White lines on the kitchen table.
Your head, C10H15N,
Altoids box under the keyboard.
Your heart, C21H23NO5,
Syringes up your sleeve. ***** on your chest.
Your veins, C18H21NO3,
Dropping acid like the Aztecs.
Your tongue, C20H25N3O,
What will it take to strip your blood down
to the salt and the rust?
5 more Klonopin, 5 more Xanax,
you're on the floor,
a boring story,
I've heard it before.
Keep it far from me.
(You're not close enough. Please.)

I won't be free until my wings are clipped.
The ocean still smells like blood.
I can still remember the color of your eyes.
The most cliché line, the most cliché lie.
There's no future, there's no answer.
The most therapeutic thing is anger.
(Here I am, lost without you.)

4 weeks and this is not at an end.
You're not yourself, haven't been in months.
You might never be again.
Plaster over the scar on your forehead.
Staple shut your eyelids, tear off your eyelashes.
You might never wanna see me again.
The curve of your knuckles, the part of your hair,
I watch myself burn and turn to gold again.
Stay in bed, dreaming of fresh rose and lemon.
Play Russian Roulette with the pills in mom's cabinet.
You're not clean, haven't been in months.
You might never be again.

I'm so tired of writing about how you broke my heart.
I'm tired of herding lambs into the ocean, watching them entangle and fade into the sea foam.
I listen to their cries, how it sounds like the great barrier reef dying, the coral dissipating and the sharks shedding their fins.
I guess the number of tabs it takes for your brain to think in color.
I guess the number of bowls you've smoked trying to unlearn my name.
I guess the number of days until you're running the track marks up your arm.
I ***** my eyes shut and say, "stop thinking about him."
I watch as your face morphs into a rose, spreading petals across my ribs like tumbleweeds.
My heart strings braid themselves to keep from snapping.
This isn't happening.

I repaint the Sistine Chapel with only my tongue
just to see your face again.
Oh, your holy chocolate covered soul,
holy bird bone finger tips.
How you snap like a star and then burn again.

You looked me in the eye today for the first time in three weeks. The silent conversation went like this:

"Hey, it's me. Haven't heard from you in a while. Call me back."

Hello, promise breaker. I bet you never thought you'd see the scar on my forehead again. Here it is, my mother's voice paired along with it, "αντίο". You don't speak the language I hate myself in. You don't see what I see, two tabs a day does this to me.

"Uh, hey. It's been a while. Gimme a call. Bye."

My hair is parted to the other side, like it? Of course you don't. You hate change. You hate looking at the empty spot in your heart. I packed my **** up and moved out a month ago. Took all my liquor and all my cologne and boxes of chocolate and handwritten letters too.

"Getting kinda worried. Call me back. I love you."

Speaking of my letters, have you read them lately, Lauren? Have you read all the times I called sunshine? Wanna think of it now? Wanna think of how you've cried yourself to sleep over me every night for the past week? That's what I thought.

"Look, I'm not mad. We can fix this. Please call me."

Okay, yeah. No one knows about us. No one knows I'm hiding. Let's keep it that way? Hey- quit crying. Guys don't go for that. I'm not there to see it either. Waste that on someone else.

"Please pick up."

You're gonna miss me. You're gonna miss loving me. You're gonna miss the silent denial that it's over. You're gonna miss being upset with me because at least I was there. You're gonna miss my eyes when I stared at you like you were my whole **** world. You're gonna miss crying into my t-shirts. You're gonna miss me keeping you up all night. You're gonna miss my sense of style, me always sending you new shoes. You're gonna miss my sense of humor. You're gonna wish I was ruining your life. You're gonna wish I was there at all.

*"... Love you."

Maybe it's better this way
My God, I can't have everything I want
Maybe I can't love you

Maybe it's better this way
My God, maybe you're happier
One less hole in my heart
But you leave behind two