I remember my last love letter to you and how I apologized for being more ocean than girl, more suffocating than soft. I remember promising my reflection that I'd stop my heart from overflowing and I'd try to loosen my grip on you. I remember waking up the next morning and finding my heart on the front porch - beating and bleeding. Nothing too sentimental attached - just a plain old 'sorry' as if you had only bumped me by accident or forgotten to reply to a text. I remember trying to shove it back through your mailbox and your shaking head standing at the window. I remember waking up to everything smeared and hazy for two weeks straight I never knew morning from afternoon.  faded rose that used to be bright scarlet. I remember being pink for a while. It took me months to wash your stains from my walls but soon I was stark and white. Naked and empty. But at least you were gone. I remember swearing to never look at red again. Let alone touch it. But it's knocking at my door every morning and banging on the windows all night long. I try to ignore her singing but sometimes I crouch at the keyhole and hum along. Sometimes I stand clutching the key in my prettiest dress.

Last night I grew too curious. Opened the door just a crack. I saw love crimson and crying in my garden corner surrounded by empty bottles and cigarette buds.

I saw you drunk and tired

We gave up at the same time

I  am standing at the grave of a boy
We lost, a couple of months ago.
There was no elaborate church service or organs echoing off cathedral walls.

We are here today to mourn the death of a soul we cannot be sure is really dead.

You went missing.

That is what I told myself all those nights I spent out with lanterns,
Searching for you.
But it seems now that you intentionally ran away and the suspect in question is just the person you've become since you left.
You only died for me.
You only left me.

Everyone else still sees your wide-eyed smile and hears your singing soul.

"Have you seen this boy?"

No. Nobody has seen you since late November but I am the only one who remembers.

For you, I've written eulogy after ******* eulogy.
I mourned your loss and grieved in your absence.
I took gulp after bitter gulp of wine, each a toast to You.

I stand at your grave, eyes red and heart still in flames.
How come you turned to ashes before me, when we started this fire together?

I lay two roses on your tombstone,
One for each month you existed for me, next to me, with me.

I commemorate every bench we ever sat on:
"In unloving memory of two souls that loved too much and tried too little"

I was the only witness to your death
The only speaker at the service
And the single carrier of your casket.
I stand in an empty grave yard
And weep with the dead.

You want to be tough.
So you wear heartbreak like a medal and laugh at how you used to cry yourself to sleep.
You smoke ten cigarettes a day and out drink every guy at the parties you go to.
You don't cry or so much as flinch when let down
And you meet every promise made to you with a frown

You want to be brave.
So you kiss strangers and go walking alone at night.
You get in cars with no idea where you're going and no concern if you'll be back.
You get on a plane to a place where the only soul you know is your own and all the faces are unknown.

You want to be fearless.
So you never say no unless yes makes you second guess your self worth because to hell with their opinion of you, right?

You laugh at everything,
Even when you're crying, you're laughing at your tears because after all these years being broken,
You finally speak before you're spoken to.

You wanted to be loved and cared for and held at the hips.
You wanted romance and roses,
True love's tender kiss.
You wanted someone to caress your scars for once and not be the one putting someone else's broken pieces together.
Only for them to thank you
And be on their way.

You loved and you lost,
Then settled for liquor and lust
Those boys drove you insane
But you drop them off, grip the steering wheel,
And try find your way back home.

You know, you're never here anymore
You're hardly ever sober
And you're making all these memories
That everyone but you can remember

'Why do you always get so ****** up?'
- they ask
And you don't know what to say
Because you ask the mirror the same question
And she just laughs but her eyes are
Somber and kind of frightened,
Even though you know you're never scared of anything.

I don't drink because I'm sad like I used to
I don't need drugs because it hurts too much
I guess I just like the risk. The freedom.
The inability to make rational decisions.

They say you can't escape your own mind
But I have found a way.

And strange boys take the love you didn't want
And I know it's not love but I can pretend for the night
And your kiss has been replaced too many times to count,

But still you're the only love I ever write about.

