you broke my heart.
no, you ******* ruined it.
to the point where the inner workings of my heart screamed for change instead of for you.
it took me months to pull wires and plug them in other sockets, hoping that it would set all my feelings for you on fire and burn them to a crisp because i couldn’t feel like that.
not anymore.
it took me an entire night to lace up my running shoes and by the time it was done, i was so numb that running felt like standing perfectly still.
so i ran and i ran and i ran. until i bumped into him.
and he seemed compassionate and gentle. not the way you were, but in a different way; a better way because it wasn’t you.
and now here i am, miles down the road and i’m in love with this person that isn’t you at all.
and some day i will marry him and it will break your heart the same way you broke mine.
but we will remain friends because my running shoes will come untied from time to time and you’ll catch up with me. because you’ve realized what you lost.
you’ll still make sure that i care and i’ll remind you that the only thing i ran from was your empty promises and thoughtless betrayal.
but i won’t stop for long, because each time i stumble and tie my laces, i get faster. not because i want to run but because i want to forget you in the least painful way possible.
i’m in love now, and some day i’ll set my running shoes on the shelf and you won’t be chasing after me anymore. the only thing i’ll have are the polaroids i took the night i realized you were my best friends, but for some reason the only image i can see clearly is the one where you and i don’t ever end up together the way we both thought we were supposed to.
and ten years down the road when i’m marrying this love of my life, i will remember the way you made me smile at one point, and when i kiss him, i will forget you ever existed and i’m so sorry for that.

your eyes had hurricane in them the last time i saw you. that visible defeat and wreckage running rampant inside of you as you watched me smile and realized you are no longer the reason. your soft voice became an earthquake to the ones that loved you most and you forgot the storm you became ruined things in unfixable ways. so you sent out an SOS call only to realize you cut all the lines and there is no one left to pick up your pieces this time. you searched for temporary safe-holds inside of inconsistent people only to later realize that you already reached your max occupancy in the grave yard of people you left behind when you forgot how to care. so now you throw the empty souls over your shoulder and you walk holding the weight of a thousand broken promises, taking on each day wishing it was your last. all because you couldn’t see   what you had before your levee broke. and this time next year, you will still be searching for damage control to help clean up the mess that you made and i wish i could be here to help with that but you already pushed me away.

for tonight i will lay on my back and endlessly think of you until sleep somehow crawls it’s way inside of my eyes and sends me dreaming recklessly of a time when you and i could be so much more than broken pieces of “almost love.” and when i wake in the morning maybe i will find peace of mind with the new reality that you and i are nothing more than two strangers now, one unable and one unwilling, to fix something that once meant everything but now means anything but. and next time i run into you i’ll smile politely, the way two people unknown to each other do. and i’ll wish you would have pulled me aside to tell me that you still love me, but you won’t. you will keep walking and you will ignore the fireworks going off inside your chest again, the same way i will. you will shut off that clock in your head that keeps track of your untimely departure and you’ll force your eyes to the floor, that way you don’t have to see what you couldn’t keep. and i noticed you still wear that heart around your neck and i wonder who it belongs to now because it’s certainly not still me. and i flip through old poetry and watch as all the crumbled pieces of you and i fall out and i wish i wouldn’t have ignored them but it’s to late now. you and i aren’t doing this together the way we promised. you aren’t loving me forever and you won’t love me now and i’m watching you forget what’s important to you and i’m so sorry i can’t recognize you anymore, but i’m so much more sorry that you can.

I am so sorry that i can't recognize you anymore
but I am much more sorry that you can...

"even broken things are beautiful you know..."
oh yes, even beautiful things are broken.

I'm so far from the surface now
I'm sure even if I wanted come up for air
I wouldn't have enough left in me to make it back up.

you said " go do whatever it is you want to do. don't let anyone hold you back or tell you that you can't do something. Don't let anyone stop you and don't let anyone make you feel guilty this time."

"okay." I said with a gentle smile.

that night I bought a ticket to England. It was the first place we met, remember? I went to the bridge, the same one I was at the first time I ever saw you, remember? I smiled at you and you walked over to me and introduced yourself. don't you remember? that was five years ago today.

