I FINALLY REALIZED THERE'S A WAR GOING ON INSIDE MY CHEST BETWEEN THE PART OF MY HEART THAT HATES YOU AND THE ONE THAT LOVES YOU LIKE IT DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING ELSE BECAUSE IT DOESN'T. I REMEMBER LOVING YOU LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR AND NINE HOURS AGO. YOU'RE GONE NOW AND YOU DIDN'T LEAVE ANYTHING FOR ME TO REMEMBER YOU BY. I'VE SEARCHED FOR YOUR DUST IN THE CREASES OF MY BED SHEETS AND I BET YOU'D BE GLAD TO KNOW I FOUND NOTHING. I FOUND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AND I'M SORRY I STILL TASTE BLOOD ON MY TONGUE EVERY TIME SOMEONE MENTIONS YOUR NAME. I'M SICK OF HEARING PEOPLE SAY THAT I JUST NEED TO FORGET YOU BECAUSE I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING INCLUDING TOUCHING OTHER MOUTHS WITH MY OWN, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP REMEMBERING YOU EVERY TIME I OPEN MY EYES AND SEE THEIR EYES ARE THE SAME COLOR AS YOURS. I KNOW I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO STOP WRITING ABOUT YOU BUT I JUST CAN'T STOP TRYING TO EXPLAIN HOW I MISSED YOUR TOUCH EVEN BEFORE YOU WERE GONE, HOW NO MATTER WHERE I GO I SEE YOUR FACE IN STRANGERS AND NO MATTER WHERE I GO YOU'RE ALWAYS ALMOST THERE.

I hadn't cried in years.  
I was always taught that strength
was not having the courage to let yourself feel but
******* it up, holding it in.
I am sick of "You're going soft on us, honey"
Today I came to understand that
you are completely okay with writing the same poem
over and over again.
This is a metaphor for the way you ****** her in my bed.
This is a metaphor for the night you copy and pasted love letters.
This is a metaphor for what really happened-
I never fall in the same place twice.
Except when I do.
I think the critical difference between the two of us,
critical because there are many differences
but- I think our hamartia, our fatal flaw,
our end scene is this:
if people didn't like my poetry, if nobody listened,
if I walked out on stage and nobody snapped their
fingers, I would still write for just your eyes.
I would still cramp my crooked, birth defect,
quadruple jointed fingers writing to you about the nights
you loved me back,
for a minute there you loved me back.
And you loved 20,000 other people back.
And you loved small towns back and big cities back and the entire west coast
back when you drove through, making temporary homes out of people
who should have been permanent
and I loved you.
And I hadn't cried in years.
Not because I wasn't sad, but because I was taught that showing emotion
was weakness.
So if my father made me memorize the How To's of strength,
if I were going by the book, today I'd be so fragile
you could say hello and I'd shatter so suddenly you'd
forget you were the one that let go.

i have racked my mind
trying to figure this whole thing out
the staying, the going
the threads we claim hold us here
& the people who've stopped to play a tune on them
i sometimes relate it
to waking up in waist deep snow
in our former selves
the us we wish we could give one another
the children we've sat on the shelves
trapped, like the looks
we leave behind in snow globes
i sometimes imagine ships
dragging the bottom to the sea of "me"
for sleep & pieces of my old self
to sell to the new one
like history doesn't repeat itself
it gets me wondering
if you too want an apology from the rain
or if you dream of burning family photo albums
and wearing the ashes like perfume
if you're anything like me
how i hope god chokes
on memories of me blowing out candles as a child
i know i shouldn't reference my reader  
but don't you know, the only difference
between alone & lonely is you?
that if my hands could talk
the only thing they'd be able to say
is "dear god we've missed you"
and how can you tell me it isn't love
when even the rain refuses to fall
in places where i've kissed you
i remember the day
you found my smile at a yard sale
it reminds me of how you'll leave
i wonder if when you go
you'll tell yourself
the person in the rear view mirror
is closer than they appear

I keep rewriting this because I know it's the first time I'll write about you in weeks, and I don't think it matters how many letters I put together to spell out words that remind me of you because none of them will do you justice. You're too good for this. I want to become a better writer just so I can properly explain the color of your eyes because I want for whoever is reading this to know just how beautiful you are. I don't want to write something that isn't as good as you are. I know you probably don't think of me anymore but I sure as hell think of you and I am done apologizing for it. I'm not angry anymore but I still wish you'd come back to me. I know that one day you will or maybe I am just holding on to something that isn't really there. I'm tired of hearing your name and getting chills down my spine, tired of seeing something that reminds me of you and feeling my knees buckle beneath me. I don't want to remember you but I am scared of forgetting you.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

The first time i spoke to you, I was already more infatuated by you than I was by any other person I had ever met. This terrified me beyond belief because I thought, "if this is how I feel now, how am I going to feel once I get to know more of him? How am I going to survive that?" Quite frankly, I'm still wondering how I managed to do so. I guess a part of me thought that if I pointed out all your flaws, if I found out all the things that made you a monster, I'd grow to hate you. I somehow made myself believe that it would help me not fall for you. This part of me knew that we could never work, that I could never let myself get attached to you. But all your flaws only made you even more beautiful to me, and I'd find myself thinking of nothing other than the curve of your lips, the way your eyes shone brightly and how your teeth were always a little crooked but in the most perfect way. You let me into your mind, you told me about all your demons, and how each of them turned you into someone you didn't think you were supposed to be. My defenses fell off of me like water, I let myself become vulnerable and I know that I shouldn't blame you but I do. When you left, I told myself I was fine because I knew from the start it would be like this. I shut my emotions off and I'd laugh whenever your name came up. I'd shrug and say, "no, I don't even care anymore. He wasn't that great anyway." But I knew. I knew from the very first time we spoke that you were going to be the first person I would fall in love with. I'm sorry I didn't know how to deal with your sadness, and I'm sorry I couldn't find the strength to make you stay. I keep telling myself that you'll come back when you're ready but even I know that's not true. It's been so long since I last spoke to you and I don't know why I haven't been able to stop remembering you. I'm sorry I'm not willing to accept this. I'm sorry I'm not willing to let you go so easily. I'm not sorry for loving you, but your voice still lingers in my head and every time I close my eyes, all I can see is what your eyes must have looked like when you finally told me you were leaving. I should have learned by now that you can't make homes out of human beings but I always found comfort in your body and I finally understand the difference between house and home. I can't bring myself to talk about how broken my hands are from the last time they touched you, or how all I can taste in my mouth now is blood. I don't know how to forget the way you always rained poetry, or how every time you smiled up at me, my heart would beat so quickly I'd have to kiss you just to stop it from jumping out of my mouth. Without you, it feels like I'll be stuck in winter forever. I'm ******* freezing and I've always hated the cold.