you know I ain't no good
I mix my liquor and my meds
I take a new boy to bed
each night, but you don't judge me
you know I ain't no good
but you see me differently
and I need that reassurance
to keep me grounded lately,
I need that reassurance
that maybe I ain't so crazy

I must sound
Like a chocolate wrapper
Crumbled up with cliche intentions
But oh, the sun is so healing on Saturdays
The weekend's bounty fueled by her light
My glacierlungs start to melt
I feel alright
On the train
To see my best friend
Soaking it all in
Finally unbroken
75 degrees in February
Never felt so incredible
I don't feel terrible
Anymore
I must sound so redundant
But you would play the same song 100
Times a day if it made you feel alive,
Wouldn't you?

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.

a letter in messy script
a script with too few hits
a hit with too much smoke
a smoke with too few drags
a drag with too much hope
a hope with too few moves
a move with too much step
a step with too few directions
a direction with too much detail
a detail with too few truths
a truth with too much love
a love with too few touches
a touch with too much hand
a hand with too few shakes
a shake with too much promise
a promise with too few pinkies
a pinkie with too much trust
a trust with too few people
a person with too much love
a love with too few words
a word that never made it past a letter
a letter that told it all
everything, that never got sent

when he comes back to apologize
be sure to recognize if it comes from
his mouth or his eyes, my dear.
one is a trick and one is sincere.

a sorry from the mouth
projects blame on your heart
for being too loving,
for playing its part
a sorry from the mouth
will try to mend a reputation
rather than any pain he caused
with his years of manipulation

a sorry from the eyes
is a sorry from the heart,
he says sorry for being so cruel
and not doing his part
a sorry from the eyes
will feel like a kiss
just know you deserve this

when he comes back to apologize
be sure to recognize if it comes from
his mouth or his eyes, my dear.
one is a trick and one is sincere

you are worth an apology for what has been done
rather than what you have felt as a reaction
tell that sucker that you're not looking to mend
don't give him the satisfaction

You were never a cure
Only a distraction
When I felt the need
To fracture my January skin
To see if I was still living
You lit my smokes
And talked about my laugh
How it stopped time and moved glaciers
Even God himself couldn't budge
You weren't what I needed
Late nights, Vicodin off the streets
White sheets and pillow talk
You were only the in between
Never the start or the end
You were not my cure
I don't have one,
Terminal battles
Cut into pieces by the fun
You gave me

Why is giving up so sweet to taste
like cold cream in strong brewed coffee,
I wish that same strength for me,
but instead the way the milk,
though bad for me I know,
mixes in like December's first snow,
leaves me in a trance,
I am frozen in the road,
the way ahead I will not go,
because I have never tasted happiness
and giving up is just too sweet

Crimson winds in Early September
blew my own smoke back into my face
so I got a double dose of ashes, burning my surfaces
I stopped digging into my skin with metal
but filled my lungs with tar
and I can't tell what's worse
Forgetting to take in sherbert skies because
I'm too high
or being there but not caring in the first place

Partial to a past that explained my experiences in a causal tone. Like a story that had to unfold, I made sure it made sense because I felt myself losing control. I had to have control of it. Apologies for every mistake I’d ever made because amending my wrongs was praying for one night without terrors. Tug of war with God. Cause and effect. I earned my hurt. I earned my hurt.


People that believe in karma drive me ******* nuts. Plagued with guilt from my childhood because I got ***** at 21 and I thought maybe if I had been nicer to Cassandra B on the playground at 9 maybe I could have kept my dignity that night in my dorm room. But it doesn’t work like that.

I have survivor’s hands. *****, calloused, jealous hands. I am not innocent, I am vindictive and manipulative and when I argue with the person I love I get mean. When I talk to myself in the mirror, I am cruel. I am not innocent. I was a bully as a child. I thought all of these things were a part of the reason why someone took my body from me when I was 21.

be like strawberries
in the middle of july
when they're perfectly
ripe, be sweet to me
i need ectasy when we kiss
i need sugar on my lips
be like strawberries,
please, be sweet to me
every morning i make a smoothie
to taste the summer on my tongue
in the coldest winter months
so i need consistency,
please, be sweet to me

I keep having dreams
Like I used to but
In black and white
I still had butterflies
In this one we got married
We were still nineteen
But when the time came
For you to kiss me
I fell sick with agony
Your kiss was laced with venom
I walked the aisle to the blues
The trumpet numbed my ears
I fell out of love with you
But you're still in my sleep
Why do you still make me weak?

