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.

You know its love when the ring of your doorbell sounds like a melody after his fingers push it, when he's already inside before you get to the door. You know it's love when your welcome mat looks more appealing with his ***** shoes on it and when hello is on the tip of your tongue but his is already in your mouth. It's love when you prefer to see yourself in his eyes than any other revealing glass. It's love when when your favorite song is the sound of his humming when he's deep in focus, and you can't pull your eyes away from his pouted lip when he's lost in thought. When you enjoy the way his hands neatly wrap around his fork, the way his jaw moves when he speaks or chews, the way he pours his coffee. You know it's love when he stares at you just as long with your clothes on as he does when they're off. When he says he's in love with your thoughts more than he's in love with your skin. When the silence is full, when you aspire to love yourself the way he does.
.
.
.
You know its over when the doorbell stops ringing. When his shoes and your welcome mat are no longer familiar with each other. It's over when his hand never meets with your doorknob and when 'I love you' is on the tip of your tongue but his is already in someone else's mouth. Its over when you can't see yourself in his eyes because he never makes contact with yours. It's over when you start reminiscing, when you start  gazing at walls for hours, when you start touching the skin of everyone you meet trying to remember the way he felt. You know its over when your thoughts stay bottled up because he's no longer there to spill them to. You know its over when you no longer appreciate the smell of coffee because it reminds you of the way he poured it. It's over when you wake up in strangers bed trying to get him out of your mind. It's over when you realize that the love you shared is one that you'll ever be able to find

She's the open window and the closed door.
She's stale and bitter, but tastes as sweet as freshly picked fruit on days the sun rays make love to her skin.
She's everything she tried her hardest to be, she's everything she didn't want to become.
She's the kind of girl who drinks herself to sleep on Sunday nights, hoping to find him in the same level of desperation.
She basques in his absence, she grieves in loneliness.
She is not who she is, she is a side effect of who she was made to be.
I've never seen anything like her.
I've never known anything like her
I was always aware of her, but I never feared her.
I never knew she'd become real to me.
But I found her. I found her in the bathroom this morning.
I found her once my head came up from the faucet after swallowing six pills too many.
I found her in the honest glass.
She smiled at me and glanced down at my trembling hands.
I looked her in the eyes, and welcomed her home.

I've come to the conclusion that it's possible to stare at the ceiling for so long you can feel it staring right back. There are some spaces on the walls that my eyes gaze onto for longer and there's some parts of my bed in which i'd rather lay. There was something about the way the sheets felt against my skin this morning that seemed as though they were trying to protect me from the truth this day would hold. There's something about the way the birds sang louder as if they were trying to overlap the sound of you leaving. There's something about the way I could feel a breeze from the door downstairs, as though you we're so rushed to get out that you couldn't take an extra moment to shut it properly. I should have seen it coming, I should have told you that you've mistaken. I should of told you that I never needed you but I never enjoyed the thought of waking up alone. There's something about the way you told me you'd never leave that sounded a lot like the way my father told my mother he loved her, I should of been quicker to point out the lie. But how do you tell someone to stay while dreaming of inviting someone else in? It was never you. It was me. Lately I've been feeling like maybe its less about the way 'i love you' sounded when i was saying it, and more about who was in mind; it was never you. I'm sorry that I'd only stay in bed with you till you fell asleep, you were simply a rain drop in the ocean. I fall in love with downpours. I love closed doors and black walls.
We're different. You're gone, I'm okay.

