And ‘panic’ doesn't nearly describe:
Pure oxygen turning sour in lungs,
Meals threatening a return from the stomach,
Twitchy fingers and wobbly legs,
Soreness of a tense body,
Laughs-turned-sobs,
Eyes adorned with purple rings,
A destructive adrenaline that welcomes blood.

The red bag has been replaced (just as I was).
No longer do my weapons sit alongside your arrowheads of safety and legitimate love.
A black casket is their new home, shiny and perfectly angled.
It hides in the farthest reaches of a drawer,
beckoning my hand to let the metal topple out of its dark casing.
Three generations of proving that I’m alive,
that I’m capable of feeling something other than
the feet of someone on top of me or the sting of words meant to be innocent.

And yes, I am stronger than I once was.
But I’m stronger in a different way, in a different sense of the word.
Yes, I am weaker in spirit and weaker in a way that makes
daily thoughts into nightmares.
But I am stronger in body.
I am ready for the war this time, and I swear to Orion that I won’t let
my lack of muscle mass or the words ‘replaced’ and ‘forgotten’
etched across my thighs and hip bones hold me back from fighting.
I will throw punches until my arms lay limp and
I will kick until my feet are bleeding and my toes are broken.

sometimes it hits me really hard,
like in an instant, my world is backwards
and my heart is being squeezed too tightly-
just enough to hurt like hell.

i'm suddenly drowning in blankets
that smell like us
and pillows that have
blood stains on them,
my eyeliner is smeared and
my hair is a mess.
i'm back in your basement,
and i don't know how to leave.

we're eating dinner while watching
fringe, supernatural, chuck,
and your dad made me my own pasta
(i love that man to an indescribable extent).
i look over at you and suddenly something changes.

your eyes have gotten darker,
your hair is knotted and your face older,
your laugh has faded away.
you went and grew up without me.
you make me nervous, sweets,
and i know i've already lost you.
you scare me, kid.

i'm trying to leave,
trying to hurry past the quilt on your wall
and the screaming cat on the stairs.
i'm attempting to escape the fear
that you've instilled in me.

but i realize that the thing i fear
is a whole different person
than the one i ate pretzels with
and fell asleep with while watching
donnie darko and **** bill.
he isn't the one who
sang songs to me, or
tickled me until i was sobbing, or
looked at me as if i was
the best girl in the world.
this was a whole new person.
and i didn't know a single
thing about him.

so now when all of this hits me
and i realize it's completely real,
that i lost my best friend and
the man i wanted to marry,
i realize that i've been
mourning this for a year now.
i lost him a long time ago.
i've dealt with this already.
i can smile now,
i can laugh.
i can finally be me again.

and while i know i'll always love him,
i can just remember those better years,
when we'd watch scary movies in the dark
and play myst and nancy drew in my basement.
i can just remember him as the boy
with summer across his cheeks
and a grin that made me giddy.
he was the healing i always needed and
i can never thank him enough.

the best thing that
ever happened to me,
and i miss you
with every fiber
of my being.


and it's sad to know
that we can never be
what we once were.

"She was a good friend of mine,
and every time I think about her
all I see is the lake we lived on in the summer
and all I smell is her dad's barbecue.
I hear the wind dragging the willow branches
into the water,
I feel the rain bounce off my skin
as we rowed to the island in the middle
of the lake.
She was a great girl,
and a wonderful woman.
I'll miss her every second of every day."