"today my professor told me

every cell in our entire body

is destroyed and replaced

every seven years.

how comforting it is to know

one day i will have a body

you will have never touched."

we just passed six years last friday.
that means, with each and every day that passes, it'll be one day closer
to a life where you were practically never here.
you never existed.
never mind the drunk calls in the middle of the night that came after.
pay no mind to the night you told me that you loved me,
you loved me and i would never feel for you
the way you felt about me.
you already forgot about those.

each and every day i face a small reminder of what you did to me
but soon, soon there will be nothing left of you at all.
no skin cells left to remind me of the way your eyes burned holes in me,
no brain cells left rattling the memory of the screams
they echoed to just reach out,
just reach out and touch...

three-hundred and sixty-one days.
that's all that is left between you and me.

i love how it feels to be underneath you.

i send you messages like these because i
know you're at dinner with your friends,
know you're out in public.

we're miles away, but i wanted to
make my presence known.
i wanted to make an impression on you
and make you want me there
when i wasn't invited.

i want to leave you hanging by the end of the night.
i want to start to make it hurt for you.
i want you to realize what is happening and reach
out for more, realize i'm not just smoke.
i am real and i can be lost.

and even if it didn't make you want me
like i intended for it to do,
at the very least you thought of me
for a moment like a front-page headline.

i'm so ******* scared of what you think about me now.
i spent so much time fine-tuning all these broken pieces
to meld into something you might approve of.
i was so scared to do it for myself.

i don't think i could even hold a conversation with you now.
i'm so different from the girl you said you fell in love with,
and even more different than the one i
became when i was with you.

and i know i never should have conformed.
i know i never should have bent over backwards
for someone that would eventually break me down.
but i did, anyways.

and it leaves me questioning my moves six months later.
it still nags at the back of my mind like a reaper ready to strike.
and i know i should be living for myself,
but you still haunt my thoughts with that ghost you left behind.

i loved you in ways i could never explain.
i loved you in blues and purples and reds.
i loved you in bruises and broken blood vessels.
i loved you in whispered secrets and early sunrises.

but now i love you in dishonesty.
i love you in broken promises and disbelief.
i love you in backroom conversations.
i love you in ****** poetry.

and now i cry when you smile.

i said,
the car carving its way around the mountainside,
"this is going to be the song i play when you leave me."

you used to smirk with this kind of arrogance,
like you knew so much better.

yet here we are, five months later,
and as she arched her hips into me,
the song played softly in the background.

and i've got to hand it to you -
it's like i finally figured out why you smiled.

because even at my most distracted,
fingers fumbling in someone else's hair
and testing the tenderness of her skin...

that song,
or maybe that memory,
still turned my head away from
her and back towards my phone, back
towards the missed calls and angry messages,
towards the accusations and the insults,
and it brought me away from her
and somewhere closer to you,
to the mountainside.
and it reminded me of the
pretty weather, those blue skies
and the rocks piled high around us,
and what seemed like a joke but maybe
turned out to be more like a promise.
and you smiled, because
it's almost like
you knew.

The last time that I wrote about you,
I talked about the artwork you left,
whispering secrets across my clavicle

Now I'm stuck gasping on words
and choking on feelings,
because lately the air's been a little different around here

It's been an uphill battle for the last six months,
and babygirl, we both were getting weary,
and we both needed a chance to sit down

But I haven't slept in days now,
and this fight is getting ridiculous
We both have a hard time admitting when things get out of hand

So if you could just hear me out,
take the time to listen to the things I have to say,
maybe we can work for something instead of against it

I will love you until the end of time
I want nothing but the best for you
I have given everything I could give you and I wish I could give more

And sometimes I talk too much
And I know that I am so spoiled and so selfish
And I know that it gets in the way of everything

I know that it makes it hard for you to understand
But you were the only thing that made sense anymore
And I don't want to lose that

So tell me what to do, or tell me what to say ,
because I don't know what to do with all this empty space
and I don't know what to tell the ghost you left behind

she maps out my skin like it's territory to be discovered,
tasting each inch and leaving broken blood vessels in her wake.
little flowers blossom on my skin,
leaving me her very own masterpiece,
one that would make Jackson ******* proud.
she sends shivers down my spine with the heat of her tongue.
and I can't help but go weak in the knees, to fold under her gaze. to ebb and flow with her like waves.
and as she sinks her teeth into my skin, she marks the spots that she likes best.