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 drink my brain
into coma
so maybe
I can get some
silence
some rest in
the catacombs
of my soul
I drink because
maybe this
time I will wake
up from some
years long
dream a better
version of mysef
or someone
entirely new
I drink and
it hurts

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.

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

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?

you broke me, you know.
it doesn't matter, though.
I've never really been whole
but you left me more of a
battlefield than I've ever
been, and it wasn't until
I was looking at the wreckage
that I really understood
the casualties. and I hate
you for it. I hate that I stand
on the precipice of happiness
and wholeness, and all I can
really see is that battlefield.
all I can really feel is that
vast terrifying emptiness
and not enoughness that you
drowned me in for years. all
I feel is the terror that I'm
going to **** this up,
because I'm not enough. that
I'm going to be left behind
because I'm worth nothing
to no one. and god I never
want to go back to being that
girl I was when I was with you,
the girl whose worth depends
on who she's with. I hated
her. I hated how she catered
to your every whim, I hated
how she swallowed her pride
and her heart every single day
so you could feel good.
you ****** me up and
I don't know how to undo
those years of degrading and
shame and cheating and
lies and anger and misery
and it's the ******* worst
story in the world. the girl
who stayed in the terrible
relationship, and now,
staring down the barrel
of something good,
all I want to do is run.

******* for that.
******* for everything.

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.

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 always
want
to  slip into you
like a dress
it's a lovely
little dress
but no matter
what i do
it's a bit
too tight
in all
the wrong
places

comes out when you're
quiet, when you least
want her - fingers. claws.
the blood drips down
your thighs. the
rumbling of your
mind become shouts,
become cries. she feels
like drowning, she feels
like trying to pull yourself
out of a cement mixer.
feels like the rain and
hail and blocks
and blocks of locked
doors and blinds
pulled tight.

i think
i made you
too
much
space

when i let you in

i think in trying
to let you make yourself
at home

i gave you
real property

put your name
on the deed.

you
don't live there
anymore

don't visit
don't write
     and that's okay

we've long since
gone our
separate
ways

parallel lines

different
people

but what a greedy thing
to do

leaving
like that

but still keeping
your little plot of land.

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.

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

it's okay
i'm still here

doodling on napkins and
writing a line or two in a notepad

never committing
to much of anything or anyone.

i'm not sure exactly when it all emptied out,
all the words, all the ideas, all of me.

nothing paints the canvas in my mind
anymore.

i can only write so many poems about
heartbreak and trauma

and all the ways i've been torn apart
the last couple years.

it gets old, even for me.
but recovery is long and lonely

and sometimes it's just wide open desert
for miles
and miles.

maybe there are some of us
who are not meant to be
shared with other people.
we are always too something -
too much, too rough, too
quiet. maybe we are born
solid, instead of in parts. we
are born without soul mates
because we are already whole
on our own.

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.

if i had a portrait
like dorian gray's
i wonder what it
would look like.

i do not look like
my world has shattered
overnight more times
than i can count

and while my scars have faded
quite substantially with time,

they'd probably bleed
through the portrait -

the blood running down my wrists
the blood running down my thighs.

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

love becomes
afterthought
a heartless
endeavor,
a knee-****
response,
becoming
synonymous
with goodbye
and hello
until the word
hello fades
from memory
and the last
I love you
is your last
goodbye.

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.

if you ever wonder if i miss you
too

i do.

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

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

unraveling
slowly but surely
the threads spread
all over the house
you've tripped on them
so many times but
you hardly notice
you hardly notice
how the skin hangs
from my bones now
and you hardly notice
the whisper when i speak
you hardly notice
the threads on the floor
how they spell your name
and how little I have
left to give.

do you remember the siren in my throat?
the howl of her, the empty vessel?
do you think of me sometimes,
think of how often my fingers
unmade the buttons at the
collar of your longing? how I
unlaced the cement that held
your damaged pieces together
into something resembling
personhood? how you painted
me with the blood of your amnesiac
sins, how I came to be the shrine
of all your broke and all your
bent? do you ever wonder how I
look now, draped around new
frames and coaxed by honey
that drips from new fingers?
do you ever miss those nights,
the half-light of the bathtub, the
shrine of bare thighs and the
drip drip drip as you watch me
melt into something black and
shimmering on the surface maybe
like blood maybe like nothingness and do
you desperately try to take handfuls
as I slip away like sinking ocean down the drain?

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?

