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.

I kept you in my chest somewhere,
like a little bird in a cage.
you weren't so little though.
you banged around in there,
stretched out far enough to
break my ribs, puncture my heart,
let the air out of my lungs.
maybe you were something like
a stampede of antelope, trampling
everything in your path
simply because you were afraid
of the loud and twisted inner-workings
of the home I tried to give you.
I don't think you meant to shred
your host, but I watched you climb
out of my chest, looking something
between helpless infant and
antichrist and you looked at me.
oh, you looked at me. you held my
hands, you kissed my lips.
and as you watched every bit
of me fall apart, you whispered,
*I don't understand how this
could have happened.

You are alone
Hands shoved deep within your pockets
As if you search for the secrets you’ve long since lost.
The winter's hush settles over you with grey sky
And, eyes closed, you let yourself move with
The rushing sounds of the river down below
As the snow begins to pepper the earth in silence.

Open your eyes
Remove your clenched fists from your pockets
Keep walking, this water is no friend to you
And the girl you dream about,
She waits for you far along the shore
In that white dress you've grown to love so much
Don’t you worry she’s cold?

fill in the empty spaces -
your fingers are brushes
for this canvas and
I am an unfinished piece.

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.

when I let go,
universes fall away.
I found myself in
this sort of abyss,
floating somewhere that
is and is not. I am
no longer broken bones,
severed spine. I am
transcendent, I am
luminescent, omniscent.
I am everything,
I am nothing,
I simply
am and this
weightlessness
is more than divine,
it is the universe coming
to its conclusion, it is
beautiful combustion
it is starting over.

I am clean.

do you remember how
we got here? that
map we followed?
i think we found
uncharted territory.
this place is
undocumented ocean,
it's distant roads
to nowhere,
marked by
signs that
say things like
no trespass
and
this is where your heart breaks.

we promised.
and we meant it,
at the time.

you said
i'm sure.
you say,
never leave me,
but i wait.
i wait for the day
that it's me
watching you
turn around.

it's me, left with
this faulty map,
because you took
the real one,
and i'm stuck
staring at the space
that says
here is where
i thought you'd always
love me

and the one a few
yards away that says
*i knew you never could.

This is how a girl will go mad
Waiting for a world that will never come
Devouring empty smiles and false promises
Made up to be shiny and beautiful
Hungry for what she cannot have.

This is how a girl will lose her mind
Watching an entire world
Coil down the drain in tendrils
Laced with blood and hope
Praying for the cuts to hurt this time

This is how you will watch her
Wither away quietly
Morbidly curious, slightly disdained
You will be a step or two removed
Certain she’ll be better on her own
That she does not need you.

This is the guilt you will feel
When you find her at your feet
And you realize a single word  
A whispered promise, though it would go unkept
Could have saved that little girl
Gone mad.

I was drowning
but you never
learned how to
swim.

I never ask for much
And it hurts because you don’t notice
The suffering in my silence.
It hurts in my bones and aches in my blood.
You can’t ease my pain anymore,
I don’t think you know how.
I think maybe you never did.
Maybe because I’ve never told you how much
I need your words
     I need your truth
          I need your kiss
               I need your love
                     I need you.

But you are so very far away
And I’m sinking so fast
And I’m sorry I never told you before.
I’m sorry I never asked for much.

blade to skin
let the demons in
can't save me now
can't let me drown

I learned the true meaning of disappointment
The day I stopped calling you “daddy.”
It was the same day I realized you were not
Responsible for hanging the moon, and you
Certainly hadn’t done it for me. I realized
That the bottles in the paper bags would
Always come before me. I learned that you loved me
But that love lived in a box in the attic,
Dusty and forgotten. I learned that I’d never know
What it was like to live on my father’s shoulders,
If only for a moment. I’d never know what it was
Like to want to escape the overprotective father
Or what it’d be like to apologize to a boy for
The way my father sized him up. I’d never be chastised
For the length of my skirt or how much makeup I was wearing.
I learned that sometimes the ones that are supposed
To protect you from the pain of the world
Are the ones that hurt you the most.
I never learned what it was like to have a father.
Or at least, one that didn’t destroy you.

