i trace the cracks
in the pavement
with my foot
and bear the right
to miss you.
the *******
on my left hand
holding the cigarette
to my mouth
are turning pink
like my cheeks
when the winter
kisses them.
the smoke fills
my tiny lungs
until they can’t expand
any further
and when i hold it
for a few seconds,
i feel nostalgic
about that love seat
in your garage
and how your mom
was still alive and
things were so different.
i exhale
and watch the
cancerous contents
spill from my mouth
and remember the way
your lips look
so much better,
remember wishing
i could be your addiction,
remember how
you made death beautiful.

you’re not dead yet,
but you might as well be.
it hurts less and less
every time
i visit your grave;
the shell of
the person
you used to be.
i figured out
the different between
me and you;
i feel love,
but you shoot it
into your veins.
i hide my hands
inside my sleeves
and cringe
at the thought
of not being able
to call myself
“yours”
anymore.
i’ll take my slow,
last drag
and put out
what i thought
was going to be
a life time
of trying
to figure you out.

i am made of sin,
you're the only innocent
god i believe in.

you try to alter fate;
fate is
persistant,
stubborn,
resistant.

he is a spoilt child
who stomps his foot on the floor
to get what he wants.

you’re the one
who cuts the telephone line
and then tries to call for help.

it is until it isn't
it does until it doesn't
you are until you aren't

three statements i refuse to believe
one idea pressed into me like
hot metal on a wrinkled shirt sleeve
discouragement is a word
from which i am free
sixteen is a number
i will not let hold me

you are the difference between
the salt and the honey
you both pour on my wounds
you are the way i feel
after 2 cups of coffee and
the first cigarette of the day
you are the purple, red, yellow
you are the blue in the
pigment of my knuckles after
biting them, waiting for your
sweetest replies and
your most bitter neglect
you are the gold glitter
my heart is so fond of
you are the realizations
i make and forget by morning
you've waited so long for this
i don't know how you handle
being the center of
everything i cannot

when you were 6,
you made homes for faeries under trees.
now you just hope they choose to live in your lungs,
help you appreciate the magic of breathing.
i am your collapsable lover
and you've got a body like a wreck
i can't stop looking at.

i know a boy who’s afraid of the dark
and that’s why he won’t ever kiss me.
i took nothing but hours, left nothing but bruises.
you responded to my tears calmly,
with only a shrug.
you put your hoodie on & went out for a cigarette.
i left before you came back.

*i am a glass girl with diamond wrists,
this is how i love.

i've started writing so many ******* poems
and i can't finish any of them because
you took my ability to have closure
when you walked away.

i am only fragile in the
hands of someone i love
that explains why i can
come home, call you, and say
"i'm tired, i need to be held together"

that's when you wrap your
words around me like the
warmth of my favorite blanket
and i wither into nothingness,
return, and repeat the process

one tongue to live
and one to deceive
i see your eyes like waterfalls
and they’re poring over me
i feel your gaze
and it’s ******* me
sweetness in your mouth
and in your throat
down on your knees
you learned this by rote
draw the curtains
i want them all to see
this isn’t seduction
this is worship
this is rivalry
everything is a game
and no one plays it better than me

i’m in love with my biggest dissapointment.

how does it feel, when you realize you break off and shut up the ones with the light to guide you home when you turn them out, always turning off the lights. what’s a map to a match in this big, dark, cave of nervous hands and wanting lips,
lets not talk about the kiss. slurred slurred liquor bottle, throttle down the angry path of your father, let’s not talk about this. don’t say a word about your mother and those black tar veins of yours, your heart of crystals, no, don’t go there.

don’t ******* go there,
you’ll be trapped in endless pit of stockholm syndrome and marlboro black 100’s and not eating for 3 days to still, never be good enough.

i’m so sorry i’ll never amount to romantically ruining your life in a room of people who couldn’t care less about the eyes that cry and the bones in your chest. i really am.

