the biting arctic winds have
snapped my frozen bones
in two pieces, the fragments
swirling in the air
and the oxygen goes
up in flames - my voice
has lilted and wavered
and cracked and
i don't want to say this
because i've never
delighted in admitting
the idiotic tendencies
of things and feelings
but i love you.

oh, god,
i love you.

darling, i should never
call you that. "darling"- it's
a synonym for everything
i used to feel with you and all
the guilt which follows it. so
badly have i wanted to stop
using it, to stop referring
to you as that, but your
name hurts too much.

darling, did i ever
mention that i traveled to
the moon? because i did,
on a night where the earth
was spinning too quickly that
all the colours bled into one
and the painting made me
*****. it's not a kind story
and ever since then, i haven't
been kind either.

darling, what's the
difference between heartache
and dying? i'm tasting flakes
of flaming ash on my tongue
and it's scorched my mouth
so bad i cannot speak everything
i feel (not that i would've
anyway). you're everything
drawn on the back of my
eyelids and everything
knifing my stomach and
everything, oh god,
you're everything.

darling, you're
nothing, you're
absolutely nothing,
you don't mean a thing
to me.

darling, i realise that
seems ironic but i've
never been anything but
that. i've been treading on
the moonlight and inhaling
charcoal and the bullet-wounds
have cracked against
the silence of your
absence.

darling, i think
i'm losing my mind.

i want to go home
and swallow each tablet
in the bottle of pills
which are supposed to
make me not want to
do so.

i can taste
heartache and it tastes
like blood and shattered promises.

i do not miss you
except that i do

in the beginning of my first
year of high school, i was
the girl with messy hair
who tried to off herself
in summer's past, the one
with tired eyes who skipped
lunch despite empty stomachs
feeling heavier, the freshman
with open wounds grazing
the veins in her arms who
sprinted out of classrooms
due to the sporadic nature
of panic attacks.

i'd like to say that i've
transitioned out of the cocoon
of panic disorders and ptsd and
depression, but somehow,
the butterfly wings haven't grown in yet.

rummaging through the drawers
of my closet, i find pieces of you
tucked into your old t-shirts
and the notes which cracked
my frowns into grins and the
guitar pick you'd left behind
along with your heart-

oh how i long to throw them to the flames.