I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I can't manage to fall asleep without seeing your face laced across the inside of my eyelids. its a dark kind of beautiful. I haven't quite yet decided if that's a good or a bad thing. and I havent yet decided why I keep drawing solar systems on my skin with ink almost as blue as your blood before it kissed the very air we find ourselves effortlessly inhaling and exhaling second after second without giving a second thought as to why or how our lungs are always working even when we wish they would stop. sometimes I have this dream where I'm drowning in an ocean that's named after you and the way your lips smiled between midnight kisses and just as I'm about to inhale every ounce of you and allow death to do your ***** work I wake up in a sea of black bed sheets that have been empty for weeks and I'm looking down at my solar system covered skin wondering where you might be in this world, wondering who's neck you're kissing at day break and why you still make me feel so small. I have the entire universe imprinted on my skin, but it doesn't mean anything at all. tonight I'm breathing out every ocean of madness you've ever put me in, washing away the world you drew on my skin. this isn't where it ends, I'll say. this is where it begins.

a special kind of hell froze over
the day you died
and there are so many ways
to grieve the loss of a loved one
so many different ways to say
"I'm okay,"
so many different faces to paint
and rainbows to wear
yet there i was
bearing the weight of the world
which was one person less heavy
and marrying my fist to a wall
breaking knuckles and nails and
drowning like a sailboat in the midst
of a rainstorm
there's a time in the ocean
measured not by minutes
but by waves
or the lack thereof
where all is calm and still
peaceful
sailors call it slack-tide
and this time only exists between breaths
between collapsing lungs and
breaking hearts
the moments among screams and silence
because we all must eventually stop
and take a breath
so here i am
wearing rainbows with my feet in the sand
of a shore not far from the coast of a beach
named after the peak of your shoulder blades
the arc of your neck
and the curve of your spine
more often than sometimes
i find myself wondering
if slack-tide exists in your ocean of blue
if i go out to sea and breathe in
what's left of you
if i'll wake up
to see you
wearing rainbows, too.

it’s 2:42 a.m
late july
early august
i’m tired of something bigger than sleep
the kind of tired sleeping pills
will always fail to fix
no number of pillows
will make up for the emptiness
in my bed
and i remember laying my head
on your chest
at this very time
listening to the constant
and reassuring sound
of your heartbeat
there’s something about
feeling human flesh
a warmth
that no number of blankets
could ever hope
to recreate
every single morning
i would stumble to the shower
tracing over the towels
you used last
and there was something
beautifully poetic about
your inverted shampoo bottles
that lined the shower wall
turned upside down
they said
he used me most
so really
it comes as no surprise to me
that when you left
i basically
turned my whole life upside down
looking for answers
inspecting every scar and asking
which one scared you off?
the curling iron on my leg
the stove on my palm
the you on my heart
they never tell you how lonely
your own bed can feel
when you wake and realize
we hold pillows like warm bodies
we cocoon ourselves in bed sheets
to resemble a human embrace
we wake up in a tornado of emptiness
that we created ourselves
we so seldom take the time
required to understand that
we did this to ourselves
looking at heartbreak
as if it were an opportunity
to stand back and say

*he used me most