Oh no, you came back to haunt me
you're in the cracks in my soul
you've scratched through the walls I built
to keep you out, to keep you out
Oh, I wish I could've kept you out.

God, it feels like lately all I've done is question your ability to put my life on the straight and narrow, to make all bad things good and pure again, and with justification. I feel as if I've suffered day in and day out for things that are beyond my control and completely with your capabilities to mend.

You "gifted" me with an illness that eats away at my insides, that tears at my already faltering soul that is hardly strong enough to fight back. I am pained every day with the fear of isolation and rejection if anyone were to ever know my true self. Some days I just feel that Hell can't be any worse than this.

All I ask, all I've ever asked, is that you help me understand why I must suffer in such an unbearable way and why I must be the only one to know what it's like, why I must be alone in this. Because, God, I swear sometimes I feel that you have no idea what it's like to be me and to feel the hate that you've given me because I must hide the one thing you find so beautiful in me from the rest of the world.

It's a tragedy that
it has taken me
all this time
to realize what love is --
what touching palm to palm
and caressing cheeks
and softly kissing lips
and your hands on my bare skin --
and the power it had
to win me over like that.

So, you've taken what's mine,
left a wound in my side,
and now I must find
what the purpose was this whole time
because this cut won't heal
and my heart will bleed
searching for answers
far too few and none plenty
but I will never let you see the struggle
that has left me bruised and broken
for I am a much better person
sobered and steady
and glowing with pride.

I see how the light reflects off the riverbank and the trees sway in the gentle wind and how the flowers glow in the everlasting sunshine and then there's me: breathing it all in, cherishing every moment because I'll never know if I'll get another chance like this imperfect perfection.

Love matters 'cause if
the world tried to live without
life would lack meaning.

If you try to hurt me
with your words
as if they were needles
that pricked into my spine
just know that
baby, only words bleed
and that wounds heal
with time.

You stabbed me with words
that cut like a knife
all the way to the bone
and with all of the blood
that pooled at my side
you only made it worse
when you tracked it up
my snow white eyelet dress
that I wore when we first met
you know, that night by the lake
with nothing but a blanket,
the stars and the sky
and although you're standing here now
as if you couldn't care at all
I let a smile catch my lip
knowing that even then
and even now
I love you at your darkest
and because of this
the darkness took me too.

It was in the way
our leaves fell to the ground
and our branches collided
and our trunks fell upon one another
while the wind blew us down
and although we fell hard and swift
our roots still were sunk deep within the ground
showing no budge or sway
because that is where they (we) will remain:
until the water runs dry
and the sky grows dark
-- anchored in the earth.

But before you go I just want you to know
that you have caused me to love you so
that nothing will ever compare to what we were,
not even the stars, nor the moon,
nor the roar of a waxing shoreline
for I have known no greater feeling than
the warm embrace after a long drive home,
or our interlocked eyes as we stare in silence,
or the time I caught you crack a smile
when the snow fell from the roof onto my eyebrow.
Sadly, I've learned, that these moments must come to an end
and when you finally realize that time is now
you'll find a tear running down your cheek
and words caught within your throat
and with all the strength you can grasp
you must walk out the front door.

The only things guaranteed in life are
the fall of the sun and rise of the moon
and even sometimes that is questioned.

I could feel ribs break
from inside my heaving chest
as you kissed her lips.

I wish you were there
to fight the bad dreams
off for me, but really
you can't help but
help the demons
choke and squeeze my lungs
to release the air that
I need to breath and you
couldn't have cared less.

Even after all this time
I can say you've made me the
happiest I've ever been.

Around this same time
every night
sadness sweeps in
through the cracked,
swaying window
and overcomes me
with chills and tears
that not even an empty bed
can keep me warm
and it's all because
you used up the last bit
of happiness I had left
inside me.

Don't let me crack my heart just so you can see me bleed.

There’s a ghost that haunts these parts
he lingers on these pages
full of words, such fanciful words,
that my eyes, my mouth, my heart
still get lost in.