I walked to one side to look over the brick wall at the rushing water below, the same way I did that day we met. I stood there and thought about all of the 3am conversations, all the laughs, all the smiles, and the way I practically fell for you overnight. I thought about all the times you reminded me that you'd love me forever and you'd be here till the end.

and i jumped.

maybe you were right
maybe some day I will forget to care
and maybe some day I will break beyond repair
some day I will forget what wanting to be alive feels like
I'll forget to remind you that I'm not going anywhere
but I'll remind you not to worry about me
I will thank you for being one of the only lovely things in life
and I'll tell you to carry on despite my absence
some day I won't come back
and I wil no longer be able to tell you what you mean to me
I won't be able to hug you
I won't be able to kiss you
I won't be able to talk
and I will be far away somewhere just short of death
and I won't care about a thing at all
because you all broke me
you took all the good left in me
an now I'm empty
as long as you can smile, I can let you go for good
but please know that it was you that put the gun to my head
but it was me that pulled the trigger.

I placed you on the pedestal of my heart and I crumbled;
This was my first mistake.

i asked you if you would be bothered if i ceased to exist,
and in your silence i found your answer.

Stop. Stop walking on egg shells around me as if i will crumble if you say or do the wrong thing. Forgiveness is second nature and i love you. Stop holding back when you kiss me as if you will scare the **** out of me if you kiss me to hard. Trust is earned not given, and you have all of mine. Stop retreating at the first sign of fear you see in my eyes when you grab me. Vulnerability is a process of which i want to learn with you and no one else. Stop treating me as if i am so **** fragile that you can't show me what you feel around me. I have been to hell and back. I love you more than most things in the world, but you don't have the power to destroy me. No one does. So let yourself go a bit. Next time don't be so gentle when you kiss me. Kiss me hard and kiss me deep. when you see me, grab my waist and pull me in as if our bodies colliding isn't close enough for you. when you're holding me, remind me that you want this just as much as i do and i assure you that you will see all the love in my eyes.

find the ones that strive to know you and understand you. not the way your body looks or the way your body feels when their hands get to curious and they forget that no does in fact still mean no.... the ones that love you, not the way you look (that's a bonus!) you gotta find someone that digs under your skin and brings all that good out of you. all those smiles and laughs and tears you've held back to long. find someone who feeds your insecurities and reassures you that you're more than worth it. the ones that reassure you with a smile or kind words followed by caring actions not by feeling up your body and asking for nudes. find the ones that cherish you not for what's on the outside but for everything (happy or not) that you burry way to far inside of you.

and i guess that's all it took. one pull of the trigger and everything went dark. stop thinking. stop thinking. stop. thinking. You
come flooding the gates of my thoughts and i instantly push you down as if you don't fill any space at all.
i search for the melancholy only to realize it's been buried inside of me all along. stop thinking. i see your eyes. stop thinking. i feel your arm on my waist but you're miles away with another girl that looks to much like me. why the **** am i still thinking. turn it off. turn it off. turn off. and with the blink of an eye i am back to nothing. feeling nothing. saying nothing. thinking everything.
finally you're shoved so far inside of me that i don't think i will ever find you again. stop thinking. i hear your voice in my head. stop feeling. "i love you chloe." "stop hurting me like i don't mean a thing to you!" i scream. but you won't ever hear me and with that, trigger pulled. darkness. oh the beautiful tragedy of teaching yourself to just simply exist.

he planted flowers where you buried weeds in my head.
so why are you surprised when i begin to bloom instead of sit, continually withering away.
why are you stunned that i let him hold me a bit closer than i let you?
you signed the grave stone you planted in my chest, so that i wouldn't forget that maybe once, some time ago, you did in fact live there.
you opened windows inside my veins
to shout that i belonged to you,
but only blood came out.
i cover your tracks with pulled down sleeves
so that maybe not a soul will notice
the things you have done to me.
after all, i don't ever want him to know
that you are reason i forgot what my smile looked like.
darling, i pulled all the thorns off the rose bush he planted inside of me because they reminded me of you.
i'm begging you, stop haunting my chest with the ghost of who i made you out to be...
i need you to let me bloom now.

