i.
I always offered every part of myself, to you
So when I found out about what she had done,
How she had made you feel
Hurt seeping from your every pore,
I rushed down right away
To be there.

ii.
But in the process, I have realized something
To not put myself first, before you,
Before her,
Is killing me
That is the worst part of it all,
To watch myself continue to give to you,
The things that I no longer have
To watch myself continue to hold you,
When it's all just false comfort
A way for me to feel okay about
the things that have taken place

iii.
I still am trying.
Does that speak volumes,
or am I running around in circles again?
I always wanted to go somewhere with you,
Anywhere but where we remained,
Stagnant,
And you taught me to love,
but in ways that were too late,
In ways that I noticed
Long after the fact
In ways that I could not validate,
Yet you never validated me,
Never any part of me

iv.
I want to know what makes you hurt,
Just like you spilled those ***** secrets to her,
Yet was I never good enough to know?
We shared everything else,
But I realize now that she may have known
you better, within the span of a two week time
I sat on my knees, hands clasped, begging you
You accused me of never asking,
But it doesn't mean I wasn't still thinking,
Wasn't still aching for you to reach out
I shouldn't be the one to pry
I just didn't want be that girl,
Yet she was that girl for you

v.
And look where it got us,
Back to the same place, all over again
Rewind and repeat, and yet

*I'll still be here.

(you know when you look around yourself,
and you come to the realization that you have
absolutely no ******* idea how you got there?)

you were standing next to me in the kitchen,
waiting for a response,
waiting for anything really, from me
I couldn't speak.
I know what you want from me,
and yet I can't seem to tell you the truth:
it can't be me.

I'm messy, and I'm hard to love.
I have no other explanation.
I really wish I did,
I really wish when I went to kiss you
that I could have made it all better,
kissed it all away.
Awoke in the morning like nothing had transpired.
When I say it's too late, it's not,
I just...I can't.

You were telling me you loved me and I didn't know what you meant. Am I the only one who feels this way?

it's only a toothbrush,
placed in the same exact place as yours
on the bathroom sink,
if she were to walk in to do something as innocent
as check her hair in the bathroom mirror,
she would see it, she would question,
does that make me something to you?
does that push this relationship forward,
to morning breakfasts and cigarettes over coffee,
late nights out and bad attempts at pool playing,
smirks and kisses, and love...
love, is something i cannot ask of you
so tell me, when i place my hand within yours
when my body encircles your skin in the heat of the night
*do you feel like i feel, see like i see?

You could tell me a million
things with just that    one    look
That one glare, as you sit
and stare at me at the dinner table

No, you don't know me
And no matter how many times
you try and unravel the threads
You know you are just making it worse

You were never good at cleaning up my messes.
You would throw punches, and talk trash
Destroy whatever came into your line of sight,
and then some

You asked me why I came back
I still ask myself this question, numerous time
In numerous different places, phases of my life
I still don't have a solid answer,
But you still wait

And wait for me to say those words,
Return the favor of the hurt
Making messes
No one will ever clean up

Sometimes, when I feel like I'm sinking,
I'll let myself go
all
the way
to the bottom
just to find the release,
just to feel like even though I
am pressed in on all sides,
I am still protected
and the black
was always
more comforting

then anything else,

then you

We planted flowers for you, Jane,
and the rich soil, wind on my face,
sun on my back, and earth worms
sliding in between my fingers,
all reminded me of life...

*You are still very much
alive.

Morning sunshine,
Your button nose and warm flesh.
Handprints left on white sheets,
(Coffee run? One for me and one for you...)
Morning breath seemingly bearable,
While I lay aching for another kiss,
Waiting
Waiting
Always

I.
My heart was in my stomach,
I couldn't look at you without feeling
something, like the something I felt
shortly before you broke things
off with me, but you came back,
You came back around in time

II.
You invited me in like we had never
left off in the shortcomings of November,
You still looked the same,
The house the same,
Your bed sheets felt the same
But your lips, a different story

III.
I don't know what I expected,
looking for change in places it could
never be found
I was searching then, and I'm still
searching now, but you already figured
that out

IV.
We flowed and synched so well,
Like when we sat side by side
one another at the small bar,
People stared at us as I laughed
and laughed...they don't know what
they're missing out on,
Not knowing you, or us

V.
I know that leaves us here,
Wrapped up in the unknown,
but second chances come few and
far between,
So I will take mine with gratitude
and an open heart,
Nothing more and nothing less

If I could never talk to you again,
I would be okay with that,
and even if you're my father,
I have no problem telling you
that you failed in doing
what you were
meant
to
do.

