they say that love either means everything or nothing at all
and I was never one for in-betweens
but when I wished to stop needing you so badly my bones cracked when I felt you pulling away
I never meant to stop feeling altogether

and I’ve come to realize that if affection isn’t given freely, it’s not worth having
i’ve grown tired of driving down dead-end roads as if I could pave my own way out
and i’ve learned to know that it may look like love, but it feels a lot more like pain
and loving someone who doesn’t feel the same isn’t really love at all
and you could spend the rest of your life waiting for someone to realize they want you in theirs
and I knew, no matter what you said you were never going to be sure of me
so I’ll move move on with the realization that there are better things to come than what I’ve left behind
embracing the endings in what is not meant to be

In my head it's 2 a.m. and you're as awake as I am
heads against our pillows and we're both thinking of each other but neither of us know it
you're missing me
and you're unsure of whether you even knew me well enough to have the privilege of missing me at all
but you miss me for the things we never said
and in my head you're thinking of how you never really got close enough to wrap your arms around my waist
to tell me everything I made you feel and everything you saw coming
that never quite played out how you wanted
In my head even your fingers are sad when you think about my skin
even your lips burn at the thought of never kissing mine again
but it's probably just in my head

I think the sweetest intimacy
isn't the ******* behind your curtain when the sunlight fades
but when I unravel all of the pieces,
stuck to me for twenty years
when you witness the uninviting parts of me
and just as I begin to feel shame come over me
you whisper "Come here, your scars are my favorite part of you"
sometimes I still struggle to see my heart as more than a bruised and beaten burden beating in my chest
but you look at me like it's the first time your eyes have seen sunlight in years
I find my place in-between your arms, passing time with you

If I was the kind of girl who kept her thoughts to herself,
If I could bite my tongue and bat my eyes without thinking so far ahead,
If I knew how to dip my toes in the water without drowning in affection,
If I were made to be subtle and delicate,
maybe it would be easier to find someone to lay beside on Sunday morning.
But why would I want a boy who only loves the watered-down version of me?
I'd rather spend my life in solitude
than beside someone who only wants me on the shallow end.

I know it’s wrong to beg for someone to stay
so what if I just asked politely
or what if we said the same goodbye a hundred times and we never actually reached the part where you walk away
you have to think that we were lucky to know love like this, even if just for a moment
I don’t know how to grieve the loss of you
I don’t know how to stop loving your ghost

to all the worlds inside of me I've tried to hide
for the sake of infatuation
boys like simplicity
so simple I will be
but who am I without my thoughts
who am I without metaphors for love
you want to trace the maps of my skin
without hearing of the places I've been
I refuse to soften myself
for your own indulgement

I broke my own heart when I wrote poems for you
as if you could hear my thoughts
telepathy of some sort
and what's meant for you will find its way back but you never did
the truth is I'm trying to let go with honey on my hands
and I always thought love was patient
but I'm beginning to resent you for the way you're under my skin
and I tried to get you out of my system
but I stuttered when we said goodbye
because I was never good at knowing when love isn't love anymore

I have never known how to be enough
always either exceedingly too much or not quite there at all
I wonder, did you feel like I was suffocating you?
or did you feel like you had to coerce words out of my mouth for me to admit I felt anything at all?
I am reckless in my emotions, impulsive in my words
I spent months learning to pretend I'm not plagued by your memory
I wonder if you spend time mourning what we lost
I wonder if you get a stomach ache when you think about the ending
or if it's a heavy sigh of relief, a warmth against your skin
I wonder if I'm best kept as a memory
tell me, what makes you think of me?
the frizz in your hair, or the bad taste in your mouth?
your worst day or your best- It'd be a pleasure to be any of your days at all

and it's always about the timing or the circumstances
it's always an "I'm busy" text message that fades into days of silence
it's when you notice how he used to compliment your mind
and now he only ever calls you beautiful when you're bare inbetween his sheets
and you tell yourself he's just a boy
this is what boy's do
it will get better
but "you're my girl" turns into "I don't think this is working"
and you're crying again
and you wonder why you keep having the same ending with different people

and you're wide awake in the middle of the night wishing he'd call
and then he'll miss you enough to want you but never enough to stay
and you worry you are so good at finding the wrong love you won't know how to recognize the right

