and if I really want it to hurt ill imagine all of the different ways this could have gone
like alternate universes

in one, we never find our way back to each other. too much hurt and not enough heart and sometimes promises don’t work out. sometimes they shouldn’t. time goes on, we long forget the nights we prayed we never would, and what was meant to be; didn’t.
in another, we part. we fall in love with other people like we swore we never would and we take them to the places that were supposed to be ours. there’s a picture of me hidden under your side of the mattress and I still wear the ring. we never forget.
in some, you stop asking how my little brother is doing. he stops asking if you’re ever coming over again.
in others, we never meet.
in one, in my favorite one, everything happens like we imagined. there are no maybes or apologies, no promises of keeping in touch, because we never stop touching. we never stop saying goodnight. we find happiness in Tuesday’s and trips to the store. the stories are true and it’s all worth it in the end.
love is enough and so are we.
so are we.

I know you don't believe in god, but lately I've been praying.
Hear me out.

I know you don't believe in god but do you know the one about Lazarus?
Do you know the story?
The one about resurrection? About saviors? About healing?
Are you getting deja-vu yet?

I know you don't believe in god but have you seen where they hung me up by the wrists?
I think I met you on a Palm Sunday.
Here I am three days later.

I know you don't believe in god but

I know you don't believe in god but you've got stained glass eyes and a velvet pew tongue and these knees don't bend for just any hallelujah.

I know you don't believe in god, and really, neither do I.
But this is the closest to holy that I've ever felt.

yeah maybe sometimes i think about you and your skin and your eyelashes and yeah maybe sometimes i trace the shape of your curls in the air with my fingers when i cant sleep and yeah i guess i still think of your name when people ask me about my poetry and sure you could say its a possibility that i only buy candles that smell like you now and i take scalding hot baths to replicate the feeling of your fingertips on my back and

we are our own Gods, all broken-rib Adam and apple flavored sin

empty starlight kingdoms
a bridge of prayers
those who question -
                                       suffer

somewhere lavender waves silence space above firelight skies
they open doors to a gentle place.

roads destined by adventure
an unknown ticket to anywhere
you and I discover
the postcard skies together

it's all you.
it's skin and sun and sweaty bedsheets.
it's light streaming onto your shoulder freckles.
it's bad breath kisses anyway.
it's callouses and love bruises and i'm sorrys and no you're nots.
it's inadvertent smiles and stomach tingling blushes.
it's the soft spot on the back of your arm.
it's your sleep-jerks and messy eyelashes.
it's that scar under your eyebrow, the one that reminds you of your father.
it's your hatred of the tea I buy even though you end up drinking it every time.
it's you.

dentists are always telling me how nice my teeth are and when they ask about my brushing routine I wanna tell them about you
I wanna tell them I'm trying to scrub off the taste of everyone I kissed after you
I wanna explain how I feel close to you again anytime I taste copper. anytime I spit blood
I want to tell them about the promises you made, the "I love you"s that hide behind my molars.
dentists are always telling me how nice my teeth are and i want to tell them it's because I miss you.

WHAT THE **** AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT THE HOLLOW GAP IN MY CHEST THAT YOU DIDNT ******* CARE ENOUGH ABOUT TO PATCH UP WHEN YOU LEFT

his house.
in the bath.
we just sat for a little while and he looked at me like I was worth anything
everything.
it smelled like wet grass and it was raining but it wasn't a sad rain.
wasn't grey.
he looked at me like I was worth anything and I believed I was.

I get headaches like ocean tides, the ache ebbs and flows against my skull.
I cry salt water and it gives me cotton mouth when i let it drip onto my tongue.
My shoulders ***** like rolling hills.
I bite my lips like erosion.
I yawn fault lines and spit sea foam and I kiss like the sun beams.
My eyes glisten like rain on marble and my hair falls around me like mid August leaves.
I smile like moonlit caverns and laugh like wind filled wheat fields.
I love like continental drift and you are terrified of change.

