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.

if you ever wonder if i miss you
too

i do.

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.

cliche little broken heart -
I used to watch airplanes
crawl through the clouds
above me, wishing I was on
them. no particular
care about destination,
just soaring above the ground
anywhere but here.
anyone but me.

these days, I look up
and I see planes and they
are simply planes on their
way to some far away place
and there's no part of me
that would be anywhere
but here

in this place with you,
this place where your hand
fits so perfectly into
the curve of my hip,
where your mouth so
perfectly lies against
the curve of my neck.

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.

all i pray
is you to
suffer
as i do.

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.

I'm a puzzle
missing pieces.
probably never
going to find
them.

that's okay, though,
because you are
too.

and our puzzles
seem to look
a lot alike

and when we
put our left over
pieces together
we made
a pretty picture.

if  
this  
is
all   we   ever   get
I   want
*o u t .

burned down
my own castle
obliterated my
own empire
slaughtered
all my own
people and
they still tell
me the princess
can save herself?

the princess
destroyed
herself.

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.

When I met you
Roses grew out of the tangled bones of my rib cage
Grew down the lengths of my body like ivy
Thorns holding on tight to skin, fed by blood.
It’s been awhile
And lonely, lovesick girls have plucked all my petals
Does he love me? Does he love me not?
A little girl in particular with dark eyes and a quiet soul
Looked at me with guilt
As she tore off my final petal
And I was nothing but vine.
She whispered, he loves me.
She smiled so bright and big, her lips cracked til they bled.
I remembered that smile, remembered the blood
Dripping down my chin, just as it dripped from my fingertips now.
I told her, baby girl,
It doesn’t matter how much he loves you
If he doesn’t bother to water the roses he left in your ribs.

so the ghost
in my bones can
finally
go home

take me down,
down to the knee.
spill my blood,
smear me across
canvas. let me
bend like soft
wood, twine
my roots through
earth and body.
flood me like
waterfall, cascading
down the jutting
cliffs of your ever
sharpening body.
let me rise like mist,
disappearing
into cold dark sky
absorbed into
the atmosphere,
into the everything
and the nothing
where I belong.

feast or famine,
there's war in
my bones.
wipe my
blood clean,
brush away
the ashes,
burn what's left.
let the smell of
gunpowder replace
the lavender and
the honey and the
sweet salt of us.
start over again
on the charred
remains, leave
the burning bed
frame so we remember
to do better
next time.

My mother tells me I'm not broken.
She tells me I'm whole and perfect
And that she loves me.
I stopped arguing a long time ago
Because there's no way to tell her
How the pieces of broken glass inside of me
Collide sometimes, like storm-stirred
Oceans and barges, how it sinks ships
And shreds lips. There's no way to tell her
How my thoughts slide against each other
The way a serrated knife slides so easily
Against the skin. I can't tell her how my
Hands shake when I think of all the ones
That left me so easily. I can't tell her how
The coldness settles in my bones when
I miss them, no matter how hard I try
to forget them. I can't tell her about the headaches,
The ones that radiate through my jaw
Because I clenched my teeth all day to
Hold in the screams of frustration.
The headache from all the screaming
I do in my head because I don't know
How to breathe, how to speak, how to
Describe all the ways I feel broken.
How I look in the mirror and I see
The outlines of a thousand piece puzzle
Drawn all over my body and the pieces
That are missing, the pieces that they took
When they left me without looking back.
The bite in my belly when they say
"I'll call you." Half because I know they won't,
Half because I desperately hope they will.
My mother doesn't see the puzzles,
The broken glass, the bleeding lips when
She looks at me - she's so desperate to believe
That all the time she spent trying to put me together,
To make sure I was a real girl, a perfect picture,
Was worth the effort. And I'm so sorry, mommy.
I'm sorry it wasn't.

once upon a time, i loved a boy
until he broke me

once upon a time, a boy loved me
until i broke him

once upon a time, a boy loved me
until he broke me

sometimes there are
no princes
no princesses,
just sad little girls and sad little boys
and no happy endings.

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.

their sound is cacophony
buried deep in the trenches  
of your mind. they say it's
like a prison these days,
wounds and warriors
bound tight by the old
vines of loss and loneliness.
you look in the mirror
and you see the pale
reflection of a ghost,
someone you used to be,
the soul of life so long
gone that her shape is
tenuous at best, a translucent
curtain between this life
and another, one where maybe
you didn't live as an empty
vessel desperate for meaning.
maybe in that life you didn't
live as an undoing. the fractured
lines of this life are smooth
glass there, unmarred by
want and need, unbroken.
in another life,
you are clean.

soul deep,
by heart
by love
by soul
by mind.

you feel me,
and you
wait.
you push.
but you feel
me.

