red car, blue car
every car is your car
green shirt, white shirt
every shirt is your shirt
*what's your name
what's your age
won't you take
a drive with me?

it's strange to write about myself as an entity
i have always thought of myself in terms of other people
the gap between them
a body of negative space.

don't talk to me like her
like a fragile little girl
who wants a fairytale
talk to me
like you're running on an hour of sleep
out of breath
running late
talk to me
like you can't be bothered
and i promise you
i will love you forever.

there is a poet with
the same name as my
ex-lover
's mistress
and every time i read her poetry
i weep
because it is so beautiful
but i cannot love it
because i imagine it was strung
by Her
just like Him.

and all of my demons?
they look just
like
you.

i'm too human
for anyone to love.

my chest feels so empty
and my eyes feel so heavy
and it's only 3:30 pm

on days like this, i wonder
how i got through it
before you

because the after is
proving to be
rough.

i was a poet.
my words
counted
structured
organized
picked and chosen
so carefully
i stifled my heart
in the process
but i loved you --
-- silently
from the bottom of coffee cups
in the transactions of homework
[your spanish, my english]
and my phone history;
all those calls i missed
hitting the mute button
when you played piano
and you understood
you knew my words
didn't say much at all.

but i am a poet.
and fifteen months
after my words were too late
he fell for them, instead
the counting
their structure
my organization
i picked and i chose
like a calculator
starving my heart
in the process
but he loved me --
-- gullibly
from the bottom of his heart
in the middle of the night
never mind my phone history;
all those drunk calls i made
to you
feeding him pretty words
so he could love me
because he didn't understand
he didn't know my words
didn't say much at all.

it's  t e n  'o  c l o c k
go to bed
but the night's still young

it's  e l e v e n  'o  c l o c k
go to bed
but i have work to finish

it's  m i d n i g h t
and don't you know, it's unhealthy
to go to bed so late?
mum,
i think it's even less healthy
to be this sad.

if only i could
**** myself
w/o anyone knowing
just
remove myself
and leave life behind me.

are you quite alright?
                                          he asks
yeah, my knees are just acting up*
                                          i insist
but the way my e n t i r e  b o d y
aches in protest
gives me away.
i can't remember the
last time i felt
rested.

the only time i feel a thing
for him
is when we argue.

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

i have not felt good in a long time
so i would like to rest, if that's alright
just rest until i feel better
and i want to rest alone,
because if i don't
i may be distracted or self-conscious
and i know i'm just asking
to be cold
but i thought perhaps
every few days
you could open the window
and kiss my forehead
to remind me what
warmth feels like
and that this is not
an eternal slumber.

they apologized
to clear their
conscience
not because
they were sorry.

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.

they asked me what i wanted the headline of my life to be
at a time when it took everything in me
to keep my name out of the obituaries.

when the lights go out
all i think of is you
all i can think of is you

and i still blister
like you loved me yesterday.

i tried to write an open letter to your new girlfriend. i sat for hours, writing draft after draft, typing over backspace after backspace, all in vain. i realized at the end of it, i had no words for her. i had no wistful compliments, or tips dipped in nostalgia, or even warnings -- i realized none of those are mine to give. i remembered that there have been at least a dozen girls between me and her; you are no longer mine to giveaway. i am no longer the ex. i was never really the ex, but i am no longer the anything. i'm a girl you used to know. years ago. a girl you'll come across in the yearbook, decades from now, and blink -- was that really her name? you'll swear to yourself that it was more beautiful, back when you moaned it in my ear. you'll show me to your kids, or even your wife, laughing and saying there's my high school . . . you'll pause and stick-in the word 'girlfriend' because it's the closest thing that fits, but we both know better. i was never your girlfriend, i was just your ******* girl.

there is no fondness to this story. there is nothing for you to tell your kids, unless you're ready to ******* jade them; there's the girl who starved for me in year nine, there's the girl who didn't say she loved me until it was over, there's the girl who couldn't function with or without me.

there's your girl. one of your girls. a notch in your belt. now that i think about it, maybe you'll just flip past me in the yearbook. and maybe, if we ever see each other again, all you'll do is blink.

