I once knew a girl who wore flowers in her hair
and hope in her heart
she carried herself with a smile and a straight back
and she never slouched once or told anyone she was sad

she had long brown hair and big brown eyes
and she loved the universe, and everything in it

she once told me that she wanted to grow up and do everything
she didn't say what, she just wanted to do-
she wanted to be
and I didn't know what she meant but now I do
because all I want to do is be, for her

because she didn't get to grow up
and even though she ended her life,
the girl with the flowers in her hair
did not **** herself

words did;
words uttered to hurt
and they hurt, they really hurt
but she doesn't anymore

and even though she's gone,
she's not really gone because I see her everywhere I look
I see her in the people that were good to her
I see her in the leaves that I avoid stepping on,
at my childhood home, where she visited for my birthday parties
when I pass her house
and when I go to our old school

I see her in the good in the world
she taught me lessons I needed to know
and even though she took her own life,
she taught me more about living than dying

I once knew a girl who wore flowers in her hair
and even though she's gone, she's not

never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
she’ll end up caring for you more than she cares about poetry
and that will mean destruction for both of you
she will compare you to the stars and the breath out of her own lungs
and she will count the minutes until she can be with you next
this is entirely troublesome, especially if you don’t feel the same way
although if you don’t, a heartache will be cause for more inspiration
I suppose love is a win win situation for writers-
fall in love, you have inspiration
fall out of it, you have inspiration

never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
she will get to attached
she will love you too much
she will fall in love with the curve of your spine
and the form of your smile
and the structure of your bones
and the placement of your words on her mouth
and the way your hair falls floppily out of place
and the way you don’t love her at all

never fall in love with a writer
never fall in love with the girl who writes poems about you
never fall in love with me

There was a time when the only thing you could see
behind your eyelids were your mother's big blue eyes-
and now you have to concentrate to remember her.

There was a time when your dad was the only person
you'd let see you cry but now he's the only one
you won't.

There was a time when family meant the world to you,
when you were asked to draw a map in elementary school
and all you did was draw a human heart with the veins
all leading to stick figures of your parents.

There was a time when you were young and you sort of
realized that everything was not how it should be,
you thought "normal kids aren't like this" and
"normal parents don't act like this", until it became
your normal.

There were days when you wouldn't eat simply because
you watched your mother do the same.

There were hours when you'd take pills and lie in bed
because it was normal,
because you'd seen it.

But now you are older and you still have that infectious smile
but you know better, and family isn't connected to your heart anymore.
They're connected to your brain, where memories are stored.

There were days you spent letting go of the past, letting go of those
big blue eyes and the man who you'd let see you cry;
letting go, letting go
letting go
*let it go.

If my hands could tell a story, they'd say how your spine always looked beautiful in the morning,
when the sun's rays created shadows that danced along your back and flirted with your neck
like they'd never meet again.
They'd say how your lips always curved upwards as if they were saying hello.
If my hands could tell a fairytale, there'd be no happy ending,
there'd be no end at all.
I wish my lips could finally part to say the right things,
because all I want to do is hear your name roll off my tongue,
in the same sentence as "you're mine".
I want them to tell the story of your lips,
red, and taunting and always mysterious.
I always got a toothache when you weren't in the room.
I think I need a root canal.
If my knees could speak they'd tell you how lovely it was
to bend to curl to your legs.
If my knees could tell a story, they'd describe the cold, hard
bitter kiss of death they shared with the pavement so many times
when I found your bags at the door.
If my knees could beg, they'd ask for forgiveness.
For being too bony, too weak,
for not being able to support your dreams.
(I'd give up anything now for that little apartment in New York
and nothing but two typewriters)
If my fingers had a chance, they'd trace the familiar lines of your collarbones
and over your shoulders, because by now they've committed them to memory.
If my fingers had a chance, they'd hold yours again.
They say to stay away from broken people but I saw you as a puzzle
just waiting for someone to put you back together again.
If my eyes could tell a story they would whisper softly of your flowing hair
and pixie-like body.
They would ask you to stay.
They would jump out of my body to give you a glimpse of how I see you.
They would show you how utterly unprecedented you are.
If I believed in heaven I would tell you that you're a miracle.
That you are something I wished upon for years as a child.
You are a star.
You are a supernova.
You are a black hole, ******* me in and twisting me about until I am nothing
but battered limbs and my broken heart.
You are God with the Devil's kiss.
If my lips could move they'd say "stay".
You were mine.

When I think about you my lungs forget how to work.
I miss you so bad I can't breathe or stop the hurt.

I think of you as the rock I skipped across the pond.
It skipped thirteen times before it sunk.
You lived thirteen years before you had enough.

I think that you were brave
but also so naive to think that nobody would miss you.
I think about you every day until my chest caves in.

Sometimes I look around at the world and start getting dizzy
because I know you're not here anymore.
I feel like I'm going to pass out when I think about you
being a skeleton in a dress somewhere underground.

For your sake I hope heaven exists.

For my sake I hope hell doesn't.

