Little girl, where did you go?

2. With your pinned-back baby hairs
3. and your untouched eyes, clear from the smudges of life. 

4. Where’d you go?

5. Did you run off and hide the first time daddy threw a beer bottle against the wall?

6. Was it the noises, the smash of glass against drywall, the shriek you didn’t recognize until you closed your own mouth? 

7. Little girl, are you hiding? 
Please stop hiding. 

8. Little girl tell me, did your mothers cigarette smoke fog your view of happiness ? 

9. Did the ashes coat your eyelashes so thick that all you could see was darkness?
10. Tell me, little girl, are you afraid of the dark?

11. Or was it the night you watched your father fall out of love?

12. With mom, with you,
with life?

13. Little girl, tell me, did you fill a balloon with your insecurities?

14. Did you tie around your wrists a little too tight and it’s been awhile since you’ve even tried taking it off? 

15. Are the marks on your arms from nights when it got a little too windy, and you were a little too high up? 

16. Little girl, how did it feel to be caught in a storm?

17. Are you still up there darling?

18. Are you ever coming down?
Little girl please come down.

19. Baby girl, let me tie rocks to your ankles, place pillows where you’ll land, will you let me catch you?

20. Darling please let me catch you.

It took me one year, six months, twenty-three days, and thirteen minutes to stop thinking of you. 
To stop constantly digging my unmanicured fingernails in my palms every time I saw you show up on my newsfeed and I’d like to think I don’t know why I haven’t just ******* blocked you.
But I do. 
It’s hard to admit that 
I’m so in love with you,
seeing that you changed your mood from “bored” to “hungry”, is worth the splintering pain I get 
in my chest. 
It’s embarrassing to know that while you’re thinking about the growl in your stomach I’m thinking of the hunger in your eyes the first time you told me you loved me. 
you loved me. 
you loved me. 
god, I’m so ******* tired of the word “loved”. So now that your favorite shoes are scuffed you don’t love them? 
Now that your piano is missing a key, you don’t love it? Now that your grandmother is six feet under, hollow-eyed but still in her famous Christmas sweater, you don’t love her? Where did it go? Did it vanish when your shoelaces frayed, when you couldn’t hit that particular note, when grandpa stopped smiling? when I stopped smiling?
It took me one year, six months, twenty-three days, and thirteen minutes of melatonin margaritas, long-sleeved Julys, late night poetry, early morning trash and you, you are not worth it. You are not worth failing math because i can’t concentrate everytime the teacher says “X”. You are not worth spending my whole third period wondering if that’s how you see me. You are not worth the look in my mothers eyes when she finds me screaming in the shower at 3 am and you are not worth the same look on my little brothers face when he asks me why I’m never hungry anymore.
You are not worth the paper.
I have killed so many ******* trees in the last eighteen months hoping maybe they’d **** the memory of you, but the only thing dying is the light in my eyes and ******* I want it back. My dad told me yesterday that I smelled like smoke. I told him it was cigarettes. I did not tell him about the light in my eyes, or the embers in my shoes because how am I supposed to explain that the first time you kissed me you lit a fire in me.
How do I tell him the wind of your “I don’t love you anymore” blew it out.

Today I went for a walk

And saw a dandelion by the road

It held no beauty or anything to offer

But I kept it anyway

And I began to think

Maybe that’s what you do with me
And I clung to the dandelion

Tighter than ever.

l. 
I will French kiss your ingrown hairs, your merigold bruises, and the acne you fight wars with every morning.

ll.
 I will caress your cellulite like the waves on the backs of your thighs are the fountain of youth. 

lll.
 I will ****** the folds of your tummy, the stubble underneath your arms, and the stretch marks that you don’t realize make you a ******* tiger, darling.

lV.
 I will fall in love with your flaws, and remind you of your perfections.
 I will kiss you when the boy you love breaks your heart and you just need something on your lips.
 I will hold your hand when you get your nose pierced and again when you regret it the next day.
 I will bring you Mountain Dew and Advil when you can’t get out bed for two days and when your dad tells you to **** it up, I will shut the door in his face and turn up the radio.

V. 
I will yell at boys who hurt you and at girls who think they know you. I will tell the “cool kids” to *******. I will argue with your parents and curse at your exes. I will be known as a ***** as long as you know me as someone you can’t count on.

Vl.
 I will love you when you hate me, when you hate life, when you hate everyone, and when you hate yourself. I will love you when it rains and when the sun beats down on us in June. I will love you when it’s 9:00 pm and we’re eating ice cream on my porch and I will love you when it is 2:30 am and you are gagging with salt in your mouth from crying for what seems like years.

Vll. 
I will always love you.

My room is a mess

debri settled on the nightstand from sleepover confessions, spilling all the secrets collecting dust inside our rib cages 

ashes scattered across my roof from long nights of hoping the smoke would fill the spaces left 
by our fathers 
bladeless pencil sharpeners casting shame from my dresser 

empty liquor bottles downed with hazy eyes and thoughts of those stupid ******* boys who won’t stop breaking our hearts and
maybe 
I don’t know why I haven’t just put myself out but 
how can you smother a fire when the ashes are already cold

fall is coming.

I can tell by the way the leaves on the Cherry Tree outside on my house are jumping to their deaths just to get one chance to taste the Earth.
fall is coming. 

leaves are dying, kissing cement
and I am wondering what it’s like.

Vll.
Wrath- I will dig my fingernails into my palms leaving crescent shaped reminders and I will clench my jaw so hard you'll swear it's gonna shatter and I will scream louder than you did when you broke your wrist because you were trying to fly from the top of the staircase.
Vl.
Greed- I'll smash my lips against yours every chance I get, leaving you with a sore tongue and ****** teeth and your mom will start to wonder why you always cover your mouth when you talk about me.
V.
Sloth/laziness- You're gonna call me eight times in a row because I haven't been at school in a week and you'll  think maybe I just have my phone turned off or I'm sick in the hospital but when you stop by on your way to buy me a "get well" card you'll find me in my room reading Cosmo under a heated blanket.
lV.
Pride- You'll see me in chemistry the next week with a new hairstyle and a short little skirt that must make me clumsy because I keep dropping things and picking them up in front of boys I used kiss in parking lots.
lll.
Lust- Your friends all tell you how lucky you are and your dad gives you a pat on the back and your little brother asks if you accidentally punched me because he heard me screaming so loudly last night and you start to wonder what's wrong with you. Why don't you feel "lucky".
ll.
Envy- You watch me trade out Pizza for water at lunch and every now and then when I glance at other girls waists you'll try and hold my hand and tell me I'm perfect and that I need to eat but I tell you I'm full and someone whispers under their breath "of jealousy".
l.
Gluttony- I get mad at you every Wednesday when you go to your Honors Society meetings and even though they're only twenty minutes I'll cry in the bathroom just loud enough for everyone to hear and when you ask me afterwords not to cause a scene I'll scream in your face and even though you won't know what I'm saying you'll understand that this isn't what you signed up for and I'll see it in your eyes and I'll leave before you ever get the chance.