she's calling me with hushed serenades,
sweet lullaby breath
instructed by celestial sheet music

she is the night in motion as she kisses me,
and I am careful to keep my distance
lest she knocks me off my feet

I thought I had swallowed
every last piece of you
when I chewed you up
and chewed you out

but here I am a year later,
pulling pieces of you out of my teeth

I felt whole
without
reaching for
your hand
and
my ears buzzed
until they
rang with silence
I stepped into
a storm --
tame rain,
wild lightning,
clean water, pure quiet.

he seeped into my life slowly
and it was like being 8 again and
finding myself
suddenly carted 12 hours away
to a new life, one
that feels like brand new shoes

but suddenly it's broken in
& everything was familiar
& he was familiar
before I could even drag
my heels in resistance

he spilled words and ideas,
I licked them up like the coffee
that I carry, escaping onto its lid
and he is borderless

I am walking under a blue sky
unpunctuated by clouds,
it is endless &
the dopamine rush makes everything brighter

I look up and I am lost at sea
the sky is so blue
I am lost in his smile and his quirks
& God, he's so awkward

but I feel safe
like
I never want to leave
&
maybe I'll tell him everything
&

bitter coffee spills again on its lid

I sip it slowly

the sky is so blue,
so deep,
he is endless,
how am I not drowning

April is all graveyards and hauntings
I see carnations instead of tulips,
I see your ghost everywhere

she & I talk in hushed tones on the phone
sentences breaking under the
weight of the words they hold

I wonder if you know that all I want
is to love one person as much as she loves you
and here I am seeing your spirit in their bones
and all I know how to do is to
throw rope to anyone who will catch it
because even when I am sinking,
I'm shoving someone else to the surface

I am trying to save
the bits and pieces of you
as if I pull this one away from darkness,
I am saving you,
as if I push that one toward the light,
I am saving myself

I wonder what you'd say
if you knew I'd all but
abandoned my religion
what you'd say
if I told you all of the
memories taste bittersweet
I wonder what you'd say if I told you
that nothing you built up was
strong enough to
soften the blow
and nothing you'd say now matters
because you tore it all down

what a pair we are
walking down the street
you cloaked in cynicism,
and I draped in doubt

I listen to cars roar past on the busy road around the corner
and here I am with sighs waiting on my lips
and here I am without you

neither of us can see the other
when between us there's this smoke screen
and they've all projected images
so now I'm covered in movie scenes

none of them feel like me

I'm reaching for your hand now
because I don't want you to go
but you can't see me clearly

you don't know what I know

you taste like cinnamon
but you smell like kerosene
my heart is on fire
and my flesh is burning

look me in the eyes
I'll turn you to stone
I want to have someone
I won't have to let go

I promise to love you
I won't let you crack
you'll have your own corner
with your very own plaque

darling if you never change,
I'll never have to let you go
look me in the eyes
and let me turn you to stone

I've told myself not to
follow in mother's footsteps
and yet I picked you up like matches,
struck you across the book
until I could find your faults
as you burned, and burned out
I played with you like the lighter in my purse,
flicking you on until I got burned
and let go

The smoke has become a part of me,
the ugly epidermis that I can't shed
and looking in your eyes always
took me back to those glowing walls

I remind myself that
I was born of embers
and curiosity's breath
and though I long to be
passion ablaze,
I am still paper thin

I just can't stop playing with fire

III
In April I suffocate
remembering winter winds
and sickly sweet carnations
Holy Thursday holds
a different meaning in my home
I remember dark dresses & shoes,
I started wearing black
and I never really stopped

II.
you told me that if
I tried to touch the bottom,
I wouldn't make it back up,
so I sit here with empty bottle in hand to
prove you wrong,
and I wish I had told you
how afraid I am of drowning
because I already spend so much time
panicking until I go numb

I.
with your love wrapped
around my throat I couldn't breathe,
you gave it to me without
knowing my faults underneath,
the guilt knocked
the chair out from under my feet,
because I couldn't trust
you and your moonlit teeth

numb to all but your touch
I spent the winter with
wind-whipped hair and a
jaw set hard

come spring you
removed my outer shell
with gentle hands and softer words
the promise of trouble in your eyes

summer stretched on for centuries
and our skin glowed
white hot to the touch,
we burned each other and said goodbyes


