Shot follows shot.
Drinks on drinks.
Baccardi courses through my bloodstream.
I'm drowning in ***** and in my memories of you.  
And the acid burning its way to my stomach,
Is easier to handle than the hollow feeling when I'm sober.

Falling in love was the easy part.
But none of the teen romance novels you've read could have prepared you for what comes when you stay.
The After.
You learn quickly.
Learn to love the constant back and forth and the everlasting yes and no's and the late night phone fights.
Stay in this after with him even when the door was open for escape in the before, when every part of your being was left intact.
Love the boy who took ever last ounce of space in your heart. The boy with emotions as ever changing as the seasons, who bleeds his nationality and carries his heart tucked into his sleeve.
Love the boy who became the Heathcliff to your Catherine.
Learned to love this After because whatever these souls are made of, they are the same.

“1. When you’re trying to fall asleep at night and it feels like your world is crashing down on you, walls closing in, suffocating you as you clutch his pillow to your chest, breathe. It’ll get easier every night.                                     You'll be okay.
2.When you’re out at the mall and you see a couple holding
hands and kissing, don’t text him that you miss him. Remember that there was a time before him and you were fine. So breathe.
You’ll be okay.
3.When you find out he’s met someone new, you will
shatter again. Your knees will cave beneath you and you will cry, and scream, and plead with God to give him back to you. Just remember that it’s okay to not be okay all the time and to try to breathe through the pain.
You’ll be okay.
4.One day, you’ll wake up, and you’ll go about your day,
not realizing that you didn’t think of his smile and those big brown eyes once. But until then, breathe.
You’re gonna be okay.”

One year,
     nine months,
          nine days.

You walked into my life
and turned it on its head.
You taught me what love was
and what love wasn't.
You showed me
how to save myself from
the darkness in my mind.
And in return, I gave you
a piece of my heart.

You gave me a forever in 648 days.

But ultimately,
you showed me that
everyone leaves eventually.

And as hard as it is to believe,
goodbyes(or lack there of) are a forever too.

In the months since you left, I have stared, blankfaced, waiting for a single moment of inspiration.
Poised with my pen, prepared to write the greatest breakup poem.
But all I feel is nothingness.
My mind is a screaming black hole with your name on it that has ****** every ounce of creativity from these fingertips that used to ebb and flow with words.
I am the nothingness that you created.

The lips I kissed tonight,
didn't taste like you.
And the cotton shirt that I
clung to didn't smell like you.
So I kissed him harder and
pulled him closer,
pushing you deeper into my
memories, always trying
to forget that
my lips,
and my arms,
weren't enough for you either.

He took the ever-revolving door out of my life, and ever since I have been in a constant state of longing.
A craving for some semblance of normalcy.
A hope that my broken pieces stand a chance of becoming more than he left behind.
I want to be a mosaic.
I will be my own constant reminder of who I am now; a work of art, beautiful despite the cracks.
A heart, made better than it was before.

Your name still rests in the bottom of my conversations,
thousands of texts ecapsulated in beautifully painful bows.
And for some reason, on the difficult days like today, when seeing your name is the last thing I need,
I scroll through the ending.
Our ending.
"I love you." "I miss you." Wash.
"Whatever." "I'm not dealing with this tonight." Rinse.
Repeat.
I never really understood how easy it was to say so much, but still say nothing at all.


You are the punishment that never seems to end.
Our pictures still rest, dusting, in my photo box.
Your letters rot slowly in my subconscious and my dresser drawer.
Your face still appears nightly, haunting my nightmares.
You are the dates I never got to have,
the memories I never got to make,
the boy I still cry over when life leaves me weak.
I wonder if you saw today's date, and for a second, you missed me. Because I only seem to miss the wash, rinse, repeat when I'm breathing.

The saying goes that men in the Army do more by 7 A.M. than I do in the entirety of my day, and waking up to you already dressed for the day while I am still
wiping the sleep from my eyes reminds me that your job isn't as simple as sitting in an office eight hours a day.
There is no preparation for the trepedation of waiting
for the call to come, "We need you to ship out."
There was no manual given to me when
I fell head over heels for you, that you,
my brave reservist, may actually take on foreign soil,
combat boots running, and how I, back on
home turf, am to remotely handle your absence when I can't go more than a nights sleep without your voice in my ear
and your arm wrapped around my torso.
This is the curse and blessing of a military relationship.
Holding you a little bit tighter in the night yet still waiting for the bed to be empty, keeping you hand in mine while keeping an eye on the phone.
And most importantly knowing that if that day comes, I'll be waiting for you when you step off the plane.
I'll be waiting.

