I had to watch a couple of ****** romantic comedies to see how ****** up you and I were. I had to listen to Maroon 5’s entire discography before I got over you. I came and cried right after 23 times before I stopped thinking of you during *** or as I was pleasuring myself but it only took 23 times.












We were chaotic and I will remember dancing with you on the deck after the rain; I will remember you covering my mouth at 2:31am because my laugh was always, always loud and our roommates were sleeping; I will remember us in rose, the things no one but us knows; I will remember the nights you sat me down and listened as I cried. And I will remember the nights you did not. I will remember our first kiss on a stranger’s couch, and our last in my new bed, 4 months after I moved out. I will remember bending over the bathroom sink at work the day I found out you lied to me, begging god to give me my breath back.















I will remember taking god for granted every minute until I needed him to breathe that night. I will remember you telling me you loved me for the first time, and I will remember the last. I won’t remember you in vain, with anger, with sadness. I will remember you and I for what we were. Rushed. Patient. Crazy. Unsteady, exciting. Happy. In love. Over.

I will wade until my knee caps break
From the weight of the ocean
Month after month in the same exact place
I wish there was a way out

I can’t catch my breath at all from the last two years
And you can’t hear me screaming
It isn’t your job to, anyways
But I wish there was a way

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.

Fall asleep to the sounds of the city
Fall asleep to your lips kissing me
What a way to wake up, in love again
The summer feels like it did at 13
But brighter and warmer, you here with me
Fall asleep to the sounds of my heartbeat
Fall asleep to your arms around me
What a way to wake up, in love again
What a gentle reminder of how it is to be in heaven

my brain
is soft,
I let you in

watching car wrecks like fireflies
on your tight suburban street
smashing sounds
reverberate through
the trees,

I catch them with my teeth
I hold them in my jaw

and still feel nothing
I crave to be
the engine charred
sprinkled on the crosswalk
smeared across the asphalt
burning bright enough for someone
to notice me

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.

when I talk and it sounds more like a scream
and my soul lay scattered on your bedroom floor
I will tremble as I hand you the bones I took out of my closet
but take them still

when I cry and you get sick of that high pitched whine
and my tears stain your favorite white shirt
I will shake as I hold your hand and tell you what hurts
but listen still

when I make loving me more of a chore than a game
and my panic attacks interrupt your sleep cycle
I will apologize as many times as I can until you fall back asleep
but listen still

I have talked to no one for three years now
and my hands have been uneasy since I was sixteen
I won't hold your hand until you promise
to hold mine back and to hear me

There is a pink haze over the city tonight
I’m sitting in a parking lot, texting you in a panic again
I’m sorry I haven’t gotten it together yet
At least we caught the end of the sunset
I love the way the full moon hits your cheek
Please don’t get tired of me
I took a picture of the orange,
I spent all day in bed
I don’t want to waste my life away
I don’t want you to grow sick of me

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

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.

I have a picture of you,
23, surfing under our sheets to
Climb your way up my chest
Into the cavities that lay beneath,
Your teeth against my neck and your hands holding me,
I have a picture of you in my head
That plays across my brain every
Night and I am reminded again, and again
How good it is to love you the way I do
Raw and unusual and passionate and true

I hope you forget about me when you move away and start over.

I hope you don’t bring me up anymore, and that bottling it all inside eats you alive.

I hope you never tell your new friends about me, I hope you think of me every night.

I want you to hurt like I did. I healed, thank god. And I moved on. But I live every day with the guilt you gave me.

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

climbing through the wreckage
you left your clothes here on purpose
you said you wanted me to miss you
the plan was fool proof
i donated your clothes today
a sure fire way to rid my space of you
something it took me a year to do,
nevertheless, i do not miss you anymore