I told my therapist about you the last time i saw her.
She asked me about the time
when “no”
did not have definition,
only used as a syllable,
a filler word,
something to spice up things in the bedroom.

I told her I loved you.
That we had slept together
several times before it happened
and that for some reason
I still stayed with you after.
It happened in the early morning,
before my mind had any time
to wipe the sleep from its creases.
They say that’s best time to work out,
get up early and run
before the body knows what it’s getting itself into.
Maybe I should’ve started running
before my body made itself something
that you wanted to get into.

I haven’t stopped running since.
Dropping numbers on the scale
like my clumsy hands
turned pounds into soap bars
and my sweat made it harder hold on to.
Now my hip bones rub against my skin
in a competition with my ribs
to see who can break through first.

You used to say you liked the way
my edges didn’t feel like edges
but soft good mornings.
But I didn’t want to remind myself anymore
of your
good mornings
and my always mournings,
black sheets covering my face,
my body.
I am the widow at my own funeral
but nobody knew that I died that day.

I didn’t want an open casket,
I didn’t want open anything.
The space between my thighs
felt like valleys,
miles of emptiness
that you saw as potential,
and I only wanted them to be closed shut,
wired together, locked jaw,
I had nothing to say to you.

I didn’t cry when it was over,
when you rested your body on top of mine
laid your head in the crook of my neck
and whispered how much I meant to you.
I made pretend husband and wife,
made pretend love.

I told myself you loved me
that I should’ve been willing
to open myself armory,
a place to leave your weapons,
maybe that’s why I felt bombs in the pit of my stomach,
you felt my bones rattle under your hands
the aftershock of surprise explosions.
Every time you held me,
it was my anxiety
not love
that made me tremble for you,

You said
if you could wake up next to me every morning
you wouldn’t have to drink so much,
just swallow me.
But i promise
if i could
I would drown you,
drain you.
I wanted to leave you empty,
wanted to leave you
the way you left me,
digging my own grave
with hands crumbling
like broken heirlooms;
something that meant a lot to someone
a long time ago.
But it’s been 4 months
and i’m still picking shards of you
out of my skin,
you dug yourself
so deep into my flesh
that I thought you started to become part
of my DNA.
But like the wrong blood type,
my body rejected you
no matter how much I thought
I needed you to survive.

But here I am,
all splintered finger nails surviving,
turning demons into salt piles and burned bones,
forgetting what your name sounds like
when it rolls off my tongue,
forgetting why I ever thought
I needed you in the first place.

i. Metal cannot protect you. Car frames can distort just as much as bodies when heavier things get placed on them. Maybe the pole splitting your car in two is some kind of metaphor for the way you keep driving into your thoughts head on and they never seem to budge, only you do. You will twist and break open just to accommodate the sturdy burden of yourself.
ii. Locked doors sometimes keep out the ones who are trying to help you. I know they always tell you that it’s safer to be selective of who you let in, but when you can’t reach the door handle, not everyone will have a crowbar to pry your locked doors open. Sometimes, they have to wait for someone stronger, someone better equipped to deal with what you have to offer. Sometimes, they just keep driving.
iii. Seat belts are necessary. Some days, people stop without warning, break lights broken to test your reaction time. Only, I don’t think anyone has ever had that fast of feet. Maybe you should start taking walks.
iv. Checking 6 times for cars before you drive through an intersection can become a ritual. You would prefer the sound of impatient car horns behind you than be made a memory, made black tire tracks and pieces of glass right before the point of safety, made the definition of almost – the type of grave that you can’t keep visiting at after a while. Is that why you stopped coming over? Did my tombstone body pull the click of your trigger and turn you into lowered eyes and choked laughs?
v. Even if it’s not your fault, the other person will not hesitate to put the blame on you to save themselves the trouble. The cost of both your repairs is detrimental to their wallet, and they would rather watch you scramble to pick up all the pieces of their own apologies to make it seem like you’re forming your own. But don’t not be tempted to put them back together if you don’t have the money for it and they are undeserving. Never suffer more than you have to.

If you disappear
I will never ask where you went.
Your absence will not cause me pain,
Only pleasure.
I promised that this would be the last time,
And i never break promises.

do not call me tweaking off of some back alley coke asking me where i’ve been all night. i’ve been trying to mix the messages you’ve been sending me into some cheap low-tolerance whiskey and coke. Slurring you into existence. i’ve been struggling to tell the difference between “i’m so high, i love you” and “i’m so high i love you”. You begged me to come take care of you, so you could hand over your burdens, place that white powder in my finger tips telling me “it’s not so bad, just take a hit”
Dear boy,
when you crashed your car at 2 am because the ***** in your blood stream got so tired that it needed a place to rest, i drove four hours to pick up your ****** dress shirt only to wash it and you never asked for it back. It hangs in my closet like the last memory i have of us in that restaurant on carry street. we ate dinner and you were picking my bruises out of your teeth, asking me “hey, did i get it all out? i still feel like there’s something in there” i tell you, no, there's nothing left of me. Your broken jawed apologies barely have enough force to break skin. I guess i’ve always been the brave one in that way.
Dear boy,
when i have to beg you to look both ways before crossing the street, please just tell me that you’ll make it home safe.
Dear boy,
when we were talking about the different kinds of slang in our states, you told me mid sentence that you missed me and i had to look that up just in case that was some kind of slang i had never heard of. So I told you that i loved you, because i’m sure you had never heard that either.
Dear boy,
i love you.
Dear boy,
I’m so high i love you. I wore your shirt to bed last night. I think that’s why I woke up early morning afraid of the street lights.
Dear boy,
you are probably stumbling through someone else’s doorstep right now, begging for them to take care of you because that’s what you think love is. And i’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Love isn’t so bad, just, take the hit.

You told me you were ready, that this was not a huge deal to you. I had been waiting a long time for this to happen and you told me you were ready, so i believed you until i stepped one foot in the door and i could see the fear deep inside your corneas. That fear has been resonating there for the past few days, knowing that you had lied to, not only yourself, but me as well. You were not ready for this but you told me otherwise. So i took you out to dinner and you did not eat your food, you even had the audacity to tell me that i was making you nauseous, that you were holding back *****. So i told you that if you were that scared i would just go home but you insisted that i stayed. We drove back to your house and i laid on your couch and you cuddled up next to me. I knew in my head that you were not ready so i did not try anything. I wrapped my arms around you and we watched the movie together. But at the last second, before i left, you kissed me. And all hell broke loose after that. I felt as if i stole you away from your body, stole you away from the things that you are comfortable with. I felt guilty and angry that I was the one you chose to be your first. You were not ready for this and i could feel your body trembling underneath of me as if in agreement to what i was thinking but i let it happen anyway. And if there was any way that i could reverse what happened and never meet you in the first place, i would do it in a heartbeat. i broke your heart and i was your first. I think i'm more broken about this than you are. But the thing was, you never really kissed me. You did this because you were afraid to lose me. As if giving yourself to me was a form of glue, that if our skin touched together we would become inseparable but that is not how this works. You kissed your fear instead of me.

