I can't sleep at night, and i think i've figured out why. When i lay in bed with my eyes open i think of you. I think of you and i hate myself for it. I think of you and then i think about more of you and then i almost cry and then i have to pinch myself so i don't. You were the first beautiful thing to ever love me. You were the first to keep me up at night months after saying goodbye. I can't sleep at night because i hate sleeping alone. I hate being alone. I hate looking at my phone and knowing that i havent missed a call from you, i hate when i fall down the stairs and theres noone laughing behind me because im such a klutz and this happens almost daily. I hate the emptiness i feel in my arms and i hate how big the dimples in my back feel without your hands holding me, i hate that you're not holding me. I hate that i can't sleep because i can only think about the beautiful thing that we were in the beginning, like that first night we watched that movie and you leaned over and kissed me i thought i was going to pass out from excitement, i remember how happy i felt how eveery empty second was filled with thoughts of you and every thought was reassured because i knew you felt that way too, i like the night you first saw me cry even if it was over something stupid you held me like my problems were as big as the iceberg that hit the titanic, i liked watching titanic with you because that movie is so ******* good and you're logic to disregard it only made me like it more, i like the first time you said i love you because it took so long to get those stupid words out of you but i loved it because i knew that you meant it and you knew that i wasnt going anywhere. I liked that time you cried at our favorite restaurant because i was being a ***** im sorry that i can be a ***** sometimes. Okay a lot of the time. I like that you put up with my **** and everytime id try to justify it youd say shh. I like how you made me watch too many movies. I like how your dog would **** the bed and we couldnt move him because hes kind of fat. I miss that. I miss a lot. But missing doesnt get you anywhere and nothing i do will get us back to the way we were way back then. I just thought that maybe writing this might help me sleep again, i figured if i wrote down everything clogging my head that maybe id feel better. But the reality is i dont. Im lonely and i miss you and i miss knowing what its like to go a day without missing someone. No amount of melatonin will wipe the memories from my mind both good and bad. Cups of hot tea and warm blankets wont help me to forget the sound of your heartbeat and the way you used to drum your fingers down my spine until i fell asleep, i cant even sleep in my own ******* bed because your teddy bear is next to me and i dont have the guts to get rid of it let alone move it. I know in less than a year ill be moving. You will too. We'll be gone and moving on to a different part of our lives. But i want you to know this. No matter how far away we are no matter whether or not we ever start to talk again, im still here. My phone still buzzes and beeps in hopes that its you. And my heart still jumps and leaps for the exact same reason. if your ever in bed and you cant fall asleep, its okay, because ill be awake too.

Sixteen wasn't too far away
But I can remember it
Feel it
Like it was yesterday
Hearts beating out of chests
As if to reach for one another
Speaking language on skin
Goosebumps as braille
That only we could interpret
I do not remember every second we spent together
Only certain moments
Sacharrin memories that have stuck to my tongue
Can not be washed off with mouthwash or salt
They are far too sweet to erase
I do not remember it all
But I do remember feelings
I remember movement
The involuntary curve of upper the lip
Brought on by overwhelming delirium
Contentment
Happiness
I can feel your smile more than I can picture it
I can picture
The lone tear that would escape an eyelid
Every now and then in the heat of an argument
To remind us
That this is real
And it was
Our distance was never anything more than a few miles yet
We always stayed up to make sure
That the other
Was home safe
Tucked beneath the covers
After driving home
2am in pouring rain
It's funny how
Love comes in more than just four letters
In more than a word
In more than just saying it
An announcement
It comes in
Reminders
In ensuring well-being
In wishes
In thrown pennies into wells
In nostalgia
In remembering how lovely it is
I know we were never ideal
Maybe we fought way more than we should have
Our persistance got between us more than once
You a virgo
And I, a taurus
I'm sorry for being a bull
But I never meant to bully you
I used words like grenades all too often
I was a detonator
When I should have been shelter
Protectant
It was silly for me not to be
I was sixteen when I met you
And sixteen when I loved you
I'm older now
Slightly wiser than I was back then
But in reality
I'm no different
The scariest thing to me is that
It seems as if
Years are nothing more than days
It seems as if
This was all yesterday
That time hasn't even begun to graze our youthful skin
But it has
And it is
Time has touched us in ways I never imagined possible
We have already grown apart
Streched to other sides of country
Dipping our bones into different waters
But if there's something you've shown me
Something you've taught me
It's that
Your first love
Will always be your first love
Regardless of how life goes on
Regardless of who you meet
Where you go
What you see
Regardless of distance, time
Whatever it is
Your first love
Will always be your first love
And love,
You will always be
Mine.