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 calm rumble
of your heartbeat
against my temple
is enough to silence
a thousand storms

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

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.

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.

plucked
the flowers
from my ribs
whispering,
love me,
love me not.

they left blood
smears across
my skin, left
dead petals
at my feet.

left me the
altar of love
that will never
be mine.

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.

chest is a graveyard
full of the ghosts of all
those that i have loved;
every rib bone a eulogy,
fingertips a prayer.
you'll find me on
my knees, begging
for forgiveness, for
rebirth - untying
every nerve, disconnecting
every bone. undress
this body, bare this
soul and you'll find empty
canvas, empty promise,
empty glass.

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.

left my body
in shallow river
and city
grew from
these bones

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.

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

I used to make wishes at 11:11,
I used to pick up pennies,
holding them tight for luck.
I used to believe in fate.
I used to believe that good things
happened to good people.

there's a word for people like that: naive.
because, "the truth is,
baby, the world is a cruel place."
he told me he was saving me,
sort of like saving a suicide
victim from a moving train.

because he told me he loved me,
because he told me the world was mine.
because he told me he'd do anything for me.
and I believed him.

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

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

you tear me apart
piece by piece
yet how peacefully
you sleep

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.

every day
***** the air out of my lungs
a little more

and I wonder how
much longer
they expect me to keep going
like this

suffocating with a smile

to hold on
to let go
you're in
my heart
but you're
still not
home

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.

1.
A boy I used to know
Found me one day, hidden in
The quietest clearing in a vacant park.
He looked me up and down
As if to say
You are not someone I ever knew.
He pulled me to my feet
Brushed the concrete off my shoulders
And he asked me
“What happened to you?
What happened to that girl I once knew?
The girl who accepted nothing less than
Exactly what she wanted
And gave absolutely everything she had?
When did the girl that ignored everybody
Become the girl everybody ignored?”
I didn’t have the answers then.
I still don’t.
2.
He gave me a broken shard of mirror
And the girl in it looked
More like a ghost than a person.
She was so pale,
Eyes sunken and bruised,
Her lips thin and torn to pieces.
The boy tucked the mirror into one pocket
A picture into the other, said,
“You call me when the girl in that picture
Comes back to life.
She was life and soul and love
Personified. That girl was magic.”
3.
I cut myself on that shard of mirror
And it seems I bled for days.
I ruined that picture,
The one of the girl that was
Life and soul and love personified.
4.
I never saw him again, he never came looking.
I don’t know what I’d say anyway.
I’m sorry, old friend,
But that girl died a long time ago.
Where were you? Why didn’t you care enough
To save her?
Hasn’t anyone told you magic isn’t real?
Hasn’t anyone ever told you
Life and love and soul will die?
They die when there is nothing left to feed the fire.
5.
I wrote him a letter.
I wrote him a hundred letters.
I wrote him a letter
About the boy I loved once.
He reminded me a little of you¸ I wrote.
He loved me the way you love a photograph
He touched all the beautiful places
Appreciated the glow and the shine
Kept me on his bedside table to look at
When the nights got lonely.
The funny thing about photographs though,
Is the colors and the beauty and the shine fade.
You forget what happened after the flash snapped
You forget the stories and the honesty and the life.
He lost the picture, I guess.
Beneath exquisite and profound novels. Found
New pictures.
6.
Today’s letter:
I smashed a vase against the wall.
I smashed my mother’s favorite mug against the pavement.
I broke a mirror with my fist
I ripped up every letter anyone’s ever sent me.
Hit the walls with hammers.
Broke a window.
Broke my arm.
Where were you when I needed you?
I need you.
He hasn’t answered any of my letters.
I don’t think he will.
7.
A boy I once knew
Reminded me that there was once a girl
Where my ghost is.
And you know what? My ghost got hungry,
Because suddenly she remembered how
Wearing a body was supposed to feel.
My ghost got angry
I got angry
I don’t know how to find her again,
The girl I used to be.
I think maybe she’s dead, buried in the backyard under
All my childhood friends and the rose bush
My mother loves so much.
8.
He wrote me a letter.
Not so much a letter, but a punch to the chest,
A single sentence written on the back of a California postcard:
Remember the phoenix,
Make use of your ashes.







(nine:
I found my wings, buried under coffee grounds
And orange peels on the side of the interstate.
Brushed the ash off; they still fit.
I met a boy there too
His wings were ***** and beautiful.
He kissed my scars,
Shook hands with my ghost.
I haven’t seen her since.)

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

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.