Don't tell me about Long Distance.
I have known Long Distance
since the day I saw you waving out of the back window of that silver Prius.
The snow banks insulating my car
because i spent the last 47 hours with you
and held you while you cried
because you weren't ready to leave for the marines yet.
But your body said other wise,
your muscles sharp and deadly.
It's been a while since you've written,
and it's been 8 months since my blankets have stopped smelling like you.
I couldn't help but notice
the way my body drowns in these sheets
because you were my life vest
but you were not there when i jumped in.
I looked back at the dock before my head went under
and i saw you just sitting there,
watching me struggle.
I tore you apart in my head
every single strand of thread and love was separated
until every bit of silence that was woven in has been exposed.
But these strands don't hold any value when you're drowning,
what I have done is destroyed the only thing that could give me buoyancy.
Now I am left with extra weight on these shackles
i bear and water filling up my lungs
like a measuring cup to a recipe from Hell's kitchen.
In your last letter you asked
"Are we okay?"
but you don't just tell someone you love them then let them drown.
I have known Long Distance since you came back home today.
You are so close to me
but I still feel like you are not present.
There is something to be said
about missing someone who is right next to you.
Usually it is the person at home
who gives up on the one in the military,
but you found your home inside of those bunks and those guns.
You have only taught me to never make homes out of human beings.
I have to keep reminding myself
that you are a woman to never be slowed down
because you will leave everyone else behind
and I never wanted to come last to you
but i never wanted to beat you either.
I have known Long Distance
when I reach my hand out
and you've always been just slightly out of my grasp.
You were a goal to work towards,
a beautiful woman sitting on a pedestal waiting to be won
and I've always been too inadequate to be the one to have you.
You are the Epitome of Long Distance,
and I have known you for much longer than I would have liked.

Last week I got a call from
one of my friends. He sounded
scared, like he just got caught
5 yr old with hands in cookie jar.
He said, “I gotta tell you something,
gotta get rid of some weight off
this heavy burdened chest. Will
you listen?” So of course I told
him to hand me his hurt.
But when he told me that his
cookie jar
was a sorority girl with too much
liquor and not enough consent,
that his hands took dessert before
dinner, I had to tell him
to take his hurt back.
I couldn’t stop seeing the small boy
from a big town who’s hands
shook at the thought of talking
to strangers. How ironic it was
that no part of him trembled when
he spoke that night because she
couldn’t hear him.
I though of his midwife mother
and how devastated she’d be
to know her son is now building
graveyards in the bodies of
drunk women, how she may be
the one to have to remove this
tombstone.
I thought of the times
i’ve been decimals away from
unconscious in his dorm room.
How party
turned blackout
and I wonder if his hands
stopped trembling then too.
I wonder if he thought
of becoming the 3rd man
to make me his midnight snack.

He came to me to find solace
but instead he found me repeating
the word “no”
because he needed to hear it
because no one taught him that
blackout meant “no”
that if you can move their limbs like
jello, that is not ***
that is a puppet show and you are
just controlling the strings.

No —> Adverb; used to express
negation, denial, or refusal.
Example: No, I’m not going.
Example: No, don’t touch me,
Example: No, I don’t want this.
Example: No, she didn’t want this
but you gave it to her anyway.
How do I tell someone who has
lifted me up from my depths
to take this weight on his chest
and let it crush him.
Gyles Corey yelling “more weight”
as we press boulders on his sternum,
bone-crushing pressure.
Maybe then he will finally
understand “no”.

Two weeks ago, I got a call
from a friend. But last week
I got a call from a ****** who still
wanted to be called my friend.
Who has seen me shattered bottle
over my own cemetery of a body
and still wanted to be called
my friend.
But yesterday, I deleted a contact
from my phone book,
told my parents not to answer
if he knocks, but to be careful
because he may try to enter anyway.
Just so they know
that they have other hands to worry about
besides my own

August 28, 1922.** Clarence Samuels is holding his wife’s hand, she’s groaning out limbs by the minute, pushing hard enough for life to cry out of her. He can no longer feel his fingertips from the vice grip she has on his knuckles, but that is just one more piece of himself he would give for his family.
November 16, 1924. Clarence’s daughter is over two years old, and they are taking walks to the beach. She takes interest in a dark feathered bird with a snowy underbelly like the way God only sees things in black or white, its combination of threat and promise. She asks Clarence what it is, says she would like to have one, would like to be one. But he notices, those birds only come around when it’s raining and he hasn’t seen the storm clouds yet.
March 31st, 1925. The Samuels’ daughter hasn’t stopped vomiting in two days, her radiance turning achromatic. The doctors have been prescribing medication but nothing seems to work because she cannot keep down any form of help. So Clarence starts looking up that shadowy bird they saw in the fall. Maybe that could take her mind off her affliction, maybe it would help him too.
September 4, 1925. Clarence now whispers “I love you” like the flickering flames of prayer candles, but hasn’t seen the inside of a chapel since the funeral, since he stopped being able to look into his wife’s eyes. His days are filled with sacrilegious drunk, his kitchen floor littered with whiskey labels and scotch tops, wondering what he is if not slain by this everything holy. He’s scrawling out letters to his daughter on the napkins he took from under his drinks at the bar. He’s got enough to write a book or his suicide letter.
September 30, 1925. Clarence notices that instead of crawling out of bed, the bed is crawling away from him. He chokes on the muscle memory he still retains when he walks into his daughters empty room, now turned office because his wife seems to be the only one working, the only thing still working. On the desk is his research of the bird that haunts him since that November, the Parasitic Jaeger. Their name begs question of the godless nights spent bent wave sea sick over the toilet seat, innards cascading past the roof of his mouth, making friends with the holes in his teeth. He has managed to drink himself swiss bone garden.
October 1, 1925. Clarence walks to the beach, clutching a picture of his daughter. He planned on drowning himself in the tide to mimic her, choked up on bile and lungs. Before he stepped foot in the water, the Parasitic Jaeger flew past him chasing a gull.
October 1st, Clarence went home and slept.
October 2nd, Clarence returned to the beach all guilt and full body, BAC hitting a record .25 and he slipped into the sea only to watch the same Jaeger chasing another gull. Clarence watched as the gull emptied itself open casket into the water and flew away while the Jaeger feasted on the sick. Clarence took another small step into the shore line, now chest deep in more than regret. The bird turned his head slowly towards the human moving closer him. Clarence, open arms and locked eyes whispered, “I am sick too, do not forget me.”