I am still learning how to fill the gaps of the pieces you took when you left
all of the skin you traced knows it will never feel you again
and I like to believe your fingers are aching and your stomach hurts remembering the loss of me
I hope you make something worthy of all your regret
I bet it hurts to know you'll never know the girl that I'm becoming

we used the right words at the wrong time
we were kids, tired of our hometown
cranking the heater and writing poetry with our hands in the humidity on your sunroof
you'd kiss my fingers and talk about us
another us, far from here
where we had already spent mornings in bed that faded into quiet afternoons
I told you I'd miss you and we left the spaces between us as some kind of divine obliteration
I'm forgetting the taste of october
and you are learning how to brave the chill of december without the warmth of me

I heard that you're still waiting
summer came and summer left
and too much has changed to ever dig up what we once were
but if you remember me, remember me gently
the sun peeks in after all the rain in April
and you think of how my skin looked kissed by it
neither of us were born knowing how to love
and I hope someday you get closer to it than we ever did

We planned seven ways to spend the rest of our life the night we met
I borrowed your passenger seat and the inside of your palms
And I still know your hands beneath the blankets, fingers searching for mine
Los Angeles isn’t cold in June but any excuse to be closer to you
somehow 2,000 miles never tainted the longing I had to know you better

You kept a toothbrush by her sink and our phone calls a secret
Grief comes, unaware of the distance
It makes my knees weak and face hot at the thought of my ignorance
Because it wasn’t a moment of weakness, and it wasn’t a mistake
It was 6 months of loving someone who belonged to someone else, blissfully unaware of my fate
Anger turns to sadness turns to anger again

And I know the scars from biting my tongue will heal
And I know my name tastes bitter in your mouth
And I know I’m not the one to blame

The most beautiful part of me is where I’m headed, and it’s a shame you’ll never get to meet me there

tell me you've been thinking of me
how you always preferred roses but you saw sunflowers in my room
and love never seemed less about romance
tell me how your mind aches for me as much as your body
but your knuckles grew white at the thought of his fingers on my skin
tell me what it's like to miss me in the chaos and not just at midnight
all of the words you don't know how to say and maybe that's why you fell in love with mine

I can't stop shaking and I don't think it's the cold
I feel you resting on my skin and it's the same skin you used to trace and I keep burning my body in the shower thinking it will rid the residue of you
we said all of the right words at the wrong time
and I'll walk through a crowded room with a glass in my hand
and I'll try not to notice your voice in the noise of everyone else but I swear it's still the only sound I hear
I'll convince myself I used you the same way you used me and I'll swallow it down with a sip of *****
then swear this is the last night I'm drinking to forget you
I'm training my tongue to stop telling stories of us everytime someone says your name
and when 3 a.m. comes around and I'm tempted to text you my epiphanies on why we went wrong
hoping one might resonate with you and we can try again
I'll remember all the time I spent rearranging the pieces of me that got tangled with yours and hope I never have to love that much again

I never understood the reason I cry before things end
is because the man that was supposed to wake up every morning and tell me I was worthy,
only ever texted me on my birthday to tell me he was proud.
As if he ever played any part in raising the person I am today.
How dare he show his face every other holiday and act as if the good in me came from him.
I've spent the last twenty years using boys to fill his void.
I've spent the last twenty years begging those to stay that were never meant to.
Because the only way I knew to recognize a man's love was in his inconsistency.
You tell me you want me but the daylight fades over and over and I haven't heard from you in two weeks.
I learned when I was 5 years old that a man's words mean nothing when his actions don't align.
I am done giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Mid-day light shoulders it's way through my bedroom window
And I find spring like a letter from an old friend
She's changed, she's traveled, you should hear the things she's seen
I try my best to talk about her, the flowers she's grown and the skin she's kissed
I worry if she asks about me I won't have anything to say
I didn't mean to stay stagnant for so long, it's just I worry about falling too in love with life
I've always lost everything I've loved too much

and if there comes a day where the whole world seems to crumble
if meteorites begin to shake the earth as we know it
and the galaxies beyond us start to swallow our home
if the stars that died one million years ago disappear with the rest of us
tell me you'll still trace poetry on the crevices of my skin even if it's covered in dirt
tell me we'll build a shelter from this planet while it falls apart
nothing can shake this love
asteroids can't destroy us
black holes will never swallow us whole
and know that if the ground we walk ever collapses beneath us
I will find you in another universe- one far away from here
and I'll love you just the same

