we said
we were both better off
but that didn't wash the
metallic taste of blood
from biting my tongue
and begging you to stay.

they say
a watched *** never boils
and that is why I turned my back on the door,
still hoping you would come through it
and say I'm home.


you said
we were forever
but you're the boy
who never could fully love
and I'm the girl
who loved too much
and together we were
chaos and destruction,
a shattered glass in a child's hands.

We are sitting on the shallow side of an empty pool,
avoiding the remnants of algae water settled in small ponds.
I am wearing a burgundy, baby doll dress, the one I used to wear I was 8.
I say something in slow motion, you laugh like a child;
I forgot how the lines gather softly, around the corners of your eyes
as if you were squinting at the sun.

i do not regret it
i do not feel ****** about it
and i would do it again in a
*heartbeat.

I thought about writing down all the ways you destroyed me but every time I tried I ended up writing my own name.
it's harder to leave the place that's killing you when all of the people you love are there and you think of ways to hold them but they just keep telling you to let go.
let go
let go
you keep forcing yourself to believe you'll be happier that way but really when will you be happy? when will the dark circles under your eyes go away?
when will you forgive yourself for not being there when your brother blew out his birthday candles? when you weren't there to pick up the pieces of your little sister's heart when it was destroyed for the first time, and all the times after that.
he'll say you were different but he drinks whiskey with her too and now your voice always cracks when you call someone else baby. you'll whisper into her hair "honey i'm never going anywhere" but rocks turn into sand and leaves turn into dust and you turn into a memory she won't have the pleasure of forgetting.
I'll count the bruises that cover my stomach and pick out the ones that look most like something you'd apologize for.
I'll convince myself that I only ran back to you because I was homesick. I don't think we fit each other no matter how much I want us to, you were the closest and I'm terrified of what's going to happen after I'm gone.  
write down the names of all the lovers that left your hands cold and your eyes red and ask yourself why they're starting to look more like a picture frame and less like the person that never really said goodbye.
start drinking your coffee black because there's always a bitterness on your tongue anyways and scream their name at the walls because they will always listen to you.
we were alcoholics by 16 because the way they looked at you was too suicidal for a child to survive.
the school is so close to the hospital we're starting to feel comfortable with emergencies now.
this is an abandoned tape that keeps repeating itself and I am tired of waiting for someone to find it.