Good food that leaves a bad taste in the back of your mouth, even worse, people who leave a bad taste in the back of your mouth. When someone over stays their welcome. When people ask about your problems only so you’ll ask about theirs, forcing you to care for them. Not having the space you deserve. Unsaid thoughts that can be read on faces.
Placing your self-worth and validation outside of yourself, especially in another heartbeat that can wrap its’ first around it and run, forcing you to follow. When a person knows they are going to leave you, but still ask you to stay because they need you for now. Showing someone your scars only to have them lie about their own.
When your boyfriend says he loves you for the first time while intoxicated, not on you, and takes it back when sober. Telling him you love when he wears his glasses, and he still always wears contacts. Helplessly watching the hourglass of us run out. When he leaves you, who he would not even utter the names of his parents or his birthplace, for someone who shares his tongue. Yet, he will not say her name to you in hopes that that makes it okay.
Kissing someone and knowing it is the last time. Begging someone to stay, even though you know you’re better than that. Pity kisses planted on foreheads. Empty promises, like saying they will keep in touch or visit, but you know they are just too weak to accept that this is the last time.
All the ways in which a person can leave you, and they will because if they leave you, you cannot leave them. Time wasted on waiting for someone to come home when the time could have been spent moving. The concept of time. Manipulation. Having to say goodbye. Being asked about the person who left you. Not loving yourself. When someone finally treats you right, and it bores you.

You can tell a lot about a person
by the way they leave you
so let me tell you about all
the ways in which he left me.

He left me in my room
he left me on Friday nights
he left me by the lake
he left me in April and again in December
he left me on the sidewalk
he left me in texts
he left me in a different time zone
he left me in thoughts unsaid
he left me for the summer and for his hometown
he left me for her, twice
he left me on the kitchen floor
he left me in ticking clocks and calendar dates

He collected leaving like it lead to a high horse
because if you’re doing the leaving
you can’t be the one that’s left and
it taught me how not to leave people
and not to let people back after they’ve
left because they will do it again.

I lived in waiting for him because it was better
than wondering when or
how he’d leave me again
Is this the last time?

He left me outside
of myself and forced
me to reach in and find
all that's left.

You didn’t want to be the one who got away
so you reeled me back in.
You drug my heart all over town and
my feet followed because my mind
was so fixed on the picture of us and
you gave my hands a fix by filling them with hope
until we were on the brink of it only for you to play the hero and say
you’re setting me free when really all you did was leave
because you wanted to come out unharmed and
I had showed you all of my scars but you only lied about yours.

You couldn’t set me free because I was still there
the only difference was I was alone
so I have to let you go because I love myself
way more than I ever could have loved you and
all you do is bring ruin into my life and
I won’t live with bite marks on my tongue
from things I’ve never said or unable to breath
from the weight on my chest so here are the dates ruined with a stain of you:

    September 14th 2014: Our first coffee date

    January 10th 2015: When you told me you loved me

    February 18th 2015: When you too it back

    April 4th 2015: When you told me you didn’t know what to do

    April 17th 2015: When you broke us

    May 8th 2015: When you told me you lied and you needed time and told me to wait for you

    May 31st 2015: When I realized you deleted me on Facebook only to    
find that it was because your relationship status had changed after you told me to wait

    June 14th 2015: When you forced me to the kitchen floor

    June 29th 2015: I don’t remember but I’m sure it hurt

    August 25th 2015: When you asked me about the moon and said that you missed me and asked if we could start over

    October 21st: When you wrapped me in hope with street hugs covered in darkness and told me you’d kiss me if it wasn’t for her

    October 23rd: When you pulled away but still stayed

    November 4th: When you took me to dinner and finally addressed the elephant in the room

    November 15th: When you told me not now but maybe in the future

    November 20th: When you planted a pity kiss on my forehead

    December 1st: When we went to coffee again

    December 5th: When you needed me

    December 10th: When you told me you loved me again

    December 15th 2015: when you told me you needed to be single to focus on yourself and didn’t want to be in a long distance relationship while abroad and that there wasn’t even a chance for when you get back

    January 26th 2016: When I found out you were back with her and had lied to me again and hopefully for the last time.

