I still remember the day you stopped loving me

I woke up to open windows, rain spilling onto the window sill.

I wish it didn't end like this

but its still raining

and I'm still wrapped in these sheets

waiting for myself to drown.

I still remember the first time you brought your lips to my neck. I remember looking in the mirror the next morning for a hickey, but instead I found her name stained to my skin in purple ink. I always wondered why you  kept your eyes closed when we would pull away from a kiss; but now I think it's because it's the only way you can hold onto her memory for a little longer. She made her way into my head, under my skin and into my bed just by being the only thing on your mind. I've touched every part of your body but I cannot manage to clean away the prints of her hands. The first night I heard her name in between your breaths when you were sleeping showed that your closed eyes are the only thing keeping you with her. It's the only way you can hold her hand. You're at one end of the room and she's at the other, but there's something there that's blocking contact. Something that's keeping you from reaching out, paralyzing you not to call her name. They always ask me why I stay. Why I keep looking into your eyes when you don't look into mine unless there's a glimpse of green surfacing them. I guess it's because I keep falling asleep to my own bedtime story. The story where my body is the one you want to kiss. Where you can read my goosebumps like braille. Where you drown in the blue of my eyes. They say insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. Well baby I must be insane because I keep falling asleep to this story, but every morning I wake up alone.

"...But truthfully I'd rather stare at your hands. I enjoy how they never shake the way mine do as though I've been carrying an object as heavy as my heart for too long; but they're always empty. I enjoy the way you wrap them around pencils, and coffee cups with a tight grip. I like the way you make it seem like you don't let go very easily. I used to rest in weak hands. I used to slip through the fingers of people who shook me off while I held on as though my life depended on them. I think the problem with the way I live is that I often never give myself the satisfaction of controlling whats mine. I'm not strong enough to make anyone stay. I'm not good enough for them to ever want to. I've lived with this reality making home in my mind but there's something about the way you looked at me this morning; kind of the way an artist looks at a finished canvas in total awe. Maybe that was the moment that I realized that I should probably stop staring at your hands and make love to your eyes. The way the light up as though you've been swallowing lightning bugs. The way you never hesitate to let them linger. The way their blue reminds me of the walls of my grandmas house that was built up with hands that look just like yours. I like the way you stare even when your blood isn't laced with alcohol. Almost as though I'm the painting that no matter how long you look at it; it still remains beautiful. The truth is, my walls are covered in love letters and poems written for someone I never knew... that was until I met you."

They all talk of being born with skin of glass. I live with flesh of stones; no mortar holding together my pieces. One harsh touch to crumbling down into a pile of debris like houses after disaster. Houses that home the bodies of the forgotten. Houses of the people I used to love in a time when  love was something I was capable of doing. A time when blood ran through the veins that are now tangled grape vines. When the boulder in my chest once held the names of people whose lips I've once kissed. I am no longer able to hold people without them being a part of me. Whose heart was made into solid rock and built me. I am made of everyone I have broken. I remember you visited me last year, laying flowers at my feet. Crying, begging me to hold you. Begging me to take the pain away. You traced the lines of my composure, you rested your head against my solid chest. The chest that doesn't contain the resonation of a beating heart. I wanted to tell you I am sorry. I'm sorry for keeping them from you, I'm sorry that their names are etched into me. I'm sorry for being the only reminder of the ones whose absence you feared. I still remember the day the carved each death date into my side, It didn't hurt. Nothing hurts other than seeing your tears that shower onto the flowers that bring beauty to the darkness I am made of. Maybe I'll become numb someday... maybe it'll be the day they carve your death date into my surface; maybe death will look a little more beautiful.

In all honesty I've never been good with words. I never knew what to respond after the doctor would ask me what hurt, or what to tell my mother after I saw her cry when my dad left. Poetry is placing words in all the wrong places in order to build something right. Poetry is taking apart the puzzle and forcing the pieces into spaces they don't fit. I tried to write you a letter to tell you that I miss you, the problem with poetry is that there's no metaphor that makes this emptiness inside my chest any more beautiful. There's no personification real enough to make my sheets feel like you're laying in them. There's no simile literal enough to make my heart feel as though its healing. I wish I could place these words on my tongue and roll them out for you to hear, but since I've last kissed you I can't even find the motivation to part my lips. I always find myself questioning why I keep writing; because the problem with my poems is that you're never the one reading them.

I couldn't wait for the day the sun didn't feel like it was trying to burn me, or for the day the rain wasn't trying to fill my lungs. I couldn't wait for the day the highway wouldn't sound like it's calling me to play with it, or the day sidewalks quit threatening to swallow me whole. There was something about the way my fear of love made the words wrap themselves around my vocal cords. I'm sorry I've never been able to get those three words out without sounding like I'm going to choke. I couldn't wait for the day my love for you didn't feel like a consequence or for the day I could convince myself that what you felt for me was real. The truth is I'm not used to people staying longer than I'm able to hold myself back from pushing them away. I got in the habit of writing my love to you on the parts of my skin that I'd never let you see, so that tearing off my clothes would be the easiest way to show you how I feel. My veins are filling with ink now, a mix of red and blue filled with words left unsaid. Some nights I talk to the walls, some nights they tell me about where your knuckles made dents when I'd whisper in my sleep about leaving you; I never really thought you'd be the first one out the door. Loving you was making excuses. Loving you was throwing diamonds in wishing wells, knowing my hope wasn't worth the price. Sometimes when the highway calls me, sometimes when the sidewalks threaten to swallow me whole, sometimes when the rain fills my lungs with water;  letting you go looks a lot like the final death of me.

They wait. They wait in the corners of your mind right behind the "no crossing sign" in an attempt to scare you away. They're everything you've ever tried to push away in any shape or form. If you're wondering what you've been trying to drown in liquor, this is your answer. If you're wondering what you've been hoping would crumble like the final ash of your cigarette, this is your answer. How do you run away from what you're made of? You've been trying. You've been destroying the darkest sides of your mind not realizing the cracks spread further than where you intended. So here you are, broken. The circle puzzle piece who doesn't seem to know where to fit. The grey flower in the field of colorful bouquets, cutting at your stem thinking the picture would be prettier without you in it. The picture would not be the same without you in it. Look at your veins, feel your heart. Sense the movement, the rhythm, the continuation of the pattern. You are made up of everything you've been trying to destroy. Someday someone isn't going to need an alarm clock, you will be their reason. Everyday when it feels like sun is kissing your cheek, it is because the whole universe is happy you're here. So stay. Let gravity be the pull on your body, let this be the pull on your heart; stay. May the music of the wind, the echoes of the water and your footprints on the sand be a reminder that this world would not be the same without you in it. And no, you are not the reason for the sun orbiting around the earth, nor are you the reason the seasons change. But you are a stepping stone to change, you are a future movement. You are a part of a beautiful cycle. Put your hand on your heart, feel the beat on your palm, look at your veins and hear the melody they resonate as the blood flows, hear the strumming of your eyelashes every time you blink, the harmonic symphony of air every time it enters your lungs. I beg you; don't stop the music.