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.

salt in the wound
twenty seven and
still unsettled in a

permanent detachment,
the only kind of
permanence

i've laid hands on,
an emptiness that
never fills -

salt in the wound
still here, still here.
unsettled.

I keep writing about you.
all these words you don't
deserve, all this time. energy.
space. you deserve nothing
more of me, except maybe
this weight you left me with.
that, you deserve. I don't know
what it is. what links me to
you this way. do you feel me?
do you feel the inecessant
whine of my thoughts? the
childlike nature of it all,
elementary longing for a boy
for a boy for a boy for a
god forsaken pit of all the
things that wrecked me. yet,
here I am. well past midnight,
alone writing about you. they
say writing comes most easily
from broken heart, but mine
isn't really broken anymore.
a broken heart implies love,
and I don't have that for you
anymore. haven't for awhile.
that's not really the problem.
at least if I still loved you, I'd
know why you plague me still.
but I suppose these are questions
that don't have answers. maybe
time still does heal all wounds,
some just much slower than
others. but are you wound? am
I still wounded? I don't feel hurt
when I think of you. just...sore.
you know? how decades old
injuries have healed, but they
still inexplicably ache in the rain?
it's something like that. everything's
healed. these scars aren't pink and
shiny, they're old. almost invisible.
but they ache, sometimes. when
I'm alone. and the you I'm writing
to is the wrong one. the one that
broke me ages ago. the one that
deserves no more of my time. all
the while the you that loves me
sits in the other room, none the
wiser that these words pour
from my fingertips. that my
thoughts are on an old you. and
it's ****** up. I'm ****** up.
and I'm not sure which one of us
is more to blame.

all i pray
is you to
suffer
as i do.

i feel at odds with the existence,
lingering somewhere between
this is where i'm meant to be
and i do not belong here.  

i feel strongly anchored in some
memories, like i'm dreaming and
i can't wake up, like this is the worst
high and i'm stuck in the comedown.

i woke up different on the bathroom floor,
a different person, a different energy
and i'm still struggling to understand
if i woke up better or worse
or if i ever woke up at all.

I'm just a little mess
in a pretty black dress.
you used to like that
about me, loved me once
until the candles were
puddles of wax on the
floor and I was too
burnt out to light you up
anymore.

fell to my knees,
prayed to a god I
don't believe in.
made a church
out of mouths
that have never
tasted the truth.
found faith in
gutter, found
savior in the
******. confessed
my sins in a gas
station bathroom.
the bible was written
on a napkin and
all it says is how
nothing matters
in the end
anyway.

drop the ashes
from your cigarette
on my grave -
your white lighter
hangs out of your jeans
pocket, drag a hand
through your messy
black hair -
you are the embodiment
of every poetic cliche.
all anger and angst
and lost love and
all the women who
fall at your feet
and fall at the phone
desperate for you
to call them again the
morning after.
I wanted to be the
only girl you ever
loved, really loved-
and maybe I was.
but old habits are
hard to break, and
**** if I didn't try
to break you of your
cigarettes, **** if
I didn't try to get you
a haircut, new jeans.
throw away that lighter.
for awhile I had the
privilege of kissing
your mouth when it
didn't taste like
smoke, and **** if you
didn't wear those jeans
for awhile. but my
mother was always right -
you can't change the broken
boys anymore than you can
save them, and they
certainly don't save
you.

undress
peel the layers
of skin

find the name
of every boy
carved into a
rib

the bones are like
flower petals
the blood like
a river

fed it the lavender
heat of want
and neglect

paint it on your
skin the war paint
of trying too hard

of giving up

find her in pieces
each and everyone
with your name on it
only yours
only yours
only yours

she pried every rib out
years ago, used them
to burn at the alter
of every loss and

every longing
and she still holds onto
the ribbons used
to connect you

the one you untied
years ago

You are like nobody else
Hot breath on a cold night
The momentary brightness
Just after you’ve closed your eyes.
You are the brightest star in the darkest sky
The blood that boils under my colorless skin
The first and last word of a novel
The most brilliant novel
Filled with pages and pages of nonsense words
And brightly colored and breathtaking photographs
And the single page hidden in the middle
Telling your entire heartbreaking story
In sudden, vivid detail.
You are the rush in my ears and my vein
And the violent wind through my hair
And the violent crashing in my chest.
You are like nobody else
And so I love you.

