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.

The blood on my palms is ours
It is our blood smeared on these walls
Spilling over the thresholds
Staining the sheets.
They’ll take bleach to walls and the floors
Try to scrub us away almost as hard as I did
And the grit under their fingernails will look like mine
The copper smell of us will give way to ammonia
And years from now they’ll tell the story
Of the little girl gone mad
Taking an axe to her own heart
Just to numb the thunder pace
And that boy who found her
Took the pistol to silence the bedlam in his head
And ease the guilt in his chest.

guilt inches across
my skin like thousands
of little spider legs -
pour cement
down my throat
and let me choke.
it's all I deserve.

She is electric, frenetic energy
Dancing on broken glass,
She’s the current racing through oceans.
She’s about to overload your circuits,
And tomorrow you’ll thank her for it,
Begging on your knees for just
One more taste.

i don't know what words to write there are so many there aren't enough of them to talk about this tightness in my mind and the weight on my chest there's not enough words in this language to describe the way my entire being seems to twist and twist and twist until i can't tell where is up and what is down and i feel tight and i feel like i'm unraveling and i feel like there's no ground beneath me no sky above me like maybe i'm about to see that white light or maybe i'm gonna burn or maybe just fall into eternal nothingness and that almost seems preferable a nothingness where i don't think anymore i don't feel anything i cease to be i am not and that's fine there's too much air in my lungs but i still can't breathe

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

there are days
I want to tell you
how you broke me
and there are days
I remember
you don't deserve
the satisfaction

I just
    want
            to go
                                              back.

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

burns, seared
into my flesh -
every mistake,
every wrong
turn, every lie,
everything
I have ever done.
can you see it?
feel the heat of it?
I live in  fear
of the day
you touch
my skin again
and read it on me
like braille.

i could hate you
i could wish you the worst
(sometimes, i do)
i could summon karma nightly
on your behalf
i could remind you every day
of the ways you harmed me,
permanently altered me

but i'm tired, you know?
tired of the visceral memories of
this night or that night
tired of the way it
suffocates me
even years later
tired of you having so many
pieces of me still, tired
of trying to untangle the love
from the violence
tired of ever knowing any part
of you

mostly, i just hope you look in the mirror
one of these days
and realize the man looking back at you
would finally make good ol' step dad
real ******' proud

i'm watching the sunset
from the parking lot after work
and all the tendrils of all
the thoughts and feelings
in my head are lost to me,
close enough to see the silhouette,
too far to grasp.
i think of all of our sunsets
and i wish i'd held onto them,
those moments, a little longer.
lived them a little deeper.
we're strangers now, all of that
come and gone so quickly,
too quickly. and that's okay.
or it will be, someday.
the winds have changed,
and i have changed,
but my regret hangs in the
air like the purple in the clouds.
the sunset of you will
set one day and the sunset
will always remind me of you
but you'll become one of those
tendrils, the shape of something
that used to mean something
but unreachable,
like you were always
going to be.

grief hangs heavy,
guilt swallows my ankles, my knees -
and sometimes i think
i'll really just let them take me under
this time.

they don't taste right -
other boys.  they put their
hands on me and my brain
is the tornado and my mouth
is the hurricane and they
don't taste right. too much
salt, not enough sugar.
like a meal, always missing
something, never quite
sure what.

I never had that problem with
you. you were always just
right, tasted like warm whiskey
and strong coffee. always knew
where to put your hands.

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

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

because
nothing
good ever
stays.

I loved you
Once.

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

I loved you irresponsibly
And without limit.

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

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

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

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

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

I see you, sometimes, between the lines of now and then,
a sentence I could never quite finish, never quite erase.
still on paper you remain, smudged and
barely legible now. you are the poem I have never quite let go of.
and still, now and then, I will catch the smell of your shirt
hooking into me like barbed wire;
god I hate to be reminded of you,
hate to be reminded how there was a beginning
a half-written middle, and no end - just a comma, waiting for finish.
and I am still grudgingly hoping that someday
you will slip back in and finish it my sentence, my poem,
give me my goodbye, and I pray you do not leave your scent behind.

a dance of sorts,
caught in a driftless sea.
fragments of memories
and the people
we used to be.

the light brings shine to surface
but darling, remember

-all that glitters is not gold;

the radiant sea will keep you afloat
as quick as it will claim your life.

when I let go,
universes fall away.
I found myself in
this sort of abyss,
floating somewhere that
is and is not. I am
no longer broken bones,
severed spine. I am
transcendent, I am
luminescent, omniscent.
I am everything,
I am nothing,
I simply
am and this
weightlessness
is more than divine,
it is the universe coming
to its conclusion, it is
beautiful combustion
it is starting over.

I am clean.

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.

Could I crawl out of my skin for a little while?
I’d like to go for a swim in far away universes
Doze in the Garden of Eden
Maybe plant some roses on the moon
Watch a year or two, maybe three, float by without the
Fistful of blades, the bleeding lips
And someday I can return to my body unafraid
And the mess life makes of me will not bother me
So much as it will fascinate me
The small things will not create chaos
And when I feel that unforgiving, angry fist
I’ll think of Eden and those pools of stars,
I’ll look up and see my roses on the moon.

i wish i could remember the
day everything popped, the
day the fissure ripped me in
two - broke me into pieces of
Feeling and
Unfeeling.

or maybe it was just like
poison in the water, not
enough to destroy but enough
to sicken - to warp the
sensations, the perceptions -
hot, cold, hate, love.

how happy and empty
seem to be the ends of the
extreme with no in between.
how it can change in a moment,
how the turning of the planet
manages to yank the ground
right out from under me.

how quickly the fruit sours,
the heart hardens.
the gardens turn graveyard
and i am left once more
with the wreckage of all that i
once loved, burned to ash.

maybe i am the villain.
maybe i am the virus
infecting all that i touch.

the hesitation
between mind and body
here and now,
now and then.
the taste on your lip,
the fear in your eye.

it's the apprehension in this hello,
the distress in this goodbye.

