nobody tells you what it feels like to move on
they don’t tell you that the first time you kiss another boy your body will become electric
that your heart will threaten your rib cage
that your life will feel likes everything is starting and ending all at once

Your name has a bitter
taste, like cologne. A muggy
sweet scent that deceived me so easily.
I always tried
to spit it out, but the spray
stuck fast
to the roof of my mouth.
Made me heady,
heavy. Sleepy. I started nodding,
going. Wake me up later,
give me a month or two.
Shake me when the sight of the back
of you won't phase me.
Shout when your eyes and your smile don't nauseate me.
Please let me sleep off the feeling
of losing again. Of everything slipping
into the ocean, of my life
crumbling and cracking open like old brick walls and peeling front doors
and old wardrobes.
I thought you could be
that breath of fresh air I needed so badly,
to come rushing in when the bell jar
cracked open.
But you weren't,
you weren't anything special,
you were an Oxfam shop
bottle of cheap perfume.

one day you will regret watching her walk away
you will remember her as the girl who loved you into oblivion
who withered herself away in the hopes that it would make you stay

one day the memory of her hips will begin to gnaw at your heart
the bitter cold bedsheets will eat at your bones

you will think of her when you wake in the middle of the night
because her memory has become your nightmare

Trying to fill
a gap. Those moments
we had were all meaningless.
You don't miss me, you don't ever
try and see me,
it's insulting. You know,
I have boys that never stop calling,
fall
all over me. Ones I don't love,
just love their company.
Like to tell them eat their dindins,
worry for them when they say
they've been two days
without eating and that they
owe two
grand tick to the white man.
Laugh at their jokes, we're
best friends,
they tell me I'm cool and I know
it's true, boosts my ego,
makes me sad,
hold my hand it's the same
way you crack me in two.

the way he rolled his cigarettes was godly
and i know baby that you miss how he tastes of smoke and loneliness
and i know that you miss breathing in his aroma of stale coffee and sweat

you told me about how his hands caressed you like you were a whisper
and how he bit into your skin like you were something to be devoured