is it too soon to say this?
is it too soon to ask you
to stay? I dreamed about
you again last night,
fourth time this week. it
was hardly worth mentioning,
except the way you looked at
me, like maybe I'll never
have to ask you to stay,
because you'll do it anyway.
I don't want you to be a passing
ship, making quiet waves in
the middle of the night, only
to sail away sometime in
the early morning without
saying goodbye. I want to be
your harbor, I want to be the
place you land and realize
this, this place here, was always
meant to be your last stop.
ship becomes house becomes
home. is it too soon to say
this? you know I didn't mean
for this. everything tears
me to shreds, wanting something
so tenuous rips me to shreds
but god, there's something about
you that makes me want anchor.
it makes me want to hold on
for dear life, even if it means
sinking and drowning,
becoming yet another
skeleton laid to rest on
your ocean floor, miles and
miles deep and irretrievable.
it's just that when I close my
eyes, I smell you on my skin.
it's just that when I close my
eyes, I find myself still getting
lost in the bottomless abysses
that are your eyes and I could
stay there forever,
in that dark and beautiful
abyss.

is it too soon to say this?

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.

put the gun in your hands
trusted you to never put your
finger on the trigger
swallowed the love you
fed me, swallowed the lead
when you left me

how often I find myself
feeling buried yet I never
find myself a shovel.
I have two good hands
and one rabbit heart
and it's so hard to
find air beneath
water, but I try.
dog paddeling
hard enough that
I never quite sink but
always right on the
cusp of running out
of breath. I find myself
holding paint brush
above canvas but
nothing ever paints
itself the way I see it
in my head and my
words, pen poised
above paper, never
elicit the view of my
mind or quiet the tornado
in my soul.

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.

equations
where variables and numbers
and letters find themselves
meaning -
yet we do not.
unsolvable equations,
where your x and my y
never add up to z
where z is grace
and z is perfection
and z is comfort
but these are just
unreal fantasies
these are just irrational numbers
going on and on and on
far off into infinity
because no matter how hard we try
your x and my y
will never be z.

i'd give anything
to have you back
but i'd give anything
to never want you
back

maps are for lost
fools, going in predictable
directions, too afraid
of the unknown.
they'll never step off
the concrete, never feel
the rub of untouched
brush against their skin
or the adrenaline of
where the **** am I?
they play by the rules,
in lust with their cookie
cutter by the book lives.

maps. charted journeys.
these things don't interest me.
i want scrapes up and
down my arms and legs
because i dared venture too
deep. i want bruises and
bleeding because i got lost,
too lost. i want to get lost.
i want to lose the map.
i want to lose my little
here dot, the one that
follows me, red and angry
because i don't stay on the
path to that cookie cutter
life.

i want off this route. this
one that leads only to
                                  y o u.

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 think I lost us.
I think I emptied my pockets
for you and in turn,
all you gave me were
heavy stones to line them with.

I think oceans filled between us,
I think I sailed away while you
stood on the shore,
collecting stones and
staring at the horizon
instead.

I think I got tired of asking
for what ought to be offered;
you got tired of being asked
for things you couldn't
ever give.

I think I finally understand what
they mean when they say
people grow
in different directions,
because you remain along the dirt
as brush
and I've grown far up these bricks.

clenched        fists
       heavy  drifts
empty            boxes
abandoned canvases
                 I am so
dreadfully
                                           alive.

burned the
house down,
started with our bed.
shredded the pictures,
used our bones as
kindling. watched
the kerosene of
everything we
could have been
feed the flame.

I watch my life
turn to ash, watch
you desperately
cling to any little
piece that still
remains.

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.

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.

she is the ocean,
giving rise to new moons
and high tides. she
will be the force
to guide you to safety,
to guide you into
the abyss. she
will give you life
and she will
swallow you whole
and while you drown,
while you feel her fingers
pulling the very life
from your skin
you will smile,
you will thank her. because
between going under
and letting go,
she is both destruction
and salvation.

standing in your bathroom,
staring down my own reflection,
at odds with your words and
my own thoughts - the ones where
I don't see the beauty you do,
the ones where you don't feel
the feelings I see in you. that ***
sits in my belly, warm and brave
and desperate for something
else, something you don't want
to offer too soon. you're out there,
quiet and waiting. waiting,
god knows what for. waiting
for the right time, waiting
for the spark of something.
yet no one knows the feel
of my skin better than you,
nor do they know the curve of
my hip. and so you wait. and so
I wait.
and I hope.
the *** in my belly
warms the cold need in my bones
and I will come back to you,
desperate and willing
but still,
you wait.

