mental illness is the
most expensive thing
i've ever owned but
never wanted

"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.

i don't know what my father sounds like when he laughs,
laughs where his sides are splitting and tears are in his eyes.
i only know his grin, his slight chuckle.
honestly, i hardly remember his voice;
something about a southern drawl
gently dabbed on syllables
spit out between the touch of nicotine, wrapped
in paper, to his lips.
i know the clothes that i wear mimic
his choice in clothes, somehow.
i know he will not walk me down the aisle,
and this is my decision.
this is my decision, and it will break my heart.
it will break my heart only
because it will break his,
like genetics somehow link emotion
across generations.
i cannot let him run my life,
like pretending to own a car that
isn't in his name;
borrowed from the person who
washes it gently, details the inside,
maintains its running parts.

turning children into property,
it's like trying to take a house that
you used to live in, years and years ago,
but forgot you had the keys to.
you test the locks, and when the door welcomes you
in for the first steps across a threshold
you call it "home" again.
you forget that there is a family on the couches.
a mother cleaning the kitchen.
a brother fixing the shudders.
the house has moved on,
but cannot bear to close its door to you.

this is our relationship.
this is our dynamic.
it has taught me that it hurts to tell him no.
it is expected for him to not care what hurts.
it has taught me how to run from guilt and shame,
destroying past and future in fits of
self-destructive rage,
just to forget the things i've done
or are happening to me.
it's taught me how it feels for a heart to break
from forgetting pieces of someone it loves.

but this hasn't taught me how to fix it,
and i don't think he knows how to, either.

you make me cold in the pit of my stomach,
a glacier sliding past my lungs.
your bangs brush my eyelashes when foreheads press together,
only silence and movement and sweat between our skins.
and i feel condemned, of all things.
yet, irrevocably, i'm yours.
sold on the street corner, at the intersection of your passion and your distaste.

when the earth makes a complete orbit around the sun,
it is called a revolution.
when people stand up for what they believe in, enough to make a change,
it is called a revolution.
when you save something, preserve it for yourself,
it is called conservation.
when you told me you were leaving and i couldn't come with you,
we held what is called a conversation.
when i followed you across the country, train ticket in one hand and your hand in the other,
it was called love.
when you left me with nothing but a note on a hotel pillow,
it was called hate.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but words and pictures, slip-ups and homographs, grammar and literature and math and science,
none of it matters anymore.
none of it matters when nothing is changing and time stands still.
none of it matters when preserves run dry and talking turns to silence.
none of it matters with notes on a pillow that doesn't belong to you, thousands of miles from home.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a bug.”

my first memories of you are from
when we lived together when we were
young. we would be power rangers
and pokemon and a number of other
things. that was the summer your sister
broke her leg on the trampoline -
scaring us from climbing on top.
we were afraid of sharks in the pool.
clear water to the bottom, but we
were scared of the monsters we couldn't see.
no matter how many times we looked,
we couldn't shake the idea that something
was out to get us. wanted to hurt us.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
"Duh, I just ate a cat.”

you moved away that year.
you left for florida and took your
sister with you. you were gone for years.
in that time, she came to visit me.
she told me you were fine.
i heard from your mother that you
were struggling in school -
her straight A student,
crumbling before her eyes.
i didn't know what happened.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a dog.”

you graduated top of your class.
you left your house for reasons i
didn't find out about until months
later. you moved back here, back
into that old house, pretending to
be the innocent boy you were.
the boy that hated to smoke ****.
the boy that drank his summer away
and regretted it.
you were the boy that let his girl get away.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a car.”

but we both know that wasn't who you are.
not deep down, anyway.
that boy that cried to me on my couch
gave me half-truths and spun stories
until i didn't know which way was up.
i told you that i was ****** up now.
i told you exactly what i did, and you
told me you'd done the same.
but what i didn't know, was that one
of my worst nightmares, is what you'd
become for someone else.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiiiis big.
And I said,
"Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a whale!”

when everyone found out the truth,
you fled the country.
when everyone found out the truth,
you left us all behind to
deal with your messes.
when everyone found out the truth,
i was the only one left
seeing sharks spin circles in my swimming pool,
swim circles in my heart.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
"Duh, I just burped!”

