I'm getting angry at you again.
I put everything away
I though
Out of sight, out of mind
But you have not failed
To stay in my head
EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY
SINGLE DAY.

I have a lot of pictures
And notes
And quotes
Saying that we would not
Be able to live without
The other.
We wouldn't be able to function
Or handle it.

But then we had to.

Did anyone ever notice
That you only started to get
Really bad
When you didn't have me
To talk to every night?
And when you were forced
To not speak to me?
Did no one make that connection?
You were crushed and beaten
And taught to hate me
Because it was all my fault...
But when you broke,
I wasn't even around to pick
Up the pieces.

Who
Will
She
Be
Buying
A
Rose
For
This
Year?

You left and you became a ghost
For all of us.
Not just me.
I see you swimming in their eyes.
And it's sad
We all still think of you
When we shouldn't.

Truthfully
I wish this
Piece of
Cardboard
Was my
Wrist.

She always spoke
Of working herself
Sick in the gym
And I'm starting
To understand why
She wanted to feel
This way.

It feels right to not belong
Next to my name
Because it never feels
Like you are talking to me
When you call it out.

You were walking on broken eggshells
It wasn't like you were some kind of
God (I made sure to whisper that
So only you could hear me)
You paraded around and it was like
You were deaf to the shattering
Beneath your feet and to my
Pleading to go back into hiding
Could you not see the guns, my darling?
They shot us down and only because
You know how to break hearts
Without picking your
Feet up from your natural
Day to day destruction.

If I could write a poem
To tell you all the love
Metaphors that your best friend
Asked for,
I still would only be
Able to have one line
With just one word
Which is still more
Than enough for me.

I have this tendency
To, when asked
How I am,
Say something along
The lines of
I'm fine.
Daniel
Or Meghan
Or Anna
Or Hayden Grace
Or Will
Or my mother
Or my father
Or anyone
Did something.
Said something.
Felt something...
I never answer the question.

I've made myself
Not matter
Inside my own skin.

I cannot stand this demented idea that
I love you for the way
You walk away from me with a smile on your face
And that I should love you for the way you
Rank an 8.5 but you're the only one I've kissed.
I don't want to love you for your skin
Your smile and your eyes and your ***
And the way you bite your lip and the way your hand fits in mine.
I don't want to be one of those girls to you
That finds you extremely **** and hot.
I'm not one of those girls.
Girlie, I do love all of those things about you.
I truly do.

I do not tell you this enough.
Love will never be physical for me.
Love is when you write to me
And when I can't go an hour, much less a day
Without you on my mind
And how we couldn't make it three days
Without kissing
We are in love
Puppy dog stage or not
And ****, you **** me when you
Walk away, but I love you anyway.

I'm not quite sure
Which I hate more:
The day you left
Or the day I
*Agreed to all of this.

I've had a great week
She held my hand
And my lips were
So close to hers
And I fell for her
One more time
Like I do every
Time I look at her
And every time
She says something.

I'm just waiting
To see that face again
I'm waiting to
See her cry
And to say
They are moving her
Away from me
Because we couldn't
Keep our
Hands off of
Each other.
I'm waiting for
The happiness
To end.

crawling
dear god help her
she cant find legs
and she cant find any sound
the world has shut her out
what is she to do
when theyve stripped
her of all she loves

breaking
someone save her
im watching
from the sidelines
and im surrounded by
this thick glass
and there is no where
to go
so i watch her struggle
and for once
i can feel the tears
on my cheeks

crushing
stop stepping on her bones
they were fragile
back when i got the chance
to handle them
between the dark nights
and the tired days
she never let me
hold them for more
than an hour
but you've had them
for far too long
and im afraid of
your damage

shattering
cant you see what
you have done to her
shes been brainwashed
and beaten by them
and all you do is
watch behind this glass
you could have
stopped this
saved her the trouble
i could have

dead*
but i didnt
and
i
dont
know
what
to
do
other
than
watch
at
this
point

We both have this
Idiotic
Tendency to forget
What has to be
Done
To make everyone else
Okay
When all we want
Is to have that for
Ourselves.

