1) I am not quite heart broken, but I am something adjacent. I felt as if i stole you away from your body, stole you away from the things that you are comfortable with. I felt guilty and angry that I was the one that you chose to be your first. You were not ready for this and i could feel your body trembling underneath of me as if in agreement to what i was thinking but i let it happen anyway. If there was any way that i could go back and reverse what happened and never meet you in the first place, i would do it in a heartbeat. Because i broke your heart and i was your first.

2. I can still feel your eyes on me when we were driving to the funeral and the way it made me shift my weight in my seat. I wanted to explain that sometimes your love made me uncomfortable but I looked at you and all I saw was him. I choked on the letters rising out of my throat and you told me to pull over so you could drive. You said "you look like you've seen a ghost or something"

3. When you left, you changed your phone number. Now someone else has your ten digits. Digits as in numbers or fingers? Either way, no one else will ever be good enough to hold your hand.

4. Scar tissue can become your literal walls you put around yourself if you try hard enough. Those pink raised lines call for more fabric, less body movement, trying to remain a statue so people can't figure out what you're hiding. But your ceramic frame is far too willing to show your cracks.

5. I drink every night so I can forget you. After you die, your bones take up to 50 years to disintegrate. So for half a century after I stop feeling you on my skin, my bones will still contain you.

6. You twist and crack your back to replicate what it would feel like to snap it, and it scares you to know that it only always feels like relief rather than pain.

7. I am the empty seat in the front of the classroom, everyone notices when I'm vacant but nobody wants to fill me up.

8. When you started taking out the screws that held me together, i grasped onto my structure for dear life as my walls and windows swayed. I turned into the Leaning Tower of Pisa as my frame settled lopsided, too eager to fall with one more blow. I became a tourist attraction with people who come to find out why i don't stand up straight anymore, why i tilt my paper to the side so i can write in a straight line, why i never seem to see things the right way. People take pictures of them feigning to be the reason why I'm so crooked with their arms extended as if they were the ones who pushed me. But they will never know why i look the way i do until they see your hands, dirtied with the rust of bolts.

9. I may be in pieces but please do not take me in moderation.

10. I am the kind of tired that sleep can't fix. My sadness is so heavy that it's hard to keep my eyelids open. I think that even if i slept forever I could still never be satisfied. I am never whole.

There is a girl
on a bench in the park
at the edge of the town.
She is young.
Little ringlets of copper brown
frame her delicate face.
Wide eyes of the purest sky blue
scan the trees.
She is looking for something.

She stands up
and straightens her skirt.
Her legs shiver,
and her socks grow heavy with water.
Nobody is around to question her,
about why she's out in the snowstorm.
She wouldn't answer anyway;
she's too focused.
She is looking for something.

Cautious steps now.
The ground is slippery with ice.
Her boots do not hold
because they are too worn from walking.
Finally she reaches it,
the edge of the sidewalk.
She peers intently into the grove.
Her blue eyes narrow.
She is looking for something.

All is silent,
except for the flurries of snow.
Before long there is a blanket on the ground.
It is thick powdery snow.
It collects in her boots and on her scarf,
and she shudders as the ice
presses against her porcelain skin.
But she is silent, focused.
She is looking for something.

After a moment,
she steps back and sighs.
There is a slight smile on her lips.
Her nose is red and drippy with cold.
Still, she is silent,
though not by choice.
She has no one to talk with.
It's barren.
She has found what she was looking for.

What it was I can't say.
Either I don't know,
or it's not my place,
or you could ask her yourself.
But there is a girl
on a bench in the park
at the edge of town,
and she is happy.

When I was a child
I got told my heart was the size and shape of a fist
so I grew up using it like one.
The masochism I have developed
caused an opening for something destructive
and you slipped right through it.
And unable to deny your sweet prowess
I granted your re-entry without hesitation.
I threw words at you
praying to god they'd hit you in the torso
because your empty chest cavity
needs to be filled with something.
My words bounced around in your ribcage
until it cracked one of them
and flowers sprouted out of it
allowing a place for the words to rest.
Wrapping my arms around your body
feels a lot like a snake killing its prey
because you don't see it coming
and when it happens,
I squeeze you until you give in.
If my heart had knuckles
they'd be ****** and bruised
not because of the beating its taking
but because it's trying to break free from my chest.
Every time you're near
it won't stop fighting my ribs
and now I get why it's called a cage.
My heart is an untamable creature,
relentlessly fighting for what it wants.
But i'm learning to forgive your ribcage
for being closer to your heart
than I ever could be.

I built a room out of keys and locked doors
for a steeple boy.
Still, he shuts out the eyes of the people.

He buried his twin sister
a generation ago.
No one knew he killed
“her”
He wrecked her being with the weight of his tears
He tore apart her womb and *******
with the inconsistencies in his mind.

She went willingly,
quietly.
She never existed for him.

Yet, he keeps her
in the hazy recesses of his thoughts.
Reluctantly, necessarily.
A tethered reminder.

His mind is just as broken
just as fickle
just as full as hers.
His/(her)
clenched fists
sentimental soul
conflicted body
bittersweet existence

Maybe today will be the day he is
born
without the mask of his sister.
A coward
(not a fraud)
no longer.

