In January I begin to fade.
My astringent blood,
The shock of dying love,
It sends me into clouds of smoke
Where I can escape my broken home.
I meet you in January.

February encircles me
Like tall dark curtains.
It pushes me under the light
Where painful decisions break my neck
And I fall into your arms.
I know that I will love you in February.

March comes,
And I spend my birthday alone
Deciding between crashing my car
Or bleeding myself out.
I buy myself gifts but they can’t replace you.
It was your first broken promise.

I decide to change in April.
I decide to get better
Because I want you to love me,
And who could love me as I am?
In April we collect treasure from the river
And I cut 7 inches of my old self from my hair.

May is for planning.
We talk about the future
But you’re still shaken from the past
And anchoring yourself to the present.
My mistakes and still-loving memories
Push you to the edge,
I choose you in May.

In June, you are everything.
In June, you are my soulmate.
In June, we climb mountains.
In June, I know that I will love you forever.

We give it a name in July,
Our love.
We spend rainy nights under the trees
We sail to see seals on a foggy island,
And kiss lobsters.
Then a shadow lurks over you in July.

In August, I fight your friends
And say things I don’t mean.
You tell me you’re leaving,
And I think “here it comes.”
The fear of losing you makes me sick,
And I beg for you to care.
August changes you.

We almost die in September.
You lie and hide
I cry and beg.
I hate this part of you
And I fear that it is permanent.
In September, you pinky promise,
You’ll be back real soon
And I’ll be your wife.
You say your love for me will never get lazy,
Again.

In October,
I think maybe everything will be fine,
If I can just keep my head down
And don’t flinch at the swinging steel.
I tattoo the thought of you.
In October, it got too much.
Your apathy drags me to the gallows,
Where I have to be the one to kick the chair.

In November, I keep waiting for you
Still hoping that you’ll say all the right things and love me like June.
November,
I wonder how you could do this.
I wonder if it ever meant anything to you.
I wonder if you love her.
If she cries less
If your friends would like her
If she ***** you better
If you’re learning French.
And somehow I still want you in November.

You held me all night before you left
While I cried and cried
And my lungs backfired.

Because I could see the future
And I saw this coming.
But you promised and promised,
That you’d make it all right.

Now look at what you’ve done.
I’m starting to think
That maybe
This is what you wanted all along.

At home, I lie and weep.
While you take her to the gardens,
To the pub,
To the museum.

I wonder now where to put this love.
I still so eagerly wish to give it to you
And so eagerly want to forgive you
For all the things you’re not sorry for.

It continues to flow from me,
Floating away,
In search of your lips.
But you run and hide
And put yourself behind glass
So that my love cannot touch you.

Do you fear that it is too warm
For your frigid body?
Or that it will thaw you
From the frost
That has kept all you feel
Stuck inside that glass?

Ice as your armor,
You turn away
From my burning adoration
And wander into a tundra
Where your eyes stay fixed
On the ever-running horizon.

Keep it moving,
You say.
Do not dwell,
Do not think,
Do not feel.

But I suppose it is easy for you
To stay cold,
To stay away from the fire,
Away from my bright love.

But I will stay alight
Waiting for you to realize
That all I ever wanted
Was to love you to your core.

I believed that’s what you wanted
Because you said you had changed,
But what you wanted
Was more of the same.

More cold nights
Frozen to strangers
That cannot love you
Like I am dying to.

I thought it was over.
I thought that,
Because I found you,
The torture would end.

I thought that because
You loved me
The sleepless nights
The fear of desolation
The lonely tears
Would be over.

I thought that
Because we were together
I would never have to
Beg for love again.

I thought that because you saw me
For the mess that I am
And made me believe
That you loved me anyway,
I had come home.

But you changed your mask
And ran an ocean away from me.
Leaving me drowning
And desperate for your attention.

I threw you every rope,
Gave you every chance
To show me that you still cared.
But your hollow words
Cracked beneath the weight
Of your apathy.

Your nearsightedness
Turned you blind to me.
While I swam to you every day,
Hoping that you could see me
From the beaches of Cornwall.

But you turned your back to the waves
Leaving me to start all over.
Over and over,
Every morning.

Silly me, I thought you meant what you said.
I thought forever meant forever.
I thought when you said you wanted me,
You meant you wanted me.

So you say it’s too heavy,
But you keep adding stones to the scale.
You keep saying we’re drowning,
But you won’t let me up for air.