Blue cheese chunks
Peanut butter chest pains
Name a food right now
I'll promise to ruin it for you
6 cups of coffee past your limit
Your heart ripped itself out of your
Ribcage an hour ago and is running
Sloppy joe laps around the park trying to ground itself
Angel hair pasta before you break it
Into boiling water but it still has chills
Spoiled milk in lucky charms,
Sugar sticking to the side of the bowl
Pulling at your skin like Colby jack strings
Picking at derma like an orange
But you aren't sweet or refreshing
You're wilting like that salad you bought
And let rot for a month
Because THIS was the last time
You'd start over your lifestyle
Almond bark emotions
And candy cane apologies
Name a food and I promise
Anxiety will ruin it for you

I run to pretend
I drink to forget
I write to express
I smoke to find rest
I go out to digress

I run to pretend that 6 months have not past since you left
I drink to forget that they have
I write to express the pit manifesting inside me
I smoke to find rest in days that almost **** me
I  stay busy to digress from the truth that you don't miss me

When you read those corny books about breakup they tell you that no matter how hard you think it might be, you'll get over it. You'll get over him. You'll get over her. You'll get over late summer nights where you swore you would never need anything else. And you felt solace in a book that promised happiness at the end of the road and so you tried to stop missing him. You tried to stop missing her. You replaced them with other people. You kissed that short, skinny boy with greasy hair to see if his lips compared to the ones you grew used to. They didn't. You kissed that tall, chubby girl to see if her lips made you sing like the way you were making music for all those years. They didn't. Nothing you tried to replace your first love with was the same.

And that is the point.

When you fall in love for the very first time, they don't tell you that it's going to hurt when it ends. Well, they might but hell if you'll believe it. You're blinded by something that we would all beg for another chance to do over and I swear to God I would do it the same way again. You were blinded by a force so strong you simply cannot move on in 3 months. Today was supposed to be your 3 year anniversary.

And it wasn't.

When you fall out of love the first time they don't tell you how or when you will get back up. They don't tell you that you will check his Twitter every day. You will see if her Instagram pictures of you two remain. And they don't tell you how badly you'd rather take a knife to the gut when you see they moved on already. It feels the same anyway.

When you fall in love for the second time, though. Everything is different.

When you fall in love for the second time, you wish everything was different. You beg your brain to not **** this one up. You bargain with your heart to let yourself have one night to enjoy what it has for once.
But the games you let sink into your blood and permeate your idea of love come back to life when your heart starts to beat again. You notice different things about the second person you love, like how their hair never stays in their hat the right way or the way they fall asleep laying on their back but always end up on their side holding you really tightly and how you finally feel okay with them, for once, even if it's just for a night. You notice that their hands are a different shape than the first person you love and that they might shape clay differently and it might not hurt you as much as before and you notice you're absolutely terrified of replacing someone else's hands so you use your own to push them away as hard and as far as possible.

And for the second time, you ****** up.
For the second time, with someone new,
you broke all the rules and you hurt someone who loved you.

They don't tell you how to fall in love a second time because they're so shocked you could ever love again after all those nights you spent screaming into your pillow until you lost your voice and fell asleep remembering that one park you used to hold hands at 16. But they will not tell you how to feel that way again because something sunk it's teeth deep into your skin and its venom changed the chemicals within you and now you see love as a game and I'm sorry because it isn't.
I'm sorry you have to hurt people to show them you're changed and I'm sorry that you are stuck in this wave of not knowing who will come into your life and make you sing again.

When you fall in love for the first time, it is in that one park and you swear it's the best feeling in the world. You swear you can fly.
When you fall in love the second time, please don't let it go, you know what it feels like already to watch love die.

