do you miss me?
the girl I was before
my lips turned to ash
and my fingers left
black tar smears on
the furniture?

soft. sweet. haven't
seen her in years,
not since the blonde
curls went dark.
so did the eyes.

needle and thread
can only mend so many wounds,
can only mend
so many tears.

you've watched me, for years,
worrying at all our holes,
repairing them until my
fingers bled,
until my wounds became
too deep for stitches.

not that you'd stitch them up anyways.
never our wounds, and certainly
never mine.

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.

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.

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 think we forget
time is not linear,
and we do not
exist on a line.
we do not exist
from this point
to this point.
it's kind of like
believing the world
is flat. it forgets that
there is neither
beginning nor end,
only continuation.
your end is a new
beginning somewhere
else. your timeline isn't
simply ended; it warps
and circles and splays.
you are not a momentary
blip on the map of the
universe, you are splatter
and chaos and birth
and decay. you are
so much more than
simple live and die.
you are so much more
complex than here
and not here. look at
the terrible beauty of
the poetry of everything.
we are synergy, we are
equally all and nothing.
i am the nerves spiderwebbing
your body - you are
the galaxies spiderwebbing
the universe. never
forget that you are not
dust - you are star dust.
infinite and complete.

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

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.

Once,
The universe tore us all in half
Tossed across continents and oceans,
Said, it is your challenge
  In life
  To find the rest of you.
  To make yourself whole again.
Some of us have taken this challenge boldly,
Some with a grain of salt,
Some not at all, wasting away in loneliness.
Truth be told, I do not know for certain
If you are the half of me so long ago
Stolen away out of fateful spite
But, baby, I’d bet my life on it
And if at the end of the night, I lose my life
I still had the privilege of losing it to you.

some days the warrior
some days the worrier
and i'm never more
unsavable
than the days your
absence hits the hardest -
when everything smells
like you, and i hear your voice
the clearest and the
soundtrack in my head
is the alternating verses of you
telling me you love me
and telling me to use a sharper
knife next time -

these are the days
i find myself the
most numb,
trembling, aching for sleep,
for an escape from the pain
that comes with missing you
so deeply
even after all this time.

slowly
like falling
                  asleep
i fall out
of love
with
        you.

imsorryimsorryimsorry
this isn't what i mean
this is a strange dream
one of the ones where i
know i'm asleep and i
can't wake up i can't
wake - your light trips
too bright, takes my
breath away

but it hurts it hurts
it hurts like a room
full of thousands of
wings desperate for
escape it hurts like
too big limbs in too
small cage it hurts
like letting go it hurts
like wanting more it
hurts like why can't
i ever be happy

we take what we can get
but the well never fills -
water slips through fingers
and again and again
we are left begging
with open, empty hands.

every passing day
makes it
a little
harder
to breathe.

I don't know how to tell you
but you're my glue.
I'm sorry I came to you in
sharp shards and broken pieces
and sometimes those pieces cut you,
but you're my glue.
you're the thing that holds all
those little bits of me together.
you keep me whole and
you keep me sane
and you'll never know
but you're my glue.

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 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.

got a hundred
a thousand
a million
little thoughts
bouncing
around in this
broken little
brain - tell me
you don't love me,
tell me I should
feel the same.
it's hard to let
go when you're
everything
I know.
the only thing
that's ever held
me down on
these two feet,
even on the
days you knocked
me down
the hardest.

i have lost people
i love dearly
to my own doings
and yet you
have caused more damage
combined.

never laid a hand on me
but i am still more bruised
than i have ever been -

and you ride your carousel,
hiding your grief in woman
after woman and maybe
you did love me as much
as you said

but maybe you loved me
for what i did for you
and when i stopped
you stopped

and around and around
you go.

tired of the mess
tired of bleeding from
the hole in my chest
tired of feeding mouths
that aren't mine
tired of going hungry
tired of empty hands
tired of the give and
the give and the never
get, tired of empty
hands empty heart
empty house tired
of the hole in my chest

I have only been held
by careless hands
and loved by
damaged hearts.
my body has become
a graceless wasteland,
an asylum for those
who can't be saved.
I'm tired of this dented
body and this hollow life,
tired of being the water
that holds up ships and
being left to drown in
my own sea. tired of being
the savior, never the
saved. tired of being the
forgiver, tired of being
condemned.

the cracks in the sidewalk
outside my window have begun
to fill with sprouts, with
little tendrils of green
stretching out of the chasms,
a promised exchange of light
for colors

and maybe i'll plant tulips in
the cracks that have splintered
inside of me, maybe i'll fill them
with gold paint

maybe one day i will be a garden
maybe one day i will be a work of art

I've held your bones,
strong as old oaks;
felt your blood
rushing like rivers
beneath the skin.
felt the constellations
of your fingertips
and the hurricane
of your heartbeat.

you are a universe
in flesh.

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

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.

the burned
hollowed out
husk

the emptiness and
the ache

hands full of bruises
full of blood

gardens don't grow
when you plant them
in ashes.

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.

