out of me.
Maybe a couple of months ago I realized you weren't good for me.
Maybe a couple of weeks ago when the *** burned in my stomach,
My head over a toilet,
Trying to drink away the thought of you,
I would've called to say,
"I hate you."
It was the alcohol that made me realize that it's unhealthy for me and
So
            Are
                          You.
It's burn made me dizzy after my sixth cup of chugging,
Of forgetting,
Of consuming.
I know I'm over you,
But the nightmares won't stop.

Elusive thoughts and dreams,
Permeant to the mind.
Merely phasing through the realities of my soul.
I loved the sickness of the mind,
A dark murky cloud of an unpredictable storm.
Pushing through the phases of that empty vastness,
Drowning in a swirling mix of confusion,
Spreading like a poison throughout the veins of a twisting,
Winding,
Painful injection upon the skin.
Living through the soreness of a long familiar ache,
Yearning for a peace that never quite settled.

I could tell you that I tip toe across the cold wet stones,
Careful with every movement,
But I’m not.
I’m unsteady,
Unsteady as the current rushing beneath me against the slippery rocks.
I could tell you that I’m dainty,
Soft spoken and polite,
But I’m not.
I’m brazen,
I’m honest,
I’m emotional.
I’m clumsy and I don’t have good balance on the moss beneath me in the water.
I crack under pressure,
I’m an anxiety filled vessel.
I hate to be the rain on your sunny day,
But baby I’m sorry,
I’m nothing but the girl who fell into the rushing waters below.

It was terrible, what she did.

She caressed my cheek with hands not so kind,
She grabbed my wrists with a grip too tight,
Her fingers left light little bruises across my throat,
And I called her my mother.

The woman before me screamed obscenities.

"I hate you."
                      
                        "You're nothing."

"You're not the daughter I wanted"

I called this person my mother.
She gave life to me after all,
I should be grateful.

Even if the bruises take a while to go away.
Sometimes the cigarette burns scar.
The cuts and fractures never completely heal.

I call this my mother.
                         Sometimes, it's terrible what she does.

Ode to my depression.
Applause to you, my friend.
Lightning strike,
Grey plaid,
Everything oh so bad,
To you,
Depression.
Sharp knife,
Locked door,
No, mom,
I'm not taking nudes.
There was a time when I was 15 and my younger sister joked I was going to become an addict of some sorts,
And I joked back with,
"As an alcoholic."
The look of appeasement trying to joke with me wiped off her face,
Whether I could tell I was joking or not made me question my entire existence.
An avid life of a drinker was not full of red solo cups and parties,
It was full of lonely nights clutching a bottle closely to my chest,
Afraid that it will grow legs and leave me,
Tired of the way my lips caressed the opening to drink the poison that I hoped would succumb me into nothingness.
Much like you,
My darling,
Growing tired and ever weary of the way my grey plaid shirt resembled so much like your heart,
The way lightning struck the ground like your eyes struck me in awe.
I spend my days binge watching shows with endings I have already seen a thousand times,
But what do I do when checking my phone every two minutes becomes routine,
When refreshing my messages becomes apart of my subconsciousness,
When I've drank black coffee so strong that I no longer feel the rush of alertness.
Subway trains echo with the tired grumbles of those stuck in one-frame lives,
Too tired to move forward,
Too stuck to look away from the past.
I know I mean nothing to you just like the dirt beneath the shoes I bought you,
The phone I changed my wallpaper on because it never felt right,
The google browsers cluttered with things like,
"******* yourself without actually dying."
I've become so easily submerged in mundane society,
Routine,
Routine,
Routine.
Wake up,
Drink coffee,
Forget to shower,
Walk out the door,
Hoping my world ends.
Taking that locked door to my bathroom at two in the morning,
Holding a knife with a not-so-ever gentle hand,
My mother knocking on the door I have collapsed upon.
Mother,
I am tired,
But you do not get when I say I am tired.
You do not notice my window covered,
My lights turned off,
My settings on the lowest possible in hopes that heartbreak will never find me,
But the bright light from my phone screen is still too bright and the picture of you while I'm scrolling though my feed on Instagram stops my heart.
My lungs no longer work,
My body goes numb,
Tears that I thought I had run out of the night before have returned.
All I feel is the chest splitting pain that seems to resonate through my body,
Trailing down into my fingertips,
Hands tingling from the absence of your hand in mine.
So I roll over,
Turn off my phone,
I whisper a goodnight.

It was your hand gripped onto the back of my neck.
You pulled down onto my body and I ached for more.
Your hips were grinding against me.
The music in the background faded and the windows fogged.

"No more disappearing," I breathed heavily.

You said, "I won't."

We collided in heavy need and our lips crashed as if the waves of our beach was caught in a storm that had been long overdue.
Our clothes pulled off our bodies and the heat between us steamed.

After that,
It was a blur.
We melted in each others embrace not so lovingly.
Somewhere in that moment,
You asked me,
"What do you want?"

I said, "Something I can't have."

And in that moment,
We realized just how human we were.