This skin that I live in
Has not always been home
When people ask me why I have turned my body
Into a canvas
Into a picture printed piece of art
I respond
With a smile
And a shrug
But I know that the reasons
Go much deeper in me than the needle has
That there is
A volcano explanation
Waiting to errupt from my mouth
But it is not worth the energy
So I lift my shoulders up
And let them fall back down
I am often asked
What I would do
If I woke one morning
With regret burning inside of me
Filling my lungs like smoke from a wildfire
What I would do
If I learned to hate
The self-inflicted artwork that adorns my limbs
My response to that is not one I can cover with a laugh and a movement
Too many times
Have I awoke with a hatred for myself
So strong
That I've had to water it down with whiskey
Too many times
Right before my eyes
Have I seen my skin morph into alien green
Into stranger's clothing
Unfamilarity becoming a familiar concept
When people ask me
About fear of regret
I want to tell them
That my only fear
Is not having any
That if
A drawing on my skin
Is my biggest remorse
Than lucky I will be
I am told
That when I get old
When my skin is
Wrinkled and worn from
Years of experience
I will be embarassed of the photo albums glued to my body
But if I live long enough
To tell the stories
Of my limbs
If I live that long
I will know that
At that young age
It was
And
They were
Exactly what I wanted
I would rather have
A painted complexion
Than a vacant blank page
Rather have
An ocean of color
Than a sea of scars
If the filling of ink in my pores
Is a step towards
Learning to love myself
Then who cares
My tattoos do not read ****
Do not read rebel
Trouble
I have hope written all over me
And that is something
I do not plan
On regretting
My body
Is something
That I do not plan on regretting
I am trying
To make this house a home again
I am determined
To find shelter
Under this leaking roof
I am determined
To become
A masterpiece
Because I know
I am
A masterpiece.

My mouth is full of moths
My words are not pretty
They do not flutter out with grace and ease
Instead
Twitching as they find their exit from my lips
They are not butterfly
With a name so smooth that it rolls off the tongue
I am not monarch
But
The decaying flesh it preys upon
The contrast between beauty and reality
I do not know why
Why
People like me are attracted to light
I guess it makes since
To swim towards brightness
When you've spent so much of your life in the darkness
Cocooned in between empty spaces
Nesting in silk spun from my own silence
I have spent months inside my shell
Learning how to find my own voice
Learning how to speak my own language
Hearing myself talk for 18 years but for the first time actually listening
Like moth
Touch sends me fleeting
Like moth
Attention back into hiding
I am not conspicous
Nor do I crave to be
Like caterpillar
We
Are all given blind hope
Told that someday
We will be noticed
Visible
Beautiful
But some spend so much time
Preparing for glory
That they forget storybooks lie
That in real life
The very hungry caterpillar
Who was promised butterfly
Becomes moth
Moth
What most see as ugly
And intrusive
Chewing holes in your finest clothing
Making home unwanted places
Moth is undesired
Butterfly is welcomed
Tell me why
One is invited in and the other shut out
Moth is not pretty
Moths lack ofbeauty
Is enough
To disregard it
All at once
Different is enough
To disregard all at once
Do not disregard me
Because I am not ideal
Because i am not fully painted winged beauty
We as a society only stop to see what catches the eye
Unable to notice the intricisies
Of darkness
So look a little closer
Try a little harder
Because if anything is to be known
It is that beauty
Is not
In the obvious.

When you love someone who is not there
Your mind will learn to create
Draw images of how everything should be
Erase ones that depict how it actually is
Eventually you will forget what is real
And what is make believe
You will convince yourself
That you are not forgotten
And that even though you haven't heard from him in days
He still thinks of you
You will tell yourself
That you are still wanted
Regardless of the fact that you barely want anything to do with yourself
You will somehow believe that someone else does
He will not tell you though
You have to remind yourself that he is too busy
Too involved even for a hello
You will have to remember
That his life never intended on having you be part of it
And that you
Will probably never be a part of it
You will constantly be reminded of every time you were promised future
And your wanting for it will become unbearable
You will lay awake at night like you always do
This time tasting of more than just alcohol and regret
You will swallow your own tongue wondering why fate never seems to be on your side
Thinking maybe you were never meant to love in the first place
That meeting him was a mistake
You should have known better anyway
To fall for a guy
With a heart already occupied
You know all too well
That there is not enough room in one for two
And you are the tenant with the most vacant body
Stop trying to fill yourself with things that don't exist
You will need to recall
Every single time you have built yourself up
Your expectations piling above you
Never anticipating the crash
You always seem to be staring blank eyed
When everything around you crumbles into disaster
You learn to pick up the pieces
And glue them into something decent enough to look at
Your mind is still painting pictures
On a canvas that will most likely never be tangible
And you will be reminded of it when you're laying in bed
And your hands grab for someone who is not there
When you love someone who is not there
You will spend every second of the day
Searching for them in crowded rooms
When in reality
You know
They weren't there to begin with
And they probably
Never will be.

