I thought this was supposed to be all about love. I remember you said I'd be happy. I'd fall asleep in your arms every night and never worry about a thing. You said you would protect me.
You forgot to mention the insomnia and the scabs beneath my sleeves.
Or how alone I would feel even as you fall asleep on my lap.
The demons in my head still paralyze my heart and I'm starting to think I'll never remember what it's like to truly smile.
I miss the way we used to be.
When you wrapped the cast around my broken bones and signed them, "get well soon." Because you swore I would get well soon.
But lately, I don't even believe in me.
The flicker in your eyes has turned into hell's flame, burning brightly as anger tightly suffocates me.
I laughed when you said I break everything I touch but as I brush my fingers across your cheek, I realize you were right.

-k.d.

I should be sleeping but lately 3am feels like sunset. This isn't fun anymore.
It's been awhile since I've had writer's block but it seems now that I hesitate every time I pick up a pen.
I'm losing myself again and the scariest part of this realization is remembering that I see myself when I look into your eyes.
This shouldn't bother me as much as it does but the butterflies in my stomach are turning into moths and I just want to down enough alcohol to make them all drown.
But even water tastes like your lips.

-k.d.

The blood boils inside my veins, heating every road in my bloodstreams corrupting my nervous system until there's an earthquake.
How can I save myself when rescuing myself means dying?
Surviving
that's all we try to do.
But when living is so hard and dying is so easy it makes me wonder,
why are we still breathing when a knife, a safety pin, a pencil sharpener blade can take it all away?
It seems we're addicted to pain.
Whether in the form of trying to escape or trying to get by
and I can't figure out which is worse.

-k.d.

Nine months since your departure
and the winds are only getting stronger
but he says warm blood from frozen veins on marble flesh will only make the pain last longer.
I guess we must agree to disagree.
The wounds remind me that I'm closer to you than I think.
The breathtaking reality of death settles in
and I realize that at any moment
I could see you again.
So I'll take the icy roads home tonight driving twenty over the speed limit.

I'll make my way back to you.

-k.d.

Her favorite color is blue and lately I've been thinking that's my favorite color too because the color of her eyes have me swimming in an ocean that I was too afraid to dip my toes in before.
She loves sad songs because they're so beautiful but they're not as beautiful as her.
Her smile is the moon and I'm just one ordinary star that's lucky enough to shine next to her.
Her hair falls gently like the colored leaves in autumn but she is winter when the snow coats the world because she can make anything look ten times as lovely.
Including me.
Even with cracks in my heart and chapped lips tainted by the taste of desire and pain.
She can make me look like I've never been miserable simply by the way she laughs when she's around me
and makes my cheeks hurt because I'm smiling too much to comprehend the fact that maybe I'm a little bit broken inside.
But I've been thinking lately that maybe she could be the glue.
If only she knew.
I truly believe I'm beginning to fall in love with her shade of blue.

-k.d.

With shaking hands and an unsure pen, she writes her definition of "I'm fine" as syllables in lines, repeated rhymes, with titles.
Someday when somebody finally asked her, "If that's what fine is, what is broken?"
She said, "Broken is the laughter at jokes that all your friends think are hilarious but you don't quite understand what's funny. Broken is dressing for November in the middle of June because you're afraid someone will see that you're not as perfect as everybody thinks. Broken is the brightest smile."
Despite the deluge of encouragement from a loving fiancé, the mirror still screams "ugly" when she looks at it. Her wrists whisper things like, "give up" and "you're not strong enough." She tells herself not to entertain these thoughts like guests in a welcoming home, because if she does, they might stay.

Well, she did. And so they did.

Like an overwhelming wave, a tsunami of pain. It crashed into her like the faltering smile that stung straight to the core. A selfish menace craving more and more. She couldn't quite place her finger on the map to point out where she had gone wrong but she knew she must have because the nights were so long; oh, how cold and unforgiving they were. She was alone. And lonely she felt. When the searing heartache became too much to bear, still she screamed but of course, no one was around to hear her. So she traced her paths with unsteady fingertips, recollecting the familiarity of stolen kisses from chapped lips.

She's tried to forget.

But closed eyes can't disguise the disgust she feels at the memory of her thighs under your palms. I was the puppet in your theatrical games, taking orders. Enter stage right, the light descending as I feel I might fall. I am not your doll. Pink cheeks of blush the shade of the roses you crushed in your selfish, malicious hands. I won't memorize your demands, highlighting them and reading them to myself over and
over
and over

again.

Center stage, I clear my throat to speak my monologue.

My eyes graze the script I carefully printed on paper with as many wrinkles and rips that you left on my heart the night you told me I wasn't good enough. I counted the times you've said that you couldn't love and it took a long time to decifer that what you really meant, was that you couldn't love me.

87 times.

87 times I said I was sorry. Maybe I meant it or maybe I was desperate for some kind of sign that I wasn't as worthless as you implied. Maybe I was hopeful that when you said you would leave, you lied. I thought of all the nights I layed awake and cried for you. With so much at stake I risked my dignity to lay down my pride. I braved the storm when I had the option to hide. And although I can't recall who was to blame for that fight, I remember I was the one who said "I love you" and you were the one who took flight.

Left me for dead with two broken wings, singing the words that you said until they became a melody of all the terrible things with a harmony to sugarcoat them and make it sound sweet. They say don't play with fire but I was intrigued by the spark, until the heat burned my soul out and left me cold in the dark. A tragedy not three pages long, now ends on the bitter refrain of the song.

She's tried to forget.

Her jaw creaks as it tightens in remorse. With silence as her monologue; the recoil from the dialogue of two lovers then friends, this story ends in act one scene one.
The beginning, the finale, she exits stage left and you'll see the crowd gasp in awe.
And where there should be an epilogue, the curtains will draw.

-k.d.

If the train leaves the station at the same time as another and they collide at a certain speed, how great is the disaster?
Well if two bodies collide at a certain place and time with a designated amount of passion, does the same disaster occur?
Does the ticking time bomb begin the moment you unclasp her bra as you whisper that you love her?
Breath defrosting her trembling ribcage as your arms slide up the sheets, and where two eyes meet, a spark lights the fuse. And you have everything to gain but both of you will lose.
Two "I love you"s meet at a school building, in a courtyard in December but only one will remember what it feels like to feel everything you've ever known slip from your grasp and leave you on your own. One will see the moment for what it truly is, a heartwarming moment, one innocent kiss. But when these opposing lips touch and the tear drips from her cheeks, he'll reach to wipe them and she'll turn her face despite his efforts to save her that she never really asked for. She was lucky to meet him now she's lucky to have met him.
Someday soon he'll disappear and every night when the moon gleams through her window she'll see him. It seems she never will forget all of her mistakes, all her regrets. And to think it all started with one head on collision where love met lust and promises were too early to meet trust.

-k.d.