there's this moment after happiness has settled into every crevice of your body where panic sets in because

everything must fall eventually.

somewhat like a condemned house. once, it contained love and family and happiness. there's that word again.

eventually, everything settles.
everything unsettles.
happiness is fleeting -
and so, too, is sadness.

but at least, in despair,
there's is only better to come.
happiness is not so kind.

sometimes the broken pieces don’t fit,
they don’t go back together
like perfect puzzles made of glass.

sometimes you try to put the
pieces back together, and you come
away with ****** fingers

and jars full of jagged edges
and missing shards,
nothing like the pieces of art they once were.

between the lines of us,
affection dissolved –
I love you I love you,
I do.

but what happens when
love blends with anger?
what happens when loyal eyes
wander?

what happens when lonely
ships drift into distant shores
because the other islands
have long since emptied?

while I sink into this
empty bath
the air is at a dead silence
and I wonder why you left me
here and
the water slowly
fills all the empty spaces
and I wonder
I wonder
how long before
it swallows me whole

our little hearts break
under the weight of hundreds of years
millions of expectations

and I ask you
will we ever survive this?

our minds are empty
like draining sinks
like dry river beds

and you ask me are we
gonna weather this storm together?

we have nothing – we have I Don’t Know,
and we have
Maybe
If
Never
….why?

it’s never real

it’s an empty sink
it’s dry river beds and
grey soulless stones

it’s holding your hands out to the storm
and coming back emptier
than you ever were before.

the way I love you-
kerosene to flame,
poison for disease.

there's a perfect version
of us
in some far
away universe
and in another
we've never
even met

and there are days
I'm uncertain
which pair
is the luckier

she lay down her bones,
she tells him,
"these are all I have,
they are all for you."

he inhales.
he exhales.
drops his cigarette on
the asphalt.

"I don't want them."

he said,
"please stay."
and so she did.

for a little while.

all the time I loved you
I was digging my own grave -
and you were kind enough
to lend me your shovel.

I was on fire, burning alive -
you emptied your glass
and asked if I needed another match,
or maybe a lighter.

the questions the questions the
answers the answer
is not what you want, is
not what you. asked for
little worlds made of dust. and disolved
powder into the body of water you're
so thirsty. for something more than.
the need bleeding from your lips,
the urgency dripping from your.
fingertips carve love letters into my
skin is on fire and our little ocean has
dried up and we've disolved
into. dust thirsty for answers
when there aren't even questions.

sometimes
I wonder
how much easier
my life would be
if you'd never
touched it.
sometimes
I wonder
if I'd still choose you
if I knew where we'd go.
sometimes
I wonder
who I'd be
without you.
but I know
always I know
I'd choose you
again and again
every time
because even
at our worst
you are still
my best.

say nothing.
write nothing.
hold it all in.
because, it seems,
to breathe life into though
is to lead it
straight to its death.
so just hold it in,
let it incubate in absolute silence.
let it grow, and fester,
until maybe you’re about to burst
with the time bomb ticking in your chest.
my god
how hope kills.

I didn't mean to become work,
to cross the line from a hand to hold
to a handful.

I never meant to become the sad girl,
the girl that always invokes the response,
what now?

I'm sorry I need more than anyone can give me,
I'm sorry that I disolve at night,
any time, all the time.

I'm sorry.

I write letters
on napkins and bills and receipts.
I write letters because
there are things I can't
won't
say out loud. nobody's ever
going to read them
but at least I put the words
somewhere besides the
empty caverns of my own
soul.

color in my bones,
embellish my lungs,
sew lace into my beating heart -
adorn my skin,
sign your name.
I am my own art, yes,
but it wasn't until I found myself
beneath your hands
I became a masterpiece.

fell asleep,
woke up to a blank TV screen,
to “contact is now offline,”
to no new messages,
to an empty house,
cold and alone.

there is only me,
and god, I hate me.