I'll spend the rest of my days kissing your smile
and thinking of you while I'm folding my clothes
love is practice, a verb
love is the patience you've given without expectation
and when I questioned you, when I wondered if the stars really aligned for us
you showed me that love is a choice
it is not begging someone to stay, but knowing they will everyday
it's never an "you owe me" or being held against the weight of my wrong-doings
it's you and me, in all of my realizations and things I've yet to figure out
it's figuring them out together

time fades and makes it's way through my fingers like my palm is full of rain
and I know that I don't have time to worry about feelings unreciprocated
I'll love without expectation
if equal affection can never be achieved
at least I can be the one who loves more

I saw you smile and I thought about how each time I start something new it feels different
I call my best friend and ask her if I'm foolish for imagining summer next to you
I start to smile in my sleep and see the world through rose tinted glasses
and I tell myself I won't rush in but it's like telling the seasons not to change
winter creeps it's way in and I miss the way fall felt
but you're still here
and I think this time I'll keep us to myself
because something this simple doesn't need an explanation
you keep me calm and I'll keep you passionate
and I can't imagine mornings without you

don't mistake love for lust
he may pry your legs open and kiss inbetween them in a way that makes you feel like you're touching heaven
but if he doesn't talk to your little brother like he's his own
or hug your mom so tight it's as if he's saying "thank you for her"
if he only calls you after midnight
when the liquor running through his bloodstream makes his body ache
he is only looking for someone to meet him at the bottom of a bottle and not someone to trace circles on his hands underneath his parents dining room table
he will keep his thoughts in like smoke he can't exhale
and you will drive yourself mad trying to pry them out of the same lips you thought would heal you
because the truth is no man can love you who doesn't love himself

i pray you find this message
before it's lost in the sea
i pray it finds you
and you find your way back to me

you kissed me until all of the pain evaporated
until the echoes of my past fell to a hush
quietly, suddenly the agony dissipated
like there was no room for it here
you repossessed the places my past called home
you called them yours and I called you mine

you kissed the crevices of my body like I was something holy
no one's ever worshiped my scars like that
but you knelt down to them like they were sacred
I wanted to drown all of my skin in you

It's sort of funny in the saddest way.
To find pieces of myself in a man that was never really a part of my life at all.
I wish I knew you well enough to have memories other than playing trivia at a table by the bar watching you stay well past last call.
Fighting with your wife over who would drive home.
Spending every other weekend you had with me staring at the bottom of empty bottles.
And slurring "I love you's" like I might believe them.
Isn't it all I ever wanted?
To be loved by you?
And does anything ever really change?
Can people really change?
You were sober for 5 years after you almost lost your life.
But now I keep waking up to drunk text messages.
Parallel to your drunken confessions in the middle of the night while six year old me tried to comfort you.
Biting my tongue and staring at the cieling fan so I wouldn't cry.
I don't have to hide the tears anymore because you're in another city and I won't ever tell you how bad you hurt me.
But Dad I keep letting men hurt me who tell me they love me at 2 am and I wish I didn't feel like it's because of you.

I wonder if I'm able to love without making a catastrophe of it.
Is my heart more than a catalyst for tragedy?
I wonder, did you ever feel like you were drowning in my feelings?
did you feel like you were breathing again as you walked away?
did you feel like another muse for my sad poetry?
I didn't mean to try and use you as the glue for all my broken parts.
I'm a natural disaster and the truth is the ground beneath you shook everytime you came close.
My pure intentions always seem to get twisted but I promise you I only ever wanted to love.
I know I'm poison running through your veins.
I know you wanted to spit me out the second you tasted me.

I'll kiss another boy who doesn't know my mind because if he did as well as you he'd walk away the same.
Just know I tried to be simple. I tried until I felt nothing at all.

boys don't like girls whose feelings drip out like water
so I get dizzy off red wine instead of my thoughts
I want to kiss your lips and let you in the fortress I built around my mind
but all the progress I've made will mean nothing
and I can only pretend to be simple for so long until you'll realize I may be too much to love

please don't use my lips to forget about hers
if my hips are thicker and legs smoother  I hope you don't find yourself craving faded memories
I won't let her scars scare me away if you promise to stay when my tears fall needlessly
and God I'd love to say we found each other easily & unscathed
but my bruises are still purple and sometimes I wonder how he is
please believe me when I say he never made me laugh the way you do and I know you only want me on your passenger side
we have loved before but never like this

he asked to undress my mind before my body
to know my 4 am thoughts before his fingers traced my hidden skin
he touches me across oceans; drowns himself in all of my layers
whispers that he wants to visit all of the worlds inside of me
slowly, for he knows the wounds are still healing
but he kisses all of your scars
and I hardly think of you at all

