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Danielle Shorr Jun 2015
It always seems to be a similar path,
this one I go down.

strung along, hanging on to the back of jean pockets and
holding on to loose hands
clinging just gently enough to not be a bother,
this is how I love.

insecure
like a mid day shadow peeking out to make it's presence known
quietly, but not too loud as to call attention,

like a peach picked up at the market
promising sweet no matter how bruised
I care only to keep the tastebuds wanting

cautious of being too much,
constantly afraid that I am,
conscious of how easily I could be replaced,

one sided like
skin meeting ink
you will be the tattoo gun and
I will be the swollen reminder
you will go unharmed while
I am marked permanent

twinge-yearning,
nail-pulling,
folding back the flesh.
this is how I love and
I know how this goes

you'll look at other girls and
I'll look at you the way the land looked
at rain after the first drought

you'll give away glimpses of your smile to strangers and
I'll give you all of me like it's possible
to grow back complete

you'll put your arms around hips that aren't mine and
I'll feel my own expand with envy

you'll toss around the word love and
I'll attempt to catch it every time it lands
near someone else's feet

you'll carry other names in your mouth while
yours will be the only one in mine, tucked
safely under the tongue

you'll provide me reassurance without an asking for it and
I'll pretend I don't care about a thing in the world when
really it is you who has become my entire universe

you'll play me the way that I'm used to and
I'll laugh like it's a game I never wanted to win anyway
because
I hate losing things I love

you'll make me swell empty without intending to and
I'll make you full with whatever I have to offer

you'll inflict sadness unknowingly and
I'll make you happy like it's a method for survival,
like it's my ******* purpose for existing

this is how I love.
not too tightly, just soft enough for your liking
here I am, programmed for the pleasing
I will hang on like a child's fist does a dandelion
light enough to keep the stem intact
leaving room for your fingers to wrap around
praying you wont let go but
this is how I love and I know how it goes
how it will go
destined to meet the ground eventually after
being dragged along knowingly
I am
aware of how it is,
the same,
always but
this is how I love for
I do not know any other way
Danielle Shorr Jun 2015
The smell of whiskey makes my teeth hurt and today I woke up gasping for breath
Missing you kind of feels like rubbing alcohol on every paper cut from the scraps left behind
Some days it is a hollow swelling but the majority feel more sunburn, easy to forget but sore when touched

I used to dream about waking up with you as a normal routine, instead there is only quiet
I hold my hands together when I sleep to fill the space of a bed too big
I find pieces everywhere, your hair on my pillow, your cologne on my sweater, your sock, just one, tucked into a drawer I didn't know existed

I don't think about you often but when I do it becomes a sinking
A hole jammed into the side of a ship that had just learned how to stay afloat
There is never enough time for me to save myself from drifting off and I give up

It is back to you, and the guilt washing on your face when you said this feels weird, lips building lies like the fixing of shelter after a storm
When another someone tells me how soft my skin is, I want to light it on fire to burn off your fingerprints,
To forget that you said the same so often

I want to call you and ask why you haven't tried to reach me
I want to remind you that we live in the same city, big, enough distance apart to ignore
I want to pull your hands out of my hair and your breath off of my neck but I'm aware of the inexistence of both

I'm aware that now you have become nothing more than a figment of my imagination
Gone from reality but still alive in memory I do not try to erase
I'm not waiting for your return, I know you wont but I am waiting for the day my tastebuds don't crave you
It will happen, sooner or later but
for  now I still do
Danielle Shorr Jun 2015
I hope you're happy, really I do
I'm better off without you
I don't miss you too terribly
I only think of you sometimes
I can forgive easily
I never wanted to be in your life anyway
There's plenty of other people to love
I'm just waiting for the right one
I left the house enough times this week to call it progress
I swear I'm doing okay
I eat when I'm supposed to, I don't drink like I need to, and I stopped smoking
My lungs are full
So am I

I hope you're happy, really I do
I'm better off without you
You're girlfriend is better off not knowing
I want her to be happy too, really
I am happy
Really, I am
I got out of bed today when I was supposed to
I brushed my teeth, flossed, cleaned
And I did all of it without you,
Didn't I?
Not once did you cross my mind
In fact, you hardly ever do
I am too busy for distraction,
Writing poems about other things than the crippled dream that was us
I use past tense purposefully
I am over you

I hope you're happy, really I do
I'm better off without you
I can sleep in these sheets without feeling your phantom limbs grazing mine
It's okay that you left so little behind
I can swallow the shells without choking
I can listen to music without hearing your voice singing along
Your absence is what I've always wanted
I hope you're happy, really I do
I'm better off without you.
Danielle Shorr Jun 2015
Your hands
in places they don't belong
I don't mind at all.

You're here but your heart is somewhere else with
someone else,
I know.

An arm wrapped around me
I unravel it back to you
I can not call it my own.

Tonight my lips are stained with wine
And yours are stained with mine,
Both of ours are stained with guilt.

You taste like a lie I know
All too well.

I am not a bad person but
I have to be every time
we're together.

Here we are,
happily sinning to rid the
conscience from our brain.