I know you're tired
But come, Love, this is the way.
You've endured too much.

I apologize in advance for the ash swirling in the wind, but this morning i woke up and clutched your name with such reckless devotion that it turned to dust. Every syllable fell to the floor. I tried to reconcile my wounds but the infections are swelling like the tide. I wish this melancholy would come like the waves so my body could stop feeling so dehydrated. I never wanted that girl to break your heart, only to hand it back to me. She stood on ground previously reserved for my feet. I don't hate her, but i can't be her friend. I loved your hands that were so thin but trained to destroy life. Particularly mine every time they brushed by my body without stopping to linger. You thought of every stop sign as a yield so that explains why you were always in a rush but never why you were constantly late. I've always waited for you. You know I hate being late but i don't mind walking in and being the cause of turned heads with you. You've smoothed out my complexion because i don't experience anxiety with you so my worry lines have disappeared. The only breaking out I've done is coming out of my shell because you taught me to live life with the sunshine in my face rather than fluorescent light bulbs. The artificial suns never seem to be turned on in my room because i only wanted you with the lights off. Not because I'm afraid of my body but because I don't need light to memorize your every shape and contour. Like a blind man learning Braille, i wanted to spend hours memorizing you so i could read you properly. When you came back your body was a different shape, rougher, more defined. And when i asked to sharpen up my memory of you, you turned away and i think thats why i had trouble reading your letters because your Braille required something new to continue. But i dont come with upgrades or new technology every time you come back, i am the same as before. Like Windows 4 i am starting to run slower than the last time you saw me and a few things have become unrecognizable even to myself so when you asked me what's new my brain started yelling ERROR 404 and i broke down.  No doctor, no repairman, not even you knew how to put me back together again and i felt like Humpty Dumpty and you were the king who sent all of the horses and all of the men. But what i would give to be your queen. Sit beside you in a throne and have portraits painted of you and i until there were halls and ballrooms filled of us. I wanted to carve pictures into all of the vertebrae in my back but i realized you took my spine with you when you left. You unfortunately left my heart untouched which made it ache more because you have never hurt me. Although I wanted you to **** me so i had a reason to hate you but i cant help but resent you every time you say my name with no love at all. You've always protected me, but safety is your only concern especially because i am not beautiful enough to cause a rupture in your make up, not even a quicker pace of your heart beats were produced when you saw me. I wanted to anatomically break you down and rewire your nerves so the next time i held your hand your only response would be to hold on so tight that only the jaws of life could tear us apart. But the jaws of life dont seem as terrifying as your hands leaving on their own. But now they're thousands of miles away and my heart was left in tact but it's slowly tearing itself to pieces without you here.

I kissed your cold face for the last time
and i started to wonder
if i would die too
like it was a plague i could catch
but you died from drugs
too many of them to be exact.
My grandfather whispered to his wife
"he is just a cold shell of the man he used to be"
isn't that a ****** way
to talk about your son?

I gave a speech after all his friends
they talked about getting high
and getting drunk
and getting into trouble
but tha'ts why they loved him
and i couldn't judge them for that
because love is love.
But i talked about feeling like a princess when he walked in the room
the stubborn ******* rarely did though
drugs were his family
not us.
But towards the end of my speech
many people were crying
and one man in particular held onto a woman and stared at me
and i stared back and said
"Inch for inch, they say, your bones can hold up to 19,000 pounds,
and luckily for us, this only weighs
18,999"

I have let human beings become my ruin.

He is
vitamin.
He is corkscrew instead of broken bottle,
he is my mending.
He is the knock after the door bell
in fear that the person inside didn’t hear.
He is heard.
He is small talk but larger weapon,
he is floor mates with double-barreled liquor bottles,
pulling the trigger on his own body
making silence of this always murmuring home.
He is the walls holding his secrets,
they hear what he says in his sleep
and maybe that's where all the cracks come from.
But he turned southern drawl
into quiet croon.
He is speaking tongues
meant for sweet tea and small city,
able to walk its entirety in under an hour
but that's only because he stopped looking.
Mistaking familiar scene
and forgetting to pause at the
architecture tourists swoon over for days.
He is virtuous.
He is “i miss you” texts at 2 am before falling asleep.
He is
missing.
He is the inconspicuous biting of own lips
to make them smoother,
make them easier to kiss.
He is already easy to kiss.
He is permanent ink but feels temporary tattoo,
wants people to stop trying to scratch him off.
He is not going anywhere without a paid removal.
He is fingers running through hair,
the soft trail of fingernails over skin,
the goosebumps left behind.
He is the half-asleep roll-over into waiting arms,
he is the arms.
He is the first kiss on the nose,
he is brand new city and memorized street signs.
He is the statue in the street
separating two churches from advancing towards each other.
He is street art too beautiful to take a picture of
because the pixels couldn’t do the life justice.
He is the kind of thing you have to place your palm on.
He is small hand snaked between rib and arm
just to hold onto bicep,
just to let people know this hand is here for him.
He is gentle shake begging wake,
the tighter squeeze of comfort.
He is safety.
He is 276 miles of memory,
4 hours of nostalgia I am willing to drive.
He is There,
and I am Here.
And There does not know
how lucky it truly is.

1) I am not quite heart broken, but I am something adjacent. I felt as if i stole you away from your body, stole you away from the things that you are comfortable with. I felt guilty and angry that I was the one that you chose to be your first. You were not ready for this and i could feel your body trembling underneath of me as if in agreement to what i was thinking but i let it happen anyway. If there was any way that i could go back and reverse what happened and never meet you in the first place, i would do it in a heartbeat. Because i broke your heart and i was your first.

2. I can still feel your eyes on me when we were driving to the funeral and the way it made me shift my weight in my seat. I wanted to explain that sometimes your love made me uncomfortable but I looked at you and all I saw was him. I choked on the letters rising out of my throat and you told me to pull over so you could drive. You said "you look like you've seen a ghost or something"

3. When you left, you changed your phone number. Now someone else has your ten digits. Digits as in numbers or fingers? Either way, no one else will ever be good enough to hold your hand.

