If love is a drug,
I'm just dying for a hit.

It's sad and it's lonely,
but I miss the way it lit,
the mundane humdrum routines,
of this dismal, taxing world.

I hereby compile these words
representative of these moments
that I truly don't want to think of anymore.

I gather them here with the hopes
that maybe this can be my discard pile.
Just maybe they won't eventually loop their way back in
like the broken record I am.
Maybe my heart and mind can get
some long, sustained, peace
that's so truly ******* deserved.

I'll never forget the way my mom looked at me
after we just broke up
and you left my house for the last time.
"Oh honey you loved someone with your whole heart
and it didn't work out... I'm so sorry,"
she whimpered, eyes glistening with tears that wouldn't fall.

I'll never forget our "friendship"
that was essentially you expecting
the same emotional labor from me
with increasingly more conversations
centered around you and only you,
and heaven forbid if I tried to give you advice.

I'll never forget New Years Day of 2020.
My family's health crisis,
and your utter silence
or lack of any semblance of care for me.
Where were you, pal?
Later that same day my world would come crashing down
as that same day I learned of your true colors
and just how selfish and beastly they were.
How I recoiled when your handsome grin
turned to snarling fangs
when I wouldn't give you what you want
and how you tried to tear it
or manipulate it out of me
for the next several days until I chose
complete 'radio silence' from you
blocking you from every possible thing
as I saw no other option for my own health.

I'll never forget having to play music
every time I showered
in the following months
or my mind would just attack itself
going back through what you did
how it all went down, a play by play
again and again and again.

I'll never forget finally admitting to my family
that you reached out to me
with the most vague, pathetic, half assed, excuse for an apology
I have ever had the displeasure to read.
I'll never forget my older brother, so nonchalant,
saying
"Well yeah, he called you the love of his life so I kind of figured
at one point or another he'd try to reach out."
And the fun little breathless dagger twist  
I felt in my chest in that moment.

I think I just have to make peace with the fact
that I'll never understand how you can treat someone
as horrifically as you did me
and still sleep at night.
It's one thing to do what you did
but another to lie to me about it
and entirely another to do your due diligence
to try and villainize me amongst our mutual friends for it
when you and I both know all I sought was the truth
from you
and to stand up for myself.

And oh thank god I did
I wouldn't have survived your emotional vampirism,
on top of everything else I had to contend with in 2020.
I hereby submit what was 'us' to fade and die with these digital letters.
I continue on my path in hopes of finding and securing
a true love that lasts, grows and develops with me.

There's something about loving two broken men in a row
that really brings a girl down.

Twice I wanted to be the savior,
the angel whispering sweet nothings,
the candle flame in a dark cave.

Twice that flame was snuffed out,
without even a faint spark remaining.

Twice we were over,
twice they collapsed in on themselves,
and twice they tried to pull me down with them.
And thus twice something shot up from within me.
A wall, a barrier, a shield, a protective layer.

It's gentle, it doesn't suffocate me
and yet
its presence is nearly tangible.

I felt its presence most when I met another man.
An old soul like me, so kind, so tender.
An emotionally mature, self aware adult.

9 months we tried to carry this relationship to term,
and yet I could never bring myself to bear love for you.

9 months I watched you from within this cocoon around my heart.
Hoping, wanting, waiting, for another spark of passion.
But you were too scared of rejection to be that vulnerable
to play your hand, put it all out on the line.
And I'm so sorry but I just didn't have it
that kind of vulnerability
in me a third time.

You saw my Walls and you acknowledged their presence.
You understood why I had them, you could tell I was healing.
To you they were stone - rigid and solid between us.
In moments for me they were cellophone, so amiable and flimsy if only they had been tried.
And so the cocoon remained, just that, a cocoon.
And we sunk into a routine of comfort, niceties, and small gifts.
A pandemic pod of a relationship in this lonely world.

I will always have nothing but fondness for you.
Thank you for lifting me up, for treating me right,
and making me feel desirable over and over again.

