a three part guide to getting over her

i. do not write. writing poems about the purple crescent moons that adorn the underside of her eyes like stars will not bring her back. describing the way her lips curl when she hears the name of her favorite singer will not cause her to think you are a majestic poet observing your surroundings and writing with such powerful words that do not fit with her.

ii. do not call. fifteen calls, seven voice mails, and forty three text messages will not make her miss you. it will place your name at the top of her blocked numbers list throwing your words into the garbage like broken glass, like your broken heart that you thought she would take back.

iii. reminisce. walk to the park where she first held your hand, to the restaurant where she kissed your lips like a winters breeze. slip into the dressing room where she pinned you against the wall and proved her love for you. remember. go to the tree you were in front of when she first kicked you, look at your nails you began to bite because of the stress she placed upon your shoulders like weights. do not let the bad things slide away like week old rainwater, leaving you to remember the cherished  kisses and breathless nights. reminisce. let go.

i am at a friends house when your favorite song starts to play. i forgot you two like the same bands. i dont ask her to skip it, instead let it play, as i recount the numerous times ive heard you sing it to me. i can see your smile in the speckled white paint of her kitchen, hear your voice in my ears anytime she says my name. i am wearing my favorite shirt, and it is only when i am halfway to her bathroom that i realize it is the shirt you bought me for christmas. i look at my feet as i sit back down to see the shoes you bought me for my birthday, i look around to find the bracelet that you made and sent to me adorning my wrist and i wonder when my life became so for you and i dont want to think about this but how can i write about the importance of factoring quadratics when the most important thing to me is you? i didnt want to write a poem this time but ive found myself doing just that with your name as the subject line and your heart as the foundation and i hope there is never another day when i write a sad story with your name for the main character but with a heart like this, whos to say what goes?

my far away lover, oh what can i say? from the first time my brown eyes met yours or i heard you mutter hello, from the first day i heard you tell me about your closest friends and said hello to your pets, from the very first time, i knew it was you. its always been you. it will always be you. i cant wait for the day when i can finally enclose my lips upon yours and intertwine our fingers, and oh god letting go wont ever be an option because i have finally found you and the warmth that you give to me feels like home. oh, my far away lover, it hurts to be apart but for you i would wait forever because you are so worth the wait. to my far away lover, you make me complete, your smile cures the deepest sadness i have ever been capable of feeling and for the first time its been replaced and i can feel your heart in my heart, and oh my far away lover, i love you.

and maybe i like being hurt now because my parents always taught me that pain equals affection. i want it because ive been programmed to believe the harder the blow, the stronger the love. ive been brought up with the idea that when a boy has a crush on a girl, he picks on her, so when my boyfriend asks if hes hurting me, i ask for more, because how else am i supposed to know that what we share is true love?

we talk about depression like an old, long lost friend; hes the guy that no one can ever remember who invited him to the party, but he always showed up before the end of the night. hes in every photograph we’ve ever taken, a photobomb that we had no chance of preventing. i used to think that he sat behind us like a wave, looming over the shore, wondering when it would crash but i know now he was nestled in the waves of our hair, sat in the spaces between our teeth, lodged in our throats. he knew how to conceal himself when there were cameras around. his name sits uncomfortably in our mouths, like its too big; or maybe its just too ******. his arms always felt warm when they wrapped around my waist to remind me that i still had a waist, i didnt want to have a waist. he spoke every language, knew what to call my downfall in fifteen dialects. he was the kind of friend to hit you where no one would see and claim the battle wound for his own. he had a superpower. he was invisible, but only when he wanted to be, and only to those who he didnt want to see him. he was a magician, a jack of all trades. he dipped his toes in darkness and shook them in my direction; he knew that i dont know how to swim. he knew that i would not want to learn how to swim for him.

you do not exist to me. in a world of shallow breaths and wordless apologies, you are a distant memory, barely a name in the wind, my aching bones every time it rains. every note in every song i can no longer listen to. i can hardly remember what my name sounded like when it was coming from your lips, slipping out from behind your jagged teeth, your poison tongue, it is so comforting to know that i am a version of myself that you never got to touch; that you never even got to meet. youre a tick in a mental calendar of days not to let myself be alone on. ive forced myself to believe that time and pain can breed nothing but wisdom in the hopes of convincing myself that ill come out of this on top but i dont know how to do that when you insist on making yourself a glowing beacon in the darkness of a wants to be, could be if youd let it be, almost there but not quite memory. i dont want to remember you. i dont want your ghost to linger. i dont want to hear your steady breath in my ear like a twisted reminder of what once was. what once was was a nightmare and i am finally awake.

this is when i want you the most; when its 9 30 am and it is still gray outside because the rain came early today. press your fingertips into the dips of my waist with every roll of thunder because you are here and i am here and its dark but its still a new day. in arizona, we're lucky to get rain three months out of the year, those months are called monsoon season. heavy storms that knock over chairs and threaten windows, knock on car doors begging to be let in. we count down to the start of monsoon season and i cant help but think how beautiful it is that so many people who will never meet all look forward to this one thing. when it rains, we cry, creating our own storms and puddles on tile floors with rumbling laughter for thunder. you, dear, are a monsoon, in every sense of the word; strong and beautiful and devastating. anticipated. i count down the days, and when you finally arrive, everything is finally bright; your smile supplied its own lightning. you knock on the counties of my body and make yourself at home until its time to go. monsoons always start and end with drool and you are the same way, able to create something from nothing; incredible.

