It wouldn’t be until the next morning that I would find them stained on my skin. I stand in front of my closet mirror and stare at black and blue. I lightly dance my fingertips across my naked skin. I couldn’t remember how each one had happened, but each brought back moments of the night before.

Short breaths.
Foggy windows.
Hands in hair.
Lips on neck.

I turn my thoughts back to the mirror and reach for my shirt. And that’s when I see the long, red scar traced down my side.

And that’s when I think maybe you aren’t so good for me.

before
The moonlight made its way through the blinds. It’s the only source of light in the bedroom. His head is on the pillow while mine is rested in my hand, propped up looking down on him. His chin tilts up, dark eyes looking for any signal to stop coming closer.
I don’t give him one.

after
His tired fingers lightly trace slow figure eights on my shoulder. We lay breathless in comfortable silence. I feel his eyes on me, taking in my silhouette. He moves closer, looking for any reason not to.
I don’t give him one.

"That's one of the many reasons I was attracted to him. When he really wanted something he went out and got it."

And that's how I broke my own heart. I realized that he hadn't gone out and gotten me back.

He didn't want me anymore.

I didn't think about where his hands were, or about how they shouldn’t be where they were. I wasn’t thinking of the time and the fact that my curfew was ticking closer and closer. I wasn’t thinking about how this boy’s backseat was so uncomfortable compared to yours.
All I was thinking of, while his hands explored and time was ticking, was how you’re with her.
And that was all it took.

He turned the steering wheel
around and around
Making the car go
around and around
Sending my thoughts
around and around
Until only one thought in my head remained

Kiss Him.

My head screamed
So I tugged on his shirt sleeve
He turned his head
And I kissed him.
While the steering wheel
The car
My thoughts
His hands
Went around and around

Those months without you was like standing in the middle of a lighting storm and not caring that you’re getting soaked to the bone or that at any minute lighting could come down and strike you dead right then and there. I didn’t care because I knew that if at the end of the storm you would be there and we would be us again, it would be worth standing in that lighting storm forever.

You are worth it.

I once knew a boy who would stop everything to hear a girl sing
And I thought this must be how love starts

I once knew a girl who would look at a boy like he was the only one in the crowded room
And I thought this must be how love is

I once knew a boy who would do anything to make a girl laugh
And I thought this must be how love stays

Then I found myself with you in extended silence

more than once

And I think this must be how love ends

I read somewhere once that in the first three seconds after you wake up you don’t remember anything. So that would mean I wouldn’t remember the way my hand fit perfectly into yours and the way that you and I could just look at each other and know what we were thinking and the way you laughed when I found your most ticklish spots. And I would also forget the way the silence slowly transformed from comfortable to awkward and the way that we began to avoid each other and responsblities and the way you gave up on us.

In the meanwhile
I’ll be sitting in my chair by the window
Watching the world and writing of you
In the meanwhile
You’ll be sleeping
Dreaming dreams
Since it is 3:14 in the morning
In the meanwhile
The snow falls almost as silent as my tears
Almost
All the while
You’re dreaming dreams
But not of me.

He turned the steering wheel
around and around
Making the car go
around and around
Sending my thoughts
around and around
Until only one thought in my head remained
Kiss Him.
My head screamed
So I tugged on his shirt sleeve
He turned his head
And I kissed him.
While the steering wheel
The car
My thoughts
His hands
Went around and around

Hope grows in the corners of my heart
Steals the breath from my lungs
Runs its course through my veins
Before finally spilling out from my lips
“I miss you”

Is there a cure for the burn that your fingertips left when they traced my skin? Is there a bandage that will heal or at least hide the brusies that your grasp left on my heart?

Sometimes I get pieces of him
Like he’s still here with me
In the car where he left his baseball cap
In the smell that lingers on my sheets
And in the dreams of him that wake me up breathless
Convincing me that it was not a dream at all
But a nightmare.

This isn't some overdramatized teenage sob story.

                                             This is heartbreak.

sometimes it doesn't matter how many times you wear his favorite color
you still can't get him to fall back in love with you

I was in the middle of the ocean with stars and waves surrounding me and the moonlight enfolding me in it’s embrace when it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t need you to be happy
Then I turned around and there you were smiling at me and that’s when I knew there was no other happiness comparable to you

We were sun burned and bruised sitting in the backseat of his mom’s mini van when I thought that maybe I could be in love. I could be in love with this boy who's hand is in mine and head on my shoulder and we are both falling asleep on the car ride home. This boy who caught me off guard, when I’m always the girl that has her guard up.

But then I woke up to the stinging reality that I could never fall in love with a boy without faith; in God, himself, or me.

