i've done it so many times, missing people
missing love. it's become a profession for me,
missing people who i separate from -

i've come to face these bitter feelings of
abandonment, being forgotten -
like, i, was ever someone to remember in the first place
years and years ago -

10-years-old and missing the other little children
who tugged on my clammy hand but laughed anyways
at my shy eyes and bugged out baby hairs
because their sandy hands dried out my nervousness
on the playground among giggles and "sandman!"s
their hair whirlwinds on their heads as we spun around
on tire swings until we were scared we'd throw up on ourselves
and we'd smell the whole way home
together

i still remember the day that i told you that your
bracelet of popcan tabs and little hair rubberbands
and dollar store beads and bells was
cute - i liked the way that it weighed in my clammy palm
and how colourful it shined,
how stretchy it stretched and never threatened to snap in
my tiny sticky fingers, it was the loveliest thing i'd ever seen.
and i still remember the day you showed up at school
with one for me, too, because it was only the next day
and your fingertips were raw with little cuts from yanking
aluminum tabs off of cans and black circles ringed your eyes as
you smiled and held it out for me

i couldn't ever remember feeling any warmth like that before

why was i ever so sour in the first place
of being forgotten anyways? maybe it wasn't that i was terrified of
being lost among people's "remember that one girl" and "what was
her name again"s, but perhaps i was just horrified of the things that
constantly switched up around me, and these warm memories
were the only things that would never switch up on me
without me being able to catch my breath first.

i still remember the day we skipped down high school hallways
with our eyes drooped and red and our mouths bone dry,
smelly hoodies draped over our uniforms,
i couldn't believe how clammy
our intertwined hands were but we still laced our fingers and spun
in sharp turns, laughing down quiet corridors  -
"did you know that i'm gay? i've never told anyone before."
you whispered in a rush to me, and you confided in me like
i was important -

why did i call it being abandoned when i was just as near
to you to reach out and grab you as you were near to me?
you've reached out to me and tugged on my sleeve but i'd sit
there and watch you and i'd feel your warm fingers slip away from my
skin,
i'd never felt your skin on mine again.

and i still remember the times we'd laugh and share jokes,
make personal whispered secrets, "we'll probably only
have time for each other again after work when we're career women,"
but even as i sit here in the same ******* room
of the past week and a half of wallowing in wonder,
wondering why i feel so empty and at a loss and like a hole,
my hands are clammy and miss the warmth of a pretty bracelet in my hand-

"you never wore it anyways."

-and your fingers between mine-

"you never text me back when i want to see you!"

i feel so lost,
i don't feel missed
although i probably was,
but i missed
something
and miss it so much

i hope they never open again

i've ruined it all

is the way i flip my phone every ten minutes hoping that youve texted me back

is the way that i sob into my hands over a love that i had to build myself
i understand that you put all this effort into

pressing a finger over my name in your phone's directory
to bring your phone up to your ear and hold a conversation
with me that you only contributed "yes" "no" and "i've gotta go"s.

as i searched up your favourite bands and tried to tell you about
how close the date was to them coming to the city,
or how i kept trying to remind you of a better time between us
and tried to keep us alive, i tried so hard to keep us alive.

it's the way that i can't seem to hold a job to my name
or figure out my own life after school,
but somehow, i always find the money to find my way to get to
you, find the time to invest in you, although our time
had run out weeks and weeks ago

to have you sleep all day as i sit on the edge of your bed
playing trivia crush until you wake up when i plug my phone
into the outlet beside your head
"i fell asleep" you'll say 2 hours after i arrive,
my shoes are still on my feet because i was too nervous to lay down
beside your sleeping body,
and i'll smile and lie, "i understand"
and even though i do, with every "no worries" and "i get it"s,
i feel that weight on my chest grow tons and tons heavier

it's the way i want to leave school now because i want to start a life
with you, but the way i have to close my eyes to the dreams 18-year-old me meandered over with my roommate excitedly,
"hey, one day, we'll have it all figured out." we laughed
"hey, one day," you'd tell me as i cried over the phone, "we'll have it all figured out,"

"it'll all be okay."

pure ******* poetry is the way you text me paragraphs
of how much you adore me, and want me, and want to marry me,
and how you still love this mess that has been slowly and chaotically
falling everywhere in a heap of nothing -
it's the way you tell me from a distance,
"i'll still love you no matter what you are"

and i'll cry into my sweater because you don't know what i am,
you're too far to understand- that the monsters have come out
to play unfairly
i don't know where you've been and i don't know what truths
you've been telling me but

your hands on my face as you begged for me to look at you
as you pressed quiet kisses on my eyelids
and how you held me for hours as i cried over nothing

pure ******* poetry

and she had to grind her teeth into powder before she felt the skin on her palms go raw from the way she tried to keep her fists to herself.

and why did she have to say it anyways when all that she did
every day,
every moment
was for him

and why did she have to say it back
when she had to urge him
beg him
to say it anyways

she whispered his name in her sleep
and reached out for him when she was able to doze off for those
couple hours
in the night.

and when laid awake at night, he was the only thing that floated
through her thoughts.

"you can't even say it back"

she had to bite down on her tongue in fury,
she wished that she could rip the muscle from her very throat with
the same lips she kissed him with, with the same
teeth she grinned at him with,
she wanted to spit 'unsaid words' in his face
with the very spite she held in the audacity he had

"you can't even look me in the eye"

i've tried so hard
but the street that i've walked down alone is a two-way street
and i guess all that meant is that i came running down to you
and left all on my own too

"i will always love you

but i am no longer happy.

thank you for everything."

but i felt a distance between us after you curled into me and squeezed my hips in bliss
and pleasure and moans and groans
i wondered why you didn't kiss me,
distance,
i almost felt like i'd been dis-respected by the ghost of your lips on me -
when my hair was tangled in your right tight fist
you pinned me down with your left hand by my wrist,
listen, love...
there's still something that i miss about the way that i felt in the beginning -
something that i am willing to be angry about, *******, i want to scream out and shout, these doubts are clouding my ******* mind -
i can't seem to think as straight as i used to take such pride in.

maybe that's why i couldn't stop the tears running down my face
before i even realized i had felt an emptiness in my chest
that marinated in some kind of broken heart over something...
i still miss something...

i don't know why i cried,
when you closed your eyes and i shamefully picked up a towel
to wipe my ******* dignity off my thighs.
you were snoring gutteral z's that echoed off spiky hotel ceilings
before i had a chance to ask
if you needed me.
to give you a hand
with anything else.

i seem to have forgotten what it means to
fulfill myself
behind your sweet, sweet smile.
i have become horrified of what i am without you,
petrified, anxious, terribly sad
at the thought of losing you.

i miss something,
and the way i used to laugh at tiny things.

i can't believe how quickly i fall apart when i win
your disapproval.
i can't believe that my cheeks have not pruned or pickled
in the salty tears that i so often cry
at the thought of you disappearing from my life

i miss something,
and the feather-light weight within my chest.

i seem to have missed something
because i miss this something that should be there,
ms. something-after-you i pray to be following you,
i miss something i have lost
but i cannot lose you