I hope you believe me when my I tell you my body is composed of more than a skin and bone frame.
My body is a picture book of times stained to me like tattoos of memories unable to be washed off.
If you stare closely enough my purple knuckles tell a story of walls caving in on days I can't remember.
My fingers are a light shade of skin because they have traced bodies who's pigment fell in love with my hands.
My palms are empty from receiving and giving a little more than I should of let go; some things I should of clutched onto for longer.
My arms are made of clenched embrace and have a scent of regret laced from wrist to elbow.
My shoulders hold individual carvings of finger nails and teeth marks from more than one individual night.
My lips are a discolored red from every poison stained mouth in which they've met.
My neck is a canvas of rough hands, ropes not tied tight enough and purple stains of affection from those who have lied about loving me,
and my eyes have turned grey from staring for too long into the forests and oceans they've met at three in the morning in the caves of unfamiliar faces.
So if you happen to walk into my room, don't be alarmed by the smell of apathy. Don't concern yourself about the bottles buried and broken under mounds of clothes that reek of Marlboros. Don't turn the light on, and don't open the curtains.
I have lived long enough, my body will tell you the story.
But before you read it, please trust me when I say "there is more to me than this."

I promise you a love that never dies. A love as real as a rose freshly blooming in the spring, a love that stays as beautiful as the fake bouquet in the window pane of your mother’s kitchen.
I promise you minimal space between our skin, I promise you undying sparks when our lips enfold like pages of romance novels.
I promise a smile that medicates to the pain you feel in your heart, I promise eyes that can identify where your suffering is making home.
I promise words as powerful as eviction notices on the door of your mind, I promise to never stop rolling them off my tongue until the demons make their way out.
I promise to open the curtains just enough for the rays of the morning sun to kiss your bare back. I promise to close them at night and hold you till you feel comfortable in the silence and darkness.
I promise to whisper my love into your ears so you can always fall asleep to the sound of truth.
I promise you days where we stay inside and listen to the rain slide down the glass windows. I promise to stay when the ground dries up. I promise to never make you feel the way your father did, I promise to always remind you that your worth is amplified in my eyes.
I promise so many things, but mainly to love as though it’s the only thing I am capable of doing.
I promise to love you till our skin cracks and our bones turn to dust. I promise to love you when the singing of church bells marks our departure.
I promise to love you when our home changes from brick walls, to mounds of soil.
I promise to love you as long as I am alive and ever after.

My mom once told me, I should talk to you about God.
because maybe I could help you get away from the clutches of evil.
She could smell the cigarettes off your jacket from miles away,
as well as the liquor on your breath the days you showed up late.
Do you remember the time she brought us to church?
I held your hand in the pews and you never let "amen" escape your mouth.
You never bowed your head or closed your eyes.
I remember you told me that you've never felt more out of place, and that the preachers voice stung your ears.
I guess I should of realized that you can't save someone that basques in their own misery.
Until one day I walked out to find you on the porch with a cigarette between your fingers, begging him to take the pain away.
You always prayed to him, I never noticed it.
You told me that you don't find God on your knees Sunday mornings,
but he's the voice you hear calling out your name when you're intoxicated Saturday nights.
Do you remember when I asked you what you prayed for?
and as you blew up the smoke from your chapped lips you whispered "Change".
It was never the kind you found at the bottom of a wishing well, but rather the one that you haven't seen since the day your mom left.
You never looked me in the eyes when we talked about what makes you cry at night, or the reason you keep going back home when its the last place you want to be.
The tremble of your voice when you confided that "God doesn't help people like me" has never crawled out the seams of my mind.
I still remember one year later, finding your name in the obituaries.
I still cry every night that God couldn't find a way to ease away your suffering.
I still thank you for hanging on for so long.
I'm sorry I never know what to say when people ask what I loved about you, other than "everything he hated about himself"

I constantly find myself reaching out to the side of my bed where you used to lay, and disappoint myself to have even set an expectation that I might have been able to touch your skin. I won’t lie, I've let myself fall asleep in the arms who have dared to hold me, but they've never felt like you. The day I woke up alone to a single sun ray beaming on my cheek, I realized that I held love in my hand almost as tightly as you held the door handle the day you left & I guess that’s been sitting on my mind for so long that I forget to welcome in any other thoughts. I let myself hate who I am, because you couldn't love me the way I thought you did. I hear people talk of love as though it’s the sweetest thing they've ever tasted, while I sit there listening with a bitter blandness on my tongue. I find myself clutching onto bottles of ***** and pills I never end up popping, almost as though my hands have the habit of holding on too tightly to things that aren't good for me. The problem is that I've never found this feeling in anything else but you. I've never longed for something so badly to the point that without it, I can’t function. My knees are so heavy, my head is constantly spinning I try to see the reflection of your face in the windows at night when I play your favorite songs. I write with my fingers in the snow till they go blue, messages to remind me this isn't permanent so that when the sun comes out and they melt, they will have been proving it all along. Trust me when I say, numb fingers can never forget the feeling of something so warm. And kissed lips will always remember the ones that made them tremble.

