you took every
fear i had about
inadequacy
and turned them
from mountains to
speed bumps,
reminding me
to slow down,
but never stop

it is summer again, and
we are getting high underneath
the tanglewood bridge

our shoulders stick together
with sweat, one of us coughing,
inexperienced, the other
laughing

it is summer again, and
i don't remember a day when i
didn't want to spend
all my time with
you

every wall of this house reminds me
of you-

reminds me that you are 591 miles
away, and i haven't heard from you
for seventeen days, and i am beginning
to worry

before you left we sat on the
couch and i asked you to promise
me you would stay alive.
when i held out my pinkie you couldn't
take it, and i always tried to make sure
you'd never see me cry, but i couldn't
stand the thought of living
around your ghost and i guess i just
                                                   lost it

there is a cold spot on the sofa and
i wonder if it is you

Sometimes I think I’m crumbling from the inside out. I can feel a parasite knawing at the coffin encasing my soul and exposing the pretense of overconfidence for what it truly is- dust.

There was a time when a smile from a man on the street made me feel special. Now it tenses my muscles and knocks on the bedroom door of fight and flight. If it came down to it, I know that acceptance would win.

I once saw a TV special about how coffins are becoming larger and larger because of obesity. When I was eleven, my brain was overweight with the awareness of the novel I would write and the ballet company I would star in. Lately, the obesity of my dreams is directly related to the size of the graveyard residing in my brain like an icy sea frozen mid-breath.

My best friend hurts herself because she doesn't think she’s pretty. I renounced my faith a long time ago, but I always pray that she won’t be among the one in four women who are ***** because a man told them they were pretty.

The leering, drunken man outside the movie theater built my coffin. The disease of his hand stroking my shoulder put out the fire in my brain like malaria kills 1.2 million people each year. Like the 1,871 American women who were sexually assaulted today. My skin still crawls where he touched me and my mind still recoils when I catch myself wondering if my oversized sweater and Converse sneakers were too provocative.

you make me
happy** he
said, and i
fell asleep
smiling

i am so shattered--
parts of me are
2159 miles away
and i am scared
they will never
come back

i don't know if i am proud that he
loved me first or jealous because he
liked you last.  some selfish part of
me still hopes that when i see him next
he will tell me that it's always been
me, even though i know i'd be too
scared to say it to him, and he deserves
better than that. i thought maybe
you could be that for him, but you
left too, and honestly, i'm furious
that you're not coming back

the problem is that none of
them are you; i don't know if
that's how love works, or if
this is just fear