the most exciting part of my life is you and you’re barely even in it anymore

you were bony and soft and you talked with your face up close to mine and you’d look at my mouth when we spoke and you made adoration bubble in the apples of my cheeks when i looked at you and you smelled like milk and home

the sky looked like peaches
vanilla-lavender light pooled onto my dashboard
another song that reminds me of you started singing through the stereo and i squeezed water out of my eyes to try to wash you away

the soft air dried my tears against too-pink cheeks
and i sang along and tried to forget what’s not mine

butterfly of night.
softer, quieter
darker, heavier.
open up your wings and float into the moon
like you did in my dream where
i sighed through the forest
and had violet hair

she talked about the hospital
with a wish waiting on her cheek
glowy face and nervous fingers twisted.
"felt like nothing"
what does that make me?
no, we're all everything
and i know because i felt it
as we sat in the ****** light
and read horoscopes aloud

i always wonder when things will be okay.
not forever, just until they're not again
and my bed stops smelling like Tide and starts smelling like me
and the water bill goes up and the phone bill goes down
and my heart starts to hurt like it used to.
i wonder when i won't walk with an anchor in my chest
when the people who cared start caring again
when i remember what feeling like myself feels like.
when i won't be embarrassed around razors
when i'll be tired as often as i say i am
when i'll try as hard you wish i would.

my mom wouldn't let me go to a party the other night because she said
there'd be drinking and drugs and i wouldn't belong
and i yelled back
that i don't belong anywhere