sometimes
I catch my breath,
sometimes the storm
stops long enough
to see the horizon
again and sometimes
the arms holding me
under are the arms
pulling me up.
the taste of air,
the relief for just a moment
I am not fighting for every
moment of life -

until the undercurrent
catches me, until the sky goes
black all over again
and the water in my lungs
reminds me that the bitter survival
I fight so hard for
is all I really deserve.

needle and thread
can only mend so many wounds,
can only mend
so many tears.

you've watched me, for years,
worrying at all our holes,
repairing them until my
fingers bled,
until my wounds became
too deep for stitches.

not that you'd stitch them up anyways.
never our wounds, and certainly
never mine.

pull my
marionette strings
and I will sing
for my supper,
do as I'm told
at the mercy
of your fingertips.

i'm watching the sunset
from the parking lot after work
and all the tendrils of all
the thoughts and feelings
in my head are lost to me,
close enough to see the silhouette,
too far to grasp.
i think of all of our sunsets
and i wish i'd held onto them,
those moments, a little longer.
lived them a little deeper.
we're strangers now, all of that
come and gone so quickly,
too quickly. and that's okay.
or it will be, someday.
the winds have changed,
and i have changed,
but my regret hangs in the
air like the purple in the clouds.
the sunset of you will
set one day and the sunset
will always remind me of you
but you'll become one of those
tendrils, the shape of something
that used to mean something
but unreachable,
like you were always
going to be.

the pieces of me,
the pieces i have left
don't really fit together.
collected over the years
from hundreds of puzzles,
i am left with an image
maybe designed by a
toddler or maybe a psychopath -
the kaleidoscope view of
somebody who couldn't
keep track of all the pieces
all the pictures
all the puzzles.
but i guess they tried,
because here i am
in all of my mismatched glory -
all at once a gift and an apology.

sometimes the crows
talk to me
and I imagine
you sent them
from your little
corner of the world

I pretend they
say "I miss you"

because truth be told
I miss you
too.

finally found your portrait
(dorian)
hidden behind your veneer
and your charm
and it is far uglier
than I could have
ever imagined

and all at once
letting you go was the easiest thing
I've ever done.

the thirst
the hunger
the echoes
of thousands of voices
screaming for relief
for patience
for salvation
home
permanence
the secret
wishes of the
mangled hearts
the wrecked spirits
the ones who have
given up
who have made friends
with the shadows
in the corner
made art of the
dandelions in the
sidewalks and the
****** fingerprints
on the window panes

some days the warrior
some days the worrier
and i'm never more
unsavable
than the days your
absence hits the hardest -
when everything smells
like you, and i hear your voice
the clearest and the
soundtrack in my head
is the alternating verses of you
telling me you love me
and telling me to use a sharper
knife next time -

these are the days
i find myself the
most numb,
trembling, aching for sleep,
for an escape from the pain
that comes with missing you
so deeply
even after all this time.

i'm tired of the triage.
i'm tired of bandaging
the wounds of those around me,
i'm tired of the shrapnel and
the pain and the feeling of
helplessness, watching
them burn and bruise
and bleed while i can
only offer bandaids
and well wishes. i'm tired
of sincere apologies that
don't mend the losses
and i'm tired of the tears
that never dry and the
need and the ache and the
void platitudes will never fill.

dripping
from the wrist
ink
blood

i tried
i tried
to write
to you

i swear
i tried -

i'm sorry
will never
be enough

goodbye
will never
close the
door

the blades
never sever
the ache

the pen
never
carves anything
but your
name

you love me,
you love me.

you love me?

you do not destroy
the things you love.

it hits at the worst times.
the in and out flashes,
the people and the places we used to be.
it's like a pinched nerve,
a sprained ankle,
a sunburn -
the backwards ache of unrighted wrongs
and wounds that never healed right.
the constant reminders of
the loss and the longing
and the sting of all those things
I can't quite let go.
all of them. all of you.

yours is the
unwelcome ghost
i cannot bring myself
to banish.

between your anger
and my grief
we'll scorch the planet,
flood it
all over again.

one morning
I will wake up
and it won't hurt
anymore.
I will make coffee
and the open windows
won't welcome in
the ache of hazy
daylight.
the ghost of us
will finally be put
to rest and everything
will be alright.

i'm trying to walk
on eggshells with feet
still bandaged from
walking on broken glass
and you wonder why
i step so delicately,
why i turn and run
every time they
start to sting
again.

sometimes
the answer
to the
"what if"
hurts more
than never
answering it
at all.

