I am pretty sure my heart is breaking.
Things are worse now than ever before.
Everything. Everything is worse.
I think I'm losing my mind.
And people are dying, left and right.
Not just physically, but their minds,
Who they are is being lost, is dying.
And I'm suffering under the pressure
Of the secrets that I keep.

Who would I turn to anyways?
There's no sense in crying into a phone,
And all my friends are away.
My family, their hearts are breaking too.
We're all splintering, leaking.
And you thought you could buy wholeness
But no. The more money you have,
The less of you there is, the more broken you are,
And I am surrounded by the rich.

I am pretty sure my heart is breaking,
And there is no one I can tell.

What is the hardest part
                    Of being alone?
It's the quietness,
A stillness making
What ought have been a home-
a house.
It's filled with beds,
But those lover's nests
Are             Empty.
And the thought is
As occupying as a dream.
A dream you cannot feel
Because the loneliness is keeping you awake

With no one to hold down your fears
         And keep you safe.

Say you want a cat. A dog's too easy,
would wag when wag is inappropriate,
and slobber on the guests. You'll take the cat,
so different and strange, it drives you crazy,

its shiftlessness, its ins-and-outs, its chi.
You call. It does not come. Is this a pet,
this Dharma ***? You say you can't accept
its vacant gaze, its scorn, who yearned to be

at home with feral grace, with all you're not.
But you're a Body safely locked from Mind,
that Problem no Mind solves. This point's defined
for you by ****, who's not the pet you thought

but Otherness, one owned by God, or none.
Cat sleeps for hours, wants out. A job well done.

I remember when you first said my name.
It was like any other person saying it.
Except that
Which each passing time
It became more and more like a secret.
Something only you and I shared.
You would look at me,
In the eyes
Blue locked on blue
And say “Emily”.
And with each passing time,
Your mouth turned up more and more.
And then less and less.
I remember the last time you said my name.
It was like any other person saying it.
Except that
I had never wanted to be called anything else
More than I did in that moment.

I hope your music chokes you,
and I hope all your best friends die.
I hope she's better off without you
and they miss your last goodbye.

I hope when you lie in bed at night
you're haunted by the ghost
of your past and former lovers,
the ones you knew the most.

I hope that they remind you now
of what you did to me,
of all the ways you hurt me
but then you set me free.

I can breathe on my own now
without seeing your silly face.
I walk all by myself now
with a surprising airy grace.

That doesn't mean I don't still hate you;
that is far from the truth.
I can hardly stand to look at you
without wanting to break your tooth.

I just don't need you anymore
or your lack of love.
I can fly on my own
free as a dove.

the lilt of your
tongue
when you spoke
my name.

the smile
that slipped onto your lips,
like a knife into a sheath,
when your eyes
met mine.

your lips, the softest shade of sunset,
on a mountain range
I never grew tired of tracing.

how your eyes,
those soothing azure eyes,
looked into the unknown
with a youthful curiosity
I envied.

I slipped gently away
from the brink
of that secret
as you made it your own.

I remember the day
that you left.
But I do not,
for the life of me,
know why I did not follow.

The throbbing headache and nausea
I can endure; I've had worse.
Right now I could cry,
such a raw hope consumed me
as I thought about you, desperate.
It was still dark for me then,
when I needed you. Now it's day.
It brings a true smirk to my face
to know you are nothing more
than a night of binge drinking:
a foolish part of my youth,
a consequence of boredom.
I could not hold your liquor,
I vomited all that bile you said to me
in the hedges outside. Don't fret,
this is not a bad memory, in fact
you might never be a memory at all.
I am well. I will drink better and
far more dangerous poisons.
I am today, you are only last night.