I never apologized
For the bullet holes
I left in the front door
Of your open soul.
I never loved you as
Much as I said I did, as much as I could have – should have.
Never loved you at all.
I decimated villages before you
And obliterated cities after you
And they’ll never hear an apology either.
But you are like the splinter beneath
My fingernail, the pebble in my shoe
The unpleasant reminder of my sins
Because it is so easy to destroy what is
Already breaking, but you were clean
Glass, unmarked, unstained. I couldn’t
Just tap you into a thousand little bits –
I had to crush and smash, and god,
I’ve never had to stick around to see
The mess I’ve made, but you were
Still there, in my bed, ***** white dress and
Running mascara, asking if I’d be so kind
As to bring you the super glue.

there is nothing poetic about pain;
there is no beauty in the ache of emptiness,
there is no loveliness in the moments before explosion.
there is no honor in loneliness.
there is only the desperation for it to end,
the craving for the last time you felt at peace
and the regret that you did not appreciate it at the time.
there is whole body anger and the repeated
demand of why. why this. why me. why now.
there is only headaches and endless tears
and that ungodliness of no one understanding -
the torrent of it will get better, and you'll get through it,
and nothing lasts for ever.
there is only the infinity of this particular destruction

and I cannot bear it.

while there is
still all this
fight left
                in me
                in us
I won't give up.

and even when there are
no more battles to fight
and even if we've won,
even if we've lost -

I won't give up.

I just
     want
            to skip
                                                   *ahead.

I just
    want
            to go
                                              back.

midnight
don't know if morning holds hello or goodbye
the hours, minutes, seconds
dig trenches into my skin
reminding me that they are
tick tick  ticking away

it could be bright -
the glow of the sun illuminating us,
filling every corner with love and light
and promises and it's really alright

it could be shattering,
spreading our ashes across the pavement
it could be radio silence, the static
humming until it fills our mouths and lungs
the blackness of it swallowing us whole.

and I am trying
so hard, I am trying
to believe that better things are coming
but the fear of losing you -
it's pulling me underground
and I am begging
please
please
please
*let me keep him

float away on the low tide
in my little empty boat
because all the birds have flown away
and my feet have begun to chafe
against the land beneath them
because I've begun to sink into the sand
and the sea is the only body that could hold me

ice in the air, fire on your skin -
the snow hits the ground, thick
and heavy, loud and silent
out of a dark pink sky.
there is a world outside
waiting for us, eyeing us like
we are prey. its tendrils snake in
through the frozen windows, past
curtains and blankets; but for now,
we are safe -  for now all there is,
all there is
*is you.

how lovely it would be to say
hello

without the heavy weight of impending
goodbye.

an emptiness
nothing fills -
invested so deeply
but oh,
those roots never grow.

clenched        fists
       heavy  drifts
empty            boxes
abandoned canvases
                 I am so
dreadfully
                                           alive.

I see you, sometimes, between the lines of now and then,
a sentence I could never quite finish, never quite erase.
still on paper you remain, smudged and
barely legible now. you are the poem I have never quite let go of.
and still, now and then, I will catch the smell of your shirt
hooking into me like barbed wire;
god I hate to be reminded of you,
hate to be reminded how there was a beginning
a half-written middle, and no end - just a comma, waiting for finish.
and I am still grudgingly hoping that someday
you will slip back in and finish it my sentence, my poem,
give me my goodbye, and I pray you do not leave your scent behind.

we lay beneath black sea sky
and I close my eyes, ready for it to swallow me whole
your fingers brush my side like an ocean of stars
and I feel them dying before they even got a chance to live
and I hear your breaths like they are waves,
ragged,
uneven,
heaving,
slow,
and half of me hopes you are contemplating the same
blank page reality I am, and half of me hopes
you're contemplating the ocean in me that could
maybe swallow you whole.

how long it took me to realize
the hands around my neck
were not yours
but mine

come here and kiss all the
parts of me I cannot stand;
tell me how much you love
all the things about me
that I abhor. hold my hands
and tell me all the things
in life you want to do with
me. lay awake at night with me,
when we are both borderline incoherent,
and tell me all the stories
you keep hidden under your ribs.
take me on long walks and
show me all your favorite places,
and your least favorite so
I can kiss you there and tell you
how much I love who you've become

I ask not for apologies, nor
do I ask for remorse.
all I ask is that you
learn what love ought to be.
I asked that you learn.
I ask that you bare your
soul to the ones that come
after me, the way I did for you.
that you unabashedly offer
your trust and love the way
that I always have. I ask
that you hold out your hands
without worrying what may hit them,
without fear that you pull them back
bloodied and bruised.
all I ask, after the hell
you brutally subject me to,
is that you sprint a mile in my shoes, maybe two.
I ask that you attempt to understand me.
Only then, when you have felt my blisters, the
rhythm of my racing heart, the way the
atmosphere rolls itself around me, only then
can you accuse me of being weak.

