Written by me,
Written to you,
Written for us –

I am your poetess,
You are my poem,
We are living poetry.

I am your pen,
You are my words,
We are an incomplete manuscript.

I am your ink,
You are my pages,
We are an unfinished book.

I am your vessel,
You are my essence,
We are an ongoing story.

I will not stop writing,
You will not stop inspiring,
We will not stop creating –

no one knows how frustrating it is,

being sad for no reason at all.

I used to laugh at my mother
when she told me that I'd go crazy
from reading all of those books and that
I'd lose my mind trying to get my PhD
attempting to unclothe the universe.
Now I wonder why she didn't laugh at me
and my ignorant smugness and speeches
as I struggle to piece my sanity back together
from the countless blows of all this learning
which has failed to make me whole.

Goodnight little angel, so far away,
and know in my dreams, you always stay.
Good-morning my love, I hope dreamed sweet,
my love for you burns, with an undying heat.
I'll sleep now my dear, but you're in my heart
as you have been ever since, the very very start.

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

The tide is back in my head again.
The bottles are full, the floor is still an ocean,
And I am drunk-texting a future version of myself.
I'm telling myself about this certain type of forgiveness-
The version I tried to suppress everytime you couldn't accept it.
I gave you nothing for so long I thought you'd fall in love with at least re-opening the non-existent wounds,
And now here you are painting scars upon them and showing them to me,
And I don't know what to do and,
I'll never know what to do but,
This is where it ends,
Yes,
This is how I leave you.

The tide is back in my head again.
- I only leave you when the room is spinning.
My head is a confession booth and its like you're sinning on purpose.
Continually hurting yourself or someone else so that you can come into my memories and
try and tell me about it without saying anything at all. (I only listen to you when you're not speaking.)
I started believing in ghosts when I saw apparitions of myself smiling without knowing you existed-
I once lived with a fear of death, prayed to be immortal and to keep on finding myself hungry to know more-
Now I find myself lucky to have a day where I care more about continuing and care less about remaining stationary.
Maybe I want you to feel the pain of a sunken ship only mimicking the illusion of a boat cast on waves it no longer wants or knows how to sail-
Maybe I want you to know how it feels like to love you.

The tide is back in my head again.
I created a soundtrack for all these recent nights and it just turned into the sound of your voice repeating the secrets I dont remember telling you.
There is a drawer in my room and I've filled it with something that both creates and destroys me because
you claimed you would do both but only ended up doing the latter.
One day I'll stop being haunted by things that can't actually touch me -
One day I'll find a bottle that won't have you at the bottom of it.
But for now I have nothing else.
So, I'm poisoning myself everynight and claiming that it is self-mortification.
I cannot forgive myself but,
I have no other outlet so,
This is where it ends,
Yes,
This is how I leave you.

My journey to purification began on a night where I pretended like you didn't exist.
I denounced myself a pagan of memories,
turned your forgotten words into forbidden hymns,
embraced them in my mouth before I climbed into bed,
and used them to sing myself to sleep
in all of the hours before I did not dream of you.
It was like burning a house with memories in it,
because you need the ashes to reconstruct a new one.
It was like holding your breath even when you're not in water,
because you have experienced drowning and do not want to risk it again.
I kept on telling myself that this was peace- leaving you was not enough so I had to leave myself as well.
Here is a version of me not at war with you- here is a version that is telling itself nothing has changed even though it is barely existing.
Here is a version moving violently around with nothing to restrict it- here is a version dancing whimsically alone.
Here is a version so small it cannot be stampeded on- here is a version so small it cannot hear its own heartbeat.
Here I am trying to struggle free of you,
Fighting myself so that you don't have a chance to.
But as the days go by,
I am hoping only my cocoon loved you.
And the self- inflicted scars will one day stop belonging to me
And,
belong to some other shell,
restricting the body of,
some other boy.

It is a trial to be free when you are an addict of the prison that held you.
I've been teaching myself about how wrong I am-
That I was not born to make a home out of love,
I am too poignant and sensitive
And cannot belong to anything.
Though the chains may be comfortable,
I need to sacrifice ecstasy so I can find a new lifestyle that is not inspired by their heaviness.
I need to find real fulfillment before it's too late.
Before the chains leave me instead of me leaving them-
Before I'm forced to gallop into any new home I see because I was never prepared enough to be able to stand alone.
I want to forget the way I lived for you,
I want to burn everything without feeling the need to say sorry.
Why must I wait for your forgiveness when everytime I find the urge to reconcile myself,
I'm forced to choke out apologies before I even act on anything.
Why must I lie awake unsure of the future,
Seeing things smaller than you trying to fill a void they won't fit in,
Holding me down so that I cannot be bigger than them.
I know now that I am susceptible to allurement as intensely as a mirror susceptible to light,
Because I am now a reflection of a love I barely experienced.
I stay awake in my sheets every night - praying for my own forgiveness,
Even when I have the ability,
To turn things that don't even hurt me into punishments.