Stop time.

I would pick the exact time you decided to stay.
And then, we would be able to stay just like that
Forever.

all i ever asked was for a little clarity,
to clear the space to make room for me
to see my breaths, to make the marks
in the air, know that if i were to
press my hand across my chest i would
feel some kind of heart beating,
i have become so hardened of
anything besides regrets
and resentment,
some more bitter thrown
all over me,
and sinking under my skin
they turn and point at me,
my skin turning black with
that kind of poison,
god, do you know what this is?
what is happening to me,

sometimes i don't even
feel human

every screaming siren i think of you,
the pictures are turning rusty at the edges,
worn with the coming of the years,
but they make your face appear softer
they make your eyes glassy with understanding
you only have one heart but it's
times like these that i am afraid all it is
filled with is cigarette smoke and hatred
towards his eyes
but you have found the love within
your children and the one thing that is
keeping you chained down to the center
of the earth is not your sanity,
it is only the hope in which you carry within
your fist, the tension within your walking feet,
that someday they will return all that has
been taken away from you,
all that has left you heavy and weighted down
with the sighing of waking up to
another empty day
priceless and smudged at the corners,
*who would have known that you held the
capacity to love them like they
wanted you to

They say when you fall in love
with someone
you just know.
well ****,
I got nothing

besides a gallery full of lost
dreams and drunk
text messages that don't
mean a thing

Misplaced, my heart
I am a body, my face
My hands, But
This is not living

I tell her I need to leave
The small town streets,
And dead end family ties
Are suffocating me until...
I look at her wide eyed,
Images of California sunshine -
I could even care less about your ex,
What are the odds?
And what is the point?

She has dreams,
But mine are larger

I can barely make room.

I'm sorry,
When the silence was too loud
Was it my fault
When the phone would ring
I wouldn't answer,
It would ring
And ring
Mom
I'm sorry,
When the decisions weren't made
Fast enough
The pause was all
There was
And we waited too long
While you laid up in the hospital bed
It was all I could do
To rest my own head at night
Knowing
Mom
I'm sorry,
The I love you's stuck in my throat
The days I wasted, the nights I
Drank
The cheap dreams I chased
While you watched and complained
I'm sorry,
It all came back around
Time was nowhere to be found
The cancer a sick disease but you,
You found your release
I'm sorry,
Mom

I remembered where you lived,
even if I knew it was the wrong decision to be made,
I still showed up, and sat beside you,
Entertained you while in bed,
Baring everything and nothing,
Because we both know,
I don't have that much to give anymore

But you still cherish my company
Like it's something you've never seen before
And I watch your face as it reminds me of a million others
But still, I wanted to stay
Just one more second longer
And I think that should speak more
For the both of us

I can't seem to place you in a little box,
With a nice pretty bow attached,
You're just not the type of person
Who I can figure out so easily
But I woke up beside you,
And you were still smiling,
So I figured I had done something right
And although there may not be any more mornings,
Know that I gave to you what I could,
What I thought you needed

You're beautiful,
But not in the common sense of being.
You are warm and soft and real
With edges and curves, and
I can feel my fake smile and
The weight of pretending
Sliding slowly off my body
The transformation, the transition
Of falling.

i told you i could write something for you,
and you didn't believe me,
so when i showed you my fancy script,
the dotted i's and crossed t's,
you looked at me like i was crazy
to have named a poem after you,
and well,
maybe,
i am

in the end,
i will have nothing to show for this
a sister who loves me long after i'm gone,
you had already taken down the pictures
of us, and the novel love letters,
i had written you so many,
i thought maybe you would appreciate
how much i tried to appreciate you,
but you never let me know
and while you are happy,
i am at a complete crossroads,
but at least one of us

came out of this alive

The only reason I knew it was you was because of the stupid ******* hat you always wore when we were together. Either that or I could spot you from a mile away. The fact that I have run into you so many other times astounds me. The universe can love you or the universe can give you what you need at that time, and I feel like either way I'm bound to lose.

