one morning
in our kitchen
over coffee
i told you
you were the love of my life
and you didn't say it back
didn't really say anything

and i don't know why it
took me so long to realize
i was never yours.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

you carved a cavern in my chest,
a hollowed out tomb for
every ghost you ever loved.

he'll wipe the blood from your
chin, tell you you're beautiful
even when your smile splits
from ear to ear. he'll sew your
cheeks back together, tell you
it's okay that your lungs
occasionally collapse and it's
okay that sometimes you
can't breathe, because he'll
fill you with life when you
can't do it yourself and when
you apologize for smearing
your existence all over him,
when you apologize for what
a mess you are, when you
apologize for not being
better, he'll gently take
your face in his palms,
he'll tell you what a beautiful
thing you are, that you're his
mess, and god, baby girl,
you're so worth it.

at the end,
i burned the village
to the ground,
every bridge in,
every road out.

i made sure there was
nothing left, still found myself
weeping in the wreckage

wondering why you didn't
try to save us
why you didn't
stop me -

and the guilt
and the anger
and the love
and the longing

a brutal cocktail
when i was already drunk.

in the years since,
i cleaned up the wreckage,
built a nice little memorial.

i don't visit much anymore.

how lovely it would be to say
hello

without the heavy weight of impending
goodbye.

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.

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.

the wandering kind
adrift and heartless
looking for a place
that's something like
home.

sometimes it's four
walls, sometimes
it's a mouth and a
heartbeat.

you always want me
to find home in you
and i am a tireless sea;
always drifting away.

always leaving
some of myself
behind.

always leaving you
wishing I'd
stay.

love like crime scene,
***** sheets,
blood smeared walls.
swallowed promises
like broken glass but
you're just an exit
wound that refuses
to heal.

thank you
for everything.
thank you for all of
our greatest moments,
thank you for our triumphs,
for our growths, for our victories.
and even for our losses, thank you for
the injuries. thank you for loving me, and for
destroying me. because in the wake of you, I have
learned more than I ever could have imagined. I am more
myself than I have been my whole life. you showed me what love
can be, and what love should be, and definitely what love isn't. you
showed me that I could break away from the things that
wreck me. that I can still grow and change and
become a more perfect version of a flawed
and broken girl. thank you for giving
me that strength. thank you for
loving me. thank you for
being the first, and
but the most for
not being my
last.

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?

your shirtless anti-christ
the cigarette hanging from
the corner of his mouth

while he tells you sandpaper
sweet nothings he leaves the black
smears of his tobacco fingertips
left along the curve of your hip

and you breathe him in like
divine, let the smell of him
settle in your lungs like cancer
he is love he is life he is
here only to destroy you

Let the girl I once was see a photograph
Of the girl I have become.
Tell her what led to the darkened eyes
Shredded lips, ****** nails.
But tell her the good things too
Tell her about every kiss and every
I love you, the gifts, the hope.
Show her the ugly, the awful, the beautiful.
All of it, every last moment.
And then ask her,
You want to do this to yourself?
You want to become this girl?
And she told me to tell you
It's easy to swear you won't regret
What you once wanted.
But she also said if
I knew then what I do now,
I don't know if I would have wanted it
In the first place.

the roses
died. little
shriveled
petals made a
path out of
our garden
and into a
graveyard.
our names on
the stones,
love me,
love me not.
an undoing,
of sorts. a
****** in
another.
said goodbye
too early,
buried the
bodies too
late.

I spent the better part of our
four years wishing for a miracle
so we could have our happy
ending

how funny to find my miracle
was waking up to realize
I deserve better

and to find that my happy
ending should be much
more than an ending

and that I need no one's
company for that
but my own

the rhythm something
like drunk dancing
on the edge of a cliff
lit up by moonlight -
afraid maybe you'll fall;
afraid maybe you won't.

when you finally let go of me,
let me go with grace.
remember that I loved you.
remember how much.
remember the exact
cadence of my voice
each and every time I said it,
the feel of my palm
against your cheek.
the taste of my lips
on yours. don't forget
how I held you,
and how I held you up.
remember my courage,
remember my strength.

understand this:
letting you go was so
unbelievably hard -
so distressingly painful
that I almost couldn't.