She made (you) radioactive.
Fallout trailing in your (wake).
You fell from your sweet heaven (to)
        (the) hell you now reside in.
(Disaster) dismantled all that you knew.
A crimson smile (that) blinded you
        as you fell to the ground.
Everything (is) ash.
(Your) happiness faded with the
        heated embers after
        the explosion.
Your (life) crumpled around the
        mushroom cloud that was
        your sweet downfall.

There's something beautiful
About the broken pieces.
Seeing you standing there
Looking like shattered glass.
You were so bright
And you were so, so dangerous.
And when I saw you,
It was okay to not be alright.

You could have had me,
But you didn't want me.
And now I'm sitting here,
And I can't stop thinking,
That maybe,
Just maybe,
We were better off broken.

I want to unplug the memory of you
Like I do to my phone every morning.
The saddest part is, when I'm low on battery
Clinging to my last ounce of energy,
I have no choice but to plug you back in.
Disconnect.
Forget.
Drain.
Connect.
Remember.

All I remember as my fingers
Trail memories of you
Across the keys,
Is the way your hands
Traced melodies into my spine,
Playing me like a
Concerto in A minor.

We are a sequence
A song played to the heavens
We are infinite

I was kerosene
and you were the match
that sparked the explosion.
The ashy fragments that
surrounded us, a fiery
reminder of our memories
burnt up in the explosion
you caused.

I have a keen love for words
        And written language.
But when you make beautiful
        Seemingly perfect, promises...
I can't help but fall a little faster,
        Kiss a little harder,
        And trust a little deeper.
But the part of me that cowers
        Within the darkness of my mind
        Is hesitant.
Because the past has taught me
        That even the most lovely words
        Hold the sharpest daggers.

Covering herself in layers figurative and literal,
She hides the scars that the past has inflicted on her.
She pulls down her sleeves and walls her heart within a steel cage,
No longer susceptible to pain.
Pushed to the brink,
Another soon to be statistic,
Her last hope gone,
She whispers to the world,
"Goodbye".

One: I'm sorry I wasn't good enough for you.
Two: There is no such thing as a "break".
Three: I've tried to write all day but all I feel is emptiness and I'm terrified you took the last of my inspiration when you walked away.
Four: Is this not bothering you? Was giving up on me that simple?
Five: I haven't cried since last night. And that was because I'm going to miss your mom.
Six: All I can taste are peach rings. They're the only thing I can stomach without feeling sick.
Seven: I miss you and I shouldn't.
Eight: I'm ****** that I wasn't worth more than a text message break up.
Nine: ******* everything reminds me of you. I hate that I can't look around my own home without seeing you in it.
Ten: Have you thought of me? Because the thought of you going about your daily life, happy without me, hurts worse than death.
Eleven: Does she remind you of me? In some twisted way, I hope she does.
Twelve: I lied. Our song came on the radio today and it collapsed me to the floor in tears.
Thirteen: I just want to be happy again.

I've barely known you for a month,
And yet I can't get you off of my mind.
Why do I feel this irrisistible pull toward you?
I have a tendency toward this, you know.
Fall hard.
Fall fast.
You'd think I didn't get enough love as a child.
Because when it comes to your love,
I'm a child begging for more.
You are my ice cream dipped in chocolate,
You are my insatiable craving.
But I don't know what to say
Or how to say it.
So when I say the right thing,
And you smile at me,
I'm a child.
And I'll do everything I can
To hear your laugh,
And see your smile,
Again,
And again,
And again.
And the brighter your smile,
The harder,
And deeper,
And faster
I fall.

Changed in an instant.
"Marked".
They say that time heals all wounds,
But even as Father Time ticks forward,
They never disappear,
They only become
Faded.

I fell in love with
the way your hand found mine
in the darkness.
How it pulled me
closer to you, was just proof  
that gravity and God
were showing us that we were
indead created for each other.
As if we two
very similar, yet very different
puzzle pieces
could together make a beautiful
puzzle that is ours
and ours alone.

Those lips that I kissed tonight
Didn't taste like you.
The black cotton shirt I clung to
Didn't smell like you.
So I kissed him harder.
And I pulled him closer.
I tried to push you away.
I wanted to conceal you
In my darkest memories.
But when he walked away
Without a glance,
I realized that
My lips,
My arms,
My everything,
Weren't enough for him either.

Don't ask me why I love you.
You know happiness
is not what flows
through my veins to the hand
that writes of you. Of us.
Instead ask me why I love
the murky blue of your eyes
and your sideways tilt a whirl smile.
Ask me why I let you hold me close
when you know I hate being
warm when I sleep.
Don't ask me why I love you.
Because you already know.

You tasted like *** and regret.

You say that I am
Pretty,
Nice,
Lovely.
But "nice" girls don't etch tally marks into their wrists.
"Pretty" girls don't cry themselves to sleep at night.
And "lovely" girls aren't afraid of the demons in their mind.

He's my worst nightmare come true.