i woke up with puffy lips
i think were kissing in my dream last night
or maybe it's just my imagination
but yesterday you stood
closer
than you have before
don't think i'm going to
bring you back in to my chest
what's going to change anything
now compared to
before?
i'm not going to make exceptions
for people i used to love
so sorry

i. that coffee shop is still one of my favourites. your hair was shorter, at least in comparison. i remember that you always got a macchiato, and i always got a ***** chai. i think that we started falling in love then. it tasted like that chai; new and full of so many things.

ii. i'd like to think i'm soft and beautiful, like the skim of creme on the top of your coffee. i think that i started out like that, rounded edges and gentle quietness. i think my words used to come more easily, dashing off of my tongue. but now, my mouth is hardened cliffs and bevelled hillsides. i'm not the creme.

iii. you're the happy sweetness of cinnamon on fresh bread in the morning. the sun that spills over your browbone tastes like familiarity and comfort. the mornings would be better with you.

iv. if you are like the wind, then i am the candle.

v. you're favourite animals are cats and i'd say it's fitting. they're slinking and shadowy. but outwardly, they're soft eyes and lithe. just like you.

This year is different
There's a carefulness in the air that I haven't smelled before
It whispers "Caution, she is hurting. Caution, she isn't there."
So then the people I am closest to take heed of the warning and put me at arm's length away from them
It's safer
This year is different
The rain isn't the only thing that makes me sad
The sun does too
If I wasn't mistaken, I'd say that my heart knows that something is off
But how can this be worse than two years ago during the grip of winter
This year is different
I've begun to take a liking to staring at empty spaces just to the left of people's ears
When someone else touches me I shiver and hug myself in closer
I can't meet anyone's eyes, I can't speak, I can't match their smiles
And I've forgotten how blissful sleep is for the ones who are hurting
Until now
This year is different

it's raining
And I want nothing more than to be laying in his arms
Even though we've been talking for 4 days
It's like we've known each other our whole lives

When the night gets a little quieter,
And the stars become more melancholy,
I will tell you how much my heart has thought of you.

When the birds lay soft for the night,
And even the bats lull themselves to sleep,
I will tell you how much I have dreamt about you.

The world is vast and the sky impossibly endless.
The seas are still mysteries and even people still hold ancient secrets.

But I will try so hard to make my distant lands within reach.
Just for you.

I swore off love the moment you told me you were in love with her instead.

But it's impossible to swear off of something you contain so much of.

I give and give and give.

And even when I am done with the giving, I find something else.

I'll search through my veins and rummage in the depths of my lungs.

I am nothing short of selfish, except when I find someone who needs air more than myself.

And then, I'll breathe for them.

If you considered me a saint before, look at me as a martyr now.

I've figured out that there's a lot less to write about when you're happy
Than there is to be said when you're sad.

you're like my alcohol
you make me drunk when i need to be sober the most
and right now as i'm talking to you on the phone
i'm getting drunk off of absolut and soda
its like flying and its like your stomach is in your throat
i love it

if i was any sadder i'd become the rain and the flood that follows it

my heart has been heavier but it's never been more waterlogged than it is right now

it keeps remembering you and your smile and it keeps thinking that maybe it has a chance

it's foolish and i should never listen to it but i am also foolish and always listen to it

i. the snow is cold. the ocean is cold. the universe is a vast cold that sinks into your bones and demands that you give it all the heat you can spare. you were cold to me. distant. unwilling to do anything but try and take all the warmth you could from my hands. i've wondered why my insides have felt icy for the last two years. but it's because you never gave me back my heat.

ii. running is a lot like loving. it makes you hurt and it makes you sore. it makes your lungs feel like there isn't enough air in the room. the difference between running and loving, is that after you're done running, your body forgives you.

iii. nobody knows how badly nostalgia can hurt better than i do. some days it grabs onto the top two branches of my heart and does nothing but sigh into the nodes of my lungs that it hurts. some nights it lays down beside me and falls asleep in my arms. those are the nights that i sleep the soundest.

iv. they say that people have soulmates, that everyone has someone. but what about the girl sitting in the corner with her eyes closed and her headphones in? does she have a destined someone? i would have like to believe that our spirits were intertwined. but mine hasn't touched yours in months.

v. i wonder what the planets feel like, being securely lost in space? do they fear their demise? is the quiet of nothingness as deafening to them as it is to me? imagine being that large, but feeling so incredibly small amidst the billions of imploding stars. imagine feeling so incomparable.