I feel electricity when we touch
a buzz I left in my seventeenth year
with latex condoms and ****** beer,
but I felt it there with you

I feel warmth when we talk
a calm I lost in translation,
decoding frantic cries in adolescent desperation
but I breathed deeply with you

I feel alive when we lay, wherever we may
A high I abandoned for minimum wage pay,
nodding off in cubicles to keep debt at bay,
but you make me forget that

I feel something with you that I forgot I could,
My heart races without desination, knowing it should
s t o p
and enjoy the view this time,
I feel fine this time

taught to articulate concisely
to breathe fresh air, easily
but plagued with pollution
from corporate illusion
i refuse to stay still
in the sprout of a revolution
so I am letting go
of what smog still resides
what does not fuel my insides
this is goodbye,
to everything I have that I do not need,
and a hello
to me

The longest day,
The deepest breath
You always knew me the best.
My second spring,
Without you here
I wonder who I'll be this year.
The greenest grass,
The bluest skies
I hide the ugliness of my insides.
The warmest sun,
The afterglow
Of a girl whom I'd like to know.
The longest day,
The deepest breath
I won't wait for you again.
The time is now,
No room to wait
Gaia dealt a brand new day.

Unattached narratives

Charlie makes the same face every time they tell a joke they know they probably shouldn’t. They shift their jaw a tiny bit to the left, their eyes to the right. They start to crack a smile, intermittently, but it doesn’t poke through easily. They don’t let anyone know they think they’re funny. But they know. They’ve made this face a lot lately, they seem lighter; they seem fuller. I could watch the same face and hear the same corny joke every day for the rest of my life, and laugh like it was new. I could watch them smile until my eyes burned out. I wanted this to be unattached but I feel their joy in my chest, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m so thankful for this.

You don't have to prove anything
to anyone
Especially people who didn't wash the blood off your hands,
Especially those who didn't hold you while you shook so hard you rattled your brain,
You actually rattled your brain,
You don't have to remember
or explain what happened to strangers
whose eyes penetrate your shirt
To see the scars that seep through the white
you owe a reason to no one for why you don't like to fight or speak in front of people
They weren't there when you had to shave your head because it was falling out anyway
They weren't there when you threw away your last needle,
so **** them

I am not a slave to cliches
Or to the chemicals
That bind my skin
To my bed frame
I am not a slave
To the have-beens
Or to TV dinners
halfway cooked
Eaten anyway
because I counted the calories
Already
I am not a slave
To the pain of waking up
In a foggy room
Where I cannot see the floor
I am not a slave
To myself
Anymore

I tucked you away in the back of my brain
Waited for the spring to thaw you out
And now I mourn our winters lost, our summer love fading fast,

It is May, we were not made to last

for three years you were my knight,
night took over and flooded my castle but you fought him off
with great chivalry, with cunning words you lied to me
to insinuate safety

but I don't need that anymore.

for three years you were the beast,
who I defended my kingdom from,
at last I have won against the forces that threatened me,

I don't need you anymore.

When you sent a message and begged of my hand,
chills broke my silence, weakened my stand.
For a minute, maybe, I wanted to say yes,
I blushed at the thought of reuniting and bliss,
but I walked outside alone to say no,
and realized there that I had built a moat.
It surrounded my kindgom, with great width and more depth,
and it was filled with water from tears that I'd wept
every time you came back and then left,
and while you shined in the moonlight, I felt weary in the knees,
but learned that you were my night and with you I can't see
I am the moon, I am my own ******* ******* light,
I'm not a last resort when you can't sleep at night


so I said no.
Because I don't need you anymore.
I won't be there ever again when you come to knock down my door.

I put myself in debt
taking classes to learn how to
fix the world's problems
and when I got tired
I tried fixing smaller ones
like broken tables and
broken homes
I paid off loans
to take more lessons
on how to make the world
hurt less
but I did not learn
how to clean up my mess
I tried to learn my pain away
and put all my energy into
saving populations in far places
but never mended my own heart
there isn't a class for that

my friend told me once
the hardest thing to fix
was a broken heart
and he was right
i have 6 degrees
in subjects i loathe
but the thing i loved
i know not where to start

I'm sorry for the things I said while I was drinking
I'm sorry for who I become when I'm wasted
I'm sorry for wasting your time by pushing you away
I'm sorry, I have this way about me that makes connecting scary
and I would say "It isn't you, it's me"
But I haven't identified the source of this inescapable misery
I'm sorry for what I said
I'm sorry for everything