For the next year I will sit in solitude,
no one's savior or angel, and I'm okay with that.
I'll make peace with the cave,
and wait to light the candle in some other dream.

Oh pretty, broken heart thief.
What was it that drew you to me?
Were you thirsting for life’s meaning
or something warm to squeeze?

Well handsome, morose heart thief
you’ve come and gone.
And now my chest is no longer warm.
You swept me off my feet
then left me
so torn.

So this really the end.
You don't want me as a friend.
Can't make it work or try to bend.
There's nothing left of my heart to mend.

So this is really the end.
There's no more texts to send.
Can't form a point to make.
There's nothing but this empty ache.

So this is really the end.
No arguments to defend.
My hands just to start to shake.
Feeling hollow and so small,
why'd I ever love at all.

So this is really the end.
This is really the end.
It's really the end.
Really the end.
The end.

slam the door.
Sometimes in life a door won't close,
until you put your hand on it.
Who gives a **** about windows or other doors opening?
Some doors ought to be ******* closed.
So close them, lock them, latch them, and bolt them.
Then take a breath, and keep walking.

Slam that **** door,
take the effort into your own hands,
and feel the strength and freedom that brings.

We all have one of those doors,
so why is yours still open?

Dare to be vulnerable
expose your beating heart
and the emotions pulsing,
within your fragile frame.

Feel it. Feel everything. Bare all.
You open your eyes and realize,
it's not a nest of feathers
that now warms and consoles you.

It's the many folded wings,
of your loved ones embracing you.

It's the textbook definition of insanity,
you and me.
I just want it to be
called what it really is,
I've always craved honesty.
Yet you're afraid of me
of what would happen to "us"
if there was no longevity.
But "us" already IS
we're already everything
a real couple would be.
Call me crazy
because you can't call me your girlfriend.

If fate were physical I'd say it was a breeze.
Though it's summer and the forest holds its' leaves.
The wind picks up and we're swept back together
like the fiery leaves of autumn.
If one thing is for certain I've already fallen.
When I see you my body and heart remember
what my mind has forgotten.
You make me laugh and my walls soften.
Our roots go so deep and yet our chance is rotten.
With time and distance our wind shifted,
you've swept a different leaf into your dance
and I can only see you every so often.

I don't expect the world of myself.
Nor do I find myself capable of the world
and all it's faces and happenings.
But lately I am utterly unimpressed
with what I am.

For years I've let your chains embrace my heart
and drag me down with every breeze
that's teased at my wings.

For years my feathers have kissed the asphalt
again and again
instead of caressing the sky.

Enough! I'm done with this! I scream
plunging my fingers into my chest
and ripping out those chains
those strings that made me
your puppet, your play thing for so long.

Though my hand comes back crimson
as the chains crumple at my feet,
my eyes flood with tears of relief, not pain.
And with the next strong gust
I am one with the sky again, myself again.
Bloodied, but stronger and finally free.

I've spent so exhaustingly long
trying to become what you want
I've forgotten what to want
for myself.
I don't quite fit your into your mold
yet I've so thoroughly lost my form
I can't recognize myself at times.

Your words
so sweet
they stick to me
but
in larger doses
you're sickening.

Most people would take a look at us
and say I'm "catching feelings".
What is it about having feelings
that makes me want to throw something?
Some days my lips ache to tease your neck
and others I want to break your jaw.
The most romantic and violent scenarios
play behind my eyes and yank my heart strings
in varying twisted formations and knots.
I don't know what I've "caught".
I don't know what I've been infected with,
but I don't want it anymore.
So take it away.  Cut the beast off it's chain.
These emotions are too fierce for me to handle.

I'd rather make out,
than make up.
I'd rather hold on,
than let go.
I'd rather give in,
than give up.
I'd rather believe,
than know.

There's a reason why the word
hurt
is in the word truth.
The double edged blade
often slices the fingers
of it's own wielder.