i've been slamming my fragile little fists into dry wall for so long
i get angry at myself when my knuckles aren't bleeding
my mind isn't the cleanest it's ever been right now, but this is what feels like home.
there's stains on the carpet, the curtains in the kitchen window are ripped at the bottom, and sometimes the sink gives you cold water when you ask for hot.
i'm in love with my own faults and failures.
one time, i set a candle too close to the couch and watched everything go up in what looked to me like a southern sunset. next thing i know, they're calling me an arsonist.
the pills they put in my mouth to clean up all the ash made my home more like a hotel and everything smelled like a hospital.
i am sweating alcohol on a wednesday morning, i am gasping for air with a cigarette in my hand, i have been crawling in broken glass, don't you dare talk to me about holiness.
i want to tell you that in spite of all of that, i am free, but i'm not. i'm just used to it.

when i feel the dull burn of a car window rolled down in 50 degree weather, when i am showing someone else my favorite books and films, when a boy is holding one hand and a cigarette is holding my other, i will think of someone who tried to better themselves and that it's okay if it isn't because of me.

when i approach my first day of college and there is a hand held out to me in an attempt to meet my acquaintance or a nerve-calming crack at the teacher by an upper classman, i will take that as an invitation to get right what i didn't in high school.

when i find a friend that will take me to the hottest parties a suburban chemical factory can hold, but who won't sit outside and wait the 40 seconds i have left of my cigarette to keep me company, i will gently decline and decide that i deserve better.

when i hear a sound as demanding as a freight train cutting slowly through the calm small-town winter night, i will think of the conversations between me and an old dear friend, on a front porch lit by a giant christmas star. i will smile fondly and choke back the nostalgia.

when i think of my adventures through the year 2014, although achingly transient, i owe it to myself not to pull my hair over what could have been, but instead pull my arms around the people who deserve it, and hug a little tighter, love a little harder, and demand a lot better.

if you could see me right now,
you would ask me if i have slept in the 9 months that you have been away
you would tell me that i look like a store that won't close
you would tell me how different you are now and how much you've learned in your shaved head and caged windows
and when i reached to touch your face, you would say that you aren't there yet
you never belonged to me and you never will
but you still keep the guillotine in your bedroom
and the skeletons in your closet still have skin and hair and eyelashes that bat when you make a wish on one of your own
your laughter still doesn't travel like it used to and you don't smile unless you have to
and *******, i used to lay with all of the smiling parts of you
what a foreign memory

i sleep but not as well as i used to
i keep the lights on in hopes that they might catch your attention
and you're no different than you were
the last time you didn't belong to me

maybe i'm just balanced
perfectly, for the moment
until i lose my footing,
end up at the bottom,
while you're safe on the
other end of the rope.

maybe i have false confidence,
i thought you'd have to
show me the way
but i'm sick of always standing
in your shadow
i'm tired of your blown up ego
maybe i don't need you
at all.

i was a moment away
from texting you to ask
if it was cold outside today
in my south east texas town

it hit me all over again

every road sign, a sigh
to the fact that i am unable
to enjoy the weather
to enjoy your company

you make it clear that
you will not be coming back
to tell me how the weather
changes

i know i've said that it hurts most at night,
and screaming into your pillow at 2am
is the romantic, glorified equivalent
of constantly feeling
cheated
emotionally bruised
and too far away from him,

but sometimes,
it’s 10am on a monday morning
and you’re leaning on the kitchen sink
waiting for the toast to pop up
and the smell of dusty sunlight and
chamomile tea makes you
miss. him. so. much.
that you don’t know what to do
with your hands.

your mother died before teaching you
how to deal with death
and the only way
to bleed out the sadness
was to wrap your hands
around my neck and i,
i ripped open my own *******
chest so you didn't have to get
your hands *****
and you told me
you wanted someone
with a little more

restraint

i thought i used to be pretty once
but back then, you weren't afraid
of anything, and i know
that you thought i was pretty too
but you stopped when i found out
you're just as afraid as i am
tell me how the drugs made it okay
i used to think you were pretty
i heard that you're looking hideous now
your skin's made of scabs, such a shame,
i guess some people might pity us
but people don’t make it okay
now i drink almost every night
i try not to think about much

i guess that i’m glad we lost touch

dear father,
i'm so sorry
that my mother
does not understand
mental illness
or that it
doesn't make you
an unfit parent.
i wish she hadn't
made me so
afraid of you.
if you would've stayed,
i might not be
drowning in self hatred
and desperation
for someone to
understand just enough
for someone to
give me a
break.