There’s a poet who once wrote
such vivid words about our past
that romanticized our togetherness
and gave it an eternity in the abyss of the internet
so I can relive those soul-crushing movie script endings.

There’s a boy who once said
he loved me more than anyone in this world
that he’d do anything for me,
that somehow, some way we’d find each other again
and pick up like no time or distance had come between us.

But that boy turned into a man, a brave man
just as I turned into a woman, a fearless woman
learning that even best friends, best lovers
come and go, and they might never
come back.  

Some days, I’m sad it’s not you who I wake up next to in the morning.

Most days, I just miss having my best friend.

The roads, they sway
and curve like
the veins that
run up my arms
fueling the life
inside me
like the roads that
live forever
through the night
until daybreak
until they crumble
and decay
like the skin that
protects my
long lasting veins
but they'll always
leave behind
the memory of
how both lived
the fiercest lives.

You must try to move on
and rid your skin of the
tiny pieces of pain
and free your soul
of the memories that
make you feel so alone
because in all reality
there will always be
someone there for you
you'll always have that
shoulder to lean on
and cry your eyes and heart out
and they will never want to leave you
no matter how scared you are that they might.

"I did not intend for it to be permanent"
were the exact words you said to me
on October 3rd, 2011

I don't know why I dwell on such
a far away date in my
torn and tattered notebook

but I do because
it gives me hope that
you haven't forgotten about me

and that you still care
and wish that one day
we can be something more again.

You ripped my soul right
from my lonely, hollowed chest
yet gave nothing in return.

I have come to know
the perpetuity of loneliness
the habits that are formed
when one has no one but their own

I have come to stare
at an empty image
of a person in a state of grey
An endless grey that soon will not heal

And now I have come to fall
on to a cold, barren bed
Drafty and stale as it grazes over
the long-faded lines that you have left

How dare you treat me
like a petal on a flower
that lays there begging for your light
and cannot live in your shade
and once the seasons change
as if you're changing your mind
I fall to the ground
with the tears that fall from the sky?

It felt as if
my heart burst through
my chest and shined
with the brightest colors
like a blazing sunrise.

I couldn't breath
because the feeling
weighed so heavily
on my chest
I couldn't bear it.

So I ran,
I ran away from
the cause of all
my pain
that was created.

Your love, I couldn't bear it.

I hate to say this, baby
but we're just clinging on
to the last few bits
that keep us whole
but not even "I love you"
can fix us anymore.

You can stay
if you want to
(I'd very much like it if you would)
no one's asking you to leave
but if you do decide
that we are no long we
please do it with ease
for my heart has seen
pain and sorrow
far too many times
that it hurts so much
to invest what's left
of my bruised and battered
heart.

I ache. I don't know how else to say it. My ribs are so brittle and my heartbeat falters. And I can't think of any way to fix it. How can I refill my empty lungs with air when you've done everything to take my breath away? Do I have to beg and scream and plead for mercy, all just so I can find peace? You've used me, left me bruised and battered, and now all I ask is for you to leave me with some dignity.

We spent our days engrossed in emotion that only loved ones could obtain, yet we never gave a name to what was created in our own special way.

I know it's going to be awhile
for this feeling to subside
because for the longest time
you were the only one
that had my heart
and kept it safe.
You were the only one.
I thought I'd only have
these eyes for you.
But that isn't true.

I saw you for what you're worth, yet all you could see was the darkness that never left from your mistakes.

I read your poem almost every night
with the tears that dormented themselves
for years and years.
I hate sometimes that I miss you so
but you were my first love and my best friend.
I detest the circumstances we have in our lives.
I can't take the empty spaces where you should be
in my heart, the place you left so long ago.
And I don't know why I'm not satisfied with
your answers, with you telling me we're friends again.
Maybe I'm just paranoid that you'll leave again
and that scares the hell out of me.
Please stay for good this time.
No matter the distance because one day
we'll have our moments again.
I just know it.