Everything is dust.
I found you on my bookshelf untouched.
I am sorry, I'll leave you there again and I'm never good at apologies.
I tried very hard to leave you alone, but you were this enigma.
I swear that the Gods put attracting magnets in both of us, because whenever I speak with you
I have this surge inside me, something that can't be explained.
It feels like we were written in the stars or some other *******.
I don't believe in that anyways.
Or I didn't, until you.
I am sorry that I wear nooses as necklaces, and I'm sorry that maybe you got tangled in them.
I'm sorry you couldn't breathe, because I wanted you to.
I want you to keep on breathing forever and when you can't anymore...
then I won't either.
I have a feeling that if you read this you'd be sick to your stomach.
I have a feeling that if I touched you again you wouldn't know why,
but you wouldn't ask.
You were just like that sometimes.
My candle flickers everytime I think of you, and I think it misses you as well.
I think that it needs you to stay aflame. I think I need you to stay aflame.

My neighbours are breaking some things out in the backyard and I kind of want to say
"hey, here's another thing you can break" and let them smash me into pieces with their hammer.
I think that would be a fun way to die.
You know, my brother asked me if I wanted to die in my sleep or of old age.
I said neither. I told him that I wanted to get in a big car wreck,
or murdered in an alley.
He asked why, and I consequently told him that I wanted to feel the life being pulled from me.
I told him you only die once. I don't think he was ready for that.
He is six.

If you were there you'd probably laugh and offer to be the one to ****** me.
In secret, I liked that about you.
I like that you clap your hands when you laugh.
I am sorry, I'll leave you there again.
I am sorry.
I'm never good with apologies.

I am sorry to her, also.
Because I never wanted her to hurt.
I was jealous that she gets you all the time.
I was jealous that she is your stars and your moon and your sun in the morning.
I only got to be a silhouette in your life. A shadowy figure clinging to dark magic and the shadows of ravens
in cemeteries where I imagined myself being buried.

I miss you so much and I've never even had you, how sad.
I think that someone like you almost always turns into a hurricane.
Everything good must come to an end and all those merry little details.
I've used up all of my metaphors on you.
I can't compare your eyes to anything else except for the most exquisite of art pieces,
and I've never been to a gallery.
I guess I'm not one to make judgement on anything.

I am so sorry for losing, but I am not sorry that you're winning.
You'll be much better now, and I think she makes you into more of a martyr.
I don't know how I feel about that.
The only poetic thing I can say to you now is "I'm sorry"
and even though I'm not good with apologies,
I really mean that.
I think now I've turned to dust.

If I thought I was losing you I wouldn't beg you to stay
I'd say that when you breathe, I see stars because I imagine your heart inside your body pumping blood
to your veins and your lungs expanding and letting go and all I can think of is how I never want to be your lungs
because I could never let go of your air.

I'd tell you that your eyes put the northern lights to shame.
That I've been everywhere and nowhere feels more at home than
sitting on the curb of a street in a city I don't know with you by my side.

If I thought I was losing you I would tell you that I'm not one
for love poems, but the sound of you saying my name is enough to make me think of red roses and blue violets.
And that when you touch me the roses are blue and the violets are red
and everything painful inside my head doesn't matter.

If I thought you were going to leave I wouldn't ask you to stay,
I'd tell you that every word that comes from your mouth leaves me breathless;
That there are little caves in your body and I picked a temporary home in your larynx
so you could always feel me in the words you're nervous to say.

I'd let you know that my whole life I've been searching for myself,
and amidst the shadows I found your bright eyes, and I lost my senses there...
and found them as well.

I want to tell you that all I need is you and a record player.
That music runs through my veins, and right next to Every Grain of Sand
and my love for Bob Dylan, you're there.
Shining through my bloodstream, leading the way to my heart.

If I thought I was losing you, I wouldn't beg you to stay.
I'd say that you're the best and worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry.
That I find metaphors in the notches of your spine,
that I play them like a piano.
And most of all, above all these things,
I'd say darling don't go, I'll miss you.

I miss you like sadness.
I used to wrap around myself like some lovelorn python
with a desire for suicide blondes.
Called yourself a wrecking ball, but you had no choice.
Maybe you wanted to caress my house softly without destruction.
Maybe you cried afterwards like a lost child on a mountain of doubt.
Full of maybes! You make me full of maybes!
I was taught as a child that maybe was just a watered down no.
Stop watering the truth down, I'm not your flower.
I'm a ****.
And I'll just continue to grow until I can't fit in anything except for my own grave.

You make me want to go to church.
I was baptised once, I forget as what.
I honestly don't even know what religion is,
but I can religiously blacken my lungs with nicotine and lies.
Lie with me.
Caress my sins.

My body is world war three,
I have nuclear bombs in the dips of my collarbones
and every single freckle you used to compare to the galaxies
are bullet holes.
Save your prose for someone who gives a ****.

Pull the blinds baby, we don't need light in here.
Did you know that with three minutes of asphyxiation you become brain dead?
Let's try it baby, suicide pact?
Let's dance with the dead darling.
You always said the devil was our best friend.

My tarot cards turned black when you turned them over.
You said that I was hard to read.
I had trouble reading anything except the bell jar.
And now it's my turn to ring it.

You're prettier with a necklace made of fingers.
I want to collect your energy in a mason jar and sell it at a garage sale.
I want to smash it in the middle of a highway and lay in a ditch until the wolves eat my body.
I want to be lost.
Lose me baby.
I'll lose myself in your lies.
Lie with me.
I just want to be held.