but remember all those nights
you weren't there.
remember the words of those
girls you chose over me,
again and again.
remember the taste of
every lie you ever told me.
keep in mind the company
you kept, and how rarely
you went to me first.
think of my loneliest nights
where all I wanted so
desperately was you -
and how you always wanted
for something else.

and when you sit in anger,
thinking that I gave us up on a
whim. please, hold in your hands
the weight of me and the weight
of my hopes.
because my god, I wanted it to be
you. but everything you ever did
unraveled that boulder of me
until all that was
left was the barest grain of sand.

wash me out of
your sheets;
I never
belonged in
them
in the first place.

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.

Check your pockets –
No, not those.
Not now.

Someday,
When you’re cold
Or nervous, or bored
And your fingers find their familiar way
Into the pockets of your jeans or your jacket,
You’ll find I’ve left something for you
Little notes I wrote
Over the years
Thousands of them

Every time I thought of you.

every quaking breath,
every flash of memory,
every little puzzle piece
I could never make fit -

absence, too, is a gift.

1.
Turn off the bedroom lights,
Because it's easier to be brave in the dark.
But remember to breathe;
Night won't change who you've become.
2.
He'll tell you he loves you. Over and over again.
Breathe it, whisper it, carve it into your skin with bleeding fingertips.
Do you hear him?
He loves you the best he knows how.
It's still not enough.
3.
It takes time to erase the scars that have glued your soul to the concrete.
4.
When they push you to the ground
Rub the dirt into your wounds
Fill your pockets with stones
So that the next time they try
You can tell them I've already been to bottom
I've made it home.
You can't be hurt by something you've already learned to love.
5.
He'll tell you he loves you  and you'll turn off the lights
You'll pretend the scars don't exist, that you are air and he is fire
And that neither of you have a home
Dirt, stone, or otherwise.
He'll tell you he loves you, and you'll let his breath rebuild your synapses
You'll let his skin rebuild your nervous system.
You'll love him back.

6.
You don't want to be alone tonight
But there you sit, tracing the veins of your hands, your wrists, your thighs.
You're learning to be alone, you're learning to love yourself again.
Find home, turn the lights on
You can make peace now with who you've become.

darling little dolls,
suspended above the stage,
the scuffed toes of their dance shoes
just barely reaching the floor
and I watch you make
them dance, watch their
painted smiles and sad eyes
and their undying loyalty
to the grace of your fingers,
the turn of your wrist.
they dare not ask if you truly
love them, or if you love the
applause at the end
of every performance.

I could tell them, could tell
them about the night I
snuck into the empty
theater, long after the
crowd had emptied and
the lights had gone
out. I saw them lying there,
lifeless without your
careful direction,
left in a heap - unloved,
useless now,
and I'm sure you were off
somewhere, those fingers
bringing some other girls
with painted smiles and
sad eyes
to life.

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?

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."

i hope
when you kiss her
all you taste is
me.

palm
to skin
mouth a
wandering
expedition
hollow of
my throat
valley
of thighs
fingers
plucking
the rhythmic
verse of
my hips
taking the
breath
from my
lips
undone
unwound
untethered
skin to
naked skin

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.

her hand is on your chest,
small and wanting. your
heart beats beneath it -
slow and steady. you can't
feel hers, but it's running
like a wild animal. right now,
right here, it beats for you
and only you. but yours
is steady. the heart of a man
in a moment of certainty,
or the heart of the man
whose heart beats for
no one at all. she doesn't
know which, and neither
do you. you feel her small
hand on your chest, you
feel her desperation but
the question hangs in
the air between the both
of you -


                         he loves me
                                                                       he loves me not

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

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.

when we collide
it will be something
like irate ocean pulverizing
the rocky cliffs, pulling
the earth to its knees.
it will be the silence
when it snows for the
first time around midnight,
the muted air and the
peaceful silence.
it'll be our hands
and it'll be our mouths
and it will destroy entire
universes, and quietly,
afterwards, it will
build them up stronger
than they could have
possibly imagined.

