your mother / how neither of us feels God / anymore / at all / the prayer vigil / the grief / my scars / the doctor from panama / my ***** hands / the last i love you / at the funeral / the nightly phone calls / the move / colombia / clinica del country / the surgery / and when you left / and thanksgiving / how you look through me / april 19th / the last time you prayed and meant it / why you’re silent at dinner / connecticut / the Church / and the people / how they’re dying / how you don’t want to visit / your in laws / michigan / bont street / mom’s tears / my tears / your tears

here’s something i’ve never had the courage to say out loud. i don’t know if it was ever real. i romanticized the truth into something that sounds more beautiful, and you fit the description of the girl from the back of the milk bottle, from your hair to the way you look at me and ignore our baggage.

i mixed our chemistry into something that looked like love, and my heart refuses to wear safety goggles. consider this an apology for all the love poems. i might’ve just been sad and lonely. i might’ve just been hurting too much for my own good. i always talk about how ****** up i am, but the truth is i am incapable of a feeling otherwise known as love. my brain has been turned bitter, like the way you bite into a sour apple and throw it away out of disgust.

i was starving and empty, craving something that would fill me up when self harm or starving myself failed. when i don’t eat lunch, i am reminded of you. i know it’s messed up, but i still have your smile warped into the lowest moments of my life. i think about how it ended a lot, even though i know these feelings are long overdue. it’s very like me to have many big, unprocessed emotions. i want you to know i’m working on it. i never meant for you to get caught in the crossfire.

i want to hide from my feelings and i want to hide from the prayers i said for you. i almost told you all of this, but i heard God does not like show-offs. i heard God does not like sad excuses for a shell of a person, but it’s much too late to change that for myself now. you should get out while you still can.

for future reference, forget it all. it was just my mental illness telling me i was worthless, especially when you were the subject of the poetry. i’m sorry i dramatized the pain into something that looked beautiful. in reality it was depression and anxiety masked as love. it was another way for my self-hatred to be fueled. i knew you would never love me, and i fed off of it. i needed it.

i’m terribly sorry, both to myself and to you. those nights of tears and heartache were derived from a very real need to feel an emotion other than sadness. i just ended up ******* myself over in the end. forgive me. i tried to avoid my suffering and ended up just bringing it back around to myself. i never meant to say this out loud. i hope, someday, i can forgive myself. until then, i’m sorry.

check your grades once a month and don’t wash your hair. the care routine you got yourself into won’t make your skin shine the same, so stop it all together. you don’t need to spend all that money at ulta anyway.
2. don’t answer your phone. keep a minimum of 100 unread texts. it’s easier to let go of people when you anger them. this way will keep them from getting hurt.
3. drink cough syrup when you aren’t sick and swallow benadryl when you aren’t itchy. the high you will feel will change the way you think of being hazy. you’ll learn more about yourself from those few hours than any other time in your life.
4. stop saying i love you. let people detach naturally.
5. forget your homework. lay in your bed for hours and cry.
6. sit next to the toilet and sob.
7. take your heart from your sleeve and throw it on the ground. crumple it up. make sure it will never be the same shape again.
8. sob when no one’s there for you, but never forget you are the one who pushed them away in the first place. you broke your own heart. you brought this upon yourself. the loneliness you feel is your fault. all of this is your fault.
9. break your fragile bones like glass. rip your heart into pieces.
10. fall apart.

the smell of 2 am facetimes
crying and panic attacks on repeat through the night
i still see my reflection blinking back at me

i fell in love with a ghost;
i saw the sheer blankness of her face
i never realized we were one the same

black cherry merlot and
caramel brûlée frappuchinos
go home, it’s midnight and you’re sleeping on my couch

we sit in the fourth row of the movie theater
he plays with my hair and calls me pretty
i don’t know what we are but i know we are more
because friends don’t look at each other like that
i am not a secret he can keep behind his back
i am real and i’m alive and i am trying to care for him
even if i still do not know how to take care of myself
we sit behind the heater in the rain
he tells me he doesn’t regret it
he tells me he’d do it again any day

it doesn’t snow here but i feel the cold stinging my cheeks just the same
(it’s good because the leaves don’t fall from the trees. i don’t like watching everything around me die)
my mom doesn’t sleep in my bed and she doesn’t notice the bad days
(at least i’m allowed to cry in peace now.)
the bags under my eyes are more permanent now
(i guess i can only sleep when I’m bleeding.)

i’d rather think about all the ways your smile curls than the fact that we don’t talk anymore.

it’s not healthy, i know. i know i fell into the roses and ignored the thorns but it felt good. it felt good to love you.

let’s look past this. i want to say so many things to you that i will never have the courage to.

the voices in my head like to scream your name when they think i’m not listening. it’s okay, at least i know that one of those screams is yours.

you ran when i told you i cried. you told me i needed something to feel better. something like 50 mg, or 200 mg, or actually, you might need 500 mg. you didn’t want to see me sad so you flooded my mailbox with happy pills.

i feel dizzy and i feel your nails digging underneath my skin. ouch, i say. stop complaining, you reply. this way you won’t want to hurt yourself again. you’re right. i’ll never hurt myself like you did. i tried to gather the strength but it made me feel sick.

let me crawl across your skin just like you did mine. i only ate 350 calories today, i promise. my body is a wasteland for you.