when i was born,
you cried to our grandmother
because you wanted a brother
and got stuck with me, instead.
and what a turn of events that became.

when i was a baby,
i busted the back of your teeth out
with a bottle of perfume,
most likely contributing to your
repetitive dreams of your teeth falling out.
sometimes i think of this when you say your "th"s.

when i was a child,
you would pick peppers with our dad
down the street and hold eating competitions
while i squashed berries in my little tyke car.
we played mouse trap on the floor.

when i completed my first decade of life,
you packed your bags, got on a bus,
got married, and were deployed for the first time.
i don't remember much of those days.
i only remember the first phone call,
"yours truly, from iraq."

when i was eleven,
you came home, war torn and ragged
and divorced from an army wife
who was never really a wife at all.
you moved on, in some ways
more than others.
you were different, changed.

when i became a preteen,
i met a girl, and looked at our mom
and i said, "he's going to marry that girl."
and marry her, you did,
and had your first child, too.

when i was a teenager,
you taught me important life lessons
like how i act when i'm drunk
and how to do sake bombs like i belong in asia.
you taught me to eat with chopsticks.
through babysitting, i learned to wait to have a child.

and now, at twenty years old, everything is different.
living down the street from me, then in the old house,
and finally in our mom's house with me,
the dynamics changed.

we became the best friends we'd
always tried to be, but were too distant
to maintain. we gained trust and inside jokes.
you finally gave approval of my boyfriend.
we wreaked havoc and stayed up way too late.

but then you moved five hundred miles away,
and every day my heart feels ripped into pieces.
i miss all the jokes, and you waking me up
to our favorite songs.
i miss my brother. i miss my bubby.
i hope one day one of us will go home.

you know this isn't ******* fair. you leave me shaking like the earthquakes i told you to leave in your state but slowly drifted to mine. you make me terrified like i was that day, wondering if i should take cover and protect myself or just wait it out.
you said you miss the cute little flirting i always did. what i suppose made you love me. but you told me you got hurt too. i can almost promise you it never hurt you this bad. i wanted to choke you like you made me choke up when you said then, "you were always trying a little too hard to grow up, j." and you tell me now "you always were a little too naive." but you were a ******* coward. you always have been. you cut yourself on your back because the sight of your own spliced skin makes you *****. always taking the easy way out.
you drove away from the ******* the hill that night, that night she told you she was in love with you. and then you told me you loved me and then you went home and ****** your best friend. coward.
i told you i'd change coasts just to be with you and you never took me seriously. you were too busy staring at my smile. and you remember now that i said it but never remembered how serious i was then. you regret not ******* me that afternoon, when we laid awkwardly on your bed and i wanted so badly to touch you that it felt like my whole body, my every ******* neuron, was screaming to feel your hand under my own. but you stood up and walked away. coward.
you say i'm the one that's different, that i was the one who told you to never say you love me again. but i'm the one left texting you old songs in the middle of the night. i'm the one left counting hours back,
one
two
three,
always wondering what time it is there.
especially after you turned your computer towards me to show that you always had a clock in the corner with the time here.
i would have run away with you. i wanted to, no matter how ******* stupid i was. i would have married you. i would have done anything you asked. and we talk now and you told me it would have been hard to work out. you word it like it was my fault i was never yours. but weren't you the one who always whispered to me, "we'd never work out, i can't stand the distance"?
but here we are, three years and 2,450 miles apart and you remember trying to figure out how it'd work. like you still wonder. like you still feel your heart flutter every time you see a little redhead.
because you do.
and every time i see your flower, i double take. and every time i think of surfing you cross my mind. and every time i think of sunset beaches i remember your words. every time. i love you every time.
if you asked me to leave now, to see you. or asked to see me, i'd say no. because my heart is in a different place and we live in different times.
we belong in "what-ifs" and "remember-whens" because we crossed that line and i'm afraid it can't ever go back. i just can't do it. i just can't.

