amanda
amand
aman
ama
am
i
allowed to admit
these letters
are losing meaning
everyday?

i’m not happy

but i practiced forging
its signature
until no one could tell
the difference

i put you first

you put me third

or is it fifth?

i don’t know,
i just know
it’s odd

i want you
to wear my legs
like a necklace

i looked down
twenty three stories

tears in my eyes
legs shaking

every intention
of falling head first

you see— i was just so tired
of having to land
on my feet

we hit terminal velocity

where we couldn’t


physically fall



any faster





and then we hit










the ground

if you stop thrashing
for long enough,
i swear you can hear the ocean say

i’m trying to make you a swimmer

so that you have a reason
to come back
...

if you can smile
as you pull the knife
out of your back
and choke down the blood
you coughed up,

does that mean you’ve grown
strong enough

or inhuman enough?

the knock on the door scared me

8pm
halloween night
i wasn’t expecting trick-or-treaters
at my apartment door

i texted you
“i don’t have candy—
what do i do??”

you encouraged me
begged me
to open the door

“it would be rude to ignore them, amanda”

it wasn’t a child
it wasn’t a skeleton or a ghost

it was you

and a bouquet of flowers

and a note

“i know this month has been hard for us
but i have a feeling
november will be the best to come”

november was the end

i got distracted
by your laugh

so, if there was a sign
at the border,
i missed it

all i know
is now i’m in a place
called love

and all the houses
look like you

i may have despised
for the longest time
that she was your sun

but you’re my moon

and i guess what
i’m trying to say is—

every one of my nights
would be darker
without her light
all over you

if the world
ever stops turning

i hope you’re the one
i’m still with

you make forever
seem less like a concept,
and more like
all the tuesdays

2 and 4am
look the same

the unrelenting dark—
the fear that this night
won’t give light to day

2 and 4am
look the same

but 2 and 4am
are not the same

i cannot
and will not
apologize
for loving him

i mean

you would never expect
the moon
to apologize
for being attracted
to the earth

my dear,
if all you are
is matter,
i don't know how
you could ever believe
you're not important

i stopped asking
why you hurt me
and started asking
why i let you

i would rather
not be thought of
than to be after-thought of

there will be no
photos
labels
or diamond rings
to validate
the permanence
of the life we spent together

only the fact
that i never would have chosen
to do it without you

they called me a hurricane
like i was a disaster

you saw my rain
and called me a force

i’ll always matter to you
but i’ll never be your person

i’ll always just be a
significant
other
...

i lay here beneath
the wall of clocks
you created for me

the sound
of their ticking in unison—

a deafening reminder
that you once
made time for me

if sunsets
have taught me
one thing

it’s how to expect
the sunrise

if there was a word
other than
goodbye
that meant
choosing myself instead of you

i would have used it

you gave me a crown
of thorns
and called me a queen

blood and mascara streaming
down the sides of my face

as i begged you
to put another nail
through my heart

i have this tendency to believe
that i only become more broken
as i crash into more obstacles
in life and in love

but the river reminds me
that water only becomes more pure
with every rock that tries to stop it

we never crossed
the line that we drew in the sand

i just stood on my side,
staring at you on yours

and dropped my towel

our souls
keep trying to touch

but our bodies
seem to be in the way

our life will be a series
of you
breaking my heart,
and then begging to glue it
back together—

the closest you can get
to putting your hands
on my chest

i guess the thing
that hurt the most
wasn’t you choosing her

it was the way
you almost didn’t

—
i am sorry.

i love you.

three words
eight letters

i have no problem
saying both to you

you have no choice
but to say one to me
because you can’t say
the other

you always said
no one deserves me

i just never imagined
you could ever be
no one

if a girl ***** a guy
she doesn't even ******* like
just to **** with a guy
she ******* loves
who is *******
a different ******* girl

who is really
getting ******?

like a feather
falling gracefully toward
your lips

every time we got close,
you blew me up, up and away

you had to know
it was only a matter of time
before a breeze would
come along to carry me
up, up and away
from you

tell me how
she has a soul so large
it fits into nothing
but a suitcase

adj—extremely delicate and light
in a way that seems too perfect
for this world.

there are twenty-four
letters in the alphabet
without u and i

but there are zero words
i want to spell

you know my face
my laugh
and my story
by heart

but not my number

so do me a favor
and delete it

you and i are electric

and maybe we’re that
magic kind of lightning
that never has to
touch the ground

i’m fairly confident
that if i sat on the moon
and looked down
at the earth

first i’d notice you
then i’d realize there are oceans

i let you use the back of my throat
as your punching bag
when i know you need
something to hurt for you

but it’s not enough that i gag for you,
you want me to break for you

and though my mouth
may hand them out—
it’s not my heart’s job
to take blows

some say drowning
feels oddly peaceful
after all the thrashing

the moment you know
your lungs
wont taste oxygen again
and you give your body over
to the water

i think you and i
are past the thrashing

i’ve always been attracted
to men who admire the sea;
i’ve found that such a man
is more likely to admire me

you showed me a heaven
i can never touch
and that no amount of death
will earn me

knowing it exists
knowing you exist —
i now understand
what they mean by
living hell

there’s a select group of humans
who’ve learned
that it’s easier to bleed
than it is to feel

the way i love you
makes me doubt
that i ever loved them

at the end of the day—
it doesn’t matter
how meticulously folded
the envelope is

all i can see
are the big red letters
stamped across the top

RETURN TO SENDER
...

you wonder why
you have to create metaphors
in order to understand
his love

oh honey...
that’s because it’s not real

the sad truth is that
many of the same people
who preach that love conquers all
actively try to conquer a love
they don’t understand