I watch the leaves fall
and assign letters to each one
until the crunching under my feet
sounds like your name

pulling me in with each note,
your fingers struck keys and
my heart struck my ribs with each beat
I want to sing along
but it's so hard when I can't breathe

you said love like it was a raft
I pulled you ashore
you pulled me under

you're burning bridges
faster than you can build them,
making an abandoned
island
out of what was once called paradise      
  
you looked at me with an empty heart
and I tried to fill it  
"you're good, baby, you're so good"  
but my voice was so weak
and you didn't believe me
and, baby, you've gone bad

you're so busy fighting to be relevant
that you forgot to stop
fighting against the boy
with a smile like the moon
and arms like home

you've tried so hard to be tough
that you won't let the good things in
and the bad things won't leave
and you're dying from your own poison,
rotting in your own prison
from the inside out and

you're begging me
for something to quench your thirst but
I could pour you
glass after glass of compassion
and you'd empty it onto the floor because you can't bear to actually drink it

Instead you chase whiskey with self-pity
and I
watch helplessly
as pieces of my past
come dancing to life on stage
in front of me

I can't give hope to arms too shaky to hold it,
can't give faith to a stomach that can't keep it down     
     
"you're good, baby, you're so good," I whispered

but then I walked away and took my words with me, too

a skeleton wrapped
in the flesh of a peach
I am easily bruised
but not easily bled

I return not out of fear
but out of the notion that
I can wait out your mean streak
just as I would a common cold

a skeleton wrapped
in the flesh of a peach
I am easily bruised, but
you will not bleed me out

you have always stood firm,
blocking my every path,
so I finally released my wrath,
eroding you with an acid tongue,
and going on my merry way

Most people
look for ships to rescue them,
but you have this way of using words that
I want to sink into

Dark waters never looked like
love until you started lapping up around my skin and promising to pull me under.

Have you ever looked up at the sky from beneath the water?  
Watched as ripples dance across the clouds?
And finally there is a
tangible barrier between
you and the sky and
you and the marathon
you tell yourself you'll run and
you and the things you've been reaching for indefinitely and

it's so clear
you can see everything
but you don't have to come up yet

It's so nice to finally have a reason all around me,
to be able to touch the reason why I can't breathe

And there you are at the
bottom of it all,
smirking as I reach the
bottom of the bottle,
following your siren call

I want to rake down your back
Leaving neat little lines
So I can grow in the cracks

I want to infest every inch of you
Grow vines around your brain
Until you wake up at 3am
Singing my name

I am torn between two paths,
but to make my own is to
leave my fellow travelers behind

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
hiding fears
in secret parts of their souls,
swallowing keys
to unvoiced thoughts,
and swearing
to keep their lips sealed tight

in summer,
steel-hearted girls
play dress up,
searching for the
perfect disguise

to smile like that,
you ******* Cheshire cat,
your lips curled up
as you lounge in the grass,
your legs sprawled out,
your face painted every
shade of smug
because I want to kiss you
(and you know it)
because I want to **** you
(I hope you know that)
for ruining roundhouses
with weak knees
for turning my right hook
into my right hand on your chest
as you pull me in closer
you turned my (occasional) quick wit
into pure aphasia
brought on by your all-consuming gaze
and I'm left awkward and dumbstruck,
wondering who gave you the right
to look at me like *that

Relics of you
(Old sweaters and letters)
Line the walls of my hiding place
(I may have dug myself in too deep this time)

Baby, I have a hurricane of hair
and a storm behind my eyes
and one hand on my hip,
ready to fight for my beliefs.
But I wouldn't mind
if you'd be my sunshine,
kiss the lids of my eyes,
I'll take my hand off my hip,
put your hands on my thighs,
I'll let the anger slip away, if just for today
so I can recite for you
my prettiest poetry
in between cinnamon kisses
and tell you stories that I heard
in the rustling of trees on a breeze
and maybe it's too much that I want
to know all of your everything,
but I'm imagining moonlit dancing
and lazy days spent listening to music
and walking through new cities, hand in hand.
We could have it all, baby,
let's just give it a chance.

I'm still trying to understand the fact that no baby is born hating itself and yet as life goes on people will love you but they might also hurt you or leave you or any number of horrible things, and all you can do is let them leave with pieces of you and try to fill the holes back in with something else or else try to forget that the hole is there (or at least try to forget the person that caused it) and as life goes on all of those holes make us grow in different ways than we were headed (like when people make cuts in trees and manipulate to make them grow knotted together -- people put holes in us and we try to grow around them or away from them) and we just get more and more ****** up each time until there are things we don't like about ourselves and then we expect someone else to love our insecurities when all we do is complain about them and how empty we feel (we're all full of holes) and if someone had just told us to keep loving ourselves from the start and to remember that we're all flawed humans maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when I am lying awake at three in the morning because you didn't text me back when you said you would and I'm starting to see all of the imperfections in my face and my personality and I can't sleep because I'm trying to remember just one reason that I ever thought you could love me.

