they say you can't fall in love in just one summer,
but you can
Fall.
they say in winter, everything dies,
but does that include
heart strings?
they say in spring, it is all renewed.
but can you make it to a
year?
they say you have three months until it expires,
but what if you simply
refuse?
they say hearts can't live forever,
but i'll prove them all wrong
with you.
they say there's a heaven and hell,
but i'd die just to wake in the nothingness
by your side.

don't ever think that,
if the opportunity arose,
that i wouldn't take
a bat to your teeth.
you may not care
but every word is about you.
every curse on my lips.
"cross my heart,
i hope you die."
you may not care,
but just so you know,
when your life goes to ****
i'll be there to cheer the fuckery on.
you deserve every tear that hits your pillow.
i hope your parents hate you
[more than they already do].
i hope he dies.
i hope every night
when you try to sleep
nightmares haunt you.
and we both know you'll
never make anything of yourself.
you'll forever be nothing
more than a two-faced *****.
you're nothing
more than a thorn in my side.
the buzzing in the back of my mind.
so you can sleep soundly tonight.
i'll be waiting for the night you scream.

my heart is a hurricane,
hysterical with emotion.
my stomach is clenched,
bracing against the feeling of
all the butterflies I've ever felt,
dead and decomposing among gastric acids.
but my face is calm,
and my breathing is steady.
and my body feels like it's
tearing apart at the difference.

i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to listen to that song again.
but i know i found the perfect song for you,
and i’m not sure i’ll ever tell you what it is.
knowing me,
you’ll find out someday soon.
but for now,
this is my secret.

i know you're thinking about it now, too.
fingers dipped into coffee ice cream.
watching 'girl, interrupted,'
and i know you watched it closely
and maybe you questioned it like i did.
i know you're thinking about
those nights that we talked until
it wasn't the night anymore.
rushed phone calls when we
felt desperately to hear the other's voice.
nights spent in laughter,
nights spent in fear.
secrets, and dreams.
slurpees, and hiding from the heat.
and i remember that when you left that day,
my pillow smelled like you.
and to be truthful,
i held it and inhaled until
i thought my lungs could burst.
i tried to hold you in.
i tried until i couldn't anymore,
just to have that little bit of evidence
left over of your visit.

i'm so sorry that i drove you away.
i begged you to stay and then i left.
i fled, constantly, and i don't
know when i'll stop running.
i'm afraid of standing still,
but i'm also afraid of the
pain in your ocean eyes.
i'm afraid to be the one who causes it,
even though i know i am.
i'm ambivalent,
pulled between wanting to heal it
and wanting to protect you from it.
you'll never understand.
i'll never understand.
sometimes it's just easier for me
to leave it all behind.
to leave it to melted slurpees
and ice cream and movies.
to late nights and secrets
and the heat of everything.
and maybe, just maybe,
the upcoming cold will
bring the end of us.
officially.
but we both know this won't happen.
because i don't know goodbyes,
and i don't know severed ties.
i don't know how to end poems
or tie off chapters.
all in all,
i ******* **** at leaving.
and i'm sorry for that,
i really am.

he sighs,
lights up another cigarette.
this time he knows something is different.
he waits patiently,
coffee in one hand and nicotine in the other,
staring aimlessly at his phone.
he had lived through another silent day.
there really was no surprise in that.
it had been days since she disappeared again.


the routine was so consistent that her
absent nature was almost as secondhand
as the smoke she used to inhale when she
cuddled against his shoulder.
he was weary now,
because he tired of not knowing
what she was consuming,
or who she may be *******.
he was wary,
not knowing if she was lying in a gutter
or just lying on her back,
legs spread in an invitation to a myriad of catastrophe.
at one time,
he was the one spreading those legs.
but he was also the one tucking her in at night.

but one day,
something clicked;
she woke up one morning cold and indifferent.
her summer smile had faded,
her eyes grew frigid.
he remained patiently by her side,
until she stopped coming home.
until she started drinking herself into oblivion
with people who did only god knows what to her fragile frame.
this time,
he was ready to give up hope.
this time,
they had fought so terribly
that he knew she wasn't coming back.
he knew it wasn't easy to hear
someone you trusted say things like,
"*******, you filthy ****"
and
"i hope to god you choke on the next pill you pop."
he wished he could take the words back,
but his heart was so broken.
she was so distant,
he wanted to make sure he reached her.
and apparently,
he did.
she had shaken her black hair,
blinked tears out of her gray eyes,
and turned on her heel.
that was the last he had heard from her,
and even now he yearned to hear
her voice on that phone;
the phone lying in front of him.
any words at all,
to know she was alive.
maybe, even, that she still loved him.

because, after all,
isn't that what he wanted?
isn't that why he picked her up,
****** on roadsides,
and dried her tears on his sleeve?
isn't that why he allowed her to
hide from the world in his bed;
kept safe somewhere between box springs,
his comforter,
his arms?
he would do anything to help her,
but she was a tragedy:
a life doomed to fronts of indifference
and too deep of cuts on wrists,
thighs,
hips.
and she wouldn't let anyone help her.
any gentle touch caused her to run,
and she never wanted to come back.
and this boy,
he just kept running after her.


he takes a sip and sighs.
he ashes his cigarette,
studies it,
puts it out.
he studies the bottom of his coffee cup
and carries it to the sink.
as he rinses it,
he hears small footsteps,
and an equally small pair of hands
snake their way around his waist.
"i'm home," she breathes into his ear.
this night wasn't so different than any other,
except that she came home
sober
yet warm.
he had been wrong.
so he turns and looks at her,
takes her hand,
and leads her to bed.

