i accepted the apology i never got
the one that was instead replaced by a car door slamming
or maybe it was glass shattering
or the drone of an unanswered cell phone
i cant  really remember
i dont miss your bladed fingertips and how they traced new blood into the scars on my skin
i dont miss how you dodged bullets like hanging questions  - however that saying goes
its true how they say hind sight is 20/20
clarity only comes after the storm has long been passed
ive never been one to long for the rain to fall across my chest because my heart stopped beating the day after the fields flooded
and for the longest time, i would pass your street and imagine myself drowning in puddles and hoping that you were the one to find me face down

i used to think death would be the best payback
that unsaid words would echo in your ears as you tried to fall asleep
but now i take pride in the life that I'm living

the one that no longer lists you as a character

youre not even a footnote

you can question why im calling you out in one of my poems, but youre the one that told me to follow my dreams even if it hurts people.

so if youre reading this or youre out there somewhere waiting for me to drag myself through the mud to find you: *******.

i found myself and thats more important than someone who sits on the sidelines and calls himself a member of the team

Have fun playing with - I mean by yourself.

To the boy who was never mine, but pretended to be

ive been trying to write this letter for months now
im still not sure if it should be an apology
my biggest mistake was thinking that you could fix me
only i can fix me
i shouldnt have let you all the way in
i turned you into a puppeteer
i got ******* even though we said no strings attached
i wish you didnt have to lose me to appreciate me
i hope someday you come across a picture of me watching fireworks
and you wonder how many books i have read since then
or how many times i have re-watched eternal sunshine
or if i still eat ice cream even though im lactose intolerant
or if i ever think of you
I don’t.
i want you to have sleepless nights where your eyes flicker
trying to forget images of me laughing in your passenger seat
i want your heart to ache every time some one mentions my name around you
i wanted so bad for you to fight for me, but now i am glad you didnt
you can have the watch back, time does not exist to me anymore


I cut off every string that leads back to you

love - noun
deep affection, fondness, intimacy
-where your jaw drops to the floor and
your heart beats out of your chest like a cartoon character
past tense
-where time slowed down, or even came to a stop
because you locked eyes with this one person across the room
and your entire future flashed through your mind
like a projector streaming home videos on a
sheet hung upon your living room wall
but it didnt last and eventually time caught back up
and you ran out of film
so again you were stuck holding your own hand

love - verb
adoration, worship, idolize
do you love me?
could you ever love me?

dont answer that

the sickest part
about realizing you are in love with someone
is figuring out that
they don't have to love you back
we believe that
the person that we hold closest to us
should hold onto us just as tightly
sometimes they can't
because they are too busy
holding onto someone else
who isn't holding them back either
and the trend goes on forever.

so after all of this, here i am
sitting on the edge of another strangers bed
coughing up all the 'i love you's that were said to me
but never meant for me
i realize now that curses don't always unbreak
the past is tied to you
like cinder blocks around your ankles
and pressing hard against your chest
like the weight of his other woman
your true loves kiss
wont fix a **** thing
if the love isnt mutual
lately ive learned that
it is sometimes better when you get stuck
kissing your own wounds
and sometimes is always
i never believed that i was somebody
that someone else could love again

thank you for proving me right

the stars are out tonight
trying to call out your name
trying to get you to notice them
do you feel small?
take into consideration
the same God that made millions of stars
also made you
perfect in his image
you are exactly who you are
supposed to be
don't take that for granted

losing you was the beginning of finding myself
the prodigal me had finally returned home but i had been
divided equally in two
you threw your half away
you squandered your wealth in wild living
and women that were not me
i longed to fill my heart with
happiness that had once overwhelmed me
i couldn’t find healing in your hands anymore
i spent months searching for arms
i could trust again

but i couldn’t find those either

the first time i realized
i had taken half of you with me too
i was standing in the bathroom looking in a mirror
describing body parts with your name
this was the first night i took a blood red pen to my skin
and started labeling my arms as madi
my legs as madi
my stomach, my thighs, my neck
madi madi madi
mine.