I cleaned my own
blood off your knife,
mended the wounds,
you gave me.
still kissed you
goodbye
when you left.

i'd like to take apart all
of my pieces, unstitch
the skin, untangle the veins,
dismantle the bones -
let them clean, air dry.
let all the dust and the
ash settle elsewhere.
maybe then, when i
wear a body you've
never touched, will
my grief begin to
untether itself, only
then will i unshackle
the anger, only then
will the wall you've
built between me
and everyone else
come down.

i wish i could remember the
day everything popped, the
day the fissure ripped me in
two - broke me into pieces of
Feeling and
Unfeeling.

or maybe it was just like
poison in the water, not
enough to destroy but enough
to sicken - to warp the
sensations, the perceptions -
hot, cold, hate, love.

how happy and empty
seem to be the ends of the
extreme with no in between.
how it can change in a moment,
how the turning of the planet
manages to yank the ground
right out from under me.

how quickly the fruit sours,
the heart hardens.
the gardens turn graveyard
and i am left once more
with the wreckage of all that i
once loved, burned to ash.

maybe i am the villain.
maybe i am the virus
infecting all that i touch.

the irony in loving
cold hearts is
one day becoming
the cold heart that is
loved

not dead, just
cold - the absence of
life. like the
ghosts of trees,
in winter,
blown bare of
leaves -
all that remains
the silhouette
of an existence.

the burned
hollowed out
husk

the emptiness and
the ache

hands full of bruises
full of blood

gardens don't grow
when you plant them
in ashes.

i have built a home in myself
after all these years
and what peace it is to know
that no one will burn down
what i call hime
ever again.


(and what a quiet pain it is
to still crave the home in you.)

the hollow
nothing fills -
the shadow of you
lingers, leaching
every last ounce of life
out of me.

the apologies, the anger
the rage, the hate, the love,
the fists and the holes in
the walls

the painting hangs in the
living room, the one of the
ghosts who still loved
each other.

and the ache, and the
longing, and the loss

it's battles and wars
and some of them are
victories and some of them
are losses and in the
end we both lose.

your hands -
all the places on my
body where you touched me,
all the places in my
mind where you bruised me,
and all the places in
my heart where you killed me.

recovery is a minefield
and all the parts of me I lost
still lay on your bedroom floor.

wake in the early winter morning,
let the cold settle in your bones,
serve the quiet reminder that
all things come to an end eventually.
the silence of snow and the howl
of wind are the two hands that
say both goodnight and welcome home.
the sudden winter storms will heal
if you let them, but they'll also
steal you away when you
get lost in the night.
don't allow yourself to be
swallowed by the ache of it,
by the barren silence of it all.

the trajectory overlaps
suddenly, inexplicably -
asteroid to planet.
the collision is loud,
volatile, permanent
alteration.
the planet continues
to rotate on its axis
a little sideways, never
really recovering
from the explosion, while
the asteroid continues
on its albeit altered,
but never halted,
trajectory.  

we are planets, like this.
turning and turning
in the same universe,
never crossing. it's like a
hand to hold, the moments
before and the moments after
nearly identical: at one time
we hadn't ever touched,
and afterwards it's like we never
did.

but you are still scar.
there's still the ground zero
where we collided, brutally,
beautifully. once, never again.

sometimes you can't just walk it off.
sometimes you have to rebreak the bones
before they'll heal right. sometimes
you have to sew the cuts closed
and sometimes you pick the scabs over
and over again before the itching stops.
sometimes they become faint scar,
injury really only you can see. sometimes
the scars are so thick and dark that
they become the most noticeable part
of your body.

sometimes we heal.
sometimes we don't.
sometimes we say goodbye
over and over to the ghost
in the mirror, watching the
scars deepen with every
desperate breath.