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 loved to buy me a bottle of wine
to drink within a night so you could
taste the chemicals on my lips
i asked you to call me in the morning
but you only ever called me broken
then wondered how i ever came to be that way
you used me to cut yourself along my jagged edges,
push me away when i would try to stop the bleeding
but you loved to hurt you and me and everyone else

you only write words across checks that your heart can't cash

you are so ****** in the head.
they say "crazy can't see crazy"
but, baby, i looked you dead in the eyes,
and man, someone stirred your brain with a fork.
cerebellum penetrated by tines.
amygdala spooned into their mouths like lukewarm soup.
sliced a knife straight through your hypothalamus.
left the rest to swirl around in that thick skull of yours.

you're used goods, they told me.
you passed your expiration date.
a little too ripe around the edges.
i could see that.
you asked people to palpate your skin,
like checking cantaloupe.
you spit out your seeds in between
inhaling smoke and ******* down liquor.

she warned me that you were a wild one.
rebellion and fierce independence.
all lions and tigers and bears,
sutured together with wolfish teeth
and hyena laughter.
forever breaking out of cages
and biting the hands that fed you.

now if only you could see it too.
or if only i'd saw it earlier.

When I was young, I was given a ring.
My mother gave it to me before she said goodbye, with a kiss and a wave.
Honestly, though, purity rings, even then, seemed like a fluke
with me. I was a rose
then, too. Blossom to the eye and thorns underneath, eyes stained an icy blue
and childish hands that were calloused, from playing, and rough.

I kept that trait with me. Being rough.
like a boxer in a ring.
I learned to fight, body covered in bruises in shades of black and blue.
My emotions were as dependable as waves –
tender and tranquil. And sometimes, unexpectedly, they rose.
Sensitivity was always a fluke.

So, naturally, falling in love was a fluke.
I wasn’t so pure at sixteen, because it was rough
to keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself around a girl named Sydney Rose.
They say sharks circle you before they attack, making endless rings
before making decisions and going for what they want, rising to the waves.
I just wanted to take her with me, into those murky depths of blue.

My fingers laced with hers, even years later, when we saw her veins of blue
beginning to become more apparent. Her sickness, a fluke.
It must have been, because it hurt her hand to wave
goodbye from behind hospital curtains. Grabbing at something you’re barely missing is rough
when all you’ve wanted is to garnish the finger with a ring
since you were sixteen years old, loving this Sydney Rose.

But as I’ve learned, despite its beauty, a rose
will one day wilt, and fingers tipped in blue
may never wear their rings.
Love, even in its most pure, must have been a fluke
with me, when someone can no longer kiss you roughly
against your mouth, passion no longer coming in insatiable waves.

I gave a little wave
to a stone marked with a name, date, and roses
piled high, petals tenderly grazing against a marker so rough.
And salt-water rivers threatened to drain, so blue,
from my eyes and past a mouth pursed in confusion against such a fluke.
And to say goodbye, I buried with her the symbol of purity that could match our love – my ring.

Now I wear another ring, one with a gold tinted with rose.
I sit in our house overlooking waves, overlooking an ocean blue.
And solitude seems such a fluke, when a life taken means making life remaining rough.

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.

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.

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

he smiles like he has a secret tucked into the corner of his lips. "something to chew on when dinner isn't enough," he said.
but it's never enough, and she reminds him of that.

she pulls out a cigarette, slender as the fingers she grips it with. "the smoke in my lungs make me less empty," she said.
but she's always empty, and he reminds her of that.

and now they sit together in silence, pulling feathers from pillows and strings from seams. he says, "take your coat off and stay a while."
but neither wants to stay, and they both understand that.

"i'm sorry," she whispers, and lights another cigarette.
"it's okay," he returns with a smile.

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.

