My soul is a bird,
My body is a locked cage,
Where I don't belong.

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.

The problem is I’m drunk on Halloween weekend
the problem is every time I drink I wanna tell you I love you
the problem is I start to say it to all the wrong people.
I had two tequila sunrises and two blue long islands.
Blue long island tastes like your kisses that night a year ago and tequila tastes like regret when I see what I texted you
tomorrow morning. And it all boils down to the fact,
when I slept with the other guy, I finally understood why you
hurt me so much. It felt so good knowing the power was in my hand .Holding his heart in my fist, knowing he made love to me but I ****** him, just like you ****** me. But I still love you. In the drunken haze of my emotions, I still love you. And when you ask me, while I'm sober, if I still have feelings for you, I’ll ask,
“Does hate count as a feeling?”

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.

I've written the "Never look back poem",
followed by the "Breaking free" poem,
and of course,
who could forget the ever so famous
"I loved, he lied" poem,
but **** it,
is it such a bad thing
that the words slip out of my pen,
when I see you sip your coffee?

Wake up numb. Put on

Your best outfit. Skip breakfast.

Go to school. Walk on

Through the hallway, fast.

Don't text him first.

Try to concentrate in class.



Walk through the hall. See

him. Avoid eye contact.

Walk faster. Try not to flee.

Smile and don't overeact.

Don't text him first.

Go home. Write three



Texts for him. Never send

them. Ignore hole

in chest. Lay in bed condemned

to feeling heartache. Attempt damage control.

Don't text him first.

Cry without end.



Take nap. Wake up for dinner.

Push around food. Hear phone ring.

Get excited. It's not him. Have inner

struggle. Ignore friend. Feel a sting.

Don't text him first.

Leave rest of your dinner.



Go to room. Spend night

on computer. Listen to sad love

songs. Watch mindless tv. Fight

with yourself. Win, kind of.

Don't text him first.

Turn off the light.



Stay awake. Finally

cry. Live the rejection again.

Feel eyes blink heavily.

Crawl into the familiar domain.

Don't text him first.

Fall asleep numbly.

When you love someone,
it isn't always pretty.
Sometimes it's two people, full
speed ahead and once the wreckage is left,
You can say "I loved this hard."
I still look at our wreckage and
think of all who were involved.
You think there were no casualties,
no victims but yourself.
I was a casualty and all the victims and bystanders
of my love for you
would call me crazy for picking at the shattered glass windows.
The car is totaled.
There is absolutely no chance of it running again,
and like a fool,
I think sitting in front of the wheel
is gonna make it run again.

I have looked for your eyes in everyone I have slept with
since you left. I have looked for your smile in the barista who makes my coffee every morning and have looked for your voice with every switch of the radio. I tried to make you the villain in our story. The truth of it was I thought I was happy with you, I thought the pain of you walking out the door would **** me. That last good bye replayed in my mind like the movies playing on my tv as background noise. I wonder where I went wrong. What were my mistakes? Why wasn’t I enough?  I tried to make myself someone you liked, I spent so much time trying to make you happy, I forgot who I was.
After the fog cleared, I was able to spend time with myself.
I stopped looking for you in every person I met. For the first time, I was able to remember what it was like to breathe and move forward. In the end, I was finally happy with me.

I would say I miss you,
But that would be a lie right,
same as the lies of “you’re beautiful”
and “I love you” coming out of the lips of men I poured everything into but those were my mistake to mull over. My past for me to dissect. And the hurtful things I told myself, I could take, I was never as cruel to disguise judgement for caring. There was only so much hurt one person could carry,
only so many times I could be cut open by one person and stitched back up to hear them say they fixed me. How many times you’d say you’d fixed me, like I was broken? Like my flaws were factory defects but it was fine, you’d accept me cause you knew you could fix me?
The way you’d make it sound like were a Coldplay song. Like the lyrics and you holding my hand could put back together the pieces of a fragile girl torn apart by too many people. You, my savior, put me in cage, reminded me I could not be trusted to make my own choices, because this naive girl had fallen for too many sweet promises and had bad judgment when making my mistakes and you had to come in and fix me. Like I was a broken car and you a mechanic. Like you came in to sweep me off my feet with duct tape and hot glue. My hero. Came on his white horse to fix me and I’d fall at your feet  because after all, you’d put in all the work, right? You put effort into fixing something no one would love anyways. Something that wasn’t yours to fix in the first place and I’m supposed to be grateful? That you remind me who was there to pick up the pieces of every broken heart? That you remind me I’m not good enough, not smart enough to see when someone is lying to me, to see when I’m being played, but they my  mistakes to make. After all, it was me, crying, alone, throwing up in a McDonald’s bathroom, surviving, putting myself back together and you sweeping in to take all the credit for my work and I’m supposed to apologize for not loving you back the way you put effort into fixing me?

