i want to exchange this keyboard for you
instead of hitting keys and making spaces
my hands should hit all right places
instead of looking at letters across the screen
stare at your eyes and read you like a poem
instead of sending messages across miles of cables
my words would slip of the tongue and soak into yours

i want you here next to me
so i can stop writing prose through my fingertips
and use them to caress your face
so i can stop wrapping words in poetry
and wrap your body in kisses
so i can stop thinking of sexetry
and use my mind in ways that bring you ecstasy

i'm sick of writing poetry for you
so come here and let’s drop the words
line breaks and punctuation
let’s stop writing for each other
and let ourselves carry the message

let's stop writing poetry
and live it instead

I have tried it all
To get the monsters in my soul
Smoking them out
Drowning them in alcohol
Poisoning them with pills
Putting them to sleep with green happiness
Bleeding them out
And yet every night they whisper
I am here
I will always be here
As long as you are here

I remember Mondays in Coach Mac's class. How I loathed yet loved this occurrence. During the period of poetry, each student was asked to write one of their own and read them aloud in class. To write your feelings, your thoughts, onto lined paper and stand in class constructed spot light, asked to peel the skin off of your body to display.

Others mastered the art of avoidance. Of detachment. They often wrote about how fall was coming or an ode to another classmate. But I was never good at running. So I wrote. Not of happiness because he is a stranger to me. I wrote of what I've known for the past five years of my life.

They told me I had talent. And each Monday they anticipated the moment that I would stand up and read.

They wanted to hear my words. They wanted to know the hopelessness of depression and the consuming sadness that I have only known. They hung on to every syllable of my heartbreak and every stroke of ink of my depression. They wanted to know. They wanted to hear. They held on because I wrote words that discomforts, subjects tucked under the rug. I wrote about the raw experiences they themselves could not verbalize. Yet they were familiar.

They wanted the words from someone else's mouth.

They fell in love with my depression but they never wanted to help.

I wait, excited for when I see you again.
touch your fingers
kiss your lips
hear your voice.

But you always wanted more.

Because instead of wanting to see me
you wanted to see how the dress you bought looked on my body,
instead of touching my fingers
you wanted to invade  the parts of my body i regarded sacred,
instead of kissing my lips
you wanted to devour my mouth
and dominate me to show how weak i am,
instead of hearing my voice
you wanted moans and cries of pleasure
screams for the world to hear that I belong to you.

I sit here on the bed.
After your rounds of happiness and my forced labor.
I ask you who was the girl that you were so clearly flirting with last night and you tell me  it was just harmless flirting
and I bite my tongue
because i wanted to scream at you
Is it harmless,
that when you canceled on our date because you said you were sick,
someone told me that they saw you at a club, that you were gripping that girl's waist
and grinding on her like you were her man?
Is it harmless,
that everyday you rub it in my face how immensely inexperienced and timid i am
compared to the other girls you've been with?
Is it harmless,
that you asked me if it's okay if you ***** other girls
and I was taken aback and it was clear that I didn't approve?
You said
"They don't really mean anything, I just need some variety."
I knew right there that even if I didn't allow you, you'd still do it.
And right now
I’m just confused more than ever as I ask you again
What exactly we are and you say
“We're exclusively dating.”
But most of the time it’s more like
exclusively *******
with each other
with other emotions
with our non-existent commitments.
Because after just a mere 5 minutes of you being with me
and I refuse to spread my legs for you,
you have the nerve to lie to my face and look me in the eye and say
"My love for you gets stronger everyday."
And I swoon, being the naive little girl that I am
I am hung up on your words and I say yes when you ask me if we're okay.
But I know that by okay you mean okay with being invaded.
And with every pound, with every ******
The word love is replaced by lust
so now the sentence is
"My lust for you gets stronger everyday
and my love for you decreases the same."

I am so tired and so worn down from the weight of all my insecurities and you come hobbling in with your own bag of insecurities and stick it inside of me which you only do when other girls don't want you to.

Well guess what
For the first time in my life,
I'm
gonna
say
no.