i don't want to smell alcohol
on your breath when you kiss me,
i want to taste the hours that you waited
and to feel how much you missed me.

i don't want to breathe in smoke
when i bury my face into your chest,
i want to hear your barely-beating heart
and feel it pulsate in the warmth of your flesh.

i don't want to see the moon & stars
swirl like diamonds against the onyx sky,
unless i can do so in the comfort of your arms
and have your fingers interwoven with mine.

i don't even want my morning coffee
unless you're the one that brings it to me,
having learned to make it just the way i like it
and committed my preferences to your memory.

i don't want sunrises or sunsets
if i can't watch them dance upon your skin,
or love you between dove-white sheets
on saturday mornings at half-past ten.

i don't want to see the day i become old & grey
an early grave i would sooner invite,
than to live to greet old age without you
by my side to guide me into eternal night.

- m.f.

E,

  i don't know if this is a letter or a rant or just a bunch of mixed up thoughts that i've been keeping in my head for far too long - so i'm just going to ramble for a bit. i firstly want to say, i would have loved you so well, and for a while that fact haunted me to the point i lost sleep and the desire to eat. i'm better now. i'm better than i've been in a long time. and i don't blame you even a little bit for all the things i chose to do to by my own hands. but for a really long time, i was angry at you for leaving me. that's as simply as i can possibly put it. just, angry. so angry. you came out of nowhere - and swept me up into the most intense whirlwind of emotions i had ever experienced in my nineteen years of life - and then, just as swiftly as you entered in, you departed, leaving me with not much more than feeble lines like, "it's for the best" and "i'm so sorry". i was very angry, and even more so confused. i think the problem was that you thought i would fix you or complete you or give you a purpose or something - i don't know. maybe none of that's correct. like i said, i don't know. (there are lots of things i think, but few i know).

  you nearly loved me (i say nearly because we never quite got that far). i seemed to be your answer; or some kind of beacon that maybe you thought could be a guide. but the moment my cracks started to show, i think it scared you. i don't think you had ever loved a sad girl. or maybe you loved a sad girl and she hurt you. (i don't know). all i know is that i tried to talk about the train, and you told me no. i wanted to tell you about the things in my head and what they wanted me to do, but as soon as i tried, i was met with, "don't be stupid." i understand that you didn't. as much as it hurt. i think what made me angriest was your initial reassurance that you were different and you were staying. i knew better than to put faith in promises formed by hands of human flesh, but i had a lot of hope. so like i said, i don't blame you. and i've grown a lot since that time. i'm learning more about myself every day, and it's easier now to keep my head above the waves.  i do not resent you for your inability to stay.

  i think that if i had tried to write this all those months ago when my wounds were still fresh, i wouldn't have been as composed as i like to think i'm being now. i'm actually sitting here, as i type, thinking how ridiculous i'll feel if this entire thing is off and i've misread it all. but anyway, this isn't necessarily something i need you to read. but should you choose to, or maybe someday stumble across it, i hope that you understand. and i hope life treats you well.

warmth,
- m.f.

i miss the old wooden swing in my backyard
where i used to sit and think and write for hours

i miss being lazy on the living room couch
and watching cartoons with my youngest brother

i miss sitting in my room, hearing footsteps from the floor above
and being able to know exactly whose they were

i miss waking up late on saturday mornings
to the smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchen

i miss being able to tell my little sister she looks pretty
every morning before she goes off to school

i miss sitting on my mother's bedroom floor
and listening to her tell stories about Tennessee

i miss hearing my father constantly whistle and sing
while he walked around the house doing different things

i miss living four minutes away from my best friend
and sleeping at her house for days just because i could

i miss talking to my brothers at 2 o'clock in the morning
about absolutely nothing and positively everything

i miss taking pictures of my backyard, even though nothing
about it has really changed in the past twelve years

but i think that i miss home the most at mealtimes

- m.f.

you are fog over midnight water
and i am just a sailor's daughter
with a crippling fear of drowning
and a proneness to playing sink or swim.

m.f.

torn jeans
dimples
station wagons
shifting eyebrows
eager hands

wry smiles
chapped lips
cheap beer
deep-set eyes
pirated music

hates his birthday
stoplight-kisses
star-gazing in cornfields
****** knuckles
broken minds

lanky limbs
poetry books
scruffy faces
jet-black coffee
calloused hands that still feel soft

adventurer's heart
jumping fences
midnight tokes
always gives you hickeys
always opens your door

worn sneakers
chewed pen caps
late for work
old windbreakers
dirt under his fingernails

omniscient smirks
expensive cologne
good intentions -
but is bad with goodbyes
hates himself for making you cry

broken cigarettes
aviator shades at night
a perpetually furrowed brow
and a laugh that sounds like autumn leaves as they crunch beneath your feet

m.f.