my soul is loud

you take me to stadiums
and tell me to be me

i love you, best friend

i’m just saying,
everyone thinks i’m
prettier than her

i truly have no idea
who this poem
is about

but it’s about some
f*cker out there

you don’t respect
my heart, my body,
or my time

so don’t call here anymore

i’m blue

your eyes destroy me

courtney—
not resenting your existence
is the hardest thing i do,
but some days i’m just bad at it
and don’t care to be better

i’ve been drinking
for four days straight

hoping that if i drink classy,
it means i’m not broken



i’m broken

sometimes i wish
i didn’t forgive
so easily

you really hurt me, ryan,
and you haven’t paid
for that

i’m so excited
about you

and whether we
become something
or we don’t—
i’m just so happy that
someone could make me
feel this way again

i have the most insanely
brilliant, kind, beautiful woman

how...?
capital h how?

i was naive enough
to believe that
when a person met her person,
they’d get to be people together

to all of us goofy humans
who dare to be caricatures—
people have made livings
on the boardwalk
trying to capture our essence

to ryan—
you’ve done more
to help me love myself
than anyone i’ve ever met.
it’s no wonder i love you too

we all have our muses—
and i have you

ryan, you know you’re
a magic human, right?

marriage isn't for everyone,
and i can't seem to explain
that to my mother

(i still get visitors, mom—
and they're always
really handsome)

it should eat you up
that your best friend
isn’t the girl
you intend to marry

i haven’t been able
to fill my lungs
ever since i’ve known you

but cigars don’t remind me
that i’m broken

i just store that ****
in my cheeks

our love was beautiful—
i look at it standing tall
out there in the distant past,
and i’m so grateful
we ever built it
...and that we left it

p– this one’s for you

the second
you started having
feelings for me

we started cracking

i was afraid of that

being in love
with your best friend
gets complicated

you lost the right
to love me
the moment you chose her

r y a n

you’re my world
you’re my sky
you’re my stars

momma,
i’m sorry that i’m just
a stupid 24-year-old kid
and that i get everything wrong
the first few hundred times

my first therapist
(six long years ago)
told me i needed to learn
how to “self-soothe”
when my world
feels like it’s ending

that doesn’t mean
not ever feeling lonely

that means knowing
when to sleep on the couch
to make the lonely manageable

not to be preachy,
but maybe stop and dwell
for a couple minutes today
on the ways you’ve learned
how to soothe yourself
when you’re in pain—
and then take a moment
to be proud of yourself
for your resilience

ryan,
i miss you so much

but i have to do this
for me, okay?

i want to get creative
all over you,
my muse

i don’t romanticize
martyrdom
like i used to

numb is worse
than pain

if you know, you know

all of my friends
are struggling right now

and none want my light

i get to live
a 25-hour day
in the most pain
i’ve ever felt

i guess this is why
i don’t want to talk to you
when courtney is with you

...she makes me feel
out of place in my own sky
...in my own friendship

i dont want to love you

but i dont want to
******* stop

you’ll always have
a special place in my heart

you just don’t have
the whole thing anymore

i don’t trust you with it
and you don’t deserve it

i trust me with it
and good god i deserve it

don’t call here anymore

for the record—
i’m actually thriving
right now

but i remember how bad
it used to be