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

how awful goodbyes are.
do not mistake this as easy -
do not mistake my relief
as happiness in the act.
breaking your heart was
the hardest thing I've ever
done, and I will forever
feel your grief in my bones.

I'm sorry I loved you until
I didn't; I wanted you to be
the permanence etched into
my very blood cells but
nothing ever happens
the way you want it to,
and the way things happened
with you took every last
ounce of me and destroyed it.

so in a way, please understand
that you crafted this undoing.
in breaking my heart over and
over again, you set the foundation
to break your own - and you may
not understand that now, but
I hope someday you look back

and understand the way you broke
the girl who loved you steadfastly,
unconditionally, unquestioningly.
remember that I didn't wake up
one day and decide to love you
no longer, understand you chipped
away at my love until it wasn't
anything anymore. understand
I wanted more than anything in the
world to never hurt you, but you
left me with no other choice.

remember it wasn't me
who wrecked the house we
built together - understand
that you set fire to our bed
long before I left it.

all those little things
I believed to be fate
turn out to be
simple
coincidence.

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.

I am discovering and
rediscovering myself
every single day.

some days I am masterpiece
and others I am tragedy.

most days, I find I am both-
my ruins have been tagged
so many times they've become
a mural of memory. all the
love and the loss and the longing
carved into every inch of bone,
sewn into every inch of skin.

some days I look at the architecture
of myself and I swear I should have
been excavated years ago and
some days I'm in awe of what the
wreckage has become.

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.

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.

I was always the girl
to leave before she's left -
but when I left us, you
locked the door behind
me, and it's a different
kind of ache to realize
I had to leave you
behind just as much
as I had to watch you go.

The mirror is not my friend.
I asked it once, "who is the fairest of them all?"
And my own mouth answered,  "certainly not you."
I heard it echo a thousand times in a
Thousand different voices, all of them telling me
I’d never be good enough.
For myself, for anyone.
I let my fist find the reflection of my mouth
And I did not flinch as my blood fell onto the shards.

She is electric, frenetic energy
Dancing on broken glass,
She’s the current racing through oceans.
She’s about to overload your circuits,
And tomorrow you’ll thank her for it,
Begging on your knees for just
One more taste.

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.

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.

Tuesday mornings on the front porch,
Sipping dark coffee and watching the world  pass us by.
The sky will bleed a thousand different colors
But you will still be the sun.

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

nothing but
frayed nerves
and liquor.
nothing but a
nightmare I
can't wake up
from.

I carved myself a hollow in your chest
Called it home.
It’s something else to be encased
By your bones, to listen to the
Absolute lullaby of your heartbeat.
Your fingers crawled into my ribs
Tattooing your fingerprints into
My bones and I am yours, entirely
Utterly yours.

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.

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.

you will always be a part of me
and I both hate you
and love you
for that

do you remember the first time?
the grey skies? the gentle morning light?
do you remember the first time you
held my hand or the first time we kissed?
do you remember the rush of the airport
around us yet how time seemed to slow
between us? the softness, the sweetness?
the tender tension?

it is not you I miss, don't misunderstand,
but that feeling. the crossing of oceans, the
constant newness, the always evolving
landscapes. I miss the permanence of
destination and the impermanent swarm
of airports. I miss the anticipation, the
adrenaline; the longing, and the opposite
of longing.

I miss the time before the violence and the
blood. it's like we, the us, began to die, but it
was slow and corrosive, an awful heaviness,
an eternal decay. I was too scared of a mercy
killing, and you were far too selfish. when
we finally... finally let go, we let go of a
mangled unrecognizable corpse.

I didn't think to grieve the loss. I didn't think
to honor the grey skies or the gentle morning
light. didn't think to say goodbye to the
anticipation or the longing. I cursed your name,
your demons. I smashed us to bits. swallowed
the demons. it was so much easier than feeling
anything else, but what a brutal cocktail. no
wonder I haven't really let you go. no wonder
you haunt me. I never laid you to rest.

I never laid us to rest.