How many times?
Does the girl you love?
Ask to see?
What you do when?
You forget she?
Exists?
And what kind?
Of look does she?
Give to your demons?
When she faces?
Them and sees?
What they have?
Done to you?

Oh, wait?
What do you mean?
She hasn't seen?
Them yet?

If I keep focusing on all the differences,
Will I start seeing things without the fog?
If I lift the blinds from in front of my eyes,
Will I get to see you through this smog?
What if I can't do that?

If you hold onto everything that makes you cry,
Will you stop seeing all of your beauty?
If you search for something to stop the pain,
Will you be able to come back to me?
What if you don't want to do that?

If we start to listen to what they've said
Will we be able to start us again?
If we let ourselves let the other go,
Will our friends notice the change?
What if we can't handle that?

I've always been flexible enough to wrap my arms
Around my body to reach my back
Because I knew it would always be difficult
To find someone to hold me in that way
And maybe that God I don't believe in knew
That too and made it worse
By handing me away on a silver platter
To the girl inside my skin who likes to play
With matches and bundles of dried up hair
Mistaken for straw.

Someone once asked me where it hurt
Like they would a small child with
A minor cut on their knee or a **** in their face
And they asked me when I sat on a bathroom
Floor and sobbed for a girl who got her hair
Burt off from getting too close to my
Soul which had too many broken wires.

I screamed at them and showed them
My ****** wrists, saying all the while
That my skin was the last thing
To send me falling to the floor of a dark red pain
That I still see at times when I close my eyes

I've never been one to say that I have a place
For a heart but it hurts back behind all of the
Anatomy that I never bothered to learn
In high school and it feels as if all the blood
From my wrists is filling up my lungs and is seeping
Into the cracks of my virtually invisible heart
And ink spews from my lips every time
I attempt to throw "I love you"s at the back
Of your receding head.

I want to punch in a wall.
Because I'm alone.
And being alone is how this all started.
I can't afford to relapse.
But I've lost everyone.
Because I lost her.
And everyone thought it'd be okay to mess with me.
People think it's a good idea to make their move when I am vulnerable.
But no.
You made your move and I locked you out.
Who said it was a good idea to prey on a heartbroken girl?
No.
Someone explain that to me.
Is it because I got so sad that I started texting a girl from England?
Does that justify it?
I hate that girl.
She makes me sick, Emily does.
So exactly who thought it would be okay to rip me to pieces?
And why did everyone decide to join in on the game?
I don't understand.
Two of you have seen me break down over my heartbreak.
But you did it anyway.
I don't want another apology.
I HATE pretending that I don't care.
Because I am human.
I hate having my heart torn out as much as the next girl.
Maybe more.

Oh dear god,
Why must you be you?
It shouldn't even be a question.
Why, oh my dear god,
must you be you.
You could have been a girl
With straight teeth,
And an upper lip that curved
In the middle.
You could have had good hand writing
That didn't rip me to the core
When I looked at your name
On a sheet of paper
I shouldn't have noticed.
But your name, all 8 letters,
They stand out to me.
And each line you write,
It's a slap in the face
A kiss on my cheek
And it reminds me of you.
You could have left me alone.
You could have decided you
Hated clarinet when you were
In middle school,
And you wouldn't have been
At Scott Lang
And you wouldn't have fallen
In love with the way I was,
the way I just had to be me.
You wouldn't have made me love you.
You wouldn't have made me fall in love
With you again today.

Even after almost five months,
You have my heart,
Just by a look.
Why must you be you.
It shouldn't even be a question.

Maybe it is just my
Contorted mind
But every time I think
Of *** with a man
I think of pain
And crying with screaming
Alongside ****** sheets
And torn shirts
With my own demented
Version of my reflection
Underneath yelling
Only in my head
Oh dear god make this stop
With grunts in my ear
And sweat that is everywhere.

It hurts.
So I'm sorry.
My answer is still no.

