so now i am forever imbued with the salt of sweat from your skin, the scent of you lingering, potent & pure, heavy on me long after our comings & goings.  our love has been made here in this bed where i lay my head to sleep at night, sheets tangled in a shambled aftermath.  i know what it is to have you now & this only leaves me wanting more, wanting you, every inch beneath my lips, i cannot get enough.  nothing is more beautiful than your breath un eve n, sweet against my neck, & your body on mine.  i feel every cell of your being react when i touch you, a poetry of flesh on flesh, the catalyst to a breathless finale.  lying naked there beside you, your palm grazing my stomach, cuddled close to the cocoon of your warmth, i am bliss.  you & me are we is us is one & i am finally waking.

some nights, i dream of waking in a cocoon of your sleeping warmth, our listless bodies becoming a hymnal of limbs.  & this is heresy when i want nothing more than to need nothing.  i tried not to adhere to you like breath to a winter morning, but my heart is a betrayal.  we could be a never-ending symphony of skin & sweat & sunshine , the look of you is a country i would like to someday visit.  you are lightning storms in my synapses, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in your wake, the pieces of you i will never erase.  you are everywhere & this is significant enough for me to imagine endless mornings more tangible than any dreamland, or even just one, just to learn if you too taste like yearning.

in the moment the cars collided,
i thought i must be dead,
certain the impact could not be survivable,
certain i was finally released, but
the hit should have come harder.

shattered glass & a violent blow to the head
was not enough to sever my tie to life.
the crash left me bruised blue-black
& awash in the aftermath
of sudden exhilaration
at finally tasting oblivion
even if only for a second,
even if i still came through alive.
i didn’t want to be.

this summer, i flirted fearlessly
with suicide.  swallowed poison pills
& played with sharp things
in hopes of writing an end.
when the headlights raged in,
blinding me with light & sound,
i was ready.
i thought, take me.
i thought, let me go.
i thought, set me free.

months later, lying in my bed,
immobilized with my first panic attack,
the tears came bitter & unyielding.
i told you i thought i might be dying again,
but this time, i wasn’t ready.
this time, i had a reason
to stick around
a little bit
longer.

the only difference between august and november
was you.
i wish i had the self-preservation
to want life on my own,
to be self-sustaining,
to need nothing but myself
but the wiring of my brain
is painful & incomplete.

you are everywhere i look,
your sweaters residing in my dresser drawers,
photographs of us filling my scrapbook,
songs i can never listen to the same again
without being reminded of you.

you said, i love you
you said, you are beautiful
you said, how could anyone walk away from you?
all my life, i have learned the art of losing
no one can be counted on to stay.
all i want, all i need, is something lasting
something permanent.
i search for just one indelible thing
& hoping it will be you,
that cracks me open at the fault lines.
leaves me breathless & choking
on dreams that might just
slip away
again.

all the strangeness & sadness in the world
gets under my skin at three a.m. with the lights off
the world falls fast asleep
as my fingers pray their nervous way
to grasp at my stomach, measuring.
always measuring.
there’s always pills with breakfast
& food i don’t want to eat, a room
full of faces & i can’t even recognize my own.

when it’s cold & my lips are numb, teeth clattering,
i am finally alive. winter is a wild thing,
dragging out the demons until they go for the throat.
i want a feeling so hard it hurts.
i want any feeling at all.

listen: there’s a million reasons i have to stay alive
even though there are days when the one not to
is the only thought to occupy my mind.

my sadness is not sweet
it’s the mornings i can’t drag myself out of bed
because i’m so violently miserable
& you haven’t even left yet.

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.

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

all i know of my sadness is this:
it kills me or i learn to live with open wounds.
nineteen years & i’m tired of half-life,
treating the disease as if it can be cured
when these are the cards i’ve been dealt.

but i have no place to heal.
my parent’s house is not my home.
i thought i’d grown roots too deep to damage.
but i ripped myself out by accident.  chose my own path.
the trouble is, i’m running blind through the brambles.
trying to right the wrongs.  every step i make towards where i want to be,
something else has to give.  
the scratches left on my bare limbs just won’t heal.

the truth is, i’m halfway to giving up on getting better.
the truth is, i need a promise that the future is worth fighting for.
the truth is, i’m not sure i’m okay.

i am my own lighthouse.  my own lanternlight.
i am my own constellations when i’m drowning in the blackness.
but i don’t want to be alone.
i’ve been alone far too long
& i don’t want to be alone.
not again.  not ever.

they say, everything is temporary
they say, some die yearning for a hand to hold
& i swear, i will not be one of them.

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.

my skin is redolent with the feel of you
your ceaselessly stamped kisses,
tongue dancing over my stomach,
branding my flesh with the seal
of your delicate mouth.  
the scars that traipse my thighs
long for the fingers that trace them
in quiet compassion.  i yearn for you most
when you have long since left.  now, it is
one fifty seven & in five hours
i will rise to meet the morning,
your name still burning
on my lips.
i cannot absolve
my body from yours,
even when the memory
keeps me restless
& awake through
endless nights.

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 confess i’m a little in love with my sadness.  the way it flays me open & scours with acid.  how it is the only thing i can count on to stick around.  i can count on my mind to craft its own disaster.  i can count on my brain to betray my body.  you learn to love what is given to you.  so i learned to love what keeps me up at night.  i broke my own heart long before anyone else came around to step on the pieces.  me, i’m a secret you won’t want to keep.  shove me out the door.  secure the locks.  tell me to leave before i strike sparks from your skin.  tell me i’m as worthless as i feel.  tell me i’m nothing anyone would want to have.  tell me there are countless girls you’d find easier to love.  be cruel to me.  be the monster i am to myself.  please.  if you’re going to break me, get it over with.  make the first cut.  i’ll be gone from the moment the words find themselves on your pretty mouth.  but honestly?  of all the things i wanted, you’re the best i’ve ever held as my own.  let me pretend you think of me in forevers.  let me dream a little while longer.

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 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.

sometimes i talk too fast & my friends don’t know how to handle me, not when my brain races in labyrinthine circles that don’t make sense to anyone outside of it, sometimes i lick the blood from my wounds only to cut them open again, sometimes i want to kiss your thighs, sometimes i want to die.  why does every morning taste like loss on my sleepy lips?  i don’t know why i love you to pieces when i promised i’d never rip you apart like the rest of them.  the coffee i drink these days is too bitter, its acidic aftertaste makes me wince & reminds me of all the times he screamed for me to eat & made me cry too hard to catch my breath.  i’m talking to the spiders on my ceiling again.  i’m talking about new beginnings.  or giving up again.  the truth is i’m afraid of myself.  the truth is i’m asking someone else to take control.  you’ll find me in the space between dreams & nightmares.  you’ll find me if you look hard enough.  just come.  please, prove to me i’m a lost cause worth fighting for.  give me your fragile heart.  give me your tender eyes.  my dear, i would **** to make you smile.  i would spend the rest of my life doing nothing else.