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you said music could breathe through veins just as well as blood
and the way you said it felt so real
that when the notes in me got caught in clots
that my heart was too weak to flush smooth
and no breath in or out could resolve the cognitive dissonance that came
when i choked on my newfound ability to make the senseless make sense
i found the uncertainly certain notion of belonging in the rubble of my fallen back shelf
knowing my body was built for melody
i let the chords bleed from clenched ribs teeth and fists
while i remembered your voice whispering
that being a child of song was never my choice to make
like it or not.
and now i answer to the sound of my own heart breaking.
i let it crush me
and let the earth craft harmony
from my freshest precious cracks
and now the music chooses me again.
everything that I love also hurts me. music is one of those things
i find motifs in my journal entries
themes that appear consistently throughout any given expanse of time
shown in any given clump of pages
or in any given pen before it ran out of ink
there are words that pop up so often i look back and think about the girl
who sat on her bed with sleepy eyes
and tussled hair
flashlight aimed crookedly at lazy scribbled thoughts
and wonder if she noticed the recurring narrative beneath the narrative
those motifs that carried most of the flow of her thoughts
but looking back, I remember that she didn’t know
or notice that all her words were roads
that lead her back to you
or to her
or him
or anyone
no, not anyone, everyone that ever mattered
has their own clump of pages unknowingly dedicated to them
like an author of fiction unintentionally writes about their own life
what i write intentionally about my own life is unintentionally about you
or her
or him
is it human nature to always have a person that comes up when you draw a blank?
almost like white noise
a drone that plays when the faucet of stories you tell yourself runs dry
a word or name you think as you fall asleep
or that comes to you when you’re in too deep of a thought hole
and pulls you back to the top
or maybe pushes you deeper
but whatever the case, now i know
that i can measure my time on this earth in phases
measure it in clumps of pages
or the ink of a pen that spelled out your name
when i had only just been talking about the weather
at some point the problem stopped being that i had all these words in my head i wasn’t saying
and became me having nothing to say at all
calls or what’s wrong
a chorus of are you okay
fifteen thousand talk to meh echoing around my cavernous skull
i want to i want to i want
(believe me)
to
but words don’t choose me as their home anymore
i can’t hardly blame them
i’m sure they tell stories, the words
sure i’m a big bad that little verb and noun children have learned to fear
hearing takes of words that entered me
and were never set free
so now mr. and mr. adverb, mrs. and mrs. conjunction, mx. and mx. pronoun
they all caution oh no stay away from her
she’ll eat you alive she will
her lips will never let you out not even
in her sleep
stay away, stay away
so now i have no words
now i am empty
i inflict irreversible pain by deflecting questions i have no answer to
and drown in the probability of senselessness
and take showers in the dark
where words won’t reflect off me
where the water will hit and slide down my skin
and i’m not expected to take it in
or give anything back
socks
warm socks
socks like winter
socks that might come off in your boots
when trudging through foot-deep snow
but will be just right for lying atop mountains of pillows
as many pillows as are in your house
your house that smells
like you

there’s no snow now
just rain
and rain and rain and rain
and rain
but it’s cold enough outside these walls
and cold enough inside our skulls
to warrant hot chocolate, hats and hand-holding
and cuddles until we feel ourselves bleeding
enough sun from our chests, however fleeting,
enough laughter from our eyes
enough love from our lungs
enough warmth rom our sock-clad feet
enough spark from where my fingers meet
your hair
to forget the red skin sap
and sticky spilling squeezed lashes of yesterday
let’s just pretend we can forget yesterday
i’d like to forget yesterday

socks yes
we’ll put on socks
we’ll put on warm socks
and switch our clothes
until we can’t even pretend to know
any other smell than each other
and we won’t tell your mother how sad we are
we won’t tell her that anything bled but my eyes
and then maybe she’ll let you stay the night
and you’ll stay
talking about how beautiful the sunset is while i cry
and watch you glow

so that’s how it’ll be
we’ll put on socks
and put up walls of blankets
and only let each other inside
you’ll hold my hand
i’ll stroke your hair
and maybe we’ll be warm like that
while the rain keeps falling outside
last night i had a dream i was dying
at first it was a lot of pain
but then it was quiet
and it happened at the end
of a Finding Dory sequel

i read a poem about heartbreak
and it made me think
that what i want isn’t to hear you speak
to me like you used to,
i just want to repeat
the words you did say, not just in my head
not silent, not stuck in the back of my throat
but out loud with some tissues and a tv remote
to press skip when you kissed me and play when you spoke
and try to hear if you really meant what you wrote
out in texts and letters at one in the morning
or in the passenger seat of your mom’s mini van
that i think she may now have retired

my therapist told me
that saying that the reason i’ll never **** myself
is that it would hurt the people in my life
is an admittance of my own self-worth
do you agree?
i think if i died it would **** you
and i don’t think death speaks to you
in the same language as it does to me
so maybe you wouldn’t like that
i know i wouldn’t like that
i know i wouldn’t like you to die
it’s been a while
I don’t know how long
I just know
the pictures you sent me
of dead butterflies
I just know
the tree I sat on
while hiding from my friends
working as I hid
hiding as I worked
sticky thoughts like glue
peeling off like bandaids
from the inside of my head
I just know
I loved the way
she made me feel
before I got dark
and the sky
the music
and her face
went dark with me
I don’t know how long
I just know
it’s been a while
and I don’t want to keep writing
about that time in my life
anymore
but it’s still all
I can think about
I can’t not think
about everything getting dark
your hair was long
when I first knew you.
it was straight and golden
mussed all together from weeks
and weeks without seeing a brush.

now it falls unordered
a frizzy explosion
of uneven curls
just as wild as it ever was
but darker
and shorter
more like a lion’s mane
than a waterfall
more like you
and less like all the weight
of all the world
was woven into its strands
to make it fall so straight.

and you talked about tomorrows
like a breeze
you did.
whatever direction felt right
is where you’d go
and it made me smile to think
that I was sailing a boat
not with someone who knew the wind
or where it blows
but with the wind her very self.

your tomorrow now
is much more solid
than it’s ever really been.
you’ve kept the wind with you
(as I always knew you would)
and it’s not that I
don’t know how to sail
I just miss having the wind with me
always
always.
I always used
to have the wind.

maybe I relied too much on you
maybe I always knew you’d leave
maybe I convinced myself
I’d never have to look
for something I thought I had
something I never really had to begin with.

maybe I miss you.

no one talks to me
about tomorrows anymore.
I think I know why.
I think you were right
to shed all that weight
from your hair
to shed the weight
of tomorrow
maybe even
to shed my weight.

maybe you were right
to shed my weight and I’m sorry
I’m sorry because I know
I know I meant more to you
than that
I know if you read this
you would shake your head
I know what I meant to you.
I just don't know what I mean to me.

your hair was long
when I first knew you.
I want to see
what it looks like
tomorrow.
will you let me see it then?
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