His lips danced over my neck,
And I pretended they were yours,
His hands grabbed at my body,
And I pretended they were yours,
And when he kissed me,
He was a thirsty man roaming a desert,
With no water for days,
I was his water,
quenching his thirst,
But I didn't want water,
I wanted wine,
I wanted what I couldn't have,
And pretended to be satisfied with what I could take.

When I cried,
He held me, protected me,
And didn't ask why,
He didn't need to know,
He just knew I was his light but he wasn't mine.
He knew he couldn't illuminate me the way you do,
He knew he couldn't set me on fire,
Like your eyes do,
He knew I was forever bound by the darkness your presence left me.

His words didn't fill me,
Like yours did,
How easily he agreed with everything I said,
And how beautiful he found my mind to be,
He smiled when I told a bad joke,
And laughed when I said I could rap,
He didn't confuse me like you did,
He didn't hide from me,
Or go against my current,
He just knew I was an ocean he wanted to go along with,
And get lost in,
You thought I was stupid,
And had too much water,
You wanted something simpler,
Because you were a forest,
Complex and full of secrets.

He hates you,
He hate what you do to me,
He hates how you speak to me,
He hates how I feel stupid whenever you scold me,
He hates how I whisper your name when he makes love to me,
He hates how I let you hurt me over and over,
He hates how much he loves me,
He hates how much I don't love him,
He hates how my heart doesn't belong to him.

I hadn’t thought of my first boyfriend in years.
The way everything was new and he never felt silly when I asked him to dance in the  rain, even though I felt silly. The way he knew I loved when his cologne lingered on my clothes because I crawled into a space between his arm and his body.
I remember crying in the diner by my house late at night,
we were just friends, two years after we broke up but he always made me feel a warm sort of comfort, he always made me laugh when I was mad and he always managed to make me mad on my best of weeks. He was scared of going up to Georgia alone. I, naively confused, asked why would he go to Georgia alone. When I repeated the word army, it left a bitter taste on my mouth, did’t quite roll off the tongue like home. Like our small, loud city was home. Like when he biked to my house in the rain was home. Like going to the Colombian Bakery where worked, was home. Like he was home.
Except, my home was leaving, and when he asked me to go,
I cried, held onto him and said no, said I have a boyfriend who doesn’t love me like home does and my life is just starting.
That was 8 years ago. I’m 23 now. Made the same mistakes repeatedly. Changed my entire life and started over. Reinvented myself every time I rented the heart of a man who was not home. My home lives in Honolulu, has traveled the world, changed into a man who still has that wide smile I loved. My co-worker mentioned how certain smells remind her of certain people and asked if I agreed. I hadn’t thought of that boy, whose Kenneth Cole Reaction still lingers on my old high school uniform, in years. Told her certain smells remind me of a place I always found comfort in. I wonder if he knows he will always have a home here, always have a place to stay in my heart. I will leave the door open and when he picks up to leave again, I will say you are always welcome here, to this little corner of the world, where nothing exciting ever happened, but you will always be loved.

I hadn’t thought of you in years.

To be honest, I put you away in the box of memories of people I simply longer cared for, put the hurt into the deepest part of my soul and laughed the anger away while my best friend and I made plans for matching bathing suits and making lemonades for another summer barbecue we could fondly look back on. It was 3 am and the guy you told me I wasn’t allowed to be friends with, was laughing with me outside of a Taco Bell I knew you hated going to. We were talking about the letter your ex wrote him and I suddenly remember how much you hated your ex.
But *******, if you two weren’t meant for each other.
I mean, you are basically the same person, same narcissistic, view, same letters where you blamed others when you should have seen what was in front you.  It was through laughing, I realized, I don’t miss, I never missed you to begin with. The day you told me I was a bad friend, a bad person, a person who moved mountains for you and was crushed under the weight, I realized, you gave me the freedom was looking for. I was heart broken at first, but then I realized friendships aren’t made from how many years you have known someone, they are made from meeting someone and feeling like you knew them a lifetime. Friendships are unconditional love and respect, something I hadn’t felt the first time you insulted me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, enjoy my Instagram, it’s public and I know you still talk **** about me cause that's just the kind of bitter lemon you are, the kind people leave behind at the Farmer’s Market.

I

You ask me to write about you
and I say I can’t.
I say I can’t write when I’m happy and
you haven’t broken my heart yet.
I lied.
The truth is, I haven’t learned how to make poetry
out of my flaws yet.

II

I’m afraid your love might suffocate me.
I still love someone I can never have and
now you love someone you can never have.

III

I know I have so much to work on.
I am a broken person who has been together
too many times. The water is leaking and the flowers are wilting.
You deserve someone who will love you as much as you love them.

IV

My mother told me to be with someone who loves me
more than I love them.
I can not do that.
I want can’t-live-with-out-you love. Even if it tears through me
with the strength of a category 5 hurricane.  Even if I can’t use my lungs for the months after.

V
I’m going to break his heart.
Because I can’t grow to love him.
I know everyday I am trash
but it feels good to be loved like this.
I am fragile and so is this love.