The sun sets at 6:05 pm and it's not even pretty because we're sitting on the wrong side of the tallest building in town. The laughs have become tired and a little forced. The conversation is dwindling and your hand is twitching to answer your phone. But it's cold so we'll sit folded into each other and you'll blow hot hair on to my ice-cold fingers and maybe we can keep pretending for a little longer. We are nearing our end after all. So the sun sets and the sky goes grey just like our love, but it will be black and empty and gone soon my darling, worry not. We sit in silence both waiting for the other to say something, to ask something. But we don't talk about what we really feel anymore and your reason is that you don't feel anything and my reason is that I feel too much and everyone is just waiting. We are two seeds that were planted together long ago. I did all the watering for us my love and I sat and I waited and I watered. Day after day and month after month. But I have become disgusted with waiting because our love never even breaks the surface of the soil and it is there it is there I know it is. But I have always likened you to sunshine and I  guess I had to realize that no matter how much love I poured into you, our flowers cannot bloom when the sun never sticks around long enough.

Where does girl with broken heart go?
Girl with sunken eyes and heavy chest
Girl with pressed on smile and recycled lips
Girl with sharp words dripping with forgiveness.
Where did boy with sunshine smile go?
Boy with electric hands and voice like rain
Boy with truthful eyes and honest lies
Boy with unsure insistence and blanket arms
Where do we go from here?
Because from what you say (or don't say)
Our options are not very clear.
Was our reunion after all these months,
Simply just to plan our farewell?
Maybe this is the beginning of the end.
Maybe we've reached the conclusion of our tale
Maybe we've been pretending there's still more to our story
The remainder of the book is wearing thin and neither wants to turn the page.
It is too final.
Too much like a tragedy, instead of the fairytale we'd hoped for.
Maybe I've spent weeks mistaking your silence for fear, when really you have nothing to say.
You know, it is very much the same for me.
I think that I have so much to tell you but whenever I open my mouth to speak,
My hearts already breaking
Whenever I want to pose a question
Your heads already shaking.
And I guess what I'm trying to say is that only my hands and my heart still love you, but my head doesn't know what to make of the stranger next to me.
And I feel like a fool because I swore I would always look for you in a dark room but you don't want to be found.
Even if you did, it would be both of us searching in-between forbidden kisses
Because you don't know where you are either, do you?
And I spent months thinking that I would have you any way I could get.
That anything would be enough 'cause you're the only one for me
But lately my hearts been playing tricks on me and my mind cannot come up with more excuses.
Because it hurt so much less when you didn't love me at all.
Now you love me in halves and quarters
And I just don't know how to break myself up like you do.
With me, it has always been all or nothing.
And don't you see that the scraps of affection you keep tossing my way feels
Like a whole lot of
Nothing.
Especially since I've already seen what you can give me in the past.
And then I start to wonder if I'm living in sweet memories and refusing to see how bitter reality has become.
You see, this is who we are now.
My problem is not that I can't live without you.
If you had to tell me you want nothing to do with me, I would blow you a kiss and be on my way.
My problem is that you plant hope in my heart whenever it suits you, and I'm too weak to refuse.
Especially when it feels so familiar and tastes like chocolate instead of heartbreak on our warm and wanting tongues.
And I don't know whether I am jumping to conclusions or hitting the nail right on the head.
Because I don't think and you don't talk and we've both been terrible, terrible cowards.
What happened to girl with poems pouring out of her soul and hands that reached out unafraid of rejection?
What happened to boy who reassured his intentions with every second sentence?
Where did they go and why did they leave and do they plan on coming back or can I please stop sitting at my window waiting for something to happen that deep down you know never will and deep down I'll always, always hope for?

Despite the heart which is froze
Hatred runs fluidly
Like the water in shattered glass
Like the blood in broken bones
Like the flames in our homes    
This hatred
It speaks to me
Like drugs to an addict

When it tells me to shoot
                                         I relapse and
                                       aim for the sky

I said..
In spite of my own humility
Hatred runs deeply
Like the roots beneath the dirt
Like the pain beyond the hurt
Like this poem before your eyes

I despise 
                Way too many lies
                And so little truth  

I said..
I hate beautiful  
It cripples me deeply  
For you are my pity
My pain and their pleasure

When I am high
                           I'll collapse and fall
                        Far from this place
                        Of rotten bliss

I said..
Look at me        
Blood misrepresents me    
For I am cut differently
This pain isn't felt
Like the emptiness
Residing in your cup
It is felt
Like a toxic
Living inside the gut
Like these words
Traveling directly
Towards the stomach

I mean..
             Although this addiction kills me
           Hatred is also the remedy
          It is all I need to truly appreciate
          The little love I have left.