The words I can’t say to you are
climbing up my throat
I keep forgetting to breathe
I miss your hands.

i want to dye
my hair and tattoo my skin
so that the changes
you’ve been noticing in me
look like they’re
on purpose.

i don’t know how someone as small as me
with bones that break at the sight of heat lightning
and heart strings that thread apart at the sound of his voice
could make anyone feel like the sun shines brighter
through kaleidoscope eyes—
you’re okay if it brings out the freckles on your face,
and you feel good, you feel alive
you say i showed you how to love in a new way,
that i taught you to be so much more okay with your tummy,
“it’s been very freeing and life is a lot better, thank you,”
but i feel like i can’t say you’re welcome
because i am a messy cliché of imperfect scraps and hypocrisy
loosely sewn together with
“you are strong you are strong you are strong,”
but i feel so weak i feel so weak i feel so weak
and i am not steady hands, they shake like
wet dogs after kiddy pool baths,
i am flower seeds that forgot how to bloom,
trapped below the surface of a garden that feels like quicksand
and i’m sorry but you don’t see all the mistakes i make,
all the words i’ve preached that look back at me
and laugh when they see
what i feel, what i think, who i am behind closed doors,
i’m sorry.
you keep hanging medals around my neck, and
they’re so heavy, and i don’t know
what to say besides i love you
when you speak words of adoration,
but please do not praise me, i am not good.

Empty promises and carefree living
Hazy nights and forgettable days
Chasing pleasure wherever it can be found
Never remembering those who once stood besides you
Bitterness is poison, a slow killer slinking in
But I can't help but feel as if you abandoned me
The first chance you got, without second thought
You'll never find someone else like this

i thought it’d be poetic
to leave you the same way i found you,
with a contentless text—
a simple entered space
(i knew you wouldn’t catch it)
although you seem to be someone
who thinks very deeply about all someones,
your thoughts about me are puddles
disguised as over-complimenting oceans

and i really do not know
what i am or what i’ve been to you,
or if i’ll be able to keep myself away
from you, or why you’d drive hours
to see me in the middle of the night
when you “plan on kissing at least one
girl in the next three months,”
(could care less if it’s me)

"what would i be waiting for," you asked.

i’m barefoot, chasing a train i know
is on tracks that lead away from where
i want and need to be (but i liked the way
it felt when your hand touched mine)

glad i never gave you any piece of my heart,
because you’re the type of boy who’d
rip it to shreds, hide your claws
behind your back, and tell me that
i should’ve seen it coming
(though you would’ve been right)

maybe you’re just bored,
and that’s why you decorate
your skin with ink and don’t care
about whose lips you’ve touched,
and i wish i could figure you out,
wish i could draw a perfect portrait
with my words (or even just
my thoughts) of who you are,
but i won’t pretend i know you

i hate you and your ***** tattoo
(but i don’t really hate you,
i hate the way i let you make me feel.)

Nostalgia is poison seeped in my veins
I remember that last sad smile as you turned away from me
Though it has been years some thing never fade
Like the pleasure the first time our eyes were blessed to meet
Through fire and brimstone, demons and hell
That immense joy always linger, threatening to ****
What little sanity I had, and though until now I've survived
This nostalgia is killing me, making we wish for
One last time

I think the scent of bug spray on my palms will now forever remind me of you and the late night (early morning) we spent sitting in your car, drawing awfully unskillful portraits on the back of each other’s hands in 
dim light and 3 a.m. stillness. (I wonder if you could tell that doodling on your skin was just an excuse to touch you.) I wanted so badly to let my fingers find yours 
as we laid back in our seats 
and peeked out the rolled down 
windows at the infinite stars scattered above us in the 
early August night sky. I told you I wouldn’t kiss you, 
because I know my heart and 
how relentlessly it would 
replay how your lips felt on mine, and how it would ache knowing
 you couldn’t be mine,
 so I let you kiss my cheek instead,
 and the half a moment that I felt 
your unshaven face brush mine in the middle of the street at five in the morning feels like a fake memory. When you looked at me, I wanted to hide, because I was too afraid to read what words might’ve been written in your eyes, but I felt so content listening to the 
deep tone of your voice 
mix with the obnoxiously loud crickets singing in the trees 
surrounding us. I could’ve sat there with you till the stars disappeared and the sun took their place, but you walked me back home, and you left in the dark, and now I’m sitting in my bed thinking about how the hours between 2 and 5 a.m. have never felt so full.

I remember sitting in some basement at 10:58 on a random summer night
I remember how the movie we watched wasn't very scary
I remember we both pretended it was so we had an excuse to cuddle together
I remember long nights dreaming about you and I together
I remember how seconds felt like hours staring into your eyes
I remember standing together at one in the morning
I remember how the car broke down, and we were both oh so chilly
I remember the feel of your breath on my neck as we stood together
I remember explaining the next day how we were just friends
I remember a time before all I could think was I love you
I remember being scared you wouldn't feel the same way
I remember waking up next to you
I remember wishing we were old enough to wake up together every day
I remember long looks, quick smiles, bad jokes, sweaty hands
I remember shared drinks, borrowed clothes, tight hugs, your laugh
I forget when it was exactly that I fell in love with you
But I know that ever since, nothing was the same

I let you
**** me;
You didn't mean it.
I let you
love me back.
I let you hit me;
you felt better.
I let you lie,
And treat me
The way
I needed to
feel;
break walls and crush me
into
Vulnerability.
I smiled while you told me
Someone else's name;
More pleasure
Than my eyes and soul combined.
I let you dig your nails into cracked skin,
Pull out pieces that didn't match yours.
I let you bite my neck
And ******* tears
If it meant you'd remember my name.