I was never able to build up the courage to tell you that there are so many things you’re missing. I never told you because I always got so caught up in the silence, and the kisses and feeling of heat our bodies had the capacity to place between us. You were always the first one out of bed in the morning and it was always so hard for me to slip out of the comfort of your sheets. I remember watching you stare at yourself in the mirror with your fists clenched and it broke my heart that you couldn't even admire yourself the way I admired you. I guess its my fault for never saying that my affection for you ran deeper than my fingers on your skin and our intertwined legs. I always saw beyond the green in your eyes. I always heard more than the words that escaped your lips. The truth is, I saw you as a mass of broken pieces being glued just enough to keep you standing. I dreaded the days I’d walk in on you laying by the bathtub with an empty bottle in your hand and hope thrown up all over the tiled floor. If it was medicine you needed baby I could of been your anesthetic; but I never told you. The feeling you gave me was one that I've been drinking myself dead trying to replicate. If there’s a capacity on how much love a heart can hold, I have maximized it. I've torn myself open from seams that have been sealed so many times and I got my hands covered in blood so you could see how much I love you, but realize now that you only stared at me longer than a moment when my clothes were scattered on the floor. I've been convincing myself that our stories end with two different conclusions, that we've been taught love in a different language. You love with your eyes and your hands and I love with my mouth and my words. You've never been too good at letting anyone in, maybe that’s why it was so easy for you to walk out. I keep saying I’m done writing about you, but other than this there’s nothing more my fingers can spill. This isn't gonna end with goodbye, but rather see you in a moment; when I find you in the memories that to this day, I keep replaying in my mind.

I guess this is as real as it gets.
I stared at this blank page for a while trying to figure out how I wanted to express myself to you.
The easiest way to get my thoughts flowing was playing that Hedley song you once sang to me while we layed together on the black couch in my living room.
That couch isnt there anymore. Neither are you.
But it's that moment sits in my mind as though someone etched it there permanently and I can time travel back to that moment as soon as I hear the piano playing.
I remember how funny it was that you couldn't sing. But at the same time it was amazing that you remembered every lyric to that song and looked me in the eyes as if you meant every single word.
Ironic isn't it how it had to do with not letting me go.
Ironic that even if it sounded crazy, you were gone 2 months later.
I guess I should of seen your lose grip on my hands as a warning sign that you weren't staying,
I wasn't enough to make you stay and I guess that's why 6 months later I still lay in bed blaming myself.
They say if you love someone let them go and that seems like the most rediculous thing to me because I loved you more than I've ever loved anyone and watching you leave was just as hard as standing unarmed in the middle of a shooting range.
As pathetic as it is, I just want you to know. I want you to know how much I hate you for hurting me the way you did.
I hate you for consuming my thoughts everyday. I hate you for thinking its okay to make me fall so deeply and just leave as though I was nothing; as though we were nothing.
Ending a poem is probably the hardest part. I don't know how I want to leave you feeling.
I'll just say this; if love is what we had, then I want nothing to do with it because someone that loves you shouldn't be able to leave you feeling torn in the middle of the night, they shouldn't leave you wondering what they did wrong in order to not be enough for you. I shouldn't feel like love is something that isn't meant for me, and that's how I feel every ******* day.

