I wrote a poem in my sleep last night.
It was about how we feign flexibility
just to hide our jealousy;
how a night of drinking is supposed to soothe years of neglect
and a day of headaches is supposed to pound out the sad.

I don’t remember the poem, but I remember it related to
your sorries and goodbyes.
It related to how they left just as quickly and silently as you did.

And I’m still waiting for them like an idiot,
waiting for the rain in the drought and the food in the famine.
As if I deserve some kind of closure that really doesn’t matter.

I could activate volcanoes with this anxiety, but the heat between you two could do much worse.

The roads and the hills are no match for phone lines and heavy words misguiding stolen innocence.

I can’t be your guiding stars because I’m too busy watching the light show she puts on around you.

When I have so much of no feeling
that it turns into apathy, I’m told
to believe that it’s my mental health
playing tricks on me again. But what
if this is just who I’m destined to be?
No one wants to figure out what’s
wrong with me, so they feed me
antidepressants, antipsychotics,
anxiety medication, and mood
stabilizers until I stop complaining.
What if they’re just shutting me out?
Like the ocean pulling back, my eyes
are reaching out for help. If you
can’t be that, all you see is the
empty waters. What’s really there
is all of the casualties of the storm.

Love songs are either about “heartbreak” or “the one.” What do you listen to when you’re somewhere in between?

It’s racing through my mind. I can’t see those hands without picturing where they’ve been with what intentions. It brings the old friend Anxiety back; it makes me pull the hair out of my head; it makes me scrub my skin until it’s bright red. I don’t know makes me think this way– why you would be the villain and not me.

I see those bright eyes
That squinted toward me when we were younger,
Admiring my wet hair and eyeing my exposed legs;
There are those locks that brushed up
Against my cheeks when I least expected it;
And that soothing voice that made my
Hips stir and my wrists sore.

We don’t even care
To bring the past up because
What’s done is done and
We must move on, right?
We’re adults now and adults need not
Share what’s on their minds. It’s written as clearly
On my face as the wind that played
With the leaves on my front porch while you fiddled
With my hair and with my heart.

You hit me even harder than depression does, but it’s my eyes that swell and not my cheek. Our waves of emotion are goodbyes, not hellos, that turn into maybes at best. I’m careful to pick light, non-provocative words that fill up balloons to meet the clouds. They float away like nothing ever happened and like nothing ever will happen.

I can see the two of you
together
and I am shaken.

How does she taste?
As her voice brings back memories,
is she easier to digest?

I can read her, you know.
I know that when she has scissors in her hands,
she allows her fingertips to dance about the blades.
I know that when she’s taking herself home,
she considers making a quick stop between the tracks.
I know that when she speaks to you,
she’s not trying to help herself;
she’s trying to gain confirmation of what she already knows:
there is no way out.

I also know that, as you run your eyes through her,
your voices match a love song you once knew.

So while I wait for you to finish her,
I must know:
as her expression inevitably handles
a muddled past you’re trying
so desperately to pretend
didn’t exist,

is she easier to digest?