dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.

you never know
because

she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses

and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.

she'll create a thousand plots  
from your worst nightmares.

she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.

she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,

and she'll make you,
everything you're not.

but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?

but here's the beauty of it:

if you date a writer,
you'll never die.

I've had the same mattress for 16 years.
It is filled with memories, my best to my worst ideas, and all of my dead parts.
Most thoughts come to me when my eyes are closed.
this mattress is a journal. a scrap book. a photo album.
so many shapes are imprinted in this old thing.
but that's not the point of it.
It scares me, it does. There's something dangerous about it.
maybe it's the fact that I might never wake up, maybe it's because I'm most vulnerable when unconscious.
no one can control their head when they're asleep.
and my mattress is infested with anxiety, it always tremors.
it makes me feel as if this sleep should be eternal, as if my pillows will suffocate me while I'm dreaming.
but my mattress is still comfortable.
it's always been there when I need it, it is always available.
it is inviting to others who decide to lie upon it, with squeaks and calming gestures.
sometimes people say they don't want to get out of it and sometimes I allow them to stay.
but that's not the point of it either.

the point is him.
the point has always been him.
the way he fell back into the blankets and the way he left his cologne on the sheets.
he stayed there for a while.
my whole being was sure that he was going to move in, that I'd be waking up to him every morning through forever.
but that sadly wasn't the case.
I have to be asleep to be able to hold him now.
but I remember the past, running my fingers along his arms, explaining to him that such a thing as veins scares me but his look like lighting.
he ran electricity down my back every time he embraced my body, he was the unexpected storm, but I decided to lay in the rain.
when he offered me an umbrella, I smiled a no.
and he apologized if I ever felt like I was drowning.
so when he decided to leave me, it was a flash flood.
flash back.
to the mattress. my comfortable place of belonging.
flash forward.
to the mattress. the throne for all of my sobbing.
you see, I carry this mattress with me everywhere I go.
my skull is the box spring, I am the bed frame.
you see, it's a metaphor.
it isn't actual fabric, or a place for resting, it rests in the back of my head.
and everyone else has left my head but he tosses and turns up there constantly.
and when I begin to think that maybe I just can't live without him, and that maybe I should end my own life because I'm not worth the space that I occupy, I swear I see his blue eyes staring into my dull ones, and I swear I hear him say
"baby, why don't you sleep on it?"

it burned your throat when you drank bleach to **** the butterflies that he left living in your stomach.

and your face went red when they turned to moths instead, so you took a trip to the beach to try and immerse the flame that kept them attracted to you.

you laid your head under the water and took a deep breath.

deep sea diving always sounded scary but this time it sounded satisfying, because you knew he must have been somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

the further you went down, the closer you felt to seeing him again.

hands wrapped around your ankles and you started rising up like smoke.

when the lifeguard emptied the water that was held hostage in your lungs, it felt like fire,

and you thought God, the moths will never leave me now.

but the situation felt comfortable, a twisted kind of familiar.

because you remember the day he apologized to you for making you feel like you were drowning.

and you remember the day he left and how it felt like a flash flood.

every part of you was overflowing, but the water wasn't the only blue thing that made you short of breath.

there was a time your lungs gave up simply from looking into his bright blue eyes.

but when the only thing that's bright to you anymore is the top of every matchstick you've struck on your skin just to keep his memory alive, run them under the faucet.

after staring out the kitchen window, realize that he was never in love with you.

because if he was, he wouldn't have been the reason that you drained yourself of all of this color.

there's not much left of him here anymore.

except for his hoodie that laid on the floor while you laid awake in bed.

the moths ate so many holes through the covers that you tossed and turned with chills.

you spent that whole night wondering what would happen if you died, but without you there would be nothing left of him and you know that.

he left so many pieces of himself behind when he broke you that you mixed them all together in the clean up.

you don't feel comfortable in your own skin because not all of it is yours.

you break due to love, he breaks due to anger, you two do not mix.

he's hot air, you're cold, and together you form a tornado.

don't you see that attempting to fix him is destroying everything else in the process?

he's the reason you don't trust anyone but God you trust him with your life.

it's so stupid to try and fix the person who broke you.

he's the entire reason you're writing this poem.

you're telling yourself that he'll never come back but you've been setting a table for two for months.

and you light the candles.

and the moths flutter.