je me sens tellement
déconnecté de tout
ce qui m'entoure.
j'ai besoin que
tu rentres de
sorte que je
peux sentir
réel à nouveau.

i am skin stretched over seashells that refuse to break
trying to make room for the things i should feel has been rough
i know i was angry with you the other day, but today in the car,
the CD you gave me played the song that you found, with the lyric
"if you think that i'll wait forever, you are right"
god i hope i'm right.  i hope i can learn you like you learned
me after you got sober. i want to spend however long i have
listening to your heart beat, that's less of a heart beat but
more of a death sentence. i know you can paint a sunset
on my body in the form of bruises and i know i can tell myself
that i like it until i do. the next time i see you, i will wrap the
road around your neck like a tie and tell you
"you're not going anywhere and neither am i."

but hell, it isn’t going to work out
and i’m not what you need
i’m far away, and full of dirt and bugs
but i want you
we’ll **** other people
and maybe even have fun
from time to time
but i think about your smile
and it’s stupid
but i curl up inside of it at night
pull my covers over my head
and dream bitterly about
of a life without such
distance

i can be the right kind of brave too.

i held you
very carefully,
got scared,
and put you back
exactly
how i found you,
like a gun.

i look at you
the same way
you look at the
7:30pm sky
when it's lit up
in bright pinks
oranges, yellows,
instead of blue --
full of wonder
and melancholy

you were so angry that
you couldn't even speak
and i got so upset that i
ran to the bathroom to *****
and as i clutched porcelain
you rubbed my back
then walked me to the kitchen
to refill our cups with more
coke and whiskey, and we drank
and never talked about it again

15, sitting on the edge of your bed,
you told me that you couldn't love me
because the small of her back
fit so perfectly pressed against your palms
and the pink colored thighs matched
the flushed cheeks, and it always,
always drove you wild to watch her
strip down, layers of cotton, denim,
lace.
i asked you if the weight of her own
existence kept her up at night, or
how she got that crescent shaped scar
placed delicately under her left eye.
the blank stare you replied with
made me wonder what the point
to seeing someone naked was
when all they take off are
their clothes.

6 months later, you tell me that
skin renews itself every twenty seven days
and it's been 4 weeks since
you last held her. you smiled
with full lips and said you felt like
you finally rid yourself of her.
it's been a year since
you really spoke to me and
i'm still wondering how
you could love someone if
all they touched was your skin.

i forgot to say
you're not allowed to touch me
without dirt under your fingernails

you've always been the type
to pull stitches rather than
throw punches
i've always cried
when you whispered but
stayed curiously sober
when you'd scream.
it was the end of the world,
we sinned so severely
your halo fell around your neck
became a noose, you became my
muse but the only poetry you
wanted to know was what
i could make in the dark with you
when i could forget myself.
without you, the weight of me
is unbearable
i only ever dream of you
in different shades of blue
and remember you as
the feeling of drowning
you left too soon
the loss of you grew in it's place
pale and inevitable
i realized i love that more.

im addicted to the feeling
of emptiness in my body.
first, panic,
then comes comfort
in knowing i will soon be
smaller
than every conversation
weve tried to hold in the past year
and now that i can think
with my head clear, no longer
suffocating under the weight
i carried of the love i thought
was shared, i realize that nothing
that came out of our sorrow bleeding
mouths ever held any meaning.
the meaning lied in the dark
like i did all those nights when i
couldnt close my eyes and turned off
all the lights to pretend i could.
i will weigh even less than
what i meant to you and
maybe after that,
your weak, bruised,
needle loving arms can be
wrapped around me
comfortable enough
for the both of us.

does she even start forest fires when she blushes?
"she sets the whole world on fire"
i'm going to be sick.

tomorrow morning,
i will brew up some coffee,
drink it black,
and lay in my bed with
waltz #2 on repeat
and i wont i won't
i won't
think
about it.

i've burned bigger bridges than you.