I am the kind of person
Who has mental breakdowns in the line at subway
Decision making is difficult
Or maybe I'm just crazy
And I might be
Every day is unpredictable
Every day I wake up in the same body
A different person
People never believe me
But believe me when I say
I change on a daily basis
My mood is completely erratic
And always shifting
It is not desirable
To be this unstable
With the daily possibility of hurricane
And ever-present disaster
There is bound to be destruction
I think deeply about everything
Too much and too often
My personality is introverted
Yet I get upset when I'm alone for too long
Human contact is critical to my being
But sometimes I get upset if I am looked at the wrong way
I push people away
And then get mad when they don't come back
I don't make much sense at all
Really, I don't
Potato
I got a massage once
And cried for the whole 80 minutes
Because I had realized
I needed to pay someone to touch me for that long
It was still worth it
It's not normal
To fall apart this often
But I do
So often that it's become my daily routine
A repetition
Of overanalyzing
Freaking out
And then worrying
Followed by bouts of hysterical crying
I cry at the most irrelevant things
But never serious situations
I've been to two funerals in my life
And didn't cry at either
I didn't know how to
I am impulsive
I have seven tattoos
All of which were added within a span of three months
I make my decisions at the last minute
I'm addicted to netflix
I bawl my eyes out every time I watch lilo & stitch
Which is often
Sad music makes me depressed
But it's still the only thing I listen to
I say I hate hookups
And then spend a night with someone who will never speak to me again after
I look for love in all the wrong places
And then get ****** when I don't find it
Yell at happy couples because they are happy and I am not
I smoke cigarettes only because I like the smell of them
I drink too much
And then not enough
I look good some days and then like hell the next
My pillow has a permanent imprint of my head because I sleep a lot
Some nights I don't sleep at all
And then cry about it in the morning
I think I cry too much
And most days I realize this
I realize that I am
A mess
A whirlwind of ugly
Black and white
Back and forth
Thunder storm tidal waves
That constantly pick up and crash
A kaleidoscope of everything wrong in this world
All put together in one single being
I am the definition
Of insanity
But when you look at it
In the right perspective
I guess it starts to make sense
Starts to fold into something other than just breakage
I can't see the appeal in the chaos
I can't see the beauty
In any of this
But maybe someday
Someone will.

I fell in love with the idea of you
The thought of who you might be
How your hands might touch me
How your lips might feel against my skin
The idea of you loved me
Patiently
And kindly
Never selfish
Only selfless
The idea of you knew how to listen
I poured myself empty every time
And still managed to feel whole afterwards
Did not need a bottle to fill me
I was drunk enough as is
The idea of you gave me all there was to give
No need to ask for anything
No need to beg
Or wait
There was always something to grab onto
There was never any chase
The idea of you kept me company at night
Held me in moments of despair
And sung me to sleep
The idea of you always knew what to say
And when to say it
Knew words to untangle me
When my tongue grew tied
The idea of you was everything
I could have ever asked for
But you
Were not what I asked for
Your grip was rough
Your edges too sharp
Your caress anything but sweet
The only time you held me
Was when your arms had no other obligation
There was never any time made for me
You were running so fast
That I could hardly keep up
Always busy
Too consumed by everyone else
Too distracted
To pay attention to what lay in front of you
It is often the brightest lights
That blind the hardest
I must have been far too fluorescent
For your eyes to handle
And although it took me a while to see it
I finally do
I have come to realize
I never really wanted you
I wanted someone
Who didn't even exist.

