Everyone you have lost is gone forever.  
If you try to call the dead, the phone won’t ring.
You won’t hear their voices.
The ground will shake like your wrists.
You will realize this sometime, when you’re in the bath and every nerve in your body is screaming at you to put your head under and count to a thousand.
You are more than a suicide note.
You are more than a suicide attempt.
You are more than cuts and bruises, and friends that abandon you and don’t even say hello in the hallways anymore.
People will leave you, daughter. People will leave you alone and shaking.
You’ll find solace in the most unexpected places, in the boys that look like they belong in the 1970s and in the vinyl that whispers to you while the sun is going down.
Eventually you will find the people that will bend the sky down to you so that you can touch the clouds.
They will become your motivation, they will become the glow in the dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
You will forget that they are plastic, and often mistake them for the night’s sky.
Memories do not always hurt, it’s okay to be nostalgic but do not drown in it.
Do not drown in anything but love, daughter.
Love every leaf, every lover’s vein.
And every single time you think you’re going insane.
You’re not.
Remember that the door is always closed, but always easily opened.
Remember that you can leave.
Remember that you can take the next flight out, start a new life.
Remember that the world is in your piano hands.
You’ll meet someone and call them love because they don’t know the difference between the dull and sharp edge of a knife.
You’ll write poems.
Lots of them.
You’ll write enough poems to fill the walls in all of the rooms in all of the houses you have ever lived in.
You’ll scrawl them on the tree stumps you find temporary homes in while walking in the forest.
You’ll engrave them on someone’s bones after they tell you that they would rather die a thousand deaths than go a second without your energy warming their cheeks.
For every accomplishment, erase five shortcomings from your mind.
Be yourself before you forget who that is.
Be, daughter, be who you want to be;
Be who you know yourself to be.
When the world is sleeping on your shoulders at 4 in the morning, don’t wake it up.  
Take a deep breath, rock the earth into a deeper sleep.
Tell the walls your secrets because they don’t whisper.
Don’t tell anyone with a tongue something you wouldn’t want to end up floating back out of their mouths like a catchy song.
When you’re standing up on stage, waiting to start your poem, do not avoid eye contact.
Make everyone nervous with your metaphors.
Make everyone nervous with your passion.
You are the strongest soul you’ll ever be.
And when I die, shall we not meet again,
Remember that I am your mother, daughter.
And mothers, *always know best.

Lungs burning with affliction, no prayer can help you realize that you are on fire.
Help me, open my ribcage and read the encryption that is my heart.
This is where my ideas form; this is where the magic happens.
This is where trees become homes when I turn to prose.
This is where love becomes tangible.
Take the helm from my chest cavity and steer me home.
Sew me back up and pretend you didn’t figure out how my mind works from studying my heartbeat.
You can keep my memories there, keep my stanzas there.
But you cannot lock up an idea.

Do you realize that every single time you open your mouth I’m wishing I could have a lobotomy?
I don’t want my brain to miss you when you leave.
I don’t want my heart to miss you when it realizes that it no longer beats in sync with yours.
You can take yourself away from me.
You can make me cry so the salt water stings my face like it’s a burning map.
You can take my poems from my veins and scatter them in the river.
But you cannot lock up an idea.

Oh Captain my captain, I think we are going down.
But everyone is just an arm’s length from drowning.
When life preservers are anchors and every single thing is whispering for you to sink.
The Bermuda triangle is just another place where sailors go to pray and what kind of god ***** you in and tests you with a tempest?
You and I are so much more than child’s play.
Tell me to stay.
Tell me my ideas do not belong on the ocean floor.
Because you cannot lock up an idea.

If the sun shines through your blinds, think of me.
Think of the morning.
But without all your leaving.
Don’t think of the bags packed, of the plane tickets bought.
Of the ferry setting off its horn for you in the middle of the night.
Think of the morning.
Without all your leaving.
With the coffee, with the metaphors that were leaking through the walls as you blinked.
You wanted to keep them for yourself, hold them hostage in your bones.
But you cannot lock up an idea.

So next time you think of leaving, think of taking the ferry across the ocean.
Next time you think of whispering my secrets into the waves that kiss the rocks like they are not hurting anyone, think of me first.
Without the poems.
Before I even started writing.
Remember how I chased butterflies and the sunset.
How I begged you to let me climb up on the roof to watch the sun rise again.
Remember that my ideas are my prayers to a god I have not yet found in the curve of your spine.
Remember that I want nothing more than to not have to miss you.
Remember that every time you dismiss my words, my art, my need to chase the sunset; you are diminishing my creativity.
Remember that you cannot lock up an idea.

