i want it all.
your sleepy murmurs in my ear
as you drift away on a sea of dreams, the
gentle strokes of your fingers,
soft against my spine, the way
you hold me with your whole body.

i watched the moonlight draining onto
your bedroom walls as i lay beside your
slumbering warmth & felt something like happiness
radiating from my core.  your sheets danced with shadowplay
as i listened to your steady breaths
in & out,
couldn’t bear to slip away.

here’s the truth:
your arms feel like home,
like safety,
like a place i never want to leave.  
when you held me in that meadow,
wrapped in dreams & lust & a stark-flecked sky,
whispered the first i-love-you,
i wanted it all.

i want it all,
want to be yours,
crave you in the most indelible of ways,
urgent & deathless.
it’s finally time.  throwing out the razors.
cleansing the smoke from my lungs.
trading the bad habits i wear like shackles
to drown in your skin & sweat & sunshine.

maybe i don’t have a good reason for wanting it.
maybe i just know.

she warned me
that, when taken in overdose,
the white pills cause seizures,
anaphylaxis,
heart arrhythmia,
ending in death.
she warned me
never take
too many.

never give a girl
who tried twice
the ammunition
to try again.

i’m bleeding again
& i don’t care enough
for my own skin
to disinfect
& bandage
the damage.

so i’ll sing myself to sleep
choking on half-breaths
left breathless
at knowing
everything’s breaking
again.

i can’t believe i’d forgotten how
you would talk to me until two, sometimes three
in the morning, nonstop messages
fingers taking flight over the keys,
telling me stories, sometimes just
listening, incessantly
exposing yourself in
uncompromised open wounds.

now, it’s not quite the way it was
now, i tell myself
this doesn’t mean anything.
that we shift & settle
like dust
upon past incarnations
of us, but i miss what you gave me
early in the morning,
filling the space within my chest
that is often
empty, giving me truths &
performing absolutions
for all my past sins.

the truth is, i am no longer
the shiny new toy you are
desperate to play with
every second
of every day
i am the book at your bedside,
measuring my days by
when you turn my pages
& when you don’t
wanting you to devour me
whole
once again.

i mean, you fed me mouthfuls of beautiful words
& sang pretty promises in my ears.  so forgive me for wanting you
to be my last.  forgive me for thinking i might be something
worth keeping.  it’s just i could have sworn
our hearts beat together back
when you first leaned in to steal a kiss.  maybe i’m
a mess of foolish hopes and dreams.  maybe i’m
disaster.  but i know how you like your coffee &
the words to all your favorite songs.  i remember
everything about you.  memorized every
freckle & scar.  & you always seem to be preparing me
for the day you leave.  tonight, i’ll bandage my own
wounds.  read through pages of other people’s words.
try to forget the way loss feels
scalpel-sharp on my skin.  try to pretend
i’m yours
a little longer.

there’s smoke on my breath again
& everyone looks at me like i disappoint
i’m still trying to be better than i was
bandage my wounds
but every ugly thought splits them open
my head is fraying,
ripping at the seams
i don’t know how to fix this.

i don’t care that my heart beats off tempo anymore
not even when i’m certain it’ll give out
maybe i’m just waiting
for a sudden seize
& then nothing at all.
maybe i’d like
nothing more.

maybe it’s getting bad again
i don’t know
i don’t know
but the nights are sleepless
& my head spins when i stand too fast
my body is tired
my brain is giving up.

tonight i need to forget myself
but i can’t bring myself to say
i need you
i won’t tell you i’m aching
& all i need is your voice,
your words,
your soothing songs.
i won’t tell you.

so i’ll lie awake again,
swathed in sheets,
playing with what-ifs and worst-cases
i’ve been playing with sharp things
far too long now
but tonight,
i want that calm again.

i still remember
when you held your burning cigarette
only a gasp away
from the delicate skin
of your wrist.
your mother kicked you out
your father was drinking again
i didn’t know the right words to say,
so i didn’t say anything at all.
i don’t think you even realized
you were crying.
do you remember the night
we shared a stolen bottle of wine
told secret after secret
made love by candlelight,
the golden glow dripping over our bodies
casting languid shadows
& how after my parents had long since fallen asleep
i crept from my bedroom to the basement where you slept
curled against your listless warmth
finally sleeping through the night
without a single
bad dream.

will you forget the way you held me as i shook
uncontrollable spasms of tears & i’m sorry’s
i scared you with the sins
i commited upon my own skin
the way i never knew
how to love myself.
i’m sorry

i don’t want you to forget
how we were
how we loved
how you gave me the best of yourself
taught me of my own worth.
there are so many memories i cannot vanquish
but i no longer want to lose them,
losing you may have left me raw
but i will never stop loving.

this, i promise you
you will always live in my mind.

these nights are better spent my lips your lips & why do i still bother with pretense why can’t i say i need you at three in the morning, eyes red & raw with tears, fingernails scratching my skin to a mess of ragged lines?  the pain of missing you is not poetry.  as the moon waxes & wanes, i count my days in photographs & little blue pills but surviving is hardly a victory anymore.  at almost nineteen, you’d think i could live with myself by now.  or would have at least learned how to eat pancakes for breakfast without shuddering & seething into a breakdown.  they should have locked me up years ago & held the key hostage until i proved i could deal.  medicated me until i couldn't over-think, but me, i like my mind static over gossamer sheets of oblivion, i like my cheeks wet & lungs gasping over clouds of apathy.  some days, i fall in love with my disorders.  some days, i want to cut their gory innards & watch them bleed out on my bedroom floor.