I. You picked a **** out of a garden and became my first love. At the time I was trying to define who I was, searching in dictionaries for the word “bi” or “gay” to see if my name was there. I searched for who I was in other people and never saw myself reflected back until I felt your lips on mine and found out I was yours. You like to say we were only friends, but we were more because I started eating again and stopped harming my skin. Unfortunately you couldn’t teach my body to only love you and I hurt you so bad that physical pain would hurt less because I left you unconscious from a broken heart. It’s been over a year but I still hate myself for smashing your glass wrists and I’m reminded by it every time I see the cracks on them. I’m so sorry.

II. I see you smoking your cigarettes, nicotine swarming your lungs and I’ve never been more jealous. Halos of smoke fill the air and I wish I could sketch the way you look right now, you’re a ******* masterpiece.

III. I see the way sadness knocks at your door and how you lock it twice, but somehow it has the key. I see the way sadness grips onto your bones and holds on tightly, the silence is unbearable and tears drip down your face and it’s so hard to see you in so much pain but maybe this will help.
My words aren’t going to make sadness stop knocking, but I’ll put a **** “Do Not Disturb” sign up and lock the doors thrice.
When was the last time you slept? I won’t let the sadness take up your sheets where they turn to ocean waves and you feel like you’re drowning but the pills **** all the pain and your fingers are blue from trying to grasp what’s real and fake.
I won’t let sadness rearrange the words “*****” into “happiness” because no matter what’s at the bottom of the bottle, it’ll make you forget anyhow.
I know that sadness whispers to you, and I know the way it touches you, and that’s why you can’t stop scratching your bare skin, isn’t it?
Sadness twists what you see in the mirror and you clench your teeth and break your rib cage and you smash the glass with your fists because looking at yourself in pieces seems more familiar.

IV. You think you’re trapped between two lungs but baby there’s so much more. I hope you never hate your scars because just like stars, they are the scars of the universe, or my universe at least.
It’s so hard to describe an angel when my voice shakes and stutters and no collection of words can ever describe how utterly breathtaking you are. And overtime you move I can’t stop watching you and I swear the earth stands still because it can’t keep it’s eyes off you. I look into your eyes and see heaven, yet I don’t believe in God but I have no problem worshiping you.
You hurt in places I never knew existed even though I’ve been between your veins and the crook of your neck and words tumble out of you mouth I’m okay I’m fine don’t worry, yet you tremble when you speak.

V. I write about you so much to remind you that I’ve not only inked my paper with the thought of you, but i can’t get you out of my head and I hope you stay.