Love letters to every person who has ever seen the stars as someone's freckles:

1. You were afraid to love him.  It was okay, he did not know much except for demanding what he wanted despite the word "no".
I want you knowing that you deserve better than half *** apologies and snowstorms for white blood cells.

2. She was your first girlfriend.  Her hair reminded you of your mother's curtains in the living room.  Burgundy.  
She loved you but she had to go, I bet you wish you never hung that rope in your basement.

3.  Everything was set on fire, even your lungs.  You started finding ashes everywhere but in your shoes.  Walk away
before she gives you a new meaning for saying grace.

4.  By now you've had enough of religious boys.  And Oh My God, how your hips felt like heaven.
This is all ******* and he always went to church hungover.

5. This time you've forgotten how to sleep without his breath in your ear.  I think his name was Noah or something like that.
It was ironic how he didn't have two dogs, two cats and oh yes, that's right.  He had two lovers.

6.  You went crazy with him, he was so full of water.  You thought you'd drown when he touched you, and you did.

7.  You were so pale that I thought you were dying.  This is a letter to myself to remind me to never fall in love with a boy who cares
more about putting his cigarettes out in public ashtrays than asking me how I take my coffee.
He was extra surprised to learn that I was vegan and only drank water when we sat in cafes.

Before you get lost in the unfinished maps of her veins
the ones like yours, but not stitched up too many times to count on the ticks of a clock,
make sure that she trusts you enough to tell the truth.
Make sure that she loves you enough to know how you lie.
Remember that every single time you open your mouth, she's wishing
you're saying I love you.
Remember that on Fridays she doesn't want to cook.
And she sure doesn't want you to cook anything that was slaughtered.
Remember that she prefers cheap whiskey over champagne.
And when you're opening your ribcage to show her how fast your heart beats
when she grabs your wrists, make sure the butterflies are set free.
Make sure they find the window.
Make sure they find a home.
Remember that every living creature is just that, living.
Remember that they have a heartbeat.
And when you stop breathing when you see her with her hair down,
when you're thinking about starting a religion about girls with flowers for eyes,
tell her she's beautiful.
Tell her she's so full of the future.
Get her a telescope so you can show her the moon when it's bigger than both your thumbs.
Take her skiing while it's Summer in Australia even though you curse the snow as if it
were born out of wedlock.
Let her know she's not the first but she's definitely the only, and you're so scared of dying.
You never know what you have until it's locked firmly in your grasp as if to not let it run away.
You might lose a lot of blood but you'll never lose your way home.
I don't want to hear the dial tone.
I want to hear your voice, I want to hear you scream.  Tell me to leave.
Tell me that I am the only road that leads you to a purpose.
That in a world of blindness I am so technicolour.
Even though I can't promise you that, I can give you my words, thrusted from my lungs
like wildfire.
Searching for the way out.
Talk to me about religion, please please convince me that there is something out there other than
rotting in the ground for all of eternity.
Bible scripture doesn't whisper of your lips like my pillows do.
I never really thought about pillow talk until they started speaking me to sleep.
I find myself found by the curvature of your spine, of the shadows that take up residence on your shoulders like they have lived there all along.
I want to kiss away every bit of pain that has ever stopped you from smiling at strangers
and let you know that I'm coming home and I will always find your hands.
Let your ribs shake when your heart has had enough.
Let them shake.
Let the rain come through your window while you're sitting there in your makeshift darkroom.
You are the only thing I know about consistency.
And before I get lost in the unfinished maps of your veins,
I will be making sure they lead to me.

