i worry about him all
the time*
i told you and
you shook your head like
you knew all too well

eleven nights later,
you tell me to get some
sleep, you say i worry about
you all the time

and i'm starting to think
it's code for people who
are trying to say 'i love you'
to someone who doesn't
love them back

i'd rather you tell me
those sickly sweet three words
as an april fools joke
than never hear them at all
and i think
that makes me pathetic and weak
but god,
i've never loved anyone
as much as i love you

i tried to write an open letter to your new girlfriend. i sat for hours, writing draft after draft, typing over backspace after backspace, all in vain. i realized at the end of it, i had no words for her. i had no wistful compliments, or tips dipped in nostalgia, or even warnings -- i realized none of those are mine to give. i remembered that there have been at least a dozen girls between me and her; you are no longer mine to giveaway. i am no longer the ex. i was never really the ex, but i am no longer the anything. i'm a girl you used to know. years ago. a girl you'll come across in the yearbook, decades from now, and blink -- was that really her name? you'll swear to yourself that it was more beautiful, back when you moaned it in my ear. you'll show me to your kids, or even your wife, laughing and saying there's my high school . . . you'll pause and stick-in the word 'girlfriend' because it's the closest thing that fits, but we both know better. i was never your girlfriend, i was just your ******* girl.

there is no fondness to this story. there is nothing for you to tell your kids, unless you're ready to ******* jade them; there's the girl who starved for me in year nine, there's the girl who didn't say she loved me until it was over, there's the girl who couldn't function with or without me.

there's your girl. one of your girls. a notch in your belt. now that i think about it, maybe you'll just flip past me in the yearbook. and maybe, if we ever see each other again, all you'll do is blink.

She just can't play with words anymore.
Everything is coated in a dreary layer of tired eyes and nostalgia.
Every word typed for a different person under a different name
For a different rhyme or reason.
There's no more feeling coming from those fingertips that once felt
The skin of someone not there. The sun when it wasn't shining.
The wind when it refused to howl.
There's only reality.

i hope you find me
on the tongue
of every girl you kiss,
at the bottom of
your cup of tea,
in the sand
that lines the backseat of your car,
in the moments
after 11pm,
in everything
that belonged to you and me.

I used to break bottles on the ground
and the glass I would use to fill my words
just like people
glass never breaks the same
some will find its way into weapons
and others are simply
echoes in the night
some words are empty
and others are so full
that they spill all over the concrete
filled with water
or rocks
I want them to weigh you down
sometimes
and other times I want you to be able to stand on them
like I do
when I scream messages on street corners
blood dripping down my face
I will promise myself I will never write another empty word
and instead of filling my words with weapons
I'll fill them with sunlight
or unused happiness

I don't break bottles anymore
the only thing I can break well
is myself
and
silence

and leaving all the you --
the sweatshirts
and the cologne
and the memories --
on the curb.