How many more times will circumstances make a mockery of me?
Drop a guy into my life who, on paper, should be just right for me.
Check marks in each box down the hypothetical list.
Allow me to like him and go on a few dates, only to realize
that I'm not sure he's what I really wanted.
That I'm not sure I want him as much as he wants me.
To let doubt drip into my heart, and seep into my every thought.
Until I'm convinced that I'm leading him on and trapped
into telling him that we should just be friends.
I cringe and collapse in on my self loathing.  
How could I do this to someone?
How dare I try a few dates and be wicked enough
to be honest about how I feel?
I never wanted to hurt you.  I never want to hurt anyone.
Ever.
But how am I supposed to fall for someone whom I feel
is constantly trying, straining, to be what I want?
When I'm not even sure what I want, or who I want, in the first place?....

The lightly falling,
swirling reminder
that you have no one
to get warm with.

Coating the earth
in a twinkling coat.
Rounding out
hard edges
and hiding the dirt.
For a short while
all is new and silent.

Yet inside of me
the icicles run deep.
Gleaming daggers
of silenced icy pains.

Outside I can glimmer
and hold a white smile.
Internally I'm so grey,
a thoroughly trodden slush.

Just as I'm sober
I pour a drink again
and I ponder,
can I lose myself
as a friend?

Just when it's over
I want to be under again
and I can't find myself,
because I've hidden
and lost in the end.

Even the stars eventually fade.
What is a "star-crossed" love anyway?
That chemistry dissolves or it stays.
Neither side deserves the blame.
You and I just aren't the same.
I guess you're right in the end,
I really have changed.

I'd much rather wait
instead of wake
in some mistake's bed.

It all comes down to this.
I'm just not appealing to guys my age.
Apparently by simply being myself I'm intimidating.
I come off as too mature, too collected, too confident, too smart.
I'll never play the role of stupid and easy,
but I'm not confident in the slightest.
I doubt myself and wince at my reflection daily.
Maybe some nights I just don't feel like showing everything.
Maybe there are parts of my skin I'd like to save for a lover.
My idea of commitment is too old fashioned for my generation.
I'm expected to be fast and easy and vulnerable in all the right places.
I'd much rather wait instead of wake up in some mistake's bed.

Just when you were the last thing on my mind
it's as if the breeze picks up and like two fallen leaves,
we're swept together again.
I'm forced to realize how complicated my feelings for you have become.
Our lips meet, it means nothing, and yet you still look at me that way.
You don't have eyes for me, and yet you can't break your gaze.
As if you realize it too, how we should have started here instead.
How long before you realize that it's always me you come back to?
We would be so happy together if you just dared to consider it,
and yet I'm too numb to all of this to tell you I'm right for you.
Who am I tell you what you want?
Maybe you'll figure it out this time.
All I know is I can't survive another collision with you.

I think I'll take this chance
to open my rib cage,
as I watch the leaves dance,
and retrieve my little candle flame.
It once was a pulsing fire
sparking with hopes and desires,
but for what's become of it, I'm to blame.
I set my heart down and watch it flicker,
weakened by a simple breeze.
Who'd have known that developing
an affection for someone
would turn into such a dousing disease.
I once wanted my candle to be a guide
to someone just as lost in the dark as me,
and yet now the shadows are my dress
so delightfully flattering and numbing.

There are days when it rains
and I just want to lay down
with my back on the pavement.
I'd stare up at the tears
of the nameless.
Pretending every chilling drop
is a faintly stinging kiss.
Then I'd fade away from it all
without notice or being missed.

You picked me up
then made me spiral down.
Like an auburn leaf
lying on the ground.
So this is how it feels to fall.
I'm crushed I don't want to feel
at all.

I want to make you sink.
I want you to drown in the sand
where my heart once was.
I want to drag you down,
suffocating you with the emotions
you once claimed to not understand.
I want to make you cry and beg and plead.
I want you to apologize to me
while I make you suffer the way I have
for ever having developed affection for you.