its hard putting shattered pieces back together
and healing does involve hurting
it also involves recovery

if you would have asked me 12 months ago
which direction i saw my life leading
i would have never pointed you here
sometimes life has a nonsensical way of working out
you always end up where you are meant to be
you will figure this out the hardest way possible

but loving yourself will become the easiest thing that you do
eventually
time will heal all wounds
eventually
you will come home to yourself and not be disappointed
eventually
this version of me was dead and is alive again
she was lost and but i have found her

and im so happy i did

once when i was 11 i read somewhere that you could fall in love with someone just by holding eye contact with them for a number of seconds. i cannot tell you how many hours i would spend in front of mirrors, staring down my reflection hoping to feel something other than my breath on cold glass.

you know the craziest thing to me when i was 12 was that i had never seen my face in person. i mean i'd seen myself in photographs, and i'd obviously saw myself in standing water, or mirrors, or when passing store windows but i had never looked myself in the face for real so maybe that was the problem.

when i was 13 i was in the eigth grade and some boy told me my kiss didnt taste sweet like it was supposed to so i stayed up all night perfecting the combination of chap-stick and lip gloss, and i made smudges all over my mother's make-up mirror in her bathroom, but it still wasnt enough so i left it shattered on the floor and never told her what happened

ages 14-18 i lived my life through glasses and tried so hard to be someone else that i lost sight of who i really was. because people dont want to hear about how you have daily staring contests with yourself, or how you always blink first. people dont want to watch the happiness disappear from your eyes, or see how your reality comes crawling up your throat and sits on your tongue waiting for it's chance to scream help, while your depression runs ramped, changing all of your picture captions to "ugly"

when i turned 19 broken glass and razors became my best friends, and lungs filled with smoke were like breaths of fresh air and i've never told anyone, but there were nights when i didnt come home because i couldnt remember where home was. they tell you that home is supposed to be this safe place where comfort can be found in your own skin, but i wasnt told that home is mirrors covered by sheets, and covering your eyes to anything that showed a reflection because i never quite figured out the trick of falling in love with myself the way everyone else apparently had

i hope that 20 is the year that something amazing finally happens in my chest when i look down at puddles and see myself staring back. i hope when i'm 20 that i'll be able to go through old pictures and not want to cry. i hope that 20 is the year that tolerating myself magically turns into loving myself. that i wont have to constantly replace shattered mirrors or picture frames. i hope the 20 year old version of me will finally be able to look herself in eyes and see more than what's missing. i hope when im 20 this poem wont hold relevancy and that my scars will be faded and the only thing left of this will be a success story

i held your face in my lap
thinking about the countless times
i have traced over freckles and creases
constantly discovering new constellations
never getting tired of your perfect imperfections
i mean that is just how things are
you never experience the same things
in the exact same way twice
you are like watching my favorite movie
for the thousandth time
i know how it ends
i have every line and every scene memorized
but i am still surprised when i discover
new things in the background
its the same with destinations
out of all of the places we have been together
you are still my favorite
i’ve been there before
i have the map memorized
trails only i have walked
parts of your mind only i have seen
but each mental picture i take
has different lighting
or is taken from a different angle
you are my favorite song
i know all of the lyrics by heart but some days
different lines stand out to me more than others
sometimes i like to listen to the acoustic version
and somedays i cant stand to hear it at all
my favorite parts of you are constantly changing and growing
and i am okay with that
you are both my something old and my something new
i am glad i get the chance to experience both parts of you