If my hands could tell a story, they'd say how your spine always looked beautiful in the morning,
when the sun's rays created shadows that danced along your back and flirted with your neck
like they'd never meet again.
They'd say how your lips always curved upwards as if they were saying hello.
If my hands could tell a fairytale, there'd be no happy ending,
there'd be no end at all.
I wish my lips could finally part to say the right things,
because all I want to do is hear your name roll off my tongue,
in the same sentence as "you're mine".
I want them to tell the story of your lips,
red, and taunting and always mysterious.
I always got a toothache when you weren't in the room.
I think I need a root canal.
If my knees could speak they'd tell you how lovely it was
to bend to curl to your legs.
If my knees could tell a story, they'd describe the cold, hard
bitter kiss of death they shared with the pavement so many times
when I found your bags at the door.
If my knees could beg, they'd ask for forgiveness.
For being too bony, too weak,
for not being able to support your dreams.
(I'd give up anything now for that little apartment in New York
and nothing but two typewriters)
If my fingers had a chance, they'd trace the familiar lines of your collarbones
and over your shoulders, because by now they've committed them to memory.
If my fingers had a chance, they'd hold yours again.
They say to stay away from broken people but I saw you as a puzzle
just waiting for someone to put you back together again.
If my eyes could tell a story they would whisper softly of your flowing hair
and pixie-like body.
They would ask you to stay.
They would jump out of my body to give you a glimpse of how I see you.
They would show you how utterly unprecedented you are.
If I believed in heaven I would tell you that you're a miracle.
That you are something I wished upon for years as a child.
You are a star.
You are a supernova.
You are a black hole, ******* me in and twisting me about until I am nothing
but battered limbs and my broken heart.
You are God with the Devil's kiss.
If my lips could move they'd say "stay".
You were mine.

You're so beautiful darling,
your words can move mountains even when you think
they can't touch an anthill.
You are a rebel with a cause and the cause is me.
You are Janis Joplin in the evening, without the ******.
"Darling, I love you"
"I love you, darling" and there was no need to say "too"
Three words were enough to throw a curveball in a hockey rink,
to ride horses in a car race, to love someone at night
and even more in the morning.
You are an earthquake, I know you'll break my heart but I welcome it.
It would be such an honor to be broken by you.
You are my guilty pleasure and all of my proud ones.
I want to tattoo you on my skin in places only I can see
so that every time I take off my sweater and my tshirt and everything
masking my scars and tree rings of age, I will always be surprised to find you.
I want to hold you in the crevice of my elbow like a baby and never ever let you go.
Darling, you're a willow tree that I write poems under.
In the most poetic way, I found you in hallways, always.
In my high school where I hid in the bathrooms, Jane loves John
and everything else scribbled in hearts in bad ninth grade writing.
I found you there. I find you here, in my heart.
You are filled with blood, you are 72% water that I would gladly drown in.
I think if I kissed you you'd poison me with your lips.
You are the forked tongue of desire.
I want to talk to you about dreams, I want to be your sweetest nightmare.
I don't want you to question reality but if you do, think you're lucid dreaming.
Because I want you to want me around; even when you're sleeping.
You are 2am with the lights on and the music loud.
You are a five hour time difference dancing inside of me like a storm.
If my knees wouldn't give out, I would run to you.
And when they did, I would crawl to you.
My hands scraped from debris from car crashes, you are electric.
You are heat lightning. You give me flashes of hope on a humid day.
You are a winter breeze through a cracked window in all of the glorious ways that could be glorious.
I will whisper to you that I don't know why I'm whispering,
there is nobody home, "I love you" sounds better in hushed tones.
You're so beautiful, Darling.
The prettiest pictures you'll ever take will be self-portraits.
Don't argue with me, I know you're stubborn.
It's written in the stars.
You can move me like a mountain or an anthill
because your strength is a blood diamond permanently placed on my left hand.
I did, I do, I will.
You are forever.

Sometimes I catch myself thinkin’ about you with my fingers crossed.
And my eyes closed, like I’m wishing for something.
This is funny to me, because I learned recently
that my brain does this weird thing where it’s incapable of feeling superstitious.
I have always wanted a black cat.
You have always been a wishing well begging for the famished to come and dip their hands.
You wear a sign that says
“Take something, or leave something, doesn’t matter, just leave feeling won”
Leave feeling like you won.
This is how you will leave me.
When my fingers are crossed. Because then the promises don’t matter.
When my eyes are closed. Because it will hurt more to watch you leave
than to wonder if you crawled or if you ran.
When my teeth hurt, from all the chatter, from all the shake, from all the wisdom they extracted.
You know I’ve been leaving bite marks in the crust of the earth,
trying to find a wormhole that will take me to the moment you thought,
“hey, this girl’s gonna write poems about me every Friday” and
“hey, she won’t win me, but maybe she’ll win something”.
I'm the award winning heartache, I'm the pain they thought would last forever.
I'm my grandmother's years of Elvis & Jack Daniel's coming to the surface
and passing themselves off as vertigo.
You're the sum of the times you and the earth were in disagreement over your leaving.
You're the only thing that will shine when the sun dies.
We are Samson and Delilah. You are so sunshine.
I am grateful to the doctors that gave me second chances, I am grateful for the opportunity
that someday is engraved with.
This is how you will leave me.
I pray with my fingers crossed.
and my eyes closed, like I'm wishing for something.
I don't say Amen. I say thank you.
Thank you.