you were so young.
you were so nice.
one of the nicest boys
i knew from your class.
i didn't know you well,
but i knew you as well
as i could from sitting
in front of you for a year
in a class of ten people.
i knew when you
and liz broke up,
and i knew when you
got back together.
you always borrowed
my calculator for stats.
you lived next door to my ex,
and i knew the friendship
between you two ended
when he broke your air-soft gun.
you were seven or eight.
you honked when you drove by
us on one of our walks,
and maybe waved at me.
you were just nice.
and now,
you're gone.
and i hurt,
more than i ever expected to.
for someone that young
to die this early,
especially someone that is
so ******* great...
it's not fair.
not when there are
so many terrible people
left behind.
i miss you.

i spend so much time biting my tongue
to keep from saying all the things i want to say
that i taste blood
every time i hear your name.

i felt true love tonight.
i felt it when you looked at me.
when you kissed me.
when you pulled me to you
and we somehow fell asleep,
tangled in each other's limbs.
when i met you and said you were different,
i never knew just how much.
i never knew that what started as
late night conversations in your car
would turn into
kisses at baseball games.
or that it would progress into
thanksgiving with your family,
christmas with mine.
running away together,
if just for a day.
making love until you were
almost too tired to drive home.
and now,
well now we're in a whole new world.
a world of buying your own textbooks
and meal plans
and roommates that make us laugh
until three in the morning.
but at the end of the day,
when i crawl into bed,
you're still there.
one year later,
and you're still here.
i never imagined we would
make it this far.
but we took baby steps and
we still walked a mile.
i want to walk a million more with you,
and we will.
those miles will take us
through graduation,
down the aisle,
into parenthood,
and to the end.
but there's no one else
i'd rather walk them with.
i love you,
now and forever,
forever and always.

as she crossed the bridge,
she dropped a match on each plank.
she let it burn;
begged it to, even.
severing ties wholly had never been her thing,
but this time was different.
this time, she needed to cut ties
like the ribbons she split
trying to open presents on christmas day.
in order to reach the happiness inside,
she first had to cut the ties
and remove what was in her way.
the wrapping paper may have been beautiful,
but it smothered everything.
it was always in the way.
and it was time to move past that.
so she crossed the bridge and looked back,
"just one more time," she said.
one tear slipped,
a sacrifice for all of the broken promises
and twisted lies.
another slipped,
as all of the nights spent with stomach pains
from laughing too hard
and groggy mornings
from staying up all night whispering
lit up with shades of orange and red.
then she turned on her heel and ran,
before the ashes could choke her out.

sometimes i just want to write.
sometimes i just want to say,
“i still remember the way you hurt me.”
and sometimes, i want to say,
“it still hurts, you know.”
sometimes i want to let you know
how angry i am.
sometimes all i want to say is,
“*******,” and “goodbye.”
sometimes i want to write down
all of the words i’m too afraid to say, like
“i liked your pajama pants” or
“you’re uglier than i remembered” or
“i still cry myself to sleep sometimes
because i miss you so ******* much.”
sometimes i talk about things that are,
versus things that were,
and i like to decide which is better.
when the words just don’t come out right?
well that can be the worst.
because there’s a lot that i want to say,
but no way to articulate it.
i guess now is one of those times.
there’s no real words to say
how lonely i feel, with no one to talk to
when you’re not around.
how scared i am, of failing.
how happy i am, that i can almost say
we’ve been together for
“a year” instead of “five-six-seven months.”
how tired i am, without someone
or something to stimulate me.
there’s a lot that can change,
and a lot that can happen when you leave home.
it’s a chance to spread your wings,
but what do you do when
you don’t know where to fly to?
for now, i’ll walk to the library and get a coffee,
and try to finish this paper
before you get back home with me.
maybe then i won’t be so lonely
or scared or tired.
and we can crawl into bed together
like every weekend before,
and we can watch movies
and we can eat popcorn
and grow old together.
sometimes, this is all i really want to do.
and almost always,
this feels better than having something to say.

what i miss about you
is the things we never got to do.
i miss the way you ran your fingers
through my hair,
tucking it behind my ear sometimes.
i miss how you would have held me,
and never let me go.
i miss sitting on your roof
and watching the stars,
and then drinking coffee while
we snuggled in your blanket
and watched the sunrise.
i miss watching the sunset
on your beach,
all colors of the rainbow
flashing in our eyes.
what i miss is everything you
told me we could do,
but never got to.
or everything i dreamed to myself.
i guess what i'm trying to say is,
i don't miss the real you at all.

did you honestly believe that?
that one day,
you might get to learn how i
feel
and taste?
and what i sound like when i cry?
how it feels to hold more than just my pillow?
you're more of a ******* idiot than i thought,
baby.
you were always the one to be silly;
i never knew to take you seriously.
sorry, darling.
i've moved away, i've moved on.
i suggest you do the same.

he pressed her against the wall,
the white tile leaking its cold temperature
deep into her bones.
she grabbed the rod for balance
as his tongue grazed her skin.
her fingers tangled immediately in his wet curls,
his hand cupped her cheek.
heavy moans slipped into each other's mouth
when fingers roamed.
when the heat is high,
she never knows if she'll make it out alive.
but sometimes it's all she's got.

i want to run away
more than words could say
but i'm afraid
my wings
are clipped.