society destroyed her
but they said it was for her benefit
to learn how to discern
that no one was concerned about her well being
and instead of trying to learn her
beautiful, chaotic head,
every guy that sees her just wants to get to know her body in bed,
but don't forget that society
"knows what's best"
and they fed her pain
that they said only alcohol could drain
and at one point someone heard her once say that she was no where close to okay
so they told her that sometimes death
is the only way to deal with the devastating mess that society has made
but refuses to address
so she took a blade to her skin
because society told her that it was the only way to win the battle against herself in the end
and society watched on with misleading delight as she lost control of herself
pills became the only thing that made her mind still and alcohol was the only thing that seemed to fill the holes that society had drilled right through her. depression consumed as society assumed position to continue telling her exactly who she's supposed to be and what she's supposed to think. and when she looks back, she wonders when things got so bad and why "friends" tried so hard to make her sad and take everything she ever had. so when she couldn't find an answer for her crippling life, she finally accepted societies best answer
which happened to be suicide.

put your fingers on my lips
and tell me one last lie before you go
grab my waist and hold me tight
that way it feels like you love me
a little more than that girl
you're about to **** around with for the night
tell me that you'll be back tomorrow
when you're drunk off the taste of another girls lips
make me believe that i mean more than
nothing at all to you.

"are you willing to take the risk? jump off the cliff?"

"i think i already have. twice."

"and look where it's gotten you, you've already died twice. so are you willing to risk dying a third time?"

"maybe third time is the charm."

you wanted to be better. so you threw yourself aimlessly at anything that looked halfway like her. and honey i'm sure you felt them all tearing at the very core of whatever it is that makes you who you are. you're pulled every which way until the only direction that you know is pain. they beg, always hungry for more and eventually you become a walking apology because they make you believe you can't ever satisfy them. you wear her heart around your neck and i'm sure that heart doesn't always represent the same girl. you love endlessly and fully and in return you get pull, ripped on, until the best part of you no longer exist. but remember...
you want to be better.
so next time you'll pore yourself out more.
you'll stay up later to talk to her while she falls to pieces in front of you.
you will blame yourself for the choices that they made
and you will continue to shatter yourself in hopes that some day giving everyone else a piece of you will make you feel halfway whole.
maybe some day you'll understand that giving the best parts of you away only changes you for the worse my love. and just like everyone else begs you to give them something, i'm begging you to rid yourself of her; for she will be the one that takes that heart from your neck and turns it to hell and i'm afraid you won't ever be the same again...

i wish to be the sunset: something stunning. admirable. a sight that demands to be seen.

lights out. you grab my waist and i know you're thinking of her. you whisper in my ear "i love you" and i'm waiting for her name to roll off of your tongue next. i find your eyes in the darkness and i swear i see her reflection in them. you touch me with unfamiliar hands that know the feeling of skin all to well and i swear if you hold me any tighter you might break me the way you broke all your promises. i held my breath and counted to 23, because that was the number of times you told me that you wouldn't leave the day i couldn't stop shaking.
lights on. your hand is in mine and i'm doing my best not to cry. you ask me what's wrong and i swear to you i'm fine. you pull me in and tell me yet another lie. "i love you sweet girl, now close your eyes."
goodnight.

how do i explain that the best part of me was the cause of my destruction?

as you grow up you search for lilac hearts but grey is all you're able to find
and as you and Disappointment because best friends,
you realize that what used to be important isn't so important at all.
you find that all you can think about is the next time you will be allowed to feel nothing without being questioned.
you're mind is stuck on breathing because you swear to God that if you stop thinking about it you will stop doing it.
you teach yourself to accept self inflicted pain,
with the hope that if you can just "get used to it" it won't hurt so bad the next time someone else decides to ruin you.
birth is a death sentence
and death is the silver lining
and in the end we are all just searching for ways to die a little sooner than we ever should have wanted to.