I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward, my face becoming warmer from the heat of the bonfire. All of our friends were around us, talking and laughing voices lifting up into the sky with the bonfire smoke. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs, eyes still on the fire. I couldn’t look up, because I knew what I would see. You on your phone, either looking for the updates from the game or texting that new girl you’ve tried to keep secret (you can’t lie to a liar, honey). So I didn’t look up. I stared at the flames dancing along the logs, at the smoke lifting up, flirting with the sky. I didn’t look up. I couldn’t look up. I —
looked up. And found your brown eyes there to catch my blue ones, and found I could not catch my breath.

Yesterday last year was the first time you and I kissed, and I felt my whole world pressed softly against my lips.
Yesterday this year, I didn't feel a thing.

He looked at me like this could be it.
I saw in his eyes something I'd never seen before.

"What did you see?"

"I think it was love."

I realized today that I only clench my jaw when my mother is driving or when I think of you

What I mean to say is we're a car crash waiting to happen

I'm sitting in the 24 hour diner that’s down the street from your apartment staring at my untouchded coffee and I can’t help but to think that even now, at 3:14 in the morning, you could still come running in here, cheeks flushed from the cold and snowflakes still in your tousled hair. Even at 3:14 in the morning the door could chime and you would come in here and look and find me at our favorite booth. And you would sit down and it would just be like how it used to be.

But it’s 3:14 in the morning, and I’m here staring at my untouched coffee while your car isn’t in your driveway, and the door never chimes.

you know what’s horrible
my generation is obsessed with the fact that drinking something that will eventually destroy us
(and yes, we’re quite aware of this)
can make you forget about life for a little while
what kind of life are we living
if it’s a kind we want to forget

Drunk on the salt from the waves and the light of the moon

all i remember of that night was the smoke dancing in the light of the headlights
and the sound of my heart breaking when you called her ‘the one’

Slowly peeled my layers away
one
by
one
and left me in every way he could

I apologize for the mess
A tornado ripped my heart apart right before you
I know you don't like messes
But maybe I can be the exception

kiss me until you forget the feel of her waist against yours
grab me until you get dizzy and cannot even remember her name
hold me in a way that will make you set fire to her memory
and when we break apart
look at me like I will be your lifetime
Not her

im still writing these words about you
even though i told myself
[3 months and 12 days ago]
that i had no words left
[what a pretty little lie]

The broken pieces of you
were as sharp as steal
You cut me to the bone
with the kisses that you'd steal

I thought I could help you
[silly naive me. what could a flimsy flower do
                                  against the stinger of a bee]

he looked at me
“friends… with benefits?”
i turned to him
“to be friends with benefits we’d have to be friends first
   other wise we’re just strangers ******* each other.”

                      [e.m.]

You know what is heart wrenchingly terrible?
Not the fact we don’t talk anymore
[Though I’ve gotten quite used to the silence]
Not the fact that your backseat will no longer look forward to my visits
[There’s nothing like skin against skin and fog against windows]
Not the fact that my sheets have slowly lost your scent
[I screamed at my mother for washing my sheets the Tuesday after you decided to leave]
Although all of those thoughts are horrible
The worst is
I’m forgetting the color of your eyes

I was singing along to the radio
It was your favorite song
I was leaning out the open window of your black jeep
My hair was whipping through the warm August breeze
I heard your laugh
and glanced back
And there you were
One arm resting out your open window
The other on the wheel
Eyes gleaming at me
In that sideways glance that always made my heart jump
I laughed along and wished
This moment
This song
That sideways glance
Would never end

the first time he held my hand he sent through my veins the sort of heat only young volcanoes experience

the first time he said my name he said it with the sort of uncertainty that made it clear we would be one hell of a love story

I wonder if you’ve told your mother
[down on your knees screaming about]
how your fingers found their way back to the path of my spine
[that had long been forgotten]
how I screamed with joy and how
you pulled me toward you when
I wasn’t looking and
our lips met
like old friends
pushing and pulling like
the waves
crashing into each other against
our legs struggling to keep our balance against
nature and this type of bliss

[we fell back into our pattern of love and still left too far in the bliss to ask now what].

Don't fall in love with boys whose breath resembles stardust
because they will leave you waking up breathless with his name on your bleeding lips

I was told that writers write about their experiences

and I was so young

I had not yet experienced experiences yet

So I put my pencil down and went to the world

to experience these experiences everyone kept talking about

And I did

I put my heart in front of my mind when I should’ve put my mind in front of my heart

and vice versa

I laughed and spat in the face of fear

I cried at beauty to wonderful to put into words

I pushed boundaries and expectations to the point where they didn’t push back

I reached the sky and was slammed back into the ground and am now struggling to climb back up

but I’m climbing

and I’m told that’s what matters most

That it doesn't matter if you are winning or losing but that you are trying

That you are giving yourself to these experiences that you want and need to experience

And you realize that they were right

The ones who told me to experience experiences

That you do need to experience experiences in order to pick up your pencil and write something someone would

laugh and spit at or

cry from the beauty at or

think pushed boundaries and expectations to the point where they couldn’t push back

or

write something that finally reached the sky

even if it is slammed back into the ground

Then I’ll pick up my pencil and write again.