I don't want to have a future
I'm afraid
How do I fear something that hasn't yet come to pass?

i. when i wake up my eyes are new again, if only for a brief second. the haze of lingering dreams makes the soft light coming from my window look like it has no edges. the remnants of the love i felt for you in my sleep whisks away into my pillows and back between the folds of my blankets. it keeps me coming back to bed, keeping me slumbering amongst the fog of feelings i no longer know.

ii. in the moments before i fall asleep, my brain boards a canoe made of fireflies and wishful thinking. the Giver of Sleep rows us both through the doorways to nightmares and archways of fantastical dreams. we drift on the currents of the dimly lit room my body lays in. when a door slams somewhere down the hall, the canoe shudders, the Giver flinches, lays his hands on the water to still its trembling. And allows me to sleep.

iii. the closest i've come to feeling like i'm flying is when my body thinks it's hurtling off a cliff before i fall asleep. the yank of lucidness tugging on the nape of my neck reminds me that for a few hours my body will come as close to dying as it ever has. my heart doesn't want to slow, my brain doesn't want to dim the currents. my synapses aren't quite prepared to go quietly.

iv. being awake has never held as much appeal to me as being asleep. you reside in my dreams, not in my arms.

v. i usually remember a lot about my dreams, but i never remember the laughter. is there ever singing laughter that the people of my imagination let loose in a burst of happiness? maybe i just never dream of things that are truly happy. maybe my mind wants a break from being pleasant. maybe it wants to be sad.

i. my favourite days are the ones where the air doesn't seem quite clear, but out of focus, backlit with haze. the grass gets dusty and the trees blend together like old oil paints. it's these days that it seems the world is saying "leave this place, you don't belong." i sleep the best on those days.

ii. the sepia film layered over old photos makes me nostalgic for something my lifetime will never know. but it's familiar, smiling faces with blushing cheeks, dust and dirt lining sun-creased foreheads. it's comforting, calming, restful. it makes you wish for that simplicity. how kind a colour can be.

iii. dust covering riddled boxes, coating worn wood, cloaking drapes mirrors, mannequins, rocking horses. an attic is a place my heart feels the strangest. everything seems haunted and in it, i am also haunted. each dirt-laden item carries an event that led to its demise. the wardrobe's mirror cracked and a new one filled in. the jewellery box did not grow with its contained collection. the doll sat too peacefully in the corner of that room and found itself sitting just as quietly beside the wardrobe.

iv. i will always wish for the feeling of an open road on a warm day. the sun rests its legs on the edge of the horizon, the clouds paint themselves with watercolours, the crickets and cicadas tune to each other. that complete content will always be my favourite.

v. sometimes i wish i knew where i was going, knew where i was supposed to arrive. however, the knowledge that i will eventually arrive somewhere is intensely satisfying and comforting, even in its uncertainty.

I think of everything I will never be
And I grow infinitely more uncomfortable in my skin.

in the way it comes slow, then all at once.

I've thrown my body to the wolves more than once
And come back to find their teeth still embedded in my shoulders and my thighs and my neck

When the night is darkest, the moon is the highest and I want nothing more than to drown in lust covered sadness

If the lights were a little lower and my skin a little brighter would I consider myself ethereal?

The dreams that I've been remembering are the ones I'd rather not think about, but without them maybe I'd be a little happier

When winter hits, my bones will deteriorate until they contain no more than stars and remnants of you, until they exist only to those who touch my face too roughly

I'm not delicate by any means, but if kinder hands had cradled my aching laughter then maybe, I'd be a little happier

let's
      forget
              each
                    other
                           together

Tonight
Is not great

My insides don’t seem to want to belong inside anymore
But rather out in the open
With all their grotesque beauty

My heart has decided it wants to crawl up my throat
Pry through my teeth and beat on the hard ground
Just for the sake of proving it still beats

I sometimes wish I could be more like my mother wants time to be
Smart and witty, strong but not too strong, and thinner
So she can tell me how beautiful her wedding dress looks on me

If you hear my screaming in your dreams don’t be alarmed
It’s only my brain tricking your own
Because it’s grown tired of tricking itself

God, can't you hear the ghosts in my lungs and the spirits in my mouth?
My head feels like the sea has moved in and made a home.
I see the wind through the trees but all I hear is your voice.