You had your arm draped protectively and affectionately around her and I was completely surprised. And ******* angry. That too. I sat and sipped on my margarita like this was the most normal of all nights, like there wasn't a fiery red rage surging through my body. I went over to you and said hello, looked her right in the eyes, "I'm Kelly."

I knew you would move on quickly. I knew it wasn't right from the start. I knew your baggage and your past were things that I could not rescue you from. I knew ALL of these things and yet. Yet this is what happens.

I'm the girl that becomes replaced.
I'm the girl with good intentions but poor execution.
I'm the girl who asks you to stay,
When in reality I'm the one who ends up leaving.
But never soon enough...

I didn't want that kind of weight. I wanted YOUR weight, the way you told me how you were built solid from age ten and on up, no one dared to mess with you. I tried to get close enough, at one point we were breathing the same recycled air and I thought, "****." It was still always the wrong timing, your family's dramatic sit-com life, an ex-lover left to berate you and your cute son tugging on your arm. There was no where for me to fit, whether I tried to squeeze close or not-it was really all for nothing.

Losing my mom before my 30's taught me a lot about life. It's short. Short in the "she was in remission for eight years, there's no way it could come back" short. Because it did. Come back.

It showed me what it feels like when the air is physically ****** out of the room - the feeling of a soul leaving the body. And that even the most private of people may still want their family surrounding them during their last breaths. It taught me how to administer the correct amount of morphine, consol a father who is inconsolable and pick the "perfect" urn. I learned there is a part of myself I will never get back because I was a part of her and she a part of me.

I will never just 'get over this.'
Somedays I feel like no one remembers or cares and for that Mom, I am sorry.
I know you're never coming back but I still somehow hold onto a small sliver of hope that you will.
And when I realize you're not,
The wave hits me again.
And again
Onto my *** and each time
It becomes harder and harder to stand back up.

happiness,
tugging at me like a nagging child
one who won't listen when I say,
you need to let go
of me

some say that it's my own demise
the worst kind of sabotage
but I still don't believe I deserve this
'this' - warm hands, and a beating heart
that beats... for me
I can't understand what that means
I've tried, and tried, and tried
falling up short each
As I stare at her,
trying to explain why I search
and I have no good
reason
at all

She's crazy.
And she's crazy for you.

I fit nowhere in this equation.
I have a head, that is placed firmly upon my shoulders,
and while my mind may sometimes float in the clouds,
it is only because I am dreaming of better you's.
Dreaming of better possibilities,
and you should know **** well by now,
that I deserve it.

Your hand in mine
Looked so small,
Fragile
Like your body on the borrowed bed
In our living room
The oxygen tank became the white noise
As my brother and I shared shifts
Of intently watching your chest rise and fall
(Or
Not.)
I'll never be able to shake
The final image in my mind
Watching you slip away
And the final goodbye
Was so quiet
I almost stopped breathing with you.

The search feels never-ending,
If there are "amillionfishinthesea,"
then why am I still alone?

I remember the nights I would stand in between you,
your drunken fists creating waves,
I was trying to protect you from yourself,
and after all I ended up saving no one
and all I was left with was a fistful of hair and gravel
I could say that you had given me nothing,
but really you showed me parts of myself
and even then I did not want to recognize
There were nights when I didn't know who you were
You wanted to start a family,
but between the sober and drunk conversations
Everything blurred together,
I didn't realize then that love should not feel like this
A lump in the gut of your stomach,
and all the quiet silence that followed
I was someone, I sacrificed myself in ways
that I had never before
Committing crimes against my own body
How could you tell me now that you have
fallen in love with someone you barely know?
I want to peel my skin back and find
out what hides underneath,
who am I as a woman that I couldn't
give you what you need?