the summer i had you was the shortest
the first autumn without you was the hardest
that winter i wasn't sure was the coldest

i try to remember the spring
but only recall sharp teeth
and paper dreams
and the one time i let my breath hold me
and violently refusing to get out of bed
until the sky stopped bleeding
your blood was dark blue
everything you hated about yourself spilled a mess
and i thought it looked better on me than you
so pinned my hair back with a railroad tie
then i flashed a big smile to uninterested eyes
bottled every single one of your sighs
set it on my dresser next to my chanel no. 5
you had such a dangerous tongue
even being the gentlest you could be
every word felt like a paper cut
so i sharpened the ends of each bone in my body
and screamed till i ran out of breath
"i'm ready"

i'm trying to figure out
how many times the words
i can't do this to myself anymore
will run through my head
before i give in to the voices
fighting back with, "you're so alone."

you'll see him again-
different face, a different name,
same situation allowing you
your make believe fairy tales
starting with an innocent smile
and ending with empty veins
spilled on the bathroom floor-
you can't clean that up, but
at least you got to be held
during all the chaos.

this is me, learning
what the space between
never and again
really looks like.

isolation called you
and passed a tunnel into
a bright world where
you can ignore the
wonders of existence.
my heart can be a
little house for you
to stay, but
everybody's scared
of this place.

i can only
think about you
in sad, short gasps.

i've spent too many
days
        hours
                minutes
trying to feel things
that the cracks in my ribs
from when my heart broke
free from them, won't allow
i'm hoping
         wishing
                  praying
that someday i can
sit next to someone
capture their essence
in warm lights, warmer
l a u g h s
and finally understand
the difference between
desperation and
connection

sometimes, i think you live here,
in my marrow, in my bones.
there's a squirrels nest of
broken heart pieces and mirror whipsers in the dark
shredded and stuck around my ribcage.
you haunt my esophagus and sternum.

usually, i think you no longer live here,
in my fingers, in my toes,
but, can love exist like ghosts?
faded polaroids floating in air,
like where there's not enough ink
and the words come out blurry and smudged
and grey like charcoal-dust-fingerprints
on the page?
can love exist like that?
shadows of tall buildings stretching across streets?
can love exist like that?
i think it can, because there's charcoal dust
at the base of my spine
that still spells out your name sometimes,
and smells of chai.
you still know my weak spots,
and i still know where you're ticklish
i know where you bruise like over ripe apples
my spine remembers curving against your chest,
and i know your breath against my neck
your hands on my hips,
your lips on my lips
if anyone ever wants to know you, let me tell them
the noise you make when you get a new idea,
or the hushed sound of your breathing as you sleep,
the way your lips curve into a smile slowly,
or rush into laughter, there's no inbetween.
i'll tell them about your eyes in the middle of the night
when they bore into me like twin drills into brick..
and they will begin to know you.
it is funny that people can fall off of you and away,
drift back into the coils in your brain
that hold distant, but important, memories
moments of pure bliss, trauma,
you forget the names and faces you used to see everyday
for all different reasons, the universe has different plans
than what we'd like to see, couples are forced apart
sometimes gladly
sometimes reluctantly
and sometimes sadly
but there will always be a thread of you that
holds something on the other end
and usually it hangs off of you unnoticed,
but sometimes it gets caught with other threads,
or looped around an arm or a leg
and you have to remember,
try to remember,
for a moment,
i am on the other end.

i don't want a boyfriend
or a girlfriend
i want someone to care
i don't want the responsibility
of taking care of someone else
when i can barely handle myself

i want someone to help me
function like a normal human being
and run me a warm bath
when i can't get out of my bed
in fear that the heaviness of
the dull, numbing sadness
trapped in my bones
will cause my body to shatter
and turn to dust
upon impact with the floor.
i want somebody who won't
get angry with me when i
don't feel like talking-

someone who knows that
doesn't mean anything.

all i want right now
is to write something
heavy enough that you will
collapse under the weight of it
so i will be left with pieces of you
like the way you pronounce the word "milk"
or what your hands do
to the inside of your arms when they're bored
and i know they cut your hair and threw you in a cell
but i hope you feel this as i'm writing it
i hope you collapse
i remember all those different moment
at random when someone would say your name
or smirk like you used to
like you knew something about me no one else did
but i'm bad at keeping secrets
and i want you to collapse
and i want you to feel this
and i wont pick up even one piece of it

and i still love you so ******* much

i tied a cherry stem with my tongue
i fixed your tie with my eyes closed
but i couldn't quite tie you down
and that didn't **** me
or make me stronger,
but i would rather either of those happen
than spending the next year and a half
hiding in a grave i have come to know
as my own bedroom.