you asked me what i needed
and all i could think about was you.
you asked me why i'm leaving,
i just need something new.

i failed.

again...

so what's new?

how long did it take you to realize you weren't in love with me at all?
did it take you a few days?

or maybe you realized it when you got in her bed
and did whatever the hell you wanted with her body, the way i never let you.

or, or was it when you realized that the space between my thighs was no landing pad for temporary guests.

maybe it was when i let you know that my *** belonged to me far before it ever "belonged" to you.

i think the moment you realized you never loved me was when i finally looked you in the eyes and instead of seeing an opportunity you saw fire instead.

i asked at the beginning, "are you good at taking hints?" they all said yes with eager smiles and starving eyes.
so tell me why i tell you in every way i know how, that i do not want to belong to anyone anymore.
and you still think you have a chance to make me yours.
you said you were good at taking hints so why do you not understand me when i tell you that i do not want to be with you.
why does yes seem to make more sense to you than no ever did?
is it because you were to hungry for a piece of me or because you felt bad that you already stole something from me.

i looked through old pictures yesterday, desperately trying to find the point at which my father stopped showing up in them.
i looked at years of memories printed out and realized that the biggest part of me was missing. so instead of searching for my father in pictures, or rather the lack thereof, i went looking for the year my smile disappeared instead.
i flipped through hundreds of pictures, only to realize that the older i get the less i feel like forcing a smile on my face, when the only things that brought me happiness in my life have been stripped from me.
an unbroken home.
the boy i love so much i cannot seem to breathe sometimes.
a relationship with my mother.
a father who doesn't believe that he was making the right decision when he decided to move thousands of miles away from me.
you see, i spent hours sitting there, flipping through old memories hoping that i would find my father and a smile, or maybe the absence of both, but what i found instead is the realization that the only person that had the power to take my smile was me. i took my smile and buried it deep in those photos because those moments are the moments that i was happy. and why the hell would i want anyone to see me like that now if it wasn't real?

you told me i looked great in blue so i taught myself not to breathe around you so that maybe you would like me too.
you were always mesmerized by stained glass windows, so why did my stained glass heart never intrigue you enough to make you stay.
you said that there was something aesthetic about pain, so when i broke every last bit of myself for you, why didn't you see my beauty.
you always said the blue of my eyes reminded you of the ocean. later i found out you hated the beach and the way the sea never failed to kiss the shore. i always hoped you hated it because you couldn't kiss me.
one time you told me that you hated the way my mother always took me from you. i wasn't sure if you hated that she took me or that she took the only thing keeping you from being lonely...

i saw you a few days ago and i looked at you like we had never met before. you smiled the way polite strangers do, but i'm not falling for your trap. i used to think you had polite eyes, until i realized that you strip ever girl like that. i used to think you were loving, until i realized the only thing you love more than yourself is getting in other girls pants. you told me about forever and just as i was beginning to believe you, you taught me that the only thing that is forever is the fact that you will never be able to keep your hands to yourself. you told me you could hold my heart, but the only thing you were ever good at holding was my body, or any girls body for that matter. you see, i looked at you like a stranger because the last time you looked at me, you told me that you loved me, and that must be what you tell strangers. that you love them, because that way when you need to leave, the only thing they remember is how your eyes looked so polite and all those girls that you touched in all of the wrong places can say that someone loved them. you loved them. and maybe for now that's enough

darling,
i wrote you a letter last christmas that never got to you. i often wonder if the person that received it could tell that i was in love with you. i'm not sure you ever could see the way my eyes sparkled when i looked at you. maybe you never noticed because the only thing you could ever see was her.
her with you.
in bed.
on top of you.
no, just her.

i do not sleep anymore.
and i'm not sure if it's because
i can't stop thinking about you
or i am desperately trying to think about you.

i do not sleep anymore.
and i'm not sure if it's because
i'm dreaming about you again
  which terrifies me
or if i'm not dreaming about you again
  which terrifies me more.

