They're called our golden years
because they're shiny, energy
pitter patters inside dollar store batteries
didn't quite fit the mold the remote control
gave them but they still managed to get by
They're called our golden years
because 1920s America were golden too,
corruption blanketed poverty,
depression plagued the youth
while beautiful violin numbers drowned out the screams
I always pictured the song that I **** myself to,
one from the jazz age,
so no one knows I was so rotten underneath
the gold I worked hard to shine
each and every day
I'm 20 now
I'm golden, now
Composing my piece to debut
before I turn 22

I do not miss you anymore
Nor do I hope you think of me
Six months alone, unlearning codependency
I feel yellow, I feel complete
I do not miss you anymore

The saying goes
"It takes 21 days to make or break a habit"
but it's been 71 and I've yet to even crack the surface on this one
I made a routine out of pretending to be stronger than what
I pretended you made me into, and that was weak.
I created a pattern in my head and brought it to life:
you were the reason I was this way and here is why:
what we had was a habit,
I'll spare the details because they're just as boring as the same series I've been watching on Netflix for a month without a purpose.
***, fight, make up, ignore problems, watch tv, sleep and eat ****** food, more ***.
You could smell the latex for two years before we stopped using a ****** and taking that risk became routine.
We knew all the answers to jeopardy but we kept watching and I think that's because we tried to pretend that we didn't know things that we already did
and look where it led.

It was a habit.
It was comfort after a week of routines we led separately but somehow over the course of three years never talked about deeply.
"How was school?"
Out of habit I say "okay"
How was work? "slow"
"I don't care what we order"
"Just pick something"
"Do you want to have ***?"
"Can you push over?"
"Who are you texting?"
"why do you always do this?"
"Are you finished being mad yet?"
"I need you in my life, please don't leave"

As humans we crave stability but do not know that what it brings instead is a suffocating cycle that should not feel so permanent at nineteen and twenty


So when we broke up I made a habit out of checking up on you
made a pattern out of blaming you for not wanting to leave my bed,

two whole months later.

What they don't tell you about habits is that 21 days is not enough to break down walls that held you in place for 956 days, even if you weren't very happy,
at least you were warm and at least you had something there to remind you that you always had something to fall back on,
even if it was weighing down your shoulders,
even if it would crack around you one day.

I made a habit out of projecting the blame onto others too,
like saying "would crack around you" one day.
Like I was warning others that love is not forever and to be cautious who you let inside your walls because I did not want to see you there inside when they fall,
when they really fell around me
and two months later,
it's a habit to still check in to make sure you're happy.
Scrolling your newsfeed though you have me blocked, I'm sure you know I do it anyway so you routinely make yourself look better than ever, satisfied in all that you have and I hope you are that way,  I really do
5 days a week in a factory coming home to microwave noodles and a small love seat is not ideal but it's comforting.
And so we accept these facts and allow ourselves to repeat
all we want sometimes is comfort, we don't even need to be happy if we have a place to sleep.

it is still a routine to forget about taking care of my self because that takes away time from caring for you and selfish is one word I never strive to be so I spend my days remembering all the things we repeated over and over.

I will always blame you because it is so hard not to.

I hope one day I don't.

Some days I try and make a habit out of pretending I'm angry with you when in all actuality I miss the stability of calling someone mine.
I don't know why I do this thing where I pretend like I didn't love you as much as I did,
as much as I do. Still.
I guess it's a habit because I have so much to live up to;
this "hard girl" image isn't easy, you know, but for 71 days it's what I've come to know is what I need to move on maybe half as fast as you did.
Maybe I wasn't a routine for you because I know you well enough to know you were stuck in your ways for longer than 21 days so many times and it was not easy to break through them.
Maybe I was different.
I think I loved you a lot more and that's why I have pages of words,
and bags of glass bottles,
I've made a routine out of this and you have done absolutely nothing.


21 days?
That's absurd.
I just let 21 days pass without trying to even move on

what happens if you don't want to break the habit?
I'm sorry, what happens if I don't want to break the habit?
What if I miss it?
What if I want it back although that habit is far gone and moved on?


What do I do now but blame that habit for my lack of motivation now as my fingers wear out the paint on the keyboard of this computer and I blame you for my weight gain and inability to stop drinking even though you told me never to start in the first place because you know I have an addictive personality and it's so hard for me to
break habits?