I remember the first time you called me fat
I forgave you

And for that, I struggle to forgive myself

I remember the first time you called me annoying
My chest fell into my gut
The feeling of my stomach acid eating at the words I pushed back  down my throat with whatever simple starch I could salvage
Is something I'll always remember

I remember the first time you said I broke your heart
And just how mine stopped
And how in 3 weeks it'll be a year since I gave my body away to a stranger and you held it over me like a plague in medieval times would've spread across my weakened body
I remember it strongly
I remember our first kiss,
I remember our last,
I remember the day I knew I didn't love you anymore,
If I could get that feeling to pass,
Because it's unfair you're happy,
When I'm still stuck in January when you told me in bullet form everything I did wrong
And it didn't make sense how I tried to leave but you wouldn't let me
Nd then you left
It isn't fair
You're gone, you're there,
And I'm no one, I'm nowhere

I got to thinking about how you never think about me,
not once in eleven months or during our anniversary week,
does it make me weak to wonder where we'd be by now?
My throat would still ache from yelling and you'd still be down about how you're stuck in the city with no way out,
but it's funny how fast a year went by and that I still wonder if I cross your mind
when I know I don't,
I just can't accept that I was never more than a lesson to you,
one you never internalized.

I'm haunted by my mistakes
Every word venom in my mouth
they tasted bitter so I spit them out
and they hurt those around me
but I didn't care.

I dyed and cut my hair to play the part
of someone who moved on with an entirely untouched heart
it was blonde, then blue, green, and black
I cut enough off that you'd surely not come back
because you didn't like girls with short hair
I still don't care.

I'm haunted by my actions,
every move a cut deeper in my grave,
I hurt those around me in a viscious, Godly wave
Each time it crashed, I'd apologize, retreat
but would relapse, and get the same rush each time I would repeat
I'm haunted by that thought,
that I changed myself so much this year,
from gaining 40 pounds to starting to drink beer,
but I have not cleaned the cobwebs from my heart,
it's been 9 months and I am still torn apart.
Not from missing you, or heartbreak,
but from the repurcussions of these hideous mistakes,
the summer left those ugly scars that turn blue instead of white,
and I hurt too many people to even try to make it right
I wonder if I'll ever heal,
or change in ways inside,
because my hair is starting to break off,
with everything I use on it to hide

I take in your love like fossil fuels

The guilt will **** me faster than
The illness
I wonder what it’d be like to be free
From all of this
Where would you put the sun
If you did not have to hold it up
For me
Every day
Would you rest?

We ate off paper plates.
God, we were a mess,
we nourished ourselves with
disposable trays,
to leave less of a mess.

We slept on paper beds,
just incase we fought again,
what a waste it would have been,
to have bought a brand new set,
only to end up sleeping in separate rooms,
on the floor again.

We conquered paper mountains,
they didn't bend, they didn't break,
they ripped beneath our heavy feet,
and we let them because we were too defeated.

Together we made a world of paper,
that's why I'm gone from yours now,
you held me for three years,
but three years of paper burns in 10 minutes if you let it.

And that's why you're still in mine,
I never took you out,
I never had the heart to take the time
to set you on fire,
and now you're stuck here.

I eat off paper plates now,
hoping one day you'll get hungry again too,
and we can build a world again,
temporarly, disposable, as long as it's with you.

I cut myself deep enough to see the bone when I was 16
I fell in love that year as well
They don't tell you what to do after you fall
Because they don't know how hard you will
I cut myself that night in July
I went so deep they had to put me on a lifeline
I am alive now
with skin made of steel
and no one comes in anymore
I fell in love
and you felt me up
you took away my right to say no
overcome with fear
I begged you to stop
they don't teach you how to tell someone
that this has happened before
and every single time
the strength it takes to say no
leaves your throat like a plague
fed by fear and starving for a sound
they don't tell you how hard it is to say no
with your mouth
when your head tells you to be quiet
and the man that haunts your ghostly body
tells you that he does it because he loves you
trigger warning: they don't give you a trigger warning before they hurt you

they just do

Despite how it looks, I forget about you a lot,
I think I do, at least, I've gotten better this year.
This semester took me for a spin, I threw up everything,
but I threw out nothing, just tucked away our belongings,
they gather dust but they wouldn't burn so I kept them,
I've gotten better this year, I think I have at least
It's funny how in March I thought I was dying and
since then I've been using the same sheets because
they smell like you.