I wanted to destroy something beautiful
so I could see what keeps it alive inside
but then I realized that something was me and you
and there was no way of knowing
the ins and outs that made us glow
from the innermost parts of our being
however it was already too late
when I let the hammer drop
that cracked the canvas in two
and I fell to the floor and wept
for I knew that the only thing
that was once beautiful
could not be repaired
was now nothing more
than a torn and tattered
mural of what love should be.

When darkness was an ocean
you taught me how to sink.

It's odd to think that
among everything inside
the universe, I still matter.

I spent this year as a ghost
the kind that lingers in corners
watching time pass by and by

I spent the winter writing poems
about getting better, but I've still
been here alone so many times

But I'm done with all that ****
and I'm coming out swinging
and I'm turning my back on the past.

One day I hope that
you will see me as
someone to love
rather than
someone to shelter.

I’m spending more days inside
my thoughts, wrapped in the
layers of sheets, in the creases
of my mattress and I think
it’s a sign that something’s
wrong but I don’t care
I just don’t
care.

I'm sure I'll miss
the long twilight walks
and the ol' diner dashes
and the way your hair fell into your eyes
but there will be others
and there will be moments
just like these
with another someone.

So I don't know if I'll ever get over you,
but I sure as hell am going to try.

I see nothing but
galaxies and galaxies
locked deep in your eyes.

I once thought that life was like the sky; endless and ever-changing. But the one thing I didn't realize is that you'll encounter just as many storms as sunny days. You'll feel the rain and the rays reflect upon your skin and you'll experience the emotion of the changing of the seasons, as if the clouds could whisper in your ear. You'll be caved in by the weight of snow and feel the crackling of leaves under your toes. And all of this is the way life is. Topsy turvy, inside and out, up and down. And there's not much you can do about it.

I often find myself
stuck in the what ifs and the should'ves
because for the longest time
those moments were better than reality
I would miss the days where you and I
would spend hours with each other
doing God knows what
and I didn't care if those moments
were no longer mine.

However,
my life was consumed by these old haunts
and I was drowning in hopes of getting them back
and if I hadn't spoken to you one last time
or wrote that first poem about you
after years of silence
maybe I could've grown out of this phase.
I no longer can live in the past
because there's a reason it left me a long time ago.

I can't avoid you
you're everywhere
all of the time
-- you're in my clothes
on my bedsheets
even under my skin --
and I was never taught
how to get rid of something
(someone) that made me
hurt like hell.

You say you remember those days we had
like the one on the pier, near the boat docks
wrongfully holding hands
even though everything felt so incredibly right

or the day we spent in the trees and garden
behind my aunt's house
and we shared things that were only sacred
to you, and to me

and we had that one final day
where you decided
without any push or sway from me
that we were to be no more

and god do I wish I tried to sway your
unfaltering, unforgiving voice.
oh how I wish I just would've
fought a little bit harder.

These days have got me so low
but the nights tend to make me worse
I no longer leave my four-cornered room
or the bed sheets that cover my worn and tired face
that have cried all of the tears that my eyes can produce
and these bed sheets no longer warm me at night,
my room no longer keeps me safe and sound,
the nights grow so much darker than before,
and the days just aren't long enough.

I died that night
where we sat on either
side of our empty bed
tears in my eyes
and hands shaking.

I died that night
when you said
you don't love me
the way you used to;
I couldn't say a word.

I died that night
when you packed the
only suitcase we owned
and went to the door
and my screams wouldn't

bring you back to me.

You never told me why and I didn't care. I just wanted you gone.

I can taste the iron
that lingers in my mouth
as my veins beg for
the hilt of the knife
to press down and release
the pain that lays inside
my overflowing arms
with nightmares and memories
that are too far embedded in my soul
that they will no longer allow me
to live, so I must die.
It’s the only way to save what’s
left of me.

You make me insane
just by the sound of your voice
when you say my name.

I’ve been missing you to death, but I just hope you’re still breathing.

I should've given up on you
when I had the chance
because each time
you come back into my life
my world freezes in time
but yours keeps moving on.