4. Scar tissue can become your literal walls you put around yourself if you try hard enough. Those pink raised lines call for more fabric, less body movement, trying to remain a statue so people can't figure out what you're hiding. But your ceramic frame is far too willing to show your cracks.

5. I drink every night so I can forget you. After you die, your bones take up to 50 years to disintegrate. So for half a century after I stop feeling you on my skin, my bones will still contain you.

6. You twist and crack your back to replicate what it would feel like to snap it, and it scares you to know that it only always feels like relief rather than pain.

7. I am the empty seat in the front of the classroom, everyone notices when I'm vacant but nobody wants to fill me up.

8. When you started taking out the screws that held me together, i grasped onto my structure for dear life as my walls and windows swayed. I turned into the Leaning Tower of Pisa as my frame settled lopsided, too eager to fall with one more blow. I became a tourist attraction with people who come to find out why i don't stand up straight anymore, why i tilt my paper to the side so i can write in a straight line, why i never seem to see things the right way. People take pictures of them feigning to be the reason why I'm so crooked with their arms extended as if they were the ones who pushed me. But they will never know why i look the way i do until they see your hands, dirtied with the rust of bolts.

9. I may be in pieces but please do not take me in moderation.

10. I am the kind of tired that sleep can't fix. My sadness is so heavy that it's hard to keep my eyelids open. I think that even if i slept forever I could still never be satisfied. I am never whole.

i. Am i everything you thought i'd be? I know i'm not much but i just really hope you liked me.
ii. I'm sorry i didn't answer you after you purposefully ignored my texts for 3 days after i tried to **** myself.
iii. How do you feel on the *******? Are you okay? Do you need me to do anything for you?
iv. Just please call me to warn me before you actually shoot him
v. I know. Park a half mile away. He'll never hear you coming.
vi. I wish you didn't miss either. Did he know it was you? Good.
vii. I think i might love you
viii. I'm sorry, i shouldn't have said that. Did i mess this up?
ix. I dreamt about you
ix. I write all my poetry about you
ix. Did you leave me again? I stopped wanting to hurt myself. I promise. Please come back. I'm better now. For you.
x. I feel empty on these meds. Please come lay with me. I need to feel something again.
xi. I'm so drunk that all i can think about is you. Everything is you.
xii. I miss you. I hope you're taking care of yourself.
xiii. I know it's 4 am. And you probably won't answer. But i just wanted you to know that i really care about you. I would've given you the whole world if you asked. I would've let you put that bullet in me. At least i know now that you wouldn't have missed

Today I woke up
and I was not myself.
I mean, I haven’t known
who I really am in almost two years
so it really shouldn’t have been a surprise.
The splitting of the mind
comes from unforgivable trauma
and weak bodies trying to form apologies.
It doesn’t feel like
different people inside of me
yet
but I have had
different people inside of me
and one of them was
unwelcome.
My fertile grounds
were turned over
maybe for better soil
maybe so I couldn’t see his face
maybe so he could be made Stranger.
My Way or You’re Dead Stranger
I Don’t Care If This Isn’t What You Want Stranger
Tell Anyone And I’ll Deny It Stranger.
I don’t know his name
but his hands ripped my mental
into two different pieces
the way a beggar
reluctantly breaks bread with a wealthy man
even though they both know
the beggar needs it more.
The numbness broke over me
like a cracked egg
and seeped over every inch of my body
until the other half of me
cleaned myself up
and said
“Don’t worry,
I’m here now.
I’ll take care of the pain.”
Last year
I lost three people
in three months
to drugs
and I watched one of them die
from my front porch,
each of their deaths
pulling another piece of my mind
away from the others,
further splitting me
into the million little pieces
I had already been reduced to.
Every drink burning its way down my throat,
every blade fed to my skin
has been a welcoming parade for the different parts of me
trying to drown myself back to normal
thinking that hopefully
the flood would wash myself back together
would wash myself holy
but God, am I so full of holes.
I am so terrified of waking up
because I don’t know who is going to be there when I do.
I don’t need names for them
because they are still me,
they just have the control.
I sometimes feel like the metal claw
being fought over by children
because they can’t choose which stuffed animal they want
and sometimes
no matter how precise they are
no matter how patient they are
sometimes I still miss what they’re looking for
sometimes I never know what they’re looking for.
I am just too broken to keep working.

I have this theory that when you're born, you have a blank heart and God writes something on it like Happy or Sad or Angry and that's who you are. But I was born three weeks early because I think God wanted to write something on me so badly that He just couldn't wait. He thought he was so **** clever so He called me out early and wrote Unknown on my heart. I imagine Him laughing, drunk off wine telling everyone at the gates to look down and watch me fumble around trying to figure out what the **** He meant by it. Was I meant to be the laughing stock of the Gods? Or were they so unaware of my path that they didn't try to give me a predetermined one? Was God slurring "**** it, she'll figure it out"? I'm like a puppet with the strings cut, I don't know how to properly function without some guidance. But when God happens, no one really knows what to do, and that's why we have to pray. Because if God doesn't listen to us, then who will?

Sixteen
and taking my first sip of alcohol
and ******* DOES THIS TASTE.....
like absolute ****,
how the **** do you guys even drink this stuff?
Shots?
like from the doctors? Yeah I got all mine.
Oh you mean like, (makes shot-taking motion)
.....yep I'll have a few more drinks.
You said I'd feel better in 15 minutes
but it's been an hour and a half
and I guess I'm still waiting.
But I really hate sitting on this couch by myself
because I think I could actually be stuck here forever.

Eighteen
and it's the summer before my first year of college.
I'm sitting on my friend's back porch
killing a bottle of whiskey by myself
because I'm still waiting for those 15 minutes to go by
so I can feel better.
I now need more than one bottle
and my BAC has been at a consistent .15 for last three weeks
don't ask me how I got here.
Better yet,
don't ask me how I drove here.
I convinced myself that drowning my liver
was a lot better than drowning myself
but now I can't tell the difference
because I always feel like choking.
The same way the face made by my ex girlfriend did
when I said I had *** for the first time since her.
It was the same face I made
the first time I took a sip of whiskey without a mixer,
her face twisted together sour lemon
and I can only imagine the burning feeling she got in her throat.
But now I can drink whiskey just fine
and I'm sure she doesn't remember what I taste like either.

Three months into my first semester
I'm still waiting for those fifteen minutes
even though the clock says I've been awake for 34 hours straight.
At this point,
if I don't drink
my skin crawls with the bugs underneath of it
and I've started to wonder if I'll have to **** myself to make this stop.

