the clink of bullets hit the floor.
you adjust my stance, tell me,
"here, hold it this way instead."
tell me to steady my breathing,
stop my shaking, take aim,
and pull the trigger.
its the eve of one of the
biggest days of my life,
and you're there by my side,
like you always have been.
you've been through this before.
you've seen the best and worst
this has to offer and you're telling
me it'll be okay if i take that step.
i couldn't do it without you.
so the next day, i steadied my
breathing, stopped my shaking,
took aim, and pulled the trigger,
just the way you taught me.

You are my biggest inspiration and
my sense of motivation and
I wouldn't be who I am without your hand
to guide me through all these years.
You taught me everything that I know and
you've helped me through all of the new
challenges thrown my way.
Do you remember when we sat on the steps
by the door upstairs and stared at the moon?
It felt like closure for both of us and it's
one of my favorite memories.
Do you remember running away to the beach
for ****** pina coladas and to sit in the
sand for stolen lunch breaks?
I'll never forget stuffing your trunk with bags of
clothes with that secret smile and knowing that
I won't tell if you won't.
I've never had more comfort than knowing I
had you beside me during my worst moments,
even an entire country apart.
When the time comes, I hope I can be
half the mother that you are to me.

You thought you could wound me with words but they rolled off my back like water on ducks
You sank your teeth into my skin and thought I would tattoo the indentations but bruises fade and so did you
You left a lump in my throat when I choked on your bile, but I've learned to swallow what you gave me like a good little girl
You thought I would miss you when you were gone but the skies have never been clearer
Breathing has never been so easy

The cold of the winter reminds me of your Arctic touch, your tundra heart.
It reminds me of nights spent on floors, with you or because of you, I was never sure.
Because even when you were by my side, you were somewhere else, always talking about someone else.
Left me always wishing I was someone else.
And ever since, I can't find a home in this skin.
I let your poison sink in and it weighs me down like anchors.

i want to tell you that I never think of you
and that my love for you has faded with the years,
but my head and my heart travel more than I do lately
and they're always going home to you.

it's that time of year, where the fall
of the leaves reminds me of how
easily i slipped into your habits
and found a home in the space
between your fingers.

i never felt safe with you but
hindsight has a way of making
me forget about that.

i just remember the comfort
i felt when you'd say my name
or sing all of your songs to me,
not the choking phone calls i'd
receive in the dead of night.

stability tastes sweeter than
your skin but time has a
tendency to make you
crave what you've gone without.

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.

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.

i want to feel your bones splinter
beneath my knuckles,
to feel the skeleton give way beneath my fingertips

i want to sear the flesh
of your skin with my own

i want to sink my teeth
into your shoulder
and your back
and your thighs

i want you to feel the pain i feel
i want you to hurt like me

i want your heart to break into
splinters and fragments,
i want to grind it into dust

so maybe,
just maybe,
you'll get to taste the bitterness you left in my mouth.

but most of all,
above everything,
i don't want any of that.
i don't want to hurt you at all.

you left me sore and aching,
and i don't know if my body
or my heart hurt more.
but i don't want it to stop.
these marks may fade
but you,
you, i'll hold onto.

thank you for the reminder
that my heart belongs
under lock and key

(ps: there's still a spare left under the mat)

i miss you.
it hurts in a way that makes
my bones weak.
it hurts in a way that
makes my knees give out.
it hurts in a way
that leaves me gasping for air.

i'm going to get better.
and when i do,
i'll try to remember you fondly.
because the thing about rock bottom,
is that the only way to go is up.
so while you're drowning at
the bottom of your barrel,
i'll be treading water,
climbing up and out.

i can feel the end whispering in my ear,
but it's better than all the sweet nothings you left me with.

pardon me
if i say too much,
but frankly
i don't give a ****.

"there is a type of jellyfish that lives forever," you once told me.
and i found myself wishing that we could be those jellyfish,
so we can float on these waves
for the rest of our days
and these spindly legs of ours will always stay intertwined.

you are the sun peeking out from behind the most overcast of skies.

and maybe we're just a big mistake.
one big accident waiting to happen.
but i'm willing to find out.

because we're caught somewhere in this clusterfuck of life choices and misplaced responsibilities,
and it's easy to lose your way.
it's hard to keep your chin up, to keep your eyes on the horizon.
it's easy to lose yourself in the crossfire between
the clarity of honesty and haze of parked cars lit by streetlights,
between hushed confessions and questionable decisions.

but baby, i'd rather be lost with you than know my way alone.

you'll never know, dear, how much i love you.

do you think of me at night? what makes your mind hopelessly drag me to the active levels of your conscious?
have i etched myself into your skin, fingernails clawing at your back, begging for you to let me in?
have i sank my poison beneath your skin, teeth to the flesh of your shoulder?
do you hear me moan in the ringing of your ears?

any day that i'm without you,
i feel empty and hopeless and lost.
you bring a light to my life that i
forgot could exist.
and without it, i
don't think i can find my way.

i'd do anything for you to hold me together like you did that night.
i need someone to help me in ways i can't articulate.
i want that someone to be you.

but this sticky sickness has me so weighted down
that i don't know what way is up anymore.
it chokes me out until i can't ask for you again.
it leaves me struggling to breathe
in even the smallest of conflicts.
i want it to learn to fear you.

no, they don't speak a word. not here.
lips press to thighs;
tongues, slick with anticipation, know their way around this room.
their language is caught in the throats they bite,
choked back by the hands
that dig their tracks next to the spine.
they're somewhere between a first kiss and a last ****,
suspended but somehow tethered in a web of lust and lies.
their emotional open wounds or their physical caverns,
no one is quite sure what needs to be filled more.
skin is pressed so tightly to skin that the sweat can't drip; they just slide.
'laced fingers and foreheads pressed together,
there's no room for honesty. not here.

he recites the speed of light one saturday morning, when the air between us was too dark. like somehow that would make it better, like that would alleviate whatever tension we were building.

he is someone new, a present with a torn wrapper. that little glance is always the most intriguing.

we're both somewhere we shouldn't be, saying things we shouldn't say and touching what we shouldn't touch. but it isn't stopping anyone.

I want your fingers to sink into me like stones; I want your weight to hold me down like anchors.
I want your breathing hitched like carriages, I want you pulling at my hair like reins.

I want to know what it sounds like for you to say my name with every inflection, in every tone.
I want to know what it looks like when you drift off to sleep.