I miss you like sadness.
I used to wrap around myself like some lovelorn python
with a desire for suicide blondes.
Called yourself a wrecking ball, but you had no choice.
Maybe you wanted to caress my house softly without destruction.
Maybe you cried afterwards like a lost child on a mountain of doubt.
Full of maybes! You make me full of maybes!
I was taught as a child that maybe was just a watered down no.
Stop watering the truth down, I'm not your flower.
I'm a ****.
And I'll just continue to grow until I can't fit in anything except for my own grave.

You make me want to go to church.
I was baptised once, I forget as what.
I honestly don't even know what religion is,
but I can religiously blacken my lungs with nicotine and lies.
Lie with me.
Caress my sins.

My body is world war three,
I have nuclear bombs in the dips of my collarbones
and every single freckle you used to compare to the galaxies
are bullet holes.
Save your prose for someone who gives a ****.

Pull the blinds baby, we don't need light in here.
Did you know that with three minutes of asphyxiation you become brain dead?
Let's try it baby, suicide pact?
Let's dance with the dead darling.
You always said the devil was our best friend.

My tarot cards turned black when you turned them over.
You said that I was hard to read.
I had trouble reading anything except the bell jar.
And now it's my turn to ring it.

You're prettier with a necklace made of fingers.
I want to collect your energy in a mason jar and sell it at a garage sale.
I want to smash it in the middle of a highway and lay in a ditch until the wolves eat my body.
I want to be lost.
Lose me baby.
I'll lose myself in your lies.
Lie with me.
I just want to be held.

If you see her again before I do, tell her the way she left left me shaking like a winter windchime;
the song too frozen to melt on her tongue.
I am scared of all her moving on.
The only serious love poems I write are about the same person who hides God in her hair and shows me the lingerie she bought while I try to unfog my glasses to look at her straight.
I am too convinced that she is made up of lines that lead straight to my firework skin. There has been too many explosions here.
The only way to deal with missing you is to tell you and wait and see if you feel the same. Or novacane.
I imagine you taste like an acid trip... all conspiracy theories and sugary words too sober to ever speak.
If you see her again before I do, tell her that I am a mess without her.  That my mind only settles with her tear-stained cheeks and the only way I can see the ocean in the winter in Canada is to look into her eyes.
I am scared that I am being overdramatic.
I want to rub our wrists together so we can trade scars.
Tell me the story of how you met your best friend and I'll tell you the story of how I fell out of loving my mother.
I would rather listen to you ramble than check the time.
If you see her again before I do, tell her that on the way home from her arms I counted 1200 streetlamps, 13 lovers, 3 liquor stores and 72 shakes of my knees.
Tell her I miss her like Frances misses Kurt.  Like dive bars miss blues music.
When I see you again, lover, I'll tell you that when you told me your name two years ago, I was surprised that it wasn't Love.

I once knew a girl who wore flowers in her hair
and hope in her heart
she carried herself with a smile and a straight back
and she never slouched once or told anyone she was sad

she had long brown hair and big brown eyes
and she loved the universe, and everything in it

she once told me that she wanted to grow up and do everything
she didn't say what, she just wanted to do-
she wanted to be
and I didn't know what she meant but now I do
because all I want to do is be, for her

because she didn't get to grow up
and even though she ended her life,
the girl with the flowers in her hair
did not **** herself

words did;
words uttered to hurt
and they hurt, they really hurt
but she doesn't anymore

and even though she's gone,
she's not really gone because I see her everywhere I look
I see her in the people that were good to her
I see her in the leaves that I avoid stepping on,
at my childhood home, where she visited for my birthday parties
when I pass her house
and when I go to our old school

I see her in the good in the world
she taught me lessons I needed to know
and even though she took her own life,
she taught me more about living than dying

I once knew a girl who wore flowers in her hair
and even though she's gone, she's not

If I thought I was losing you I wouldn't beg you to stay
I'd say that when you breathe, I see stars because I imagine your heart inside your body pumping blood
to your veins and your lungs expanding and letting go and all I can think of is how I never want to be your lungs
because I could never let go of your air.

