I have had seventeen birthdays including the day I was born.
I have lived in three houses and two apartments, have had four dogs and five cats, have dislocated my left elbow twice.
I have kissed four boys and three girls, have been one boy's first kiss, one boy's first time, another boy's first "I love you", I have never touched him.
I have smoked marijuana twice and been caught once.
I have worn a bow tie three times, have been called a **** four, have hit someone for it once.
I have been a vegetarian for three years and have slipped and eaten meat five times.
I have been through the same divorce twice in one week because my mom thought she had changed her mind; I have never told her how much worse that made it.
I have tried to eat grapefruit twice since the night I regurgitated that flavor of *****, I have failed both times.
I have gone forty-two days straight without drinking alcohol.
I have woken up and mistaken morning breath for the aftertaste of beer too many times to count.
I have held three of my closest friends after they were touched without consent.
I have made the boy who convinced me to sext him even though he knew I was drunk apologize once; he never felt sorry.
I have heard the three words "I love you" from one boy, I had to tell him he didn't mean it four times, had to tell him not to kiss me six even though I wanted him to, reminded myself every time that he was on his tenth shot.
I have forty-eight visible scars on my body from the times it was too hard to love myself, have told three different therapists the same two things phrased differently every time: one, I'm sad, two, I don't know how to stop it.
I have cried three times in the past week.
One was over the three friends that I have held after they were touched without consent, one was over the boy who said he loved me, one was over the boy who convinced me to sext him even though he knew I was drunk.
I still talk to him five times a week, take one deep breath, count to three, and force myself not to pull away every time he touches me, spend the next eight minutes between classes trying to pull myself together, remind myself it was only one time.
I have not been alone with the boy who said he loved me in six weeks.
I have thought about kissing him every day for the past three-hundred and eight days.
I have had three dreams about him, each one recurring two, seven, or four times.
I have been reminded by strangers of the way he looks at me six times.
I have almost died once, drank four beers and seven shots of five assorted liquors, drug a razor across my skin eleven times, called three people for help, one answered.
I stopped trying to hide the scars on my wrist after thirty-four days of wearing sweaters in eighty-something degree heat, have seen twelve people stare at my arm, received disapproving looks from four of them, have never been asked for an explanation.
I have commented on how pretty the sun looks on the ten minute ride to school with my brother every morning for the past two weeks.
I have complimented at least one person a day every day for the past two years.
I have worn my favorite beanie at least sixty times in the past year and there is nothing wrong with that.
I laughed fifty-seven times yesterday.
I said "I love you" eleven.
I have chosen to be alive every day for five thousand, nine hundred, thirty seven days.
I have never made the wrong choice.

I was trying to write something including the line
it kissed with no desire to heal what it had broken
and so I wrote
it kissed with no desire to heal what it had broken
but I didn't know what
it
was so I changed
it
to
he
and I wrote that
he kissed with no desire to heal what he had broken
but I thought about
him
and I thought about what
he
had done and I thought about kissing
him
and the things that were broken but not healed and so I changed
he
to
I
and I wrote that
I kissed with no desire to heal what I had broken
and I payed attention to the broken pieces that
I
had created and the people that
I
had kissed and I thought about what
I
desired and never have
I
tried to heal what
I
have broken.

she said she fell
for the drunk me -

well, i liked me
that way-better, too

how very sad
- but true

i'd drink again
if i knew i could -
if it would do any good

- to lick her sweat
one drop at a time
all along the jawline

- making her salt mine
one more time.

r ~ 11/15/15

When the heart is in full swoon
Time is a blur and reality is just that moment
That very moment when eyes overflow with a happy heart
When the very scent of each other is a drug
And addiction runs both ways
Swept up in this timeless euphoria
Careless words fall off the tongue
"I love you", is the new high

Tears just stream  
             down
      My face
No one can see
    No one can
            Hear
The sound of my heart
       Cracking
Into thousands of little bits
           And pieces
I hug myself tight
       Dreaming of another
   Who could love me
             Right
Trying to decipher
      What's worse....

Never being loved
         Or
Being loved by the wrong guy?

       *I guess I'll just
  Give it some more time....

I am walking toward mirages
with the knowledge that they are fake
but with the thought that
moving to a new area of the desert
will not hurt anymore than remaining sedentary,
and I am thinking that maybe
if I walk far enough in one direction
toward these delusions
eventually I will have to reach something
other than sand
because this wasteland cannot be infinite and
I know these visions are malignant figments of my imagination
but one day there will be an oasis
that does not disappear at the touch of my dusty palms
and this will be what I have been walking toward
all this time
and these mirages are not lies,
they are promises,
they are foreshadowing
of a place better than this and
I cannot ignore these signs
because they are the only things
that keep me from sitting so long in one place
that I erode my own grave into the dirt.