I remember the days of raisin boxes and paperbacks,
when it felt like the worst thing in the world to be climbing barefoot up a mound of dirt in the rain because you wanted a friend.
I couldn’t watch movies, talk about cigarettes, or listen to operas,
but I was all right when I saw my mother pouring out my father’s bottles into the bushes.
I looked at the round tummy in the mirror and wondered if it was okay.
It wasn’t. I was eleven years old when I learned how to **** it in.

-

The first came in middle school. I had a dream that I kissed a boy while on an exercise machine.
It was real life when he took my hand in the backseat of his mother’s SUV. I closed my bedroom door and danced.
I still think of him when I hear that stupid song.

The second time, I was fourteen. I met a different boy who peeled away my skin as if he were unwrapping a Christmas present.
And the present? Just another pair of socks. Throw them in the drawer with the others. Shut it tight.
I’m still missing a lot of skin.

And then, there is you.
You know the story. Five, four, three, two, one, happy new year. I kissed you.
Remember when you noticed my wrists? Remember when you didn’t believe my excuses? Remember afterwards, when you pretended to forget all about it because you were scared, scared of the kinds of girls who hid secrets under their sleeves?
I went to all of your basketball games. I hate basketball. We watched movies that you projected onto your basement wall. Your attempts to disguise your impatience as admiration were poorly executed.
Maybe our first kiss shouldn’t have occurred in a count-down. It made everything else that happened feel that much more inevitable.

-

I take stock of myself. Three hearts, like an octopus, and too much blood. I am saving it, I am saving it for the person who offers me something other than the dusty space under the bed.
I never want to be like my mother, and there is a certain kind of power in this. The power of - of what, turning inward?
I am learning. I am learning to stop looking behind me in fear of pursuit. Let them come and let them drape me in meaningless velvet. I will not be deterred.
Look for me, up in the constellations. I am a passing comet; it’s impossible to predict if I am destined for destruction or for greatness.

I’ll wait at the sunset for the sound of your voice.

1/ there was a time when you didn’t know my name, or my story, or my birthday, and we sat around thinking about high school and everything grand that was about to happen to us, and how excited we were. and then we went to high school, but nothing really grand ever quite happened, except for meeting each other, and that’s what started it all, i think – when i heard your voice on the very first day of freshman year and knew that i was going to love you someday. i think that’s how it all started. i don’t know how i knew it, but I did – in the pit of my stomach, i knew somewhere that one day, we would spend our whole lives loving each other. our entire lives. in one moment, i saw them, clear as anything, and i knew.

2/ we were fifteen and it was dark. we were inside an empty house, sam’s house, and it was dark, and you were sitting at the piano, and you were playing music that you had written. and something moved inside me, something deep and old and warm, like the very core of the earth was shaping itself to fit inside your pocket.

3/ you forgot my sixteenth birthday. i cried, and you apologized, but then you forgot about that, too.

4/ last september we went to a football game but we decided to explore the woods by the field instead. we were off the trail and hopelessly lost so we laid down then and there and looked up at the sky, and the stars were out. i could feel your breath on my cheek. you saw a shooting star, but i missed it.

5/ you asked me what book i was reading. you smiled and we talked about it, but then the next day, you asked me what book i was reading. and the next day, and the day after that. and you will tomorrow, too, and you'll smile.

6/ it was new years eve and i was sitting next to you on your couch, and my insides were trembling, shaking so violently i knew that you noticed. my heart was pounding, in time with the count-down, the people all around us shouting numbers. five, four, three, two, one – and i turned around and kissed you, for the first time, the minute the old year slid into the new. i kissed you, and that was my resolution – to love you, every day.

7/ last summer, we were outside at a party, and you told me that you couldn’t date anybody because there wasn't time. we went back to the party and we danced, my arms around your neck. i saw a shooting star, but you missed it.

8/ one time, you saw my left wrist, my left forearm, and asked me what had happened. i told you it was my cat, and you said, no, that cats’ claws aren’t so close together. you looked at me, i looked at you, and we never spoke of it again.

