if i was a leaf blower i'd wish you were a stationary bike
so we could be forgotten together in an unused garage

i want to be a candlestick holder if you're a dinette set
so we can dance close under the chandelier in the quiet foyer

i'll be an old stained t-shirt if you're a chest of drawers
and i'll slip inside and live in the back of your heart forever

if you're a tennis ball and i'm a chewed up shoe we can
hide from the dog in the dark under the sofa holding hands

but i am only a rooftop
that you won't lay on
you are a thousand stars
out of reach and too beautiful to
acknowledge
me

Like you go back to those **** cigarettes,
I go back to you.
So go ahead, take a drag.

Watch me be consumed
with every inhale

and forgotten
with every

exhale

...

Skies like sheets of shale
floated above our pretty heads,
shedding fat drops of rain
upon an unseasonably warm
December day in Michigan.

I broke free from your grip
beneath our shared plastic umbrella,
ran into the yard
and spun around six times,
arms outstretched like an albatross,
face upturned to the miles and miles
of unbroken grey clouds.

I stopped and called to you,
fly with me.
as my palms turned up
and reached for you, involuntarily.

You laughed, staccato,
and your ambiguous smile
was nothing more than
an ugly daguerreotype
set before a landscape
of compassionate trees.

I'd rather not get wet,
you said

and I think
I've always resented you
for that.

Mood stabilizers, they call them, but in some ways, they're more like painkillers for your heart. They numb the feelings so that you don't have the extreme moods you are accustomed to.

When you have a mood disorder, everything you feel is so much more intense, and so much more certainly snowballs out of control. That's most of the problem; the complete lack of control you have over your chaotic emotions.

But then you go to a doctor, and they give you happy little pills called stabilizers to do just as they're told to. Stabilize you. Normalize you.

Funny thing is, even with the little heart painkillers, you'll never be normal. Even if you keep up a fantastically ordinary facade, you will never be ordinary. You will always have those little pills in your pocket telling you that you are not good enough the way you are, that you must change.

Its a double-edged sword, these pills. Because some days you wonder why you can't just be you, why do you need these drugs in your veins, but then you remember the cuts on your arms and the painful nights where you drowned in your own tears and you remember why even you don't think the person you are is acceptable. Get better, Grace, be better, Grace. The words pound in your ears until you forget who you used to be and you are always striving to be something more, something better. You strive until it kills you.

You are stronger, you can beat it, they say.

What if I don't want to beat it, though, just want to have control of it? I never want to feel less than everything, I never want to feel so dull and numb that it kills me more than the pain ever did, I never want to beat myself, I simply want to be me but controllable.

Because right now I'm uncontrollable and that's terrifying.

Painkillers for your heart, numbing you until you can't feel anymore. But sometimes I wonder if I really want to feel numb.

Do I want to be me, or who everyone wants me to be?

One is safer than the other, but which one is really living?

Because all I want is to feel alive, but I don't know whether surviving will entail that.

Painkillers or killer pain.

That is my decision, one I'm not ready to make. Maybe tomorrow, when mania is not so close to my throat.

Maybe tomorrow, because I am far too afraid of today.

January 19th:
The plaid sheets that used to be home to all of our memories, is now stained with my tears. I want you to know that you’re still there and that your hoodie is still sitting in the back of my closet, its scent strong enough for me to smell the memories of those winter nights. Your half-empty box of Camels is tucked away in the opening under my floorboards. I always thought that would be what would’ve killed you, not that **** car.

“Those things ‘ill **** you.” I would always say.

“If these things are the one to **** me, I guess we weren’t together long enough for you to do it.” You would always reply, with that quirky smirk of yours.

These are the conversations that I miss the most. Sitting on those sheets and pretending you’re right there is how I spend my days. They said that we were young and stupid and didn’t know anything about love. That we wouldn’t even remember each other’s names come next year. I miss you, God I miss you and I just wish you would come home to where you belong, with me.

Jess




January 22nd:
It’s 11:27 pm and I’m sitting on your grave. I have permanent tearstains on my face I can’t stop crying. Stupid you and your stupid grin that I fell in love with in the first place. Stupid you and your stupid scar above your right eyebrow that you got when you fell off of your bike as a kid. Stupid you. I love you. Can’t you see that? I’m right here, and I love you and want you here with me.

Jess