Two days ago,
i found out how content i would be
if i died,
if my blood poured out broken faucet
and i turned soft clay
in a cocoon of metal,
glass littering the street
so God could see the reflection,
see where to pick me up at.
I imagine it like a taxi,
there's a price to pay
to get all the way to the gates,
it just depends on how much
you're willing to sacrifice.
I never knew salvation required negotiation.
But I guess it was the same way
I bargained my life with
emptying the canister of xanax
and lexapro;
counting them,
wondering how many it would take
to make people miss me.
I already missed me.
I haven't known what i feel like sober
in three years
even though i've stopped drinking.
I told myself i would rather be dead
than medicated,
but here i am,
three years intoxicated,
making love to whiskey bottles
with only the tips of my fingers.
They told me love is now
a fatal thing to put my tongue on,
but i think my lips would die for that.
My mouth waters at the thought.
Love used to be a half-drank box of wine,
the other 2.5 liters already crossed
the threshold of my stomach.
I know you said, "drink this
and you'll feel better in 15 minutes."
But I can't remember
how long it's been
since i've started feeling like this
and i'm not sure
if one more drink
or one more pill
will make this stop.
i'm not sure
if any of this was worth it.

Last week, I spoke to my ex-boyfriend
for the first time since he betrayed my body
and it turns out he’s doing well;
a new job
a new tattoo
new apologies for contacting me
after turning my body hollow grave
and empty echo.
He left me gasping for more than air,
flat tire with rocks lodging in my throat
and two days after i couldn’t wait
so i started drinking at work.
My mouth started tasting like Communion,
fake holy and in need of wine,
anything to help swallow these cardboard words.
I drank from you like my favorite sin.
I thought i would drive home drunk,
so I told all my friends i loved them,
didn’t want them guessing
if i didn’t make it home.
I kept wondering why God didn’t give me
a trigger warning,
at least my phone did.
Before I got his text,
my phone flashed an alert
“20% left, will die soon” like
“let your phone shut off, you’ll want to die soon”
but i plugged it in anyway,
which is to say i’ve always found comfort
in discord, i’ve always known how to be ****,
never stitches.
With my flesh torn open,
i wanted to lick the wound clean.
Pretend dog in a field of mice;
everyone tends to be more afraid
if they know who you hunt.
But with my matted coat and bared teeth,
the mice couldn’t see my tail
trembling earthquake between my legs,
couldn’t sense aftershock in my claws.
I’ve never preyed on anyone,
but i’ve been prayed for.
The doctors have seen me carted in
with drool dripping sloppy apology,
creating a mess for this body
committing treason against itself.
But how do you gain back your own trust?
How do you explain to your thighs
that you’re letting their thief back in for seconds
without them refusing to work anymore?
Today I turned fist,
turned clenched jaw,
turned dehydrated muscles,
my body writing with the pain of memory
the knowledge of being told i was too enticing
to listen to the word “no.”
But today when he told me he was sorry,
that he loved me this whole time,
i opened my heart abandoned safe,
wiped the dust off my trigger
and habitually pulled it when he whispered “baby”
in the crook of my neck
like melting wax dripping off a candle,
like the sound of dirt slowly filling my grave
but i don’t know how long i’ve been down there.
It must have been after he made me
grasp his shovel without gloves
and dig myself cemetery.
For days after, i was terrified he left splinters,
i couldn’t stop checking my hands
although i never found an exit wound,
i can guarantee there was forced entry.
So why am i opening up my door again?
Leaving the key under mat
with no protection,
just open arms and beach waves,
saying the word “no” periodically
just in case he forgets,
saying “stop” when i want to,
so i know what control feels like,
placing kisses on his neck
like a dog collar
so i can pull back when he comes in too close.
I will choke him if he gets out of line,
i will shock him if he speaks over my refusal,
I will be the owner of this relationship.
I will never have to lick my wounds clean
from his aftershock claws again.
I know this will probably be a mistake
but I’ve got to find out for myself
if i am strong enough to keep myself together this time.
I will keep myself together this time.

She is drunk.
I am drunk.
This is not a poem.
She is beautiful.
I am not.
This
Is not a poem.
Tomorrow i will be sober
And she will want to be drunk
And this is
Not a poem.
She is leaving me
And i am not
And this is not
A poem.
She is crying
I am (trying) not to
And this is not a
Poem.
She is beautiful
And i am drunk
And this is not a poem

I stood there staring
at the distance between you and i
There are worlds, universes even, or perhaps
three measly steps.
Your hand twitched
and I thought for a moment you wanted to hold my hand
but i realized how stupid that sounded
and i kept that idea locked in the vault in my brain.

Your eyes refused to look at me as if i
was a foul beast whose appearance was so repulsing
that if you looked at me even the slightest bit
your eyes would shrivel up
and your heart might collapse.

But as i stood there measuring the distance
between us
i realized i had begun to miss you.
And that's really something,
to miss a person who is standing right in front of you.

You are the wrinkled sheet I have no intention of smoothing out
the empty bottles on my night desk
the clothes fallen and never picked up.
You have become a bother
but something i cannot bear to part with
in fear i will need you once you're gone.
If i smooth out the wrinkles
I'll miss the marks they left on my body
but i'll miss your body more.
You are the scars that will never go away.

When I finally spoke, I said
"I believe there are Gods
but there are no Gods watching over me tonight.
If you put more worlds between us
I won't be able to find my way home."
With that he put one more world in between us
then three more universes followed
and then six more steps.
I saw his back turn then.
I saw his eyes go ark when he turned.

All I could think of was
"If a body catch a body comin' through the rye"
and Holden Caufield's voice thundered through my brain.
He said "We should go after him
but you have to be in the mood for that sort of thing."

And I said all i could think of to you
and for a boy who was never good with words
you sure knew the right ones to leave me with.

I slid down a hill
on nothing but a tarp and hose water
in the middle hick town new york
with a family i didn’t even know
because my best friend thought we would have fun.
We did.
But the next day we got so high
we thought we could make dub step from our mouths.
When we tried it sober
it sounded nothing like dub step.
Just kind of like a beat up basement home
and not enough people for a party.
Kind of like the soft music you play after a panic attack,
everything sounds so
forced.
This one time,
I kissed a girl so ******* the mouth
that she took a step back and just said
”…thank you.”
I have no idea what she was thanking me for,
but i learned to thank her body
in more ways than just prayer.
She sounded like an orchestra,
Bach or back but god ******
if she didn’t leave scratches on everything instrument.
One time,
I got thrown into a mosh pit
and some big dude carried me out
and punched the person who pushed me in
so hard in the face that i swear
i saw his mothers veins give out.
It was like an amtrak railway collision,
fist and apology, metal and music,
the kind of rock you get stuck in-between
next to that hard place.