9/ there was a time when we were lying on your basement floor, and i was curled up into your side, and you turned me around and you kissed me. and then we were sitting up, a tangle of legs, and you kissed me, the place where my neck joins my shoulder, and you kept kissing me. we went upstairs, to your room, and the house was empty, and you kept kissing me. the house was empty, you were kissing me, and we sank onto your bed, onto the sheets you had slept in since before you had ever known me, or her, or anyone, and we kept kissing, and i kept opening my eyes to look at you because I thought I was asleep.

10/ a time before, i was sitting on the bathroom floor of my parents' house, and i was crying. you called me, words tumbling over words, and my left forearm, my left wrist, was lying on the toilet seat, and your words were climbing down ladders to get to me, and i had to sneak downstairs for the first aid kit, and your words just laid there, useless, as i ripped the wrapper off the gauze.

11/ there are moments. there are moments when you are sitting alone in your room, and the perfect song is playing, and he whispers in your ear: you’ve made me fall for you, that’s what you’ve done. i’ve fallen for you…you and your beautiful mind, body, and soul. there are moments when you know in the pit of your stomach that you'll want nothing but to spend your whole life loving him, your entire life. in one moment, i saw it, clear as anything, and i knew.

you are a blue button down, filled to the brim with smiling, sparkling, brown-eyed boy

she is a small blond girl in a gray sweater. you kissed the top of her head, and she leaned into your arms: smiling, safe, dancing

the man in the front of the room was giving a grand speech about dreams, about the hidden passions we fail to act upon;

i couldn’t stop staring at your hands.

it has been a while since my feet have graced the dance floor. i’m not sure if i remember the way the music sounds, but i know the steps: one-two-three, one-two-three, kiss, linger, leave. it’s muscle memory, it’s clockwork.

often, i think about the one who taught me how to dance. he twirled me around so quickly, it felt like floating, up into the sky, fingertips brushing the clouds. sometimes, i think i’m still dizzy.

you are a warm winter coat, all coziness and comfort and soft, slow smiles and sleepy voices on Sunday mornings

i am a small dark-haired girl who can’t quite figure out how all of her limbs fit together. i would dive off cliffs if it meant i could land in your arms.

you are the very best parts of all the things i should not want

the worst part is, i actually believe you could fix me.

Fall in love, fallen love, is there any middle ground? Does it always have to be this way? I thought you were different.

You said kiss me. Kiss me because I’m home alone and there is room in my bed. Kiss me because you’re the only one left. Kiss me because you have to. Kiss me because I couldn’t get her to do it, and God you look nice tonight.

I kept turning my face away and it wasn’t good enough. I kept blowing a whistle and waiting for someone to dive into the water, but nobody could swim, nobody knew how. I want penance. You want baptism. We all just want to be saved.

Look at me. Have you ever seen me, open and bruised? I am full of open wounds. All I wanted was a little affection. I just wanted you to hold me. That’s it. I didn’t want to be your goddess, I didn’t want to be part of your religion. I wanted to be part of my own.

I wanted penance but you spit into my cupped hands. You wanted baptism and so you are wringing the holy water out of me, squeezing and pulling. We all just want to be saved.

The fact is
we were a round peg
and a square hole.
I tried to sharpen my corners for you.
I failed.

More and more I’ve been thinking about how you ruined me. Skinny little girl arms and legs and tummies and chests, being touched for the first time, just a little-girl-playing-big with a boy-who-was-already-big. I peeled off layer after layer until I lay in front of you, exposed, fighting the urge to cover myself with my hands because it was you, because I trusted you, more than I’ve ever trusted another person. I would have let you lead me into a burning building.

I always heard that there’s nothing like your first love. I never quite understood until recently. There was nothing like my first love because I put all of myself into it, into you, pressing myself into your hands, trusting that you would take care of me.

I didn’t know, until I was in another boy’s bed years later, him kissing up and down my neck, me feeling the first awful tickle of panic in my chest. I didn’t know, until he told me that he loved me, til I felt every muscle in my body tense up like I had run into a ******* war zone.

I didn’t know. I’ve broken up with every single boy since you. I didn’t know. I haven’t been above to love any of them right because of you. Because you ruined me.

