Bedsheets. A distant memory that is all but forgotten-  fading flesh and neurons straining to recapture the scent of a long-ignited, distant flame...

It's interesting to read your older poems because
You see the shifts in voice and tone and think,

*I was in this pain before,
perhaps worse,
and I survived

in·ti·ma·cy
i. the catch they refuse to put down in books forgotten in church pews is as follows; heaven only exists in your memories. you create heaven in moments that have already happened, without the pearly gates or judgement. it is why you always reminded me that i am not aware of what i'm missing until i've immortalized it into something i will never be able to experience again.
ii. you do not, cannot, exist in the emptiness of one person. the brutal truth is that no one is worth it. everyone lies on their back and sees the same world in different shades, everyone is making mistakes that keep them up at night, they have no room to contain your multitudes.
iii. you are only subjected to understanding how selfish this notion is when you become too much for yourself, when you wish more than anything to stuff your runoff emotions and times you've stayed up singing to the sunrise into the cracks of someone who'd rather get drunk late and leave the bed cold in the morning than tell you that you are not as important as you like to think you are
iv. i am not as important as i like to think i am

ab·sence
i. i can't bring myself to say sorry for leaving, i am chasing sunsets and even though i hope you are sitting in one dimension or another, i refuse to be tethered to these actions. i love the noise of your boots on the asphalt but i will keep you in a moment that has now already happened and make you heaven after i stop hearing that sound like my favorite song when i wake up at three AM and forget that i am alone
ii. i have always had intense eyes and you used to tell me that the way my hair falls in front of my face was your favorite thing in the whole universe but you stopped brushing it away to see all of me and i can't help but be worried that maybe i stuffed all of my anger into the parts of you that were still grasping for air and i smothered your flames like a child holding onto a bird so tight it dies in her palms
iii. i remember waking you up in the middle of the night and saying, "do you think that love is just timing how long it takes you to get the other person to hate you?" i don't remember your exact reply but you started sleeping in a different bed after that

in·sol·u·ble
i. one time my mom told me that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result so even though there is no medicine that will numb my senses and make it hard to wake up early but keep you foggy in my memory, we should stop trying to mean it when we mumble out "i love you" all the times we are both bored and too lazy to find someone new
ii. like most people who choose writing over therapy, i am a liar. i have always been a self-centered liar that only cares about myself  but for the sake of inspiration on my fingertips i can pretend we were in love at one point or another.
iii. i talk too fast and you told me that you hated that about me before i threw something in your direction aiming to miss and hitting your shoulder (i'm sorry) that was our worst fight and you stopped looking me in the eyes until i packed up all of my things and tiptoed around your temper and out of the house
iv. i didnt exactly keep count but i think it took around seven months and twelve days for me to make you hate me and you've never said it but the whole world feels like it has shut me out and gone cold and if recounting all of this is what heaven is supposed to be like, i would rather fall backwards into hell because at least it is warm there

rep·e·ti·tion
i. i've exhausted all of my apologies because i have been conditioned to feel bad about not fulfilling peoples expectations and you made the word sorry sound sharp, i am far away from my ambitions and if you were still here youd call me lazy but youd kiss me after
ii. when it is very late, i start to believe that maybe i have the capacity of multitudes inside of me and thats why all i do is feel sorry for myself, because i am the only one in the world capable of carrying the hearts of the people that don't love me anymore
iii. when morning comes, i am always able to convince myself that i am not as important as i like to think that i am.

Today you are going to pick up your only winter jacket from Hers. On the train you are shaking. You pick up a large bottle of Zinfandel at the liquor store down her street and spend $10 that you don’t really have. You walk up to her street. Four boys and an older woman (mother, landlord?) crowd a portion of the sidewalk. You brush past on the gravel, almost slipping. A form that strongly resembles hers is in the driveway; your heart threatens to leave your chest. This walk is eerily familiar to you. Music is crowding your thoughts and you slip out of your headphones, unsteadily approaching the porch. You sit. She is moving her car so her roommate can go out. You don’t know what to do.