Once I get started on a new one I'm sure I will be fine.
they say it only takes 21 days, anyway.

Falling in half love
With everyone I meet,
Scared to go in past my feet.
Afraid to open up
Hesitate to divulge the feelings
That hang as painful cliches
But hurt just the same
as if they were open wounds
I still wonder what healing is like for you.

Or if you even had to.

You broke my ribs
And bruised my lungs
When you left without warning
I hated you for burying me
Under the weight of your problems
While shaping mine into small white pills
And turning a blind eye when I choked

I spent a year alone
Because hate has a radius
No one can withstand
Or bear to be around for too long
And I could not lift it off my chest
I did my best to let go of the anger
Blisters scarred my trekking feet
I hated you for burying me
I could not see the poison of my ways
Until I hated you so much that  I hated me

heavy in my chest
where you used to lay your head
shaking in my hands
where we used to play pretend
where forever was tangible,
it was your lips on my forehead
it was my laughter imprinted on your bed

now nothing feels right
without you here by my side

Getting out of bed is so hard
with such a heavy head
I drag myself into sitting posistion
groggy, already tired by the time I stand up
I'm through with feeling like my footsteps mean nothing
to anyone around me '

I used to shame validation from anyone else
for my own importance
but my ego is starving
and I am laying in bed without a purpose or a reason to be here

A heavy head
that is empty
holds me down
in a way I do not understand
I cleared it of all the bad but still it weighs
me
down

fear keeps me here
stagnant and sorry
vindictive and caged
I waited for years
for an apology
or a reason, at least

I let the vultures
pick through parts of me
you left out on the street
scattered and shameful
harrowed and hungry
waiting for anything

High school optimism
Auditorium curriculum
Pressed into our heads like wet clay
The world in front, nothing but green grass
Below us, what on earth could stop us?
Hearts beat like that time Jake put adderall in our Redbulls
We laughed it off, and talked about who
We wanted to be in 5 years
What we did not
Until the sun came up
Every body had a plan
and my chest filled with bees
I started to think about leaving
I walked 12 miles before I realized I was scared
I ended up at the beach
Sea foam etched mandalas in the sand
Like when I was 17 and thought I had a plan,
it made this wall as if to shield
The pebbles on the bank from drowning

According to my calculations,
google, if you're wondering
It would take 11 years to walk the surface of the earth

If you don't count the mountains and rivers and deserts and glaciers that might **** you first, it'd take 11 years to walk to earth

If you don't count the 47392 ways that you could die while doing this, it'd be romantic

Walking 11 years to prove you could,
To say you did

If you forget the time and walk the distance,
And make it there in 10 instead because you were so eager,
you might find yourself at the end,
She might tell you that you didn't have to move mountains or cross rivers to justify the first 19 years you spent dying,
By wasting 10 more trying to find something that you could have found

If you dumped your moocher boyfriend
And bought a book instead

How to conquer the world when you are manic and preserve it when you are depressed.

I had a close friend send me a text a few weeks ago
Reminding me how to breathe and that I had to get out of bed,
I thought if she could have read my mood from the west coast
As I rotted in cotton comforters in the east, I must have been pretty obvious
Maybe it’s because we have been friends for ten years or because
I plaster every up and down online to vague audiences, I cast out my emotions
Like frayed fishing line, trying to catch even a glimpse of someone who relates.
But when this friend texted me she said something that might help balance out
The high-highs with the unbearable lows is writing how I feel when I am both.
I did my best to put the feeling of flying at 100mph upside down with wings made of silken sheets into words but the minute I did they turned into wings of concrete and I lost my focus again. And so I went to answer my friend and I said ‘here is how to conquer the world when you are manic”

I am caffeine therapy,
engulfed in energy
I am yellow, I am green
I am everything at once,
I feel everything all at once.
Did I mention?
Hey, I'm really excited to tell you
I’m gonna save the world,
All of it.
Today.
try and stop me.
I woke up at 4 this morning
Watched the sun swallow shadows
Like it was yearning for something dark
To balance itself out.
Too much light is dangerous too.
I always like to watch the sunrise before I go out to save the world, Waking up early always gives me so much more time And today I will do a lot,  I want to save the world. I hope you know I'm going to.