As I write this great poem about how you broke my sick heart I have to stop and look to the ceiling so tears won’t overflow because it’s Christmas and today a year ago you asked me to be yours. I guess I didn’t realize that this was all a prank I was falling for when you made me feel invincible against everything, except you, and that’s probably why I still hurt over you 2 months later. I should have known that you weren’t someone who would stay because you didn’t stay up till 12 with me and you didn’t watch my favourite christmas movie and that’s always going to get to me.
you filled me with ***** that burned the back of my throat and bad thoughts that haunted my mind and made my entire ******* body shake. I carved my fingernails into my thighs because all I wanted was out, ****** I still want out, but when you saw the marks cut into me you held my hand and we walked to the convenience store at the end of my street where you pointed out the sharp razors to use instead. I can look on the skin covering my bones and still point out each scar where you thought I wasn’t capable of destroying myself more than you did. you left me convulsing over a toilet bowl because the way you treated me made me sick to my stomach and all I wanted to do was shrink and shrink and shrink until there was nothing left of me because you never knew how to love me, all you ever knew was how to destroy the already cracked pieces of me until I was left brittle, bruised, and bleeding. now all I do is speak in metaphors about you but *******, you do not ******* deserve my poetry. I was only second choices and a maybe to you, I was never put first and I was never a yes and I wasn’t even a no. I still know your birthday and your middle name and your sisters due date and I remember the way my name rolled off your tongue and I know your scars and I know why you never wanted to stay home and you made yourself the ******* victim when I was the one you were killing. did you even mean a word you ever said or were they mistakes that you scribbled all over the walls that you easily erased but I could never erase it in my mind because it's there, all of your empty promises and words.
My chest aches and the doctors say that I have some sort of heart disease but I know its from loving you twice as much as you ever loved me. I’ve been drinking more than I’d like to admit, but drinking makes my head spin and I wake up to not remembering a thing and that’s exactly what it’s like to love you.
But I can’t forget you, I’ll never forget you, I can echo words you’ve said and I’ve always been told to hold onto the ones who love me with their words rather than their hands. But I question if you ever loved me because you made me give pieces of myself to you that never existed and I told you I loved you and you said it back but why the **** didn’t you want to be with me? You tore me down and yet I was stupid enough to stay and expect you to rebuild me and I let you see how damaged I was and you took advantage of me and ****** around with my feelings more and there were more blades and pills and drugs and drunk kisses and you made me want to die.
I’ve started peeling the skin off of my fingertips since you started finding happiness in others because you were home for 9 months and now I’m numb. No one has any interest in me, I am a walking paradox, always laughing like I believe that I have self worth when I really only see myself as self rot. And even though I want someone else, I’m sure she doesn’t want me, you’ve made me believe that. My chestnut eyes are as dull as grey clouds and memories of us are lodged between my ribs where they won’t ******* leave no matter how hard my body shakes when I think about you.
I thought being with you would cure the way my sadness creeps into my eyes and blurs my vision, but really it was letting you see the worst parts of me and grabbing onto your hands until they broke because I held onto you too tightly. I thought if I held onto you tight enough that you wouldn’t leave but too quickly I couldn’t even grasp your shadow because you were too busy with other girls ******* on your neck and leaving love bites and I was left with a bottle of tequila and your stupid promise to stay. I thought if I screamed loud enough about the pain you put me through that someone would hear, but you grabbed me by my throat before I could make a sound and told me that you’d fix me, but one night in your sleep you whispered that I was incurable. I thought if I could memorize each freckle and line on your body so that I could trace them in my sleep that you’d never leave, but now you’re tracing other girl’s bare body’s and I’m sketching anothers too.
Afterwards I was taught what love was with other peoples bodies instead of words and I started to see my bones and I couldn’t stop taking pills and something broke inside me like glass shattering and I woke up in the hospital from a heart attack because of my **** heart disease.
I still have heart problems and I still think of you a lot. I would like to say I’ve moved on too and I have. I’ve found love in another person but unfortunately she doesn’t see any love in me, and that’s okay because neither do I.
I would like to thank you honestly, my dad and you are the people who have hurt me the most and I don’t know why I let both of you take turns stabbing me until I bled dry, but now I’m a walking skeleton because I am so **** empty. I can’t find happiness no matter how hard I look and I don’t know why my body feels so heavy at 17, like I’ve already lived through 3 lives, but that’s life. It’s crazy that you inspire poetry when you’re the opposite of love and I honestly don’t care if you read this and you’re hurt because you hurt me for 9 months and I’m still hurting and I don’t think I’ll ever stop.
Merry Christmas.

I'm not sure if you care much about me, I don't care much about me either, but ever since you came back after a year you've been flowing from the ink of my pen to my paper and I can't stop ******* writing about you.
I mostly sit in coffee shops thinking of how your left hand would spread across your cracked mug and how your right hand would grip my thigh, because you told me you always had to be touching me in one way or another to make up for the times you were too far to see the same stars as me. I see you carving our names into the wooden table and I'm tracing your lips with my cut up fingers and the only time you can tell me you love me is after a shot and a kiss or two. I never liked coffee until I tasted it tattooed on your lips and there I swallowed every apology for how much I drank and the way I ****** because both are so violent and both left us naked and crying until you held me so tight i thought my veins would burst, but I'd never tell you to stop.
Walking to the bus stop I confuse your eyes with street lights and maybe its because I'm slightly tipsy and in love with you. I hold your cut up hands, you told me your mom was trying to hurt you but you were as numb as you were when she slapped you, and you never cried. At the bus stop I kissed you so hard and your tears mixed with our saliva and I thought the four oceans had spilled from your beautiful eyes. On the bus I held you until you felt limp in my arms and I looked into your eyes and saw the street lights flicker and I made you get off at the next stop, even though we had 5 more to go. You had goosebumps covering your porcelain skin and you told me you had no idea who you were without your sadness in between sobs that shook my lungs and made me cry too.
Loving you is writing poetry so your eyes don't wander away from me even though I break pieces of myself to give to you so you'll stay, and that's not love but it's the only love I'll ever know.
Loving you is asking constantly if you've stopped loving me because self doubt swallows me whole and vomits apologies that tumble out of my mouth for the ways I try to **** myself I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry
Loving you is echoing words I need to hear, hoping it'll quiet the voices in your head telling you to do terrible things to your body.
Loving you is listening to the 1975 and hearing your name in between each chord and god ****** I love you
Loving you is never knowing how you are but always knowing you're in your car, because you never like staying at home, and baby that's okay.
Loving you is never knowing the colours of your eyes because they always switch from brown to green and oh god I'm so scared for the day you won't be here.
Loving you is knowing that you have me tucked away in the back pocket of your skinny jeans but not knowing when you'll take me out and tell me you love me, because I do love you.
and I love you is big for me, it's an anxiety attack formed in words it's trying to speak with bruised lips from kissing you too hard it's breathing in water, but baby we're both drowning so we might as well hold hands and sink together.

