There's been an ache
in my hands since
I left you, because
you always knew
the spots to touch
but not hold.

the whole county goes quiet on those nights that you are away,
and i can’t say much for it myself but
i know that every minute you spend away from my side
feels like an eternity stretched and
endlessly dragging on.

and as we skim the rights and wrongs on the edges of the city,
we find ourselves stepping in puddles
of blues and greens, almost like the whole world is
just beneath our feet and we are
somewhere at the top.

When I met you,
your kisses were as sweet as the
summer honey dripping
from the trees and flowers.

You were sticky with sweat,
working too hard to make the moves
you thought would
coerce me into your bed.

When I finally gave it to you,
your autumn hands grew hungry.
I don't know if the leaves falling
made you think you were running out of time
but your fingers became quick and greedy.

You peeled away my petals one by one,
and as you plucked me to my core
I heard you mutter under your breath,
"I love you, I love you not"

You picked me clean,
stripped the flesh from my bones
and left me to freeze in winter air.

When I finally threatened to leave,
you came back swinging,
I mean screaming,
words hurling through the space between us
but I think this time the distance was
finally enough to keep me safe.

When you started giving up,
you left me with nothing but a cheap bunch of flowers,
bought with whatever change was in your pocket.
But it was springtime and
I didn't need your flowers anymore.

"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.