VI

I think it’s safer for both of us to leave the vase alone.

I will not set myself on my fire
for people who would not show me  the
fierce passion I have for them.
I have worth that goes beyond drunk
Wednesday nights.  I have expanded myself to fit
forgotten conversations and men who do not love me.
But this heart fits the nights I saw my mother’s heart break,
the afternoons I held my crying friends, the laughter shared
on rainy days, sad dog videos on youtube, love for a child I did not have, an ache for the heartbroken girl who was also wronged by the same man and still there was room for you to tear open the safe haven for people who deserve it far more than you. I will never be angry at her. I take thread and patch up the hole so she can be warm and safe within my heart. She who was full of life, whose expressive face made everyone feel included, who hugged me after meeting me once and said we are friends. And still I slept with you and still, I believed her the villain when the villains were us.
She may hate me but **** it, I am angry for her.
We laid in the same bed, miles apart, felt the same ache, formed a kinship and both felt sorry for your new girl . Tell her she has a place in my heart too when you break her. Tell the one after her, she is welcomed here too. There is a safe space outside of you. We do not need to expand ourselves to accommodate you. You who would not expand for anyone but yourself.

I guess it's selfish of me to wish you were unhappy,
because sometimes, I just wish you were by my side.
I ask myself how its possible to miss someone who was never
yours to begin with. I ask myself how my heart can hurt so much for someone who never wanted it in the first place and ******* it,
it makes feel so foolish to be sitting here, sipping on whiskey neat as the ocean passes me by. Because I will always be an ocean away from you, and you will be seated at that bar, giving your heart to another.

I will always be an ocean.
You a life boat trying to get to shore.
I, stormy waves bringing destruction to those who I love, and you
there to pick up the pieces.

There is no metaphor here. The truth of the matter is, I can sit here and pretend you were the only one at fault, when truthfully,
I did more damage than you. My fear of losing something I never truly had, destroyed a friendship on the cusp of creation and my spite destroyed every relationship with loved ones either of us could have had. I hate myself everyday.

As much as I want to be the good person who tells our friends they can still see you, I hate when they show you kindness and for what?
I ****** up too and realizing that was harder than losing you.

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.

Somedays, I’ll be dancing in my living room to The Cure,
and suddenly, my chest will collapse in on itself, a demolition of all the memories of  the year I shared with you.  I was the city putting out the notice, this old building with a weak foundation needed to come down.
And I cry.
And suddenly , I fee stupid, I’m crying alone with a glass of wine while Just Like Heaven is playing. It wasn’t even our song.
It’s time to rebuild.
The city is under development,
Alexa, replay Just Like Heaven by The Cure.

Your ex sent me a video on snapchat at 3 am.
She was drunk and she was talking about how you asked if you could get back together with her. She had a lot to say about how ******* but she wished you the best.
So here’s my two cents.
******* and the horse you came riding in.
**** your apologies and **** your “I’m getting better.”
Because at the end of the day, you, my friend, yes you, are
a ******* *******. I admire the **** out of her for wishing you the best, but even though, the whole time we were together, you thought I was her, I’m not. So here I am telling you
that I hope you get a flat tire. I hope you order pizza with extra cheese, and they sent you light cheese.  May your soda be always flat. I hope you have to get somewhere and end up in traffic. I hope you walk out onto the street and step on gum,
and step on dog ****. I hope you go to pay for drinks with tinder girl and your card gets declined. I hope you’re talking on the phone and you phone gets cut. I hope you get a bad haircut. I hope you’re late to work. May your music forever buffer and your youtube videos never load. I wish you were a girl and had a pregnancy scare, alone, in a McDonald’s bathroom like I did (even though I know you’re a guy). I hope someone breaks your heart. At this point, with all the shattered pieces you have left behind, you ******* deserve it.
I hope your ex finds her peace. I hope she dates a hot, 6’5 guy with light eyes and a great sense of humor. I hope you feel it right before going to sleep, the pain in your chest. The same one I felt for months after the wreck happened. The same way she felt it when you wrecked her heart. I hope you go **** yourself.

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.

Today, I was thinking about yesterday
as I do everyday. I remember how yesterday,
you slept in my bed, after we spoke about the past,
and how just yesterday, I loved you more than I loved myself.
Yesterday, I wrote a passage in my journal about how
this guy who had the perfect smile and the sad eyes
had turned my life upside down. Yesterday, you turned
eating nachos and drinking beer into poetry and sighed with content as you turned me into a night about forgetting her.
Yesterday, you told me I was living a daydream in the form of
“I can’t give you what you want.”
I said, “Thats fine.”
You said, “I know you love me, but I just can’t.”
Yesterday, you came over drunk and took care of you.
Yesterday, you ****** me, and I gave you all my love.
Yesterday, I chose to walk away from you.
When I woke up this morning, I cried for the first time in a long time. The morning was rough. Every morning since yesterday has been rough.