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

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

the click, the hands, the mouth,
the heavy taste of the liquor
and the heavy weight of the drugs
I never intended to be the grenade
but you never handled me gently
enough to prevent explosion

and in the wake of y(our) carelessness,
the ringing, the shell-shock,
we forgot our names, how
they sounded in each other's mouths.

you tried to hold on, I know, but
my hands hurt too much not to
let go.

gently
so gently
you pulled the
threads loose,
set me free

but the relief lasted
barely a moment -
you tied me to
you, chained me,
and even after
you decided
you didn't want me
anymore

you left me
with the shackles
and the bruises
and the empty bed
and the sheets
that still smell
like you.

home is a hollow,
carved into the carcass
of buildings that once
held life, held love, held light.
hid myself away in the
crevasses; too deep to
really see, close enough
to the surface that they
eyes would still catch
the outside light.
found me in the reflections
and refracted silhouettes.
saw the ghost of the girl
trapped between then and
now, there and here.
tried so hard to coax her
out, save her, set her free.
the thing about saving
ghosts sewn into the darkness
is that they're more siren
than shade, and they'll
drown you in their darkness
before you ever even notice
the thinning of the light.

the lines of time
bleed onto paper
circling back and
forth and back
around to the same
blurry puddle
and they drip
drip
drip
to the floor
blue and gold
and black
holes and
smeared
galaxy
and grey time
slipping into
the ticking fingers
of an old grandfather
clock
and they fold
sometimes into
the bell tower
on the hour every hour
stamped onto
every wrist
glowing in every hand.
it's happening all
at once. you've
lived this second
infinity times before,
checking the time.
are you late?
are you early?
yes.

drips on the floor
an oil spill of
all the loss and longing
i tried i tried i tried
to hold your hands
but you let me slip
like water through
your fingers when
the weight of mine
became too heavy

my hands are empty
bruised and ******
yours are fists
yours are fists
yours are fists

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.

his fingertips graze my skin
and those few moments are enough
to touch every little
corner of my existence

sometimes the crows
talk to me
and I imagine
you sent them
from your little
corner of the world

I pretend they
say "I miss you"

because truth be told
I miss you
too.

I was drowning
but you never
learned how to
swim.

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.

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.

I think about the pieces.
the way we scattered them on
the floor, the collage of unfinished
pictures in every room. we
never picked them up, never
put them back together.
does the picture remain
the same when it's never
really painted? that vision
in your mind, does it ever
become art? or is it the whisper,
the thought, fleeting and never
again? the single melody
in your head, played over
and over and over and over
but ultimately forgotten,
becomes the soundtrack
for things that could have
been but never were. becomes
the body on the bathroom
floor, sometimes she's naked and
sometimes she'd in that white
dress. she never wakes up,
though. she's the body of
everything you could have
been, never were.

I'm afraid of the brush strokes,
afraid that the pain won't stick,
that it'll stain, that it'll look more
like Rorschach than art.
I'm afraid of the pen to paper,
that the words I want to say
will never ever come out right.
I'm afraid of sewing needles
and spray paint and I'm afraid
of torn canvas and dirt brush
water. I'm afraid that my art
and my poems will turn into
the tangent of my head, the
same strings of words repeated
over and over again and the
same messy lines that link
one hemisphere to the other will
bleed onto the paper, out of
my mouth, and all the paper
and the ink and the paint will
go to waste and all my attempts
will be on the floor and I'll
lay with them and they'll
put a sign on me saying
something like
                 she will be missed.

you love me,
you love me.

you love me?

you do not destroy
the things you love.

blood drips out of the bathtub.
the way they twist your arms,
bend your legs in shapes
they aren't meant to make.

the blood seeps in the floorboards.
they paint your skin
purpleblack,
yellowred,
constellations spiderwebbing across
shoulder blades

down ribs
down hips
down thighs

the blood soaks
into the dirt.

i'd like to take apart all
of my pieces, unstitch
the skin, untangle the veins,
dismantle the bones -
let them clean, air dry.
let all the dust and the
ash settle elsewhere.
maybe then, when i
wear a body you've
never touched, will
my grief begin to
untether itself, only
then will i unshackle
the anger, only then
will the wall you've
built between me
and everyone else
come down.

an open wound
ankle bone to coffee
table, elbow scraped
against the concrete.
the knife, blade first,
the skin of your legs
the skin of your wrists
your ribs. curled like
lace, drawn on like
sketchpad. the ache
the ache the ache
the scars of never
letting go and the
gnawing, raw
pain of the open
wound you won't
stop picking, you
won't stop scratching
the ache of it the
ache can't forget
can't distract
doesn't stop doesn't
stop doesn't
stop

and the words
whispered over and
over again, the scream
the cry the bang the
whimper

i'm sorry.

so torn between
two mouths
that I almost
would rather
choose neither.

it all goes back to that one
little moment
the pill in my hand
the table underneath
my elbows
the floor underneath
my feet.

i wish i would have given it back.
i wish i would have said no.
i wish i would have listened to
that terrified little voice in the back
of my head that this would be too
much.

i swallowed it.
let ecstasy swallow my life.
it's been years now
and i still feel like
i never really got it back.

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.

knock down one wall
just to find another.
i am no architect
but i have managed
to build myself a fortress,
the initials of all my pain
carved into each layer.
it'll be a miracle
if i ever find myself free.

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.