It was quiet,
The way you crept back into my life.
Little by little you became more,
Making me fall for you all over again.
I couldn’t,
I know I shouldn’t,
But I have to say I’m sorry,
Because I did.
You belong to someone else,
And that’s okay,
But you will always belong to me.

It’s been a while,
A long while,
Since I’ve said hello.
I’m sorry to disappoint,
I’m not making much of a point,
If the word is no.
it doesn’t make sense,
But you’ll get it,
If you even check and print.
I’m sorry I’ve disappeared,
A state not so near,
For you to see even me.
I stress over it,
The life you live,
The choices you make without me.
Don’t get me wrong,
I’ve waited long,
To hear your voice again.
I wish I could see you,
From a state so clear,
That I could hug you one last time.

Running was never new to me.
Different places,
Different people,
Unfamiliar smells and unfamiliar buildings.
When things became too familiar,
Recognizing street signs,
Familiar names,
Memories and places etched into the back of my mind,
I move again.
Pain is an ever accompanying acquaintance,
A travel partner that never fails to remind me that I am,
In fact,
Always running from something.

I just want to roll over
and fall asleep,
instead of feeling
the pain crash
over me in waves.

Soft sand and hot beaches,
Wild winds and beach *****,
Towels and sun tan lotions.
A little girl as old as six,
Kicking up broken shells and sticks.
Wind-blown sand ripped across her bare ankles,
Hair a mess,
Full of tangles.
Squishing sand between little toes,
Little miss curious with cheeks of rose.
A toothy grin turned up to the sun,
Laughter ringing through the crowd,
A mother calling out, "Go have fun!"
Long dark hair bouncing through the crowd,
Skipping back to the shore,
Smiling faces all around.
Suppressed memories of a little girl the age of six,
Something remembered,
A mind to fix.

A story isn’t a story without the beginning.
A beginning that told us from the start that there was an end,
An end so near that we were not ready.
I was afraid of the cliffhanger that approached quicker than a rolling thunderstorm,
A storm that looked only of dark skies with hopes of a drizzle,
Not a flood.
Our passion died like the fire within that storm,
The drizzle that turned from a downpour into a flood warning into a whirling tornado of unhappiness.
My dear, I wish I could say we were the storm but I was the rain and you were the fire but the thing was,
You saw me coming.
You saw the storm and the rain yet you lit yourself upon a dry Sahara of promises and the secret I do’s we whispered to each other during the night.
That dry, crackled earth turned soft and squishy from the waves of turmoil that rained down onto the surface,
The fire doused with remorse over a lost lover.
You weren’t dead,
You just left without saying goodbye.
The ****** was nothing of a ****** but a steady decline of I love you’s to, “Have a good life,”
To barely talking,
To trailing down a hill to the very end of our story,
Regret.
I regret everything but you, my darling.
The damp earth will grow again and while I may remember the dry Sahara,
I will grow a rainforest of color without you in it.

Little notes of warmth and light
shimmer all around.
Green bugs and blue dew drops
are scattered on the ground.
Blowing breeze and sturdy trees
stand so tall and proud.
Summer songs and childrens' laughter
ringing through the crowd.
Summer memories,
Summer people,
Summer home.

It was like an abyss.
Swirling with emptiness,
Consuming.
Black nothingness.
The color was like dark ink on white paper,
Slowly creeping across untouched perfection,
Staining the starkness.
It reminded me of a lionfish,
Slow and poisonous.
Reaching 300 feet,
The sun still breaks the surface with it's tendrils moving with the ocean,
Scattering patterns,
Creatures,
The vulnerable into a predators' jaws.
The deep dark.
Where the fear of emptiness waits,
Where the sun cannot reach,
Rushing water filling your lungs,
Where lungs cannot be lungs but filled with that dark ink.
Your lungs thin as paper,
Stained by the cold currents that continue to fill the empty space.
Paralyzed while everything turns black.

It’s not them that tears you apart,
It’s the hurt.
There’s rawness in the face of pain,
The type of raw that comes only in waves of pure agony,
Blissfully beautiful after a time of healing.
The type of pain that boils the blood like hot lava,
When it travels through your veins at the sound of another’s name roll off of their tongue,
A picture that didn’t involve you,
A song you can only hear the words,
“I don’t want this anymore,”
Echo through your broken mind.
Our favorite place was no longer filled with the scent of happiness,
But the scent of you.
You linger in the walls that watched our love develop,
The windows that saw the fights that happened,
The doors that slammed shut to separate ourselves from one another to breathe.
Even the air betrays me when I walk through the street,
Always smelling the sweet scent of home.
You are home to me.

I was a mess, or, I still am.
But you loved that.
You loved the way my lips tasted like honey,
The way the sun kissed my tan skin.
I breathed summer air as if I was made of it and,
Well,
You fell in love.
I couldn't blame you,
I felt like a dream.
That was what I was, though.
When the sun set,
My skin no longer glowed,
My lips cracked,
The air in my lungs was cigarette smoke.
When the sun rose,
My hair shined,
My smile was bright,
My eyes were a brown-eyed honey pool.
As if the night didn't consume me,
The scars buried in my flesh were taken by the sun,
Returning me to grace the surface as a false advertisement of health,
Happiness,
Warmth.
I held the sun in my hands once,
Even during the night,
Until it was taken away from me.
The sun pulls my strings until I cannot dance any longer,
For the moon catches me in her gentle light,
Allowing me to bask in the unreachable moments of the day.