I rose from dark water,
untethered from the collapsing
kingdom hidden deep down
at the bottom of the ocean.
my fingers like brittle branches
from grasping onto you for
so long, but my lungs fill
with this fresh air and the
toxicity of your prison
seems to drip from me like
ink. my insides are putting
themselves back together and
I hold the hand that finally
rescued me, and he will wait
until I am clean again.

wish i would've just said
i miss you
instead

the last time
I felt you slipping-
I felt you slip like
ocean through my
fingertips.
I felt the shift,
and I knew
I'd lose us somewhere
along the line.
I knew the last time
I kissed you,
standing in the rush
of cars and departures
and arrivals,
I knew as I held on
to you with fevered desperation
I knew it was the last time.
I couldn't say it then,
I couldn't say it for awhile,
but somewhere in there
I always knew.

and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you're
not what I want.
I'm sorry
I can't be what
you need.

I had to let you go,
and it was the hardest
and most freeing thing
I've ever done.

it comes in waves of loss and longing -
the bitterest taste of realizing
I will always be this way. I write
letters of apology to the ones
I love, because I will always be
this way. letting go is a battle
of blood and arms, and god
sometimes it takes years. they
still don't see my scars when
I think about all that I've lost
and all I've had to let go, and
the graveyards of all those things
I was so desperate for but
never quite got to hold on to.
when I lay alone, in my quietest
moments, all I can seem to grab
onto are barbed wire thoughts
and I know it shouldn't be like this.
I am a whole girl, I worked so hard
to put myself together, but it still
feels sometimes like I put myself
back together with tape and
I feel those pieces of me starting
to drift apart again and I wonder
if I'll ever actually be whole, if
I'll ever see the version of myself
with the golden veins of glue
that hold me together - she was
broken, but she still fills. and I'm
sorry I can't help but fall apart.
these days it happens less and less,
but god I gave away so much of myself
and I got back so little that it's like
starting over and over and over again,
and I'm trying so hard. I am, please
believe me: I am trying to be whole
for all of you, because you've loved
me so kindly and thoughtfully and I
want to be whole for the sake of us
all. I don't want to be the ******* the
bathroom floor falling apart at three
in the morning. I hate her, I hate
that she still lives in me, I hate that
she still thinks of the boy that broke
us so uttery and completely that he
stains everything I continue to touch.
I hate that I have something here
in my hands so wonderful and new
and all I can think about is how
soon this, too, will ******* break. I don't
want to live this life looking around
every corner, waiting for my next
ruin. let me live, let me be whole,
let me that broken girl who still
shines in golden puzzle pieces
because *******,
she is whole.

trace lines of poetry
into your skin
with my lips
and the barest touch
of my fingertips

i took a deep breath
once a upon a time
and held it
until my lungs
crumbled
and my heart
mummified
and my bones
fossilized in
the aftermath
buried somewhere
beneath the sidewalk
my blood had seeped into
visceral and fleeting
a single moment
washed away
in the rain

flesh and fire
blood and stitches
I've said I feel
nothing
but time changes
everything
it's so hard
to get closer
it's so hard
to find home
and there's a
blank space
where you're
supposed to be
but it's a
temporary fix
slow high can't
let it go
and I'm sorry
I'm so awake
wide awake
but this is hell
hallways of
mirrors and smoke
laced with nerve
endings drank
the black honey
here we go
here we go

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

i write about you all the time,
but i almost never keep it,
torn up or deleted,
or saved in some file to be
lost to the abyss of fracture
and finality, where i keep
all my other thoughts
of you.

more questions
than answers.
existing somewhere
like that layer
of fog that
wraps a cold
morning after
a too warm night.
we can't breathe
here, but we
try, gasping.
we fumble
forward, caught
up on invisible
things. we are
desperate for
peace and solace.
the satisfaction
of solitude. it's
lost to a sea of
discontent and
the all too eager
hunger of need.
I can't hold my
hand. I can hold
yours, though.
even when I don't
want to. as long
as you'll let me.
I won't have
answers,
but we'll
keep climbing
on
anyway.

can we take a moment?
pause.
rewind.
unwind.
we didn't
stumble into
this mess by
accident
and the threads
are so tangled
my fingertips
are bleeding
from trying
to unweave them.
and don't
misunderstand -
we're here
knee deep
in misunderstanding
and I've
never wanted
to be anywhere
else.