I am yellow, I am green. I am everything at once.
I am traffic jams spread out across freeways,
I am six trips in a row to the same store because I kept forgetting what I needed,
Music playing so loud you can’t hear anything else
I wash down amphetamines with coffee
I am now Narrow energy. I'm traveling a perfectly paved road Home to a room where I cannot see the floor, but that’s okay because I’m
Going to save the world today.
It doesn't matter how fast I'm going as long as you see me get there.
I am validation starvation in calorie counting notebooks,
I am looks from strangers whose eyes wonder loudly how I got marks on my arms or how I'm bouncing my foot like energy is spewing out my body but still have bags under mine that insinuate exhaustion I never learned how to overcome.
I am a math equation stuck inside the text book
From that semester I dropped out;
I am heat energy dancing inside shattered beakers, I am weathered worn out sneakers still being used because it’s hard to let go,
I'm kissing catalytic conversations with those I love because I need a reaction to feel like they're listening,
I am potential energy ready to become kinetic,
I am energetic and today, I have the heart to save the world.
I am off track, my bad. Its like an “ADHD starter pack” but there's no warranty or handbook.
Anyway, I started by re-enrolling in classes because I have always been good at school,
Except for when I stopped going but I have always been good at school and I can understand why everyone around me might expect me to succeed, I emit determination from my mouth when my heart feels empty, but I did sign back up because
This time I'm ready, and this  time I won’t ever feel low again, I think i beat it finally
I feel it in my bones as I cross busy streets without looking either way
I'm invincible and incredible
I am yellow I am green
I am hydro energy feeding off the
Big deep blue sea,
I am gratitude as an action
Not a trinket I can break
and today I will save the world
and tomorrow I will not be low,
And today I will conquer my fears, all 647
And tomorrow I will tell my friends I love them
And today I will remind myself that skin cells
Replace themselves every 28 days
So I only have to wear long sleeves for that many more
And tomorrow I will wake up and do my homework
And today I will surely save the world,
I will never feel so low as I have ever again
How could I when there is so much to smile for?
I’m laughing so loud my neighbors are asking,
And my friends think I’m doing better and I tell them I am. I am.
I am yellow, I am serene,
I feel it in my skin that I am better
recovery feels like Holding hands at sixteen and iced tea, And this is easy!
I am yellow, I am green.
I am yellow, I am green.
I feel everything all at once.
floating between causes, altruism is a virus, slithering through my veins, celebrating how much I will do today. Did I mention how much I will do today?
I'm going to save the world.
After signing back up for classes I spread out my day like magazine clippings I'll never put onto a “dream board” because I will most likely forget about them, my dreams make better notes in my iphone where I can see them
As I check my contacts to see who I can talk to today. Or who will listen. I wonder who will listen. Or what kind of game I will play to make someone listen.
I am yellow, I am green. It’s noon and I am flying.
Here is how else I will save the world:
I will make sure I save myself first,
I'll clean my room and go to the gym
work off three weeks of sweets with three hours on the treadmill, I forgot how good it feels to run and I know that this is the last time I will ever, ever give up.
I’m better now. I run on a track that loops back in on itself because I find comfort in knowing it will always return no matter how many times I lose sight of where I'm going, I would get lost were I to run outside because when you are everything all at once you seldom stay in place, God there is just so much to look at. I will never look back at who I was even as late as yesterday.
I get lost inside rubix cube mentalities and short lived craft store hobbies, but I'm better.
I am yellow, I am green. And today I am going to be a wildlife photographer, And an artist, and when people ask me what I want to be I tell them
I will work for the United Nations and that I am going to save the world, they believe me and ask me how I'll do it and I realize that I have yet to start saving the world.
I woke up at 4, so sure today was the day,
I felt it in my heart like the time I took two of my adderalls by mistake because I forgot that I took one that day, I felt it and it was real. Throbbing like a bump from falling but real. I lost track of that feeling for a second and now it is fleeting.
What is happening?

