I lie awake in the waves of the wake you left me in
My lungs fill with water until my chest bursts open
My body is a lake again
I know I make mistakes but I can't fake like I can displace your skin
I sink deep with every crash
Let me in
Let me in
Let me in
Let me

The slender curves of your waist
Smile at me as I caress you with my eyes
And undress you with my lies

My first promise to you is this
I promise I never cared
The reason I stayed was to cure my own
Sadness, that's why I stared
Not out of love or longing
But momentary relief from this suffocating loneliness

My second promise to you,
You were a good placeholder
Someone to bear through my pale conversations
Someone who offered me their body
Which I gladly accepted
The way you taste was a wonderful distraction
From all the things I experience in my head

My third promise, then
I promise you are replaceable
Your contribution to me, was all I needed
And you are nothing more than
A temporary,
that I valued as I value thing day to day items
Good while I need them
Useless when I don't

My fourth promise
You could have been anyone
I loved you, but anyone could have been you
People are like gas, and any gas would have filled
The void within me
You filled me up, took up all my space and time
But I only needed you for a little while

My fifth and final promise,
And I really mean this one
Everything I have just written is a lie
You are everything I have wanted
You are everything I will want
And I'm broken by my own inability to have kept you
So I tell myself I am numb to you
But the truth is
You make me melt
And I don't want to be frozen anymore



last two lines from Incubus song "Have You Ever" written by Brandon Boyd

I hardly know what I'm doing
As I ask the clerk for a pack of naturals behind the counter.
My make-up from yesterday's shift preserved nicely,
So the exchange followed suit.
I'm not good at this.
Naturally.
Fifteen minutes before walking into the convenient store
I paced the empty terminals of a car wash
Rehearsing my demeanor and forced eye contact.
I hate eye contact.
Stand tall and look confident.
But not too confident.
Be charming,
But not desperate.
Don't try to be ****.
(You're not ****.)
I'm four foot ten
And twenty years old.
Buying a pack of cigarettes for an addiction I don't carry
Shouldn't be this hard.
I'm not damaged,
I'm not drunk.
I'm not struggling,
And I'm certainly not a cigarette smoker.
But I'm here,
In Boston,
Stuck in-between the fibers of a girl
Who writes bad poetry and
Hardly knows what she's doing with much of anything.
Naturally.