May he speak unwaveringly
even as his spirit wavers.
May his chest be flat and strong
May he sit wider than his mother permits
May his wrists stay unmarred
May his body
be painted blue
and his eyes
(pink).

Though his flesh may be
Change(able),
remember it contains
his heart
his soul
his mind,
that knows and is unsure
…
his throat, that speaks, even as it betrays his deepness
his breath, that fills his well-worn lungs
his spine, that remains s despite crushing ribs
                                                t
                                                r
                                                a
                                                i
                                                g
                                                h
                                                t
his blood, that flows cleanly through veins
his organs, that run amid the ruin of his subsistence.

Now,
his hands open with the creak
of strained muscles.
No longer fading, he fills this space.
Showered, his arms extend into sleeves of a suit.
His fingers pull pants in place
His fingers secure buttons
His fingers knot his tie
His fingers fasten his laces
and,
he remembers his sister.
He chips at her mortar around his heart
His eyes, once covered in cypress flowers,
change to lilies.
He fists the correct key, using his voice,
          “This ain’t no sham.
            I am what I am”

Steeple boy,
choose life.
Change life.
You’ll be alright.

Relearned human being,
believe.

The days that are the worst
Are when I feel nothing at all
Not exactly low
Just numb

That's what depression does to you
A cancerous numbing
Slowly spreading
Until your whole brain goes cold

Trying any remedy
To feel something again
But it's too late
I've already lost all feeling

I'm no longer living a life
I'm just simply existing

Please, I need to talk to someone.
Or I just need you near.
Please don't go to sleep.
Please don't leave me.
Please protect me,
And stay.
Please!
I need
I can't
I don't
How can I make it on my own.
Don't leave me here.
Not all alone.

Because she's coming,
Calling for me.
Her games are never fair,
She always wins.

Please stay.
Wouldn't you?
Couldn't you?
Would you save me.
Please.

What would make you listen?
That you could see my pleas.
No, I cannot speak.
But don 't you see?
Why do we have eyes,
If everyone surrounding
Seems to be blind.

Please...
Don't leave me,
All alone.
Not again.
Please?

I am a compilation
Of dead factions
Mangled selves
Who did not choose the right turn to
Save themselves.

I am a compilation
Of eyes set ablaze
Upon realization
of their unacknowledged
future

We are not alive if we live off lies.
This is the truth
The reason everyone dies.

Greet me
Speak every syllable of my name
In honor of those still inside
Their corpses.

Remember me.
The could have beens,
Which should have been.
What might have been better if they were?

I am filled with death
And with every word,
My every turn,
I only manage to **** more

Sing to the ones inside
The ones left beind
With no chance of being revived,
For none of you ever did exist.

Only to me.

heart breaks
again
and again
mustn't give in
to the urge to fall
into the darkness
calling my name
urging me to turn inward
to drown in sorrowful
self-pitying depression

Is depression

supposed to

be this

wildly crazy

and painful

and bland

and worth

the loss

of tears?

Here I go again
giving another spin
a hotel room
a messy bed
empty bottle of gin
We laugh and lie
I stroke her thighs
and meet the eyes
colored a shade of why
but I must confess
shes caressing a carcass
twisted by his sins
even in such times
in know in my mind
where my soul would rather have been

Every night,
I read your poems
I read the honest thoughts of your mind
and every night,
I'm still wishing that I was the girl
behind the hidden times that you smile
the girl that makes you want to live
the girl that you hope for
the girl you wish for
and even though you don't believe in God,
I want to be the one that you'll pray for
the girl who can stop your nightmares
and turn them into dreams

I see the way you look at her
like she's one of the rare heavenly bodies
found in the infinite sky
and I'm just another lone galaxy
my elliptical indifference
spiral lies and mistakes
are reflected across the vastness of the void
and sometimes it feels like
I am the sun
and you are the moon
and we are cursed that the sun and the moon
will never collide
because you are too far caught up,
amazed by the stars
amazed by how she seems to shine and twinkle
across the darkness
and you don't care because you never notice
that my shoulders are near to breaking
from staying straight too long
every time I let you climb up on them
so you can try to reach her
but can't
the same way she doesn't care
that you write poems for her
and that you cast her as the princess
in your stories
I want to be the princess
in your stories
But everyday,
I am forced to fade into the background
because life has decided
that I am too broken
to be anyone's princess

Every night, I get pricked from the sharp points of the stars
when I collect them and try to weave them into a blanket
to drape over your body
to protect you
from the whispers and the screams
the truth and the lies
the fallen hopes and the cries
make you look at me
the way you look at her
but I still see you wishing
that it was her that you were hugging
and I am back into hiding
into that space where the superheroes have discarded their trash
the place for the people they've decided
are hopeless
the ones who still need saving
but are too convinced
that they've reached their end

I am the girl
that you share the deepest thoughts of your mind with
the thoughts that were lodged
into the small cracks
along the sidewalk of your secrets
You tell me the phrases
the rhymes and the metaphors
that no one else could decode
but she is still the concept
she is still the idea that comes up in your mind
when you think of writing something new,
writing something beautiful
And again,
I am just here
still the only girl
who can truly understand your poems
but never the girl inside them