i do not sleep anymore.
and i'm not sure if it's because
i started counting sheep again
or because i'm counting the days since you left instead.

you see i don't sleep anymore.
and i'm not sure if it's because
i'm forgetting you
or if i'm forgetting to forget you.

sometimes when people are killing themselves with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs and people are destroying themselves by putting a blade to their skin and have parents that don't care if they're alive or dead and 'friends' that don't ever seem to watch what they've said, it's so very hard to shove it into their mind that things will eventually be fine when they've been alive for sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years and they've just now come to realize that seemingly everybody just lies. and no one cares about anyone but themselves. and no one is going to be there because everyones leaves can't you see?it's so incredibly hard to make a person believe that God is always there and that God always cares when they aren't even scared to die because they don't feel like they need to be alive. because depression has has a weird way of twisting your mind and making you think that it'd be easier to die then try and survive. and society does nothing but teach everyone to learn not to mind when you're told to compromise your body and kind nature for the pleasure of everyone else selfish side that they always fail to hide. and sometimes people cry at night because they see that this was never how things were supposed to be, and they ask everyone they meet why they never seemed to be allowed to succeed or for that matter just simply be happy, and they ask why everyone around them is filled with greed and why it's not okay for them to be who they want to be, but people that aren't like you and i just sit there with a sly look in their eye and tell you over and over the sick lie that the only way to survive in this society is for you to learn to only care about you until you're so self-absorbed thats all you know how to do.

he's not the forever type of guy. he's the temporary, lovely for awhile kind. the type that takes you to the park and pushes you on the swing. the kind that takes you to look at the stars. or take you out for milkshakes at midnight. the sort of love that grabs you by the hips and teaches you to
dance to hungry eyes
kiss like you've been starving for days
hold hands like your life depends on it
but then he leaves...
"not for good of course!" he assures you.
so you wait. and wait.. and wait...
until one day you find yourself standing at his door.
twirling your hair and brushing down your skirt that is only a few inches to short.and as you ring the bell, you bit your lip the way those little school girls do that didn't learned their lesson the first time. and as he answers the door with that 'too good to be true' smile on his face, he says, "come in. meet my friend. i'm teacher her to dance. remember when i taught you? she likes dancing to hungry eyes too."

you told me stories of love that was unheard of. they were so real i could just about feel your finger tips finding every ridge of my spin. you told me of little castles in france that would some day be ours and how there would be flowers and sunshine and some day everything would be a little bit more alright than it seems now. that was three years ago. and here we are now more ****** up in the head than before and your fingers have found my spin and your lips are on my neck and i'm grabbing you like your the last breath of fresh air. in fact you are the last breath of fresh air. i kiss you and suddenly there are no storms in my head and when i talk to you, you must think i'm on ******* because my pupils are as big as the hole in my chest. but see love, while you were busy filling up my heart with all the love it could never possibly hold, i had thousands of dead bodies to bury in my head and maybe that's why my vision went blurry. i buried Reality and then i couldn't exactly see where i was walking. you took my hand and asked me to dance and you told me that "today we could be who we wanted to be." you said "today is just for you and me."

trace my body with the tips of your fingers but stop at my waistline to make sure it's the right size for you. circle around to my back and run one figure down my exposed spine, kiss my neck and whisper in my ear a quiet mouth full of lies. you'll tell me you love me and that my eyes are the only ones you see, but i'll look at you blank because you're the third guy to tell me that this week and they all leave right? so just slide your index finger down my fragile ribcage and tell me that you'll stay... for now...until the girl i saw you with last night comes back in town. you'll tell me you won't hurt me the way he did, put your hands on my hips, lean down to my left collarbone and sink a kiss. your right hand finds my *** and i try and squirm out of your grip, it's to late, your teeth bite my lip and i feel my heart slip to my gut. don't ruin me, darling.