I wonder if your mom was only sipping out the last drips from the bottle, to keep it away from the angry hands of your father.
I wonder if she slams the door as well, just to save him the trouble.
I wonder if she yells at the walls and buries her head where they meet, just so that he knows he isn't alone.
I wonder if she harms her own skin just so he doesn't have to.
I wonder if she tells herself she's worthless so he can save his breath.
I wonder if everyday, she breaks herself down so that he can feel like he's at least better than someone.
I ask myself often what you learnt from living in a house built up of dented walls and liquor stained floors.
I try to convince myself that you managed to build your own shelter, that you're different than them.
When you yell, I try to believe that you're just letting the sounds of your childhood escape your head.
When you punch the walls, I try to convince myself that your trying to make this new home a little more familiar.
When you bruise my skin I try to convince myself its because you don't want me to do it for you.
When you trip on your way up the stairs because of the alcohol in your veins I try to convince myself its because you don't like the way a full bottle looks on the kitchen counter.
When you turn away from me, I try to convince myself its because your scared to let me see you cry.
And after all this, when you tell me you love me; I try to convince myself that you really do.

Its 12:46 and I'm wondering if she's the one you're staying up late for. Does she fill your stomach with butterflies, like I did? Does her name sound so sweet it melts in your mouth when you say it? Does she graze your skin with her fingertips, like I did? Does the taste of her mouth get you drunk? Does she stare into your green eyes and melt into them, like I did? Does she point out when your lower lip trembles? Does she curl her fingers into yours, like I did? Do they fit just as perfectly? Does she kiss you deeply in the morning as she does in the night, like I did? Do her hips fit perfectly in your hands? Does she tell you how much you mean to her, like I did? Do you hesitate before saying it back? Does she smile at you from a distance, like I did? Does she bring you laughter even when she's gone? Does she love you as much as I did? Do you love her as you loved me?
Or did you never love me to begin with?...

Forcing thoughts to spill on a white page is like taking an empty pen and exepcting ink to leak art onto a white canvas. I've never been good at putting my thoughts into words, you've never been good at listening to what I didn't say. We were open books read by blind men, and music being played for the deaf. Never enough to satisfy, but always enough to appreciate. You dipped your dreams in sugar glaze and fed it to me on a sword, while I was busy cutting off pieces of my own with the same blade. Sometimes it's less about the meaning of words, and more about the look in your eye that comes with the sentence. Sometimes its less about the silence and more about what's filling the air. Sometimes its less about me, and more about what I could've been.

Stay.
I begged. I've never been too good at begging, but I fell onto my knees as though the floor was the only one listening and I shouted. Stay. The vibrations of your feet walking across the room to the door I always kept unlocked for anyone who wanted to step into this empty space, where memories of us hang on walls as though they're clutching to not hit rock bottom as I have. You always told me that I was enough, that I was the chain holding you onto me. That I was the abandoned swing set in the backyard that you never wanted to leave, but that was too damaged for you to love anymore. So you stare, as if nobody's there to get your eyes away. Maybe at the end of the day the arms of gravity loosened their pull and let you go but let me tell you, that was the day I realized there's nothing good in "goodbye" and there's nothing more that makes me cry than your back turned away from me; that's if we're not counting the promise of no return. Ever since that day the mirror reflects a melting puddle  of "wait for me, you're going too fast", it was a cry from the past of everyone who's stepped out and never acknowledged what they were leaving behind. The problem with goodbye is it's as real as the promise to love till goodbye isn't an option. It's the promise to drip morphine into your veins so the doctors don't have to tell me its time to let go, we're in this together. Till the last breath isn't the breath of you or me; but of us. Because what's it worth to live a forever without the person who gave you hope on forever in the first place? And what's the point in walking away on somebody who's still got your finger prints on the sides of their face? There are always stories that will go untold, but for now I'm re reading the the volumes of your chiseled frame and protruding lips like they were abandoned in the attic. They sat with first kisses and locked fingers for so long they need to be dusted off by the same hands years later. Yours are alive, and cut and rough. Mine are tired, and fragile and soft. To this day, they still fit perfectly into each other. I don't know why I wore out so early, why I no longer found the will in me to do the things we did as young lovers. I don't know why I'd spend my evenings on dusty couches while you'd beg me to come out with you and watch the sun like we did. I don't know why I stopped trying, I couldn't stop the constant crying caused by a fear of time running out. I don't know why I ever feared time in the first place. It always went so fast when I was with you but as long as I was with you everything was okay. Everything was rolling like the days the tide was pulled higher by the tugging moon. Our picnics on the sand always ended too soon but that was never a problem because we could run home in drenched clothes, have the fun of tearing them off each other and collapse naked into the warmth of clean sheets. All these memories I keep reminiscing. All the younger days I keep missing, the clocks keep ticking and I have lost the one I want to waste away the minutes with. I guess as an abandoned swing set its hard to say goodbye to the growing child. And as the melting puddle in the mirror its hard to look as yourself and smile. But nothings as hard as being the only lover in the hospital bed with none of your morphine in my veins, and no hands to hold onto. No final breath for both of us. Only the realization that the only good in this goodbye, is that I won't leave me with memories of us. It'll leave you with the memory of me, clutching onto the walls so they don't hit rock bottom as I have.

