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.

Change, for me, was always unexpected like how driving your family's station wagon into a brick wall at top speed might feel like;
like waking up one morning and stepping outside to realize that winter and the dark and cold and grey are finally here.
I shouldn't say that losing you came too fast because you were never mine to begin with. I don't know how else to say that your scent is the only one I want to wake up to but your smell is already fading from the sheets I sleep in.
My friends say I'm ridiculous for looking for you in so many places but I see you in everything. You always knew exactly what to say and when to say it.
Your words never gave me butterflies in my stomach, no, instead they were ******* fireworks. Shooting stars. I never minded being alone until you showed me what it was like to not be on my own.
Now, I can't stop thinking of how many things I was missing out on for so many years. This is to say I wish I had met you sooner.
I've captured all of our moments in a jar, and every night, I stare at it on my bedside table and think of you and the way you captured me.
But I'm so ******* scared that one day, this glass jar will shatter in my hands and I'll lose everything I've worked so hard to save.

I've got to stop writing poems about you. my entire journal is filled with your name and I'm not entirely sure how I'm passing all my classes when all I ever do is daydream about your hands. i think I'm going insane because lately, it's gotten to the point where I am wishing I was the white cotton sheets that you carelessly sleep in. I have found myself making wishes to be the cigarettes you love to smoke so deeply; so I could be in between your lips and you would be addicted to me.

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.

his smile was so ******* blinding
i'm sure those eyes could see past the
fake smile and look straight into the soul
and every time i touched his face
i was left with bloodstains on my clothes
it wasn't even love anymore
but instead an addiction i wanted it to hurt
i wanted to come out puffing and panting
this isn't fair it causes so much pain
but i wouldn't have it any other way

I had always been
the one pushing everyone away.
I had always been too scared
of my own feelings to ever truly
give into them.
I had always been the coward
but somehow with him,
I was the brave one.
I was willing to put
my fears aside for him
and I managed to ignore
all the loud voices in my head
until eventually they became quiet enough
to go unnoticed.
He was always picking his cigarettes
over me and I often wondered how
he could choose letting his lungs deteriorate
over someone who loved him
as much as I did.
He would yell at me when I asked him to quit
and when I got upset,
he'd hold me in his arms
and say that I would leave him eventually
but they never would.
He never truly saw just how much
I loved him.
He was so convinced
that I was too good for him,
that he was the darkness and I was the light.
"Baby," I'd tell him,
"I know that you believe your heart
is made of coal
but I have seen the truest parts of you
and I need you to know that there are
constellations hidden inside of you,
you've just gotta let those stars shine."
Some nights, he'd kiss my neck
and hold my hips so tightly
he'd leave bruises
but he always stopped himself mid-kiss
to tell me we could never work.
He said this so often
I eventually started to believe him.

FIGHTING FOR MYSELF IS THE HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER HAD TO DO I SWEAR THE BLOOD RUNNING THROUGH MY VEINS IS BLUE AND HOW IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME WHEN I CAN'T LOVE ME NO ONE WANTS A GIRL WITH SCARS NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A SOLDIER TO GO TO WAR THERE ARE PLENTY OF BATTLEFIELDS INSIDE MY OWN HEAD SOME DAYS I CAN'T EVEN GET OUT OF BED LET ALONE LEAVE THE HOUSE THERE ARE FAR TOO MANY BLOODSTAINS ON MY BLOUSE

What am I supposed
To do with these
Empty sheets and
Worn out dreams?

sometimes
you swear you can feel his breath
against the back of your neck
and it drives you insane.
sometimes,
you think you're done dreaming
about him but you see him there,
back against your headboard
and it starts back again.
you bury yourself in men
who have the same colored eyes as him
and you drink shot after shot
in hopes of forgetting his name.
we both know you will end up
forgetting your own first.

These days it feels like I am fighting a battle
I was destined to lose from the start.
I should accept that I'm in this alone
but I can't seem to let go of that last bit of hope ...
as if one day things will change.
I keep thinking maybe one day
people will show me the same kind of love
that I show them
but I'm starting to think I'm just a fool.
I want to disappear somewhere far away,
where no one knows my name
and I can stop pretending
that anyone gives a **** about me
or my happiness or, rather, my sadness.
My heart has never felt so heavy.
Maybe I'm just meant to be alone.

sometimes the moon looks so close i almost think i could reach my hand up and touch her. i wonder how she would feel against my fingertips, if she would crumble at my touch or if her beauty would make me crumble instead. sometimes she looks so small i want to hold her against the palm of my hand. other times, she looks like she could crush me just by looking at me.

sometimes i wish i could let go of all of this weight i carry and go live in the sky with the clouds. sometimes, i wish i could touch the stars that come out at night and feel them burn my fingertips. as if somehow that would make the darkness inside me feel a little bit brighter.

sometimes i wish i could feel sadness instead of the emptiness that surrounds me. i ask myself why i rarely feel anything at all, why happiness only comes in small doses. when it does, i can hardly recognize it. it is only when i look back that i think maybe... maybe i was happy then.