You littered me with lies and made your mark
on too many calendar dates and my heart breaks
for you but I won’t let it be broken by you anymore
because I’ve heard the best revenge is to forget but I think
it’s even better to remember and not care at all and
after 503 days I remembered how much I love blue eyes,
like coming home to myself, and I’ve finally set myself free.

A guide to being 5 feet tall,
100 pounds and taking
three tequila shots.

Take selfies with people you
know and people
you don’t.

Hug people who don’t
acknowledge you
when they’re sober.

Scream names over and over
until they give you
attention.

Facetime your best friend
but because of your location
you cannot hear a thing
they say so the conversation
consists of you screaming
at your phone.

And don’t forget to text your ex.
But tonight will be special because
when you ask for a ride home
he will say yes.

But it’s not that simple
before you go you must
stand outside and scream
and chase your friends,
trying to stop them from
calling their exes.
And yell at a guy for not
treating his girlfriend right.

Next you must make a stop
at the local sandwich place.
Where you will fall on your way
to the bathroom to throw up.
Your ex will have to
carry you out to his car.
And when he tries to
drop you off you refuse
to go anywhere unless it’s
home with him.

You lay in his bed and
when he tells you he is
going to sleep on the couch
you cry and beg him to stay.

He agrees but doesn’t stay
long enough for you to fall
and you feel the kiss he plants
on your forehead
before he goes.

You will wake up at 7am
and leave tears for him
on his pillow case.

You will decide to slip out
and walk home, but as you
put on your shoes you let
yourself drink him in
one last time because  
he is the most beautiful when
he sleeps, and unaware.
Then you leave.

You walk home on a November
morning after the first snowfall,
never tripping on your thoughts,
on a walk of dignity for being
the one to leave this time.

When you get home you will
hesitate to shower because you
know the potential this has to
be the last time waking up
with his smell and letting it stay
with you all day.

You will get a text from him asking
why you didn’t let him take you home,
but how do you tell him he already has?
And that it’s empty now?

I had woken
at a friends to them
discussing their glasses and
tears formed in my eyes,
tightness formed in my chest and
I had to focus and my breath
because I thought of you in your glasses
especially when you had scruff
on your face or when wearing a sweater
I always expressed how much
I loved your glasses but
you never wore them more
and now I don't have enough
images to last and it's going to be
a long forever without seeing you
in your glasses.

When you told me you loved me again
you were wearing the same shirt as
when you told me you just wanted to be friends and
I had to stare at the same buttons through the same tears
because I knew it couldn’t be true.

This was after we sat at the same table
where we celebrated a year of memories
after we threw them out only to recreate them now.
And I’m unaware if you had more or less to drink now
than the night you first told me you loved me.
All I know for sure is that you had the same tears in your eyes
as the time you called me wonderful as you call me amazing now.

Wonderful was only enough for the 39 days after you first said you loved me
and amazing was only enough for a suspended five days and I was right.

You asked me to stay knowing you were going to leave
and I should have known because you’re always the one to leave and I’m always the one to stay but as we both drive away from the place that birthed us I can’t be mad at it or
sad for what we lost because there is nothing to return to.
We over stayed our welcome, we wore out what we built by going in circles,
dancing with the same issues,
and orbiting around the same moon and me and you and her.

There’s the expression of beating a dead horse with a stick and we are the horse and the stick,
we were waves that kept hitting the same shore and
we’ve hung ourselves out to dry and
we are now an aftertaste in the back of my mouth.

He would
call me
by my
middle name.
Dance with
me in obscure
places like the
grocery store.

Days starting with
him would be as
good as honey toast.

He would buy
me flowers and
allow me to do
the same.

I’d let him
show me
the moon
like it already
wasn’t mine.

He would
know when
to hold my
hand and
when not to.

I would sit
silently in his
car while he
drives to new places.

He would read
The Great Gatsby
aloud while I fall asleep.

We’d listen to
the sound of
water together
where ever we
can find it.

He would stand
next to the tracks
with me waiting
to feel the rush
of trains passing by.