One time,
I slid into my best friend
because we thought we would have fun.
We did.
She had to take a step back
and said nothing but Thank You.
A broken body prayer healed
with blankets like tarp, claiming her my new york.
It was like being thrown into a mosh pit
but there wasn’t anyone there to carry me out
because it wasn’t an accident.
Just a mistake.
Now we don’t talk and last night
I got so high that I tried to make music from my mouth,
replay her symphony, echo it
in my beat up basement of a chest.
The hollow wind chime of organs or intestines,
ragged breathing from the smoke
she snake charmed down my throat.
She was so smooth. Soft.
Kind of like the music you play
after a panic attack,
everything feels so
forced.

You know how you wake up?
You swing your legs out of bed
and walk.
You don't look for the ground
to make sure the floor's there.
Because the floor's always there.
Until one day,
it's not.
And you swing your legs out
and instead of your feet hitting the floor,
you fall right through.
No warning
to let you brace yourself.
No signs
to let you know it's leaving.
It just
leaves.
And now, you're constantly checking the ground
as you walk to make sure
you don't fall again.
I never expected to fall right through
the way I did.
I used to wake up for you.
Now, i don't even know
how to get out of bed.

Chinaski licked his tongue over the opening of the whiskey bottle, knowing that it wouldn't stop me but he knew it would delay the use for someone else. He kept repeating his poem "she is dark. she is dark. she is reading about god. i am god." and the whiskey label suddenly turned into a lullaby, the only thing able to keep me under water and i heard it with blurry vision. she is dark. i am dark. i am reading about god. he is god. he is blood alcohol content whispering numbers too high for decimals, hoping i'd be my whole self tonight. waking up fractions of a second too close to consistent unconscious, wondering if i could even make it home with muscles meant for the sea floor. I have no legs when i am around him, and He as in Liquor, as in The Only Thing Keeping Me Up Right, The Only Thing Keeping Me Above Ground. I am sinking, slipping under waves crashing over my lungs like the wrong pipe. But he promises he's got the right one, Chinaski blowing O's over my bed frame. He is dark. I am dark. We are reading about God. He is God. Asking where is God? We are sullen prayer folding over the pew, removing shoes to show how raw we are, or are we removing soul? I've got no time to play in the second coming, Chinaski drowning himself in women promising their second coming, I've never admired him. Or Him, making hymn out of moans, telling everyone i am dark. i am dark. i should be reading about god, he is god. I never knew god. I don't know how to read a book considered fiction, running my tongue up the necks of the sacrilegious whimpering out Christ's name like he will know how to sacrifice the hands that tame the unholy. I pray he will learn to split time or bible, explaining truth from love. Chinaski never loved more than once, and that was with the glass in his hand and full gut of scotch. I am dark. I am Chinaski. I am reading about God. He is God.

I drank from you like wine
Engorging myself with the sins of another
But the thing about alcohol is the more you drink the thirstier you feel
I became so dehydrated i was bedridden with sadness
I wished this melancholy would come in waves
So i could find the water my body needed
But i only felt satisfied empty
Which was okay because you took more of me than i anticipated
So I'm left feeling antiquated
And i think i make a better ghost than human being
But today i woke up and decided that your face and name would no longer make me sad
But i never said it'd make me feel whole either

My father doesn't close cabinets after he takes things out of them.
He doesn't close the door to the trashcan.
And if it didn't swing close by itself,
the refrigerator would remain open as well.
He says "I keep them open
because i'm not finished using it yet."
So when he started closing my bedroom door whenever he walked by
i began to fear.

I have been no stranger to his ****** remarks,
i've got the word "disappointment" burned into my brain
using the heat of his voice.
When my father started sleeping on the couch
i thought it was just because he snores a lot
and my mom is a light sleeper.
But it wasn't just his snores that kept my mother up at night.

She no longer waits for him so they can go to bed together.
My mother goes to bed earlier every night.
My father leaves more cabinets open
and closes our doors.
Growing up, my father was taught to expand
and he has been teaching me to contract.
I shut myself away
and sneak around my house stealing moments of silence,
a thief of peace to which i do not feel entitled.

I was brought up in a house that felt like a prison
and my father, the prison guard.
His voice vibrates off the walls
and you can hear that his mouth does not close.
I guess his words were never finished either.
He would go on seemingly endless sprees of screaming
telling me that i did not belong in this family,
or that he did not belong.
Either way doors were always slamming.

Now, i never wanted to replicate or hate him
but i can’t help but do both.
A part of me wants to forgive him
but the rest of me wonders why i feel obligated to love him.
If he was just a boy i met
i would be told to leave him,
that i should never allow someone to treat me like that.
But just because he's my father,
it somehow makes everything different.

Dad,
you told me once
that i should be careful of who i surround myself with
because there could be people out to get me.
So when you started to break me,
was this practice?
Were you just trying to give me callouses
so the burns wouldn't hurt so bad?
So i could hold on to the things that hurt me
a little bit longer than i should have?

Dad,
i know what it feels like
to be fearful of everything around me,
like the world will turn its face away from me,
or even more frightening,
turn its face toward me.
Some nights i am more than just half you.
My friends tell me i am beginning to snore.
I say awful things to the people i should care about
because i just can't hold my tongue anymore.

I've started closing
all the doors and cabinets you leave open
because i am finished with the way
they let out bad nights they've always contained.
Your arguments
have been ****** inside of these walls
and every night i stay awake long enough for you to sleep
so i can shut the houses mouth
and finally get some peace.
But no matter how many cabinets i close,
they somehow find their way back open again in the morning.