lay with me on the lawn
when it's too hot to move
and silently soak up the sunlight

dance with me while moonlit
to your favorite song
as the stars shimmer in our eyes

love every part of me,
speak to me in poetry,
and never let me go

missing you was once feeling broken
to miss you was to be afraid
to stand helpless as longing punctured my heart,
seeping a poisonous blend of nostalgia,
guilt, and anger around my lungs
to wait as the ache spread throughout my body bringing
days of discomfort and confusion
a kind of heavy weight that makes smiles impossible
the kind that makes an empty bridge look like open arms
I could sit and miss you until it drove me mad,
until I had lost myself in a cycle
of love, guilt, and hate
my body paralyzed while my mind battled for clarity
to miss you was to cause myself unbearable pain
and yet I couldn't stop as it flowed through my veins,
a drug I couldn't refuse
missing you was was a tornado tearing walls down
until I was left on an empty foundation,
shuddering, breathless, and windswept

but missing you now is like living someplace new,
everything is different but the world isn't ending
where there once were threatening storms,
all that's left is a breath of relief,
an absence of pain that leaves me floating
I remember you like summers past,
Missing you is like flipping through photographs,
I remember you and smile

I try to hate you with all of my will
my body fights back with
the tightening of my throat,
tries to sabotage me by
flooding my body with tears,
and twisting knots in my abdomen
too tight for rage to escape
my voice comes out in hushed tones
not forceful enough to show anger
I think I should hate you with all of my will
*my body won't let me

Sometimes, Saturdays are too quiet
silence swallows thoughts
about papers and parties
woes and worries
about exams and events
and leaves too much room for your words
that reverberate in my skull

Let me make this very clear.
I am not your arm candy.
I do not exist to be spoiled by you,
and just because I write a poem about some guy I know,
does not mean I'm hopelessly in love with him,
waiting for him to return my affections,
and utterly heartbroken all the while.
In summary:
forget all of the assumptions you've made,
*I don't play by your rules.

I want to tell you not to make my mistake.
I want to tell you not to build walls. You pick up brick by brick, hiding yourself in the structure you've created. You feel safe until you realize you are left alone, trapped in the cage you built to be a home, standing in darkness and suffocating among walls that won't reach out to help you.
I want to tell you I understand.
I want to tell you that I often draw up blueprints for my home. When the world gets too close to me, I sketch tall ceilings above strong walls. I plan elaborate architecture. I sketch large windows that allow for sun-drenched rooms and put details on tall towers until I have a magnificent mansion, knowing all along that it's just a clever disguise for the cage I must never let myself enter. Once you go in, it's very hard to break down the walls.
I want to tell you to give up your bricks.
I want to tell you that you will feel better when you let them go. When things are hard, your hands will twitch until you grab your drafting pen, you'll still set out sheets of paper and start thinking about your walls, but you'll feel better knowing you're only making plans. I know the bricks are heavy, but you don't have to move them alone. I want to tell you to ask for help.
I want to tell you to let Him carry them away.
I want to tell you to let them go.
I want to tell you to stop pretending.
I want to tell you everything will be okay.
I hope you can hear me through your walls.
I don't think you can.

your image fades from mind
as the sun sets to a black sky and
I wonder if you meant what you said,
I wonder if I really want you to mean it,
I wonder if, sitting here in the dark,
I think I am in reach of something
that is no longer there

I am trying too hard to be a deadly fire
or an unspeakable storm,
I am trying too hard to be angry
and unlovable
though I know I am neither
I am trying too hard
to be chaotic and indestructible
trying to create coldness and bitterness
even though I know that flaws are human
and unconditional love exists.
There is artful beauty in the aftermath of mistakes,
you just have to find it.

I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses

and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest

In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human

I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with ***, in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out

I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow

I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
***** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you

How do you smile when it feels like the butterflies in your stomach turned into termites? How do you laugh when they start gnawing at your heart?

I woke up this morning with a caged heart
and while the caged bird sings,
a heart can only beat harder,
trying to break the cage
or else it aches in its confined space
begging to be free again

your fingertips brushed up my bare back
you wrote poetry up my spine,
placed commas in the spaces between
my vertebrae

there are always certain places
to avoid after a breakup
because they remind you of lost love