Theres a saying that goes, "once you've made your bed, lay in it."
I supposed I've made my bed,
My choices were the mattress,
My dark desires were the sheets,
My secrets were the pillows I slept on,
My thoughts covered me like my blanket.
Frankly my bed was better left alone,
It was better before you climbed in,
The sheets ruffled,
The blanket pulled back,
The mattress bowing in beside me.
I could hear the crumple of the pillow as you rest your head upon my secrets and covered yourself in my thoughts.
You took my dark desires and made yourself apart of them.
I allowed you to come into my bed
And
I guess that's why my mattress
Is so heavy.
You were the riskiest choice I had made and you piled on,
Sank into a dark desire,
Became hidden away in the pillow you occupied,
Covering me like the
Warmth
You once provided.
You became the bed I slept in,
Rolled upon,
Never let me leave.
Why I had spent so long amongst the bed you helped make always made me wonder why.
Your scent was a permanent fixture,
An added amusement to my suffering.

Have you ever fallen in love at first sight?
I didn’t believe it could happen,
And then I met you.
You have no interest in keeping me,
I have every intention of loving you.
You weave in and out of life,
Unpredictable,
Unknowing of where you’re going to show up next.
Your smell is intoxicating,
Lingering in the air around me,
Falling asleep next to you with your back towards me.
I’ve tasted you on my lips,
I’ve felt you settle into the bones of my life and yet,
You are so fickle.
I know you are not good for me,
I know you aren’t reliable,
But *******.
Why do I feel like I need you like I need air?

For all of the failed attempts at Love,
I'm sorry I made it seem like I was Great.
For everything I put you through,
I'm sorry I made you carry my Mistakes.
For all of the late nights I broke down,
I'm sorry for showing you how broken I was,
I am.
I'm sorry.

He asked her this one question.

She, beside him, curled up in her small frame. Knees tucked to her chest, pink lips, and coffee stained teeth, she smiled small.

"I've been asked this question by many," she says, "And I've always said things like someone's voice, or the way they held me. Maybe it was their laugh or the way my heart ached when I smelled their t-shirts at night.
You, though, will always leave me with an unanswered question.
I don't know why I love you but for some reason, my heart will whisper your name when I'm too intimate with a bottle pressed to my lips.
When the tears I cry are warm from the sound of your voice when it pours through the videos we've laughed in.
I don't think I love you but my heart does. Maybe that's why my mind cannot think of any reasons because you lie in my chest where it aches the most."

He wore a wolfs skin,
a thick hide of coarse fur.
He hid in the forest and only came out at night,
Stalking amongst his prey.
I saw him at the woods line,
Eyes glimmering like the blue green sky in the midst of a new moon.
The air around him clouded,
The cold silent wind rushing in the space between us.
The still of the night softly whispered to us.
My heart thudded,
My lungs were like bricks under the light of the pale moon sky,
My eyes fixated on his.
My wolf,
My spirit,
The churning howl deep in my belly.

I wonder if the mothers of the
     Boys we fall in love with
           Know that they are the
                  Monsters we fear that
                         Lurk in the dark.
                                                           ­                       I wonder if the boys we
                                                                ­              Fall in love with know
                                                                ­      That we break and fall
                                                            ­ Apart within their grasp
                                               When they say, "I love you."
I wonder if they can
     Hear us scream their names
            When we have the nightmares
                       About their beautiful voices
                                Echoing through the night.

                                                               ­                     I wonder if they know
                                                            ­              The pain that they cause
                                                           ­  Within the bodies of future
                                       Mothers who warn their daughters
                             About the men who've hurt them.

                      
                                          
                     ­                       All I do is wonder.

I can’t find the words.
Sometimes it comes out in a jumble,
Other times,
It’s all so quiet.
Help me make sense of the words that seem to fall out of my mouth.
I just need a little help.

The past is a rundown motel that hasn’t had any visitors in a while but yet you try and stay.
You know the walls are molding and the ceiling has long since caved in but here you are
Residing in a bed with the springs pricking all over your body,
Numbing you to reality.
You cling on to when the room smelled of fresh paint and it wasn’t so dark.
In fact, you can even almost see the sun peeking through the window as if it was yesterday.
But yesterday,
Was many years ago.
The rust,
The damp air,
The rot,
It takes over Yesterday.
Overgrown weeds and musk cover the floor,
Yet,
You still walk barefoot as if it was the carpet that was once there.
You checked in to this marvelous moment not even thinking it could turn into a place.
A place that you began to frequently visit even if the people that lived with you there have no longer occupied the space since,
Well,
Yesterday, it seems.
You sink lower into those springs,
Unaware of your broken bones and puncture wounds because you decided to live in that moment,
Instead of walking out the door at the first sign of flickering lights.
When you knew,
Deep down,
Staying wasn’t an option,
But revisiting became a habit.
Only if it was Yesterday.