i.

some nights i feel powerful
like i have the energy
to entertain crowds of the strangers i live with
who get drunk off cheap alcohol in my living room.
empty plastic cups turned over, sticky red wine
carelessly splashed across linoleum tiles
kind of like how it feels when you get your heart broken
the sort of mess you are left to clean up alone.

ii.

the drunken stumbling, praying to make it to the bathroom in time
nobody notices the spilled wine until the morning
the frantic scrubbing so the ants wandering are not forced
to pull off their limbs
waiting for someone to save them.

my dark undereye circles are hard to cover now
they are from sleepless nights spent
smoking in the backyard and listening to too much sad music
i’m tired of writing poems for you
in 2 days it will be a year since you left
you didn’t write me
you didn’t have to.


a month ago i was afraid of monsters in the dark
from the night i sat up with him and we watched horror movies
i thought of you then, too
not in the way he held me but in the way he left
we were supposed to see each other again
he stood me up


typical.



i shouldn’t look for parts of you in everything i do
but i woke up at the crack of dawn today
little sleep and weary
i snuck out to dance in the rain
these clothes cling to my frame
i wonder if you know what i look like
now


i see my doctor today
i haven’t seen her in years because she only took patients that were
sick enough
and when i gained forty pounds after the ****
she told me i could be discharged
my eating had never been worse
or lack of it


i run my fingers over my collarbones
i need to make sure they didn’t leave
i miss you and the way you made me feel beautiful
without body checks.
i want to get more tattoos
cover the parts of myself i don’t like
my thighs
my arms
my undereye circles

acquaintanceship is hard when
the two of us have more faces
that spit fire from tongues silenced too long
twos company
fours a crowd
the night we met you called me a
gemini *****
i entangled those words in my mind
funny that
that was the night i wanted to hang myself
i'm not that bad anymore but it reminds me that
i long for people who damage me
a "build me up to tear me down" deal
lies
the secrets i've spilled to you on drunken nights
are used as icepicks in the cold dwelling that is my soul
i know you have it too
you told me about the things that haunt you
.

you don't ask me how i am anymore
today i walked out of your room and you didn't look up when i left
and yet you're happy enough to parade me around
a travelling circus
a freak show
until the clock you wear on your wrist beeps
and suddenly,
i'm not convenient
.


i know you're at war with yourself too
i've been enlisted in my own militia for as long as i could talk
i have scars on my body from all the times the soldiers in my head
decided i needed a reminder of what they're fighting
.

why don't you ask about me?
i bend backwards for you until my spine snaps
but you tell me it's only a fracture
.