Tonight I feel a heat in my chest
a heat that lets me know I've dug too deep a hole
a hole I've buried myself in
beneath this bladed grass
this serene soil
this poisonous air

Yesterday, I watched every strand of your hair
watched it become a sandcastle
rising and falling in the wind
and I thought to myself
I could love him forever
That's when I recognized I'd let this go too far
I'd let my love for you drown out all the walls I'd spent so long building up
and I loved it

I told you to Lend me your lips
and I'll teach you what love is, I said
I'll let my eyes become your moon
if you'll lend me your collarbones
so I can use them to build a bridge
to the mountains inside my heartstrings

Love, I wrote you an anthem
for all the nights you made my knees sing
and I swore on every dying man's last breath
that I would never change the tune of that song
I was a fool for letting you love me
I knew I would break you in
You told me in life we can't always win
but I thought we were
Because winning was found in the mornings
when your skin looked like feathers under lamplight
and nights when your eyes glistened from that red wine
and I swore I would never let you drink it with anyone else

I told you I couldn't catch a break
and you told me life wasn't a baseball game
I don't have to catch anything
but oh did I ever want to catch you like a firefly
in my glass heart
The day you left I whispered that I would never stop writing you poems
you were always giving me inspiration
You still are

Yesterday I breathed a ghost out of my lungs
and I swore the cigarette smoke could fill up the sky
I thought maybe you'd see my signal fire
telling you it's time to come home
Telling you it's time to listen
time to listen for the last night
When you pressed your cheek against mine
and told me not to call
and I thought the words were poison dripping from your mouth
I was screaming but nothing was coming out
and I knew I couldn't live another day the same ever again

Because now that you're gone
my lipstick can't even stick right
and my sonnets are words numbed by hopelessness
and this poem is a poem I never wanted to write
You were right here standing over my shoulder
just a few weeks back
I have no idea where I lost track of the time
but it's gone
just like you

Today I watched rain spatter like paint on my window pane
and I remembered how you looked the last night I ever saw you breathe
I remembered how you told me it was like heaving for air
when you don't have the lungs to lead
Yesterday I watched a feather fall from a birds wing
and I thought of how you floated through life
wishing you could fly away
I couldn't give you those wings
the wings you needed to pull the strings life couldn't give you
If I could've said "I know how it feels"
to be the beaten up vet looking into an empty bottle of whiskey
with the empty heart flooded with never ending sounds of a gun
to be the adopted child torn away from his mother
the woman beaten and battered by a man called friend
I could've said "I know what it feels like"
but I never did
and now I'm sitting here with your casket on my shoulder
Praying to God that someone will be bolder
than I ever could and hoped someone would
because now I'm sitting here collecting daisies in an open field
under your favourite sycamore tree
and I promised you I would write letters when you moved to Tennessee
You never made it
I carved your name in the pavement where you picked up that dying bird
and told me every single word of the songs your mother used to sing
about putting life in everything
You told me you couldn't do it
If I could have told you I know what it feels like
to lose your focus on the 9th inning of that World Series we call life
Instead you used your knife and carved a ****
and laid yourself in a bed of ashes
and I swore to God I'd never erase it
I couldn't erase it but time
It was always ticking, tick
tick
tick
If I could've wrapped my arm around yours
threw you on a boat and brought you to Venice
so you could have seen what beauty was
or I could've given you a mirror

I was never a simple person
but I craved simplicity like I craved my grandmother's strawberry jam
I loved school, whistling and everything taller than me
They reminded me of my father
I hated screen doors, cracks in pavement and goodbyes
When I was four he left me all those tainted things
but I loved him

Four years later
my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas
I told her I needed a baby brother
I used to spend every night while he slept
at his feet
When I was eleven, my mother moved us to a new city
There were a million games of cops and robbers
and my first boyfriend, Spencer
He had blond hair and eyes so blue they put my brother's to shame
He told me he loved me under an oak tree
kissed my cheek and got so red in the face
I thought he was going to burst

My mother was in University
and had the softest piano hands
Her eyes were glossy from all her tears
I collected them in my jewellery box heart
There were rust on my edges
and hers
I was a rusty by product of drunk unintentions
A mathematic, scientific accident
Not a young mother with high hopes and goodluck

On Sunday afternoons I played hopscotch
on my babysitters driveway, I was nine
On Sunday evenings he brought me to his secret lair
He'd secretly touch me in all my secret places
I hated him
I think he hated me too

When I was six, I wanted to be a teacher
Ten years later, a man with a medical degree
told me I couldn't have babies
I couldn't look at another child, so I figured teaching wasn't my best option
Plus, I've never been a fan of teaching children not to make a mess
I spent my whole life making sure it wasn't messy

When I was fourteen, I wanted to run away
I wanted to go to Europe
with my best friend Oskari
he cut his arm and told me he couldn't really bleed
he didn't feel anything
I wanted to bless him
I wanted to read him Jane Austen in an open field
Under a single sycamore tree
We never made it

When I was seventeen, I ran away
I moved in with my father's mother
He has her eyes, just like me
That same year I met a boy
Who rode a stolen steed to my grandma's couch
Made love to me all night
took on me on walks and sent my heart off to the races
He made my life a little simpler

We were suckleberry sonnets
Crabapple tree climbers
Little girls in pink frills
With fire drills in our heads
from our mother's
They told us
"don't let a boy touch you"
We were rockets aimed for the moon
We always came a little too short
I always thought it was just me

Part of me always knew
I always knew it couldn't be right
I was nine
I wanted a boy to teach me things,
things my father never could
He was fourteen, I'd known him all my life
I liked his trampoline
But his hands
I ******* hated his hands
They tugged and pulled at me during hide and seek

He whispered
"Stop crying"
(I was always asking for it)
He could see it when I smiled
I guarded my smile like I guarded his secret
My nine year old mind didn't want it anymore

I wanted him less than I wanted to erase it
Erase the things he'd planted so mischievously
I was an empty nine year old casket
I rode my bike like a hurst
I wore my turtleneck like a bulletproof vest
I thought he couldn't hurt me there

I was an angry sailor without a single burst of wind
A single burst of freedom
It's all I wanted
all I ever needed
I needed someone to free my from the grips of the Devil
I prayed to my mother's God
He didn't answer for two years

I thought he would free me like the night
I thought he would let go like a never ending story
But he's always been a part of my story
My suckleberry sonnet
my first love
my broken mother
all my nightmares
Thanks, *******.

I don't let him ruin me anymore
He doesn't own me like he used to
He no longer steers my so easily swayed ship
He's just a piece
(A *******, of course)
But only a small piece of me
I ride my bike like it's a steed now
I don't wear turtlenecks
I don't own a bulletproof vest
He's gone
I'm still here