I am yellow, I am green.
I am yellow, i am yellow I am yellow,
Are you still listening?
I'm potential energy locked inside a pendulum
Hanging from a chemical tree that dies fast and grows slowly, Im staggered progress dressed up like empathy, I'm baggage too heavy
I am yellow, I am green.
I am fleeting energy
The kind that sparks a few times
On telephone lines turned pink infront of sunsets in july, gone before your friends can see it too.
They never really see it, too.
I am yellow, I am green

I forgot to shower every day this week but
I'm too tired to get out of bed,
What is happening? Can you remind me what I was doing?
I was supposed to save the world today
I’m sorry.
I was really going to save the world today
I'm taking in as much caffeine as I can without
Making my heart feel like it will push its way
Through my ribs out of my chest
Though being able to feel in my chest again
Might not be so bad. I’m stuffing smoke inside my cavities to fill them up, doing my best to keep feeling inside the skin I wear when I can feel it
Going numb, even it hurts at least I can feel it, I wish I could inject caffeine right into my veins,
I wish you could jump infront of moving trains without Hurting everyone on board,
I wish I felt less like this but I wish I felt more,
I reread texts from last night where transitioning
Felt like fist fighting recovery, her having one up on me,

I am crimson, I am grey, I am fleeting energy.
I’m so sorry.


I thought I said that before
And I might have but I forgot, I feel cloudy
I stumbled through steel wool tall grass to make it
Out of bed today and the weight of every single mistake I have ever made feels like it will surely break my spine Right in half, I don’t know if I will make it through today.
I wish someone would save me today.
I am crimson, I am grey.
I need someone to save my world today.

How to conquer the world when you are manic and preserve it when you are depressed.

I had a close friend send me a text a few weeks ago
Reminding me how to breathe and that I had to get out of bed,
I thought if she could have read my mood from the west coast
As I rotted in cotton comforters in the east, I must have been pretty obvious
Maybe it’s because we have been friends for ten years or because
I plaster every up and down online to vague audiences, I cast out my emotions
Like frayed fishing line, trying to catch even a glimpse of someone who relates.
But when this friend texted me she said something that might help balance out
The high-highs with the unbearable lows is writing how I feel when I am both.
I did my best to put the feeling of flying at 100mph upside down with wings made of silken sheets into words but the minute I did they turned into wings of concrete and I lost my focus again. And so I went to answer my friend and I said ‘here is how to conquer the world when you are manic”

I am caffeine therapy,
I am engulfed in energy
I am yellow, I am green
I am everything all at once,
I feel everything all at once.
I’m gonna save the world,
All of it.
Today.
try and stop me.
I woke up at 4am to watch
the sun swallow the indigo horizon
One last time before I go out and save the world,
Waking up early always gives me so much more time
To save the world, and I want to save the world.
I am yellow, I am green. I am everything at once.
I wash down amphetamines with coffee and I am
Narrow energy. I am traveling a perfectly paved road
Home to a messy room but that is okay because I’m
Going to save the world today.
I am a math equation stuck inside the text book
From the semester I dropped out;
I am heat energy dancing inside shattered beakers,
I am potential energy ready to become kinetic,
I am energetic and today, I have the heart to save the world.
I started by reenrolling in school because you need a degree
To save bees. That line might have been a joke but I did sign back
Up to finish my degree and this time I won’t ever feel low again,
How could I when there is so much to be happy about?
I am laughing so loud my neighbors are asking questions
And my friends think I am doing better and I tell them I am.
I feel it in my skin that I am better and recovery feels like
Holding hands at sixteen and iced tea in the summer,
And this is easy!
I am yellow, I am green. I feel everything all at once.
I am floating between causes and altruism is an ideal
Slithering its way through my veins, and today I am going to save the world.
After signing back up for classes I spread out my day like magazine clippings
I might never put onto a dream board because I will most likely forget about them
And my dreams make better notes in my iphone where I can see them
As I obsessively check my contacts to see who I can talk to today.
I am yellow, I am green. It is noon and I am flying.
Here is how else I will save the world.
I will clean my room and I will go to the gym
And work off three weeks of sweets with three hours on the treadmill,
I forgot how good it feels to run and I know that this is the last time I will ever give up.
I run on a track that loops back in on itself because I know that if I were to run outside,
I would get lost because I am everything all at once and there is just so much to look at.
I am yellow, I am green. And today I am going to be a wildlife photographer,
And an artist, and when people ask me what I want to be I tell them
I am going to work for the United Nations and that I am going to save the world,
And they believe me and it’s almost funny for a minute until I realize
I have yet to start saving the world. I woke up at 4 to save the world and I was sure today was the day, I felt it in my heart like poprocks the very first time or your first real kiss, I felt it and it was real and I lost track of that feeling and now I am scared that I might never save the world,
What is happening?
I am yellow, I am green. I am potential energy locked inside a pendulum
Hanging from a chemical tree that only grows each time it loses a leaf,
I am staggered progress dressed up like empathy,
I am yellow, I am green.
I am fleeting energy
The kind you watch spark a few times
On telephone lines turning pink behind July sunsets
And its gone before your friends can see it too.
I am yellow, I am green
I forgot to shower every day this week but
I am too tired to get out of bed,
What is happening?
I was supposed to save the world today
I’m so sorry.
I am drinking as much caffeine as I can without
Making my heart feel like it will push its way
Through my bones and out of my chest
Though being able to feel in my chest again
Might not be so bad. I am stuffing smoke  inside my chest to fill it up
I am doing my best to keep feeling inside the skin I wear when I can feel it
Going numb
I wish
You could inject caffeine right into your veins,,
I reread texts from last night where transitioning
Felt like fist fighting recovery, her having one up on me,
I am crimson, I am silver, I am fleeting energy.
I’m so sorry. I thought I said that before
And I might have but I forgot, today I feel cloudy
And I stumbled through steel wool tall grass to make it
Out of bed today and the weight of every single mistake
I have ever made feels like it is going to break my spine
Right in half, I don’t know if I will make it through today.
I wish someone would save me today.
I am crimson, I am grey. I need someone to save my world today .