There’s nothing like your first love, they said. And they were right. It’s been four years and I’m still trying to pry my heart out of his filthy hands.

I
a fireworks display in summer.
flashing light -
bursting sound -
nervous adrenaline pulsing through the air.
grabbing fingers -
frantic touch -
it's lightening,
grass under feet,
lingering glances -
a revolution,
a government overthrow,
with guns blazing.

II
a warm fireplace in winter.
fleece blankets -
steaming cups -
christmas carols floating in from the next room.
a warm body -
a sleepy smile -
it's pajamas,
thick wool socks,
a kiss on the forehead,
a moment of home.

there is a something that is coming.
it is coming and coming fast. it is colored like death
until the stars come out of it and dance around me,
and they become lighthouses, impartial.
but that is not yet. i am sailing with you now,
we’re on the way. it is dark.

soon, we’re going to come to a fork in the road.
you have to go left
and i have to go not-left.
i helped you pack - or i guess i should say
i watched you while you packed; all i did
was stare at your mouth and wish
things hadn’t happened like they did.
i held your hand and looked at your eyes
because there will be a time, too soon, when
i will no longer be able to experience you.
i want to experience you,
all of you,
all that i can.

i swim in the sea of you. i wish i could drown.
if there were a time when we could have been more than we were
and better, and good,
then i would revisit that time often in my mind. as it is,
i visit all the times we spilled things on each other’s shirts
and couldn’t get them out in the wash.

what would it be like, i wonder,
to walk in the path of your heart?
making maps of your veins?
i still don’t know you, and i guess i will never know you
for too soon the darkness will take us and the fork
in the road will part us and it will only be
rare occasions when you happen to chance into my life.
while i can, i’ll listen
to the marvelous dirt-road mumblings of your voice.
the way you say things
and how the branches of the trees bend down to listen.

am i a fool to hope for redemption by you?
a cafe in brooklyn in winter. snowflakes.
and conversation passing over steaming cups
like we’re fourteen and wishing for home.
wait for me at december sunsets.
i’ll be there and we’ll make for vienna
just like we always wanted.
maybe i’d ask you to play the piano again
and i would rest my head in your lap for all the times
we couldn’t be everything, we tried and we tried
and we couldn’t be everything. and as
your hand slips out of my grasp
and i cry out for Heaven,
please wait for me.
at the sunset, like i told you,
with your arms open to catch the fallout
of how this will destroy me.

we had one night
and it came and went like a wave on the shore
with nothing to show,
except what you and i know to be true

we had one night, just one
five entire years in the making
when we existed entirely at a precipice –
hot breath on my neck (yours) fingers inching up my sleeve (yours)
the suspense was killing me

we had one night
one night when everything could have changed
and i suppose it did,
because we haven’t spoken in a year
i don’t think i’ve gone a day without wondering how you are

i hope you’re happier,
i hope you’re found what you were looking for,
that unnameable thing you tried and failed to find in me that night

i hope we meet again

i also hope we don’t,
i know you understand

it's wondering if your roommate wonders about the scale you keep tucked under the bed
it's going to sleep at 7pm so you can skip dinner
truthfully, romanticizing emptiness can only get you so far
and there will be nights spent frantically distracting yourself from hunger pains,
hiding under the covers and blaring music
so you stop thinking about words like pasta and ice cream and disappointment.
slowly, you notice that all of your friendships are slipping through the cracks
and you want to save them, you want to so bad,
but whenever one of them says, i miss you, let’s grab lunch
you panic and fake an illness or a family obligation
with your heart pounding, head swimming,
because there is nothing else to do.
it’s constant voices in your head: one begging you to eat,
one begging you don't you dare, don't you dare
and it's seeing food in numbers:
bagel (320), pizza (285), cookie (115).
it’s having a boy you love come home from vacation
and starving yourself for days so you can hear those magic words,
“you look thinner.”
you think about telling him about this, about you,
but you know what it would mean.
despite that, in the back of your mind, there is always a desperate, seeking question:
*would he care, would he care, would he care?

