We sat across the table
and I couldn't look away
from all his tattoos.

Without thinking,
I stretched out my hand
and extended my finger.

I began to trace
the arcade tickets that ran
the length of his arm.
He grew up with his grandfather
and they spent hours in his arcade.
His grandfather was his first best friend,
so the tickets they won were his first tattoo.

I could feel his smile grow.
He loved his tattoos
and now I did, too.

He left a mark on my life.
Just like the ink
on his skin.

I see him everywhere.
I can't tell if he tattooed himself
in my mind or under my eyes.

There's no escaping
or replacing him.
There's just no one like him.

He had a kind of goodness
that could be seen
in the smile that
would burn into the back of my mind,
haunting me for years.

He was just dorky enough
to get a laugh out of me
when I had the weight of the
world on my chest.

If you're lucky enough
to even know him,
he'll put a tattoo in you, too.

Whether you want it or not,
you will never forget him.
Trust me, I've tried.

He comes out of nowhere
and he helps you.
He asks for help
just as much as you.

It's just enough
to make you think
that he needs you, too.

God knows he was what I needed.
I needed him like
an alcoholic needs his whisky.
He was my whisky.

His finger tips
had a different kind of ink
and he was part of me with every touch.
I swear he had needles
in the tips of his fingers.
His touch always stung,
and now I will never
forget that sting
that is now stuck
in the parts of me he touched.

All the hugs,
the intentional and unintentional ways
that we touched.
They left their mark,
their pain-riddled stain on me.

The stains of him were left
with memories and stories
and they were attached
to songs that I can no longer listen to
and places I can no longer visit.

He came into my life so quick
and he left just as fast.
I think about him often.

I dream about him often.
It's like he stops in now and then
to catch up in chat in my sleep.

He took a part of me
with him when he left.
But his memories remain
and I don't want them.

I think about the goals he had
and I hope he achieves them.
I just wish I could be the one
that gets to congratulate him.

He will be leaving in August
and I will probably never see
or talk to him again.
But I will never be able
to forget him.

He is the one tattoo
I wish I could remove.

Your words float so beautifully
out of your mouth
and dance across the room
into my ears.

They were weightless
from the moment they left your lips
to the moment I would repeat them to myself
laying alone in my bed.

I thought nothing of it.
You had such a way with words.
Each syllable soon matched
with the beat of my heart.

Each word you spoke
was suddenly keeping me alive.
And I became lost in your sound.

Only now do I realize
why the words
slipped from your tongue so easily;
they hold no meaning.

I wonder what you did
with the mixtape you made for me,
but never gave to me.

Did you give it to the girl
that you ******
the same day that we
broke up?

Do you have one saved
that you give to each girl,
adding or subtracting songs
that fit into their world?

Was I ever even yours?
Or was I sharing you
without even knowing?
Who else did you promise
a personalized mixtape to?

I wish my brain cells were like my skin cells
and they would replace themselves
so I could have memories without you in them.
But you are wedged into the crevasses of my brain,
but you are not found with a flashlight,
but rather the pale moonlight and the darkness of 2am
when I’m staring at the drywall in my room
when I should be staring at the back of my eyelids

Boys and friends,
family and school.
These are the things
I knew in my hometown.

It never changed.
It was always the same.
When things went well
it was the same.
When things went bad,
they never changed.

I’ve seen the same dull faces
everyday of my life.
But the day I saw his face,
it was like I moved to a whole new town.

He made the simple,
daily, places exciting
because whatever happened,
I couldn’t wait to tell him about it.

But one day
he didn’t care
what I had to say.

He stopped inviting me over
and I knew less and less.
I didn’t know how his day was.
I just wanted to know how his day was.

I used to think
I was so miserable
in my hometown.

I got sick of the
same daily routine.
But when he left,
it was a whole new town again.

This town was always burning.
Burning, burning, burning
then rebuilding.
Rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding.

It changed when he left.
It wasn’t the same.

He was a paradise
in this otherwise boring city.
But no vacation can last
and now I’m stuck where it always storms.

I want my sunshine back.
I want my best friend back.
I want him back.

There isn’t a place
in this washed up town
that doesn’t have a memory
of him and I
and the time we spent together.

When he left,
he took so much of me with him
and I want it back.

I want to play my favorite songs
and not cry
because it was the song playing
when he told me about his family.

I want to watch movies
and not think about
how we joked along with the plot
and made it our own.

I want to go out
and not wish he was there with me.
I want to sleep
and not wonder
what it would be like
to have his arms wrapped around me.

When he left,
everything changed.
Nothing was the same.

Things are not okay tonight,
I never know what to say,
how to help.
I’m not a good friend.
I’m not as good as I once was.
You showed me a new perspective,
and I knew you weren’t okay.
But every ******* time I tried to help,
You shoved me away.
Don’t blame me for trying.
I only wanted to help.
The words didn’t come out right,
and I ****** up.
I love you.
Even if we never say it.
I love you.
You’ll be okay
and I’m sorry
that I don’t know how to help.

