i just want to sit and be
still with you, but
my heart never slows
when you're around and
i always end up searching
dead ends for what words
to use next

(my fingers still shake at the
mention of your name)

it was so dark that i couldn't see
his hand slip into mine, and i was numb enough
by the end of the night that my head didn't realize
what it meant when he reached under my skirt;
for the first time in a long time i felt something,
even if it was only skin against bone
(i had already known i was
a skeleton of what i used to be)  

later, another boy came along
and kissed my bruises away
(ones i didn't even know i had until
they were gone, but i felt them like
phantom limbs when he had to leave)
and every time his fingers touched
mine i felt it deep in my chest, like a
kick-drum pounding over and over again
                (i thought maybe love like that could never end,

but really, he was just another dream waiting
to become a nightmare)

i heard once on the playground that the human heart
is about the size of it's owner's fist;
that day i spent my whole afternoon
gathering handfuls of earth within the
palms of my hands just to see
how much i could hold, as if that could show me
how much i was capable of loving, but dirt
slipped through my fingers when i loosened my
grip, and i was scared that people were the same
(even at eight, i knew that sometimes the only reason
people stayed was because you held them too tight,
and if midnight provided a last-minute flight
they wouldn't hesitate to catch it because holding on
was harder than running away).
later on, i tried to catch people like fish,
reeling them in and then leaving them on a hook
because when i held them at a distance they were
pretty to look at and i could feel their heat, but when i
clutched them close to my chest, underneath my line of
sight, it was much easier for them to
break and hide.  that all changed when i met
you though; i disabled all my traps and
reached out to you with bare fingers, telling myself
if i could hide you between my hands then
maybe you wouldn't mind hiding in my heart.
i started out timid, grasping handfuls of your
shirt and the way your laugh sounded when it was
me that caused it, and sometimes at night
when i pretended you were there with me, i would
reach out for you, but daylight was different
and i've always had small hands

(i realized it was never about taking your heart when you
reached for my hand and held it like it was your favourite secret
you couldn't keep any longer; it was about letting you have mine)

during summer, we avoided the ocean
because it reminded us how
small we really are, and instead of singing
lullabies to drift away in waves of sleep,
we sang all night long to stay awake
for fear that if we let ourselves go, we'd have nothing
left to rise for by morning

(i never closed my eyes, but i had one
hell of a dream)

every poem i was afraid
to write ended with
you.

i'll shut my ears and eyes,
but i can't shut you out
any more

(i don't know why you keep
returning when i have nothing
left to give)

there is no such thing as an antihero,
only a villain
who has found an exuse,
an antagonist who can speak more prettily than
all the others
who can lie holes straight through
the hero's
heart,
find their place in the universe
and blot it out on the map because
the universe
does not tend towards anything
but solitude.

you will find yourself all alone.

you will find yourself all
alone
and you can snap the neck of every doll you own but
despair will never be anything more than
an unrequited love, an
attachment that you never grew out of, a
high school crush that you stapled to your heart so as you grew it was like
a gastric bypass
you cannot hold as much love in your heart
as your mother
said you could
but you can kiss and sigh and with every moue you'll wonder just
why
your chest feels fit to burst when you get any deeper than
touch
heart fit to rupture you are the main villain
of every book
i've read
the antagonist in every story you are
the angry girl whose doll parts
lay in pieces
at her feet
whose bomb will detonate if you get too close
{the character i could relate to the most the character i hated the most the character
i talked to whenever i could and
memorized every line to replay, god
i hate
the way you speak
and i want
to hear
it more}
i ripped out your staples and added my own.
{despair will never reciprocate but
i understand you i
do
because we are the same and i hate you because
you hate yourself
and i could give you nightmares every night and
listen to your motives
every
morning
'people are disgusting'
you said
as if it was
a revelation}
you're not ****** up, just out of luck
because four-leaf clovers can't survive droughts.
you are seventyeight percent water
and every drop you spent on
drowning
the background characters
and every doll on your bedroom floor
{i love the way you cry when you laugh because every time
i hope
that one, that one tear
is the final drop wrung from the shroud
of a sailor a burial at sea
and you will crumble
into
dust}
you angry girl your eyes
are a yellowing bruise on the storyline
your backstory is a rash
on the protagonist's hands
and all your inner demons told you you were not alone but
you explained them away and
appeals to pity left you empty.
i will rip out all your staples i
will make you
seventyeight percent
saltwater
my heart is a mirror you can find yourself there and
reassemble yourself
from all your broken parts
i will be the blueprint from which
you rebuild
yourself

{a story is nothing
without
a villain}

&las;; night was the first time i had faith
in anybody in a long time (maybe because it's easy to breathe
when you're speeding down back streets
and i only just then realized that i'd been
held under too long)

(maybe it had something to do with the way
your hands glided over the wheel like you could care less
about where we were going or when we would come back)

(maybe it was the way you promised that there would be a
next time)

(maybe it was just you)

i've been told time and time again that
we are made of stardust, to the point where it's
not even poetic anymore, it's just
science. and while they're something beautiful in
chemical reactions and the attraction between
us and the earth's core, there is nothing beautiful
about the way biology was ruined for me
in seventh grade when we dissected frogs and i realized
that's actually what we look like inside-
we don't house constellations or milky ways or anything
worth staring at
                            (but even still, i couldn't look away).

i wonder if there's any chance of us being rescued from our flesh,
i wonder if maybe one day after we're turned to dust
again, our remnants will break free of earth's gravity
and we'll get the chance to be stars once more.

(i wonder if the reason we reach towards the sky at night
is because we can feel our brothers calling us back home)