Growing up I thought love was
Stolen kisses, heart racing
Butterflies.
It was falling so hard
And hitting the ground each time they said goodbye.

Maybe love is just consistency
And infatuation is erratic—
Like your heartbeat when
You’re around them.
The silence when they leave is so loud.
I wish I learned how to drown it out.

Now I know that love is
Slow, deliberate kisses.
Slow, deliberate *******.
His hands wrapped around my back
So tightly I am enveloped in him.
It’s waking up next to the same person for years.
It’s crying into their shoulder
And them crying into yours.
It’s them whispering when they’re mad,
Never calling you names.
Even when you hurt them.
Even when you deserve it.

I love our comfortable silence now,
I never have to be anybody but me.
He loves me.

Tell me you’re fine,
Say it like you mean it this time.
I promise I won’t run away,
Turn off my phone and get in my car.
Make me feel how I felt before—
Before reality came crashing down

It broke all of our dishes and your cars e-brake
And now I forget to turn off the stove
My hair straightener
Candles I’ve lit and never blown out
Maybe a small part of me does want to burn this whole ******* thing down.

All the ******* work
I’ve put in all these stupid ******* years
The tears I’ve cried
The breaths I’ve heaved
Cigarettes I’ve smoked
Alcohol bottles I’ve consumed

The hours of working on myself and you
And it doesn’t feel rewarding, not one bit.
I want to be in love so badly
And I’m mad you can’t do that for me
Why can’t you make be in love with you?

I’m a ******* phony, a fake.
I’m not in love with you but I need you!
******, I need you.
Come on,
Can’t that be enough for me?

Caught between wanting to run away
Wanting to stay
Terrified that either choice will leave me
Unfulfilled;
Wishing I had chosen the other.

I feel as if my life is a dream
Like I’m not really living it, really.
Maybe I’m watching it from afar,
Is this consciousness all there is to me?

The time to choose is slipping through my hands
Passing with birthdays and promotions
Anniversaries and holidays
Marking one more year
But one more year to what?

What is MY story??
What is MY existence?
More importantly,
What does my existence mean to me?
What do I want out of it?

For so long I had wanted to **** myself, but I didn’t.
Maybe I wanted to **** myself because I knew how sad my life would be.
Maybe I now know the choices I need to make because of that statement.

All I do is want and want want want—
So much it could eat me alive
If I’m not careful I will  
Swallow myself up whole
Without stopping to take a bite.

I want to run away
Back into the seventh grade
I want to lay my head on my mothers lap
And feel her comb her fingers through my hair

I want to go there
To that moment we became friends
That bond we thought could never end
Our youth spent on wanting to grow up

I want to feel complete again
I fear that was the last time I ever did
Time is my worst enemy
I cannot seem to stop it
From forgetting to pick me up,
And move me along with it.

I’m so starved for conversation
For a friend
I just really want a friend
I just need one
Just somebody who likes to be around me
And we can talk for hours or sit in silence
And still have fun
We could gossip and do each other’s makeup
And I could let them cry on my shoulder
And I could cry on theirs
And they would listen, really listen to me
And understand me

I am alone
I have no friends
Not even one
Nobody likes to be around me,
Or talk to me or even be in the same room as me.
I’m no fun.
I can’t gossip because I have no friends
And my shoulder is hard to cry on
And I cry too much for theirs
My problems are minuscule,
Nobody could empathize with me.

I am sitting alone in my bedroom.
I just got off work.
My boyfriend is still gone.
Nobody is home.
In this infinitely finite pocket of time,
It almost feels as if I do not exist.

The bedroom door is closed,
I picture space and nothingness beyond it.
It surrounds my room,
It creeps in my head.
This cage of loneliness does not leave.

I know right now,
Nobody is thinking of me.
Nobody is wishing they were next to me.
If I were to just disappear,
Nobody would notice.
That is freeing, and terrifying.

Consciousness is a cage
I do not wish to live in anymore