YOU TOLD ME TO CALL YOU DADDY WHEN WE ****** AND I BLEW OUT MY THROAT FROM SCREAMING ALL NIGHT SO YOU PUT YOUR HAND OVER MY MOUTH AND I CANT TALK TO MY FATHER ON THE PHONE ANYMORE

MY MOTHER ALWAYS TAUGHT ME NEVER TO TOUCH DRUGS BUT THE LOVE IN YOUR BLOODSHOT EYES IS WORTH THE DISAPPOINTMENT IN HERS

it's the morning but not really
and I hear a clock/watch/bomb ticking
but sometimes I stop hearing it
and it makes me wonder if I'm crazy but not really
and my eyelids burn like I've been putting salt in my mascara
and my head feels like there's 43 acres of cotton inside
but not really
and my eyebrows are so heavy
and I'm so cold
and my eyelashes sting so I know I'm alive
but not really

I gave you head for 36 minutes while you drove and when I asked if we could pull over so I could use a gas station restroom you called me selfish and said I could wait. There is a bruise down the left side of my ribcage from leaning over the armrest and I couldn't breathe for two minutes because we hit a pothole.
Good girls wait.
I couldn't wear a seatbelt on the high way because the strap wasn't long enough for me to be able to have my face in your lap. You said I'd be fine and I played your voice over and over in my head every-time you swerved because you had one hand on my neck instead of on the steering wheel. You got angry when I flinched at a passing stop sign and asked why I didn't trust you.
Good girls trust.
When we got to your moms house, you got out of the car and went inside before I even opened my door. You were naked when I walked in. You said "foreplay isn't my thing". I couldn't get my shirt off for five minutes because my fingers were shaking and the buttons were too small so you grabbed the kitchen scissors and cut it up the back. There's a scar along my spine now and you still run your fingers along it every-time I beg you not to. You tell me obedience is love.
Good girls obey.
You said you wanted to **** me in the bathtub so I bent over to turn on the water and you put yourself inside me. I cut my foot on your mothers shaving razor, and you told me you'd get me a bandaid after, told me to hold still so you could finish.
Good girls don't move.
We never made it into the bath because as soon as you were done, you yelled at me for getting blood on your mothers good towel and said I told you I was hurt but only in my head so of course you couldn't hear me. You came back with washcloth and a bandaid. Said I should watch where I step from now on.
Good girls are careful.
You walked me to your brothers room because he had a waterbed that you said you'd been dying to try and told me to put my face in the pillow and my *** in the air. Hands behind my back like a delinquent baby. The first hit came as such a shock my body jolted and you yelled something I couldn't really hear from under the pillow. Once my thighs looked like Tigers bellies and my neck was aching, you placed your corruption inside the only part of me you hadn't touched and when I started to scream you pushed my head back into the drool stained pillow and said to be quiet.
Good girls are quiet.
When you finally released inside, you threw my clothes to me and popped 3 Vicodin. You asked me if I wanted one, and I told you I wanted them all. You explained that that would **** me and I explained that I knew. You said you had to save them for your friends tonight, but you'd provide my noose once you got some more. When you dropped me off at my house, you grabbed my wrist before I got out of the car and said to give you a kiss. I said no, and you tightened your grip, told me to be good. I kissed you.
Good girls are good.

Good girls wait, and trust, and obey, and good girls don't move and good girls are careful and they are quiet and good, and good girls ..
good girls are good. But I am not.