He would know
when to bring me
orange juice.

He would
give me gold,
but would you?

Last November I said Time Is Dumb
and you said it sounded poetic and
remembering this made me sick to my stomach
because last November you didn’t wear a watch,
the tick of a clock didn’t sound like a dripping faucet
and each turn of a calendar wasn’t an alarm without a snooze.

We had all of us in front of us for the taking
but we threw ourselves into the wind
which took you to warm arms and me to cool kitchen and bathroom floors
and this started the clocks, which haven’t stopped.

I used to count back to everyday in our demise
and when you asked if I still count I said of course
but a second after I realized I don’t
because it doesn’t matter how many days are behind us
or how many are in front of us
because velocity measures distance over time,
it measures the rate at which an object changes it’s position
and as the seasons have  changed so have we.

We meet in spring and fell in fall,
went on wandering winter walks as snow lightly fell,
in spring we sprung our clocks ahead to meet our end
summer was sliced in separation and sadness,
fall was truth and clocks so fast they broke
winter will be wagering within ourselves
I don’t know what spring will bring besides swimming in distance
and in thoughts of what to do with our time.

There are all these clichés about love and timing
but what if you were not suppose to be
my first love, we both had lessons to learn
you needed to flesh out that surface love and
I needed to rebuild walls before inviting you in.

Times isn’t dumb, we are foolish for letting it control us
but we may have learned this a year too late
for we’ve had our distance and we’ve had our time
and they’ve canceled each other out to create now
and it may be all we have.

After this November will be the most dreaded month
not because it was when I lost you
but when I knew it was coming,
looming, and this time lightening wasn’t dancing
in the distance it was creating it.

Collecting moments of you
like storing food in a bomb shelter
for when I’m at war with your new
hand watch for not letting us work.

Every time the hand ticks
it is moving me closer to a time without you
and everyday is watching the hourglass of us run out.

Despite this, if I could live with you
in a calendar filled with Novembers, I would.  

But I can’t so before you go,
will you watch 44 sunsets with me?

After every time you say to me
It was good to see you
But you know it was more than that.

You’ve also said we have the same eyes
but we don’t see things the same.

If only my hand could craft words to be
the source of us instead of us being the
source for my words.

Using my hands to paint
the reality I want instead
of what I see. Giving life
to us instead of a life being
taken from us.

If you can’t read me
at least you can read
what I create after
you’ve touched me.

Forever in Almost

I read a poem applauding your second love
for teaching you that love still exists
after being broken, but what if your second love
is the same as your first, but not the same at all?

The same arms hold me, but they feel new.
Like when the bus is pulling away but stops
to let you on or when the light turns yellow
with just enough time for you to slip through
or when you catch the door before it closes
or when you drop something  
and catch it in time.

We lost each other like missed exits that keep driving
but found ourselves and now we know all
we have to lose. Dancing with the words we
only danced around before like a spinning top,
one wrong breath could end it.
How can something so fragile not be beautiful?

To have the person who broke you be the person
to reintroduce you to 3am’s,
drives with no destination,
street hugs covered in darkness,
and brown eyes being beautiful.

But he didn’t break me. I broke
by telling myself I loved him when really,
he was the first person I wanted
to love and be loved back by
but I’ve learned that’s not always how it works.
Sometimes you miss each other
like points plotted on the same grid
but not the same spot or parallel lines
that just run side-by-side.

Because, sometimes the bus leaves,
the light turns red,
the door closes,
and you can’t
catch it in time.
Almost there,
but never doing
what it takes
to be there.

So we’ll live together forever
in what we have built and left,
in what could have been,
in what almost was,
and what a beautiful
thing that is.

Watching rushing from above
falling down to meet the crowd
sensing, momentarily, serene in the scene
suddenly, seeking something singular
not spotting it,
and progressing with shifting seasons.

We spent months building
together but by the time
I realized it was your pantry shelf
I was already sitting on it
as a bag of sugar but
I gradually turned into salt
so you stopped wanting me
and I forgot I was living on your pantry shelf.
Until one day you cleaned out
your pantry shelf and I thought
I was lumpy old brown sugar
to be thrown out but months later
when you wanted to use me I realized
I never left your pantry shelf.
I was just baking soda in the back corner
and I’m still living there and don’t know
how to take myself off your pantry shelf
without your help so I guess
it’s my turn to use you.