You are at the bottom of my cup,
you are residue I didn't finish up,
you are left behind,
bitter taste in my mouth,
you are what I complain about,
but I still make time every day,
to drink until I'm sick,
just to make sure you're still there,
and to feel just as pathethic

50 hearts bleeding on the floor,
blood that is thickened with hatred,
it seems as soon as we are born,
our cords are cut and replaced,
into our veins,
they instill hate,
slowing our hearbeat quickly,
as we grow up,
the bitterness trumps,
we lose what was born,
to a gun,
our hearts ache for those that were slain,
the community will not be the same without you.

We fear love because we fear vulnerability and I understand this paradox is common. And I understand that my struggles are not unique but being rudimentary and predictable does not make the pain in my chest that tells the brain in my head to take a knife to my own skin every time I am alone in a room with white walls, ever go away. It tells me to paint and I tell it to shut up because at this age, no one cares how badly you want to hurt yourself because at this age, you should be asking for help, and at this age when you finally ask for help they tell you that you should have come sooner and that this age is a weird one to start talking about how you feed off validation from others the same way your extended family feeds off alcohol. You never let anyone in because it’s all your fault. And you know it, so you suffer alone and you refuse to face vulnerability with self love and trust because the last time you trusted someone they shred your insides to dust and you could not see straight for two years. Tell me, what do you fear? Liberation or self examination?

I remember the first time I looked into your eyes
I felt everything inside you
suddenly felt everything inside me too.
Parts of me I wasn't aware existed started thawing out
I felt my bones start to shake.
I fell for you three years ago to this day.
And since then, I haven't been able to look back.


I remember the 56th time I looked into your eyes
I swore to God you were the one that made life worth living, constantly giving me something to smile about as the world seemed to crash around me in an unescapable pattern and I always fell into you.
I became comfortable with leaning on your shoulders though they too were weary but you never told me to stand up on my own
and I became afraid of being alone after the 154th time
I looked into your eyes and saw my future.

I remember the 876th time I looked into your eyes.
That day still haunts the perimeters of my mind
I felt my chest sink in that day
as you said the words "I'm not in love with you anymore"
after that every time I looked into your eyes I felt absolutely nothing.
I felt crashing, I felt sadness for a bit,
but nothing clicked like it did for years
and I felt the lump in my throat crawl into my brain
and I remember telling you I felt the same.
I wasn't in love with you anymore.
Prior to that, that thought never came up
I couldn't handle the pain of knowing I would have to move on
so I stopped looking into your eyes,
to spare myself the aching,
every time I felt a rush of blood pump to my heart
almost fast enough to make it stop,
and I wondered if it would ever start again.

The very last time I looked into your eyes
I felt a part of me die and I don't mean
it metaphorically,
I mean I felt my insides wither away so fast
they made me feel like I was losing air,
taking every bit of strength to put one foot
in front of the other just to bring myself out of there.
I said goodbye without looking at you for fear I might fall back
just like you let me for years.
I said goodbye without looking back and now I forget what
our last goodbye looked like,
but can't seem to forget how I felt at our first hello,
and I wonder if this is what hell is like.
Knowing that if you could, you'd do things right a second time,
but having that ability stripped away from you by a Greyhound bus
and a parking pass,
and always, constantly, looking back.

the birth rate is nearly 3 times that of the death rate
in today's day and age,
I find it amazing that we have
modern medicine
computers with brains
but nobody ever found a way to heal the pain of a
broken heart,
but it's funny,
for every one ending,
there's 3 brand new starts

maybe we don't get our hearts broken,
maybe they're reborn,
into something brand new,
innocent and warm
for every one death,
a new life begins
so what if that was the same
when we feel our world has caved in?

Never enough
Always too much
I overflow past the brink
Empty out into the sink
I'm sorry for what I am
*too much to be held in such fragile hands

I write the best at night when I can't sleep
the IV is dressed like stability,
heart like an addict but could never commit.
unhealthy habits I never wanted to quit
I didn't look sick.

when the memories are lucid and loud
your words come alive in nightmares,
nurses rush to check I'm not climbing out the fire escape again
easier to jump out than to let anyone in

so used to leaving in a panic I never learned to use the door,
I still feel the burn of your hand on my cheek and the cool of the floor


I write the best at night when I can't sleep
the IV is dressed like stability,
heart like an addict but could never commit.
unhealthy habits I never wanted to quit
I didn't look sick.

