A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

1
my parents
used hold and rock me
to help me fall asleep
2
3
they say the first poem you
read you will spend your whole
life trying to perfect it.
They read me
“Oh the places you’ll go.”
4
5
the characters in books,
their lives are perfect
they’re perfect
I want perfect.
6
despite what the kids
say, I am not great.
I’ll show you.
7
roses are red
violets are blue
is it really okay to cry
when no one talks to you?
8
9
10
backstreet boys
puberty
poems about the ones
I've never met
11
12
He was perfect.
I couldn’t have been
more wrong.
13
read me beautiful poetry
kiss me under the stars.
I got pushed
down the stairs.
14
I want to look
like the lines
in my poems.
a perfect size,
stunning and
captivating
15
I don’t speak.
Only my poetry knows
I haven’t eaten in days.
16
A man touched me.
I cry myself to sleep.
17
The scars
on my wrists and hips,
I created them
and I’ve
created insidious
poems depicting
my demise
18
I dreamt about death.
razors to the veins,
bullets to the head,
so much I tried myself.
Sweet sleeping pills.
19
I woke up.
20
From the depths.
I am writing to
lift myself up.
21
I was wrong.
death is not beautiful
and neither is the destruction of
your body and soul.
22
there are shifts in
the poems.
there is happiness.
23
this is the reason
why we write.
24
this is my story.
my beautiful life.

dear everyone who left,

i sit here and i crave you.
i crave it all.
your skin pressed up against mine.
your hands entangled in mine.
the way your mouth moves when you talk.
our memories are my favorite past time.
but right now,
it all hurts too much to think about.
you didn’t only know my smiles,
you understood my tears.
crying with you i felt safe.
your hands caught my tears like
a gutter catches the rain.
but right now,
my tears are falling and the only thing catching them
is the t-shirt you left me.
it still smells like you.
but it’s not enough because
laughing with you felt like home.
and right now i feel like an orphan.
i don’t remember falling in love with you.
i just remember that if you ever left i wouldn’t be able to breathe because
your presence was the air that fueled my lungs.
without you i am empty.
its funny how you once were my world
but became my hell.
now the only thing i can do is
trust that He will bring us back
together again.
i sit here and i still crave you.
i crave the way you made me want to love myself.

sincerely,
the woman who still loves you