You broke the ice
the way you broke us,
with the moon.

Rarely full and
partly hidden only
seeing one side, yours.

Sometimes still,
solely silent
in distance.

Bright but barren
and bleak.

Never illuminating
but reflecting what
it dies to let shine,
disappearing to reappear
and take breath.

Always moving but
always there,
pushing and pulling,
highs and lows,
redefining its lines
and everything it touches,
even us.

Subject

Shortly after our
first date I joked
Don’t make me write a poem about you.

It’s been a year and I laugh
because my poems
have become your home.

It’s been a year and
you’re kissing
someone else and
I’m just kissing people
who aren’t you.

Waking up next to you
for the last time
we knew it was and
we had to tell each other
not to cry so we could
kiss for the last time

When we broke
you said to me
I don’t want to be the subject of one of your poems.

But I warned you.

You showed
me your true colors
so I used you  
as pigment on an
already messy canvas,
because it’s my turn
to do the manipulating.

I wish my hands
were big enough
to sculpt mountains.

My own masterpiece
cannot hurt me.
I’m no longer
afraid of you.
I can no longer miss you
or be hurt by you.

Maybe you should
have used me
more beautifully.
But it’s okay
because I needed
the material.

You texted me
that you wanted
to say goodbye.

Yet, I’ve been
saying goodbye
to you for the
past 21 days.

At night when
I’m alone and
can’t sleep.
When I wake up
and remember again.
Whenever anyone
asks about you.
When moving out
of my room because
it was built for two
and just reminds me of you.
When I’ve had
a good day and
want someone to
share it with.

We spent 17
hours saying goodbye.
We sat in my room
with an elephant
until there wasn’t
enough room so we
walked  on eggshells
around the lake,
played at the park
with clouds over our
heads watching lightening
dance in the distance.
Went to the pub and
cheered to a year full
of great memories.



After all of that
I still have to
say goodbye
to you.

I have to go
to all the places
we’ve made memories,
taking the paths
we took
like pushing
the ancestor
rock down
a mountain.

For 45 days
I couldn’t stop
saying goodbye
to you until you
said it to me.

Instead of living
in your goodbye,
I can live for
someone else’s
hello or mine
every night to
the moon.

We meet
in Spring,
but began in
the Fall.

Looking out
the window
of your car
I imagined running
my fingers over
cornfields like pages
of a book.

Watching the sunset
in the rearview mirror
as we moved forward
together, needing
two of my hands to
touch just one of yours.

Followed by 120 days
of realizing we both love
saltine crackers and both drool
when we sleep really well.

You loved listening
to my heartbeat and telling
me how it sounded and
when I couldn’t sleep  
you’d pull my head to
your chest and tell me
to listen to yours.

120 days of you guessing
my favorite flower,
complementing my favorite cardigan,
picking my favorite book off the shelf
and reading to me, and attempting to tie
my hair in a ponytail or a bun.

And you touched like
my skin was ice and
your hands skates,
but that turned into you
grasping at me like
the room is flames
and my body oxygen
On the 120th night
you crawled into my bed,
I could taste the alcohol
on your mouth when you
told me you loved me
and I became addicted
to the taste.

After a week
I was Rory and you Dean
and with that began
our 39-day happy hour.

Until the 159th night
when you took back
that you loved me and
I knew I never could again.
My skin regressed
back to ice and the next
45 days was our last call,
numb to it all.

On the 204th day
you were Summer and
I was Tom eating pancakes
in a diner.
All I did was stare
at the buttons on
your shirt and think
about the time we
saw the moon and you
asked for me to write a
poem but little did you
know I have been this
whole time:

       Iris Moon
       Marble Moon
       Missed Moon
       Monday Blues
       Button Moon
       Spring Cleaning.

And never moonstruck.

We lasted 12 more days
and when we ended my first
thought was that I can now:
cut my hair
       count again
       and write again.