Last summer I got drugged at a party
I felt my soul leave my body
The day I heard the news
My blood reached my skin
Faster than my hands grabbed her throat
I couldn't find it within me to seek revenge
Because I knew what had happened
And how this all tied together
No matter what I did I couldn't escape
The ties I made in the past
And it was my fault they kept sneaking back
In cheap beers on June nights
I'm sorry I didn't fight for myself then
Because now I don't have the strength

I gave you something that I cannot get back.
Believe me, I've tried,
countless nights, donating my time to strangers
begging God for one second, if anything,
of that feeling that I used to have with you.
He never delivered and I haven't stopped trying
to find that feeling elsewhere,
endlessly unsuccessful and franctic in my panicked ways,
worrying about the days I'm wasting wishing for something greater to come along.


I'm hurting people without caring and it's scary,
this is not who I was before you left me and I am not sure
what you took when you went but I need it back,
desperately,

Desperately I'm searching for a permanent way to fill this void
the one that has only gotten bigger since you left.
I think it's my heart that you took because nothing sticks anymore the way it used to.
I am numb and I wish I could find something or someone to make me feel something again without the bitter taste of our last kiss
burning in my mouth and forcing me to curl my lips hard,
and my fists harder,
I'm harder now and I miss how it felt to love someone deeply.
I miss me, too.

I don't want to know what could have happened
If I stayed and let you play my strings
to the same songs I dodge in public places now
because everyone knows how that turns out
My friends watched me fall over once a day in agonizing wonder
how you could call me a chore while I called you a lover
I don't want to know what could have happened
If that day in January when you told me I was nothing
didn't change the way that blood flowed through my body,
but I felt it change course and  collapsed in the kitchen with my family,
they didn't know that I was sick, you didn't look like illness to me
But I don't want to know what could have happened if I didn't leave,
because I can't count high enough to predict the nights I would have been unable to breathe

you would have taken the air right from my lungs if it could get you high

but I don't want to know what could have happened because despite it all, I turned out fine

Like turning off the light but leaving on the lamp,
you can see the corner of the room where it is,
where the boxes of pictures collect dust,
where the old letters start to rip
but you keep the lamp on
for fear of losing sight
of boxes you hide
from yourself
you lie


you miss him
and you pretend you don't
you feel it every time you kiss another
inside you tighten up and get a chill in your bones
you put the memories away but will not throw them out
becuase in the back of the room you still see the door by the lamp
and you still wish he would come through it and say he's figured it out

In the end of May
The daisies finished blooming
Their brightest whites framed our beaten path.
I opened your sunroof and took in the light.
That night in your car
I swear it was holy
I saw solace in your eyes
I felt God that night in the sky.
But I lied and told you I didn't feel it
For I hadn't felt that way in ages,
I was scared of what was to come.
I'm sorry.

