While others were swapping gossip we were sharing hearts broken by those we had the (mis)fortune of calling 'family'.

I showed you how to hide your bruises and you taught me how to throw a right hook and, God, by no means were we anything, but you were everything and on nights when my father used me as a substitute for a punching bag you were there to hold me and you promised as I sobbed into your chest that you'd be my savior but even the strongest fall and your skin is too soft.

While others were swapping notes, we were sharing tears pooled at the toes of those whom we had the (mis)adventure of calling 'lovers'.

I showed you how to keep the pain of infidelity out of your eyes and you taught me how to set my problems on fire. Hell, by no means did I think I could be anything but you, you could do everything and I envied each gentle brush stroke you kissed to your world-canvas until all I began to see was green. On nights when I drew up the courage to try to be more than what I was, you would encourage me by guiding my hand and my heart, until I learned that my faith in you was dangerous as affection deepened from leaves into roots, and even though you were my savior my armor was too ******* strong to be broken again and I fell from your branches and crawled away slowly, even with broken limbs.

While others were worrying about their futures we were wondering if we even had a future, our romantic predisposition (un)fortunately labeling us to a life that was far from easy.

Somewhere my emotions went from protective to romantic and seeing you with him left me feeling as though I'd eaten an imploding star. Our friendship faltered as you tried so desperately to be someone you weren't and I struggled to come to terms with the fact that I was slowly, inevitably losing the only family I had left and all because I'd made the stupid ******* mistake of falling in love with my best friend. God. We weren't star crossed lovers - we were two black holes who had mistaken the other for a ******* star and realized too late that we were only destined to destroy, not love.

While others were worrying about how to use their tongues to knot cherry stems, we were worrying about how to use our teeth to win our battles, our gallant response to solitude (un)successfully molding us into warriors.

Somewhere my leaving pried at the sleep-dust on your lashes until you realized that this wasn't a dream- I was really gone and I knew seeing me with her left you feeling as though you'd danced with a cobra and forgotten your flute, or how to tap your feet to the ground accordingly. Our friendship died so quickly, and I'd begun to start seeing every color so vibrantly that emerald was only nostalgic and dull, though you struggled to come to terms with the fact that you didn't understand why I'd decided to follow the path of a kamikaze in my new life's cycle- surely that's what it must feel like, away from you? But 'best friend' is a category that isn't reserved from me, because nobody ever abashed me for watching your every move too deeply ( you danced when you walked, hoping that nobody would notice that extra sway in your hips ) or for the light in your eyes when you smiled ( hell, you were the sun, the stars, the moon, and all of their supernovas when you smiled at me ), and maybe I could say that I didn't know any better, but when my palms would ache for a little lick of your spine, I knew. I knew too ******* late that I'd better move galaxies away just to avoid being ****** further into you.

While others celebrated their long awaited ascent to graduation we too busy contemplating the almost (un)berable distance between stars.

Maybe it was because I'd mended your broken bones, helped hide the bruises - taught you the meaning of the word home that it hurt so badly. To pretend was to lie and I have always been honest and, God, I swear your eyes are made from lightning because the way you look at me has my skin tingling as though it'd been licked by fire and, Jesus, I have spent countless nights wondering what it would be like to have a taste of your lips. So when I showed up with a bottle of whiskey as my apology I knew I had doomed us because our past had proven that we lingered in darker tendencies and I'm not sure what burned more, the whiskey or your lips but God I would gladly drown myself in both. With your arms around my neck and my hands on your waist I knew that we weren't going to last because you deserved better than a carcass of a girl (even if your fingertips made me feel more alive than I have been in years). I was already dead inside but God, God - I would do anything to live for you.

i.

Promises lay broken at our feet- like the bottles of verity that you mix with your orange juice. We're resting in pieces; and these, our shattered dreams, lay like the dejected children of the sun- too far away to glimmer bright enough for our admiration. We were a star, baby, and I ruined it. I tore my calloused digits right into the core of your humanity. My eyes screamed of perjury while yours, open and pure, were infallible. I should not be allowed to cry rivulets of tears as I write this, and one might assume that it is because I am scared of this truth that fate lay heavy on my breast- but, no. At once I believed we were one, and I wish you would not ache from this torture as I do, dare I part my lips.

ii.

When I get on my knees at night, hands folded in prayer, I ask the Lord to shed some of his forever-shining light – the light of the sun, the essence of the universe (or so some say) down upon my weary shoulders. You never once asked why every morning started with a shot of liquor but had you, I would have exhaled the truth like a balloon with a pinprick of a hole punctured into its (my) flimsy skin. Your eyes, the same eyes I have worshiped for years cut into me with a truth that is poisoning in its potency (almost like the bottle of whiskey that has become my best friend). You think you’ve hidden the truth from me behind a veil, whispered lies escaping your lips- but we were once one, I know you better than I know the drum that beats in my chest. I look at you, at us, and think that even a dying star is beautiful.

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

I would take him back in the same span of time that my heartbeats adjust to mirror the flutter of hum-wings whenever I catch a glimpse of his ghost in my soul.

It cries for him while scrying through its windows and only he could settle it into perfect pieces, but he presses his hands against the jumbled mess that he left behind and pretends he doesn't remember how it is to feel me back into place.

I never thought that I would be this lost without another person, and sometimes I could forget that something should be looking for me, but then he speaks and his voice makes me feel found and his gaze reminds me that I belong in a place that he expelled me from in October; when leaves soaked in the passion he dropped and painted themselves with his fire, when clouds tried to warn me with grey soldiers, and when the Eiffel tower turned into shoddy log cabins with rust and tin signs reading 'Motel' instead of 'Paradise'.

He never loved the smell of my nail polish, so he never kissed my fingers- yet, I heard rumor that his lips trailed along all ten of her lithe digits and breathed her in the same way he would learn to inhale smoke next year in January, when I grew wise enough not to be his vice and she grew bored of him trying to mold her into one.

I laughed when she broke his heart and cried because I am not sure if mine will ever be healed again.

In April, when my resolve to break myself of him the same way one would break a brittle bone if pressed between harsh jaws too tight, he called.
I knew I shouldn't answer, but Cupid had yet to retrieve his anchor from my lips and when I could hold strong no longer he greeted me with a nostalgic-feeling smile in his voice and a shackle for my mind, embedded with a cursive 'K.S.'.

It's been half-a-year since that October and his passion is still in the leaves and his masons haven't glanced at 'paradise'- my nails are still black and he doesn't love the smell yet- I am going to Purchase and he is packing for Atlanta with a fever as though he would depart tomorrow, and I can't help but wonder if he thinks of me when he folds his clothes into each box and how much I was willing to travel behind his shadow if he just glanced over his shoulder a few times a day.

You are
every fallen piece of skin
and strand of hair you
left behind, along with
the perfume that
I can't seem to wash
from my pillow.

I spilled your love into my
sink and tried to wash it with
formaldehyde,
I bartered your words away to
the 90% of the grey matter
I don't use,
I taught myself to pretend
every emotion in your eyes
were just a mirror of mine-
but, despite all of this,
I can never coax my
memories to reject you.

This body was never your temple.
It was never your kingdom.
It was your carpet,
which you burned with each
steely gaze and flaming word,
and which you trampled upon after
every storm.

You were every broken stone I
painted bone-white
after you hurled them into the heavens
only to watch them fall
again-
onto me.

Carving your name into my ribs,
you taught me to
sigh you into existence
each post-mortem night,
and I haven't found a room yet
where I can breathe without
inhaling you in
again.