because

he
     wants
           forever

but
all I
want is

                tonight

I hope you fill me
before I fill this
notebook I hope
you fall asleep
next to me some
near night while
I scribble away
about how there is
no better addiction
than the way
you sigh my name into
my skin

the bomb between your teeth's got
the word forever etched into it
and you tell me how autumn is
a year's final warm breath before
it is buried under six feet of cold.
your finger trembles on the trigger
and you're singing me songs
about how goodbyes never mean goodbye,
but the look in your eyes
when the bottles empty
tells another story. and long ago,
my momma tried to teach
me how to leave the world behind
without having to watch it go
and she'll be so disappointed
when I tell her about the
body bag you decorated for yourself
and how all I could say was "okay,"
when you asked if I'd be the one
to dress you in it.

I don't know how to fight
the war inside
anymore.

every passing day
makes it
a little
harder
to breathe.

The toes of my shoes jut out over the edge of the building.
The ground is so, so far below, but I swear it calls my name.
My blood aches for the feel of the fall,
My nerves hunger for the impact, for the ending I have
Decided to write for myself.
Someone down there sees me, I see his mouth mouthing
Words. I know they are "stop, no."
But all I hear is, "please, go."
I let one foot hang off the side, carve my name in the air.
I am ready, I am ready, I am ready.
My heart beats a ragged bruise against my chest;
I call it anticipation. I think of all the no ones that will
Read my last words, I think of all the no ones that will grieve
For whatever remains of me after I have gone.
It has only been one minute,
Two minutes,
Three minutes.
I'm waiting for the bells, the two o'clock bells,
To tell me it's time. I was born at two in the afternoon
and I will die at two in the afternoon.
I do not allow myself to think about my life.
I am closing that door. That body of thought is not mine anymore,
Nor is it a friend. I am holding hands with death, he is
Inviting me across the street. Maybe we'll have tea together
At 2:01, maybe 2:02.
I check my watch; it's 1:59.
I'm counting down the seconds. I feel a certain relief, a certain
Spring in the ***** of my feet.
My freedom is ten seconds away.
Five.
Two.
1,000 feet
I take a deep breath, fill my lungs with it, and I leap.
The air whistles in my ears, it burns my eyes.
I cannot release my breath.
500 feet
It burns, it hurts, it aches; life did not ache this badly.
I cannot control my body, I am not grace,
I am not freedom, I am not free, I am not relief.
I am not nothing.
200 feet
I am something, I am human, I am exhileration,
I am love, I am pure, I am able, I am worthy.

100

50

25

10

5

I have made
an irreparable mistake.

Long after existence has ceased,
I will have loved you.
Oceans will dry up and stars will burn out,
And I will have loved you.
This planet will no longer rotate on its axis
And I will have felt your lips against my neck,
Your fingers will have found their way up my spine
And I will have loved you.
The abyss will swallow us whole
But you will have loved me.

I always feel like something's missing.

this body is not a canvas for your deepest demons to be smeared across. it is not the foundation for your falling house wishes or your grand estate failures. it is not divine, it is not hallowed ground, do not pepper it with prayer. there will be no answer. this body is a howling wasteland and the creatures brave enough to venture near will be your violent undoing. it is angry ocean and you are a sinking ship; it will accept your anchors but not your pleas.

this body is not love it is not worship it is hell and I am its prisoner.

so the ghost
in my bones can
finally
go home

the light brings shine to surface
but darling, remember

-all that glitters is not gold;

the radiant sea will keep you afloat
as quick as it will claim your life.

there's a particular kind of beauty
in the broken,
in the way they choose to fill
the cracks in their bones with flowers
instead of cement.

kiss me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever taste

I woke up to a mouthful of ash again
because you let that pack of cigarettes burn
all night long and I forgot to
blow out the candles and
you're holding my wrist so tight that
we're both on the verge of cracking
but I know I know you're just holding on
so maybe I'll swim even though all I
want to do is sink, even though you're
the one with the anchors around your neck
I'm sorry your spine is bent
but you're still keeping me upright
I'm sorry you're lost and I threw away
the map I'm sorry I can't glue the world
back together for both of us
I'm sorry I wake up most mornings
unable to breathe