Your body aches for something more.
Your mind and logic fall in defeat.
Your heart stands over it all,
dragging you through every emotion.
Be they slight as eyelashes or
rough as glass shards strewn on pavement.

I am one of the few
blessed with
the most lovely curse
of self awareness.
I can't take a substance
to drift off into my youth.
Through potions and vapors
my being still haunts me.
I'm fully aware of
who and what I am,
and I cannot escape me.

If finding the "one" is possible
when will we become two?
When will I finally find you
and we'll be lost in each other.

When will I find you?
I wonder about you
so often now
it seems I spend
most days in a cloud.

When will I find you?
Spotting you in the crowd
like a fallen star amongst ashes.

Our attraction is automatic
the physical tension is palpable.
Your poisonous thorns try to hook in
and burrow deep underneath my skin
but finally I am immune.
Though your eyes light my heart's darkest flame
now I have strength and we won't be the same.
You're the perfect kind of toxic
but now my only thought is
I'll only allow you to be a friend.
You better savor that last kiss babe,
because it's never happening again.

How am I supposed to truly live when,
no matter what I do or how I play it off,
my heart rests in your hand.
It was something you looked upon fondly once.
Now you only admire it as trinket you found,
an object you unknowingly toy with idly.
Some pretty thing you picked up off of the floor.
Though my mind strains to move on
the rest of me remains your thing, your locket.
Closed to you, and yet so painfully yours.

I have you back and we're better than before.
Lips locking until we're breathless,
laughter bouncing between us.
We're lighter and yet it's so much heavier
that all we can truly be is "friends".
It's so bittersweet to be better
yet settle for less, lines clearly drawn.
I'm fine with it as long as I can still have
some kind of hold over you.
My heart is darker than I had imagined it.

I picked my poison.
My poison is you.
You're so bad for me
but you said you're sorry
and here I am accepting
that we can start all over
again.
Maybe we can make it
if we start as friends.

My brain declares "no"
but my heart screams "yes!"
Begin again and take a guess
is this a sweet wine at my lips
or another glass of venom.

I almost forget you.
I almost forgot you.
Then a friend jokingly
mentions your name
and I hate you
but I miss you
*all over again.

I had resigned myself to the ember wall
around my heart.
Then out of nowhere you came in
and with your shy sweetness
and nervous eyes you lifted me out
of my ashy fortress.

I find warmth in your genuine kindness
that I thought I'd never feel again.

Yet my caution chokes my feelings back
and neither time nor distance
are on our side.

So tell me, gentle boy, what will we be?

What's this?  A small flower petal?
Once part of something wonderful.
Once a fragile, intricate masterpiece.
Now a lowly isolated fragment.
A candle to a flame.
No wait.  That's what's left of my heart.

Were I able to take a scalpel
to my mind
and hack you out entirely,
believe me when I say,
I would do it in an instant.

I'd let that small sad part of me
that still wants you back
and has a heart,
that skips to see you,
drown in the puddle of blood.

Today an eyelash fell on my wrist,
and with my breath it sailed
on a wish.
That my heart will one day be
a little candle flame,
a faint hopeful spark,
to someone just as lost in the dark
as I am.

It had been so long,
years,
since I had creaked
open my heart.

In mere weeks
I slammed it shut
and collapsed in
on myself.

It's in one piece now
I've definitely healed
but there's still cracks
in the stained glass.

I look out from within
my stony cold fortress
when it dawns on me.

As I shattered and fell
in my own pathetic well
in the darkness spun away
that small golden key.

Now trapped I stand
looking out
through the fray
realizing I dropped
the key to my heart
and I don't know if
I can ever
love
some day.

Opening my heart again made me realize
I had lit a disco ball of emotions
sending the best and worst feelings
emanating from within me outward
and in the open; exposed, vulnerable.

I had truly forgotten this sensation
of my own emotions betraying me
and stampeding out of any control
no matter how I try to push them back in
like the wrong puzzle pieces.