Open books with black covers containing stories never good enough to be read, words never long enough to contain the fragment of a thought. Maybe that's why I turn to putting my own in the complexity of poems, maybe that's why I'm never satisfied because I can never say what I mean. Sometimes I don't think you know what I mean, so if you haven't been able to read the between the lines; I miss you. I've been looking for so many ways to say it but none of them have been enough to make you come back. The thing about poetry is its never enough to make you feel the way I do. It'll never make you realize that ink seeps out of my pens with the purpose to make you feel something; but it never does. The thing about poetry is that you need to be empty to write it and that's why I learnt how to after you left. The shut door opened a new one which was the will to write about all the broken pieces of myself. The thing about poetry is it requires to see life through the eyes of things unspoken. Little do most know that mirrors and picture frames can speak novels of things forgotten which is me to you. The thing about poetry, is that I'm running out of things to say. I'm running out of words to spray on city walls, or carve in the wood of dying trees. The thing about poetry is that this isn't it. This is the goodbye, good luck. I have nothing more to bleed out for you, my mind is turning to dust. This is the last "I love you" I have left to write about, this is extended hands with empty palms.
This is the apology. It's me trying to feel something more than what I do, and as hard as I try to get there, I can swear that in nights of deafening silence I can still hear the sky screaming out your name.

I've always contested this theory of time.
This counting of sands in hourglass bottles.
They always said time was in our hands.
But I didn't mind because the sun always rose, always set.
I never yearned to stop it. I never yearned to stay.
Until I met you.
Until I found myself in your arms in the morning till dawn
and it never felt long enough.
Until the words that made me melt into puddles formed time tables that showed a past moment I never wanted to escape from.
From the falling of snow, to the falling of leaves.
The hands on clocks were slowly gripping us by the shoulders;
tearing us apart.
Wars with the one thing we couldn't defeat.
Until kisses could hold time for a moment, we could never get enough.
Inserting coins into machines so that maybe hope
could fall out of the slot into our empty palms.
Once the days got shorter as the air grew cold,
we had to dig up for good memories to keep us holding.
Your skin had already been traced by my fingers,
your lips had already been pressed into mine.
there was nothing keeping us together other than not wanting
to wake up alone at the sound of beeping alarms.
To wake up calls tellings us that life doesn't stop for anyone.
The cold coffee that tastes as bitter as remembering the battle with passing minutes.
Some battles are meant to be lost.
We lost this one, we were left with learnt lessons.
I never bargained for lessons in the first place, I wanted to be left with you.
Wars are temporary. We we're supposed to be forever.
But once again, forever is controlled by ticking hands.
And ours were never strong enough to resist it.