I listen to new bands
that sound the same but
sing different words
so I know I'm still hearing
what I want to, just in different ways
I still need that security,
I need to feel safe
but I can't do that when I picture you listening with me
so I listen to new bands
that won't make it big
because they sound like everyone else
and anyone who listens feels the same
they only want familiarity and to feel safe

You are as dull as you are mean
Rehearsed every word you said to me
I need to be clean
of the belief that what you took
was not stealing
If it wasn't, why am I still empty handed,
why are you still standing?
You mistake admiration for love
and left me in the dust,
worn out, unreeling years of cabinet feelings
I'm sorry I never brought them up,
you always put them on the back burner,
I got sick of being the chip on your shoulder
that night in October when you said
I was the reason you hated who you'd become
It wasn't me who forced you to stay,
but your insecurities that drove me away
each and every time you said my name
like the letters burned your mouth
as they left it,
then I left you.
I felt the same,
we did it mututally
As you left me I felt unxtinguished, yet fizzled out.
No spark or trace you left.
A pile of ashes once laid on the ground where the strongest trees live today.

I'll be okay.

I don't have pretty words that bounce eloquently off each other,
nor rhythms that match heartbeats at unimaginable speeds,
I don't turn pain into art because when I hurt I lose my hands,
the same way I lose my head when I fall in love.
Nostalgia hit me like a bus.
I stood silent, aching in the middle of a diner,
remembering the days when I was 16 and came home to you in my bed,
and felt so lucky to spend every dollar I earned
on you.
And now I come back, 4 years later,
still unsure of what to spend my savings on,
still having not moved on too well,
I miss coming home.

Especially to you.

I'm sorry for pushing you away
hard enough to make you break
My hands are cold and I keep them that way
on purpose, kind of,  
out of habit,
definitely,
I have a fear of going in, and letting people see me.
I'm sorry for pushing you away,
fast enough to make you lose your breath,
My time is not worth another minute of yours,
I'm being honest.

I don't do it out of fear, really,
I think I lied before.
I do it out of misery,
I don't deserve the things you gave me.

I want to permeate your mind
figure out what keeps you up at night
I want to sink into your skin
and find the things that keep you burning
I want to pick apart your brain
and understand your reason for living

I thought my curiousity for the soul of another had died
I thought I would never crave to see someone's insides again
But you are different
You are new
You are you and
I want to know every single bit,
please let me through

in the springtime
   all the ice is melting
so fast you feel like
   you're drowning
but the flowers are budding
   watch where you step
some lakes look like puddles
    you spent months climbing
to the tops of snowbanks

when pinks and greens
    saturate your feet
they make their way up
   to your flowerbed brain
please let them in to stay
   you spent all winter erasing
colors from your memory
   now the sun cannot
brighten your greys  
   not alone

when the bees in your head
   stop swarming around
you saw each one fly away
   and out with each seed
you planted here on earch
   where you haven't felt
calm in a year and now you're breathing
   to the rhythm of the sun

You got a call at 7:42,
It was your dad reminding you to drive safely,
the clouds were getting darker, covering cobalt blue skies,
the ones we tried to sit and admire with bare eyes,
but ended up just taking pictures of like we always do.

We captured pearly white clouds and softening sunsets,
the way I feel with my friends is unforgettable,
and even on days where I feel like the pain I feel,
the one that reminds me that I miss you still,
is spreading through my body like a cancer,
one that is too far developed to treat,
I am reminded by the grass beaneath my feet,
that I have this beautiful planet,
I have the sky to myself,
I have clouds that shadow when I've had too much sun,
and trees that cover when the sky comes undone,
and a storm begins to drench us in shame,
and I got a call that was not the same as yours.

I got a call and heard the word "cancer"
and all I could think of was the way the clouds rolled across the sky
becoming greyer as the water continued to rise,
all at once the green grass lost its hue,
and I fell into the Earth
as I was consumed by the thought of losing you.