Denial
     things were never supposed to end
     like this.
     my body remembers you,
     like surgery, like scar.
     the imprint of loss doesn't fit
     when I was never supposed to lose you
     in the first place.

2. Anger
     the hands.
     the fists.
     screaming to skies that don't listen.
     apologies are nothing when you've
     shoved me into the villain role
     knowing all along you broke me in the first place.
  
3. Bargaining
     i'd give anything to have you back.
     i'd given anything to never
     want you back.
     and it's always right there in the middle.
     knowing you're no good for me,
     knowing that you could have been.

4. Depression
     the whole body ache. the
     imsorryitsamess I am doingmybest.
     the way they hold your hands and tell you
     it gets better, you get over it, you stop wanting
     you stop wanting. one day it just stops.
     it's the way they can't see the bruises, the battering
     because the outsides look fine. the outsides smile.
     the outsides are a good employee, a good friend.
     the outsides are a much better actor
     than i give them credit for.

5. Acceptance
     it's like marking a page in a book,
     setting it down, never picking it back up
     again. tragic. the movement of life. it sits
     on a shelf, months, years. you forget the plot
     the characters, the motion. your fingers run
     over its spine every so often, thinking you'll
     come back to it. it's how you never think the end
     is the end, how it burns, how you forget the last
     kiss, the last I love you, the last everything. how
     eventually, the sting of those lost memories stops
     stinging. how you forget you ever started the book
     in the first place


and it's how someday you do pick up the book
again, you do, and it all comes rushing back to you.
the circle of the stages, how each one becomes
a familiar visitor you welcome in with warm coffee
and ask how they've been. they don't ever really
ask you. for awhile, it's like getting hit in the stomach,
lost for air. eventually the visitors go elsewhere for
coffee, and you never realize when you've finally
put down that book for the last time.

no matter what happened
we were going to have an ending.
dry forests burn quick
and lightening will always strike,
and we were always going to have
an ending.

loosen the laces
that tie me to you
  me to us
    me to them
      to anyone.

letting you go has been like pulling hangnails,
like removing limbs. I've learned to live
limbless, nursing ****** fingers.
nobody but me
changes the bandages.

they say time heals all wounds.
time does not heal
all wounds.

open wounds turn scar,
pink and shiny, then the
naked skin of old cuts. but the ache
lingers long after its healed, long
after each and every one of those
cuts has been sewn shut.

every now and then, the nerves sizzle
and your name flashes across my mind
bright and violent like neon against the black
sky of night.

and then you're gone again. just another
scar among many, still the only one that ever
really burns after all this time.

time passes,
another wound opens,
another name
in the flesh, another scar.

I'm so tired of healing wounds.

the inevitability the inevitability the inevitability
the pushback
the loss
the grieving the anger
the inevitability
the distance
the wounds
the healing
the wounds
the hands the harm
the scream
the whispers
the whisper
                                                                how are you still like this?

there are days the sun
captures me, pulls me back
into life and I feel it in every
cell of my body, light and
warmth and life.

and there are days I am
desperate for the ground to
open up and swallow me,
to blink out of existence,
for the planet to turn
without me on it.

the sunny days are few
and far between. I spend
far too much time with my
feet firm on the ground
waiting for departure.

I'm so afraid the time will
come where the sun isn't
enough anymore, and I won't
be enough anymore and
I'll give up waiting
for the departure and
leave by myself.

the ghosts in the attic
play melodies on the piano,
something about how
love will always end
in destruction, either in life
or after death.

they tell us stories of the
ocean, how she can carry a
ship yet slip through your fingers,
how she kisses the shores,
yet she's always in pull
to the moon.

the ghosts in the attic tell
us how your soul will always
be bound to the places that
harmed you the most, how you
will move through walls but
you'll always sink right back
to the stain on the carpet.

they tell you to learn how to be
good with your hands, to paint
the love you feel on every canvas
you touch, to carry a heart gently
but know to make a fist when needed.

they tell us how they lived and
died in agony, how they watch
the living do the same. how the cycle
repeats itself, how the ghosts
in the attic become us,
how we become them.