Loving you was mistaking a welcome mat for an eviction notice and never knowing where to turn. It was stepping into empty rooms with white walls and never feeling more at home. Legend always had it that if you stare into broken mirrors you risk seeing yourself dead, loving you was staring into your eyes and getting the same result. My mother always told me that evil can disguise itself into everything you've ever wanted, I finally understood what she meant when I would watch you fall asleep and start calling out someone else's name. Sometimes I still hear your voice resonating off the walls and it sounds a lot like the door slamming on the day you left. Loving you had me digging graves inside flower gardens because I kept anticipating the mornings I'd find myself buried in dirt instead of in my sheets next to you. Loving you was putting suicide notes and love letters into the same envelope and sending them to address's of empty houses. Maybe someday they'll end up at my door again. Maybe someday you'll come back again. Maybe I die too soon to see the day. I don't know how the story ends. All I know is that I've swallowed a pill for every flower that died on "he loves me not", and right now laying six feet in the ground feels more guarded than your arms ever did.

Somewhere, right now, soulmates are meeting.
Somewhere, right now, lovers are departing.
Somewhere right now, a lonely man is sipping the last drops of his fifth bottle.
Somewhere, a daughter is watching her father drive away for the last time.
Somewhere a little boy sits with a therapist locking words under his tongue.
Somewhere a blade is being introduced to raw flesh.
Somewhere, right now a young life is being put in the ground, with a psychiatrist pondering at what he could have done to save her.
Somewhere right now, pettles are being ripped from flowers by hearts wondering if they're loved.
Somewhere right now a nurse is changing the sheets on what used to be a death bed.
Somewhere right now, a ship is sinking into the bottom of deep waters that don't promise revival.
Somewhere right now someone is crying out to a God who doesn't exist to listen.
Somewhere right now hands are being held in the back of churches in remembrance of loved ones gone.
Somewhere a song is playing that brings tears to the eyes of ones who haven't lived long enough to feel.
Somewhere letters are being sent to houses that are vacant.
Somewhere doors are being shut in the faces of those who have never known what its like to crave loneliness.
Somewhere there are all these things.
I'm here, you're there.
I don't know where there is; but its lucky to have you.

It's been months.
I've been bearing the weight of emptiness.
The absence of color on the walls and lipstick stains on post it notes I used to leave you.
The comfort i find in darkness is only there because light shows a world without you and its one I don't want to see.
Going back to the past is like a train ride with no destination on tracks made up of un-kept promises.
I'm sorry that I keep apologizing for still loving you.
I'm sorry that I keep waking up shaking in the middle of night, choking for air as I call out your name.
I'm sorry I still look for your face in the midst of crowded sidewalks.
I tried writing you a letter last night to explain to you the agony of living in this emptiness, but the pen broke, spilled ink on the page and I think it said more than my words ever will.
Despite the fact that you left me on the verge of breaking, I hope you're happy.
I hope that every cigarette you put between your lips knows how lucky it is to be there.
I haven't kissed you in months, but I'll never forget the way you taste.
I'll never forget the way I loved you when my named would roll off your tongue.
Nor the way it feels to be wanted by someone who could make love sound so bitter sweet.

Its uncontrollable.
The way people end up in our lives
The way people show up at the end of our lives.
The way people end our lives.
You were all three.
You walked in through the door I saved for someone I thought might be able to love me; the door with a welcome matt that looked more like a warning sign.
You walked in on the side of me that was only meant to be seen by the reflection I find in the mirror
Empty prescription bottle, empty liquor, empty heart.
And with the seconds passing I realized you came too late to have a chance at saving a life that I never got to live.
You try to turn back the clocks to see if I was better off before you came.
But time is a measure we convince ourselves has the power to change things.
Nothing can change other than the arrow on the circular board that points towards a past I can't seem to escape from.
Every breath is forced at this point.
So were my last few years.
The door was always open.
You just showed up too late.