This skin is an uncomfortable stranger
Rigid and unyielding
There is a little voice in my skull
It warns against the hearts
That try to beat along with mine,
Try to get
Near enough to feel my rigid skin
They will tear it, they will shred you
But
Why would anyone want you anyway?
That voice inside is a brutal *****.

There is my face staring me back
In the mirror
And my mouth caves in
Pouring a river of hate
My fingers pinch the skin at my waist
And underneath, carved into bone
Are the fine marks of hatred
Reflected eerily by the blank eyes
And it is easy to agree
With that brutal little voice
And the eyes that stare back at me
With a challenge;
*Try to smile.
I dare you.

i wish i had steady hands.
i wish my voice never shook,
never stumbled.
i wish i was more patient,
less tired.
i wish i complimented strangers,
paid for their coffee once in awhile.
i wish i could say i never yelled
at my cats or thought
unkind things.
i wish i could say i've never
done wrong, never cheated,
never lied.
i wish i was clean,
unblemished.
i wish i didn't have this temper,
wish i'd learned to control it
sooner.
i wish i could be many things,
a great deal of them softer,
more of them stronger.
i wish i could forgive myself
for all the things i am and am not,
i wish pathological perfection
didn't break down at the most minor
mistake.
i wish i could give myself the grace
i'd give anyone else,
the room for their humanity.
i wish i could stop feeling indebted,
permanently deserving of some ever so
slight punishment.
i wish i could forgive myself for who
i was at my most hurt.
i wish i could be proud of myself for
everything i've become
since.

Fingers burn my skin,
Lips scar mine.
Such a shame it is to love you,
So hard it is on            this                body
There isn’t an inch you haven’t claimed
Conquering rigid planes like they were
Yours for the taking
Breathe you in, exhale toxin.
You are cancer preying upon infection.
Footprints beat across my chest
A rusting tattoo, a reminder
Of the ones before you, the nothing
           After you.
Breathe me in, exhale reverence
As if I were your temple, something
            Worth loving.
Beneath, there is bruised and bleeding ache
Feeding upon every moment
You make me feel something bordering on ecstasy
It whispers
           Nothing good ever comes.
You are not good.  You are a dark thing.
We were borne of the same blackness
It crawled in us as infants while we slept
Twined us together. Tore every bit of us apart.
Cancerous love,
       Writing false notes of adoration in my skin
        While my insides bleed
        Waiting for the  
                  End.

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 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.

he says good morning but
i'm already thinking about good night.
we are bathed in rising sun
but I already crave moonlight.
it's easier to tell hard truths
in the dark, but he's waiting.
he's waiting for me to shed
the skin of this version of me,
the one who shuts her mouth
when she should scream.
and I know this, that he'd
rather listen to me scream
than drown in my silence.
but it's like I've swallowed cement.
and he's looking at me,
he's looking at me,
and his face is filling first with
hurt and anguish
and I know he's thinking
I did something wrong
she doesn't trust me
and I watch it transform
into anger because he's afraid
that both those things are
true, that one night when
I'm silent in the dark,
both of us waiting for me
to say something, anything,
I'm going to slide out
between the shadows
and in the morning he'll say it again
good morning
but the bed will be empty.
and I'm afraid of the very same,
that one day he'll tire of my
sleeping tongue, tire of the
girl too broken to put herself
back together, and I'll wake up
to a cold bed and a silence
that is not my own making.
and somehow we're both
afraid that
goodnight
goodmorning
will become
goodbye, never said,
just left behind, like a ghost
in the bed we used to share.

i feel little bits
of the universe
crumble around me
feel like i am stuck
in rewind
watching the same movie
over and over, every
terrible thing
while i cook dinner
clean the kitchen
take out the garbage
listen to the headlines
one punch, another
feeling like a lace tablecloth
laid across a landmine
and i'm realizing
there are so many ways
to be undone
to be brought to your knees
to do your best
to be your best
and to lose it all
anyway

