i just can't get over
that night by the lake
do i even have to say
which one i mean?

it was so cold, so, so cold
and we didn't say a word
but i could feel every part of you
against every last part of me

months later
i carved us into
the wood

*heaven was here.

our dads left
matching bruises
where our hearts
should be

and when you kissed me
i realized all those lullabies?
they'd never fixed me
touching bruises with love --
or otherwise
only makes us blue

i'm sorry, so sorry
we should have been
something beautiful.

if i hadn't already used up
all my kisses on missing you
i'd make it better.

i write about wanting to
see you
talk to you
be with you

but in actuality
if i ever had the chance
i'd run in the opposite direction

because you'd be
all too
real.

i kissed her behind the couch so
she ****** the first guy she found
to try and fix it

didn't she know
i was drunk

i see so much beauty
through these ugly eyes
what a waste, what a waste

we don't sleep because
we have nothing to
wake up for.

i've been thinking of going to sleep
for hours now
but every time i do
i'm reminded of you

i should be sleeping but i'd rather
think circles around three months
that you called
a waste of your time.

you lied at some point
i just don't know
when.

they call it depersonalization
dee-person-nile-zaytion
and it means i did the impossible:
found the switch to turn
everything off
so i can do what feels good
and stay away from what feels bad
and never have any real feelings
about any of it

at all.

every time i listen to the radio
i think
this could have been our song
our song
our song

i swear i haven't been able to
listen to a love song
without thinking of you
since.

you said that what we had
was really ****** up
and all i can think is
how ****** up?
more ****** up than you &
charlottesierraayamiarielascarlettsamyvonnepiasahada?
­were we the most ****** up?
please let us be the most ****** up
let me be the one
you ******* over
best.

i asked for directions and
he pointed to the sky but
i still don't understand how
the bible can be a road map
or prayer a flashlight
so i think that i will cross myself
and remember how to see
in the dark.

everything's funny
everything hurts
and it will all be gone
in the morning

the universe hates me because
it forces me to eat stale bread
and leftover feelings.

i hope you choke
on every i love you
**** you
****
you.

i don't speak science and
i don't speak God.
i wish i spoke either,
i wish i spoke both.

i want to connect the freckles
on your faceneckshoulderschestarmslegsback
because maybe then i'll know
what love looks like.

i'll always wonder if
you forgot about it
forgot about me
or just didn't call

i'm not sure which
would be
worse.

maybe i'll come
see you
i could use
a ****

i'd write you letters
ten words
at a time
but

would you even like
reading ten honest words
from me?

i'll give you a
good kick between the
shoulder blades
rub your face
into the ground
until you taste
the dirt
*this is what it means
to fall
don't *******
yourself
into thinking
it's love.

you were beautiful
for awhile
and in my memories
you still are
but in reality
she has tainted
everything
you were to me
so thoroughly
that there's
nothing left
of you
for me to
admire.

i'm sure
you are
relieved.

on nights i cannot sleep
i blame it all on you
i let myself think back
to the very first day we met
and starting there, i fold
each day like the layers of an
accordian until i convince myself
that every note of yours
has affected every one of
mine,
and though yours will always be sweet
mine are now and forever off-key.

when you asked me why i never wrote
i told you i forgot
but if you'd looked beneath my bed
you would have known the truth

i wrote you
i wrote you a hundred times
and another hundred
in my dreams.

i'm more of the
jackie kennedy
in this affair.

i could never do
what marilyn does
for you.

i wasted a ******* long time
trying to make
the good ones stay.

i kept the voicemails you left
months after they went stale
and sometimes i'd lock myself
into the bathroom
just to listen to them
without being accused of
being a packrat

the day that my sister
accidentally deleted
every single one
was the only time
i cried over you.

i'd be the
**** in your garden
just to get your
attention.

even if i climbed to
the highest steeple of the highest church
prayers would not be able
to save you.

you won't let yourself love me
but every so often your feelings
slip
through
the
cracks
and i catch them like fireflies
trap them in a glass jar
as reminders on the days
when things are bad.

we're playing checkers
but you know
which game
i mean.

whenever i try to forget you
it feels like a mouse is gently
gnawing off my limbs.

this brain feels useless
without you in it.

it doesn't take much for the people here
to part like the red sea
or collapse like paper dolls.

i wonder if you tell
your piano
the things you used to
tell me.

i don’t have something to remember you by.

i think these past few months
would have been easier if
i’d had a sweatshirt of yours
to curl up into, even after too many washes
had drowned your scent.

but i think you loved me
too much
to let me indulge myself
in your ghost.

two decades of purgatory
filled with temptation
that some wise guy suggested
the rest of my life be hinged upon.

just call me
baby
one
last
time.