Are you blind?
You're back on the conveyer belt, again.
You're fooled by that you see, again.
You seem to be getting closer but you're drifting further away.
You see hope on the horizon which turns to agony as soon as you get close enough to reach it.
You're heart is breaking at the thought of struggle
You're depending on the bottle, again.
The guzzle is burning your throat as you swallow any chance at revival.
Fingers turn to black, lips turn to black, mind turns to black.
You're crumbling with the ashes of cigarettes
There's no rebuilding broken debris anymore.
Hope is sunken beaneath you as you lay drunk on the floor.
Miles away from the conveyer belt, again.
No going back to where you're headed.
No heads or tails to change the situation.
No more gods willing to listen.
Its over.
Don't inhale.
Life wasted at the thought of making it
but giving up when you get a chance to escape your mind.
No press play, fast forward, rewind.
No more hands helping you out the gutter
You're already buried six feet too deep.
Your hands are on your mouth, again
Trying to quiet your screams.
No ones listening
No ones wondering
No ones there.
You've created this hell for yourself;
just lock the door as you leave.

A little girl knocked on my door today, flower bouquet in her hands and a smile plastered on her face as though its the only emotion she knows. She steps foot in without asking permission to. Her hair falls down the side of her face and I was trying hard to hide the tears that were streaming down mine. She didn't hide her curiosity
“Why are you sad?”

When her eyes looked up and met mine I felt ashamed that I could be uncovered by a girl who I seemed to recognize but couldn't quite pin out the memory of where. She hands me the flowers and their scent brings me back to a time that seems so clear, yet so distant.
I tell her I’m not sad, but rather sick. And the smile drops from her face as she says “Mommy says that too”

It woke a spark in the hollow of my mind to a time where I used to hear the same thing. Flashed back to a time where the only music I heard was the crashing of pans in the kitchen and the fall of hard liquor into small cups that were guzzled before I could taste them. The sound of yelling in the bathroom and glass being broken at 1am when the world was asleep. The whimpering of a small voice coming from the dusty couch in the family room, where our family never gathered in. The stumbling of my fathers intoxicated feet as he came up the stairs to pass out in a bed that was made for two. I remembered her skin stained purple, her eyes shot red and asking her “Mommy, why are you sad”. And with delicate hands that enfolded my face, she barely looked me in the eyes as she said “Darling, I’m not sad; but rather sick”

In that moment I realized that sometimes, they’re the same thing.
My throat dried up and hands felt numb as I grabbed the girl by the shoulders
“What’s your name and where are you from”
The smile vanishes, her eyes meet mine; with one look she gives me the answer I already know.

But before I can tell her that I remember seeing her face when I looked into broken mirrors, before I can beg her to not get into the habit of turning her skipping rope into a noose, before I get the chance to say that love is not supposed to be fists to the skin, and rough hands around fragile necks;

I blink and she’s gone.

The smell of death seeps through the cracks of locked doors where you hide the side of yourself that you never let me see. I keep having search parties for the key but I've finally convinced myself that you buried it along with all the other hearts you've broken. The blood stains on the ceiling are reminders that in some cases the last place I want to go is up, and laying breathless at the bottom of a lake is a better way to drown out the sound of “I love you” seeping through your clenched teeth.
When I was 10 years old I first heard the word ‘anesthesia’ come from the mouth of my best friend whose mother died a year before, and she told me that it meant she was numb to everything. Nothing could make her feel anything which is probably why she danced with death and there were rope burns around her neck as she lay in a casket 3 years later.
It escaped my mouth for the first time yesterday when I saw you walking towards me with a smile on your face and a gun in your hand and the realization hit me before the bullet did; sometimes the side that is hidden from us is the side we’re trying to escape from. But my fear of death subsides every time I stand before you, why else do you think I ever let your mouth meet mine? The consequence is just as dangerous. You’re just as poisonous. There’s no way to escape this.
I find myself standing in the middle of busy streets where cars hit me but I don’t die. I find myself waiting for the train, but never at the station. I find myself in places and I can’t remember how I got there but death always looks me hungrily in the eye and loses its appetite as soon as it gets close enough to take my breath away.
I want to quit breathing, but I don’t. This feeling is so strong yet contradicting. So powerful yet, so nonchalant. It was last night as I lay on a bed with sheets covered in my blood that I came to a conclusion...death is my anesthetic, and you've been giving it to me in doses.