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I am an insomniac by association.
I associate with sleepless nights and mindsets that are too wobbly and shaky to be anything less than a tornado.
I want to rename my veins after hurricanes.
This one's Sandy because it washed away the girl I loved in New Jersey.
Because the ocean is never as salty as my cheeks after I kiss her through the miles.
Because I am not a boy, because my mother thinks I wear black because I used to slit my wrists.
Because of my tattoos that whisper of their memories while I lay in bed counting the stars I can't see.
So I start counting the stars I see in my head.
So I started taking drugs that made me see them instead.
I am an insomniac because I want to sleep but only when I remember the reasons why I can't.
red blood cells live for about four months
white blood cells can live for over a year
skin cells live about two to three weeks

slowly, hour by hour
day by day
week by week
month by month
year by year
my body will die and replace itself

and surely enough
some day
eventually
i will have a body you never touched
and hair you never pulled
Nine forty- three.
I look at the clock and that's all I see.
It wouldn't be so grim
If it didn't remind me.
But those three digits
Are the start of your phone number
And that lobs me back into a cycle
I never desired to enter again.

And the damaging memories don't resurface
Just the gleeful things manage to pull through.
And I find myself
Relearning to miss all that was you.
I wish
I could hold you heart in both of my hands
And be allowed the opportunity
To toy with it all I want

And then maybe
You could feel what you are doing to me
And you could stop devastating
Every aspect of me.
i
hold
grudges
like
my
mother
&
leave
first
like
my
father.
speaking of my father feels foreign to me.
his mother tried to **** him
when he was in her belly
so he tried to **** her
on his way out and
they
never
spoke
about
it
why do i think about this so much? i guess i just had to write it down.
you spent the entirety of your childhood
on the cement driveway
laid out in the front of the
tall house on the right side
of almond street
r i p p i n g
the wings off of your favorite insects
after letting them explore
the skin stretched across your hands
and keeping them in mason jars
on the middle shelf above your bed
admiring the trust they had in you

many years later
you move it up to the bedroom
cotton instead of cement
but i could never tell the difference
with your hands gripped tight
around each and every one of my limbs
and after i could no longer hold your attention
you'd throw me in the closet
with the rest of the skeletons
and now you get to watch me
become one
because we went from
crossed stars and smoking in back yards
to you regretting all of it
somehow
between facebook posts
and blankets tied around my neck
drunkenly running through the house
i keep finding myself
playing the heroine
to your hero.
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