It's been months
since you've last stepped foot
in my home,
but if you were to see it now,
it'd be unrecognizable.

The walls are now painted
a lively white that compliments
the floorboards underneath
the carpet that's been torn up,
and there is a new sofa
that I'll one day spend my time on
with someone (who isn't you).

This house is lively. This house is new.

And it's been months
since you last saw me,
but if you were to look at me now,
I'd be unrecognizable.

I, myself, am more lively,
and the darkest parts of me
have been torn from the pit of my stomach
where they have lived for so long,
and my heart has recovered
and is ready to be shared with someone
(once more).

And I am lively. I am new.

-k.w//Lively

When they tell you that everything will be okay,
They aren't lying.
I know that it feels like your heart will always be hollow and you'll never laugh again,
But I promise you that your days are going to be lighter and your smiles will come easier.
Eventually you'll stop biting your nails anxiously and you'll feel like you fit into your old sweater again,
You'll have a bad day and your first instinct won't be to text him, it will be to call your mom.
You'll dance in your room at night to your favorite song and even though you won't forget him singing it to you last September, you won't cry when the music starts.
You'll see a cute boy in the grocery store and when he asks for your phone number, you won't remember what it felt like when everything broke down, you'll only feel butterflies.
Things always have a habit of getting better, and even though you feel broken now, you won't be broken forever.

Your name
Is nails on a chalkboard,
Slipping from my tongue like the slime of unwashed plates.
Vowels left unattended, a man at the door asking to be let in
Whom I don't know.

Your name
Is the creaking of a staircase,
Sending chills up my spine, for I am the only one who's home.
Syllables upended, a vase of ashes on the rug knocked over
By what I tell myself was the wind.

Your name
is the clicking of a lock,
opened from the outside
When only I own the key.
Consonants only hinted, a stillness in the air that settles on my skin.

Your name
Is haunted,
And it's ghost sleeps on my sheets
leaving behind the scent of roses and stomach acid
In it's wake.

you made a poet fall in love with you:
did you expect her not to fill pages
with how she felt for you,
did you expect her not to spend ages
trying to find the right words for you
(and none seemed beautiful enough);
you made a poet fall in love with you,
did you expect her not to make you her muse,
did you expect her not to write about you
the way she writes about everything she adores?
you kissed a poet goodnight after every date:
did you expect her not to scribble verse after verse
choppy stanzas about the way your lips felt on hers;
did you expect her not to gush about it
to her best friend - even if it was a piece of paper;
did you expect her not to make that feeling,
and the promise it made, the promise of you,
into the only art she was capable of
- because that's what you were, to her?
you made a poet fall in love with you,
and when you broke her heart in two,
did you expect her not to write about it
when that was the only catharsis she knew?
did you expect her not to splatter ink over pages,
hastily, the way she wished her blood could spill;
did you expect her not to write about your skin
on hers, into a notebook, at 2 a.m.
while you were drinking beer and laughing with a friend?

you made a poet fall in love with you,
and expected her not to make her art about you;
you broke a poet's heart, you shattered it,
and you expected her to walk away from it,
without any lines written about
how it tears her apart and
how you still have her heart --
you made a poet fall in love with you,
and when you broke her apart,
expected that to be all, but that's not who we are.
you did not get what you expected her to be,
but then again, you left her -
so in the end, i guess neither did she.

I hope my daughter never has to hear the same lies you told me.
But if she does, I hope she's smarter than to believe it.

I've forgotten how to breathe without you. Every breath is shallow and new. It feels like winter is surrounding me. The cold, the crass, the confusion. With every breath, I exhale your memory. Your touch, your smell, your kiss, your smile.

What a contagious smile.
What I would give to see it overcome your face, one more time.

I've forgotten how to sleep without you. I close my eyes and you are all that I see. It used to be that thinking of you, remembering you, was the only way I would fall asleep. I used to think about the first day I met you. The moment our eyes met for the first time. How as we walked, I tried walking as close to you as I could, without making you feel uncomfortable, because I longed for the moments when your skin would brush across mine. I use to think about how it felt when you would come up behind me and hold me for a minute, every time you thought I was asleep. But now, every time I close my eyes I see you. I see what we had. What we lost. I don't know how to sleep without you.

I have forgotten how to live without you. I did it for 18 years before you, but in the short time we spent together, you have made me forget. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't go anywhere or do anything. I feel so lost, broken, confused, dead.

I have forgotten how to exsist in a world where you do not.

But have no fear, do not worry.
You will never be forgotten.

To the messy table we left after our dinner dates,
I always leave veggies on my plate;
Coz you know how much I hate them,
then you'll tell me, with a smile, to eat them.

To the all the places we used to go,
filled with smoke, from both our lungs and so;
Then we'll both promise to begin to stop,
At the end, I'm the only one who made it to the top.

To those new faces we knew,
from my friends, down to you;
I hoped for something that'll last,
didn't know it would be fast.

*All were the same, no one begged to stay.
It's like a routine, over and over again.
I wish I still have the strength to say,
but sorry, my heart lived with pain.

As I was walking on my way home, I saw people laughing and chatting.
Some were in groups; others, in pairs. And like me, some walk alone.
I wonder, "What keeps them going?"
Then it hit me. What keeps me going? Is there really something, or someone that helps me to keep on going?
Coz as I look through everything; everyone, they have something behind them.
Well, I hope I find mine too.