I'm stuck inside myself
I got scared and called for help
but a year of pushing friends away
left me yelling to nobody
I missed all of my exits and now
the road looks unclear before me
I've forgotten what I learned in driving lessons
and I keep seeing signs of you and me

I'm stuck inside myself
waited too long to ask for help
a year of deviating healing
and speeding down roads I carved out of skin
I should have shed months ago,
how will I know?
What does healing look like?
This intrapersonal fight has fogged my eyesight,
and the roads are snowy now since it's winter again,
I fear I won't ever win,
this intrapersonal warfare has left me on the field,
wounded and silent, afraid to reach out,
I fear I might not ever know what it's like to heal

I spoke in broken notes
that came out flat and frugal
words got caught in hardened chords
each time your name rang through them

There was no music in my voice
no melody to soothe me
I could not carry a whole line
without a script to keep me moving

I spoke in broken notes
when I spoke of our older days
I spoke in battered, ugly shards
of words I'd since tucked away
I spoke in broken notes,
the sounds were all but lovely
but at least I spoke a word or two
that's better than nothing

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

Some days I paint my skin
with the same colors as the sky
The way that it looked that night in July
when we exchanged souls
For the very first time
But my palette is watered down

But I want you to look at me,
The same way you did that sunset sky
Before vulnerability came in chains
Instead of white silken sheets,
Before promises came in broken glass,
And intimacy a day dream
I miss the way you used to look at me

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.

laugh
because there are plenty of poems
that wrap their rhythm in your tears
there are songs that understand
screaming when no one can hear
but there are few that capture
the pain from laughing much
so roll around, grab your gut
when it hurts inside from joy
laugh

Climbing streets we used to equate with mountains
but slipping on the pavement
falling faster this time around
when I hit the ground you won't be there to remove the gravel from my
wounded elbows
I have to do it on my own.
I learned to sew my own seams.

Swimming laps in waters we used to call holy
Forgetting the strokes you scratched into my mind
this time is different because I'm not trying to swim anywhere fast
I'm doing anything I can to stay above water.

Breathing in pollen
from gardens of lilacs we planted together
that are now covered in weeds
But I am not sowing what you will reap this time.
Taking the nectar from late July days that are now far gone,
and creating sweet honey for only me.

We are on different terrains now and
your water meangs nothing to me

What brings storms to August evenings
the humidity from months before
clumps like a cloud over barren grasslands
we beg for rain but run for cover when she delivers
this thirst cannot be quenched with quick, violent floods
for they reach only the surface
penetrate our drying soils, she does not
when she leaves our muddy skin to now soil, steep and rot

What brings storms to August evenings
when we have just started to like the heat?
the light is harsh and white and yellow
the thunder breaks the streets
What brings storms to summer nights
when we have just began to swim?
To land we must now go
because the water's getting sharper
the waves are mean
we begged for rain
not storms that drain our land
What brings storms to August evenings?
the ones we wasted inside anyway

Cold tap water, colder shoulders
are you mad or still waking up?
When is the last time you slept through the night?
or better yet, spent the whole night inside?
What are you looking for out in the street anyway?
This road's been a dead end since the first time
you let the liquid sugar hit your veins harder than your lips,
and instead of sips now you indulge every day just to get by,
but I still don't get why you let yourself get that bad.
You forgot about the daughter, mother, friends you had,
didn't you?

We didn't forget about you,
the sugar still turns you white,
even in your casket I can smell the apologies as I bend over for
one last goodbye,
I refuse to watch a family breakfast crumble
at the hands of ****** again,
I refuse to let a substance win,
like it did with you.

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

if you were not to love me
you would at least feel bad for me
i wanted you in my life even if it meant pity
you don't understand how i molded my lungs around your arms
and my security around your spine
the bending of yours fueled the shatter of mine

I fell in love
not with you
but the way
you validated me
when you grew tired
and could not hold my sorrows
in your shaking hands
I felt nothing
I laid my worth on you
full forced and terribly
I loved you not
for who you were
but who you let me be
and I am sorry