home is a hollow,
carved into the carcass
of buildings that once
held life, held love, held light.
hid myself away in the
crevasses; too deep to
really see, close enough
to the surface that they
eyes would still catch
the outside light.
found me in the reflections
and refracted silhouettes.
saw the ghost of the girl
trapped between then and
now, there and here.
tried so hard to coax her
out, save her, set her free.
the thing about saving
ghosts sewn into the darkness
is that they're more siren
than shade, and they'll
drown you in their darkness
before you ever even notice
the thinning of the light.

swallow the metal of my bones
because the taste of their weight
is a recipe from your own hands.
severed the paper thinness of my
skin because you wanted to taste
the nerves, learn the taste of my
undoing.

I am nothing now.
I am the spare parts
you didn't care for.

the hurt you gave
the hate you carry
the mess you made
the lies you taste
the story you tell
the guilt you swallow

poison me,
paint me the villain
because it suits
your pain  

I have become your
worst masterpiece
your ache,
your undoing.

shade me if you must,
leave yourself the wounded
while you hold the knife.
tell your lies, but you'll always
know the truth.

the click, the hands, the mouth,
the heavy taste of the liquor
and the heavy weight of the drugs
I never intended to be the grenade
but you never handled me gently
enough to prevent explosion

and in the wake of y(our) carelessness,
the ringing, the shell-shock,
we forgot our names, how
they sounded in each other's mouths.

you tried to hold on, I know, but
my hands hurt too much not to
let go.

sewn together with
scrap pieces
no one wanted
and cheap thread.

but sewn together
all the same.

one wound heals
and another one opens.

I have grown tired
of this cycle.

I dream about you, still.
to this day. it's been months.
feels like years.

I dream about your hesitation,
your fear, your want to keep me
            away.

I dream about your melt, how
you can't resist, the way you loved me.
love me. never enough.
          always too much.

you push(ed) me away,
but still,
you always find your way back.

(wait. have waited. will wait.)
(loved, have loved, will love.)

the aftershock
the ringing in my ears
the ache of skin
bone
fingertip

all the nerve endings
deep-fried and severed.

the T.V. static in my head
the running water, the heat
the cold, the fury
the blade

the skin
becomes metal becomes
iron, the bones
paper thin.

I want to dissolve.
I am too heavy.

blood drips out of the bathtub.
the way they twist your arms,
bend your legs in shapes
they aren't meant to make.

the blood seeps in the floorboards.
they paint your skin
purpleblack,
yellowred,
constellations spiderwebbing across
shoulder blades

down ribs
down hips
down thighs

the blood soaks
into the dirt.

put the gun in your hands
trusted you to never put your
finger on the trigger
swallowed the love you
fed me, swallowed the lead
when you left me

fell to my knees,
prayed to a god I
don't believe in.
made a church
out of mouths
that have never
tasted the truth.
found faith in
gutter, found
savior in the
******. confessed
my sins in a gas
station bathroom.
the bible was written
on a napkin and
all it says is how
nothing matters
in the end
anyway.

I forgot how to breathe.
learned how to fall,
never learned how to land.
the tangle of arms and
legs and the murals of
bruises. all the well meaning
friends asking if I'm okay,
watch me skin my knees,
don't understand how much
harder I've skinned my soul.
my lungs haven't tasted
fresh air for so long, and my
poor heart hasn't gone a day
without crashing violently
into my rib cage over and over.
I whisper apologies to myself
in the mirror every single night
and swallow the tainted air
and fall asleep to the poison
I feed myself while my masochistic
mind dreams up a world where
you still love me and I still know
how to breathe.

I am so tired
of only ever feeling half
alive.

hungry little heart
thirsty for love you
haven't ever tasted

thinking it's so sweet
like chocolate and lavender

but i'll tell you this, the
aftertaste is bitter and black
and it's the only thing you'll taste

for centuries.

gently
so gently
you pulled the
threads loose,
set me free

but the relief lasted
barely a moment -
you tied me to
you, chained me,
and even after
you decided
you didn't want me
anymore

you left me
with the shackles
and the bruises
and the empty bed
and the sheets
that still smell
like you.