So, you're probably going to tell me that I'm crazy.
But nothing ever made sense between the both of us,
I remember sitting on the beige carpet,
My legs splayed out behind you,
Facing you full force, but still feeling like you had
no idea who I was.
That's how it always ended.

You never looked into my eyes,
you saw me, but never who was underneath.
I would beg you to look at my hurt,
Understand it, "please try to understand."
And you would just stand there,
offer your arms to embrace me,
but it never made anything
better.

I know I'm not crazy,
I just know how to love to the complete
fullest
and maybe...
Maybe, that was something you just
couldn't handle.
But either way,
it tore me apart.

When I told her I had a lot of secrets I don't think she understood what I meant. If I could pull my mind inside out, sit down beside her and ring out the inconsistencies and the ways in which I process these things...maybe. Maybe she would have stayed a little while longer or maybe she would have been scared as hell that she allowed herself to get so close to me in the first place. I was too afraid to ask her what she thought, so I opted to say nothing.

I closed my eyes and realized,
you were STILL there.

I'm still that little girl,
Ten years old with ***** palms
hands up; and wide eyed
looking for reasons to make this okay
So, when I tell you that I'm
dependant on you for a reason,
That I do not know any better,
I'm really telling you the
**truth

I don't have much to say these days,
but I think it's because I have too much
waiting to be said

I dream of her.
I shouldn't.

but my subconscious has this thing -
it doesn't listen to me.
her hips pop up under closed eyelids
I wake remembering only the feel of her skin.

I'm terrified to tell you the truth.
You and you and...you.
I spent my whole life looking for this,
For acceptance, to blend in
Against the wall, out of view.
How will I handle the judgement
I know each day I'll receive?
I'm finally ready to love who
I desire to love,
Just because I prefer soft skin
Against rough,
Small hands against large,
Whose to say then?

Running over your words,
I came to the realization that they
in all their glory,
really meant
nothing

I'm looking for myself
in all of the wrong places.
He tells me that all I need to do
is to breathe, and release
and I'm trying,

but I become choked up,
in all that I could be.

She walked in,
All confidence and no fear
it's like we were magnetically
charged towards one another,
Even when I pulled away,
I was still shaking,
Sparks shooting from my
fingertips
Sometimes when you realize
the things you have been missing
you see how big the void REALLY is.
There is no in between anymore,
For me
I'm gonna love without reservation,
and I have no problem telling
the world now
.

I watched her bony shoulders a little too carefully,
(When you have a mind like mine,
On fire and exploding), all of the time,
You can understand...
That when she confided in me with her
deepest darkest secrets,
I had no problem molding myself
to fit who she was

And to be what anyone ever
needed me to be was all I was
ever good for

more
more
more
this is the only word
i can seem to tell you,
it falls out of my mouth
and bounces across the floor
lays at your feet,
bare and stagnant,
you stare at me like you have
no idea who i am

i need more love*,
and you are going to do
nothing at all
about it

You always try to fix me,
this time, please don't.
-

Brain.
Cancer.
No... You sat on the stairs
And told me. So matter of fact:
It has come back, I'm sorry.
No... I'm sorry.
I was moving out, you were with-
Out me for months. Your only daughter: the glue.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

The stark white hospitals walls
And scratchy sheets,
Sterile smell mixed with ****,
Pureed food on the beige tray.
Nurses who forgot to feed you.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

You still smiled up until
That final week. Somehow.
I know you were so strong but
The tumor weaved and molded
Itself, made a home in your brain.
You were my mother,
But you were no where to be found...
You had left your body long before.

Kissed your cold cheek,
Held your burning hands.
Prayed
To
Someone
Promised you it was okay to go.
Screamed silently...
How will we make it without you?
The nights long and treacherous,
My father asleep in the chair beside you.
The oxygen tank whirling,
Morphine under the tongue,
Listen to your breathing.
The pattern
The changes

Until.
There was
None.