if this is a warzone,
then call it a warzone.

i saw a quote the other day
about emptiness
and how no amount of love
on this planet
can fill it
when it's sincere
and i couldn't help but think
of myself
as a black hole
gaping and bare
stealing kisses in the dark
and words out of the mouths
of babes
just for the thrill
just for the reassurance
that i am desirable
but nothing more

because he took
the rest of my capabilities
with him.

i remember when the people i know
became the people i knew. it started in high school,
kids i’d grown up with dropping off the face of the planet before anything could hold them here; like they were hoping to die
early enough that we could all pretend they’d never been here at all.
we all wanted to erase ourselves. sometimes
i get jealous of the people who succeeded.

I.
too clean
houses

II.
healthy
relationships

III.
sobriety

IV.
the way my brain
is wired.

there's sleet between my teeth
and a thunderstorm in my mind
there's a hurricane in my heart
and a drought beneath my bed

supposedly
never lying
would help me keep
my life straight
but i'm not sure
these pythons
would stop choking me
just for a spoken word
of truth.

i make a fat joke about myself and
"i don't ever wanna hear you say something like that again," he says
he asks if i am unclear as to why
and i want to ask
if he is unclear as to why
i made it in the first place.

i am heavy
[with ugly emotion
that nobody
deserves.]

those days, i would've followed you off a cliff
these days, i'd call 911 --
because i know, now,
that love isn't wanting someone
so much that you'd die for them
but wanting what's best for them
and knowing
that isn't always you.

so i will collect ladders until
i can reach
and rearrange them

he told me he loved me, did you know that? weeks ago . . . and i've been thinking about saying it back for days, but every time -- every ******* time -- i think about it, there you are. with your stupid name and your stupid self and ******* i loved you, you know that? i loved you so much that the thought of saying it to anyone else physically hurts. it feels like it'd be physically impossible to get the words out. two years down the road and here i am, tongue-tied in front of a boy you don't even know, screaming at my memories of you for not being able to catch me.

i miss high school
not really, but y'know
i miss all the things
i got to be.

I.
when you dumped me
they said 'time heals all wounds'
and i said they were full of ****.

II.
when i pick my scabs
i still feel my heart
bleed out over you.

III.
on bad days i curse
your name until i fall asleep
it's my broken lullaby.

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.

she says report, report, report it
i’m trying to tell her
how difficult it was
to even disclose to her
how my ribs
turned into seatbelts.

our college lists intersect
only once
and i wonder if
i can take that as a metaphor
for the way our lives
will run parallel
to each other
but never, again,
perpendicular
and i wonder if
the thought
will ever cease
depressing me.

i don't think i've ever felt that my life was completely my own and i don't think i ever will. i am thrown off-guard by people who simply choose to live. mesmerized by people who throw themselves into their life, as if that is all they are here to do. mind-boggled by people who've never considered the possibility that their life may be bigger than their own, that it could be -- easily -- if they'd only let it. contentment is not in my vocabulary, it is not in my bones; i don't sing in the shower, i breathe.

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

i can start every sentence with
if i were beautiful . . .
and i still won't be

but if i write enough poetry
at least i'll have something beautiful
to show for myself.

but i think i was born
saying goodbye.

i'm not sorry
that i wanted sleep
more than your ****.

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

i could never do
what marilyn does
for you.

my father was a curator
and my mother sold guns
under their roof we made
art and war.

his name left my lips
too many times to count last night
and it was embarrassing
not because everyone heard me
but because everyone thinks
i want him
when all i'll ever want
is you

we twist and twist and twist
like dishrags over an empty sink
where do all the drops of us go
where do they go
where do we go
eighteen
and i feel like i’m running dry

when you are old enough to speak
do not call love
a mental disease
do not resent it, do not fight it
because love is pure
and love is good
it's only when you throw
life into the mix
that it becomes toxic.

your love is too tainted
[by the memory of a boy
who will never be more
than a memory]
to give anybody else.

you won’t catch me
thanking you for much, but thank you
for waiting to leave me until
there was sunlight.