I am still sitting at the side of the curb where you left me with your demons. I've been looking for a way out, an escape, but in all the wrong places.
I held hands with the devil and he took me to his bed where love turned to lust and my body was no longer a temple to worship. Now I shrink away from the slightest touch of anyone because I started to believe that they were all the devil in disguise, well aren't they dad?
I don't know why you came back and left as fast as you did, but it sure warned me about the people who made empty promises that echo off my walls at night.
The words I wanted to say to you that night still bounce off my lungs, some linger on my tongue, few make it to my lips.
I have to write about my strongest memory, so how could I forget the night you left?
I thought if I could be daddy's little girl the storm inside of me would settle and there would be peace, but you broke each one of my bones with your bare hands that night, leaving me in a pile of self rot on the curb, didn't dare to turn around to see your own blood destroyed and who was I to think that family was forever?
You told me I used you for your money, but all I ever used you for was love. I thought you were home but I never even lived there for two years before you packed my things, kicked me out, and slammed the door.
You got louder and I tried to cover my little brother's ears to protect him from the poison spewing from your mouth and I tried to cover his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch his sister be ripped to pieces by the man he looks up to.
After you left I walked into my house, the four oceans had been emptied and spilled from my eyes. I screamed about the hate I had for you and pounded my fists against the walls and my mom was scared and I saw the faith drain from her eyes when she realized what you had done.
Nothing is poetic or beautiful or okay about a father abandoning his daughter. So when I thought of my strongest memory, this one came to mind first and I hope you know that your daughter writes about the ways you destroyed her.

I opened up to you.
I let myself look weak, feel weak, in front of you. I let my sorrows pierce the air when I laid there shaking on my bed because you stopped loving me.
It started when you stopped calling me your world, and discovered that there's a whole universe out there with planets that suited your needs better, even though I loved you most.
You stopped loving how I always watch adventure time while I smoke my du maurier's off the balcony, or how I get drunk off cheap store bought white wine and I stop smiling.
You stopped wanting to discover new places with me and only wanted to discover what you could find in my bed, because you'd had a hard day and needed to not talk for awhile, or a week. I let you undress me and take your anger out on me between thin sheets, sweaty palms, high pitched screams, left with bruises, cuts, hand marks, and I would cry after but you would pretend you were asleep, and that's when I knew that I was merely another ***** bottle that burned your throat and made you feel numb.
I've been drinking a lot of ***** since you left, and last night it felt like my world was crumbling to bits and pieces around me because you weren't ******* there to tell me to stop drinking and to hold me and I can't ******* take care of myself since my biggest wish is to be 6 feet under the ground.
You promised me you wouldn't leave, but in reality the only promise that is ever kept is death because it's never broken.
So a warning to my next lover, when you lay in my bed and kiss the cracks of my collarbones and ask why I'm shaking, it's because the last time someone was here, they set fire to the bed with me in it.

I have never felt more alive than when your hands glided across the curve of my waist and you were smoking your marlboro black 100's and I could taste them on your lips while the sky blushed pink and red when it saw your naked soul. I've always held onto the things that destroy me most but for once I let go and held onto you instead. I held your hand too tightly and I heard bones break because I was so scared to show you the parts of me that were dying and you told me, baby you control which parts die and grow, and that was the first time I felt some form of self love in 3 years.
I want to take your sadness and grab it by its throat until it bleeds all of the poison that has harmed your body, because baby, your body isn't at war with you but it braces itself against the bombs you throw at it. you try to cover up the battlefields like I've never seen them before but you don't have to hide the ways you try to **** your sadness. dollar bills, razor blades, straight lines, bottles, and colourful pills do not define you, you are made up of the deepest depths of the ocean where no one has been, you are made up of the metaphors in every love poem, you are made up of your first kiss with cigarette lips, you are made up of the summer nights spent making love to the moon.
you see baby, you scream at the shadows of your worst fears that lay next to you in bed until your throat feels raw, but they won't always be there. I will take their place and whisper in your ear that you are an entire galaxy trapped inside one body and the star dust in your eyes shines brightest when you laugh.
but most of all baby, I see you as a mystery waiting to be solved, a tormented piece of art that is worth way more than money could ever buy, a empty home waiting for someone to be able to unlock the doors and feel safe inside. many have tried to burn you down after you let them in and you've sealed the door shut and closed the blinds. I've been knocking on the door for days and I don't know if you can hear me, but you are the only home I've ever known.