I can't look in the mirror anymore
because I see you all over me

I don't believe in god, she said
and I tell her it's okay and it is
It's okay to choose science
It's okay to not believe in something you can't see
because a lot of people believe in almighty, invisible, love
and end up broken by people who have never heard the word
It's okay to be angry when things go all wrong
It's okay
I will love you as if nothing is different and it is okay
but when I stand in the pews,
surrounded by song and smiles,
I feel sorry for her*
because life has picked me up and thrown me down
and God caught me, dusted me off, took me in his arms, and said it's okay
I love you as if nothing is different and it is okay
I believe in God because of the two girls who hear the gospel and smile
like they are receiving birthday gifts,
their brows furrowed in concentration before they speak,
trying to bring His words to life in their voices,
trying to bring His vision to the eyes of everyone around them,
they smile all through Mass every time like it is the best day of their lives
you can't make up something like that
whether you think He is real or not
you cannot fake the look on their faces when they speak
you cannot fake the inspiration I feel hearing them
you cannot fake the community that surrounds me
as I am surrounded by singing and smiles
to you He may not exist but to me He is everything
I believe in God because fathers drown themselves
one night at a time in a bar
until they are washed away
and families are shattered,
leaving bits of glass and cuts on wives
and half-orphaned children
and somehow those children keep going
somehow they survive the worst day of their lives
and somehow they still hope for something better than what they had
even when they were dealt the worst cards,
they still smile and laugh and dream the biggest dreams
and somehow those wives still go to Mass
and somehow they raise three children alone
and they work too ******* hard for not enough rewards
and they keep going even though they could quit
and they are all scarred by this one thing, but He tells them he has given them to each other and to look at their scars and to look for shattered glass around other people and to minimize the cuts and scrapes they feel and to sweep it up before anyone steps on it
I believe in God because when I think about all of the things my life could have been
the only way for me to forgive him is to pile each complaint like coals in my heart and let the Holy Spirit light it on fire
I believe in God because two people who numb themselves with pills, hide themselves in selfishness, and deserve nothing but the worst
were blessed with an angel in the form of a four foot tall boy
with bright eyes and a quick mind
with a smile that lights a room
with happiness that is impossible to hide
with curiosity that is unending
with everything that they are not
and yet He gave them a chance to make themselves into something better
and, just in case, he gave the boy an aunt and an uncle and some cousins to watch over him
but his parents can not complain that they were never blessed
the proof is in the boy's smile, his young mind, still able to forgive them

I believe in God because nothing will ever be perfect
I will complain and be hurt and hold grudges and never know exactly the right thing to say
But, once, I picked up each of my fears like bricks, setting it down on a sheet of paper
and I watched it burn in His name
And I felt lighter than the smoke that the breeze carried up and into the night
And everything was okay

I believe in God because if I can't have one stable thing somewhere out there
what is left for me to believe in?

I hope she finds something, too

I knew I didn't love you anymore
When I could fall asleep without pills
My own exhaustion was enough to quiet my mind, to take my thoughts and smother them
I didn't need alcohol anymore to forget the way your eyes lit up and I can't remember how they made me feel when they looked into mine
I don't spend all day punishing myself for staring at your photographs because I've rid myself of all of them (the first one I burned slowly in my fireplace when I was too weak for anything else and needed to watch the flames lick at your face to remind me of reality, needed to pretend you had burned away too to convince myself you weren't coming back,and the final few I tossed carelessly in the trash as I cleaned my house after a party)

I no longer think of your smile in the moonlight,
Or the way your hair looked in sunlight
I have given away everything you gave me
(including the love, which now resides in the heart of a friend who lost her sister and needs it more than I)
And this letter, my once dearest, is my final goodbye

your smile sunk its teeth into my brain
and I can’t get them out
I think about you in that way all the time,
as hard, little pieces of the bigger picture,
embedded in different parts of my memory
that appear when they please

I feel your arms around me before sleep hits me
I see your smile when you tell me good news
I hear your aching heart beating when you’re upset

these are the things embedded in my brain like teeth
the smile you buried in my memories

I’m ******* terrified

every piece of you I find in my life is just a small remnant of you
but every piece of you embedded in my skin, my hair, my personality
leaves a hole when you take it away

you’re quickly replacing my framework,
filling my bones with your mannerisms and laughter and niceties
and breathing life into me so that just that smile can warm every inch of me

but what happens when you’re gone?
what happens when your laughter leaves and bitterness breaks in and rips holes in the whole person you made me?
when sorrow pours into the gaps, do I suddenly sink and drown under its weight?
does it attack what’s left of me?
do I crumble until I am two inches tall, the person I was before you built me up?

there are pieces of you embedded in my memories that will leave holes when they’re gone
I try not to think of all the ways I will try and fail to replace them
even stitches leave scars

I am ******* terrified

smiling, you signed your name
in sharpie on my skin
but that ink can never be permanent
and neither were you

the ghost of you left bruises
down my spine and on my left hip
and I wake up feeling the pain from
the emptiness in my bed

Though you are cold,
(and I try my best to warm you)
your arms are where I melt.

the girl took a long shower

she scrubbed until her skin turned red under the too-hot water
she scrubbed so she could feel clean again
she scrubbed away his fingerprints and his warm breath on her neck
but when she had scrubbed away her outermost layer
and stepped into the cold air
waiting to be the old her again
she still felt wrong
instead of clean she was raw
every inch of her skin fire, every nerve ending feeling too much
she climbed back into the water
she started again
she scrubbed so she could feel the same as before

the time never came