he sees the ocean in my eyes
ringed with sunshine (he provides)
he looks at me so steady
holds my gaze until I laugh and look away
brushes the hair from my cheek
and whispers
"you are gods perfect creation"
and I feel something in me
snap.
he is the closest I will ever get
to holiness.
if religion felt like this,
I would kneel with the best of them.

I eat overripe fruit
bags of chips
bowls of cereal
and drink hot
cups of coffee
hundreds of water bottles
leave everything strewn about
for weeks.
my clothes lay mixed
clean and *****
covered in dog hair
regardless.
I can't bear to organize.
every item shifted
reveals an image of you,
some remnant from a time
forever lost.

i hope the beast we share
(our only remaining connection)
keeps you up at night,
pulls our old photographs
and the letters i wrote you
from the drawer where they rest
and make you remember.
i wonder if you kept the poster,
the collage of our memories;
i bet you burned it
(just to see my face warp
like you claim my heart did).
i know you act like you don't care,
like you're better off,
like i was a bad friend to you,
like i was never anything but
exactly what you asked of me
(i tell myself the same things,
except when i say it,
it's the truth).
i need this beast to stalk you too.
i can't be the only one to shoulder the weight
of our heavy silence
(why does it still hurt?).

sometimes i trace my own hip bones
in the dark,
and run my fingertips over the curvature of my spine,
pretending the warmth belongs to someone else.
i speak my own name in my mind,
imagining it's syllables spoken tenderly
by a lover's tongue,
each letter dripping with sugar.
my fingertips itch for closeness,
and curl around imaginary fingers,
like wishful muscle memory.
i have so much love to give.
i have so much love to receive.

i have so much love to give.
i'm brimming with it.
it moves in me like water,
leaks out like the tide of the sea.
when the moon gets too close,
the love in me rises
and struggles
against my boundaries,
pushes itself up my throat.
my biggest obstacle is swallowing
it back down,
calming it,
when the moon
is eclipsed.

it's 6:12 in the evening
and i have just arrived home
after a long day of listening
and seething
(and crying)
and drowning
in a sea of oppression brought
upon me not by my choice
but by my mere birth
while those around me argue
that i can't be drowning
because they don't know what
water looks like

the problem with attachment is that
it has to end.

and the stronger the connection,
the harder the end hits.

it's these thoughts that plague me
when i wonder who i was
before you:

what parts of me are really me
and which parts of me
are actually you?

will i ever be able to distinguish between the two?

i hope when that song comes on
your lips curl up before they curl down

i hope when the first note registers your remember happy moments
the long runs in autumn
the conversations held at 1 am
the days spent just lazing in each other's company
the unforgettable concerts

and i hope that when the second note registers,
your stomach drops and your heart soars up in your throat

i hope a lump like a coal forms in your throat
and salt water rivers course down your face

i hope i ruin all of your favorite songs

i hope it burns you when i leave

all i know is that
when you're gone
i need you the most.

i guess i took you for granted.
even right when you left,
i was okay.
i was able to laugh and smile freely,
until the adrenaline ran dry
and i was still
and quiet.

it was the thought
"you will never be by my side for
longer than several days
ever again"
that lit me on fire.

i cried until i was hoarse
and even now my throat physically aches.

i didn't know missing you would hurt so bad.
i didn't know growing up would break my heart.

please don't change the subject
when  tell you something
i wouldn't tell anyone else
like:
i feel so alone
i can't find my meaning
i'm not really going anywhere
i'm lost
i'm scared
i'm so **** exhausted but i sleep just fine

you just tell me
"huh, that *****,"
or
"it could be worse. everyone feels like that,"
that doesn't make it any easier
i want to scream
you tell me to trust you
and get mad when i say i can't
but you make it so **** hard
when i can tell you don't care.

sometimes i still feel like i wont ever
be good enough
to be loved
or trusted
or even
important.
and i'm so scared.

i have become an expert in the art of deep breathing
to offset anxiety.
my heart still races like a runaway train
but i’ve learned to reconstruct the brakes
just in time to spare us the crash.
i’ve discovered that my bones are made of stone
and my skin is a thick hide
that your words can no longer puncture.
i watch as your sharp insults reflect off of me
and find their way back to you
where they embed themselves
and speed along your decay.

I think of you often
i hardly remember you, so i suppose i’m not really thinking of you

maybe it’s more like i’m thinking of the idea of you
you’re a foggy landscape in the back of my consciousness

your name is a taste that comes only in the fleeting space between dreams
my mind has lost the ability to pronounce its syllables

looking back on “us” is sort of like looking at something right under your nose with the wrong end of a telescope
the image is distorted and far too magnified to see
any semblance of a bigger picture

to this day i still wonder what exactly it could have been
what we could have been
had we changed our views

don't touch me
i am drenched to the bone with
gasoline
and one touch is all it will take
for us both to go up in flames.
don't touch me
i am a forest fire
a white hot rod
i will burn your finger prints right off
and then
how will they identify you
when i'm through?

i'm tired
and i deserve better.

there are no pretty words
or metaphors strong enough
to do justice
the betrayal
the utter destruction of a friendship
which i have just experienced.
i feel alone in this misery.

we're all standing on the edge of reality,
millimeters from the precarious cliff of horrible,
beautiful truth.
the glow of our iPhones, tablets, flat screen TVs, etc
illuminating our placid faces.
ignorance is bliss, they say.
wake up!
wake up,
and turn off your alarm,
and flip on the news;
start your coffee brewer.
we depend on the technology.
we live in the the technology.
we live in a computer.
you are not real
and neither am i
but we aren't dead either.
if we can think,
we can exist,
right?