The calendar that hangs on my white brick walls has been empty since the day I moved in. I don’t plan anything from day to day. I load up my year, usually in January. I fill it up with different colors, louder sounds than years before. I made a vow, or a dozen. I lost count after a while. I lose my train of thought real easily, and I find my progress derailed once a week, twice if I’m in a slump. But anyways, I fill my year up in the Winter when the frost pierces my brain and I’ve dirtied all the dishes in the house already. By March I’m hungry. I switch it up. Even louder sounds, ones I’d never heard before, ones I barely could because they grew so slowly, I grew impatient, it took time,  like that Madagascar Palm plant I read about 3 nights in a row without stopping. I hyper fixate on plants and people that promise even a glimpse of hope for me, it's pathetic. I got off track, oh yeah. It takes 100 years to flower, and once it does it dies. I thought I would do the same in March, sometimes I still do. Sometimes I want too. I take so long to grow that sometimes I forget that I still am. Back to the story, I switch it up in March. I get itchy for Spring flings that will defrost my bones and this year I remember counting every hour for a week straight, not in minutes but in ways I was alone. I counted each day in stomach aches because they never went away, even when I stopped eating to see if what I’d been feeding myself was the source of this and if abstaining from it would help. I thought the same when I left him. I lost 20 pounds in two weeks and I was happy about it because it was defeaning glee, the way people finally looked at me. And when I was counting the ways I was alone, the noise grew louder. It flowered.

I broke in May. I kissed three different boys in the same day and I remember going home and promising myself it’d be okay if I decided to stop living because if one plant that grew beside me could do so, beautifully and quickly, and I took longer, while it leaned on me without ever touching my roots underground, than there was not reason I had to be here. It didn't need me. There wouldn’t be anyone around to see me flower. Humans only live to what, seventy? I didn’t want to see twenty. I stopped growing. I chased ***** with whiskey to see which one was the first to hit me. Which one gave me a worse hangover so I finally had an excuse to spend beautiful July days rotting in bed? I remember the first time I took a shot of whiskey and it was ******* gross but I'd already adjusted to that fuzzy, churning pain in my stomach so I kept drinking. I drank a whole bottle. I was 19. The first time I tried ***** was at a party after you told me I'd turned into a "real ****." I remember that perfectly but the rest of the night is blurry and now I drink to get the fuzzy feeling back the way I had it for a day in May and thought I'd fallen in love again.  I never understood why I knew what it felt like to feel alive but chose to sit and brew inside a room that smelled too much like the Walmart perfume I wore every day the first year I fell in love. I still get choked up. It’s a weird feeling, to not love someone anymore and to forget, day to day that you ever did. But to remember how it felt to hear your heart beating inside your chest before your very first kiss, and how it felt like papercuts when you had your last. I disassociate when I get scared so I start putting “you” when “I” should be there. That’s something to note. I know how to let go but not how to take responsibility for my actions, ones crafted by loneliness, or bitterness. I counted this year in let-downs. How quickly it went by, too. Would you believe that? In just three months I will be able to say that I spent every day of my life, 365, thinking about you. I almost don’t want to publish this, because I forget that there is more to me than the way I felt in 2016. If anyone cares, there’s more to me than what I just stained the page with, right up there. I laughed this year too, with new faces. I drank in new places and got new bruises on body parts I hadn’t seen in years for fear of ridicule. They’re  black and blue but they’re beautiful. I spit words out sometimes and they don’t always make sense nor do they make a perfect sequence but that’s another thing I’ve learned this year. It’s hard to measure in numbers, what do I count when I’ve been out of order for the whole thing? Which parts do I mention when I start remembering the year that cut me open, and the year I bled for all the world to see because I needed validation, of any kind, I needed attention, from all eyes, for once because I could. How do I measure the year that I lost 170 pounds of freckles and lies and gained 40 in beer and candy? Or the year I finally made it to 32 months self harm free but that I talked about killing myself every day in between? How do I measure a year when I never feel like I’m flowering?

The devil on my shoulder has the same mannerisms as you
So I naturally gravitate towards all he promises to give me
A life with no pain, a bed and a name
All at the cost of losing who I became when I loved you.

The devil on my shoulder swears he loves me back
So I naturally give him chance after chance
It's a disease, to see only the best in people
When they could easily rip your heart out and dip without a thought
All at the cost of losing you and getting lost

The devil on my shoulder smells an awful lot like you
Worn out hoodies and the same pair of jeans
the cheap cologne your mother gave you in January
The devil on my shoulder says he's heard of you before
But you scared him away and he's never been terrified before

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