There's something kind of terrifying
about what affection does to us.
To go from singing
with newfound joy,
to weeping with
bitter regret,
to daydreaming
a violent solution,
to simply trying
to forget.

Step slowly closer
until our chests
almost touch.

Hover over me
lips parted
twitching into
a slight smile.

Our eyes flutter
between irises
and parted,
inquiring lips.

In that moment our
breathing so shallow
and the silence
so heavy.

Then, mind made,
your arms snake
around me and
pull me in.

You lean down
and our lips touch,
our heartbeats
filling the silence.
You just
******* away.

I want to feel that again.
I want to be breathless.
I want to just
collide
with another person
who feels the same way.

My social and intimate interactions
are like an intricate and fragile web
bending out in the breeze
ever so carefully reaching out
straining at the seems
but cautiously hopeful.

The web is sprinkled with
a few gleaming dew droplets
reflecting and refracting
self criticizing,
yet softly alluring.

Isn't it terrifying that this web
this elaborate structure
of invisible intertwining
experiences and unborn efforts
can be torn to shreds
by a mere gathering of words?

I pulled out each and every one
those ice shards you left in my ribs.
I bled your poison from my veins.
I slung gasoline all over everything
the memories,
the phantom sensations,
the best and worst of you,
my tenderness for you,
your barbed words,
in their entirety.

Without pause I lit the match.
I let it fall from my fingers
and the inferno roared to life.
In the flames I am reborn
and though parts of me
singe away
new, stronger parts
burn anew.
For the first time in forever
I spread my wings,
feathers combing the breeze,
and fly again.

Finally my phoenix heart soars
and sings again and what's left
of you
in the ashes is forgotten completely.

That's right
I'm over you.

Nights this cold
can make a girl wish
she had someone
to share warmth with.

It spills into my ears
trickling into my mind
dripping onto my heart
pooling into
the many fine cracks
and solidifying.
It swirls in my soul
quickening my pulse.

I slowly close my eyes
and for even the slightest
of moments
I'm home.
No matter where I rest
in sunlight or darkness
I belong and feel whole.

I can slip away from
my worries, my regrets.
I can slide away from
who I am, if I need to,
into a soothing tide
of rhythms and choruses.
I can float off on a soft, steady
song that reassures my
unanchored confidence.

It pours into my many
subtle wounds
and beat by beat
heals me internally.
It is my infallible remedy
so out of passionate love
and utmost appreciation
for this cure-all sensation
I sing.

Every time my feathers catch the wind again
and my wings almost lift me off the ground
Your ice shards dig deep under my rib cage
and again I crumble onto the ground
simmering embers once again, breathless.

In cinders I remain until I can truly forget
only then can I hope to fly again.

Sought
In warm places
In kind faces
In understanding
adoring gazes
In copious laughter
and chortling voices
In young and foolish
misguided choices
In crackling fires
In explored desires

Found
In the many hues
and happenings
of warmth,
heartfelt belonging.

You no longer miss the person
but phantom sensations
of gentle physical intimacies
haunt you and make you ache
in ways you didn't before.

Such simple, common things
like watching a movie
or going out to eat
or returning to your room
can feel so stupidly lonesome.

The longing for physical
interaction
anything at all clings
and you feel so
cold?
Yes, cold.
So randomly and so strongly
but you cannot shrug it off.

So you play that song
a little louder this time
and burrow deeper
into your blankets.
Dig out a pair of
mismatched socks
but the chill permeates
from within you.

The world only loves my words when they're pleading.
The world only loves a poet that is bleeding
passionately writing with crimson spattered abandon.
Adoration is showered upon the poet that is falling
deeper sinking into sorrows and self induced agony.
I'm just a writer that has fallen
and though my wings are quite frail I'm still crawling
to try and reach a better place, a better state again.
I'd rather let the ink do the bleeding and find a friend.
To put a breeze under my feathers
and make me smile and laugh again.
Than subject myself to memory laced emotional tortures
for the sake of art and to draw an audience.