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.

and she said,
"i live for things like that."
"i live for things like you,"
he replied.

after a night with you, people began to ask questions.
color blossomed on my skin in shades of purples and red,
interrupted with the occasional broken-blood-vessel lines
where you tried to sink your point into my skin,
bas relief engravings into my superficial self.
my lips are cracked and bleeding,
and my eyes are ringed in black.
whispers slip past me,
ghosts dancing along hallways about the stories my body told.
the only people who know what happened were the people in the room.
love and hate look a lot alike,
lust and violence practically synonymous.
it's all just semantics, after all.

there are times in your life where it does not matter what horrible things lined the edge of your clouds. despite what it seemed like so often, sometimes you just can't take the silver out of the gray.
it's often things like this that remind me of my summers with you. awful and tainted by extremities and currents threatening to rip us in alternate directions, almost succeeding.
and yet i look back on them and i smile.
because, no matter what the stories are behind it or the after taste those days had, there was a lingering taste of sweetness.
whether it was sweet tea, freshly cut grass, chlorine, slurpees, smoothies, or coffee ice cream,
we always managed to wash down the sadness for a while.
even when silence rings louder than the words we didn't speak, the emotions speak louder than words, or pictures, will ever say.
that first summer, even on days where i felt my whole world was crumbled underneath my bare toes, drowning in the pool i drenched them in, i kept them in for another few moments with you. and those are the memories i look back on and smile. no matter what happened after or with other people.
and the second, i was gaining my footing but you somehow slipped.  funny how unsteady ground can be, one foot from the other. and despite your falling, for other reasons or for someone else, i still see the time as peaceful. i'd never had what we had before with anyone else. not how we felt.
we've got another summer together approaching and this time i feel like i owe it to you. i think it's up to me to pull my **** together, despite my complaints, and grow up a bit. to bring you slurpees and suffer through heat just to sit for a while. to drain gas tanks and sit in parking lots at 4am to be able to talk. to hold hands through car washes or sing to each other or whatever else we did. i want it again and we'll have it. we'll figure it out.

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.

he pressed himself into me and whispered, "just the tip."
at the time, i wasn't sure what to think. i wasn't sure if i was able to think at all.
i felt something hard press into my back, but not what i was expecting.
no, this, this was cold even in the summer's air.
my mouth was sewn shut by the press of your hand, but maybe it was the drinks i'd consumed.
and it hurt, what came after. what led to this.
when you called out to me, this was the last thing i expected.
but i was naive, and i was innocent, but you took care of that.
the threat of violence hung heavy in the air, the tip of your weapon cradling my spine.
and i could smell the metal, faint over the smell of the dirt and leaves you'd shoved my face into.
and when the violence was over, and the questions began running through my mind
[white text on a blank slate,
wiped clean with new memories and a loss
of something i never knew i had],
it was over with a flippant wave of your hand and a flick of your sweat-matted hair.
a figurative, "see you later."
an au revoir to your ***** laundry, like it's not worth dumping in the wash.
but we both know i'll scrub myself clean later.
clean, but not fresh.
and you're not afraid, not yet.
no, you're not the one that will cower
in fear in corners of beds
in corners of rooms and closets,
all mirrors turned around.
you'll be able to look people in the eye.
but you're not the one that will recover. and you're not the one that will change.
no, you'll always be a monster, a beast of brutality and, eventually, regret.
but skin cells die and the body regenerates, and wounds,
well, they heal.
and i'm not there yet, but one day i will be.
first, i have to remember how to stand up.

our first kiss was a promise,
a promise that shouldn't have been made in the first place.
it was just something we'd mentioned, wanted,
but never thought to follow through with.
it was meant to soothe the pain between us,
your body and my heart, or maybe the other way around.
but in the end, we were left with nothing
but the cigarette smell on your jacket
and the person i needed to crawl back to.

our second kiss was commisery,
both of us scrubbed raw and bleeding.
ironic, how we just rubbed salt in the wounds.
they say it makes it better but it always just hurts.
to keep the ***** out of our mouths,
we just kept them busy,
like somehow our state of mind would care
that we were in public and that shame doesn't mean
a lack of composure.

our third kiss was a compromise,
a final pinky-swear that maybe we won't off ourselves after all
[but promise you'll leave me a note if you do].
somehow we traded off pain,
and i shouldered your stories while you brushed off mine.
i told you i'd try to get it together,
you told me you'd try not to fall in love.
hopefully you kept your end of the bargain,
because at least one of us needed to.

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.