I'd tell you that your eyes put the northern lights to shame.
That I've been everywhere and nowhere feels more at home than
sitting on the curb of a street in a city I don't know with you by my side.

If I thought I was losing you I would tell you that I'm not one
for love poems, but the sound of you saying my name is enough to make me think of red roses and blue violets.
And that when you touch me the roses are blue and the violets are red
and everything painful inside my head doesn't matter.

If I thought you were going to leave I wouldn't ask you to stay,
I'd tell you that every word that comes from your mouth leaves me breathless;
That there are little caves in your body and I picked a temporary home in your larynx
so you could always feel me in the words you're nervous to say.

I'd let you know that my whole life I've been searching for myself,
and amidst the shadows I found your bright eyes, and I lost my senses there...
and found them as well.

I want to tell you that all I need is you and a record player.
That music runs through my veins, and right next to Every Grain of Sand
and my love for Bob Dylan, you're there.
Shining through my bloodstream, leading the way to my heart.

If I thought I was losing you, I wouldn't beg you to stay.
I'd say that you're the best and worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry.
That I find metaphors in the notches of your spine,
that I play them like a piano.
And most of all, above all these things,
I'd say darling don't go, I'll miss you.

Can we get much higher than this?
When all I can hear over the old dial up phone you use is the sound of nicotine exhales
and big sighs caused by silences I am too scared to fill.
Can we love any more than this?
I can hear you humming the song that's spinning and it makes me love you more.
You laugh at my nervousness, how I twitch when you say my name.
I always ignore you because I'm scared you'd say goodbye.
Can we get more tired than this?
Four am, your favorite albums crooning me to sleep.
Could you be more mistaken?
You thought I was scared of your darkness, of the shadows beckoning to you from every corner of
homes you did not own, and people you did not really know... yet.
I have a permanent dent in my ear from piercings that were too heavy for my fragile skin,
and everytime I run my fingertips over it, it reminds me of you.
You are bent but never broken, never broken.
Can we get more distant than this?
It's been months since I could honestly say that I thought you loved me.
So many miles, so many miles, so many



miles...
You're 874 kilometres away from me.
You are universes away from me.
And now everything tastes like goodbye.

there comes a time in your life when you will stop pretending
you will stop seeing the world as a glass vase holding your favorite flower
you will smash the vase, and let the flower out
and you know it will die because now it's out of it's cage
but it would have died either way because you forgot to water it in the first place
you were too busy admiring the caged thing to realize that it has other needs

us humans, we love to lock things up, you see
we lock up animals, so we can stare at them in seclusion
we lock up humans, for almost exactly the same reason
we lock up our feelings, our dreams
and we throw away the key

but maybe one day you will stop pretending
you will stop pretending that you're happy in that glass vase
and maybe you will smash it
because you see; flowers are much more beautiful in the ground.

Everything is dust.
I found you on my bookshelf untouched.
I am sorry, I'll leave you there again and I'm never good at apologies.
I tried very hard to leave you alone, but you were this enigma.
I swear that the Gods put attracting magnets in both of us, because whenever I speak with you
I have this surge inside me, something that can't be explained.
It feels like we were written in the stars or some other *******.
I don't believe in that anyways.
Or I didn't, until you.
I am sorry that I wear nooses as necklaces, and I'm sorry that maybe you got tangled in them.
I'm sorry you couldn't breathe, because I wanted you to.
I want you to keep on breathing forever and when you can't anymore...
then I won't either.
I have a feeling that if you read this you'd be sick to your stomach.
I have a feeling that if I touched you again you wouldn't know why,
but you wouldn't ask.
You were just like that sometimes.
My candle flickers everytime I think of you, and I think it misses you as well.
I think that it needs you to stay aflame. I think I need you to stay aflame.

My neighbours are breaking some things out in the backyard and I kind of want to say
"hey, here's another thing you can break" and let them smash me into pieces with their hammer.
I think that would be a fun way to die.
You know, my brother asked me if I wanted to die in my sleep or of old age.
I said neither. I told him that I wanted to get in a big car wreck,
or murdered in an alley.
He asked why, and I consequently told him that I wanted to feel the life being pulled from me.
I told him you only die once. I don't think he was ready for that.
He is six.