i'm wondering what makes your head spin and what makes your eyes light up like the stars that come out late at night. i can't stand the fact that you can't see that even the sun shines for you. you've got my heart in the palm of your hands and you don't even know it. i want to know the names of your favorite songs and i want to know what makes you think of someone so much you decide to write about them. i want to be the person you write poems about. i want to occupy your every thought and i want you to see me as the ******* center of your universe because you're the center of mine. rip open my chest and take my heart because i don't need it anymore, it's yours. it's been yours since the very first time i laid eyes on you. you never saw yourself as something beautiful but baby, god himself probably bragged to the angels when he created you. i don't always believe in god but sometimes i think he put you on this earth just so i could touch your lips with mine and trace the outline of your hips with my fingertips and i promise i will spend every day for the rest of my life trying to repay him. i'm not very romantic and i never believed in love but there can only be one explanation for the way my heart beats against my rib cage when you say you're addicted to me and if this feeling isn't love i don't care what it is, i don't ever want to go on without it.

i keep looking at the moon
and i wonder why i can’t reach her,
why when i hold out my hand
all i am met with is darkness.

i want the ocean
to swallow me whole.
maybe drowning
would be better than this.
maybe the waves
will fill the emptiness
inside my heart.

i have learned to look deep within myself.
i have turned every corner, every crevice,
swam underneath every deep-end inside my body
to explore what i am made of,
and yet i still feel like i don’t fully know myself.
i have so much to learn, i have so much left to see.
i know now that i am in control of everything.
all of the stars shining inside of me shine
because i tell them to,
but i must learn that the brightest stars die the fastest.
i know now that the reason my hands shake
is not because i am weak,
but because i have so much power inside of me
that my body doesn’t know what to do with it all.

i wonder if he knows that his eyes shine like starlight. i wonder if he knows that his voice alone makes my heart race, that the words he strings together to form perfect sentences make my knees crumble beneath me. i want his fingers to trace lines against my hips like braille, his lips finding the perfect spot on my neck to make a home in.

i call out his name and i wonder if he can hear it from way up there, on the other side of the solar system. can he hear my heart beating for him? can he see how much my hands shake when i think of his smile?

my name sounds like a song coming from his mouth and i start to believe i am dreaming. i start to believe i never really knew my own name until he said it. i dreamt about him again last night and i swear i can still feel his hands on my skin. i can hear his voice in my head so clearly and it sounds like wind chimes. it sounds like the kind of melody that was made for me to keep playing over and over again until it’s all i can hear.

the way he looks at me reminds me i’m alive, but i think that if i were to blink he would disappear. if i stop saying his name, will he forget what my voice sounds like? will he forget my name as quickly as he learned it? the truth is my hands could never compare to the way that so many galaxies have kissed his cheeks. i am far too forgettable. i remind myself that this fire inside of me could burn an entire kingdom and it is only getting wilder, it is only getting harder to compress. he has hands that could carry the weight of all the worlds combined, but i am afraid he won’t have enough room for my heart.

In the light, he no longer calls you "baby." He no longer thinks it's cute that you can't stop your hands from shaking. He no longer tells you it's okay to stay in bed; he starts pulling the sheets off of you, yelling "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER." In the light, you can see the outlines of his cheeks and the way his eyes look down at you and you can tell he never really loved you. In the light, he's packing his bags and driving his car away. Things aren't as simple when the sun is shining through your window - everything is so much clearer. In the dark, you could pretend you were okay because he couldn't quite make out the frown on your face or your shaky hands or what those prescription bottles read. Now he can look at you clearly and he doesn't like what he sees.

you keep looking up at the clouds
and wishing you'd see her face
because you know
she is too soft for this world.
you tell yourself
that you tried your best to hold onto her
but the truth is
she was never in your grasp to begin with.

There are so many things I want to tell you about, like the times I've written your name down over and over in the hopes that it would lose its meaning. I look up at the sky and I wonder if you look at it and think of me, the way that I think of you. I keep looking for you in the cracks between my fingertips, hoping that you are still hiding somewhere near. I know that you were too bright for me but I would risk going blind if it meant I got to keep looking at you.

what if i told you i am tired of this unrequited love story? i never thought those were romantic.  you were once so fascinated by me. you always thought i was the most interesting, always thought i was worth picking out from the rest. your hands always felt gentle and soft against the endless pages of my mind and you were always excited, always waiting for the next plot twist. perhaps the imagery just wasn't real enough for you, the metaphors not as creative. maybe you decided that the characters inside were far too predictable. i keep thinking you'll come back and read between the lines and realize that i am truly worth rereading. but now even when you come back you aren't really here. i'm just another book on your bedside table, waiting to be picked up when you want to be reminded of what used to be.

you think you love her
but you wish her eyes didn't shine so brightly.
you wish her smile didn't light up
the entire town and you wish her voice
was just a little bit quieter.
you think you love her
but sometimes you wish
she would dim her light for you.
you never realized that she already had,
that without you
she could be more powerful than the sun.

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 bedsheets 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 it was gone, how no matter what I do I see your face in strangers and no matter where I go you’re always almost there.

i know it’s hard to come to terms with the way that men only love you when it’s convenient for them.
you attract people who are broken and you love them so deeply, you only wish you could pick up the pieces and put them back together with glitter glue.
you pour all of your love onto them like it’s nothing and they always swallow it whole.
you are very good at fixing them.
somehow your love gives them all the strength in the world until suddenly they are no longer broken.
they don’t need you anymore.
who’s going to fix you?