You called me
wonderful
by the lake.

I had to strain
to hear the word
because you choked
on it as I was
choking on the rivers
rolling down my face.

As if the
wonderful
punched you
in the stomach
and took your
breath away
just like you
were cutting off
oxygen to my brain.

Well, I guess
I should be
glad you called
me wonderful
because I’d hate
to see how you
treat those who
are less than.

For the past eleven
days I’ve been waiting
for you
to get drunk.

So I could read
the words on
a screen that I
really needed to
hear from your mouth.

The night I knew
you were getting drinks
I waited up for
these texts from you:

I miss you.
I miss you so much.
I miss seeing you everyday.
I miss waking up next to you.
I can’t stand the idea of being away from you.

But all you said
the next time you saw me was:
I hope my texts didn’t wake you up.

They didn’t.

Nothing
looks familiar
anymore and
I want to go home
but nowhere
feels like
it anymore.

When bluffs
get boring
I trade them
for fields.

When two
lakes aren’t enough
I leave for
a forest of them.

Maybe it’s true
that home isn’t
a place but
a feeling.

Maybe
home
is me.

But
what if
home isn’t
a feeling,
but a person.

Maybe
home
is You.

For now
I’ll have to
carry all that
makes a home
in my bones
until I find
someone I can
unpack into

Words shoved down my throat
I knew you’d understand
choking on them, I can’t breath my own.
You don’t need anyone
Constantly being told how I feel,
I figured you wouldn’t care
and how to react.
You never get mad
I stop fighting,
You can handle it
letting these words
You’ll make it work
override who I am.

She doesn’t make eye contact,
or leave her pajamas on Sundays
and all the spoons in the house
are bent because of her.  
Playing it all off as the protagonist
in a coming-of-age story,
but counting the pages until the end.

Screaming but muted
words placed in her mouth.
Will anyone notice her hands breaking
under the weight of it all?
Anchored down by the person
others need her to be.
Not realizing they are
drowning someone else.

I always wanted to be that girl,
I don’t want you to go through this alone.
until she was the only one left to be.

I’ve heard that pupils
dilate when looking at
something you love.

After 116 days you
called and I didn’t
want to talk but
you insisted so
I interrupted and
asked what color
my eyes are.

I even told you I wish
I had my mother’s green
eyes envious of my sister
for getting to wear them,
and that on a lucky day a bit of
shamrock can be found in
the muck of my eyes.

After that I’d widen my eyes,
and ask what color they were
that day. You’d always say
green, telling me exactly what
I wanted to hear.

I could never forget
the icebergs you call eyes
because they never did
change in size.
So a week later
I called and told you
exactly what you didn’t
want to hear.

And I no longer mark
days lucky or unlucky
based on what I see
others seeing in me.

I heard in a song
that you’re only
as good as your
last mistake.

And I’ve never been
more thankful for
humans ability
to make millions.

So you’ll never
be my last,
because I’m better
than that.

Burning toast
and eating it anyway.

Buying shampoo
when I actually
needed conditioner.

Showing up late
to a meeting.

Missing the first
day of class.

Studying for an exam
two hours before it starts.

Not turning in an
assignment because
I just simply didn’t
want to do it.

Not leaving my pajamas or
bed when there’s
so much to do.

Apologizing when they
bumped into me.

Lying to people
who care, I’m okay.

Not locking my door.

Walking alone at night.

I’d rather be
defined by all
of these things
than you.

Initial reaction: open.
I’d do anything
to help you navigate
out of yourself.
Wrap you up, consume you, carry you
and your demons inside of me
until you are new again.
In that instant
squeezing so tight, in hopes
of putting all your pieces back together.
But that would take millions
of moments and we were only given one.

Processing reaction: closing.
Resorting to all I’ve ever known
helplessly watching from inside
locking myself behind the walls I build
to protect myself from harm, selfish.
Not wanting to lose what I’ve worked
so hard to construct.

Final reaction: I will not set
fire to myself
to keep you warm
but I will help you
find your own.