If you were there you'd probably laugh and offer to be the one to ****** me.
In secret, I liked that about you.
I like that you clap your hands when you laugh.
I am sorry, I'll leave you there again.
I am sorry.
I'm never good with apologies.

I am sorry to her, also.
Because I never wanted her to hurt.
I was jealous that she gets you all the time.
I was jealous that she is your stars and your moon and your sun in the morning.
I only got to be a silhouette in your life. A shadowy figure clinging to dark magic and the shadows of ravens
in cemeteries where I imagined myself being buried.

I miss you so much and I've never even had you, how sad.
I think that someone like you almost always turns into a hurricane.
Everything good must come to an end and all those merry little details.
I've used up all of my metaphors on you.
I can't compare your eyes to anything else except for the most exquisite of art pieces,
and I've never been to a gallery.
I guess I'm not one to make judgement on anything.

I am so sorry for losing, but I am not sorry that you're winning.
You'll be much better now, and I think she makes you into more of a martyr.
I don't know how I feel about that.
The only poetic thing I can say to you now is "I'm sorry"
and even though I'm not good with apologies,
I really mean that.
I think now I've turned to dust.

There was a time when the only thing you could see
behind your eyelids were your mother's big blue eyes-
and now you have to concentrate to remember her.

There was a time when your dad was the only person
you'd let see you cry but now he's the only one
you won't.

There was a time when family meant the world to you,
when you were asked to draw a map in elementary school
and all you did was draw a human heart with the veins
all leading to stick figures of your parents.

There was a time when you were young and you sort of
realized that everything was not how it should be,
you thought "normal kids aren't like this" and
"normal parents don't act like this", until it became
your normal.

There were days when you wouldn't eat simply because
you watched your mother do the same.

There were hours when you'd take pills and lie in bed
because it was normal,
because you'd seen it.

But now you are older and you still have that infectious smile
but you know better, and family isn't connected to your heart anymore.
They're connected to your brain, where memories are stored.

There were days you spent letting go of the past, letting go of those
big blue eyes and the man who you'd let see you cry;
letting go, letting go
letting go
*let it go.

this is a poem about the summer you dropped acid.
this is a poem about the summer you called me and said you loved me.
this is an insecurity.
a sweaty-palmed handshake.
a speech on something you only half believe in.
I am nothing to worship, I want you to know that I am nothing
and still want to come blow smoke in each other's mouths.
this is a poem about the girl that said she wanted to kiss you but didn't.
this is: lonely nights, big sweaters, my blurry vision, your pale face.
this is a hallucination.
I want to say-
If she kisses your lips before I do, whisper into hers that she is not the first, the last or the only.
I want to say-
If she says she doesn't understand you, show her the photograph that laughs with your mother.
I want to say-
*everyone you love will leave for California.
everyone who loves you will stay.

One day I will look in the mirror and find a stranger

There are studs of silver all over my room from when I was younger
and all I wanted to do was shove unknown metals through my skin
and call it rebellion.

There are black nailpolish bottles, and scissors for cutting my own hair
and face paint for when I wanted nothing else but to look like Bowie
I am not a normal teenage girl, and I think I guess I'm an adult now.

I kissed boys on the mouth when I was wishing they'd kiss my soul
I tried to drown myself in the bathtub until I figured out that I couldn't breathe-
and that I wanted to.

There is nothing poetic about the way that I want so badly on Saturday nights
to cut into my own skin with whatever sharp object I can find
There is nothing poetic about how I haven't left the house in three months except
to go buy hair dye so I don't have to recognize myself anymore.

I don't find poetry in the stars anymore because they remind me too much of you.

I looked in the mirror today and found a stranger
and nothing about this is poetic.

You act like the flowers on my dress aren't alive,
like they won't root themselves in your hands when you touch me.

You looked at me with a mouthful of forevers
and I looked at you with stained glass eyes
that have never seen the inside of a church.

You act like my lips won't find you,
like they won't caress a map until they land on your hometown.
Until they touch your memories.

But that's all I will be soon- a memory.

Soon you'll realize that you have more flies in your house than loved ones
and you'll remember the day you pushed me away.

