He said "I'm sorry," for the third time that night.

I said through broken sobs, hands rested on a tear soaked pillow, "There is no need to apologize friend, you did nothing wrong, we're fine."

He had been typing for a while before he said, "I just kinda owe it to her, ya know?" I decided to not make a tally of all the promises he has made me, and instead I said, "Yeah, totally. You've gotten better at taking responsibility."

I decided not to focus on the night before, when we held hands crying out pained words, emotionally charged from the whole concert, but the focus was still on our sweaty hands gripping each other tighter with every word that reminded us of each other. I decided to not remember him wrapping his arms around me, pulling me tighter, tighter, because we just could not seem to get close enough to one another. I chose to ignore how I could still feel his hands gripping my shoulders. I decided to neglect all the memories that were always too good to be.

Next thing I know, we're on the phone, I needed to hear your voice, I needed to remember I wasn't all alone. He said, "I hate this, I thought making a decision would make things easier, but it didn't, it just hurt you, that's literally all it did." Suddenly I switched gears, I turned off the tears, and reassured him that this was pain I could handle, dear. Just try to relax, it'll all be in the past soon, just go outside and look at the full moon, remember we will survive this too. He said, "I still have feelings for you ya know. I just made this decision because I owe it to her, that's the only reason. And we might be together one day, who knows."

"Yeah, I know," I said trying not to cry, but that hurt worst of it all. Holding onto hope I should've already let go of. Holding onto rope wrapped around my neck, waiting for that day. I felt comforted but pained. I felt sad, and just plain tired of feeling. I fell asleep that night holding a phone to my face, listening to his breathing.

​
They tell me that I'm a good poet
That I have a way with words.
They tell me that I can make the simplest things sound beautiful.
That I can make a flower bloom
Just by stringing 26 letters of the alphabet into a sentence.

They tell me that I'm complex.
That they have to read between the lines just to figure me out.
They tell me that I make the easiest things complicated
That I can turn my McDonald's order into rocket science.

They tell me this
They tell me that
They. They. They.
But you,
Oh baby, you,
You didn't tell me anything.
You never felt the need to.
You accepted me.
Flaws and all.

You accepted the way I made gardens grow all around us,
You told me you loved the way I turned the carpet into our personal meadow.
You accepted the way I ordered my mcchicken burger
Even if it took forever for them to understand my words.
You showed me that it was okay to be me,
To be unique.
To be able to turn the abc's into rocket science,
The 1,2,3's into the tip of the iceberg
To be surrounded by metaphors and little jigsaw puzzles that everyone thinks they can figure out
But when they get frustrated they leave, their mood gone south.
But you stayed.
Patient.

To this day I can't get the courage to thank you,
I've tried
God knows I have
But this,
This is my final attempt.
No metaphors,
No similes,
Just me.

So thank you baby,
My McDonald's order will forever remain encrypted
And my words,
Complicated.
But us...
We're asymptotes.
Destined to come so very close,
But never intersecting

I used a black sharpie to write a love poem on your arm
Hoping the ink would sink into depths causing little to no harm
That the rough words may permeate through your tough skin
And the permanence may prove that forever starts from within
That the black is dark enough to hide all your scars from being used
And that my words are evidence and proof of my love for you

So let that ink sink as deep as it might
My words peirce your soul without a fight
My sharpie art fill you with awe and an imaginative spark
Be inspired by my loving words and the permanent scar they leave on your heart
You may forget my face, you may forget my name but **never forget where my love made its mark

I think my lips are chapped because I've kissed so many boys who don't love me.
You ask me 'what do you taste like?' I don't think its very **** to say regret and sadness.
You say 'when can I taste you' My taste has been passed around so many tongues there is nothing left for you.

He tells me 'I'm here for you, I'll always be here for you' as he kisses my neck. The next week the bite mark on my belly is fading and I can barely remember the colour of your eyes.

My sister says 'you will change your mind' she says, 'all woman want to be mothers'.
I have stumbled in at 4am with the taste of strangers in my throat to see my mother sitting upright waiting for me, I think of the night I spent crying on my mothers lap in a&e;, certain I couldn't make it through the day, the way my brother scowls at my mother, my sister telling her that 'you could've done more, you could've walked away.' I. Dont. Want. Children.

My mum tells me she is old, she is tired. She desperately needs a man to hold doors open for her and carry her shopping. I am trying to remember that needing someone does not mean you are weak.

My grandmother gave me waist beads to encourage fertility. She says 'god gave you those hips to birth children'. Ive never told her that i lost my faith in god the year i lost my virginity.  And if there is a god, i don't want his ******* fertility. I want to break these beads and let drugs engulf me to prove my grandmothers blind faith wrong.
I laugh and pray before our meal and kiss her forehead, 'god bless'.

He tells me 'i know youre *****, its natural'. I laugh and play along for his delight. 'women are just like toys, television, easy puzzles'. I think of my father beating my mother, my fathers face all the men ive walked past in the street. My mothers face is my own.

'if you don't want boys to touch you you shouldn't wear tight clothes'. I think of all the boys who have run their fingers over my back when i was dressed in clothes from neck to ankle. I wonder if god is a sexist man. I wonder if there's any men who aren't implicitly sexist.

He tells me, 'I'll spend hours on you, I'll make you believe in god again'. There is nothing I can do but laugh. I ask him, 'does your mother know you speak to girls like this?'
He ***** his teeth, 'do you always have to be so difficult?'  
I kiss him but I think of his mother, foreign and lonely, 2 sons and no husband.

He says 'you need a real man' I think of all the other boys who have told me that before leaving me.
He wants to know why I'm in hospital so much, 'how are we going love each other when you can't tell me what's wrong with you' I don't want to tell him that I've cut my arms so badly I can see god in my blood, and sometimes the voice in my head screams so loud I black out. I kiss his chest. He doesn't ask again. I resent him for that.

I've been ignoring my fathers phone calls for two weeks because his voice sounds like absence and I don't want to hear another 'I love you' from a man who doesn't know my secrets.

i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that they are the only things
children will not want to take from me
i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes

What I ink to my page is not poetry,
There is not rhythm or rhyme, nor reason.
The empire state is no structure to my art.


What stains my page is not creativity,
Squiggles and lines leave marks from my mind.
The blank canvas does not lead to my masterpiece.


Words are my patchwork quilt,
Adjectives and nouns thread together my memoirs.
There's no glamour in my prose.


What I ink to my page is not poetry,
nor is it my intellect or wisdom.
What I ink to my page is life.