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 swallows, hard.
Clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair.
She bites her lip and holds the tears in,
holds herself together.
A glimpse of silence, like cars under an overpass on a rainy day.
The calm before the downpour.
The eye of the storm.
What do you do when there's nothing left to say?
What do you say when there's nothing left to do?

you always seem to find yourself
choking back words.
you'd rather choke by swallowing
your own tongue than admit the truth.
but jesus ******* christ,
you want to say those words
more than anything.
how you really feel.
what's really on your mind.
but society has taught you
that this is taboo.
if you pair "speaking your mind"
with politics,
you'll find yourself with
a bullet in your head.
but one day,
you'll go silent
from all the words
you'll never say.

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.

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 feel weary.
weary in a way that has me dragging my feet.
thick circles hang heavy under my eyes
like sucker punches.
sleeping too much or not enough.
words never meaning anything.
just missing, missing, missing.
wanting.
with such a peak comes such a fall.
flying means eventually landing.
and the question comes in,
are the wings just heavy?
or am i already crawling?
dragging my feet,
dirt under nails from clawing my way.
my tongue is thick and,
well,
there's no real hope here.
i just need quiet.
peace and quiet.

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'm holding you
cupped in fragile hands,
a frail little bird
in frail little fingers.
i can never hold too tightly,
because my grip might not
be strong enough
and even if i could
little bird bones
are tender little things.
and it doesn't make sense
because i hate birds so much
but i love you more
than words could ever say.
and then i think of that time
when i was a little girl
and that baby bird sat on my deck
and it didn't chirp
because it was dead
so i didn't know it was there,
and i stepped on it's tender
featherless wings
and it crunched under my foot.
and viscera spilled out
in reds
and blues
and yellow
and i cried
and cried
and cried.
and even though it was dead
inside already,
i was so afraid i would
be the one to hurt it again.
and it's kinda like that.
so excuse me if
i hold you too tight some days.
and excuse me if
sometimes my fingers are too loose.
i have my reasons,
they're there.
please, just please
sing loud enough to let me know
that you're still alive,
even if it's only a little bit.
and i'm so, so sorry
if i ever crush you.
i never meant to.

all of her fingers
and all of her toes
are as cold as ice.
"like my heart,"
she always liked to say.
but this girl is golden -
metal on the outside,
as soft as ever on the inside.
malleable and valuable.
like the gold leaf
on the edges of bibles -
something you always see
but never seem to appreciate.
always on the edge of
something useless.
like the side of this
empty bathtub,
filled with nothing but air.
trying to decide if she'll
drown herself in this silence.
wondering if the other side is ever
really better
or just another waste of time.

"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.

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.

she smiled,
a secret tucked into her right dimple.
her vision glaringly white once again.
oh she won't tell.
not this time.
blacking out,
and the sweat,
and that sheer adrenaline,
gave her something to live for.
gave her something to feel alive.
enough to feel sick,
but god did sick feel good.
and when everyone
is crying no,
she knows she wants
to say yes.
because rebellion and
anarchy really sets
a fire in her veins.

the cigarette in my hand shook
with tremors and my tears dripped
onto the concrete when i told her
what happened in that bed
blood soaked and no longer white

see i can tell you the when
and the where and discuss the why
but i'd never told anyone how
it all felt in the play by play recap
of the worst night of my life

and she held my hand as i
held myself together as best as
i could and held the lighter to the
next cigarette because chain smoking
is what i do best on nights like this night

and afterwards she helped pick up
all of the little pieces of me scattered
with the ashes on the floor
and she told me she loved me because
that is what being my best friend looks like

steady yourself,
you have to stop drinking.
aren't you sick of getting dizzy?
being short of breath?
aren't you sick of sleeping on floors?
steady yourself,
you have to stop crying.
aren't you sick of wiping tears?
listening to the same pathetic ****?
aren't you sick of flipping your pillow?
steady yourself.

