She stabbed me in the chest
And asked why I was bleeding.
She’ll never let me rest
At the thought of me not sleeping.
Tell me it’s not sweet
To write away my love to you.
And tell me there’s no heat,
when the fireworks turn red to blue.
As if color made the choices
You say you’ll never make,
When there’s nothing left but voices
While you’re lying awake.

Loving you is hard to regret;
How can I regret
when loving you made me
a better person?

When it felt so good
to lie beside you,
spreading our warmth
onto the cold wet grass?

When it's all that I've ever done right
in years of being wrong?
When you made me write
beautiful poetry?

How can I regret
when writing you letters every night,
calmed the storm in my eyes?

And even if you've shut me out of your life,
as you've identified my name synonymous to "regret",
I'll never regret loving you,
because I still do--
3 years later.

He had the power to make me whole
He had the strength to push me together
we had the chance to be everything
but he broke me
Instead of falling in love with me
he just made me fall
he lied to me
he told me he loved me
I believed him until the day
he broke up with me
then I strated breaking
I realized he was my everything
he was everything
nothing was better
he loved me but now i am falling
I'm broken because he broke me

Sorry.

Not for the bruises inscribed in my knees at six years old,
or gravel-shaped cuts dotting my palms
after being kicked off my bike like a rodeo bull,
or even the sliver of a scar on my right index finger
from closing it in a van door when I was seven.

No, I have no remorse
for the innocent;
not a twinge of sympathy regarding the unfortunate results
of relatively harmless careless actions
and playful worth-it memories.

I’m sorry for the other things.

I don’t mean running
or swimming
or dancing
until the soreness embedded itself in my muscles, my
heart racing, pulse pounding
in my ears.
I don’t regret that.

I’m sorry
for the other things.

I’m sorry for hating you.
I’m sorry for all of the
preening and plucking and
shaving and waxing and
hair burning.

I’m sorry for the countless repulsed glances at the spot
where my stomach puffs out
and all of the daggers I stared into the place
where my thighs meet.

I am sorry for getting slashed at
by the perfectly intact glass
of the bathroom mirror, for feeling severed,
just by seeing its reflective surface.

I’m not sorry for taking up space,
but I’m sorry I ever was.

I am sorry for
switch off the light,
lock the door,
the scratch of fingers in my throat
and the starkness of the cold linoleum floor
routines
I practiced because I loathed
the way you curved
and the fatness of my pseudo-waist.

I’m sorry for falling into patterns of self-hate
that I aimed at you. Patterns
not unlike that of an alcoholic,
commencing with afternoon drinks or slightly restricted meals
and ending with wildly depressing stories to tell
and crying on stranger’s floors—
but there is no Lackers of Self-Esteem Anonymous,
no chips to collect
for every time I tell myself I’m beautiful
or, better yet, value more
than my appearance.

I am sorry for thin red lines that ran deep into my wrists
and I am sorry for the faint-inducing heat
that followed,
caused by the oversized and long-sleeved sweatshirts I hopelessly donned
to cover you up.

I’m sorry for discarding that one dress
(that you looked stellar in, by the way)
because I had degenerated into such an unhealthy
and addictively abhorrent relationship with you
that I feared
even the slightest tightness
in my attire.

I’m sorry for habitual body monitoring. I’m sorry
for using my fingers to count calories
and not positive attributes. I’m sorry
for all of the aforementioned repugnant routines
I’ve picked up over the past few years,
whether I’ve stopped them or not,
I’m sorry.

I am.

So, body, when I say
that this is an apology note,
I don’t mean I’m sorry for  the time
I skipped salad and went straight to pizza,
or even the countless dinners when
I put an extra brownie on my plate.

No, I have no remorse for that.
I don’t regret that.

I’m sorry for hating you.

But, like a sinner coming up after sinking
in a blessed lake of holy water,
I am ready to fill my lungs with new breath. I will repent
with the radical act of self-love

and I promise that I will treat you better.

Poison Ivy
Not to be mixed up with poison Oak
Thriving to irritate the human skin
Leaving people with days of a red itchy rash
So abundant and lively
Berries white, run on fright
A red vained plant of pure torture
Three leaves, let it be
Poison Ivy