i saw you today
for the first time in weeks
and you've cut your hair
short on the sides, long on the top
and while your hair was beautiful
i still wanted you just the same with it short

how ****** must my heart be if it jumped into my throat just to see you again
we never met eyes but i could see you staring straight into my soul like you did the first night i began falling
and being stuck on the way down means you never stop falling
even when who you're falling for doesn't care whether you're alive or dead

i. when i sit in that old apple tree nestled up in my yard, the deer come up to me and sniff my legs, nuzzle my warm hands, wreath my hair in crowns. my house disappears and the woods become my sleeping grounds. the world doesn't exist so loudly. if the warm haze of summer were to cloak the grasses in gold, the sun would be outshone. in other words, i miss sitting in that old apple tree.

ii. a few years ago there was a grass fire that swallowed the hillside of our neighbor's yard. it smelled like woodsmoke and the dead of summer for days. the blackened ground let nothing show. but a week later, the pale green fuzz of new grass blemished the bluff. "i was only temporary" the soot whispered.

iii. i've been to the ocean only once in my life. a great expanse of cold and unforgiving blue. it was chilly that day. the wind was the only indication that it was late spring, and the sun raced behind the clouds, dousing its warmth for a few seconds. there weren't many people that day, only my class, and the seashells begged to be caressed and held gently. the sand was and soft on the beach, growing rough in the depths of the water.

iv. i've never been one for making friends, but summer made us all friends.

v. when summer begins, my heart regrows its roots and sends out soft new shoots. the smell of ripe fruit and fog in the mornings whisks me out of bed. the sun becomes new every day and so shall i.

i will run. with desperation and a hint of absolute dread. you're bad for me. you always will be.

always.

but my heart is addicted to the rejection. it's like a drug that keeps it beating. not steadily and not with any real meaning.

but i digress.

you know the painful nights? the nights that whimper in your arms like a wounded animal? hold me like those nights, even if it's just to get me to the morning.

comfort me.

i don't know how else to murmur my love to the ones i want to hate than through morse code and slow blinks from across the room.

however.

on the days that seem a little rounder in the middle, robust even, i'll forget maybe, about how soft the air felt when you slept next to me. i'll forget that the night ahead is going to howl like a haunt watching her love die.

but i digress.

a day is not a day without yawns early in the morning and hushings late at night.
not a day without a nervous laugh, an anxious frown, a skip and jump from the heart.

a night is not a night without a a drifting off at the brush of the late hours and a jolt awake at 3 am
not a night without a reaching and tugging, a discovering of loneliness in the folds of comforters.

i am not your dream girl

i am the trees and the wind that breaks them
i am the dead grass and the fire that burns it
i am the oak and the vine that kills it
i am the abandoned house and the water that rots it

in my head, your voice is still calling me the sunshine that comes in through the window
when i knew better

i knew i was the dust that needed the sunlight to be seen
and i knew i was the ache that settled in your left shoulder overnight

knowing you for even this long has been nice
it's silly of me to think that i was the most beautiful girl you'd ever seen
when it was obvious your mouth had whispered the same things to women

the most ****** up thing about thinking "maybe i'm his" is the inescapable epiphany that he's not yours

here's to forgetting
and here's to not

here's to remembering
and here's to choosing not to

tell me what it's like to never hurt

tell me about loving every part of your being because it's yours and its the only thing you own every inch of

tell me about admiring the grass that grows in the sidewalk and the shine of the oil staining the parking lots

tell me about how easy it is to be happy and how often you laugh and smile and enjoy being alive

tell me what it's like to hurt less than i do.

i. i've never loved with anything but sadness. of course this time is no different. shouldn't i crave the happiness that comes with loving another human? i find that dread somehow creeps its way into my sleep whenever i begin getting hopeful, and that itself is sad. loving is my way of keeping that sadness in my bones.

ii. the first time i kissed you was the first time i found what home was. the first time i made you laugh was the first time i wanted to hear something forever. the first time i saw you cry was the first time i wanted cradle someone until they forgot why they were crying. the first time i said 'i love you' to your face was the first time i knew this was the absolute most truthful thing i'd ever said.

iii. if i could gather all the times you made me feel small, i'd have a fortune of anger. the feeling of your normally tender voice slicing open my cheek made me rich with pain. enduring all of your sadness was worth the wealth of love i thought i was getting.

iv. i went to college eight months into our newborn relationship and although it was only an hour away you felt like we were parting ways for good. i was prepared for the distance, but not ready for it. our hearts snapped apart like rubber bands at the eve of that ninth month and distance has been a fear since then.

v. i was proud of what i was doing, proud of everything i thought i was going to accomplish. i was not as proud of you as i could have been. my pride kept me going and kept you at an endless arm's length away. while i bloomed, you withered.