I'll hold
on while
you can't,
I'll wait
til you
can.

I was torn apart so slowly, I barely noticed.
but I was in pieces long before I met him.
I was a lonely, empty shell of a girl when I met him,
already chewed up and spit out by one boy
and by countless others long before either.
when I met him, I was desperate for something
and it blinded me. I met him and I was blind, and so I loved him.
I loved him with everything I had in me,
I loved every ounce of his potential, both real and imagined.
I loved his give no ***** attitude, I loved the way he spoke,
I loved the way he was absolutely
unlike any person I’d ever met.
and this was my tragic flaw:
often enough, “unlike anyone I’d ever met”
seemed more or less to mean
“someone who’s going to rip you to pieces.”
but god, did I love that boy. I
loved him when distance stretched out between us,
I loved him when my phone never lit up and
my message count was at a constant zero.
I loved him when he’d disappear for days and
I loved him even when it felt like loving him was wrenching out my own guts.
something in me was severed,
and I couldn’t find it in myself to understand
that this is not how love is supposed to be.
love isn’t meant to make you lonelier, more miserable, more empty.
love isn't meant to hollow you out, to empty
every part of you that ever mattered.
that escaped me each time he lied,
each time he cheated,
each time his woman of choice reached out to me
to tell me what **** my boyfriend was.
I wish I would have listened.
I wish he wasn’t so brilliant an architect,
because he sure built himself a throne of lies.
locked me so deep into that castle I couldn’t see beyond his walls.
I couldn’t escape, didn’t know how, didn’t know I wanted to.
didn’t know how badly I needed to.
through everything, he was a pillar. he was bravery and
strength and resilience – to me, anyway.
but mostly he was just a clever liar, and I was an easy believer.
he was my religion, and I didn’t question his teachings.
he believed his own fables, though.  
as he crafted, so his lies became his own truth.
We were both blind, foolish idiots.
everyone but me watched me crumble beneath his weight,
and it took too many years for the glass to crack from my own inside,
but I saw it. I saw the mangled mess I’d become
under his kingdom. I saw my bleeding lips and my cracked fingers and
my dead eyes. I saw the monster in him,
the monster that didn’t know any better.
he wasn’t a monster on purpose, he wasn’t evil.
he was just as broken and hopeless as I was – but
my pity, my sympathy, my love couldn’t carry him anymore.
a monster who ignores his own reflection will never change.

and so I left.
I gathered up the remaining shards of my being
and I walked out his front door,
and even as he swore and scream and fought and cried,
I slipped like the ocean through
his desperate,
pleading fingers.

you'll find me in that space
where the sun hasn't quite set
while the moon hasn't quite rose,
where dark and light are
somewhat at war with each other,
and their battle spreads across the sky
in violent hues of red and violet
and gold, when only a few stars
are brave enough to to share their
light. you'll find me in that tender
place between sea and sky, you'll
find me in the curve of his palm
where I rest like an empty house
waiting for love to come home.

the silence between us
is heavy, kind of like
the silence in a cemetery
between the widow and
the buried. home isn't
home anymore, and
you wash your hands -
try desperately to scrub
your skin of any remnant
of the feel of me,
watch the sink empty,
watch the water drain,
wishing it was you -
wishing it was the
idea of me in your mind,
wishing you were anyone
else, wishing i was anyone else.
and i wonder if anyone
else has felt you the way
i have, if anyone's body
will fill the hole I left
in your mattress,
the gaps in the closet,
the hollow in your chest.
i wonder how you miss me,
if you miss me in afterthought,
like misplaced things you've
given up on finding.
i wonder if you miss me
like the drowning miss air.  
i wonder how i settled
on you, in your mind -
the ache of a years old
injury? freshly opened
wound? thick, naked scar?
maybe i'm more like
the pain of a phantom limb
lost to disease - something
you'll always ache for,
something you know you'll
never be able to reclaim.
and there are nights when
i walk all the trails i walked
with you, stop at all our
spots. and i feel you, but
maybe it's just the ghost of you,
the ghost of us, when we still
loved each other in all the
right ways. other nights,
i sit on my porch rail,
watch the streets, watch
for the boy that loved me
once to come around the
corner, be the boy
who loves me still.

he plays my nerves
like piano
tense but pliantly
plucked because
his hands are a rhythm
of skin, warm and
tender and he
tells me me he loves
me with a mouth
like honey as
if he has never
swallowed a graveyard
as if his heart isn't
an empty chasm of
rot and cobweb.

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.

I loved you
Once.

I loved you the way
Desperation loves
Quick hearts
And shallow breaths.

I loved you irresponsibly
And without limit.

It took me a long time to accept
You did not love me,
You never did,
You never would.

