nobody warns you about the first boy who tells you he wants to marry you.

nobody warns you about the tangible shift in the universe when he parts his lips to smile.

nobody warns you about the poetry he'll write you or how your knees will weaken or the melancholy hidden between the layers of his laughter.

nobody warns you that miles will morph into lightyears and you will curse the ocean for being the only thing that keeps his fingers from resting between yours.

nobody warns you about the day his sweater doesn't smell like him anymore.

nobody warns you that human hands are incapable of holding a person together.

nobody warns you that sometimes love is not enough, no matter how much you wish it was.

nobody warns you about the crippling nostalgia that renders you breathless.

nobody warns you about the nights when silence screams for your blood.

nobody warns you about the crater that forms in your chest in the middle of the night when he doesn't answer.

nobody warns you about how it's going to feel when he tells you he's in love with someone else.

nobody warns you that forever is a lie.

- m.f.

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

I'm sorry I require so much patience, I know how tiring loving me must be.
I'm sorry my walls are more like towers, but they were never keeping you out I swear.
I know I'm probably the most challenging project you've ever had to do but I swear I'm trying.
I wish the cut from when he left didn't stop me from trusting. but how am I supposed to trust when he handed me the bottle of pills he so many times begged me to flush?
I'm so ******* sorry it will take me extra long to open up to you but I promise you, I PROMISE YOU, my heart is yours to take. my heart is beating your name.
I'm sorry I'm always so sorry but I feel like you deserve the world.
he left and I'm scared you're going to go. I promised myself I wouldn't let myself trust again but my ******* walls begged for you when I met you. I like to say I'm strong enough to go through losing anyone else, but I swear to god I'd be on the floor begging you not to leave if you ever thought of going. every "I love you" has a suttle mention of "stay" lingering. if I could say I need you, I would. please.

this is a poem dedicated to distance.
to every time i have wanted to kiss you, but couldn't.
to every time i looked at my empty hands and thought of yours.
to every time i was in a crowded room and secretly hoped that i'd find your face.
to every happy couple we see that inadvertently mocks our inability to be near each other.
to every time i've played your laughter over and over in my head to drown out the silence.
to every time you just wanted to hear my voice, but i was busy.
to every missed call and every undelivered text and every time your internet was down.
to every miscommunicated statement and every typo.
to every time that one of us was asleep when the other needed them.
to every time you wept and i wasn't there to hold you.
to every self-destructive tendency we share.
to every pill your mother has hidden and every razor blade i have flushed.
to every worry that plagues my consciousness whenever you take long to reply.
to every night we have been together through a screen, but alone in our beds.
to every, "i miss you" and "i wish you were here".
to every broken-record apology that never makes it better.
to every makeup stain that mars the sweater you sent me so that i could
feel like i was sleeping with you (and to the fact that it doesn't smell like you anymore).
to every hour, every minute, every second of difference in the time between us.
to every dollar i don't have, and every time i wished for your chest against my back.
to every, "why are you even with me?" and "you could do better".
to every spectator and cynic that has told us we'd fail.
to every doubt of mine and to all your jealousy.
to every ounce of water in the pacific ocean.
to every ******* mile between my head and your chest (i checked, and there are 9,752).

you will not win.

- m.f.

sometimes I become so frustrated with the word love because it doesn't hold enough value to express how I feel about you. it is almost as if I have to repeat it several times, "I love you I love you I love you so much", before it even begins to hold such a meaning.
nothing makes me happier than when you refer to the future as ours. I can't wait for the day you wake me up with kisses and coffee instead of waking up clutching my phone.
I honestly believe the reason I have always felt so homesick and such an intense wanderlust is because I've always been so far from you. (and just to prove my point, I woke up homesick again.)
the day I met you I felt the dirt in my chest get heavier but little did I know, the flowers were finally being watered.
and the day I fell in love with you I felt an explosion in my chest and I thought it was my heart but it was really the flowers blooming. it is almost like you are creating a garden for my demons to play in.
you make me want to keep breathing and it's so relieving. there isn't a day that starts with my wishing I hadn't woken up because I am always awoken by you.
I may be an angel but I swear you are a piece of the sun, shining light in my darkness. every day makes me believe more and more that you are the pieces of myself that I was missing for so long.

There's not a planet, nor galaxy in which I would choose you second to any other.
I live in constant fear of you realizing you're almost as crazy as me for loving me.
I fell in love with the way it seemed your name was already carved in to the walls blocking my heart.
I fell in love with the way you took your time with me.
I fell in love with the way you made me forget that I am filled to the brim with profanity-screaming demons.
I need to know you can love me when the dusty demons in the dark corners of my mind take over and my hands betray me by making me bleed.
I need to be the only drug you ever need to take again.
I want to trace the word "mine" over and over again on to your back until you fall asleep every night.
I want to hear you tell me you love me every day for the rest of my life.
I am eternally jealous of every girl who has ever received a peice of your heart and eternally jealous of all those who have had your body.
I'll spend my whole life learning everything I can about you.
a cool date would be me having a panic attack at the airport because I'm so nervous to meet you and then crying when I realize you're finally holding me.
all I know is that before I met you I wasn't scared to let the demons back in. now, that's the last thing i want to do.
we're an ocean apart but I've never felt so close to someone.
I think that no matter how many times I am told a person cannot be a home or a happiness I refuse to believe it because I think they can be.