you picked me up in your mother’s white car, 7:30 pm almost two hours late

we drove around and ended up at the beach, sitting on the pier, words spilling out of our mouths making up for lost time

when the sunlight faded we walked down the shore until we saw the big dipper over the waves

you laid your beach towel right next to mine on the sand, it was the first time i started to wonder what you were planning

hours later we found ourselves tangled up in blankets and bodies and you traced your thumb in circles on my elbow, hot breath on my neck and we were so close, lips hovering, a precipice, nearly

and you almost had me, you almost got me

but when we were wrapped in each other's arms, staring at the waves, you whispered

i care about you, but this doesn’t mean a thing

i guess i never knew the stars could fall out of the sky like that, all at once

i wish i was something more to you than an object to be used, and the thing that keeps getting me is i thought you were incapable of treating other people like they didn’t matter, but you curled up in my skin and now it is all stretched out and shaped like you and i can’t fix it and i wish it didn’t matter but it matters, holy **** it matters

you drove me home at two in the morning and didn’t even turn on the radio, but when you parked in front of my mother’s house we both started saying words all at once and i wish i could’ve got to hear yours before i slammed the door in your face

i’ll always have a bruise that looks just like you

today i laid on my back in the middle of the new york public library and stared at the painting on the ceiling

i’m not the kind of person to do that
to be honest, it was just because you did -
without a thought, without a pause, you just flopped down and stared up at prometheus bringing fire to the mortals,
your eyes huge and full of life

when we were crossing the street to get to bryant park,
you grabbed my hand so i wouldn’t get lost in the crowd and
we both held on for a little bit too long

are you thinking about that moment as much as i am?

sometimes i wish i could forget about the kind of person i’m supposed to love, supposed to marry -
the perfect christian guy that my parents would love, who would pray the rosary with me every night before bed
sometimes i wish i could just love who i want to love, and stare up at the paintings on the ceiling even though i’m not supposed to,
because who even puts a painting on the ceiling anyway?
it's beautiful, it's there,
so why shouldn't i look at it?

you are utterly unprecedented, you make me feel normal and human and alive

your hand was so small and cold but it was okay, it really was

a hand held across the table
a paper bag of alaskan candy
a pair of tickets in a red envelope
a daffodil rescued from the street

"can't I just look at you?" you asked me when I tried to get you to focus on your food, the most mischievous little smile on your face

(if you asked me again what you asked me in february -
I don't know I don't know I don't know)

it goes without saying that I'm afraid of the depth of my own capacity to hurt people
I am a sailboat made of paper, I am a terrible idea
I am everything everyone I have ever loved has left behind,
the pieces that don't fit, the muddy debris

I'm afraid of my own fear, I'm afraid that I will deny you
and that it will leave wounds in you deeper than any you've ever had
I'm afraid about feeling guilty about being with you
and I am afraid because I can't see how my parents could ever know

(despite it all, there's still my body, like an animal, looking at your lips and hips and eyes and hands, whispering
I want, I want, I want)

I’d kiss you until you forgot what state either of us were from,* the boy mumbles under his breath. I tell him to shut up and down the poison. He picks up the glass and drinks, willingly, clutching the cup like a tether in a swirling sea, the unflinching beacons of his eyes relentlessly searching for something more, a girl made of mirrors, someone who lives behind the iron gates.

Patience. Sit and listen. Close your eyes when you are on the phone and picture him lying next to you, a body, warm breath on your cheek. Picture him turning you over and pressing his lips into that place on your neck that drives you wild. Then see yourself throwing poems at your mirror and watching the glass fall over him like rain. You always manage to **** it up, anyway. Maybe you should go without mirrors for a time, but how?

The boy is banging on the iron gates and you’re screaming up at the sky but it’s not good enough. All the banging in the world won’t encourage his entrance. All it will do is cause you to curl up in the furthest corner of your soul and wait for the noise to stop, because it always does.