You didn’t love me in any kind of way
Except the way that attention loves
Its own reflection.

For me, you were a world I desperately
Longed for.
For you, I was an audience and all you
Longed for was applause.

It took me a long time to rebuild
The walls that you unabashedly destroyed.
I was a village you thoughtlessly set fire to.
And had you wiped me off the map,
You wouldn’t have spared a thought for me.

But here I am, rebuilt, whole,
And my foundations are so much stronger.
So for that, I thank you.
I thank you for recklessly destroying me
And showing me what love is and what
Love should never be.

I sat under the stars
And begged for you last night.
But you were still gone
When I woke up this morning.
How am I supposed to know
If I should stay,
When to let go?

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.

the lull, the longing,
the ache  just before sleep
and just before wake -
the quiet, rhythmic
shushing, the weight,
the heaviness.
it's too dark, but
it's too bright, too
much, not enough,
too warm, too cold.
always too something.
never quite enough.
it's the swell of the sky
just before the rain,
the stillness and the hush
around midnight just
before it snows. it's
the creeping feeling
of change, of danger,
of letting go, of giving
up - it's how the winds
change, it's the stack
of papers blowing
away in the sudden
gust. it's the boys
who promise to
never hurt you while
they're untying their shoes,
unbuttoning their pants.
it's how they sneak out
after you've fallen asleep,
the cancer in the way
they kiss your forehead
just before they go.
it's your father holding
your small hands, and
your father's weight
after he buckles under
too many beers. it's how
no matter how many times
your he disappoints you,
you'll always call him daddy
when he finally comes around.
it's your father being the first
man to break all the promises
he made you and it's your aching
little girl's heart believing
him too many times. it's your
mother telling you to be better,
but never showing
you how to be better.
it's the way your mother tells you
to be safe but never teaches
you how to say no,
how to tell the boys when
enough is enough -
how fingertips creeping up too far,
how hands slipping down too low
should never feel like a debt to be paid.
she doesn't tell you how that sudden
vacancy in your mind is a warning
sign, how it's a quiet no,
and that maybe will never be a quiet yes.
it's the teachers telling
you that boys will be boys,
telling you that girls are mean
and to get over it and handle
it among yourselves because
there's no referees in real life.
it's lies that sound like promises
and words like forever and love
and ipromiseillneverleaveyou
hitting your heart like a brick.
it's empty beds and empty
houses and empty cupboards
and ghost towns in your chest
and abandoned homes in your
head and it's the way ghosts
never leave the places that
harmed them the most. it's
how falling asleep every night
feels like the battle and waking
up every morning feels like
the war and it's the way that
no matter how many times
you fight, nothing's ever won.

carry me gently;
I am something of a
fragile little bird
and I trust the weight
of your hands
will not crush 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.

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.

I used to know how to be alone.
Before you, I knew how to sit quietly
I knew how to handle the dark on my own
I knew how to be alone.
In the aftermath of falling in love with you,
The night holds an emptiness when you’re
Not here with me. My bed is no longer a
Safe place because there is a two foot
Void you’re supposed to occupy.
Even my skin doesn’t know how to be
Without you, so accustomed it became
To your lips and your fingertips
And the feel of you wrapped around me.
You ruined my solitude. With your voice
And your heart and your love,
You ruined my alone.

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.

I am waiting for permanence
to take shape, to be something more
than idealistic fantasy.
because that word sticks to me,
like tattoo, like a thick scar, the kind
your fingertips wander to in
idle moments. I want it to be real,
I want to lose myself in bottomless eyes
and understand that is what
permanence feels like.

everything is on the table now

matches. kerosene. pen.
paper.

I wrote to you. I swear,
I did.

I wrote your name over
and over until my wrists
ached.

couldn't ever get much
further than that.

you know something, though?
I can't even remember your face.

I remember the scars on your arms
and the freckles on your belly.

I can hear your laugh, I can feel
your skin beneath my palms.

but I can't remember your face.
and it all feels so meaningless now.

because I wrote you that poem once,
and I know you never read it.
the one where I loved you more with
each passing night and I was so afraid
you weren't even missing me at all

and it's all so different now. so much better,
and so much uglier.

I can't lie, because you're right. because
you know me better than anyone.
and it's a god awful feeling to be tired
of someone you love. to not remember
the lines of their face, or the light
in their eyes.