Ninety-Three percent of the mass in our bodies is made of stardust.
The day i learned about this in third period science class, I texted you and relayed what I had understood. You replied four hours later with "that's still just dust".
2. The "Cold War" wasn't actually a physical war
We get in arguments because some days I'm cold and distant, and can't get off the bathroom floor. You tell me it's all in my head.
3. 'I am.' is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
When I told you my favorite quote was "I think, therefore I am." by Descartes, you looked at me like I a *****, said I shouldn't try to be so poetic.
4. A snail can sleep for more than three years at a time.
I can't take naps anymore because when I lay my head down all I can hear is your voice saying "you sleep so much you might as well be dead".
5. The brain can’t create a new face. It only remembers faces you’ve seen somewhere before. This includes in your dreams.
Since I met you, I stopped dreaming in color. All of my fantasies are black and white. You say it's probably because I have "issues".
6. Two days after they die, ants give off an odor which other ants pick up on. They come pick up the ant and carry it to an ant graveyard.
I used to talk to you about my funeral plans, how I wanted to be made into a cherry blossom. You said you'd have me cremated.
7. The human body is made up of 70% water.
Jesus Christ, I am drowning.

it is 2:16 AM.
I am not awake because I am emptying my veins or medicine cabinets or tear ducts,
I am awake simply because I have not yet drifted into gray unconsciousness.
I will not fall asleep tonight on a salt soaked pillow-case and I will not wince every time my wrist rubs against the comforter.
I will fall asleep quickly, because I remembered to take my medicine, and I will stay asleep and dream of beautiful church buildings with stained glass windows and nativity porcelain and rooftop crucifixes I will not dream about jumping off.
When the bells ring, I will wake up and my mom will call me in for breakfast.
I will not be nervous.
I will not clasp my hands behind my back to hide my forearms.
I will eat eggs and toast and sausage and I will lick the grease from my fingers and it will taste good. It will not taste like calories. Like regret.
I will put my pants on and when they get stuck around my thighs I will groan and throw them out. I will not modify my body to fit into them.
My eyes will be bright and my veins intact and my shirt will be short sleeved and that will be alright.
I will be alright.

2:07 a.m
It is two o'clock in the morning, the wind is screaming against my windowpane, trees are scraping the outside of my bedroom walls, the ground is being soaked with whirling drops of water and I,
I am missing you.

2:09 a.m
The pattering of raindrops upon my rooftop falls in line with the rise and fall of my chest and makes me wonder if she is doing the same with you.

2:14 a.m
The storm has died down and it reminds me of you, and how after a fight you'd grab me by my sobbing face and just hold me till I was calm. I never thought I'd miss a storm.

Maybe I got greedy.
Maybe it's in my blood.
Maybe I'm a descendent of Icarus, the Greek son who flew too high.
All I know is that while my
ancestor was trying
to escape Crete, I've been trying
to escape myself
and baby you were my wings.
But I flew too high.
I should have noticed
the burning in my lungs,
the smoke suffocating my windpipe because I was getting too close
to your fire and with every
"I love you"
I could feel the wax
in my heart melting,
dripping down through my ribcage but when it finally fell to my feet,
I ignored the burn.
And here I am,
                         f
                          a
                            l
     ­                        l
                              i
                               n
                                 g

Waiting for you
to catch me.

Maybe the smoke
is in your eyes.

Maybe you're scared
of the flames.

Or maybe
                you can't handle
the
                                                  heat.

I. 

my head was starting to overflow
thoughts and memories 
spilling out onto the streets
 so I took an eraser to the etchings that littered the cave walls 
of my mind and now 
it’s a blank canvas 
and baby you are no longer 
my muse.

ll.

my shoulders were beginning 
to ache from years 
of carrying the weight 
of a lifetime of sadness 
so I scrubbed off the blue 
of your name and found only gray underneath 
and you can imagine my surprise when I learned 
there is something worse than pain. 
emptyness.

lll.

two arms are not nearly enough 
to bear the weight 
of hearing you tell me 
you don’t love me anymore 
so I planted the seeds of your words in my wrists 
and when they finally blossomed 
the terrain was too tattered to recognize the words that once ****** the life from my very veins 
like weeds 
and maybe that’s for the best.
llll.

when the bruises began to form 
in the places around my waist 
you once held onto so tightly 
like it meant the difference between life and death 
like my hips were the only handles left on Earth and you were afraid to fall in love, I realized bruised lips are not the same thing as tough love.

lllll.

my thighs shrunk everytime I
said no 
I’m not hungry, I already ate, I’m fine thanks,
 and the bigger the space between
 my thighs grew, the better I felt knowing I was making room for you
 without realizing 
until it was too late that the more area you occupied, the less I had to grow.