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

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

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.

because

he
     wants
           forever

but
all I
want is

                tonight

every so often,
we lose the fight.
the night sky disappears
behind thick cloud,
and we lose the light.
and the rest of the world
seeps in like thick smoke,
and we can't ignore
the raging fire out there
anymore.

you ask me a thousand times,
please take my hand,
and even though
you're within reach,
I let it go.
I won't mean to, but I
let go.

every passing day
makes it
a little
harder
to breathe.

I don’t want to be a delicate ******* flower
I want to be made of stone
I want to be a formidable tower
I want to be a battering ram
I don’t want to watch the world’s eyes pass over me
Like they do every ******* day
I don’t want to be the paper-hearted girl anymore
Because my heart always ends up torn and shredded
And balled up in some trash bin because
Somebody ****** up and decided to start over
But the funny thing is, you don’t get a new heart
Once it’s been broken. You left me with no other
Option but to fish my crumpled paper heart out of the
Trash, to smooth out and to erase the marks you left
But you can still see the wrinkles and the imprints
Of what was written. There’s no fresh heart for me.
There’s no replacing the petals that were lost to the
“He loves me, he loves me not” game. I may be
Made of stone, but I am just a pebble thrown
Around by the smallest body of water.
I may be a tower, but I’m a lego tower
And just the fist of a child could destroy me.
And ******* my paper heart.
Did you have to write your name in pen?

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.

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

it's just that you pulled on a loose thread,
the very one meant to unravel me.
and your hands are full of what's left
of me, and I don't think that's what
you meant. but I feel you stitching me
back together, even without meaning it,
even without wanting to. I'm no longer
tattered, in pieces, I'm something
resembling wholeness. I'm something
that stands on her own two feet,
and maybe it'd be better to say I
did it myself, and maybe I did -
but still, you were there and you
tugged hard enough to trigger the destruction
that lead to my recreation.

like most things,
you are left on
my nightstand,
unfinished.

I told you
Once
I told you
A million
Times

I'm fine
(my chest is caving in)
I'm okay
(I can't breathe I can't think I can't)

I told you with clenched fists
And wild eyes
I'll be alright I'll be fine
It's all just in my mind.

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.

tell me to let go.
tell you it's like
amputation - yes,
I can learn to live
without that limb
but god, I am
never whole again.
I never liked how
easy it was for you
to strip me of my
choices. never liked
the way your hand
was like tape over
my mouth, the way
you draped your
marionette strings
all over my body.
that cage you built,
I outgrew it faster
than you could have
imagined. it's funny
how easily you erased
me; it's funny, you told
me my love was like
tattoo, permanent and
forever on your skin
but it seems like you
erased it easy as pencil
lead. it's easy to forget
about us, we were so
forgetable. it was
easy to let you go.
I loved you. did I love
you? it's easier to ask
if you loved me, and
I think the answer
to that question is as
complex and complicated
and infinite as this
universe we live in:
yes and no and never
and always. you didn't
fight until I walked
away, and even then
those pulls on that fishing
line were lackluster at
best, and when the line
snapped, you watched
me drift away, like a ship
you never quite planned to
board. or maybe that
was me, watching you
sail away on your little
ship for one. it was supposed
to be for both of us,
but I think it was always
only big enough for you.
it's almost
impossible to disentangle
these wires between us -
the ones where we loved,
the ones where we didn't,
the ones where you left,
and the the last one where
I left. it doesn't matter,
really. our story was
so much ugly, so much
loneliness and anger.

it wasn't like losing a limb,
losing you. it was
more like losing an
entire layer of myself,
a layer I didn't realize
I'd outgrown until I was
looking at its tattered
hems and all the rips
and scars, and how it
stopped fitting so long
ago. I threw it out
the other night, and
my god I didn't think
twice.

I said
goodbye
and you said
goodnight
thinking we
meant the
same thing.

unzipped myself,
unzipped the fabric
of my realty,
let thirsty want
open doors into
rooms it did
not belong.
I unmade our
bed in my
desperation to
feel something
else. and still
all I am left
with is a hole
in my soul
shaped like you.