He sits you down and whispers corny poems into your ear and you don’t know what to believe or why you feel the way you do. You only know the feeling of the rubber band inside you, and you know he’s going to push you too far and you’ll either break in half or retreat into yourself, because at one time, somebody made you elastic and that is the only thing you know.

he wants me, but doesn't know how to get close to me.
i am dangerous,
a girl dressed in caution tape,
a ticking time bomb who wears too much mascara.
the cameras in his pupils record my hands tucked into my sleeves,
the careful way my eyes dart around,
and they send little warning messages to the part of his brain
that wants to **** me on his mother's blue couch.
noted: how i rarely text back,
how my smiles are too frequent to be genuine,
how i pull him along on a string with no intention of committment.
he doesn't know, not really, but i'm sure he can see
the storm lurking deep in my eyes.
being only a fledgling sailor, he is afraid to steer his ship in my direction.
i do not blame him.
i am dangerous,
a girl dressed in caution tape,
i am a ticking time bomb, and i have his name written all over me.

i want a farmhouse in a small country town
bay windows, front yard, porch swing
a kitchen, a kitten, a wide open sky
night air that shimmers
quiets
welcomes
comforts
sings

          (i want an apartment on the lower east side
          fairy lights, tapestries, window seat
          a painting, piano, a small coffee shop
          city lights blazing
          grinning
          glowing
          up the street)

i want a nice boy who i meet in a church
soft eyes, kind smile, warm hands
a father, a friendship, a safe place to rest
a boy who loves
cares
comforts
understands

          (i want a tall boy with dark danger eyes
          hot skin, quick breath, open doors
          a longing, a trembling, an earthquake, a fire
          a boy who burns
          tears
          touches
          wonders
       ­   soars)

i want to be she who has got it all right
straight teeth, brushed hair, clean clothes
a daughter, a student, responsible, kind
she who laughs
helps
reaches
teaches
knows

          (i want to be she with two planets for eyes
          forest fire, sparrow bones, raging sea
          a warm wind, a strange song, a wide open field
          she who’s glowing
          grinning
          screaming
          running
­          free)

There will come a time when we will be gone,
all of us
from this place.
We will take planes and buses and trains,
We will pack up our rooms and kiss mothers goodbye,
fathers clap our shoulders
and look us in the eye, tell us to stay out of trouble.
We will never be together, all of us, again,
in the same way, for we're always changing.
You know how people are.
-
This is how I can miss you.
This is why, though you are sitting with me now,
I feel the particular ache of your loss -
the knowledge that I will go months, years,
without hearing your voice.
And in a way, it is like someone has died -
like you have died, like I have died.
I know my memories will live on hideously,
growing greater and falser with time,
filling spaces and gaps in me
that you never really got to fill.
And yes, I will live on. But there will always be something:
a scratch on my wrist
a ghost on my neck
a deep, trembling silence.
-
If you asked me about graduation, this is what I’d say:
I am a river, you are the sea, and I will keep running to you,
even though the sea is chock full of water,
even though one river won't make much of a difference, anyway.

tumult, grasping
for a foothold, just
someplace steady that
I can use to
make sense of things

i’m dying, i’m dying, i’m dying

desperate, i’m desperate. trying to keep
my head about the waves – god
why did I never learn how to swim?
how does everyone else seem to just know?

what is true what is real what is good?
do i love them? do i just want to **** them?
why can’t i seem to
stop scaring people away?

i never quite know whether my night will end with me
singing on mountaintops
or crumpled on a ***** floor

i hate it i love it
i wish it would stop

motion sickness all over again
spinning -- why should the earth need an axis?
just give me a ******* pill

if you knew about the deep wells inside me -

the holes where people used to fit

the house-shaped dent where home once was,

you would leave me be

truthfully, i don’t know if there’s a cure for people like me

i don’t know if a get a happy ending

and i’m wondering if i’m supposed to feel this way forever

or if one day it will tip over and spill out of me, unconquered

i live every day not really knowing

if the next time you see my body, it will be cold and pale

so let me curl up in my bones and hide

there is no room for you in me

i miss how i used to touch him
and how he used to touch me —
how he would pause to smile between kisses
the freckles that patterned his skin and the
warm, kind, roughness of his hands,
how his room was always clean and i miss
the cross above his bed.
there’s still a picture of me on his wall, you know