I took classes about drugs
what could happen if we tried them
All the street names and side effects,
prison times and famous users
but we never learned what to do when the drug had
brown hair and blue eyes and held your hand in the back of a cruiser

I didn't look sick,
I climbed out the fire escape quick
for one last hit because you asked me to and I didn't think twice about it

I'll be the first to admit it was my weakest year in terms of my spirits. I'm naturally strong but this year I was lazy when faced with the challenge of having to adapt. New and unfamiliar tragedies struck, harsher weather hit and I was last in line to defend myself. Picking it all back up won't be pretty. Pieces lie around like shattered toys. Boy, is it something to watch yourself fall apart but care so deeply about another person you forget to care for yourself. It's another thing, too, to let yourself believe you don't deserve to get better. To deprive yourself of water and light to insist you're strong enough to fight fire with fire when you already burned out. What's that about? I was weak, and I won't pretend I was growing into something worth being proud of. I lied a lot this year, to myself the most. I watched my world crumble around me and those who bore witness claimed hyperbole. That was devastating to me. A world I'd carved with my own hands, shattered and then made into a mockery. So I let go of making the world mine, I ran out of steam. I was weak. I was so ******* weak this year and I lost almost every piece of me. I don't like that attitude, the whole "New year, New me" but boy, am I sick of being this one. I got too scared to ask for help, convinced I was in fact stronger than anyone on my own. That's until I was alone and I fell apart 125 nights in a row. I was weak, but I was more scared than anything. Courage came like sunshowers and lifted me above skyscrapers but only for field trips. We always forget we have to go home at the end of the day, remember? I would ask for a hand only when falling and would wake up and learn that I was dreaming. Reality hit me like a bus this year, and I never reached for a hand when I wasn't in bed. I missed that too, holding onto something warm after cold nights and red skin. Let it sink in, when you're falling out of love for the first time and you don't think you're going to get past it, you will. But you'll lose a lot of who you thought you were, too. I did that this year. I'm sorry. I'm not who I was when I was in love. I'm not that girl anymore and I'm not weak. I'm standing on my own two ******* feet here, now. I'm here, now. You haven't seen the last of me. I was weak, and things were ugly. I was drunk and I can't remember the last time I felt at peace where a substance didn't do it for me, but I've felt it before on my own and know well enough what that heat feels like when it sits in your stomach. I miss the flutter in my heart after writing a good poem or watching a sunrise in May. I miss a lot that I put away this year because underneath their top coats were memories I was not ready to face. I'm only 20, loss is something I understand now. Everyone said I would survive and for months I was convinced they lied but I'm here now, my hearts beating now. I can't say I'm weak anymore because I'm still alive to tell you about it. Just wait until you see what I make from the pieces I choose to pick back up and the new ones I make. This year is mine to take. Here's to you, 2017.

I packed my clothes
And cigarettes
I'm moving to the South.
I always romanticized the North East,
And North West but the middle seemed draining and sure, I'm scared. I'm bound by my youth here and I have this exaggerated passion to travel I decorate for the sake of feeling adventurous but I'm actually comfortable with my feet in concrete boots, climbing back to you. You asked if I'm happy and said that it's sad that I'm leaving, we have so many memories. I felt the same way a year ago with you so I said I didn't know if I was. I don't know if waking up every day past noon to down a pill just to leave the room is happy but I know I'll live three miles from the Atlantic ocean, from pink sand in three weeks and you know I always romanticized the way nature could heal a shattered soul, so I'll go.

I hate that you asked me if I'm happy right before I go, I hate that I'm over you but that still make my insides coagulate and tear apart my stomach lining, I hate that I'm lying about why I'm leaving.

I said I'm starting over but I just have some things I haven't let go of, and I can't. So I'm running from them instead. I'll live on the beach. You won't pop up in the coffee shops I pretend to like dark roast in. I won't see your face in public when you aren't really there. It's unfair that I don't know how to go anywhere but towards another person but I'm hoping those morning beach walks might teach me how to go towards something scary instead of something safe. Maybe happiness isn't safety, maybe when you said you missed me that pain in my stomach was irony because a year ago I collapsed in class on a white tile floor when you said you'd never love me the same and now I'm leaving behind white walls and a white door I never painted because I never picked a color that made me happy.