I carved myself a hollow in your chest
Called it home.
It’s something else to be encased
By your bones, to listen to the
Absolute lullaby of your heartbeat.
Your fingers crawled into my ribs
Tattooing your fingerprints into
My bones and I am yours, entirely
Utterly yours.

our little hearts break
under the weight of hundreds of years
millions of expectations

and I ask you
will we ever survive this?

our minds are empty
like draining sinks
like dry river beds

and you ask me are we
gonna weather this storm together?

we have nothing – we have I Don’t Know,
and we have
Maybe
If
Never
….why?

it’s never real

it’s an empty sink
it’s dry river beds and
grey soulless stones

it’s holding your hands out to the storm
and coming back emptier
than you ever were before.

you didn't tell me
about your fifth dui
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
you hid your feed from me,
or mine from you
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
when you married
that awful woman
but i found out anyway

you did tell me
i'd have a bedroom
a second family
a place, always

had a knack for
hiding the truth
telling the lie
the false promise

you've fought hard
to be nothing
and no one to me

hope you relish
your victory

sometimes I love you
is an empty bed
and heavy silence

sometimes I miss you
is cold shoulders
and empty hands

sometimes I'm sorry
is a lonely night
and a lonelier morning

sometimes I love you
is more hurt than heart
more ache than adored.

--

where is the line
between worth it
and walk away?
I always think I'll
know, and sometimes
I know I will never
make the right choice
because your mouth
says so many good
things, even when
it's saying the worst
things.

sometimes I understand
when people tell you
you can't love someone
if you don't love yourself
because you don't know
where that line is of enough
and too much and just right
and that terrifies me.

love isn't always enough
and I don't know how to
make that picture whole
in my head, where love is
right and where love isn't
enough.

I wish you'd carry my body back
to the river, to the ocean, to the underwater
abyss where it belongs.
my bones have been used as kindling too
many times, my heart the flame,
my blood the life pumping through veins
that have never been under my skin.
my ashes have been spread in graveyards
I never meant to die in and they take
my fingers, they take my hands,
held above the fire for warmth, held
in the candle wax, calling it my rebirth.
I wish you'd give my body back, still
feel the map of me being rewritten by
your fingertips, the weight of you,
the breath that was no longer mine to
take, or mine to give.
the way you anchored my soul, tethered
it to 'home' but you forgot to take it with you
when we left. nothing's been home since.

so we tangled ourselves
up in this weird nightmare
do you remember? sitting
on that couch, inhaling all the
air around us like smoke and it was
smoke but it was different -
thick and heavy like it was going
to choke us, but we kept
breathing it in like it was
oxygen and you watched me
bleed out, watched the tendrils
drip from my lips, slip out my
eyes - you would have
let me die there. and i did.
part of me did, listening to your
simpering neediness of
how much you needed me
how much you loved me
how i kept you going but
i wasn't i wasn't
i was drowning myself
for someone who couldn't
swim, someone who found
contentment in the mouths
of other girls and i was that
girl who blamed them and
hated them when i should have
hated you

you fed me that smoke. i thought
we were breathing together
but you were poisoning me
had me on a slow boil,
never knowing my own
mortality til it was too late
and you didn't mind.

so the ghost
in my bones can
finally
go home

take your time,
it's alright to go slow;
but my god I want to know
how it feels
to kiss you.

kiss me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever taste

wait
flows from my
body like
blood
skin left ragged
asking why
as if my
shallow pulse
needs more than
desperate mouth
to mouth
whispering to
each other what
is the point?
but there's only
silence left
longer than a
lingering *how
are you still
like this?

not dead, just
cold - the absence of
life. like the
ghosts of trees,
in winter,
blown bare of
leaves -
all that remains
the silhouette
of an existence.

i lost my heart
somewhere back there
trudging along,
knee-deep in mud
and anger. you were
my guiding light,
a false prophet,
leading me deeper
into the void and
telling me, so gently,
that we were on the
cusp of paradise. and
honey, you spoke like
an angel - whispered words
of honey and agony, and i
hung on every sip.
drawing me in with
tightly laced tendrils
of poison, whole body
ravage, an uninvited
suicide. i don't exist
anymore, not sure i ever
did. parts of my dissolved
along with my heart,
shriveling into contorted
reality. watching myself
slip away into the
ether - watching your
diligent mask slide
off, fat chunks of
rotten meat and when
i saw your face i was
not filled with regret.
only mourning for the
heart that was once in
you. the heart long ago,
like mine, shriveled by
a hungering, false prophet
desperate for the next victim.

and now i watch him
hanging on my words the
way i once did yours and
i wonder what kind of
bullet it takes to ****
the devil.

the fear
that after all this
time, all this
mess, all this
fight

that I will only lose
you to the
war in your
mind

I told you
Once
I told you
A million
Times

I'm fine
(my chest is caving in)
I'm okay
(I can't breathe I can't think I can't)

I told you with clenched fists
And wild eyes
I'll be alright I'll be fine
It's all just in my mind.

i miss you
(all the time)

but it is what it is
(my fault).

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