spinning
we all are spinning
like tops
on wooden tables
so unstable that
one breath
is all that is
needed to send us
toppling

i love you.
your words make me dizzy;
my thoughts like ants who've lost their trail.
i hate you.
one glance sends the blood rushing to my face;
i can hear my heart pound like waves against a stony shore.

get out
of my head.


i love you
because you're sweeter than honey
and sharp as a tack.
i love you
because you make me laugh
and make me feel special.

i hate you,
though,
because you love
                               her.

and yet you still have my heart.

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.

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 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.

life has stripped me
of the ability to shed a tear

my throat tightens
a clenched fist
in my esophagus
making breathing painful

and still no
******* tears

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

it goes like this:

my toes curl over the edge
the stone ledge is warm beneath my feet.
i tense
and leap
and for a fragile second i am hanging, twisting
above the dancing water.
i swear,
i can fly.
the sunlight reflecting off its surface
stains my retinas
as my body plummets.
the ocean reaches up
and swallows me whole
with a splash of chilly water.
i open my eyes
to see millions of tiny
light-filled bubbles
float to the surface,
leaving me alone
in the dark.
i sink slowly,
as though drifting off to sleep
and am only conscious enough
to register the cloud
of sediment
that surrounds me
as my body reaches
the bottom.

and then there is you:

you watch from the shore
smiling
as i leap.
after all,
this only recreational, right?
i have every intention
of resurfacing
a moment after the plunge
of course.
but you
you see that i have
not risen
and you must think
you must
"her lungs,
they must be starved
of air".
and rather than rush to my aid
for i am clearly drowning
you sit back on the shore
and prepare
to yell
and scream
and cause a scene
but not for help
no
you will scream at me
because you
feel betrayed
that i could so easily leave you.

don't you know i wish i wasn't drowning?
don't you know that i could have been saved?

if i told you i miss you
would you say you miss me too?

would you lie
or would you tell the truth?

is it the truth
or is it the lie
that i would want to hear?

i don't want to see you
ever again.
please,
just let me be.

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

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

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.

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 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?).

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?

on days when i feel
as though i may actually be getting over you
i find myself
looking,
searching
the eyes of those who pass by,
hoping
fearing
that i'll fall for a
stranger.

tonight,
as i sat with my family
in a cozy restaurant
my eyes found a boy.
he was beautiful.
several times,
we locked gazes.

but the problem was,
he looked just like you.

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?

every time
i leave the sea
i feel as though my soul
crawls back into
the deepest corners
of my body
to hide
and slumber
until i am reunited
with glittering waves
and soft sand
and windswept
dripping hair.

i'm tired
and i deserve better.

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?

"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.

i worry that i have
lied every time
i told a boy
i loved him.

i fear that i have
only ever been
and will only ever be
"in love"
with the idea
of love.

and most of all,
i am terrified
that every boy
who has ever told me
he loved me
was in love
only with the idea
of love.
         not me.

it occurs to me that i am alone
more than not
and that maybe
it's my fault.

maybe
i push people away
maybe
i should have asked you
to stay.

i know - you always say - that i need to try
i need to reach out
i need to make plans
but plans fall through
and friendships end
and i am tired of
endings
so i've stopped creating
beginnings.

i am nothing but these words scratched on paper
and the golden strands of hair that lie in forgotten places that i haven’t seen in ages.
i am nothing but the buried impressions of footprints i took years ago
and the sweat i dripped into the ocean.
i am nothing but the warmth i breathed into the snow
and the fingerprints i left on the cold hotel window.
i am nothing but the coffee stain on the old wooden table
and the trails of meteors i’ve watched fall.
i am nothing but the dust in your lungs
and under your feet
and caught in your hair.
i am nothing
but i am everywhere

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.

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.