Close my eyes and breathe in and get through the day and whisper a prayer and hope with all of my heart that I don't run into you.
Lay in bed and clench my hands into fists to squeeze out all that's left of you holding them and try not to breathe in too fast or else the hole in my chest will surely cave in further and don't think of you, don't think of you, don't think of you.
Clean my room and don't notice the things you left behind when you left so quickly.
Make my bed and don't remember the way it was always just a little too small for the both of us.
Take a walk and don't walk past your house, or the restaurant we went on our first date, or the park where we kissed the first time, or the hill where you coughed a little too much and left me alone in the angry cold to lie on the grass and want to die.
Don't think about that. Definitely don't think about that.

A slam poem


Your contact picture was taken the day you forgot to buy me a Christmas present
And when I scroll through my phone and see your name I remember crying until my pillow was painted black with streams of dashed hopes and childish mistakes.
On our third date you took the clip out of my hair and put it in yours and I haven't worn it since. Now I keep that clip in a desk drawer and try not to remember the way your voice cracked when you whispered my name and breathed your secrets into my mouth before trying to rip them back out through my heart when you decided you'd had enough of laughing over clips in your hair.
At night I lay awake and command my mind to conjure up any thought that's not you in your grey tuxedo, you in your painted skin that you outgrew when you smoked your first cigarette, peeling layers of who you were when you still filmed ghost hunting videos and touch-ups of who you are now, with your tears like rare prizes I wish I could collect in bottles and auction off to every past girl you've ever loved. And ****, there's a lot of girls.
But in the grand essay of your every past love I am the typo on the third page that knocks down your grade two points, the ****-up you would do anything to hit backspace on, the messy extra letter that somehow is overlooked by your meticulous eye because it's 2 am and you stopped giving a **** at 10. I am the coffee stain that gives away your procrastination like a badge worn across your chest, like a bruise on your forehead she may notice when she leans in to kiss you, like a tear in your favorite tie that she will see when she slides it off your neck and slips it sensually onto her own, not knowing I think about hanging myself with that very tie 1036 times a day if only I thought for one second it would awaken you from the slumber you fell into when you found whiskey and me that one December night on the countertop that wasn't even our own.
And I awake every morning drenched in heartache and heavily breathing out the rhythm your heart would drum as I lay at night with my head on your chest and my heart in your hands and my body in your mind. I was the glass sculpture you couldn't resist playing with no matter how many times you were warned not to, I was the wet paint sign you couldn't resist testing, I was the fire alarm you just had to pull.
But I would burn my tongue on coffee watching the sunrise with you again and again and again if it would resurrect the Christmas lights that burned like dying stars in my stomach in the fleeting moment where I truly believed you could love me, your kisses like butterfly wings that became bats all too quickly, your love like a fever that broke too fast- sweating and crying in bed at 2 am-I MISS YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I NEED YOU.
Yet maybe I knew along that this would happen. Yes, maybe I saw you as an opportunity to rekindle my old romance with anger and pain and depression, maybe when my friends told me you were bad news, I rejoiced in the idea of my old friends returning so much so that I opened the door and said "come on in," arms opened wide, play dough mind in their hands.
Or maybe I just really loved you.

We are hungry lips and eager hands,
Reckless teeth and touching
It is 4 am and we are too much alive to care about the consequences of later
I can only wonder,

Will you regret me tomorrow?

Blank mind, cloudy vision
the satisfying crack of collision
from an elbow swung, or punch thrown
and in my ears, a buzzing drone

I breath deeply, and start to think
of how I was pushed, to the brink
I really do regret it now
I'd fix it but, I don't know how

But it feels so good, at the time
but the mind doing it, isn't mine
It's not the nice sweet child
with polite voice, and manners mild

But which am I and which is me?
Which one of those am I going to be?
The child, who's weak yet nice?
Or the monster, nobody crosses twice?

Sometimes I get one of those nostalgic feelings rush through me whenever I get a whiff of fresh plaster or spackle. It reminds me of all those times my dad would have to patch up another hole in one of the walls. At one point he would only do it once a week. When you know that there’ll just be more the next day, why not wait a while and fix them all at the same time? Eventually he stopped fixing them altogether. I used to think it meant it was okay and that when I got angry enough I could just put a hole in the wall too and add to the collection of broken bits of my family. When my parents discovered the accumulation of chasms in my wall, my dad made me learn how to fix them because I was not allowed to react the same way as my brother. Needless to say, I rarely put my hand or foot through the walls after the first 2 times I had to fix them. I wish there was some way they could have managed to get my brother to fix the voids he’d created. Perhaps, he’d have learned how much the damage you inflict can affect those around you. I know I certainly did.

I could tell you that it's 4 am and I’ve been reading through our old texts and that I still miss you.

But the truth is,
It's only 8 pm, and I'm really tired
and I've erased your texts long ago.
The only thing I have to remember you is my memory
And we both know is not good at all

Daddy, I have grown up and
Daddy, I have become a woman and
Daddy, I do not need you anymore
I have learned to live without your love
to starve myself from your embraces
because I got tired of expecting something
that wouldn't ever come
Exhaustion is a beast
it eats up all your reserves
and greedily asks for more, but
Daddy, my soul has no more to give
I have nothing left to feed it
mo more energy to devote to waiting anymore
I am broke
and you never came
And I wish I could have packed up
and moved on, but
Daddy, I never heard you say it,
I am proud of you
Five single syllable words
Oh, I heard them plenty
when I had gotten an a
or when I won a medal
Or when I did
something so spectacular
that I was lucky to wear your last name
but, Daddy, what about all the other days
you were only proud of me
when I made you look good
so what about my car crash
what about my fractured fingers
what about the times I broke my heart
So they weren't my crowning glory
and they definitely weren't my favorite memories
but they're still mine, and they still define me
And I don't know, can you be ok with that?
Can you look at me, busted head and all
and say, I am proud of you?
Daddy, I have grown up and
Daddy, I have become a woman and
Daddy, I do not need you anymore but
Daddy, that doesn't mean I want you to leave

I want to give you all of me because
you need it more than I do
You need my soft hands,
my supple heart, my forgiving words
So much more
than I need myself, my time, my being
More than I need my life itself

See, I’d forget myself to help you remember yourself
I’d let you steal my heart to fix your own
All so you can feel whole again,

but when you don’t need me anymore
when my fingers don’t fix your pain
and my heart doesn’t sooth over your wounds
and you decide you’re better off without me,
don’t forget,

you weren’t a chapter in my life
You were my whole book
And, yeah, you can write yourself a new one
With your perfected body becoming the star
And you can go,
and leave me
and start a new novel in your life

but me, see, I can’t move on
because in fixing you
I broke myself
And I can’t even write a new sentence
Without every single word being tainted by your breath
Let alone start a new books