Hey.

It's me again.

Thought I'd call to see how you were.

We haven't spoken much lately,
and last night I slept with another man who didn’t remember i loved tulips and bought me marigolds and i almost said your name. I closed my eyes and envisioned the hair on your chest
and your growls in my ear and the ******* tulips you bought me the first night we went out. Now, all i can do is
turn you into ****** poetry to read at ****** open mics.
You’ll be a story to tell when asked about my love life and
those who don’t know your name will tell me you’re an ******* and I deserve better and the mutual friends we share
will tell me I’m an ******* and I need to grow up,
but I am an adult. I did my taxes last week and I made an appointment with the doctor two weeks ago and next week,
I’m turning in my resume for an interview to an office job I’ll probably hate and when I think of you,
I’ll become that girl who had panic attacks at the thought of you leaving and who cried every night for a boy who never loved her back. I’ll be the girl who begged you not to leave and got drunk just so she could tell you she loved you.
When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll put on mascara and pull myself together, because my mom raised a woman who didn’t need a man to tell her he loved her every morning and I’ll go run errands I can’t keep pushing back because I can’t keep cancelling on my publisher, because eventually the I-Don’t-Feel-Good excuse gets old and life moves on and you moved on and I’m tired of everyone telling to move on. I have always been the type of person to get stuck and I’m stuck on you and unfortunately my water heater broke and I can’t get rid of you without hot water and it hurts to much when I try to pull you off my skin because if I move on you will disappear and it’s crazy but the pain reminds me you were here and i had felt something I hadn’t felt for a really long time because for a really long time, I was so depressed i didn’t know i could feel, I didn’t know I could love and my best friend told me I couldn’t love someone else until I learned to love myself, but thats ******* because god ******, I loved you with every fiber of my being and the day you walked out the door,  my ******* water heater broke. Time stopped.

The vase shattered.
All the tulips died that morning.

i.

i used to only write sad poems.

ii.

you see,
i am a cynic,
a cemetery,
a holocaust,
a chaotic, distant, lost girl
buried in her own
self-destruction.

but with you
i am different.

i want to wake up,
keep my promises,
make up for lost time,
spill blood and ink,
try again,
live

for you.

iii.

you walk me home
and the skies blush
pink cloud summers
mid-December.

we part and i marvel
at the sepia tint
of backyard roses
blurring my lenses.

you came in
like the missing palette color
i never knew
i needed
my skies painted with.

iv.

now, you are all the love poems
i didn't know i could write.

and every metaphor i create
is just a lengthier version of
'i love you'

i really do.

Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t just been the backseat of your car,
Intoxicated. My first drunk hook up. My first. Period.
I picture myself being champagne on Valentine’s Day.
I picture myself being you, nervous in the car, holding Starbucks
because you know I love coffee. Sometimes, I picture myself as her,
calling you a stalker and ignoring your calls,
but then I see myself. I call you beautiful,
turn you into poetry, laugh at your bad jokes,
I see myself as I become your drunk Wednesday night
when you’re sad. I see myself as I say no,
I become a “this is not a good idea”
and you a “we’ll deal with the consequences in the morning.”
We laugh because this hurts too much.
You take her out for dinner and I burrow money
for Plan B because you forgot you don’t like condoms
and clearly have no idea how children are made.
I have already named him. He has your curls and
my anxiety. He is smart. Except, I never wanted kids and
you would be a great father. Instead, you tell her
the beach reminds you of her and I cry in a McDonald’s
bathroom with my friend as relief floods through me that
the test comes negative. I stop talking to you,
move forward, meet someone new and before long
see myself becoming you. Because isn’t that the cycle?
Bad men turn good women into bad women who turn
good men into bad men. I’ll set him free so he can hurt
someone like me, and I drink red wine as I read her
poems about him and me.

Its way past 3 am and I’m drinking
black coffee keep awake, desperately
wanting it to be whisky. I’m listening to
sad country music and thinking how in
this moment you’re on the other side of town,
waking up to go to work. I’m thinking about that first night,
how we slammed back drink after drink, laughing our
way to your backseat and now, I slam back drink after drink
thinking how I probably don’t even cross your mind as a passing thought.

I try to distract myself, but half my friends want me to be mad at you, and the other half, want me to be mad at myself.
I just want to forget you and some days I fantasize about accidents and amnesia.
Some days, I pretend to be Joel and you’re Clementine.
Some days, I get so mad at myself
For falling for you in an hour.

And the worst part

              the punchline of this joke is that

                          your heart is broken and it wasn’t even my fault.

Melancholy creeps down my back,
An old friend ready to remind me of my short comings.
On those days when feeling like I’m not enough,
Is not enough. I feel the anger bidding me to have a laugh with him,
leaving the bitter taste of guilt in my mouth once I’ve spoken my truth.
No matter how much I yell and cry,
I end up with that sour laugh at the edge of my tongue. I want to rip out
the parts of me that makes me unpretty. The parts of me that felt like water when
He drank from me that night and his thirst made me fluid.
A week later, he had a new girlfriend. I felt like whiskey.
Liquor kills you quicker. I am made of fury and those hideous parts of me,
remind me how hard it is to love ugly.
In the end, the sadness loves me like no other, cradles me like a mother,
And whispers sweet nothings in the dark.