you all lied when you said it gets better. it doesn't ever get better. we just find new ways to feel less and hurt everyone else more. we find news brands of makeup to make us look more alive then the day before and we find a better way to stitch a smile on our face and hope that this time it'll last a little longer because it's painful having to force your body to adjust to something so unnatural. we find ourselves in a strangers bed to find our passion again for awhile and we watch our fathers hit our mothers so we can learn what love is supposed to look like. you lied. you told me it gets better and it doesn't. we just steal each other's hearts because sometimes, someone else's seems a hell of a lot better than ours for awhile. we smoke until we can't breathe because who the **** likes breathing anyway? we lie to the only people in our lives that we love because sometimes lying makes things easier than seeing the light flicker out of someone's eyes. sometimes watching the melancholy take over someone else when you take to much of them away is to painful for us, and after all, we're all just here trying to survive. taking what we want when we want it. taking smiles when we need them. taking love when we have none. we've found nothing more exquisite than watching a person drop their ego and self esteem for someone who needs it. we find it beautiful to drop a few to many pounds so you look nicer when you straddle him. you're prettier when you have an ***, not because you look better but because that way it gives him something to hold on to when your torn up heart is not enough for him anymore. we hit and scream and bleed because at the end of it all, it doesn't get better. we are all here together. taking what we need from each other and finding a way to call it our own

i am collateral damage. and i think at some point everyone feels it, caught between the crossfire. your house is no longer protected by two parents, but just by one. your friend group no longer consists of a few, because now it's just you. and maybe it always had been, you just didn't realize until the bombs went off in your chest. and when i carved out "sos"  in my wrist i realized that help doesn't always come in time. you see i got caught in the crossfire and i think i only got hit twelve times i can't be sure though. i can't exactly feel a thing anymore; i used to recognize you. i used to be able to come home, but someone shot through the windows so i moved. some people can regognize a home by the way it looks. i think i found you. but how many circles does it take before i give up looking? how long does it take before i'm lost for good?

you held on to him as if he was the last tangible thing, keeping you from falling to hell. you grabbed his hand so tight your knuckles turned white as if he would run away the second you let go. after all, you didn't want to hang more flyers in your chest, begging people to call if they found him. you didn't want to have another funeral for all the memories between you and him. And my god you must have been disappointed when you realized that just like him, the moon follows everyone. he teaches them all to dance to hungry eyes, darling. you let him wring out your ego like a sopping towel and when he didn't come over that night, you misplaced your importance. you overdosed on "i love you" and now your brain is so fried, you forgot that love isn't supposed to make you cry. he was your pair of glasses and you're stumbling without him. life doesn't make sense and you can't seem to get your head to stop hurting from squinting so hard trying to keep the tears from falling the same way your mother's did when she found out you would rather be dead. i wish i could tell you it gets better but you fell and i'm so sorry but paralysis doesn't fix itself baby girl. some things in life are permanent and i'm sorry that the pain he cause you when he forgot to catch you has to be one of them.

my everything. you wrote me a letter and i found it floating in a bottle. i read your poem like it was a taste of a few yesterday you forgot like all of our promises. and when the little girl runs up to me with a seashell begging me to listen for the waves, how do i tell her that the only thing i hear is your absence? how do i tell you that some parts of my life move much slower when you're not in them? how do i tell you that i search for your face in the clouds or that your voicemail is my favorite song? it's been storming for days in my head since you left and for a moment i swear i heard your voice in the wind say:
"my heart will find its way home to you the day the waves quit being faithful to the shore."
i didn't ever crave the beach the way you did, but you know i would have tolerated it to hold your hand. and i always hated how our feet sank to hell when we walked in the sand but you always reminded me that one of us had to break the ice. our feet broke the surface with ever step just the way our parents broke their marriages word by word. and i can't help but see coffins in my fathers eyes every time i mention my mother's name but i won't ever forget the time he prayed to a god he used to think existed, begging for my mother to let him see his children on father's day. you see i read your poem in that bottle that never should have reached me and just as splinters must be pulled out, every memory i have ever had of you should be too. so i will tuck the tattered paper back into that bottle and send it off for the next little girl who stumbles on it so that maybe she will learn before i ever did that love isn't what it's cracked up to be.