There are pieces of writing out in the world
That say that you should start starving yourself
Or you should start working hard
To hate your "fat" body, by everyone else's definition.
I've read these types of inspirational pieces.
They make me want to stop eating
And they make me want to purge
And they make me hate my body like I always have.
They say that day one, this won't be a battle.
I will be skinny and beautiful and gloriously...
Bony, emaciated, hungry, angry, lonely, cold...
But pretty.
"Day one starts today" they say.
"Imagine day 30, when all the boys whistle.
Day 52 of people asking if you lost weight
Day 69 of being someone else thinspo
Day 100 of being gorgeous."
I've never wanted to be skinny.
At one point, I wanted to starve and
Be just like that,
But I came to the point where I decided
I was sad enough without another disease
On my stomach and in my head.
There are too many scars on my body
And I've tried so hard to stop
Putting more on my skin bag,
But I find it hard, so I turn to these
Pro-eating disorder inspirational pieces.
And I change the words.

Day one starts today.
Imagine day 10 and not breaking
Even though you really want to.
Imagine day 21 when you reach
Six months with that special girl
And you are still clean.
Imagine day 30 when you can tell
Her that you are a month clean again.
Imagine day 43 of smooth skin.
Imagine day 100 of smiling
Because you aren't killing yourself.
Imagine day 331 and reaching
The two year mark from when
You started and now you are done
With all of the torture.
Imagine day 365
When you can look in
The mirror and say,
"I made it a year."
Imagine day 730
When you can say,
"I made it two years."
Imagine your wedding day
When you can say,
"I made it out and I wouldn't
Be who I am
With out you."

Remember, Jess:
You. Are. Worth. Fighting. For.

I'm out of line again,
1 2 3 4,
the tiny little steps,
But somewhere my feet grew
Two sizes too big
And I'm already in the teens,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The thirties are now behind me.
I'm out of step,
I'm out of line,
And I'm not sure I want to stop.

YOU ARE STRONG
i want you to remember that
you dont need them
you dont *need her
you can make it alone
like you did all those years
alone with your mother
youll be okay
*alone

Every time he says the
Misconstrued and fragmented
Phrase "Sok"
I hear your voice.
I hear that little girl voice
You would use when you
Were playful and you
Wanted something from me.
You always knew it would work.

The way he kept looking
At me on Friday;
It was the same look you gave
Me on a different Friday
Because I couldn't help
But feel the love in my eyes
That I'm still unable to describe.
You caught me staring
A little too closely and
Had my heart beating
So quickly.
I blush horribly but
You always seemed to be
Able to make me do it.

I notice how that pretty girl
Across the food court from me
Had hair that was purely
Brown with no highlights
And it was perfectly straight
With no wave to it.
She was only pretty in
The way of conformity then.
She didn't have your
Lighter streaks and her
Hair wasn't a mess.
It didn't look almost gray
Under the lights
Of a football stadium.

I can't write the word gray
Without thinking of you.
The first time I wrote it
In this poem, I wrote it
With an A.
You know I spell it with an E.
Unless I'm thinking of you.
Grey seems a little too
Wrong to write now.

He isn't playful enough.
But only in comparison to you.
She isn't pretty enough.
But only when next to your beauty.
No one has the right set of teeth.
No one has the right color eyes.
No one blushes all the time.
No one has the right hand shape.
No one has the right hair.
No one has the right body.
No one has the right soul.
No one has the right mind.

No one but you.

I told you that you would
Always be in my way
They are all flawed
In every way
Because no one has the same set of
Constellations between their bones
That I can call
Some kind of a home.
It will never be a bad thing.
I'm just strung up on the girl
I love.
Because I do.
I love her.
And nothing you can
Say
Or do
Or lock away
Will stop me from
Giving her my heart.

I'm still holding on.

Heartbeats are not meant to be regular.
They're meant to sputter, wet and dark,
Underneath too many layers of skin.
When broken they must be robotic,
Rhythmic, monosyllabic and
When loved, they must pulse against
The lips of your lover at the neck.
Hearts were never meant to be
Unattainable, undesirable,
Detrimental.
But rather they exist to be heard
Through your shirt and skin
And commitment issues
And to be felt in moments draped
In fear and strength.
But here we stand, you with your
Steady pulse
And silly me, with the taste of comfort
Once again on my lips and
The smell of you in my messy hair,
My own heart reminded of the past.