I withdraw
As you cast yourself out
Forgetful, gentle, galvanized mind
Spend all my time mourning you
Shaky chest, rotting hands
Begging for another chance
Former lover, forbidden friend
I would have loved you until the very end
But you didn’t let me
And now I love another
Not in the same way,
And that guilt will eat me alive
Until the day I die

thought about you again today
Ignored the sun to cast myself in your shadows in
the back of my brain
Loved you with all my fibers
Torn and frayed

Most days I don’t think about you,
Some days I do. On those days I want to allow myself to feel everything for what we had, who we were, who I am now in comparison; I feel it all to compensate for the year where I didn’t feel a thing. All I knew was you. Not joy, not anger, motivation, fear. Only you. You were everything to me. I cower in regret.












I look back and compare what I have now to the laughter we shared. I used to cry. God, I’d lose it every night in my bed- the bed we shared for 365 straight days. I loved the you that I put on a pedestal. The you I met that first day at my workplace, the you that you wanted the world to see. The spontaneous, giving you. The romantic you. The intelligent, humble you. Charismatic, charming. Truthful. Lustful. Golden. These images play on a marquee and I weep because I know they are not realities.







I loved you with everything. I don’t know what you want the world to see now, but I hope with all of my heart you are happy. You never were when we were together and I always blamed myself. I could not save you. I tried until I ran out of life. You told me I was your burden to bear and I felt it in my chest, in my legs, in my gut, but not in my heart. I know that is not true. I know you have a martyr heart, I know I have a lot on my plate. You took willingly. Fed yourself from me every night. You preyed on my vices so that you might have reason to be tired. You were there for me. Through everything.  I hated you for saying that. It hurt so bad, I spent three days in the same position unraveling on the floor the night you told me you wanted to help me more than you wanted to love me. I’ll never forgive you, I carry that guilt around unwillingly everywhere I go. It’s a piece of me, I cast out to feel relief and I feel nothing. In my year of fear and darkness, you convinced me I had you until the end of time- In goodness and light and in suffering. You lied. The minute you had to stop pretending to be in love with me you took that opportunity and ran and the words that followed dug me hollow. I can’t forgive you for that, it hurts so bad. Still, to this day I repress all emotion in hopes the next one won’t run away, won’t fall to their knees and look up and say “thank you for making me this way.” I don’t know where to go from here, but I want you to apologize for being there at all if it was never genuine.

Every night I’d  fall apart in your arms
You were always one for puzzles
By morning I’d be Whole again,
I sleep  alone now, wake up still waiting

You’re always in the back of my mind,
When I kiss him at night
I think of the way we used to laugh until
The morning.
Sunrises have not been the same in ages.
I know you hardly think of me at all,
I hope come fall I cross your mind.
I hope you smile.

This is my body
Size 12, wiggle room
Jiggly thighs, 5’2
(And a quarter. It matters)
Overgrown roots blend
Into DIY blonde,
Somewhere in between
“Well kept” and “definitely depressed”
Acne scars, decently white teeth
Scar on my brow from that time I tried
Rollerblading into the sun, I swallowed the pavement on the way down. You can still see the cracks in my teeth, just underneath my laugh lines. I always tried to stay as positive as possible. No matter what.

This is my body, it holds memories like water weight.
Destined to burst, void of drains,
Man Made pores- formed from the inside out by cries for help that never surfaced.
Porous and calloused, found out that its purpose for a year straight was simply surviving.

This is my body. Flashbacks on a marquee, survivor’s hands painted nicely, so no one ever asked me why they were so *****, and broken, and ******.

This is my body
His dead skin under my nails,
Petrified.
Proof of a fight. scars on my arms
North of my elbow: survivor’s guilt in the shape of a Star, I spent last summer wishing night after night I wasn’t alive- I was so tired from pretending.

This is my body.
Latches like a leech to anything warm.
****** dry all of my loved ones in the year I spent spiraling,
searching for solace or sanity-
even safety. Found nothing but panic.
Nervous bird in a cage.
Narrow shoulders.
Boxer’s stance.
Dancing on the front line where I should have been to fight
Using my fists never worked.  
Neither did screaming “no, no, no”
Present until that very day. And now I lay silent.
Absent like a soldier, staring into space.
Trying to make sense of the shaking.


This is my body.
I have my mother’s eyes, her mother’s brain.
Black and white, strict like law,
Cemented in place for weeks at a time,
Then Moving at the speed of light, I cannot stop or I will die.
Creaky chest upside down, my stomach clings to my ribs.
Stand still until the room stops spinning
Or until my head stops hurting
And my legs stop shaking
And you stop when I ask you to stop
“This is my body” I whisper behind your hands as you steal all autonomy
I am left with nothing


This is my body.
He took it from me,
Did not even have to try to ruin my insides,
Did not blink an eye in the year I spent unraveling in front of everyone I loved,
Pulled out every lash I had, lost my job because of panic attacks,
But I am commanding it back.
I spent the last 6 months building from the ground up.
Spent the last 12 taking up the space I did not before.
The last 3 learning that it’s okay to.
I stopped apologizing in January.
I started yelling again in February.
It took that long to think anyone would ever hear me,
No one ever had.
This year I took my body back.
This is my body. Size 12, 5’2. Wiggle room.
Sometimes it can’t breathe right and shuts down in big crowds.
But this is my body and it is big and it is loud.
It takes up space, it is strong, it is pretty.
This is my body and for absolutely none if it, am I sorry.
Not a single part.

Golden communion,
Grace of God,
Patience of the devil.


You begged me to forgive you,
I never learned how.
I knew clinging to hate was a sin,
I never sat down to listen to the ways you were sorry, I don’t think you had many.
I pray now from the street, make a temple out of gravel, swallowed asphalt to be here, asleep where you left me,
Why did you hurt me then leave?
Why did you come back after I’d already grieved?