I felt time slow down, but it was a gradual shift. Like the ceiling fan that was previously on high suddenly being turned off but the blades continue to spin from sheer momentum. From the moment the alcohol hit my system, I thought about you. I lose sleep waiting for you to talk to me, but I've found a graveyard in this home. The only beings still awake with me are the ones you could see the through, people or ghosts. I would sleep better on your floor than I ever could in my bed. Treat me like your dog and I will gladly beg for your crumbs. This is hungry work and I should have worshiped you sooner. You've got molds of your hand prints on the sidewalk out front of your house and I think that's why you are so similar to the concrete. You preserve precious memories in the form of tangible keepsakes while staying completely solid. But I know that if I were to be concrete, I would crack myself apart just to let the smallest flowers grow because I have kept too many things buried when they needed to be said. I am the Queen of the Bitten Tongue, I have permanent divots on my taste buds, the words crowd around my teeth like plaque and I think that's why I started carrying floss with me every where I go so I could pick out the words that threaten to stain them. I'm glad my braces fixed the gap or else you would know a lot more than you should because the letters would drip out like a leaky faucet; word by word until they filled up the sink and have no choice but to over flow because these words will never go down smooth. They have thorns covering their every edge so when you hear them, they rip your eardrums to pieces. Leaving no part of you unaltered. I never wanted to hurt you so that's why I'm so quiet. Sometimes after speaking, I find it hard to stop my mouth from bleeding but it usually gets swallowed just like my pride. I would kiss your scars for the rest of time even if they were still open but you're so good at being closed off from me. I'm tired of taking your detours, having to turn around because the bridge to your heart is down due to construction but I never ordered any materials for this project. So who is the one working on your heart? My concrete queen, I would kiss your feet like the pavement you provide, take endless road trips down your winding roads but I'm afraid of the *** holes that I get stuck in constantly. You have no idea how unproductive it is to fall in and out of you as often as I do. I'm addicted to the pain of falling into you, but I wouldn't mind crashing into your sheets as long as I can have the throne next to you.

I created words in you
that you didn't even know
existed with every sigh
of my name.
I don't know what
changed in you to
make you want me back
but fire and water danced
in your belly like Armageddon.
I had never wanted to kiss
another human being more
in my entire life.
Your image flooded my brain
and named itself captain
of this ship.
You gave me orders and
asked questions you already knew
the answers to
And i fell into submission when
I'd much rather have fallen into bed sheets.
It was 5 o'clock in the morning
and a war was raging in my mind.
Should i stay?
Or should i go?
I liked when my days began
and ended with you,
not at 3:47.
What i would give to see
12 am and be satisfied again.
Your tongue spoke a language
i was forgein to
but i became comfortable in your mysteriousness.
I began to see you as a puzzle,
a game that i slowly started to earn
all the pieces to.
But when the game turned sour
and i started to lose
(not just you but myself)
I realized that those words you said
were never genuine
and i could never be your heart or engine
so i gave up trying to win
and instead picked up the puzzle
piece by piece
and explained to myself that you
were never a home
just a mere hostel in a country far away
and no matter how hard i tried
to be the only one
there were always others living there too.

Your feigned approval of me for the last few years has always been the root of my destruction. When you started taking out the screws that held me together, i held onto my structure for dear life as my walls and windows swayed. I turned into the Leaning Tower of Pisa as my frame settled lopsided, too eager to fall with one more blow. I became a tourist attraction with people who come to find out why i don't stand up straight anymore, why i tilt my paper to the side so i can write in a straight line, why i never seem to see things the right way. People take pictures of them feigning to be the reason as to why I'm so crooked with their arms extended as if they were the ones who pushed me. But Dad, they will never know why i look the way i do until they see your hands, dirtied with the rust of bolts and gun powder from placing these last bombs around me. I thought construction was over but i see it was just on remission, just a residual case of building. Of course you must return to finish the job. Welcome, dad, i know you've got the blue print on just how exactly to destroy me. You've set one bomb off tonight, how long until you release the others?

I did not turn rapture
when hell made its home in my womb.
Hades swooned over the wreckage
placing a bow on top for good measure.
Legend says I was more myth, than anything,
searching for definition after
too familiar body made drunk bed
of my flesh, pinning down
my Velcro limbs. The only choice I had
was to rip them off. Or you would
play god, play surgeon, blade in hand,
ready to make a mess of my flesh
curl me ribbon, hands to fold me over;
turning pages of my fable
writing your own chapter of monsters.

You said all folklores have truth,
that werewolves are disguised as broken bodies.
Well five full moons have passed
and I still howl when I see you.
My muscles remember dehydration
when they cringe at the memory
of your frame perched on top of mine
wielding weaponry like promises,
like you’ve been training to build
cemeteries inside of people,
calculating the angles of hips,
leaving shrapnel you can’t dig out.
I thought if I made myself small,
the knife wouldn’t find my skin
and you wouldn’t find me either.
But I learned that begging purge of my innards
does not extract the emptiness,
but further entices it. So I drip sweat,
clenching my gut in order to make
a lean body rather than to brace myself
when I see male hands. Flexing muscle
metal armor to conceal my wish
to be Medusa; I am half way there,
she was ***** too, only I wasn't in a temple.

I’ve been told to find god,
but do you think if I crane my face up
eager child toward Him, He will treat me
like you, like you did.
I pray my God
is a fearless woman, a fierce Atalanta
daughter of Iasus, who begged for son
out his wife’s hips. Daughter of proud ***,
proud ***** and fertile garden,
left to die on a mountaintop
claiming fragile She. Throwing dirt down
the mouth of God, Atalanta learned to hunt
and fight like a bear
like a woman, surviving the death wish of male.

This nightmare of She
my death wish from male. Remembering
the pin ***** of sharp knife against my throat,
I had no other choice than to become my own edge.
I made my body sharp, turned every bone
into a quick “no” and instinctual incision.
I want to be cutthroat woman, standing tall
and vicious, never allowing my memory
to become deja vu again and again. I am not
a story with sequels. I am the legend.

After you die, your bones take up to 50 years to disintegrate.
So for half a century after I stop feeling you on my skin,
my bones will still contain you.

I love you
but you are not medicine.

I was a part of my own Secret Ops, seeking out shelter from affection. I do not need to be held but you are compromising my position. Every time you kiss my neck my heart goes off to the point where I can be detected on a sonar transmission and the last thing I need is for others to find me. I notice the small details of love when I'm around you, the way you rub circles into my thumb when you hold my hand as if you were winding up my heart beats like a child's toy so it can keep beating even after you're gone, how you run your fingers through my hair like it was sand on a beautiful beach and you just want to watch it slip between them, or how you smile after you kiss me like the whole world melted around you and the only thing left standing was me. But I did not ask for this, I was undercover when you tried to capture me. You rescued me once but I thanked you for that, I didn't know that you were still expecting gratitude. Do not be mistaken, I do not mind being the choice of lust because I will dive into those endeavors with you if give me the map, but I do not want this to be confused with the roads of love. I fear that this may end with twisted perspectives, and I never want to break your heart. I've found comfort in your presence for nearly a decade now and for that comfort to turn into discord would be a tragedy. I don't want to fall into anything with you other than your sheets, if you take my hand and plant kisses on me like flower seeds, maybe I'll start to grow on you but for now I enjoy my gardens in the ground so I can walk away without tearing out the roots.