I owe you more than that. I deserve
better than this.

and the ****** up thing about all this babe
is I still haven't written you that letter.
I still don't have any answers.

because I'm empty and angry and
you're lost and lonely and we're miles
apart. might as well be universes.

and I have this fantasy where everything
happened so much better, it happened
right and we were better people and
god it's so beautiful but it's just a *******
fantasy.

because it's four in the morning and
that **** table is on fire
and I'm here typing away at some stupid
poem you're never going to read and
you're waiting for my response to your
gut-wrenching messages.

and I don't understand how we got
here. I don't understand how love
has to ******* up so badly, how
loving someone so much can
never be enough. how you can weather
storm after storm and disaster
after disaster together and still be left
with empty hands and broken hearts.

i feel it happening.
i feel myself
falling down that
veritable rabbit hole of
feelings and
vulnerability and
you
and that's
a ******* terrifying
thing, just a dangerous
******* place to be
because god knows
if you'll catch me
or you'll just let
me hit the ground.
not even the ground,
it's like tipping
backwards off this
cliff ledge,
not knowing
whether there's
merciful water down
there to catch me
or jagged angry rocks
waiting to rip me
to pieces.

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.

There are a million reasons why, why not.
You could write novels about
Every single one of them.
Paint canvases, vandalize empty walls.
And it’d be a shame to waste that paint,
Waste the words inside you, but don’t
Take too long. Or if you do,
If you’re going to run fools’ errands,
If you’re going to run towards what has already been,
Make sure your shoelaces are tied tight.
Don’t trip over your excuses,
Because maybe, just maybe, running in
The wrong direction for so long will find
You running towards something right
And maybe when you get there you’ll realize
How silly you were and how grateful you
Are for it because your bones don’t
Scrape your skin the way they used to
And the dissonant melody of your blood
Suddenly sounds more like a pleasant thrum in your chest.
When you get there, untie your shoes,
Take them off. Let yourself become one with the ground
You stand on. Close your eyes, think of home,
How home never smelled this good, how home
Never kept your toes this warm. Home is so far away
And it’s okay to be scared, but keep going.
Living in the realm of your fear will keep you
Ten feet from where you’ve always been
And what beautiful things will you find there?
The same roses that bloomed last spring and wilted
Last fall, the same trees that become skeletons
Against the empty white of wintertime.
Keep going because your last dress will be
A body bag and it’d be a shame to find yourself
In the same dress your mother wanted you to wear
To church every Sunday instead of that dress
You bought against your (her) better judgment
Because it was too short or too expensive
But you feel like a goddess every time you wear it
And it seems only fitting your exit from this
Life as a wild child is that of a goddess.

I stitched my bones together,
repainted my skin.
and yet somehow
the monsters still creep in.

sometimes I think
I don't want to be
alone. but then I
realize I'd rather
be alone than
with anyone
but you.

and you'd rather
be with anyone else
than be alone,
and you'd rather
be anything
but with me.

fits and
starts
where I end
where you
begin
the lines
are intangible
my fingers
grasp
desperate
for something
to hold
on to
for fear
that we
will start
to slip
before
we even
begin to
solidify
because
because
because
this kind
of bliss
is foreign
to me
it is
new and
terrifying
and it
feels so
so impermanent

because these good things are almost always preface to my ruin and my heart slows in anticipation, in dread, because I'm waiting for that culmination.

because
nothing
good ever
stays.

did you love me?
did you ever love me?
I was a bath to clean
your ego. I was the
food when you were
hungry. I was an open
mouth when you
needed to feel
good. I was something
to you, when you
needed it. I was something,
even when I was
nothing. I think maybe
you wanted to love me.
I think maybe
you never knew how.
I think maybe you never
loved anything
in your life.
so maybe you tried.
maybe you could.
but you did what you
do best. you lied and
you broke me, just
like you've done to
everything you've
ever "loved."

and you missed me
when I left, because
I made you feel whole.
I made you feel like
you didn't break everything
you touched. I made
you feel like you weren't
as worthless as you were.
I made you feel,
I was the love
you wanted to feel.
and when I left,
I left you a husk.

and I'm not sorry.
I fed you, and you
starved me. but nothing
could fill you. so I left
while I still had something of
myself.

and I hope you crumbled.
I hope you are ash.
and I hope you never
ever rise.

I wish we could
unwrite stories.
I wish I could
undo these
paragraphs
and uncurve
these arcs. I
wish things
were different.
I wish we
were better.

it's okay to
hate me now
as long as
you promise to
try to
love me again
later.

how lovely it would be to say
hello

without the heavy weight of impending
goodbye.

I emptied myself for
so many of you, only
to realize you were
more than happy to
see my bones
at their barest
and leave me in
pieces, carrying
away the parts that
matter most and leaving
me nothing
in return.

I am not perfect,
nor do I wish to be.
I want to fall in love
with every single flaw
and I want to fight
relentlessly to shape
this tiny moment of
existence I've been
given into something
meaningful and emerge
from this bottomless pit
an unstoppable force,
fearless and beautiful.