where are the warm people?
i find myself baring my soul
to cold people
who take the heat of my burden
and use it to insulate themselves.
they shed no heat
no light
no empathy.
where are the warm people?
who will share their flame
as i try to share mine
when my has flickered out
and lies smoldering?

vulnerability is something i have always struggled with.
to give another person the ability to read my mind, to pity me;
it's something i tend to regret.
so when i opened up to you,
and you blew me off as though what
i said was meaningless,
like you'd heard it all before,
i hated you.
i had handed you the ability to sew shut my insecurities,
but you brushed me aside with such force that the gaping hole just
opened wider and i
have no one
left to
trust.
so i am forced to turn in on myself
and with fumbling, numb fingers,
i sew myself shut
from the inside.

winter is settling in my bones
and with every inhale my lungs take in freezing air
until my head throbs and my thoughts slow to a dull ache.
the flowers on the sill are still in bloom
despite the coolness of the glass beside them
and i wish i could ignore the chill and open up
but winter is unkind
to my fragile heart

i could fill endless pages with descriptions of places
and feelings that overwhelm me
but the idea of a continuing plot
always escapes me

i need to stitch together
these nagging, slippery thoughts
and form a coherent train of thought
with a purpose and a sense of direction
so that i know where to place my focus
and how to spend my energy
so that i can move forward
and stop looking over my shoulder
and
stop
thinking of you
thinking of you
t h i n k i n g   o f   y o u
when i need to be thinking of
my sanity
and how the two
are polar opposites

this is not a poem about love;
this is a poem about understanding.

this is a poem about how it feels to look in the mirror
and smile
and not hate myself - at all.

this is not a poem about overnight changes;
this is a poem about glacial speed.

this is a poem about how monoliths of ice carve rivers
into solid earth
over the course of a millennium.

this is not a poem about you.
this is a poem about not needing you.

this is a poem about not need you to tell me
i'm "pretty"
to know that i'm enough.

i dreamt of the most beautiful sunrise
i have ever seen
and that is how i know
i'm okay now

what do you do when you want something to happen so badly
that it makes your lungs heavy and your heart flutter?
what if you know it will never happen?*
take your time.
come to terms with the fact that it isn't realistic to hope for something that won't happen.
understand that it isn't the end of the world;
the earth will spin on and orbit the sun even if your heart is breaking,
even if it has gone off like a hand grenade inside you and the shrapnel has punctured your lungs.
be your own hero.
lay yourself down and with steady,
careful hands,
extract the jagged pieces from your damaged body and lay them in the sun.
let them sit until they have absorbed all the heat you can stand,
then cup the pieces in your hands.
close your eyes.
savor the feeling that comes from knowing that you can heal your own heart without help.
you'll need to remember how it's done -
this won't be the last time.
when you're ready, swallow your mended heart whole,
so that it rests in your stomach instead of your chest.
this way it won't be so easy to find next time.
now you need to learn to breathe easy again.
your lungs are healing.
they'll be stronger than ever now;
after all,
breathing underwater for so long makes it easier to breathe when you're standing,
whole,
on the shore.

you are the sun,
pulsing with heat and energy,
radiating heat and life into the dark.
i held darkness inside me
before i met you.
it clung with icy fingers to my bones
like the roots of a **** in a crack
on the sidewalk.
you brushed me once,
with your gentle touch,
and the dark was stripped away,
burnt, shriveled.

i   was   ignited.

i still haven't stopped burning
for you.

"when will this change?
oh, i don't wanna wait."*
a mantra in my head,
this song plays in loops
echoes
in my mind.
every autumn,
despite the beauty of the trees
and the perfect weather
i find myself becoming distant
and cold.
my mind returns to me with
the coming of spring.
ironic, though, that
spring
is my least favorite season; while
autumn
is my favorite.

Dear friend,
please hold this
where nobody can see it
and hold it gently
or I fear it may break.
you see,
I am not equipped
with the lucky ability
to think before
I fall.
Please,
keep it safe,
and return it to me
when it has learned
to listen;
when my brain has learned
to scream "NO!"
rather than whisper
"Maybe?".

i am drowning
another blank face
unrecognized and vacant
passing in the hall
in the empty eyes

bleeding out sleep
stress headaches
dehydration cramps
anxiety stomachaches
keeping me awake
through invisible sores

the teachers eyes
indifferent and glazed
too tired to care
why are we so tired
cut me through and through

if you are the sun,
i am the moon.

you are spring afternoons
wrapped in sunshine and birdsong.

i am crisp autumn evenings
cinnamon scented and starlit.

you are a swimming pool
on the hottest day of the year
that appears cool at first glance
but smothers with its heat.

i am crinkled red, orange, and brown;
drifting with the breeze.
i am melting ice with tiny air bubbles trapped inside
releasing frigid air in tiny bursts.

they say "'team' is a four letter word
for 'family'"
and i can't help
but agree
because every time i turn to look
at these lovely people
every time i laugh till my stomach aches
at ridiculous jokes
i know that they
are a part of me
that i never want to give up.

i am
free floating
held at a distance
from almost everyone
i drift along
staying close, sometimes,
to others - only to fall behind
invisibly, unnoticed, as they
move on

i am
the weakest
most easily forgotten
the hopeless
and painfully awkward
the least likely
to keep a conversation going
the easiest to forget

please
take your blade
and carefully carve
the envy out of my bones.
steal the ugly weight
of doubt and greed
from my tired heart
and burn it
so that i may
be light
and love
again