Just wanted to remind you
That you are a soldier
Not a slave

When i left you,
I got so drunk i tried to hug my mom
but i hit my head on the kitchen counter instead.
My first problem
was that i tried to snake myself between her arms
instead of just asking for a hug.
It was almost like it was too easy,
too vulnerable of a question
but what's more vulnerable
than a drunk heart
with only soft flesh protecting it?
You are a  dull knife.
I wish you were sharper,
**** me with one wound,
but you have to keep trying to break through me.
This hurts a lot more than it would
if i were dead.

I am working on filling the hollow ache of myself,
extracting the lonely with hands that do not belong to me.
You are my constant reminder of time,
my clockwork heartbeat ticking
with your helpful reassurance
that it is okay to have loose seams.
You pull me tight like boot strings,
placing my sole // soul by your bedside
and never at your back door.
I want to be where you place your feet in the morning,
carry you through your day,
never letting dirt get to your skin.
And if I someday fail to keep you safe from filth,
i will unclench my hands and wash you holy,
baptize you clean from my sins,
let me make a mess of only myself
and pray for your renewal.
Your sun kissed smile begs search of my happy,
reminds me to breathe,
tells me there is life in this oxygen.
You are water,
able to hold up my sinking ship
but still can slip through my fingers if I am not careful.
Your tide controlled by the moon,
is it a thrilled howl or a scream when you see it // me?
Either way my presence beckons quake from your throat
and I can only hope
that it will stay as sweet as the first time i met you.
The small tremble of vocal chords
as existence being born of your tongue;
you make words an easy thing,
can only threaten stutter
dare it to try and damage your speech.
You are smooth like tumbled sea glass,
turning thing handled by hands
into a pendant to wear around my neck;
wanting the world to see you,
never will I want to hide you in my back pocket.
They will ask where I found you,
such a beautiful treasure of body,
and I will tell them
that I did not have to go to the shore to find you,
that the shore found me,
and I was just lucky enough to witness the tide
unravel you into my hands
but it turns out
that I was the one enveloped
by you.

It's been a while since you've written,
and it's been 3 weeks since my blankets have stopped smelling like you.
I couldn't help but notice the way my body drowns in these sheets
because you were my life vest but you were not there when i jumped in.
I looked back at the dock before my head went under
and i saw you just sitting there, watching me struggle.
I tore you apart in my head
every single strand of thread and love was separated
until every bit of silence that was woven in has been exposed.
But these strands don't hold any value when you're drowning,
what I have done is destroyed the only thing that could give me buoyancy.
Now I am left with extra weight on these shackles i bear
and water filling up my lungs like a measuring cup
to a recipe from Hell's kitchen.
In your last letter you asked "Are we okay?"
but you don't just tell someone you love them then let them drown.

I have been inside my head for the past few days. Human contact has not taken me out of it like it typically would. My eyes have sunk deeper into my skull because of the lack of sleep, the more insomnia medication I take the less I sleep and I would think it would be the opposite. Perhaps it's the meals I've been missing, or maybe it's the people I've been missing, but either way I think my eyes have gone looking for something to fill this empty chest. If my heart is there, then I can't feel it beating and that's a terrifying thing to experience. They say the body's natural calming system is to listen to itself breathe and understand that oxygen is entering your lungs and you are alive. But I find that to be a rather uncomforting system. I have never wanted to be alive so why should my lungs working bring me any sense of equanimity.
I spent half the drive home swerving last minute out of the way of light poles because i kept remembering that i wanted my sister to have the car when im dead and my parents shouldnt have to pay to fix it. I have ****** up my life immensely and i cannot fix it nor restore it to its natural order. I am left with broken pieces and i cant tell if its of others or just myself so i'll settle for both and apologize to everyone. I have cleaned my entire room 6 times. I have painted my nails. I have a nice dress picked out. All that is left is calculating the amount of pills i need to take to greet my friends in heaven. If there is one. I sure hope there is not a hell because i never did well in the heat. I think i know why suicide is a sin, because life and death is the only thing God can control and by killing myself i am beating him at his own game.

its 3:25 am
and not only are you
consuming my mind
but my dreams
and soul.
perhaps you werent
meant to leave
after all

Every week
I see two different psychologists.
They told me to define Recovery.
Doctors visits,
blue prescription pads,
handfuls of pills
putting medicine in me
hoping that i don't get sick.
Do i take them all at once?
My anxiety made me
rip the label off the bottle
because that's what i do when i get nervous
i tear things away and
maybe that's where you went
but Doc said
i had to take them to get better,
so why not say bottoms up?
face-up in a casket.
Wait.

They told me to define Addiction:
hands shaking from a clean blood stream,
need to feel *****,
match the fingerprints on the bottle
with the ones on my own throat;
trying to stop the substance
even though i made the choice
to swallow.
I am always swallowing,
a constant cycle of open throat
throwing liquor down the hatch
tossing a few pills back
just to hear the splash.
Is it six feet down?
Tell me how far my empty goes.
Wait.

They told me define Empty.
The hollow nothing disguised as a chest,
a bedroom after death,
my stomach on a good day,
your eyes after i told you i loved you
and my voicemail when you stopped calling.
I used to ignore your calls
so I could keep your voice tucked away
in the dark corners of my phone
but ever since you left
your voice has echoed off my walls,
turning plastic bag and i'm made infant
and i couldn't stop suffocating in your name
so now i sleep on the floor of my sisters room.
I would rather stay awake from her snores
than be haunted by a ghost
of someone who's still alive.
Wait.

Are you?
I haven't heard about you in a while,
I mean i know your friends said
you weren't doing too well.
I didn't think it was that serious.
You were never doing too well.

My psychologists told me define Regret.
Regret is never getting to apologize to the dead.
Regret is crying more last night
than I did at your funeral.
Regret is ***** after too much alcohol
and not enough prescription.
Regret is the burn marks that don't need cigarettes.
It is knowing I should have picked up
the last time you called.
Because you didn't leave a voicemail.
All you left was your voice.
Empty is the sound of your voice.
Addiction is the sound of your voice.
Recovery can never be the sound of your voice.
Regret is that it used to be.

Today it rained inside of me

you are my first thought
you are my last thought
you are my only thought
you are my first
you are my last
you are my only
you are
my
my
mine

do you think if i
reached up to kiss god he would
finally love me back?