She says “what’s up” like you’ve seen her do to people she doesn’t know very well but wants to flirt with and her eyes betray no warm recognition like they used to. She asks if you should come in?  

I just picked up liquor, I can share it with you if you want to have a drink, you say. There’s no way that your nerves are going to steady themselves on their own.

I don’t know, we’ll see. Cross the threshold. Door closes behind you. You are trapped now. You knew this would happen. You want to go upstairs, up to her room, climb the familiar steps and strip naked, settle in your niche in the bed like you’ve always done...

Bookcase isn’t where it used to be. Curtains are different, or new. Couch is ratty as ever. You remember the nights you used to spend making food in her kitchen, nursing her stomachaches on the couch watching ****** TV and laughing in each other’s eyes during the commercials. Breaking each other’s molds and melting away from the rest of the world.

Did she fix the window from where that guy tried to break in last semester?
No. The curtains are just new.
Oh, nice.
Drink?
Definitely.

You’re handed a pumpkin-flavored hard cider and this relaxes you a little, because you’ve always felt cooler than you actually are when you’ve got a bottle to gesticulate with while you’re talking to someone. It’s really just a mask for social anxiety, a cute 8oz bottle of conversation lubricant. Apply as needed. Consult a doctor for intense pain lasting more than four hours.

You two try and talk. She asks why. You can’t speak. After a few minutes of holding up, you fold, crumple.

Hoarse, tense. Your throat is burning and she isn’t doing anything as your knuckles around your knees wrench up your jeans and turn white telling her about how Heather died and how Chickee is in the hospital and just had a seizure from the meds they were using to keep her from dying of pneumonia and now she’s lost whatever precious vestiges of memory were left and remembers nothing at all and you’ve been fighting daily to keep your mind from running away from you, doing this all on top of work and courses is stringing you out so thin can’t she see that you just wanted you to have time to take care of yourself holy **** -

I know you hate me now I know and I’m never going to escape the hurt I caused you because it feels to you that I just left but I didn’t ever want to leave it just had to happen

We see relationships from two different vantage points
((Did she **** her neighbor))
Why are you on a dating site

It’s a tool you’re using to force yourself back into social interactions but it's also a necessary evil. There aren’t too many queer women to find anywhere but the internet anyway, they’re all in hiding during the day in a batcave or something -

Why did you leave me
You never thought it’d get like this
Coward

Leaving after you tell her to ******* because she asks you to, walking out with my things onto the porch and a cigarette in your mouth desperate to inhale something that’s toxic as if the carcinogens will take effect right there and you’ll drop dead of all kinds of diseases in the middle of her walkway

She comes outside with letter keep this read it you’re not going to like it but it’s all I’ve got for you and it’s what I’ve wanted to say
You don’t want it, you say, you don’t need this cancer sitting on your desk and silently invading your life
******* take it
You stand in the street reading the letter and it’s all about how she thinks you’re some heinous ******* who just left her and took the easy way out when things got difficult.

Maybe you did, you’re a nihilist, you don’t think there’s a point to anything and you do like things when they’re easy for you, it hurts less that way- but doesn’t everybody?

People who say they’re saints are lying to themselves.

Some sort of god is making itself visible to you tonight. You’re freezing and everything in life is shaping up to be a perfectly engineered mess and yet you’re happier than you’ve ever been. It’s so thrilling to be happy alone- sober and control of your body, answering to no one.

You could get addicted to this. You’re making art that means something; listening to rock music and climbing through fountains, burying your face in the dewy grass of the park and thinking of no one else. This phenomenon can hardly be put into words but it is sure worth a try, my ******* god. You were so happy earlier that you wrapped your palms around a small decorative evergreen tree outside an office building and hugged it, breathing in its wintry scent and not giving a **** who was watching or thinking.

****!! A profane word is no less profane than the atrocity of allowing the true profanities of society and the psyche to go unaddressed. You stand inside this concrete empire, watching the world revolve.