The first in hale,
deep as the waters
that are now absorbing me.
Expanding my lungs
making room for the breeze
carrying with it opportunities.
Tingling my nostrils
that are like the canals
connecting to newborn perspectives.

A balloon ready to burst,  
the clock stops ticking
I hold in this wave of awareness.
As still as the bridges I intend to cross
in that moment
I forget myself
and locate who I am,
simultaneously.

Exhaling all the storm clouds
that were filling my brain,
creating a galaxy of possibilities.
My shoulders releasing the tension
excited to take on new weights.
Repetitive in this breath
for the first time feeling
alive.

We were born
beating to different drums.
But it was more than that,
you always marched
to the rhythm
of your own song.
Eventually we stopped
trying to march
side-by-side.
We both composed
our own melodies,
unable to distinguish
the beat of one another’s drum.
Until I can only hear
my own harmony and
realize you stopped hitting
your drum all together.
I have no gifts to give,
I can only stand beside you
and beat our old tune
waiting for you to find your rhythm
and begin to beat again.

In one gesture,
a simple motion
you reaching for me,
a millisecond.
Everything I was
fighting to hold in,
came pouring out.
Each cracked piece
of me broke apart,
all I was looking
for was found
in that moment
and lost again
as soon as it was over.

Somehow you’re always  
everything I need
and nothing that I want.
At least I know
I’m not the only one
asking about you.

If just your fingertips
can rattle my bones,
imagine what your
whole body could do.

I’ll just continue not to notice
this power you have over me,  
letting it break down into pieces
so I can rebuild not to need you,
only want you. I won’t let you win, this time.

It’s been 203 days
since I’ve had Dr. Pepper
with your lemon in it.

The first weeks
I had to hesitate at sit-downs.
Now I’ve upgraded to the
permanent taste of Cherry Pepsi
with a slice of independence.

I hope you still ask for
a water with a lime
instead of lemon.

And I hope when
they still bring you
lemon water you feel
my absence, and it
stays with you
when you leave our booth                                          
because I know you still sit there                  
pretending I never did.                                                   

Without a place
for your lemon slice,
you have to grit and bear.      
How does it feel.

I hope that acidic taste
stains your mouth
and reminds you of me.

Similar to a wave in the sea,
I cannot be restrained.
Rising up after falling
again and again.
Each time stronger,
crashing down harder
than before.
Resembling the messages sent in bottles,
rippling waves inscribed with purpose.
Drowning my anchors
in the deepness of the water.
Destroying what destroys me,
refusing to stop
kissing the shore line
even after being pushed away.

I fall
in love
with the way
his eyes become stars
that shine in the
dead of night
when he voices his passions.
Feeling the burn of his
soul radiate
off his skin.
Savoring his energy
like a freshly baked cookie.

I become infatuated
in the way he cannot
control his expression
when his smile consumes
his entire face, overpowering
the words exploding off
his lips.

I become engrossed
in the way he can be
unapologetically himself,
wearing imperfections like
a snug sweater
making the cold irrelevant.

I fall
in love
not with the temporary
beauty of him
but with the essence of the world  
that lives inside his shell.

I’ve been told
that my touch
is like knives,
and I tend to
leave scars
when I get to
know people.

You claimed
to be scared
of commitment,
yet I can see the
tattoos that cover
your skin.

I guess the pain
of me wasn’t
worth it because
I can feel myself
fading from your
skin and I hope
everything is dull
compared to me.

I’m obsessed
with counting.
Even the 47 steps
to my English class.
When that became
boring I created a way
to document, not  
time, but distance.
And 47 turned to 54.

681 days since I
cut 11 inches
off my hair.

359 days since he
said Keep in touch
when the last
thing I wanted
to do was touch him.

319 days since she
didn’t text back and
then 294 days later
moved 1,731 miles
away and by now I
wouldn’t even know
where to send a letter.

One day
I decided to get
another haircut,
but I no longer bother
to know the measurements
of the pieces that
are only going to be
swept away.

He asked me
my favorite flower
and I said I don’t have one
because I didn’t want him
to buy me flowers.

Not just him,
I don’t want anyone
to buy me flowers.