f e b r u a r y
the month we all went mad
in parallel to the month of august
when we all pledged
right hand up, against our hearts, our chests

we are sane and strong and good

we all pledged
to stay well

six
months
later,
we toast to those people
those people who are unrecognizable, now, in the fog of the glass

they draw x’s and o’s with their polished nails
and blow desperate, sticky kisses
so we know that they were us
if only for a minute

our saints of the past
won’t cease ******* us demons,
when february has passed
they will be back

then we’ll blow fairy dust off our fingertips
& wake up
with ******* on the carpet.

the people here are
static on the television
food with preservatives
plastic flowers.

i do not need lullabies
at twelve at night, when some wake up screaming
or before i go to bed

i need lullabies
when i am happy
laying under the porch light
feeling lightheaded and woozy
but knowing that i have succeeded, today
and not inhaled a thing.

sing me a lullaby
to remind me that i am a little girl inside
who does not know definitions and statistics
and does not understand that happiness can ****.

did you know that it only takes one
deformed cell to give you cancer and
i sometimes want to scream in the middle of a lecture
because i smoked that one cigarette in october
and what if i have cancer
and i wasted all the autumns, winters, and springs
of my life as a robot of the american dream
taking classes and making grades
and earning letters on a page
and if i die too soon from cancer
everything i’ve accomplished
will fit on an 8x11 sheet of paper.

i can't make our relationship sound
beautiful anymore.

does she love me
or not?*
i don't know
i'm not your
******* flower
i have no petals left
for you to pick.

i roll
my hope
into a joint
and light
up.

most of all, i want to listen to your voice. anything you have to say. recite your grocery list, what you ate for breakfast. what’s your opinion on the weather? remind me about how you like the snow, but hate the cold. how you couldn’t fall asleep because the wind kept whistling through your broken window. tell me the story about how you broke that window again. again. again. how you hit that baseball too hard and it went soaring. tell me about that moment. the moment that it looked like that ball was flying. how’d you feel when it crashed? no, don’t tell me about that, i know it’ll make you think of the crash. how i crashed down on the concrete when we were walking that one night. i was barely conscious, so tell me about how you carried me a mile to my apartment. if you have to, tell me about why you left me there alone. how you’d asked me on the walk because we “needed to talk” and you had to do it that night, because she’d given you an ultimatum. don’t tell me about how you’d stayed with me that last month out of pity. or if you do, let those be the softest words you speak. softer than the things you whispered to me months ago. softer than the way you touched my cheek before you left me on that bed. tell me again how touching me made you sick those last few weeks and please assume that i felt the same. because every time i think of the truth, every time i think of how it wasn’t over for me, isn’t over for me...i love you. i can’t breathe. don’t let me speak. don’t let me speak. i only want to listen to the sound of your voice. keep talking. say anything. tell me all about her.

one day i’ll take you to the field
we won’t go together, i’ll take you there
because i’m not the type of girl to ever be “with” anyone

i’ll bring my boom box and wish it was from the 90’s
and i’ll find droopy flowers to play with
even though i know you think it’s stupid

you’ll pick through my cd collection
and i’ll pretend to be embarrassed when you find albums by the bands you hate
you’re supposed to think it’s endearing
you’ll pick country music
and i’ll pretend it’s a compromise
because i gave up awhile ago

in the dark i won’t see your ***** hair
and i won’t have to stare into your empty eyes
you’ll just **** me,
my back will grind into the grass,
and i’ll try to enjoy it
while you hold me close and wish i was Her.

maybe
if i eat enough candy
i'll be sweet
enough for you.

i already regret
letting him go
because i already feel
alone and now
i get why
i'm only
lovely
when you're
lonely.

i know you said i shouldn’t wait for you
but like sandra d
when it comes to love,
i have nothing better to do
every other boy is
a dry saltine *******
so let me keep my broken mood ring, babe
i don’t care if it’s stuck on blue

i’m 6
you’re tall like a “big kid”
i’m small, i fit in your lap
you like pokémon cards
[and the spice girls, that’s our secret]
last week you tried to runaway
you didn’t know where to go, came home
you should have gone
under the table

i’m 13
i have the coolest brother because
you work at an amusement park and
this roller coaster is fast
[your friends say your girlfriend is, too]
you aren’t mikey anymore but
not michael II either because
you’re purging daddy out
so you go by mike

i’m 17
i’m watching your band
again and
your phone keeps ringing
[she’s calling about mike’s baby]
i think i’ll pick it up, mikey
tell her you still like the spice girls

i’m 22
cleveland state?
it’s part of her deal
you’re stuck in ohio
[just like daddy]
but you’re getting out of columbus:
i gave you bus fare
under the table