you say love a string of nonsense words hung like christmas lights about our ankles & fades like broken radios losing their verve.  i say everything in case you might stay awhile but you all out the back door faster than a vulture to the ****.  my fingers twining yours & it’s not romantic when you whirl me into motion like some blue-eyed marionette.  you say i’m so familiar & don’t believe me when i swear i’m alright.  the truth is an emergency waiting to happen.  you so skinny thighs & ******* beautiful.  you sharp teeth sunk deep into my flesh & we all out of gauze.

seven years old: the first time i felt the onslaught
of crippling sadness, inexplicable & heavier on my heart
than any childhood misfortunes had readied me for.  small body shaking,
pulse racing, convulsing with tears, i collapsed sobbing
into my mother’s lap.  she stroked my hair,
touched the wetness on my cheeks, asked
what i could possibly be so upset about?

i didn’t have an answer.

twelve years old i am sitting on my carpet playing with razors,
delighting in the heady rush of breaking skin & blood.
never before have i committed such deliberate sins
upon my body, knowing that acting out
virulent self-hatred
was not the way to deal
but this is the beginning of everything
that follows in its wake.
i am dousing my weeping wounds in rubbing alcohol
because it hurts me more.

fifteen years old, skipping breakfast,
tossing school lunches in the trash,
begging off dinner because i’m sick/my stomach hurts/
i don’t feel like eating/please don’t make me/
just leave me alone/
just leave me the **** alone.
learning to subsist on nothing,
taking the plunge down the rabbit hole,
headfirst,
just to see how far
it goes.

seventeen, rock bottom.  eighty-nine pounds,
a haphazardly placed collection of scars,
i cry every morning & night.  i am horrifically in love
& i’m killing him.  no amount of apologies can make up
for what i’ve done.

eighteen, the summer turns into a nightmare.  
i begin to forget things.  like how it used to be okay sometimes.
there are pills sleeping beneath my mattress again.
i contemplate killing myself every day,
decide i’m not worth the effort.
far more punishing to exist half-human.
far better to wreck myself beyond redemption.

look at me now, wearing a smile
that doesn’t quite fit my face.  i can pretend to be okay
most of the time, but my head,
my head is a warzone of agony,
high on anxiety, low on dopamine,
struggling to get by doesn’t begin to describe my days.

this is how i am &
i don’t know how to survive this.
i don’t know if i can live with myself.

don’t pretend you have seen what i carry inside of me there is a wildfire between my ribs i am afire with thoughts whose intensity would burn you alive maybe i am just a girl but if you had seen the things i’ve seen you’d understand why i am the way i am i don’t mean to be sad but i am done damming up my tears for you i am finished with self-restraint i will bleed rivers & watch myself ignite because i know what i am & i will hurt if i have to i will not pretend i am okay just you wait i am not your dream i am a nightmare

more than anything, i need your love.
i didn’t dare to ask for it, but
your unexplained adoration slunk seamlessly
into the passing days until i let my guard down
& believed you when you said you felt
the same.

you don’t even know the half of it.
you couldn’t understand how i gave you myself
from the beginning, trusting you to be the one
not to break me, but giving you that crushing capacity
all the same.

[one night, when i confessed how much i feared losing you,
you told me,
reassuringly,
“there will be other people.”
but you only made me cry. how could you possibly feel how i feel
when you could see my future in the hands of others & i only have eyes
for you?]

i’m sorry i’m not as whole as i’d like to be.
i’m sorry for apologizing to you
instead of kissing your forehead.
i’m sorry i carved the word “worthless” onto my skin
when i was seventeen
& that you can still read it.

there will always be the loose ends,
the fragments,
pieces of myself that remain
raw & ragged & will never be
okay,
like the nervous, automatic game
played by my palms, as they strain to clutch
my naked stomach,
the moment i awake,
measuring
with practiced fingers,
confirming i have not became an excess.
“too much” used to be far less literal until
i gave my shrinking self-worth a body to
dwindle in comraderie.

i am waiting for you decide you need someone
with more skin than scar tissue.
i am waiting for you to discover i am far more empty
than full.

i am waiting for these jarring epiphanies to come to you
in a rush of suddenly,
a wave of understanding breaking over your bowed head,
the realization i am not
what you want.

if there’s one thing i know for sure,
you could walk away from me & never look back
& i would only blame myself.

this is just to say
it’s been ten lonely days
& where are you tonight, love,
when i lie awake
beneath glow-in-the-dark stars plastered all above?

but they’re nothing like the real ones embedded in dark skies
& my daydreams do no justice to your understated eyes.
you are more than i’ve imagined a person could ever be,
though it wouldn’t shock my system if you decided soon to flee

& forgive me for being so confessional,
i don’t mean to write an ending before we’ve lived this out in full

it’s just i think that you’re entwined
in the fibers of my mind,
when every thought that fires
in my brain
is laced with your name

this time, i want nothing but to desperately adore you
tell me you’ll stick around & this time it might be true,
i’ll pretend that i don’t know how i am difficult to hold,
all rough edges & teenage vices, quickly growing old.

i wear wounds on my skin & sadness on my sleeve,
scream & shake & starve for a little reprieve,
& you are the best i have to medicate the pain
so stay a little longer & i’ll try to do the same.

i loved you before i knew what i was looking for.  
i loved you before i knew what love is, carelessly left
the pieces of us scattered on your bedroom floor,
pretended i didn’t know
i was breaking you.

when i told you i didn’t think we were meant for each other,
what i really meant was
you deserved better than the likes of me.
i spent weeks locked in the hospital
for playing with suicide,
had an almost-child once,
could handle the taste of liquor better than
your fragile lips, none of this
i told you.

i loved you, but you needed someone
with more skin than scar tissue.
i loved you, but i didn’t trust myself
not to leave you with more damage
than you could bear.

we were lovers once,
sought solace in one another’s skin & sweat,
gasping with a slip of lips down the spine.
we were lovers once
& then we weren’t.
it’s still strange to me
how that could be.
i always thought you’d be the last,
called you salvation,
you called me
yours so i wouldn’t be surprised
to reach within your ribs & rediscover
pieces of myself long since forgotten
& i don’t know who i am anymore
but you knew me best,
i ran to you bleeding & crying & starving
only to evade your every attempt to help me escape
the voices making madness in my head, only to rage more
& push back against your sweetness, your concern,
your unconditional love, we shared that
with each other but we stopped making each other
better & when i pointed this out to you
i thought i broke you,
watched you cry so hard it took your breath away
& this whole summer i was afraid
you’d decide living wasn’t worth the effort.
we have both worn angry cuts on our skin,
but the last time i saw you,
ours have both faded into mere scars.
we’ve put down the razorblades & stopped
flirting with suicide,
& though we still have our vices,
i look at us now & we’ve never been
happier.
so i smoke my cigarette & take some photographs
while you inhale a line of ******* & we both smile
because sometimes life is just grand,
somehow
it’s okay we’re still medicating
the human condition
because we are proof
that fundamental love does not go away
that it is possible to heal
that we were never broken.
those two years of my life are forever yours.
you own that.
you kept me safe.
you loved me when i couldn’t love myself,
unyielding,
ceaseless,
& i’m grateful.
just look at us now.
we never thought we’d make it.
i never thought we’d still be alive
so breathe in your chemicals,
swallow your pills,
do your worst &
i love you nonetheless.