I turn 20 in 3 months.

3 days ago, I **** my pants.
Yikes.

What? Ugh, I know. Well heck, dude.
It was an accident.
Or it was laughter mixed with Corona.
Or it was nervousness taking over,
lactose intolerance teamed up with people intolerance,
**** did it smell, but
we did try to make the best out of a sticky situation,
for lack of a better word.
The air was stale, but at least I could breathe at that point.
It's in our nature to coat our ugliest metals in gold.
Why do we do that and feel bad when the copper starts to shine through?

I beg you something, I plead.
Stop calling  anxiety beautiful. Please.
What's beautiful about air stabbing your chest like
shattered glass as you hug your own knees for comfort
and beg it to make it to your lungs in time to breathe?

What's so beautiful about bloodshot eyes so red that customers tell your boss you're surely high when you'd give your left leg to be low enough to calm down, even if for a minute.
What's so beautiful about burn marks from coffee pots your dropped while you were shaking?

And what is so beautiful about freezing in the heat,
or not being able to distinguish between the two because goosebumps cover your entire body. Anything over 72 degrees and you can't breathe
because the air

is just
so
heavy,
it sticks to your muggy lungs
but you still tremble from the cold because your body forgets how to adapt to certain situations as it's too busy remembering how to function at a very basic level to keep you alive to experience every aspect of this attack so tell me what is so ******* beautiful about colors getting trapped outside the fog in your brain like prisoners of war, the kind of fog that you can't even see but that ***** the vibrancy out of things you used to use to fill up your empty parts, so tell me what is so beautifully tragic about your favorite grass being grey instead of green?

You try to turn something ugly, something vengeful into something to roll into a ball and cradle like a blanket or a toy, something pretty and controlled,

and you end up cold on the tile floor of Cumberland Farms
in tears
at 20 years old
warking your mother up at 3 in the morning
with a screaming ringtone
only to forget how to speak
when she answers and her voice cracks
"what's wrong? what's going on?"
And you don't know
but you konw you have coffee to make
if you hands would just stop shaking
please for a second
and that's why you smell like coffee now,
because more grounds get on you than in the filter anyway,
you just never stop shaking
but when someone asks what's wrong and you can't identify the source you do your best to forget what's even causing this in the first place
so tell me what's beautiful about any of this.

About your heart beating so fast you
swear it's racing someone else,
maybe racing to get you some help,
but what would you say when they arrived?
Where did this derive from?
Every single hair on your body rises,
it's so hot,
you can't breathe,
but you still freeze,
or are those nervous bumps?
You feel every chill like waves under a full moon

Tell me what the most beautiful part about a girl you can't kiss is,
is it the chase? The same one that pumps through my blood.
I'd chase anything for one long breath I didn't have to fight for.

Please stop calling anxiety beautiful.
Please stop coating my copper in gold.
Please don't tell me that it's something tragic but that it makes me stronger,
because when you end up on the floor of a convenience store, crying into coffee you already ruined twice,
you'll hurt the person who was only trying to be nice.

Surrounded by people yet oh, so alone
It took me a month, 12 days and three hours to notice the hole
in my stomach from when you told me I deserved it.
Why is your voice, then, the one thing I wish yelled it?
The sorry sound of apologies I'll never hear,
the ones I make up just to rid of that shatter I feel in my spine everytime
I remember what you said to me April first before the line went dead,
Hell bent on apologies I fabricate and decorate with words my peers love,
to reinstate a relationship I all but deconstructed on my own,
so why am I alone?
Every mistake, I would blame everything you'd take, and I would give more.

I still have a bruise on my knees from the night I hit the floor.
I'd give until I had nothing left,
I have nothing left.

I'm a thief. Good at deceiving,
convincing everyone around who cares
I'm in a good place.
God, am I happy.
Convincing them I'm losing weight by eating clean and not because I lose my ******* appetite every time I remember you never missed me,
I don't sleep.

Why did it take a month to feel this hole consume me?
I'm empty