stuck in a hollow room,
handfuls of pictures of
years, now simple past,
rain still bound, fallen,
the quietness of absence,
the eclipse of
your dissolute smile;

one day,
years ago,
I must have woken up,
and forgotten to stay in love,

or just realized,
I never really was.

you didn’t want me

not when your fingers dug into

my hips or when they trailed 
their way up my thigh

and i don’t think 
i really wanted you, either

we wanted skin and we wanted flesh

touch without connection

we pressed our lips together

once or

twice but i think it was habit

more than anything

we were doing this

so we had to do this

touch me and i’ll touch 
you but really

i was touching him

and you were touching her

december 29, 2012

it’s cold. the kind of cold, cold night that good books begin on. it’s cold enough to start snowing and if only for that reason i have all the blinds on the windows pulled up high, just in case flakes start falling before i close my eyes. it's cold and i'm waiting for snow that i know isn't coming and i'm lying on a bed that was never quite intended to be just mine, curled up in sheets that i bought after a week of sleeping on ones that had too much history.

(i want to be what makes your bones weak)

my fingers are starting to go numb, tired of writing love notes and tucking them into pockets only for them to be forgotten. i wear red lipstick when you're gone to kiss the underside of your pillow so that you'll be able to remember that you're loved even when i'm not asleep beside you.

before i'd kissed you i imagined what it would be like. would it be like fourth of july fireworks on the back of black eyelids? expensive white wine and fingers touching skin so insistent it’s bruising? would it taste like the people you wanted to kiss before me and would you mix up the first letter of my name with letters that come a few spaces after it?

the way you look at me sends shivers up my spine unrivaled by any look of lust in a dark corner of a hallway. rich lips on rich skin couldn't compare to the feeling of waking up with you warming your toes on the back of my legs and i don't think i could ever be persuaded to give up a second of a memory i have where you were in the same place as me.

i can't imagine living in a world where you can't look at me, and i can't imagine who i would be without you. thank you notes aren't exactly my specialty but i’m trying to convey how much the feeling of knowing you'll be home soon means to me. how the novelty of the idea that you and me are something more than an idea. we're concrete.

Doors slam like Satan himself is
in a fit of rage below us, even if he is
in the deepest level of Hell, I feel the floor
shaking like a 6.0 has just swept us but it
is only a consequence of wood slamming
against wood and fists fighting doorknobs.

Voices rise like the temperature in Arizona
in the summer, abruptly, hot and heavy, so
quickly stifling any chance of relief—
anger is an emotion I am far too familiar with.

Some people live quiet family lives, are never
interrupted in their sleep by screams from a
father who dreams of death and a mother who
carries a scythe of shame as if she is the Reaper,
some people wake up in the morning knowing
there is breakfast waiting on the table, fresh eggs
hot off the stove and orange juice with pulp, but
others wake up and make coffee for themselves,
knowing parents sleep past noon and
we are the ones who are doomed to repeat the
history of abuse and psychological suffering but:
we are the ones who will help to stifle the shouts,
to put a stop to slamming doors and shrill screams,
dysfunctional daily routines and waiting for hope
that never arrives, we have had lives consisting
of always having to act stronger than we feel
when the floorboards seem to be breaking just
beneath the force of our feet, because our
bodies are not just our bodies, we are carrying
burdens that weigh more than our bones and
blood cells combined, so when we step on the
scale the number we're reading is really how
much hurt we have been holding, not how
much food we've been hoarding inside of us.

We are the children of complex family situations,
we are spend-more-time-in-psychologist-offices-than
we-do-in-our-own-roo­ms, we are no-parent-to-tuck
us-in-at-night-read-yourself-a-story-it-builds-­ability.
We are daydreams of escaping like Rapunzel,
we are how do I save myself from a nightmare when
I am already awake? We are years of reading self-help
books in Barnes and Noble until we finally understood
that the only thing to do is to help the world help us:
we are strong. And we understand that family exists,
but for us it is different. We are the children who find
comfort in books and coffee and anything outside
of a house so filled with tension and hatred, and we
have been waiting to fix ourselves for too long.

She wants to know me,
Whisper secrets down my throat.
But like so many before..
I don’t see her name, but,
I know everything about her.
I discern her independent thoughts
Her politely rebellious acts of defiance,
How she shops at thrift stores
Wearing old tank-tops to complement her Chanel,
Paints her nails black and her index red.
I know she says this,
but really wants that.
I know what makes her toes curl
I know what she likes
And how she likes it.
I read her like an open book,
Bold font size 45.
She wants to know me,
To explore ourselves together.
But I recognize her from afar,
So how could she ever know me…

I am in a bad state, physically and emotionally (mostly emotionally) and this is mostly a self healing type of thing. Bear with me. A lot of swearing and some mild crying were involved.

1. For starters, I'd like to say that I am sorry for the current state that we're in. Our friendship has slipped through my fingers faster than any liquid could and left me numb and confused and sort of hung over. I never meant to cause you anger towards me in any way but I guess sometimes these things are meant to happen and there isn't anything we can do about it.
2. I kind of miss your small hands and the way they were always outstretched, ready to catch every drop of disappointment and wonder the world had to give. They were always cold too; maybe from all the icy truths they held. I liked the way you moved them when you couldn't figure out the exact words to say, as if they were your cue cards you couldn't quite read.
3. I don't know if we'll ever speak again or if you will look me in the eye when you walk past me, if you even think of me when you see me. I don't know if you still consider me a mistake or the nights we spent together a mistake the way chopping off my hair with Crayola scissors when I was four was a mistake.
5. When this is over, remember that you are not any less loved: you are still the girl who has looked fear in the face every day and fated, “I do not belong to you.”
6. You taught me that everyone leaves. This is no longer something I can romanticize, I’m not capable of turning this pain into poetry anymore. It’s just sadness. It’s just hurt. It’s just hard.
7. In fifty years when I sit down to write a poem about us, (and I will), I will word the way this situation
panned out, pinpoint perfectly why you are letting go, I will have just enough knowledge to write a funny sarcastic quip about how sorry you should be for losing me, but today I am desperate for some explanations, and the present does not seem comical or ironic— it is Cinderella’s lost slipper sad, a future slipping away because you are scared of the clock chiming midnight, and although in hindsight I will laugh at myself, at you, at this, I will tell my children things like, “Wasn’t I silly?” and they will nod, and tuck my cautionary tales under their skin as little life reminders. Although in 50 years I will call you 5 decades too late, say I'm sorry that I never seemed to say “I love you” at the right time, ask how the years have been, and wonder of all the things that could have been if I'd had the right words. I cannot see the future, and all I am is filled with uncertainty rusting my heart and tainting my hope the way rain rusts metal in the spring, wishing that if nothing else, at least someday I will be able to understand.
8. The past three days have been a rollercoaster of emotions, from the highest elation, to the lowest depression. I hope you're happy, I really do. If nothing else, I hope you think of me and the times we shared and smile a little bit. I hope your wildest dreams come true and I hope you realize you are full of bountiful potential spilling out from every bit of you, even your aura. I hope I'm on your *List of Things That Keep Me Up at Night but in a good way. I hope you actually read Things Fall Apart and make literary connections between the characters in that book and our friendship. I don't even know what I'm saying. I hope you find the words I never could. I hope you wake up one morning and say "I'm going to change the world," because you can. I hope you dance in the rain and not care if your hair gets wet. I hope you get yourself figured out.