one of my best friends told me that
the first time she got high that she focused in on little details,
almost compulsively.
that she was scared of accidentally stepping on
the all snails on the sidewalk so she stayed frozen in place
for what seemed like hours.
paralyzed.
i was scared of loving you and accidentally ******* it up
so i stayed frozen in place and just… watched it slip past me.
paralyzed.
my finger still stretching, like they were planning
on catching… something.
now, i’ll never know what.
so i guess what i’m trying to say is
you can’t focus on the details so much that you forget
about the big picture
and you can’t love, you can’t live,
being afraid.
because sometimes being in love is kind of like
drowning while you're on fire and getting punched in the face.
repeatedly.
and yet you want it all the time.
handing half of your heart over to another person
and expecting them not **** up is insane.
and you’ve told me before to stop making
metaphors out of moments.
not everything is poetry somethings just... are.
but i love you as i imagine icarus must have loved the sun
before it swallowed him whole.
we are beautiful because we are so doomed.
life would not be nearly as incredible as it is if we got to live it twice.
living is sort of like dying with a seatbelt on.
we are a moment like a movie
where they kept the camera running for too long,
where they didn’t leave all the awkward false starts of conversation
on the cutting room floor.

i believed you when you said you loved me after 3 weeks because i am an old book and no one has ever taken the time to dust me off before. my pages are aged and delicate and my cover is disconnecting from the spine. but there you were, trying to read a dusty book.

but after a few weeks, you must not have liked where i was going. was my story too boring? was it too cliché? was i not long enough, was there a plot twist you didn't like, was my print too small? did i break too much for you to even read because every time you touched me, a page would turn to dust?

she is an old book just like me. i hope you didn't tell her you loved her after a few weeks. i hope you didn't dust her off to use the pages to roll cigarettes and leave her on your nightstand. i hope you take the time to read her and understand her. i hope you discuss her pages in book clubs and i hope you read her in coffee shops and before you go to sleep and on long trips and in quiet corners of the library.

i hope, for her sake, she's not the story i was.

-m. j. g.

Day 1. I was in complete denial, but I thought about dying.
Day 2. I cleaned my room and it didn't make me feel any better.
Day 3. I cried so ******* the phone with my dad. And it was his birthday.
Day 4. I knew you replaced me.
Day 5. I started thinking about other people.
Day 6. I went out by myself for the first time in my entire life.
Day 7. You asked me out, and I was terrified you were going to leave me again.
Day 8. I heard a song that made me think of you.
Day 9. I saw you at our bar, and it ruined my night.
Day 10. I went home and snuggled with my mom, and she told me that I'm not allowed to say your name anymore.
Day 11. I stayed up for over 24 hours because I didn't want to see you in my dreams.
Day 12. I spent the night with a man who makes me feel like a queen.
Day 13. I watched a black and white movie and the main character looked like you and I didn't cry.
Day 14. I didn't check your facebook.
Day 15. A man gave me $300 just to spend the night with him after we drank scotch.
Day 16. My anger has turned to nothing. I feel nothing about you.
Day 17. I saw you on the street and slowed my stride so I wouldn't cross paths with you.
Day 18. I'm okay. And you're horrible. But I wish you the best.
Day 19. I hate you. What is Valentine's Day without you?
Day 20. I miss you. But I never want to be with you again.
Day 21. Who will I watch Game of Thrones with?
Day 22. The man I've been seeing is so much better at *** than you.
Day 23. I'm so bitter that you replaced me.
Day 24. I can't listen to Alt-J anymore because it makes me cry over you.
Day 25. I wish you would've just stayed and came to Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Day 26. You're welcome for buying you "Life is Strange".
Day 27. It makes me so sad that I won't be able to quote South Park with you anymore.
Day 28. I love you, but I hate you.
Day 29. I fed you popcorn when we saw Star Wars and it felt like we were back together.
Day 30. You've made me feel grief more than any family member has passed.

You once told me you thought I was beautiful.
Now I'd tell you I hate myself when I look in the mirror.
You once told me I made you happy.
Now I'd tell you that seeing you only makes me sad.
You once told me you'd get me back to feeling one hundred percent.
Now I'd tell you that you're the reason I'm far from it.
You once told me you missed kissing me when we were apart.
Now I'd tell you I can barely remember the feeling of your lips on mine.
You once told me a lot of things,
and I have a lot to tell you,
but I won't
because words don't seem to mean much anymore.

I thought I was doing what's best for her...
But I'm also doing what's worse for me.

I stopped writing love poems when I met you,
and started writing psalms instead: I took
your lips as the body and your hips
as the blood of a Holy Spirit you’ve been
hiding in your eyes, your eyes, your eyes
that I’ve been praying to
worship, worship, worship. Some would call
this feeling blasphemy, but since it is winter,
I am willing to take a little trip down to hell
to melt the cold in my bones, especially
if that means I can walk you back
to Heaven. But don’t take this all too seriously
because
I stopped writing love poems when I met you,
and started writing psalms instead: I took
your words as Gospel and raised them to my
tongue and matched it with yours to bathe
myself in your waters to wash away my sins-
and yes, I am a sinner, for I have undertaken
many a Crusade to prove myself worthy
of you. But the blood of my enemies is your
hips. The lips of those I have left for you is
your body. And still in your hell I find Heaven.
But
don’t take this all too seriously because
I stopped writing love poems when I met you.

Hey you.

Yes you. Fourteen year old blonde girl with her eyes on the floor and the world in her hand.

Why are you looking around an empty room waiting for something beautiful to happen?

Don’t you know how brilliant you are?

You don’t have the perspective to know that one day you will rule the world.

You will fall in love again, and he still won’t love you back. Not the way you wanted him to.

You will glue yourself back together so many times that you’ll forget what it feels like to not have cracks in you.

You’ll be lonely more often than you’ll be in good company.

Music will begin to feel like oxygen instead of a vapid hobby.

Thicken your skin kiddo, but never be afraid to sob when Fields of Gold plays on the radio.

Look around the room every chance you get and listen to the sound a family makes.

Don’t let him take away the one thing you’ve ever been good at.

Go ahead. Curl up into your little corner of the world and cry for a bit. Nobody said it would be easy.

But stop for a second.

Stop running around like the world is ending.

Look in the mirror.

Really look.

Memorize the mascara tracks down your cheeks and the look in your eyes that says “There must be something better than this.”

Keep it in your back pocket when you’re out ruling the world.

So that one day, when a fourteen year old blonde girl with the world in the palm of her hand comes to you with tears in her big eyes.

You can say,

“Baby, don’t you know how brilliant you are?

Take a look around the room, and make something beautiful happen.”