you'll never look at me the way
you used to, that face you had
just for me. I'll never feel your
wrap yourself around me, call me
baby, feel your fingers in my
hair or your lips at my throat.
I won't hear your laugh anymore,
your footsteps down the hall.
we won't ever sneak out in the
middle of the night, won't
cause a ruckus, be the riffraff
mama warned me about. I
won't ever hear you drunkenly
tell me I'm the most beautiful
woman in the world, won't hear
you tell me all over again in
the morning when my hair's a
mess and you kiss me awake.
it's like an open wound, every
moment, and the hardest
part is letting of what we
were and that this is how we
end.

i'd give anything
to have you back
but i'd give anything
to never want you
back

I think about the pieces.
the way we scattered them on
the floor, the collage of unfinished
pictures in every room. we
never picked them up, never
put them back together.
does the picture remain
the same when it's never
really painted? that vision
in your mind, does it ever
become art? or is it the whisper,
the thought, fleeting and never
again? the single melody
in your head, played over
and over and over and over
but ultimately forgotten,
becomes the soundtrack
for things that could have
been but never were. becomes
the body on the bathroom
floor, sometimes she's naked and
sometimes she'd in that white
dress. she never wakes up,
though. she's the body of
everything you could have
been, never were.

the way the
story twists -
all the harm
came from your
hands, and yet
in the end
I am the one
to carry the
blame.

home isn't
home and permanence
isn't permanent
and i'm still waiting
for the boy
who promised
me forever
to make good
on his word
but he's long gone
making home
in someone else
and i'm still here
feeling like an
unwelcome house
guest in my
own bed.

sometimes I sit
next to the river
watch the rapids,
consumed by them,
and I wish they'd
consume me too.
wash me clean.
wash me away.
either would be
just fine
with me.

I'm afraid of the brush strokes,
afraid that the pain won't stick,
that it'll stain, that it'll look more
like Rorschach than art.
I'm afraid of the pen to paper,
that the words I want to say
will never ever come out right.
I'm afraid of sewing needles
and spray paint and I'm afraid
of torn canvas and dirt brush
water. I'm afraid that my art
and my poems will turn into
the tangent of my head, the
same strings of words repeated
over and over again and the
same messy lines that link
one hemisphere to the other will
bleed onto the paper, out of
my mouth, and all the paper
and the ink and the paint will
go to waste and all my attempts
will be on the floor and I'll
lay with them and they'll
put a sign on me saying
something like
                 she will be missed.