I don't need you
     (So why does this sweater still smell like you?).
I don't need you
     (So why do I walk the long way home?).
I don't need you
     (So why do I stall whenever I'm at the bottom of the hill?).
I don't need you
     (So why is your favorite song in my search?).
I don't need you
     (So why do I keep staying up late?).
I don't need you
     (So why is my phone on loud?).
I don't need you
     (So why do I keep looking at the door?).
I don't need you
     (So why do I have to keep reassuring myself?).
I don't **need you.

I traced your quivering lips
with my shaky fingers
& we stood
speechless,
teary eye to teary eye,
& realizing it was ending,
we parted
for the last time,
turned
& walked away
on our love.

Hang the folk-singer in a straight-jacket.
Let him out to entertain the pained,
and to allow him his vanity
of seeing one thousand t-shirted candles
echo back to him, his own face.

Let him board the train to nowhere-town.
Give him time to walk a recovery,
to indulge in a sorrow
that was too often left ignored.
He'll come back with a black eye,
cradle and all.

Kiss your divorce on the mouth, as you
filter his coffee. You're coming out of
your shell, and out of the house,
you're meeting for coffee again,
in the sun-glass shade
of the afternoon.

Hang your clothes out to dry by the river.
Let yourself have a hayfever bout
in the grass. Allow your new freedoms
from the tyrant, that had long kept you
anchored in the past.

I love him. I've loved him since the time he tied my left skate in March 2013. And it's a love that aches and hurts and explodes. But it's also a love that sings and twirls and laughs for no reason. It's a love that has you crying in the bathroom on a Saturday night but its also a love that has you dancing in the shower on a Monday morning. It's a love that's left me with cramped fingers, dry ink pens and full notebooks. It's a love makes me feel like a thunderstorm. It's a love that makes me feel like a sunset. He's not a home, he's a person. A wonderful one. And sometimes people say things like, "why would you forgive him," or, "why don't you just let go." And I smile. I used to get mad but out of all the types of love this is, it's also a love that's flexible. It's not a love that waits or chases but a loves that's there. It's a love that shares shoulders and stories. If I've learned anything about loving you it has been that if I cannot love you as a lover, I will love you as friend. I will love you messy handwriting, always asleep first, bad haircuts and all. Our love is flexible. Our love is patient. Our love is what happens when you rub your eyes. It's a love that bruises and bleeds and scabs and heals. It's a love that asks, "how was your day?" And would wait patiently forever for your reply. How was your day?

The ghost of a boy I once knew sits quietly on my shoulder.
He’s making me self conscious of what I write about him.
I know he can see.
I know he’s watching.
As my eyes flutter to the new him across the room,
I realize how odd it is that he reminds so few of the memories I do.
It’s almost as though I made him up in my mind.

(I probably did)

Though he’s small enough to sit on my shoulder,
I know old him does not mind one bit.
Whispering words of encouragement in my ear.
He always had more faith in me than I ever had in myself.
I know he only made me stronger.
I know he only made me better.
But I cannot help but miss the way he held my hand.
I cannot help but miss the way he made me feel.
I was the best version of myself around him.
I can honestly say he made me very happy.
I wish I had made him happy, too.

(I just hope he’s happy, really)

A Poem For Each Of The Boys I’ve Ever Loved

Ⅰ.
sometimes your scent travels in the wind,
suffocating me like a nasty perfume,
leaving me to wonder if i’ll ever forget your smell.

Ⅱ.
you wore the sweatshirt you let me borrow a few days ago
i mean, i don’t even think you remember i had it at all.
it was just another sweatshirt in your drawer.

Ⅲ.
your handwritten notes sit in neat pile next to my bed.
it has occurred to me that maybe thats the cause of my nightmares.
but really i think you’re the reason for everything and anything.

Ⅳ.
you have the prettiest eyes in the whole entire world.
im satisfied knowing i was once the reason they lit up so bright.
I’ll never let someone take the sparkle in my eyes away again.

Ⅴ.
we used to listen to music together and we’d laugh a lot.
you’d snicker at they way i lip sang to myself.
and id laugh because you really didn’t care i was a ******.

ⅤⅠ.

most of my days are spent wishing you were still here
you never really know how much you love someone
until they don’t love you anymore and thats a sick thought.


(ps, each of these poems are about you and only you and always you. i miss you. love always, the pathetic girl with a big heart and green eyes.)

I wanted to be a poet, so I folded myself into an envelope addressed to the moon and asked the man what he thought about your sweaty palms after our first kiss. He was quiet for a minute or so before he asked me, "do you love him?" I gulped. As if my gulp was enough for him, he went silent. He didn't ask questions, names or numbers. He didn't give advice that made me wish I hadn't spoken at all. We just stood there for a very long time and he finally broke what was such a loud silence with a sentence you may never understand. He said, "you're not a Poet, you're a Lover."

It's not that I don't love you. It's the time I read my mom's old journals and every other paragraph included my fathers name. It's that he cheated on every girlfriend he had with my mom. It's that my mom didn't care she was a second choice or a one night stand. It's that my mother never talked to anyone about him after he got married to one of the many girlfriends. It's that she took twenty sleeping pills on the night of what would've been their anniversary. It's that he doesn't even know she's dead.

It's not that I don't love you. It's the couple I overheard in the bread aisle arguing over wheat or white. It's that I heard the woman say a lot of "she" and "****" and I saw her crumble to the ground. It's that he just shook his head and said he was sorry over and over again.

It's not that I don't love you. It's that my best friend is in love with a boy on the other side of the country. It's the morning she took a shower and cried over him. It's that he wasn't even awake to do anything about it. It's that he's always three hours behind and thousands too many miles away. It's that I mean both physically and mentally sometimes.

It's not that I don't love you. It's my geometry teacher, who brought up her husband when she taught me tangents. It's that she also brought up her husband when she taught me the circle unit
too. It's that she gets quiet and smiles after she talks about him. It's that he's been passed away for seven years now and she still has so much to say. It's that she still wears her wedding ring. It's that when she taught me special right triangles, I wondered what her laugh might sound like if he were still here.

What I'm trying to say is; It's not that I don't love you. It's that I do.

Maybe, for once, I want someone to tell me that they wont leave me alone.
Maybe, for once, I want a truthful response to my worries instead of a lie or silence.
Maybe, for once, I would like a bit of sense in a confusing circumstance.
Maybe, for once, I don't want to be treating like the helpless weakling that people believe me to be because suicide is on my mind at all times. I may be miserable, but I am not giving up, no matter what ******* people throw at me.
Maybe, for once, I want to be a ******* human being, not a glass figurine with diamond tears.