i use social media as an outlet for my emotions
the only problem is that
most of my mixed feelings develop because
of subtweets and
photos of girls who are not me
isnt it funny?
how the apps on our phones are
both the sickness and the cure
no
you will not go to heaven,
you will eternally reside in
your saved drafts on twitter
i dare you to post your most embarrassing
mine?
"do you ever look at the man you used to love
and wonder why on earth he doesnt cut his hair
and why he started wearing bermuda jorts"
its more embarrassing for him
my love life is now at my finger tips
do you know how many guys want to love
the girl they met on tinder who
hides behind her poetry
and uses harry potter as an escape mechanism?
none
i dared one to text me at midnght
between mispelled words and shots
he completed the phrase
i love .... euphamisms
like when your former self dies you call it
growing up instead of suicide
not my type
i cant stand when people cough in class
it reminds me of choking on
words
my words - the ones i say when i'm not supposed to
or the ones i should've said but never did
all of my pictures are captioned with
phrases and song lyrics that
i read in your voice
i wish that record wasn't broken
i wish i was a wizard
truly i do
with spells like
impedimenta (to slow down your attackers)
i wonder if it would slow down the voices in my head
i wonder if it could slow down you leaving
or my breathing (or lack thereof)
this wasn't meant to be emotional,
but with the world like this
how could you NOT cry
ive spent more nights in the bar bathroom
than i have in my own bed
its true how they say big events are
the most intimate
madi hahn - party of 1
or party of 761
if you count the followers who favorite my
tweets about dying
no one relates to happy poetry
why?
because no one is happy
because. no. one. is. happy.
its a facade - a mask, we hide behind
but then the clock strikes midnight
we're back daring stupid guys
to tell us **** about ourselves that we already know
we burn holes into screens trying to be relatable
we lose the best versions of ourselves
and
we are fine with it as long as
we recieve our fair share of attention

we deserve it

Wearing long sleeves to cover bruised arms
And deleting text messages before bed every night
so my mom wouldn’t see what he was saying
Boys are mean to you if they like you
Boys are really mean to you if they love you
For him, love and hate were two horns on the same bull,
And a lot of the time, he would get the two sides confused
I spent a lot of time Anxiously waiting for his arrival home from school
Tapping pencils on my desk during class
Hoping the clock would just stop moving
I lost many things that semester
My friends, my sanity, 20lbs
I was a book people judged by the cover
Things seemed to be fine
I was fine
I was fine
Never letting anyone else all the way in
It’s hard to ask for help when you don’t know if you need it
It’s harder when you need help, but your scared to ask for it
People accused me of making things worse than they really were,
No one believed me when he drove to my house in the middle of the night
and threatened me until I finally got in his car.
He screamed profanities in my face
And when I went to open the door at a red light, he grabbed my arm
Burning fingerprints into my skin
A lot can change in 4 years
I’ve learned in my lifetime that hurt people are usually the ones
who hurt other people
Hurt people are also the ones that can help people.
Love and hate are two horns on the same bull.
But somewhere along the line
Hate turned into forgiveness
And love grew stronger
And I grew stronger
I realized someone who loves you, will love every part of you. They won't add scars to your body, or heaviness to your heart.

When was the last time you told someone you loved them without them disappearing into the floor? Tell me why you have rugs covering all the places you stood waiting for them to come back

Do you still remember the first time you tried to block the voices in your head? You wrote down every word they were saying until you realized that none of them translated to "I love you, too"

Why did you stop skipping stones? Is it because the ripples reminded you of the calls you received from your lover - eventually becoming so separated that you couldn't tell the difference between the ringing in your ears and reality

Tell me why the faucets in your house only run on Thursdays. How you shower with umbrellas to avoid the thunderstorms and how the rain still always seems to find you

Do you remember the Grand Canyon? How your tour guide explained that water pressure of a river can cut deep into a river bed, you started crying.

Where is the life boat you made? How do you keep something from falling apart with only cigarettes and tissue paper?

Why are all of your shoes filled with rocks? When was the last time you didn't think about jumping into the lake when you had them on?

Tell me how they were your life jacket - how they promised you air at the bottom of the ocean. How you haven't seen them since they jumped - how you hope that somehow they're still breathing even though you aren't.

How you haven't since the day they last did.