We fall asleep to
       Strawberry Fields,
folding bodies to match an unfamiliar shape
and I must remember
   that certainly,
      you can't fall in love
  with every boy who gives you his hands
    and an irregular heartbeat
in exchange for the breath from your chest;
but sometimes
     
     I just forget.

When did it happen?
When did I stop being awake?
I don't know if I've ever really been awake.

What does it feel like
to want to do anything that you have to open your eyes for?
"Wake up," they say,
"You're going to sleep away your entire life."
But I see more with eyes closed
than I ever have with eyes open;
What really separates a dream from reality?
My dreams interrupt my reality all the time
and I can never be certain of anything I think is real.

All I know is that we're staring at the ceiling at 2am
just trying to figure each other out,
and suddenly I'm somewhere else
and you're someone else
and I'm saying things to you that don't make sense
and you're confused.

I'll come back from a dream just as confused as you are,
Not with eyes torn open, because they hadn't been shut,
but with nothing more than a shake of the head,
an embarrassed apology
and a disappointment in my inability to remain conscious
even for you.

I know it scares my mother to know
that I drove 62 miles to see her
but I can only remember 37 of them.
But I can't tell you how many poems I don't remember writing,
that contain words I've never used before
and a feeling I didn't know could be described.

When I was a little girl
all I wanted to do was sleep.
I dreamt of growing up to find a husband
and living in a beautiful house with him and our children,
and I'd be happy and have everything I could want.
I dreamt it.
And it felt real.

I decided then that if I could dream it, that was enough
because at least for the time that I slept, it would be real.
It's harder to make sense of real life
when you aren't required to be a part of it.

This brain will never have the control
to stop from slipping in and out of consciousness.
I may never fully wake up.
Any hour may have in store for me only
a dark fog of amnesia and a life that isn't mine,
ready to pull me in and drown me beneath the dangers of my own eyelids.

But that place is the place I know the best,
better than any place conscious minds have ever met.

Eyes closed.
Eyes open.
I don't know where I am,
but I am here.

All of a sudden you're on the floor with wet eyes and wet hands
and the only sound in your head is that of screaming
But maybe it's you
And you feel as if you're being eaten from the inside out by your own
malnourished heart
You can't actually breathe because your sobs won't allow it
and your entire body is trembling
and dark red,
fading to purple
You imagine someone holding a knife beside you
Someone who's willing to use it
and it doesn't scare you any more than death scares a ghost
You're sure you wouldn't feel it

So you sleep to fool your brain for a while
But you only dream of him
and things are alright and well and good
and you wake up and you wish you hadn't
Some people never know that your chest
can feel this empty
That your stomach and your throat and your head
can beg and beg and beg
and you can not know what for
And some people don't ever find out
that your heart's physical ache
is much too real
That one would prefer next to any amount of torture
if that heart were separate from his

Mom makes you smile for a picture in front of the bus
on your very first day of school,
"You only have one first day of kindergarten!" she says.
But every time you hear the scratching of leather seats,
You are back to that day
When tears rolled off your tiny pink cheeks,
onto the front of your Lion King tee shirt
The first time you ever had to be afraid that you
would never see her again.

Brother tells you not to worry about the boy that bothered you,
the impact of a fist on his right eye is a warning
that guarantees he'll never disrespect a girl again.
But every time you step in the pebbles on a playground,
You're still struggling to run just slow enough not to slip
yet fast enough to keep from being caught and held captive
by the first boy to ever kiss you without permission.

Grandma tells you to "appreciate today" every day
because you'll never get it back.
But every time you hear the crash of waves against a shoreline,
You're there with her in your favorite place in the world.
And the sun is overhead with looks of never coming down,
But you'd be okay if it did because you swear these colors of
the sunset don't exist when you see it from anywhere else
And you never feel so close to God as you feel right here.

Dad is sad when you're growing up
because you'll only be little once.
But every time you get the surprising scent of metal and grease,
You're five years old again and dad is getting home from work
and he lifts you up in a hug and you bury your face in his shirt and breathe in,
And you're confident that he will carry you to bed later that night
on that same shoulder when you fall asleep on the couch.

You're told over and over to forgive
and your mother keeps trying, too.
But every time a green van passes by,
you're a vulnerable twelve-year-old with a record that says easy prey
and you're back at that police station and you're both still crying
and forgiveness still seems so far away.