everything was so soft. everything was so calm.
well, except our hearts. they were racing.
and it was awkward, but it was sweet. i spent my time biting my lip so i wouldn't touch them against yours. you spent your time taking pictures, to keep your fingers busy. on the camera, off my hair. and it brought us to our knees, almost. the weight of everything.
why me? of all people, why give me her present? i asked but never got an answer. but it sat by my bedside every night.
we were desperate lovers, desperate for change. desperate for some resemblances of the past, but rewritten.
older, even. more mature.
and well, the heat of the summer lit that flame in our hearts, and the rest of us. and you may have steered that ship, but my hands were on the wheel.
but eventually my hands gripped razors instead of bedsheets. and your kisses weren't sweet anymore. instead of burying your hands in my hair, they were buried in yours - in grief. we both broke, from the weight of the world. i told you we'd never be Atlas and you begged to try anyway.
why, though? you knew i was broken, you knew you were too. with cracks in the cornerstone, why did you keep building?
you sent that canary into a coal mine and you cried when it was dead.
just bury it. you always were so good at keeping a straight face; it won your poker game every time.
just smoke another one, you know you'd want to. why didn't you?
i don't understand why you were so broken. let alone why i was.
and when i asked, you could only say,
"it just all ended so...
abruptly."

she sat in the pew,
lip between her teeth.
"what a way to end a year,"
she thought,
blue eyes closed to the world.
there were no wedding bells
in this church, not today.
they read eulogies instead
of vows and shed
tears rather than rice.
a funeral for the year.
many people gathering to
say goodbye to the good times
and the bad times.
tears, maybe even laughs,
for the year that ends itself.
time turns years into suicide
and funerals turn strangers
into desperate friends.
casket closed,
dressed in black,
what could you lose?
except everything.
no one knows what'll
happen when those doors open
and the sunshine floods in.
not knowing what the next
year will bring,
what people or conflicts.
if you'll even make it out alive.
the safest place you'll ever be
is the funeral for a year.
with everything closing,
just for a moment,
you know what to expect.
that's the beauty of finality.
all you know is that room,
death, and what finite tastes like.

it's been a year since i lost you






i still love you

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.

hush hush, sweet darling.
the neighbors could hear you tremble.
if only you'd cover your mouth with mine,
you might stay out of trouble.
grasp hands tight and
don't you dare let go,
and i'll make you beg for more.

she doesn't like to sleep anymore.
she'd rather stay up and make wishes
on the scars that she counts
than slip under a sheet.
it's something about vulnerability.
something about letting go.
if she can just keep her eyes pried
for one more second, minute, hour,
she can control it.
how long she sleeps and if she'll
dream [of him] again.
and maybe later,
once she's all alone,
she can sleep through meals
and start to hate the spots
he loved to hold
a little less.
anything, just to
hate him a little less.
she spends every spare second
checking her phone,
hoping to see if he's responded.
hours later.
still checking, and still hoping
for no real reason at all.
"is it possible,"
she asked herself,
"to hate someone and still
hang on every word?"
but maybe she wants to hang on
every word, hang on everything
he meant.
because letting it go was harder
than holding onto it.
staying awake was harder than
just shutting her eyes long
enough to let him go.
so she wastes her time counting
stars and counting scars,
until she can breathe again.

she's the kind of girl that reminds you
of summer in all the wrong ways -
of the pain in the sunburn,
or saying goodbye to what you love.
she's the kind of girl that you
need alcohol to love,
because only you know just how much
you want to forget her.
she's the kind of girl that makes you
choke back words like "****" and "failure"
for fear that one day
she might stop proving you right.
she's the kind of girl that makes you
punch your knuckles ****** against tile,
tear at hangnails,
or turn off your favorite songs.
she's the kind of girl that you have to
learn to let go of, because she sinks her teeth
so far under your skin
that it's hard to **** the poison out.

i'd give you my heart,
but i'm afraid you'd break it.
heart breakers break hearts, they say,
and you play your cards right.
see you took my heart off
that silver platter,
cut it in slivers and
as the rain pattered
against the windowsill
you handed it back,
with a note that simply read, "*******."

baby, won't you promise me forever?
baby, won't you stay by my side?
you have the prettiest eyes and i
never want to look away.
i know i promised you "never again."
and i know i spent more time on my knees than at your side.
but my eyes were filled with tears and i
couldn't keep my eyes off the ground.
well maybe forever was broken.
and maybe my side got scars.
but our eyes are locked in honesty
and they can't ever blink again.
but perhaps forever can be repaired.
and perhaps i fit by your side.
but our eyes are softer now,
and close just long enough to dream together.

one question
that i want to know:
who hurt you?