You were full of bad ideas and the color red.
Your hands reminded me of diamonds for some unknown reason.

You used to walk along the edge of the roof on apartment buildings
you said you were testing fate.
I called it testing the wind.
One bitter spit your way from the clouds and you'd be one with the cement.

I told you, "Stop batting your eyes at death darling",
it will greet you faster than you can say you wish you had more time.

I need you to keep my flowers alive.

the day I fell in love for the first time was the second time
it was meeting you first, all halo handcuffs and hallelujah
I'm no playwright honey, but we were one act
scene 1 you should have kissed her
scene 2 you should have kissed her
scene 3 you should have kissed her
scene 4 when you meet, it isn't always magic
scene 5 when you walk, fall behind on purpose just incase she falls
scene 6 stumble on purpose just to grab a hold of her
scene 7 wear her arm like a chokechain and pretend you won't let go
scene 8 she has a bad memory and I am easy to forget
scene 9 it's been days and elvis songs are still making me hide my face,
I call myself lover and remind myself it's been days.  it's been days.
I let her hold me, let her make me honest; honestly, her tears are hymns
waiting to be sung through the right teeth.
and those sparkling lights that we did a push and pull dance beneath
we both wanted to hold eachother's hands.
I was made for the leaving,
I was made for the breaking, my bones are braced.
But honey you have god in your palms and you don't want to let him
see you crack me.
Open, like my heart when you whispered thank you for your poems.
Thank you for loving me.
But this is not a performance, this is a recollection of memories.
Tapping on my tongue saying stop stuttering, idiot.
Tell her you love her.
Tell her two years ago you fell in love with an artist.
And now you'll never die.
scene 10 she's watching you stumble over your words about her
scene 11 I still love you
scene 12 I always will
end scene.

everything about you screamed infinite
the type of person I could spend forever trying to figure out

sunsets and sunrises pass by like fast trains, and my minds still reeling
a photographic memory is a blessing and a curse but right now its a gift
i can remember every word spoken, every laugh and smile
and i play it back like a movie

the kind of spirit that makes you forget the hurt
the universe cries but you remind me that it laughs too

coexistence of bodies and minds, sweet and surreal
worlds colliding at a rapid pace, they collide
they become one

everything about you screamed infinite
everything about me screamed indefinite
indecisiveness and paranoia floods my veins
love and knowing floods yours

a scale sits between the palms of our hands
and is level, for we are balanced

I lift my pen and let my hand guide my mind
my fingers already know you and they haven’t felt you
yet my page screams your name wholeheartedly

vast space was left empty in the corners of my brain
but they’re filled now, even in the dustiest of places

everything about you screamed infinite

the harsh reality of life is that everything moves on
and for things to move on, first other things have to end

people leave;
they leave you and they leave places and they leave things behind
and sometimes it's messy, and you'll cry and hug your pillow at night
because it's the only thing that has stayed
and people may leave places, and maybe you'll be a person leaving a place
but you'll be finding a new one

everyone finds their way, and an end is just a new beginning
because that is the true meaning of moving on

and maybe you'll look around your new house in a new city or even state or country
and you'll find something; a letter maybe, from a person who left
or a bracelet, or a picture- anything that holds a memory
and you'll remember them, and it won't be because they left
it will be because they moved on, and luckily they left you with a piece of them
because we are all made up of fragments of other people and places and things
and no matter how hard we try to piece them all together quickly and with shaking hands,
we can't

and sometimes the puzzles that are our souls will be messy,
and you'll cry and you'll hug a new person
that hasn't left yet because you're missing pieces you think you'll never find

but one day you'll complete the puzzle
and it won't be the end
it will be moving on

I don't take after my mother.
I am not sweet or selfless.
I am a bad person strung together entirely by
poor decisions and lack of judgement.
I don't take after my mother.
I am not a homewrecker.
I would not abandon my children nor
cheat on my husband.
I would not tell my suicidal daughter
to leave this world.
I have my mother's eyes, difference is
I have laugh lines.
I take after my father.
Addictive personality, but soft.
And also soft spoken.
Artistic. Alcoholic.
I have his nose and the same beauty mark above our lip.
I was born on a Sunday; it was raining.
My mom is like thunder and my dad is the rain.
I have no choice but to be the lightning.
Destruction's in my veins.

I don't take after my mother and I drink whiskey like my dad.
My family is a storm.

