The air your lips used to warm
as you'd breathe into mine,
has become too cold
from the space
you left between us.


Now,
I warm my own air
with flames
set from the peelings
of a burning heart
you threw away
in a rusted can.


I don't remember winter ever being so cold.

I sat in my room, like I'd done every day of my life
I looked up at the ceiling, the room hot, the moon streaming through the window
and I thought , all by myself, no voices to interrupt,
What does happiness feel like?
I've been shut out from the world, alone, sad, in darkness for far to long
to even remember what true happiness is.
For years, I've yearned for perfection, nothing but perfect was good enough, but I've learned; slowly, eventually, that perfect isn't real. Nothing can be truly perfect, and perfection doesn't yield happiness.
So I thought what does?
Criticizing myself isn't the answer
wishing I could disappear isn't the answer
the voices aren't the answer
I also realized the voices can be wrong
no, the voices are wrong
So with this revelation, a journey lies ahead.
A long, tedious, and possibly the hardest journey I will ever take.
Certainly not the last.
I need to rediscover myself.
Reinvent myself
figure out who I am, so that I can learn to love myself.

it’s 2 am here
and it’s 2 am where you are
i don’t love you;

i hate that we both shiver at
the same bar of the same song
the same seven words.

and i hate the millions of melodies
that i’ll always associate with our summer
and the autumn that didn’t belong to anyone.

but i love your voice when you’re not speaking my language.
sing me to sleep in your language and i’ll love you in mine.

and i love the music you send me.
it sounds best at 2 am
when my toes are cold and you’re in
the midnight sun.

My mother used to hide *****
In the freezer,
In the back behind the peas and corn.
I decided to try it.
A sip and a burn
And my lips went numb.
That's what it felt like to kiss you.
A gulp, or two
Or three
Or seven, (who's counting?)
later I got a head rush and
that's what it felt like to kiss you;
The burn and the numbness.
The release of realizing
You were far more intoxicating.

Roll the clouds off your lips into the blue sky,
your breath will glow red and gold,
when the sun sets like a kiss on the horizon.

It wraps around my heart.
Like vines.
Like rope.
Like grasping fingers.

I can't do this anymore.
Suffocating.
Choking.
Dying.

I need the relief.
A breath.
A sigh.
A smile.

I need to escape.

Sometimes I feel
fleetingly
like I am not here.
I feel like a narrator
like a character
in an unfinished novel,
like
like

like an unending street.
Like this town,
like this place-
a collection of lives,
beginnings and ends,
tangled strings
and cracked windows.

Wandering through the small maze
of downtown,
I know the answer.

I need to get out of here.