I’m wilting.

llllll.

my knees are shaking like
 the leaves were
 the day you told me you no longer wanted to try and love me
 so my calves are swaying and 
my toes are curling and these lines twisting around my thighs 
are begging 
to be 
opened .
lllllll.

my wrists are starting to overflow
nightmares and heartbreaks 
spilling out onto the streets 
so I took a razor to the etchings 
that littered the cave walls
of my arms and now 
it’s a ****** canvas 
and baby you are no longer 
my muse.

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.

there is a rotting carcass beneath my ribcage.
my mother says to "stop speaking like that" and "it's all just in your head" but when I try to explain how sometimes my neck aches because my cranium feels like it carries the sun, she doesn't listen.
doesn't understand why I always smell like smoke and I just let her think it's nicotine and tar because that's easier to talk about than the flames on my tongue, or the two burn victims dangling from my elbows.
when my therapist asks why I wear so many bracelets I tell her they match my outfit.
I say nothing about the storms that rip through my bedroom at 4 o'clock in the morning and how I need something to tie me down at the wrists so I don't fly away because I've seen Oz but capsule castles and Prozac princesses are not my idea of a fairytale.
I don't show her my bruised ankles because no matter how many times you click your heels, you aren't going home.
There is a rotting carcass beneath my ribcage but everytime I ask the doctor to pleaseohgodplease get it out of me, he tells me you can't live without a heart.

I am counting scars
like stars
galaxies resting on your forearms
wondering how many times you were sent into the universe
alone.
Bruises cover your back in the form of Nebulas
you tell me it's from fighting comets.
But I know your father is Pluto,
cold and distant,
and your mother was the Sun.
but you keep forgetting lately, you are Auroras daughter.

I've always been good at trivia.
I know that human babies have around 60 more bones than adults and sometimes it makes me wonder what else we lose with age, and if we ever get it back.
I know that the body has enough iron in it to make a metal nail 3 inches long and maybe that's the only reason Jesus was willing to pay for our sins.
He knew his suffering was a part of him.
We are all Gods children.
I know the strongest muscle is in the jaw and how when men get angry it bulges like old house drywall with bad plumbing.
And I know that the human nose can detect over 50,000 scents even if I can never distinguish the smell of your sweaters when I go to your mothers house and I may know a lot of things you could bring to trivia night but I still don't know how to be something you miss.

In my 7th grade English class, we spent half the year analyzing the works of Emily Dickinson because "poetry is Gods gift to the voiceless".

Two years later I would meet a girl who cried verse
and bled syllables
whose notebooks were filled with melancholy metonymy
and she was Gods gift but I have never heard anything louder than the graphite screams etchedin her words.
Poetry is Gods gift to the voiceless but I didn't know.
I didn't know people could be
flesh and blood
and bone and
poetry.
I didn't know she would wring metaphors from my lungs,
snap my bones into line breaks.
I didn't know she would slow my heart to keep time or scatter my middle name when she couldn't find the right letter and I didn't know she, with her scarred fingertips and scabby lips would turn me into
poetry.

you meet new people and they'll say sweet things and at first it will sting everytime they compliment you because those words weren't meant for them but as time goes along the weight in your stomach will turn into a helium balloon, floating to the top everytime they text you goodmorning and things will be going great and you won't even remember his name until one day they don't answer your messages and they post pictures with people that aren't you and the balloon will deflate and your lungs will too and you'll wonder if your mouth is full of scissors or your hands have razor blade calluses because what could be so bad about you that no one can afford to stay

the scars fade and you delete the messages, you forget what their eyes look like and what their jackets smelled of and nothing is the same but everything wants to be