Can anybody hear me?
I'm screaming at the top of my lungs.
I'm surrounded by people.
They're all holding guns.
They're pointed at me.

Their faces don't turn,
their eyes don't blink.
What have I done to earn
their cruel cold shoulder?
I feel so cold.

There is no eye contact.
My eyes only meet the barrel of a 45.
Pull the trigger, please!
I've been begging to die.
The silence will **** me first.

There is no light, there is no love.
The movies have lied
now look what it's done.
There is no savior.
I am too far gone.

August 19, September 15
Dates that will pool in the back of my mind.
Only stopped with a bullet
going 925.
It's only a matter of time.

Your memory lurks in the songs that I can’t listen to anymore.
You find your way into my head
every night when I lay in bed.
I find you in the saddest parts of me,
and you’re infecting the best parts of me .
I can’t find joy without wishing that I could share it with you.
You are killing me,
and we haven’t spoken in months.

I'll see you on the streets
and you'll wave
and I'll smile.

You'll hug me
and as I am around you again,
I will inhale
and hold on to you as long as I can.

You'll ask me how things are.
I'll lie and say I'm okay.
I won't tell you
that I can't sleep anymore.

I won't tell you
that I can't eat since you left,
that I can't look myself in the mirror
because all I see are the parts of me
that you must have got sick of looking at.

I got sick of them, too.

I only loved myself
when you loved me, too.
Now you left me alone
and I want to leave me, too.

You'll talk
but I won't hear you.
My mind will be thinking
of the pills in my cabinet
and how much prettier
I would look on the floor.

You will talk
but I will not hear you.
I will not hear.

You'll tell me about your new girlfriend
and how her hair falls perfectly
around her round face.

I will wonder
if you ever told your ex's
about my eyes
or my skin.

I will lie
and tell you that I am happy for you.
And I will go home
and try not to die.

We will hug again,
and you will walk away.
I will turn around
and try not to cry.

I will never see you again
and wonder if you will see me one more time;
only dead.

I told myself that I’d go to bed early tonight,
after I did my homework and brushed my teeth.
I’d let myself read a bit,
and I would get some sleep.
But then I started to talk to you.
And we laugh as we looked at old pictures,
and the memories that go with them.
You made plans that we both knew
would never actually happen.

But at 11:52 on a Monday night in January,
when there is snow on the ground,
my eyelids are heavy,
and you are lying in bed, it didn’t matter.
We could be as unrealistic as we wanted.
I asked you questions,
and you’re answers made me laugh.
You were never one to be serious.

But I was slightly irritated,
because I wanted a peek at your limitless mind.
But you kept joking,
so I decided not to care,
because at least I was talking to you.
You told me your plans for the future,
but how sad you were.
But whenever I asked,
you told me you were joking.
I knew you weren’t.

I wanted to ask more,
but didn’t want to impose.
So I thought I’d let it go.
But I hope you’re really happy.
I hope you’re not sad,
like I know you lied.
Because I’ve met a lot of people in my life,
and I’ve known a lot of personalities.
And of them all,
I think yours deserves happiness more than any other.

I think that you deserve to be happy.
As happy as you made me
that one monday night in January at 2am
when there was snow on the ground
and my eyelids were heavy,
and you were lying in bed.

Ah, the numbness has returned
and it hugs me like an old friend,
here to take me home.

There’s something addictive about sadness.
It embraces you
and coddles you
and it’s coldness feels like freedom.
There’s comfort in that hurt.

I found more comfort
sinking into my bed
in my room alone,
missing you,
then I ever found
when I was with you.

I longed for the pain of our end
to be back with the pain in my head.

You broke me today.
I bet you don’t know how.
I saw you hint
that you thought that girl was cute.

You said she was pretty,
but I didn’t really mind.
Just like I think boys are cute
but no one compares to you.

But you kept talking about the
way she makes you laugh,
and when you started rambling,
I knew more than I wished.

I love our nights together,
mainly because I love you.
And I tricked myself into believing
that you loved me, too.

I love you even more
when the love songs play.
It hurts to know
that you don’t feel the same.

I love you, I love you, I love you.
You confuse my heart.
Because it’s happy and sad
when you run through my mind.

I wish you talked about me
the way you talk about that girl.
I wish I didn’t love you,
or that you loved me, too.

But the more I paid attention,
the more I knew,
that you loved that girl,
like I loved you.

I’ve come to terms
with the fact
that who I am
will never please
who I want to be.
And the fact that my life
with never satisfy
my wildest dreams.

Because everyone who knows me
is a bad person
and my only purpose
is to sit here
and rattle of the ways
in which I am worthless.

The skin I am in
is suffocating me
and I can no longer breathe.
I’m dreaming of the sweet release
that I will find in the comfort
of death.

I long for the tight grip
that is constantly held
around my neck
to squeeze so hard
and no longer tease.


I am constantly feeling like I am dying
but I won’t ******* die.