and im no longer afraid to admit that i am a fool for you. my old guidance counselor used to tell me that she hopes to die before her husband so she doesnt have to spend a single day without him and i used to think it was so silly but now, i get it. i get it. one day without you is twenty four hours of empty meals, twenty four hours of a dead phone with no will to be charged, a thermostat set to fifty because maybe ill freeze over. twenty four hours of love lost, twenty four hours of an endless what if what if what if what if you had pulled through just a little bit longer what if i was better at wording the jumble of thoughts in my head all the time what if i could kiss you one last time what if what if. what if i had gone first. it pains me to say that i think about this a lot, you see, a world without you is a world i hope i never have to live in.  the sun rises and sets in you, and i was taught this by none other than you the moment that you took me in and made me a part of you, you pushed me into your soul and i used to wonder what would happen if i couldnt get out but i dont want out anymore. i would rather stay hidden beside you than ever have to experience the harshness of reality alone. because the reality is, one day, i will be gone, you will be gone, everything i have ever touched will be gone, no one will know you or me or the last text i sent you or the fourteen hour video call, but it's nice to think we have infinity. forever with you isnt long enough and im sorry that im so wishy washy when it comes to speaking and i know im small and im not very loud but i would write it in the sky for you if i could, let the world know just how mine you are, how much of my soul loves yours, how much of my heart beats for you. my whole heart beats for you.

1.  There is nothing romantic about the way our hair falls out or the way we hover over the open toilet like there's no other empty space in the house.
2. Do not think that it will be easier to love us because the love we aren’t giving ourselves will go to you.
3. You can trail your fingers along my rib cage, count every vertebrae in my back like marbles stacked high on top of each other. This is not beautiful, this is what dying looks like.
4. I’m sorry for the smell of my breath, but there’s no amount of toothpaste that could cover up the smell of myself rotting from the inside out.
5. “I thought you had to be skinny to have an eating disorder.”
5.   “You don’t look like you starve yourself.”
5.   I know that you wish you could hold me without worrying i’ll turn to dust if you squeeze too hard.
6.   I grew up being told that my body is a temple and I should treat it as such, but I don’t think this is right, see; temples can be destroyed but it always takes another person. I am doing this to myself.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate without feeling guilty.
7.   I can’t remember the last time I ate.
8.   One day, I will be nothing and you will be nothing, and i’m sorry that i’m already so close to being gone.
9.   I want to get better. I am trying to get better.
10. Do not think that loving us will be easier, because the love we do not give ourselves is gone, and we cannot love you more than we don’t love ourselves.

forgive me for the sound of your name rushing through my veins instead of blood it seems my minds only purpose is making sure i dont forget and im sorry if the constant ding of my below average words on your phone causes migraines, i am known for attaching myself to the nearest being with a beating heart and i have long since forgotten how to let go. i was always taught that being too dependent will get me nowhere in life but i still find my hands reaching for yours in the dark and i am sorry if you are repulsed by the thought of my inferior self lying next to yours but those thoughts occupy my head more often than not and i know that at the end of the day i will only have myself but pleasing you before pleasing me has become daily routine and when you said you felt pain, i apologized and even though i had not caused the ache i still felt it necessary to clean your wounds and stitch up your being. from thousands of miles i felt you sitting beside me and when i looked up you smiled and goodbye seemed so far away from us. please dont say goodbye. ive always been a fan of space and in your smile I see something more beautiful than the stars and space is terrifying but id gladly venture into the unknown just to see you smile, i know you have always liked adventures. sometimes i wonder what would happen during farewell but you’ve slipped under my skin, invaded my blood and seized my heart and my stomach rejects the thought. goodbye is a word that falls from my lips too often and my god when you say it my eyes cannot help but miss your presence and my ears hear your voice like the sweetest melody and i know i have nothing to fear for youve never been one for goodbyes. save goodbye for the end, because god i hope thats far away.

3 am
you are responding slowly. i say i love you. you do not respond.

5 am
i say have a nice day you say you too.

7 am
i write you a poem of words i barely knew before google and thesauri i tell you you are beautiful. read at 7 17

11 am
i am in class biting my fingers you have not said a word i have sent you fifteen messages all left unread i am worried

2 pm
you have said nothing my head is shaking my hands are spinning you usually respond so quickly

3 pm
i saw that you were typing as i exited my messages. i never got a message.

5 pm
i sent a simple hi and was sent an automatic response that you had been offline for too long my message would be delivered when you came back online

7 pm
i sent you messages to see when you came back. you didnt come back.

1 month
its been 31 days youre still offline

2 months
i got a message today and i saw your name and my stomach flipped you said only hi and i said hello back. you did not reply.

1 year
i do not think of you, you left.

2 years
i saw you on the street you looked like a new person. i waved but you assumed i was acknowledging someone else. you walked away.

2.5 years
i got a message from an unsaved number that you killed yourself today and my number was in your phone and i might like to be informed. i didnt reply.

people say out of sight, out of mind and i used to think this was true until i met you. out of sight, but never out of mind, for absence makes the heart grow fonder. he said you never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough, ive known from the start that you were more than enough, but enough none the less. if in each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind then id gladly take another step towards you for the me without you is not a me id like to be and id happily leave that me behind, and if weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects, then i see now why i am so in love with you, for you shine so brightly. if its true that the tighter you squeeze, the less you have, then ill hold you lightly, but even more so.