I had a panic attack in an American Eagle dressing room recently.
As I sobbed quietly
and begged my racing heart
to please slow the **** down,
I listened to the chatter in the adjacent stalls;
other girls proclaiming their depression because
that top did not come in their size.
My mother stood
on the other side
of the locked door, suggesting
that I just
"stop."

While I struggled to catch my breath,
my mother went out to the floor,
feeling the need to tell the tale
of her poor daughter who lost everything
to the sales clerks and managerial staff.
They brought me water
and a cookie
and cleared out
the dressing room.
It's too bad that my demons didn't really give a ****
about their kind gestures.

Eventually, I was able to **** in air long enough
to call out to my mother and tell her
I needed to go home now, please.
I hid my face from the customers in the store
casting condemning looks in my direction.
I was ashamed, because I knew
everyone else knew
and I never want
people seeing me
like that.
But,
at least we got
a 50% discount.

I feel like I owe this to you,
even though I don't know your last name.
I don't know how you smile
when he tells you that you're beautiful,
and I don't know how you feel inside
when you're both laying in bed at night
after he takes what he doesn't deserve.
I don't know how you'll react
when you're finally honest with yourself
and realize that he is a prizefighter
and being with him is like a boxing match,
that you won't win without a struggle.
And every time the bell sounds
you'll be less and less equip to defend yourself
the longer you allow him
to keep ******* at
your sense of self.

So let me be your cutman,
wiping the sweat from your brow
and strongly suggesting you forfeit;
because eventually
his charisma and charm
will seem like a distant memory
and you'll forget
why you started this fight at all.
I guess I'm just trying to say
get out with your integrity intact,
while you still can,
and I hope
you never have to feel
the way I felt.

I hate the fact that
you ruined so many things for me.
Every album you played
while I drove you home
(which made me late for work)
while you showered
(to avoid apologizing)
while I was slowly waking up
(much earlier than preferred)
make up the soundtrack
to every awful thing you made me do.

I hate that when the air outside
feels like fall disguised as spring,
it smells like you laying beside me
bottoming out after a night of Jameson
and me still awake from the previous morning,
dialing the numbers to emergency responders.

I hate that black coffee and marb reds
taste like your mouth
and take me right back
to that bathroom where I hid,
waiting for you to fall asleep,
because you wouldn't let me
sleep in my own ******* bed.

I hate that
I probably still love you
after all you put me through.

Regret rides shotgun,
more often than not,
with this endlessly restless soul.
And impulsivity is the worst kind of backseat driver
while disappointment tilts it's seat back
and waits patiently
for my next big mistake.

I've been thinking a lot
about the past,
and retracing my steps
to find a younger version of myself,
basking in the uncertainty of the future -
with all the conviction of an attorney
delivering the closing statement
that will undoubtedly win the case.
Because
a younger me,
naïve and untouched,
knew something I don't
about what it means to be content.

So as I steer myself and my gripes,
into what looks like a ditch,
I'll wrap my fist around the hope
that's still somehow dangling
from my rearview mirror.

… for somewhere I've never been.
None of the places
I've used to store my ****
and myself
have ever made me feel anything
besides temporary warmth.
None of them have felt like
the relief that spring air brings
to my tired lungs
after a long, cold Upstate winter
when bitter turns sweet
and change is unexpectedly welcomed.

All these structures,
these secret keepers,
have never made me feel
like a dog in a field
or a child with a new toy
or the heavy sigh you let out
after another long day
of getting pushed around by the universe.

But before I die, I swear I'll find it -
a place where time is elusive
and I don't follow the clock
A place where the firing of synapses
aren't littered with cyclical logic
caring too much, or not at all
and every day is warm
like fresh laundry
and the sun shares its good graces
on the back of my neck
and this place will finally
earn the title "home".

For once, my head had nothing to say.
like a regular at a local pub,
if I ask for my "usual",
the result is my brain offering
a flood of it's cyclical thoughts
all clamoring to be heard at once.
But this time,
there was only silence.

It feels like I’m dreaming,
the atmosphere thinner than I remember,
while still trying to remind myself of reality
and I'm hoping to god
that the cliches concerning
the fleeting nature of life
maybe hold some kind of truth.

Every time there’s an upswing,
and my stomach hops up into my chest
because I’ve finally reached my pay-off,
something knocks me back
and clips chains that tether me to stability.
all the donations
all the condolences
all the "support"
don’t mean a ******* thing
if they don’t give me back my peace of mind -
and I'm scared that nothing ever will.

I always know when it's about to happen,
(an unfortunate foresight)
but I always neglect to prepare myself.
It's almost like
I look forward to the pain
because it gives me a scapegoat
for my persistant discontent.
Maybe I didn't love you,
I just need to be loved.
But either way,
I haven't been sleeping
and I'm struggling to find myself
outside the context
of someone else.