Everyone tells you that "first love"
is something you only feel once.
But every time September rolls around,
You're still staring back into the first eyes to look at you in awe,
His palms feel sweaty in yours but you don't mind.
And you can still taste his lips and smell the sweet mint Stride on his breath
and you feel everything.

It’s strange how they promise that you can't turn back time,

yesterday is gone,

today will only happen once.

Because I go back all the time;
And I still feel everything.

Hey boy, are you a turtleneck
                                                 because you're pretty dorky to everyone else      
                                              but I think I like you
Boy, are you a penny
                                 because I would pick you up off the street when those  
                                  other hands didn't think it
                                   was worth it
Boy, are you a button
                                  because I lost you somewhere and I have lots of
                                   others but they just don't match
                                   no matter what color I paint them
Boy, are you a freckle
                                   *because my grandma calls them angel kisses and
                                  that's what I think you are

I can’t help but wonder if you still have tucked away all the letters and the notes and the list of reasons why I loved you.
I wonder where you left the guitar strings that I gave you for your wrist
I thought I saw them in a picture of you,
the one with the girl.
I could be wrong.

I think about the things I wrote to you and wonder if you’ve ever looked at them again
And felt the warm singe of pain when you read the words that we meant
when we were naïve enough to think that we were different.

I wonder if I still cross your mind when you scoop ice cream
Because you know how I hate skimpy scoopers.
Or when you find a hair on your arm that's freakishly longer than the rest,
if you wish I was there to pull it out.

Sometimes I think of your mom
And I wonder if she kept my picture, the one she kept on the mantle right beside yours.
What did she do with my Christmas stocking?
I can’t help but wonder if it’s been passed on to your new girl
And I don’t know if they’ll watch West Side Story together,
If she’ll enjoy it the way I did.

I imagine you never thought twice
When you came across a hair still on your pillow, or the faintest of my scent
Or my bobby pins on your bedroom floor.

I remember finding the bobby pins and hair binders of other lovers
when I came back to you for the last time.
They were scattered across your carpet like cruel reminders of all the other heads
that lied in the bed that was always mine.
I wonder if she ever finds mine and feels the same.
Probably not.

I imagine you’ll reread that book someday,
The one I got you in high school when you went through your philosophical phase.
And I wonder if you’ll notice the inside cover where I wrote “I love you”.
I’d always thought there was something special about a book with an inscription.

I remember sitting there for a long while, trying to think of something heartfelt
to say to you,
But all I could manage was “I love you”.
Maybe that’s because I knew that anything else I felt for you would have an expiration date
And I’d wonder if you’d read it when I was gone, and those words wouldn’t be true anymore.
Or not to you.
But I think of you reading it now and it won’t seem silly because it will
always be true.
For both of us, I think.

I think about the time when I first moved to your big city
And I got lost in your neighborhood and I saw you from my car.
You were walking right towards me.
I drove away as fast as I could and I couldn’t breathe or talk or smile.
Did you see me too?
I looked in my rearview mirror, and you never looked back as I drove.
I wanted so badly for you to move away.

I can’t help but wonder if you wonder
About your drawings and your notes and the music you showed me and if I still listen to it.
I do.
If I still wear my black pants that made you go crazy
or if I refuse to listen to The Joker, despite my favorite song lyric of all time,
because it reminds me of the time on your uncle's dock
When we decided we needed a song but we were both too drunk to think of anything sentimental.

I wonder if you imagine a bittersweet feeling coming over me
when I hear the Bee Gees and think of you singing in your Elmo voice,
Or if i ever find myself recalling one of your "facts of the day" and wondering where I learned it.

******, I hope you wonder.

I will undoubtedly fall in love with somebody
who will undoubtedly be the wrong person for me,
and I will mistakenly make them my world.

I will tell myself not to think of a future
but my core will not detach itself from the hopes that we last
and my mind will be unable to conjure up a scenario in which we are apart
and anything less than perfect.

I will be so devoted to this person
that I will make a fool of myself for any reason,
so long as they are with me.
I will break completely when we fall apart
and I will forget what it felt like to be happy by myself,
how to be complete by being only me.

I will remember the realization that my heart can physically ache
and the throbbing will keep me awake at night.
I will lose hope and care for anything other than a relapse of time.
I will become cynical and angry and sad
and I will stay that way for much too long.

My self-esteem will plummet
and I will hurt so deeply that I will wish for things I don't mean.
I will love that person and hate them in cycles of I'm-literally-insane
and it may never actually stop.