kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

Give them to me.
All the pieces of your broken heart.
Give them to me.

I'll take them.

All the rough-hewn misshapen bits of your shattered dreams.


Give them to me.
I will take them.

Give them to me.


They are wanted here.


All the parts of your misspent childhood. All the regrets of ticking seconds behind you.

Give them to me.

And we will build a cathedral. A stained glass window of who we are as tall and as beautiful as it should be.

Let me have them.

And we will make a mosaic that stretches as wide as the sky. Showing every color your heart gained from the bits and pieces left on the ground.

I will take them.

And forge a sculpture of how beautiful the ideas are that we cast out in our failings and we will cast it in our failings.

Let me have them.

And we will ***** a monument of all the small things in the shape that you remember them.
Towering. Looming. Striking. Beautiful.

Let me have them so we might bind the words said and regretted, (or worse) left unsaid in leather and call it scripture.

Our Psalms. Our Proverbs:

“The tip of my finger dangles like my tongue. Wanting to touch something beautiful.”

“If it were not for him, it would have been us.”

“You were all my brightest colors.”

“I wish I were more like you.”

“I wish I were less like me.”

“I am sped.”

And we will read them at dawn like litany.

Stretching our voices to the corners of the universe. Asking for the wishes you make when you are scared. Or alone. Or both.

That we may take them.

And make a blanket.

A blanket to cover our childhood and let it rest at last.

I will take them.

All the parts you no longer want.

Give them to me.

Because they are what make us beautiful.

Give them to me.

That I may forge them into pitch and feathers and craft mighty wings.

That I may take flight from your worry. And soar on the updraft of your misconception.

Give them to me.
I will take them.

Because I would rather burn like Icarus than to have never dared to fly.

This is for the prom queen

This is for the prom queen
who wears her crown of insecurities
with shaking knees
and sees
her body as disgusting
always adjusting
lusting for perfection.
It's for the kids who seek affection
or attention
and can't tell the difference.
It's gonna be okay

It's for the kids who always sit in the back
It's for the "Test tomorrow panic attacks"
It's for the kids on the fast track
to unsatisfying lives.
It's gonna be okay

This is for the kid with dreams set before him
that bore him.
Who wants more than
a marriage and a mortgage.
It's gonna be okay

This is for the over-drinkers and the over-thinkers
and the ones who hope one will stop the other.
It's for the mothers
whose daughters are sinking,
thinking they have to be
drinking
in order to make friends.
It's for the sleepless nights that never end.
it's gonna be okay.

This is for the kid with the bad complexion
and the invisible girl who hides her scar collection
under her shirt
amongst the hurt,
***** looks,
And her favorite books
It's okay

It's for the boy that's abusing
and the girl that's confusing
it for love
and because of that
does not see she's beautiful
It's gonna be okay

It's the for the friends we lose
and the poisons we choose.

It's for the kids that wake up late
the ones that can't wait to graduate
and for the wallflowers trying to participate
It's gonna be okay

It's for the monsters under our beds and in our heads
that wake us up at 4 A.M
And for the all stupid things we've said
It's gonna be okay.

It's for the kid who sees his face foggy in the mirror
and does not have the means to make it clearer

It's for the kids who have it all
and the kids who see their life in a ball
It's for every single brick in the wall
for the ***** words on ***** stalls
and for the brokenness inside us all.
It's gonna be okay.

It's for the kids who wear masks
made of broken smiles and empty laughs
and crack a little more everyday
it's for the way
we smile and say we're okay
It's going to be okay

It's for the skinny girl starving to be a model
and looking for love at the bottom of the bottle
with a magazine cover for a role model
it's gonna be okay.

It's for the fat girl whose proud of who she is
because she knows that beauty lies within
it's for the holy kids so afraid to sin
that they forget to live
It's gonna be okay.

This is for the kisses under the bleachers
and the schoolboys crushing on their favorite teachers

This is for the kid who drinks tears from his beer
for the football stars
and the closeted queers

It's for the late night phone conversations
for the vibrations
of infatuation
and the sensation
of summer vacation.

It's for the chronic liars
and nervous first-timers
the cancer survivors
and the poetry writers

It's for the lives we've been given
the cars we've drunk driven
and the shells in which we live in.

And it's for the normal kids
It's gonna be okay.