I ponder the theme of my existence more often than I probably should
Am I here to just breathe? Am I here to do nothing more than just....ponder?
In the cool darkness of the oncoming autumn air, things get a little more lonely than I'm used to.
Maybe I'm reminded that just like the season, I will come and then go.
I wish that needing someone to share this loneliness with was all that I needed.
Unfortunately, that is never the case.
Pretending to love someone long enough to become un-lonely is the cruellest joke I've played on the last three boys I've trapped.
I cling to their comfort like someone starving for mercy.
And then when the lust of sadness lets go of my throat I'm suddenly reminded of how little I actually crave the intimacy I've inherited.

There's always an exception to the pattern.

I am not the romantic I once boasted to be
I don't swoon
I don't revel in love or bathe in its insincerity
It doesn't call me a home that it feels welcome in

I've evicted it
Packed it's tendrils up into small cardboard boxes and stacked them on my stoop
A farewell to its tenderness I once believed in

I want to witness the shift in me
I want to see the moment my blood ran a little colder and my hands took to shaking when I think too hard
This frailty that's become my second skin seems like it's been home forever

I don't think I'm meant to love
I think I was meant to enjoy the way a person's eyes are spaced just right
Or how their hands connect to their wrists with grace
But I don't love those things

I'm not a romantic in the sense that I love the idea of love
I used to be
But I've become a half-flooded cave
Filled with currents and a heavy, wet, emptiness.

i. despising someone is a silent affair. you sit and brood, mull over all the hideous facets of this hate. there's guilt, maybe some shame, but your heart doesn't acknowledge this. why should it? after all, they say listen to your heart, and after he stamped his name on it, all it knows is him. and if that means retaining this small inkling of hate, then so be it.

ii. there's a suffering that accompanies hating someone you almost loved. you're all of the sudden torn completely by these two opposite feelings. somewhere the love you were harbouring is rotting and fermenting; that makes your chest suffer. and somewhere the hate you are creating is burning and eating and boiling; this makes your stomach suffer. all come with a small portion of suffering.

iii. i still long for you. most of the time, all of the time. should i be admitting that? definitely not. so why am i? is it because i feel obligated? because i put effort into you? is it because the last time i talked to you i wanted nothing more than to see your shining face? like a tape, i'll keep that feeling of longing until i'm rewound.

iv. i don't regret meeting you. i don't regret sitting on your bed eating ice cream and complaining about the rain. i don't regret kissing you. i don't regret laughing at your laugh or admiring your beautiful, perfect face. i do regret wishing you were always near. i do regret wanting to spend a while with your soul. i do regret hoping you felt all that i felt. that hope could have been used for something better.

v. i cried myself to exhaustion that night. not to sleep. i cried until my eyes were swollen and my lips cracked. i cried until my chest and my fingers and my legs went numb and then i laid there, so ******* tired, but so terribly agonized. and i hoped for sleep, but all my body wanted was you.

My dog keeps me alive sometimes

In the deep dark nights when he curls against the backs of my legs
Nestles in the crook of my bent knees
I wake up enough to feel his breath on my hand.

My dog keeps me alive sometimes

When I come home bone-tired and exhausted, the world making a home in my eyes, he suctions himself to my side and brings me his very own things, knowing I need more than just he can give.

My dog keeps me alive sometimes

I tell him this when I feel so sad I want to cease existence and even that confession keeps me on my feet for another day.

And when he gets old and worn, I will get him a shadow so that I can be kept alive by another being who depends on me more than I depend on myself.

When these nights smother me
My past comes back in rivulets
Down my back, neck, through my hair like snakes and twine

I should be happy, no? Content, satisfied, full.
Never.

I've always questioned why my eyes get heavy when I plead them to look alive
And I've always wondered why my shoulders bear the weight of the past Millenium when I ask them to keep the present good company

I have an inherent gloom
And I suppose it's about time I come to make its acquaintance.

not all love is good love
yet
it's love, nonetheless

I write a lot about love and about the smell of rain. They go hand in hand, after all.
They both make my heart ache and my mouth water for something I don't yet have.