I want someone
to plant flowers
within me,
water them,
stay to watch
them grow
outside of me
and never die.

Yet, he’ll never get it.
That’s probably why
he bought me flowers
that I watched die
sitting on my desk.
And I didn’t even
press the petals.

I stopped doing
my favorite things
because I was
sick of doing them
alone.

You say Hey
to see if I’ll say Hey back.
You take great meaning
out of it, I do it out of
common courtesy.

You ask me how I am,
not because you care,
because you want me
to care about you.

Laying your burdens
on me, because I clearly
look strong enough
to hold them.

You’ve filled every
line on my hand, and
now I really wouldn’t
have room to hold
anything because your
hand is always there.

You kiss me
just to see if I’ll
kiss you back.

You test boundaries,
you lay more than just
your words onto me,
that I try to make
into a crossword puzzle.

You plant your hand
on my thigh, my stomach,
trying to link the
the points of my body.
But I’m not made out of paper.
I am not written in Braille,
you don’t have to touch me
to know my story.



You were trying to
cover my skin with
memories of you,
and that’s why
I cover them up.

When will you learn
the point of loving
isn’t to be loved back?

I’m done trying to teach you,
you’re not my problem
to solve anymore.

For not occupying
very much of it
I need space.
Taking more than
I can give.

I don’t have room in here
for all the people I want to be
let alone any spare rooms
for you to crawl into.

To you my skin would be
a snug sleeping bag
but to me it’s being loved
into a corner of myself.
The only way out is to zip
ourselves together and
for me to lose storage space.

There were little clues
like you asking me
if it was okay to get a haircut or
to help you pick out your jeans.
You wanted me to become you,
but I wouldn’t fit your mold
so you’re trying to fit mine.

But did you even consider me
before you moved in?
You may know that I cut
eleven inches of my hair
twenty-two months ago,
but do you care why?

Don’t exhaust me,
and try to find out what I hang
on the walls of myself, or what keeps
my grandfather’s clock ticking or
why there are no windows.

There aren’t many
I would invite in, probably
why my walls were built so small,
but to you they are an expansion project.
You see a house warming party
where I see invasion.
A For Sale sign has never
been more appalling.

Inhaling to expand myself
like a balloon, bigger and bigger
so people will see that just because
it may not look like it,
I take up a lot of space and
I deserve it because I am
denied of it.

I am sick and tired
of people I love
being sick and tired.

I am sick and tired
of standing over
hospital beds
watching them pretend.

I am sick and tired
of them not wanting
to stay.

If you're going to take them,
take them like a Band-Aid.
Don't drag them out of themselves
and through me.

I'm sick of washing
grief out of clothing
and calendar dates.
Marking one year, two years,
three years, does it ever stop?

Realizing that one day
I will have lived more
days without you than
with you.

And I crumple
like leaves under feet
with every passing
season of my life.
Would you even
recognize me?

I'm running out
of room in my
fist to fit everyone
that I miss.




Running out of
time in the day
to do things that
keep me close to them.

The smell of cigarette
smoke and baby powder
is now a monsoon.

Because using her
dish ware with silverware
at every meal isn't enough,
my handwriting has
turned into hers.
And my god, we even
write my name the same.

If I can't be your
favorite, at least
I can still be mine.

Their suffering may be over
but mine has just begun.
Forgive these words
I'm just sick and tired.

You asked me                              
to write you
a love letter.
Instead I send
this poem
with unknown
intentions and
no expectations.

All I know is the simple thought
of your existence  
makes my cheeks go numb,
my thoughts jumble
I need to get more oxygen
to my brain,
my nerves never end
as my hands fumble,
my blood turns
to hot chocolate,
and my skin buzzing
like the trains
that pass by in the night when I wish
we could be together.

I lied before.
My hope is that
this is  not enough for you,
as it is not for me.
I also hope
this poem makes the corners
of your mouth
curl up
because that is
the least I can
do for you,
for all you have
done for me.
And if this poem
does not move
the muscles in your
face at all,
at least I have
the thought.

And maybe
I’ll never know
either way.
But for now,
it is my turn to ask
something of you:
How’s the weather?