We’re headed for a cliff,
But my love it’s your foot on the gas.
I know the light looks pretty
Passing quickly by the windows
But I fear we won’t survive this fall.

So I thought
Because you met me in the dark
And made me believe
That you’d always shine a light on me
That it had all been worth it.

That every storm I had endured
Was worth the strength it took
To crawl out of the wind
And drag myself to shelter.

But your winds are whistling
And it’s rained most days since you left.
You’re just another blustering squall
Disguised as the love of my life.

You waited for me,
So I wait for you.

I wait for you to text,
I wait for you to call,
I wait for you to love me.

You made promises,
Beautiful dreams
And I wait for them to come true.

You say it will get better,
That everything will change,
So I wait for your words to become reality.

I wait for you to come home,
Where I wait for more bad news
And more promises.

I wait alone,
Becoming more and more hopeless
That your words will ever be
Anything but words.

I keeping waiting
I keep pleading
Now all I want is the truth.

I wait for you to decide
I wait for you to let go
Or just tell me that you won't.

I wait for you to answer me,
Knowing that you won't
So I can stop waiting
For your love to come home.

In the silence,
It's my turn to decide.
I decide i've been too patient,
You've wasted my time.

And yet somehow,
I still wait for you to care.
I still hope you'll prove me wrong.

Because love is patient,
And love is all I have for you.

So you take my time,
Hour by hour,
Day by day,
I wait.

Maybe I'm waiting for something
That I will never get back,
The way you used to care.

Maybe I'll take this clock I keep checking
All the way to my grave.

From under the dirt,
My heart will keep counting the seconds,
Keep waiting for your love.

I'd give you every second
Of the time I have left,
But it wouldn't mean a thing to you.

To you, my time is free.
To you, my patience has no value
Because it is all that you know.

It cannot be taken for granted,
Because it is granted unconditionally.
Whether you want it or not.

So I wait,
As the clock keeps ticking,
For my heart to finally stop.

Maybe when my time is up,
It will finally mean something to you.

The space you take in me
Stretches to every border of my landscape.

It leaves little terrain
For any other notion to take root.

Your wilderness is dense,
Filled with sharp-toothed creatures
And poison fruit.

It is invasive,
Spreading without challenge
Or consideration for the native species.

I wouldn’t mind your expansive occupation,
Had you ruled with benevolence.

But your presence is oppressive.
It leaves me cowering with fear
In the dark corners of your territory.

Now I think a revolution of the heart
Is about to ignite.
The resistance is growing
And torches are lit.

There is time to save yourself,
Time to quell the riots.
But it’s clear that you lack the will,
The mercy to change.

So now you must burn.
Every branch,
Every leaf,
Will be reduced to ash.

I will reclaim what is mine
Like I have done so many times before.
And your claim to my heart
Will go up in smoke.

Desire overcomes me again,
Impulse stronger than my resolve in love.
Need to be close to someone for tonight.
Touch me, pretend I’m still alive.
Feeling has eluded me for too long now.

Stupid heart, letting go just as easily as it binds.
Drunk and still drinking, I let it go too far.
Thoughtless, or so it seems, but I never have been.
Quickly, I say too much, before I get the chance to stop.
Just once, only tonight, I let myself fall.

Quiet now, let’s keep this to ourselves.
Confused and only getting worse.
Apologies, over and over, this isn’t what you wanted.
Sincerity is lost in my empty brain.
Foggy judgement, as usual, I’m slipping again.

Unsure of my own motivations.
Questions linger unanswered, unconsidered.
Stories I tell myself to stay sane.
Lies I tell myself to keep my feet on the ground.
Hope that it all just goes away.

Just come home already.

My too-big clothes pile into mountains
At the foot of my bed.

I pull my belt tighter,
But loose fabric swims around my thighs.

Joy, love, control over both the internal and external
Melts away from me and forms puddles at my feet.

Looking down into the pool,
I see a child with loneliness strewn about her face.

She begs to be known,
But my impulse is to turn away from her.

To think the fear of loss, of abandonment
Has pushed me to abandon myself...

I cannot reach into that stagnant pond
To hold her.

I cannot keep putting my hands down my throat,
Hoping that she comes spilling out.

And were she to appear,
I'm not convinced I would have the strength to hold her.

But I lay siege to my body anyway,
Longing to starve out this parasite.

Hoping to leave nothing behind,
So that reflections can no longer torture me with desperate eyes.

Because absence, lack, nothingness
Has no countenance for mirrors or puddle-surfaces to display.

An empty space cannot hurt me,
Not like a blank page can.