He's tired. His eyes tell us when he watches us.
His tail goes every once in a while. But he's tired.
Over the years his body started to betray him. First his eyes, his ears, his hips. Then his bones decided to adorn his frame more prominently, his spine a mountain range, his ribs canyons.

He's tired. His naps in the noontime are his specialty, his days of chasing rabbits submitted to dreams. His paws run from time to time. But he's tired.

He's tired. And now his body is telling us. He sways when he walks and sighs as he sleeps. Sometimes he groans when he stands up and clatters when he falls. He's had thirteen years of sun-soaked days, cold weather play, of lively life. But he's tired.

He's tired. And I'll miss him for a while. But I'll be glad he isn't so tired anymore.

It's been a year.
A year since the night I was last in love.
Or realized that I was in love.

It's been a year.
A year since the evening I cried as the sky turned blue, orange, pink, purple, black.
Since I cried as the night stumbled in.

A year seems like not a very long time.
Not a long time yet it feels like it's been three years.
And maybe I've grown, or maybe I've just changed.

It's been over a year since you laid with me while thinking about her.
Since you've pressed yourself against me while knowing she was yours tomorrow night.
Over a year since you told her that you were hers forever and I was yours for always.

And now, a year later, she and I are friends, and I still mumble about you in my sleep sometimes, and I wish that I hadn't known how soft your betrayal was.

something had settled in my lungs again. it's been there before, a familiar restlessness. but before, i threw it up in the form of late nights and lost love. this year i hold it in palmfuls, like a bird or water.

my legs feel full of bees, of ants and moths trying to stretch towards light. cross, uncross, stretch and coil. do anything to remain unsettled, unsedimented. but they can't escape the unrest. it just waits.

i think of it like sediment, silt that sometimes has a hand run through it or a toe seeped deep into its coolness and then it stirs through my veins alongside every particle of anxiety i've inherited.

is this what it's supposed to look like? a little dim and maybe foggy on the darker days. sometimes i think about letting this fog out into the chilly room of someone else, but it retreats just in time.

beds were designed for tired bones, nights designed for weighted eyes. days were made for the ones with fingers full of light and flowers were made for it all. the night comes easier to me, like a friend.

January isn't my usual month of bee-legged unrest, or heavy lidded nights, but it seems to have assumed the role of injecting something not settled into the crook of my neck, my elbow and the soft part behind my ear.

it's an unlove sort of thing, rancid and vaguely rotting. it sweeps through the room when your name is mentioned. unpleasant, enticing, a quickening of breath and onslaught of dread.

the sinner knows when he has sinned, but sinners also believe they are not sinners. your boldfaced words, not quite lies, but not full truths are the accusations of unjust recollections coming from our half moon mouths.

the ones who fall in love with you offer you stained letters from the palms of deteriorating hands. the ink runs through the quagmire of rusted paper, delicately flowering bruises on parchment paper stems.

you told me kind things that sprouted kind fingers and evicted my kindness from the depths of my hollowed out femur, from the depths of my marrowless ulna, my rattling phalanges. you ****** it through my teeth and separated it from my breath. the kindness has been replaced by marrow once more.

the girls all look around and see morbid mirrored horror, the suffocating love they all mimic, with him at the center, a spinning dial slowing to land on his next curiosity, his next sweet-marrowed banshee.

the dreams are the most horrifying. they come to me in resin-covered gems, sparkling like little tears. they wreath my sleep in lazy circles and make me sleep too deeply.

you spoke to me in a voice like blame last night. i stared at you with fire in my lungs, seeping smoke into the space between us.

i think i love you still, a muscle-tense love with shivers down its spine. what's that love called? is it tough love? maybe hate? something more anxious?

i wake up crystalized and pulled fresh from the water. and you follow me on the tails of my weariness throughout the day.

you did choose somebody new, although she doesn't know she's the leader of a few swamp-hearted girls. they **** him in and spit out a monster.

can you ******* sick-sweet longing? is it dripping from your rafters, from the eves of you? i send it to you sometimes, bow wrapped and heavy.

there were four nights that kept me held down with blunt teeth and little hushes. you soft edged memories in my head provided the dark with fodder.

it's almost time to explain The Jealousy to you
the spiteful selfishness that pools in my eyes

i hoard the love i am given because it is the love i don't have for myself