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.

sometimes
I catch my breath,
sometimes the storm
stops long enough
to see the horizon
again and sometimes
the arms holding me
under are the arms
pulling me up.
the taste of air,
the relief for just a moment
I am not fighting for every
moment of life -

until the undercurrent
catches me, until the sky goes
black all over again
and the water in my lungs
reminds me that the bitter survival
I fight so hard for
is all I really deserve.

your palm melts
to the contour of
my face and
I melt into you.
lords knows
I will come
undone under
the fever of your
fingertips and
lord knows
I will come
unraveled
under the
weight of your
want and lord
knows

dripping
from the wrist
ink
blood

i tried
i tried
to write
to you

i swear
i tried -

i'm sorry
will never
be enough

goodbye
will never
close the
door

the blades
never sever
the ache

the pen
never
carves anything
but your
name

there's almost a punishment
in healing, an unraveling
a relief and an unrest
in the weaving
in the rewriting

settling old wounds,
finding new ones
hidden in the outskirts of
thigh sized bruises
in puddles of blood
spreading out wider than
dinner plates, oceans

it's just the way pain seeps into
the bones, the cartilage
seals itself into the veins,
an unwelcome teacher,
a treacherous friend.

i just imagine some other version of me
out there in some other universe
a soft, silly girl unmarred and whole
and i am so, so envious of her.

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.

how lovely
it must be
to never
drown
in the
well of
your
own
destruction.

if i were really honest
i'd tell you about the rage
the angry little girl howling inside me
begging to be let out
how i'm afraid she'd never stop
if i did
i'd tell you about the apologies i'll never get
the apologies i'll never give
all the unsaid things living in my bones
i'd tell you how my friends
drifted away when the Trauma
made me unpalatable
how pulling myself out of the rot alone
was almost more painful
than the Trauma itself
i'd tell you about the days the girl in the mirror
looks so unfamiliar
how words don't seem to fit in my mouth anymore
how the space between
worse and better starts to feel like
an unscratchable itch
but not nearly as unbearable
as the girl living in my skin five years ago
and how i miss her and how i hate her
how she probably hates me
buried under years of therapy and medication
and deep breathing techniques and
have you tried meditation?
yes ma'am, i have meditated myself into a
near constant state of TV static
and once in awhile that girl
tries to change the channel, remind me
of the weightlessness of giving in
to the doom spiral, to the drinking, to the drugs
to the boys who will do nothing but
destroy what we've built

but to tell you the truth i wouldn't go back
not to that girl, not to the girl we were before
she mutated into existence -
not even to keep the most painful things
i've ever lost

the storm of disconnect
    mine
        yours

hell and home
meet like
two              sides
of one sea,
split down
the mid      dle;
we're                  beautiful,
they say.
a natural
                           wonder.

the natural wonder of

s e p a r a t i o n ,

they fail to realize,
is night and day,
earth and water.

they don't feel the warmth
of your side, the cold of mine -
the nothingness of     white
and emptiness be t w ee n      u s.

and I can't help but wonder
what is so beautiful about two
hands that will never hold?

sometimes
the answer
to the
"what if"
hurts more
than never
answering it
at all.

this body is not a canvas for your deepest demons to be smeared across. it is not the foundation for your falling house wishes or your grand estate failures. it is not divine, it is not hallowed ground, do not pepper it with prayer. there will be no answer. this body is a howling wasteland and the creatures brave enough to venture near will be your violent undoing. it is angry ocean and you are a sinking ship; it will accept your anchors but not your pleas.

this body is not love it is not worship it is hell and I am its prisoner.

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.

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.

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

they gut you, sometimes.
like little fish, like hunted
deer - they don't mean to.
you were the deer they
clipped on the highway,
you were the fish too sick
to release after catch. and
they hold on, they try
to save you. but in the end
the true mercy is the true
end, and so they gut you.

do you understand? did
you see the way I poured
myself out for you? an
ocean of love and want and
need, and it was just food
for the dirt. I ripped myself
open, you ripped me open,
and now this carcass needs
disposal. I don't imagine
I'm worth a wake, hardly
a moment of silence. the
trash heap out back seems
to be a nice enough
place.

letting go is an art form,
untangling from the fears
and the what ifs -
i realize they do not just
vanish, and therein lies
the art.