Friends become strangers as fast as I was forgotten
beneath the quick pale of the moon.
Seemingly fleeting and self destructive, but really
just sad and lonely and broken from the past.

For a few months there I couldn't get out of bed.
I wrapped myself in blankets like I wanted to mummify myself.
Like I was already dead, and maybe I actually was.

I was foolishly waiting for someone to ask me if I was okay.
I was foolishly waiting to be missed.
But the girl who blends in with the night is never noticed by anything
but the quick pale of the moon.

And soon, painfully, forgetfully, I disappear.
Oblivion greets me like an old friend and I have no choice
but to smile and wave back, before taking its hand
and walking down the path of insanity.

I just wanted someone to save me.

But I don't know what they'd be saving me from.
Maybe myself.
Maybe the past.
But more likely, every bit of hurt that stains my soul
quite similarly to the way you stained my good blouse with your tears.
I didn't even mind, until I saw you across the street and you looked at me
like I was a stranger.

It's just me, the moon and everything else that shines in the night.
I'm wearing a sign that says save me.
And I was foolish to think that you might.

When I was seventeen I thought I knew love.
I thought it came naturally, like you didn't have to seek it.
And you couldn't hide from it.

When I was seven I looked my mom right in her blue eyes and said
"Nobody ever tells you that the person you love is the most dangerous."
This was after He died.
My grandmother literally broke my grandfather's heart by sleeping with the priest on Sunday while the children drawing
Jesus closed their eyes and hoped that their prayers would save them from Goliath.
I started a rumor when I was younger that if you layed with your ear to the grass above his grave you could still hear
him reciting love letters.

Listen closely, I'm writing in whispers
until the whispers become whispers
and I want to keep halving myself
until the halves become something salvageable.

If I talked to you today you would tell me that I was the worst person
to try and save.
Every morning I'd wake up with new scars and you in my ear.
Telling me that you love me as much as you can love a person
as much as a person can love a person as much as my father loved my mother
and as much as my mother loved herself.
(Never enough).

When I was thirteen I got my first detention for talking too loudly,
now when I speak, eyes widen and mouths open.
I wish nobody quieted me down.
Because now the only words I know are apologetic and giving
and full of goodbye.

Nobody ever tells you that the person you love will be the person who lives.
Nobody ever tells you that God is a child with a serotonin imbalance and a
bad sense of humor.
Nobody ever tells you that love is Goliath.
Nobody ever told David to use his hands.

Tell me what you know and don't hold back.

I want to know the secrets
that shade your soul.

I want you to love my darkest hours
and the days I want so badly to disappear.

Please don't make me regret loving you,
make me regret lusting after you.

Make me regret the decision to stay
and please regret your decision to stray.

You told me you loved me when you were drunk
and I guess I believed you because whiskey is
a sort of truth serum.

You know that well enough now from all the nights
I'd stumble home and into your arms,
telling you everything through teardrops and
cigarette breath.

I don't know why you still loved me after that.

And I'm starting to think that maybe you didn't.

never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
she’ll end up caring for you more than she cares about poetry
and that will mean destruction for both of you
she will compare you to the stars and the breath out of her own lungs
and she will count the minutes until she can be with you next
this is entirely troublesome, especially if you don’t feel the same way
although if you don’t, a heartache will be cause for more inspiration
I suppose love is a win win situation for writers-
fall in love, you have inspiration
fall out of it, you have inspiration

never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
she will get to attached
she will love you too much
she will fall in love with the curve of your spine
and the form of your smile
and the structure of your bones
and the placement of your words on her mouth
and the way your hair falls floppily out of place
and the way you don’t love her at all

never fall in love with a writer
never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
never fall in love with me

eyes like supernovas and just as stellar
your eyes were my favorite constellations
your pupils orbit your view of the world
slightly dilating when you see someone you love
I hope they dilate when you see me
I never owned a telescope but looking into your eyes
was the closest thing
galaxies kissed your lips and wanted to stay
so they painted themself in your mind,
keeping vibrant and brilliant forms of stars
each thought connecting the dots, forming orion’s belt
and your fingertips traced euphoria in the form of the big dipper
and the little dipper was the curve of your arms
where I would rest my head sometime soon
and soon I will look into those bright eyes
and I will feel at home in saturns rings
which were outlined in your irises
and you’ll look into mine
and our sets of planet-like pupils
will expand into blackholes