This is not a love poem
I do not love you
Although I know I could
This is not a love poem
This is not a questioning
But a way of saying
I care more than I let on
A way of confessing
I think about you
More than I wish I did
I wish I could hate you
It would be much easier that way
I could write about it
And move the **** on
But I am stuck
Aware of the time I am wasting
By contemplating it all
By thinking too deeply
I can guarantee you
This is not a love poem
If it was
I would speak about the light in your eyes
How your smile
Is one of the brightest things I have ever seen
Your personality
One of the most addicting
If this was a love poem
I would tell you how much I want to kiss you
I would outline your lips with metaphor
Compare your tongue to honey
Write your body into a sonnet
And tell you how badly I crave it
I would tell you
How much
I long to be with you
How I want to waste
All of my moments with you
I would tell you
Everything I wish we could do
But this is not a love poem
So instead
I will tell you of how badly I want to slap you
Tell you that I hate you
That I want absolutely nothing to do with you
But the problem is
None of that is true
I could very well
Write you a love poem
But I don't think it would do much
I still don't think it would be enough
To make you have enough time for me
And the thing is
You are far too busy
For a girl who has all of the time in the world
She will never admit she's been waiting
But is a ticking clock in disguise
So much time has already been spent counting
All of the seconds
Each minute
Every hour
Days are milestones
Time is limited
It is better spent together
And I would much rather
Be alone with you
But this
Is not a love poem
I cannot incite beauty in something inconsistent
There is no romance
Only disappointment
And let downs
They are easy enough
To get used to
Do not ask me why I have trust issues
Ask everyone who has ever left
My hands do not touch without prints
Without leaving some sort of permanence
They say stay
Don't go
I want so badly
To push you away
But stay
Don't go
Because the way I think of you is a love poem
The way I speak about you is a love poem
The way that I talk to you is a love poem
The way that I can't get you off of my mind and out of my head is a love poem
The way I claim to hate you, avoid you, and pretend to despise you is a stupid ******* love poem
You are the love poem I cannot stop writing
This is a ******* love poem
This is my surrender
So please stay,
Don't go.

I can't remember
If I told you I loved you
The first time we had ***
But knowing me,
I probably did
My fingernails digging into your back
Your face in my neck
I most likely whispered it into your ear
Said it softly but loud enough for you to hear
I said I love you
Like it could make you stay
Like it meant mutuality
Thinking that maybe the lack of space between us
Could hypnotize you into believing
That you loved me too
A part of me certain that the air particles
Could somehow sew us together
And that the inevitable reality
Lingering in the background
Could never detach us
Convinced myself
That we were an atom in pure form
Incapable of being split apart when we were this close together

***
Is not synonymous with feeling
I knew this to begin with
Love and lust
Like oil and water
Can be separated with ease
Television and movies
Trained me in the art of one night stands
But I never intended to have you for one night
I didn't wanted you for a week
I wanted you for the amount of time
Where we forget how long it's been
Memorizing every single one our limbs
Ribcage
Arm
Hands
Skin
Then ******* the demons out of each other
To rectify our sins
Making love until we have no recollection
Of who we were before we learned each other's bodies
We were nobody
Before the conquer of this foreign territory
I wanted to surrender
From the moment we touched
But making love is so similar to make believe
That it gets hard
To tell the difference sometimes

When I slept next to you on your couch
My back pressing into the ridged corners of the sharpness
It was not out of convenience
It was out of purpose
Believing that withstanding the ache
Would show you how much I cared
Forgetting that your heart
Belonged to someone with a different name
In different city
Yet every night you still called my body home
Coming back to it repeatedly
Like a drunken wanderer
I thought if you did enough times
You would never want to leave
I convinced myself
That letting you **** me
Was one step closer
To getting you to stay

***
Is not synonymous with permanence
We should have never done it to begin with
Knowing quite well you were here
With the intention of temporary
I talked myself into your skin
Thought if I wrapped myself in it
Deeply enough
You would do the same
To me
My body
Was nothing more than a grave yard
For you to hide your secrets in
No treasure,
No gold

I buried my love for you
Into the curve
Of your collarbone
I bet it would still be there
If you looked for it
But I know
You wont.

I quit being okay with this
I quit feeling like I can't breathe
and hiding everything that's real to me
it's my choice right?
to throw in the towel
and just forget it
to just be me
I just want to be with me
no one sees that
cause everyone just wants
what feels good to them
and I don't want to feel good to anyone
anymore
I don't feel good anymore
I just want to be a friend
to a friend
who knows how to be a friend to me
because my heart is heavy
how could you know
when you've never held it
it's heavier than ever
and my chest wasn't built for it
and how could you know
if I don't speak of it
I never speak
and I want everything
but i can't get a thing
silently
acting like this
soon no one will want it
and who am i kidding
i'm left kissing the inside of this door
i keep *slamming