How good does it feel
to wipe the shame into
desire?

When you're gone
I don't hold my breath in waiting
I would suffocate if I were to.

I miss you only on the nights when
I am alone and the days where you
don't text back.

I ask if you even exist anymore and
you answer sometimes,
Do you need me?
Sometimes.

There is only lonely and whispering when it comes to us,
See you soon, we swear,
always.

Your hands
in places they don't belong

You're here but your heart is somewhere else with
someone else,
I know

Here we are,
happily sinning to rid the
conscience from our brain.

Does your love know where you are tonight?
Danielle Shorr Jun 2015
You've made mistakes
Many, you know this.
Lived close enough to the edge to
feel the thrill of it but just far enough to
not fall off, you're strategic.
But the paint on the walls you've been building up is
starting to chip and sometimes you forget to laugh at
things you're supposed to
You don't listen with detail often and
when you do, you forget to care.
Apathy is not pretty on you but
neither is desperation.
You remember when you wanted to
save yourself for the right one and
now it's funny to think about how
your list is too long to keep track and
you can no longer count your reckless on your fingers
There's a boy who brings you sunflowers and
before you can tell him he's too good for you,
you hurt him,
unintentionally.
You could say sorry but there's no correct apology for
I can't love you.
There's no believable way to say
I don't deserve you or
don't know how to or
Convince a hopeless romantic that
you're really just pathetic.

You're drifting off the road in your dreams but
The car is still intact the next morning
During the day you think about all of the sleep you didn't get
You couldn't get, you're not sure when rest became
a chore instead of a reward.
Your lonely has turned into habit and
the smell of gasoline is more appealing than perfume
Sometimes you don't appreciate things you should and
that's just normal routine.
But you're tired most days and it has become
a purposeful cycle of
Consciously messing up to fix it later,
the trouble keeps you busy,
The ache is constant but
it keeps you full.
You used to collect records that
now collect dust sitting in a room
in a house that no one really lives in,
Someone does, yes, but only quietly.
There is a doe-eyed girl who has
drowned in your search for passion,
You're guilty for crimes you didn't mean to
commit, mostly careless in intention and
you never meant to hurt anyone but yourself.
Your arms are wide but you're shaking and
there are so many questions that
you'll never have answered.

What happens when your fingers break
from reaching out too much?
What do you do when you've run out of
bones to crack?
Will your spine still stretch after you've bent backwards
so many times?
How can you possibly love someone
when you don't know how to yourself?
You're learning, you swear.
Trying to understand that appreciation
doesn't directly translate to narcissm, that
You don't always have to feel bad for
what isn't your fault.
You've made mistakes,
many, you know this.
Move farther away from the cliff,
don't hold your breath, this is life,
my dear,
you know this.
You'll be okay,
You know this.
Danielle Shorr May 2015
Funny how a year can come and go so fast
I don't know when last June became this one but it did, quickly.
I almost swore on our future
I almost did,
almost

This is another Sunday but in the present now
Time has shifted unrecognizable
I bet you wouldn't notice me next to you on a sidewalk or at a streetlight or in the ocean drowning
I don't think you remember the sound of my voice but
I still taste yours, humming

Maybe you think about me, maybe
Probably not, you probably don't
Look at how far we didn't make it
Look at how long we didn't stay

Back again, summer and heat and unfortunate desire
I have come again in pieces
Full circle, your arms could still be around me
Full circle, they are not even close
Full circle, I still haven't let go
But I'm coming around
I'm coming around
Still,
Still,
Still
I'm coming around,
I swear, I am.
Danielle Shorr May 2015
The bitter heart eats its owner
It's a fearful thing to love what death can touch

Their goodnight kiss felt like two blind animals bumping into each other in the dark
She felt in that moment that she loved him as much as it was possible to love anyone
What she felt was something like hard rain; violence
                                                                ­                      and brightness
                                                                ­                            and beauty
What formed in her mouth were the words,
Which of us is flawed?


He began to feel anger at the peace he found here and the complacency of the blue sky and quiet roads
His fists were in his eye sockets, his head exploding with the ruin of lives
As he set out, he felt a kind of happiness
He fell
            and he fell,
                               and the earth that we call sweet became his executioner


There is a point when the body relinquishes its pain
and waits dumbly
The savage animal eating his heart would someday grow weary
When do you stop being
                                           human?
When the body is so befouled, when you have groveled so deeply, when bitterness eats your
                                   bones?

The birds move from one tree to the next, building nests
This is how we live
The wind erases our footprints as we move
                And then one day, we are no longer alive on Earth,
                         And the footsteps are gone forever
The land is our blood, the clouds our hair

We are doorways, openings into something greater than ourselves,
Something that we don’t understand and will never understand
One cannot know why things happen as they do
We have nothing precious in and of ourselves
We are only precious that we are part of something too big to know
Every person alive thinks they are the center of the universe, that they are everything
When in fact each of us is less than nothing
Liquid, like a river
Season by season
Hope,
           and hope again.
lines compiled from Eleanor Morse's novel White Dog Fell From The Sky
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