'he has always wanted her,' someone said to me recently, as if i didn't know
as if i have ever known something else as fully, as deeply, as completely
as i know those words
i feel it in my stomach, my ribcage, my lungs, the tips of my toes,
the knowledge that i was not the one he wanted, not really,
and neither was the one that came after me
and the one that came before me
and any other girl in his life — because
there has only ever been one girl for him and
i have always known it.
still, hearing those words, it was like standing at the cliff’s edge
all over again
just staring

every morning is too early, every ray of sunlight in the room is too bright. you can’t open your eyes all the way, but you’ll just have to work around it if you want to get anything done.

watch something ***** just to feel something, just to force some kind of reaction in a body that has been stuffed and emptied and prodded and picked apart, hands that don’t know what to do with themselves, lips that have spent too much time whispering the wrong secrets into the wrong ears.

you didn’t want to say yes but you didn’t want to say no, either, and now you’re stuck.

every day brings a new coping mechanism, a numbing agent. hours pass and you awaken to see yourself staring at plastic wrappers scattered over the bed, an empty tub of ice cream, a sticky spoon in the sink. go to the bathroom, wash your hands. blink at the mirror. anticipate the shame waiting for you when you drag yourself into bed.

you’re supposed to be on a road going somewhere, you promised you would be. you’ve booked your hotel and all that’s left is for you to put down the mileage. instead, you’re holed up in a ditch on the side, lying flat, hoping none of the passing cars will notice it’s you there, under the tarp, wondering why you’re always so cold. summon the courage to get back on the road, take a few steps, but you know it’ll just send you flying backward again - and for what?

you plan and plan and plan and plan, but it only gets you scraps of some life you never wanted. do your best, patch it into a quilt, but it’s not enough to keep you warm. somehow you know it never will be.

i’m sorry i step away
when you get too close to me.
the truth is,
i am a lot of work to love.
there will be nights when i will cry and cry and cry
and there will be nothing you can do.
there will be times when i’ll fall on my knees
begging God for forgiveness
and the only thing you can do is
let me be alone,
but i will love you for it.

and on nights you are curled up in bed
staring at the wall, facing demons
that i don’t know the name for -
just tell me what to do, darling,
and i will do it.
when you don’t know how to get up in the morning
when the world seems like too much to face
i will be there for you,
whether that means holding your hand
making you a cup of coffee
or just letting you be,
i will do it.

so, we are two people with a couple of rough edges,
shoving and fighting and kicking and scratching and praying
through it all
but at the end of the day i know i can collapse into your arms, exhausted
and we will lie there, breathing hard,
a beautiful mess of bodies
with too much hope and not enough time.

all i really need is someone
to walk this journey with me.
thank you for every day when you choose to be that someone.

to the one who played django reinhardt for me on vinyl,
who cooked me pancakes and bacon for breakfast,
who gave human names to the animals at the zoo,
who senses thunder in the air before it happens,
who made me try sponge candy and coffee and good indian food,
who bought me a candy bar with a poem on the wrapper --

on the bus ride back (all 8 hours) I couldn't stop thinking about you
and when I fell asleep, I dreamed of you immediately,
missing you already before I'd even made it home

you're the opposite of everything I'm supposed to want and you're not easy to explain
we run out of things to talk about (or perhaps there's too much to say)
i'm afraid to reach for your hand under the table, to sleep next to you in the bed instead of curling up at the end, or to lean my head on your shoulder, nervous because I don't quite know where I stand

and it's still enough, in an easy, sunday-morning, pajamas kind of way. it's enough to be with you without having anything to say, to drink orange juice from a coffee mug, the electric precipice of wanting to know the answer yet being afraid to ask the question

i wonder if i'll ever stop being afraid of myself --
that i'm too shy, too quiet, too boring,
with nothing that could hold you,
no magnetic field, no gravitational orbit to keep you
you, who is infinitely magnetic.
but how can I want to keep you when I don't even know
what it is that we are?

to the one who grabbed my hand in the parking lot even though your parents were with us,
who let me sleep in your bed while you took the couch,
who looked at me with sleepy eyes and said "come here,"

to that one, the only one --
as long as you keep asking,
i'll always come.