I wish I couldnt tell
When people
Were telling
The Truth.

you keep me awake,
i feel you in my veins.

the sunburnt skin on my chest is peeling
the same skin that your fingertips grazed over
softly at 2 am's and 10 am's
i'm renewing
but i don't want to
i miss you
         i wish i wore sunscreen

i never used to smoke
but since you left,
it’s the only time i can seem to breathe

you have to be lost before you can find yourself.
and i am hopeless and scared but i am on the right track.

it feels like pulling fabric out of drawers
and none of it fits
last night, you put everything in the dryer
and fell asleep while
the things you thought you knew
tumbled and knotted and turned into
an unfamiliar mess

it feels like a bumblebee landing on your shoulder
you’re supposed to stay still
and wait for it to move on
until it realizes you are not a flower
it doesn’t
it stays and buzzes in your ear until
you turn to dust or learn to scream

but then, one day
it’ll feel like waking up to
rays of sun through the window
when you haven’t slept in weeks

like forgotten pocket change
like a present on your half-birthday
like an entire april without rain

and it’ll feel like
it was always there—
you’d just forgotten
to turn the light on

sometimes I wish I had cancer
then people would send me flowers, and get well soon cards.
but I am bipolar
so when I am sick
I suffer alone, ashamed
because too many times
people synonymously use my illness for crazy.

-please stop