It's a cliche, the way past lovers always come back around
as if it's written on my skin that I tend to forgive more freely than I should
as though they are checking in just to see if I'm still waiting
hours, days, months spent shoving their name down my throat
to convince myself the ending was mutual
and then one day, long after the waiting turned into progressing
they have the audacity
to ask if I'm still anticipating their realization that they 'loved me all along'
to ask if I still want them, because suddenly they feel alone
suddenly they need me
but I am taking every step in the opposite direction of you
I am worth more than a second-thought, than the regret you feel from walking away

I need to work on my patience
traffic brings out the worst in me and waiting in line makes my hands shake
but for you
for you I'd wait ten lifetimes
it is perfectly fine that I do not consume all of your thoughts
I think mine are enough for the both of us

sometimes I wonder what it would have felt like to call you mine
to get lost in a sea of blankets
and hear your voice on my walk to class
I'm still holding your secrets like porcelain resting in my bones
there are nights where my mind is lost in the confessions we never made
and I find myself missing someone I never even had
isn't it pretty to think of what we could've been?
you'll always be my favorite almost

if my father has taught me anything in twenty years
it is to avoid a man with any resemblance of him
and it's not that I feel sorry for myself but if we're being honest
he broke my mother's heart before mine was ever intact
and I was born trying to piece together a mess of a man with no intentions of being saved
because I believed every drunken "baby things will be different soon"
and I thought that if you loved someone it meant pulling them out of the pit they dug themself into
so I keep letting people fall temporarily in love with me
and trying to fill the gaps of my past with boys with their own open wounds
hoping my words are a scapel until they realize I'm just a human and not a surgeon
I just knew what it felt like to have your heart ripped into shreds before I even knew what organs were

I want to be the hand that you hold in the morning hours and not just when the fear of the dark submerges you
what is love if it's only in the shadows
I want to be the lips you chase and not to replace those you once knew but because you can't imagine the feeling of yours against anothers
I want to be your resting place, the soul that you're homesick for
I want my chest to be the dwelling your tired mind finds, as if this body was made just for you

when you find yourself entangled in your own empty bed sheets
9 pm on a Tuesday and thinking of my velvet skin
when you begin to miss me and my wild thoughts and the way I never knew better than to speak them
keep it to yourself
don't you dare tell me about the way you turn over at 4 am and forget I'm not there to pull closer
don't call and say you wish you would've done things differently because God knows I gave you that chance
don't be selfish anymore
just let me be and let me believe you didn't care the way I always thought you did

there are days where I worry I have done nothing but tangle myself in regrets
I keep writing poems about my past hoping to cleanse it out of my system
because most days I feel more shame than growth and I forget what all of the rain was for
I was almost better, but almost doesn't count for much
I'm tired of watching the sun rise and fall from the same place hoping somone will save me from myself
my thoughts are so loud I'm burying myself in them
but something inside of me has survived all of the suffering and still wants to carry on
something in me knows that this is not the end

if you remember me
remember me curled up in your duvet watching you play guitar
remember my hair caught in your mouth and the way we'd laugh in between kisses
remember our firsts and how wonderful they were we couldn’t help but come back for seconds and thirds
remember how the parts of me and the parts of you kept getting tangled in each other
how when we walked away we were both left trying to separate the two
remember me and I hope it's easier to breathe knowing the kind of love this world has to offer

if this is what the wrong love feels like can you imagine us when we find the right

I will not exhaust myself for the sake of making ends meet and let my dream wilt away
I refuse to settle, to find myself engrossed in a mundane life
in a town where the people are all pretending to not be miserable
I have spent too many minutes trying to fit the mold of what I thought I had to be
I want to believe I can come back to myself
like an old friend at a corner booth, caught in city winds
a foreign place but a feeling all too familiar
I'll meet her in a coffee shop, writing with ink stained fingers
this is the me I've always liked the most

I wanted to write about walking away
the two of us, fading away from each others view
I'd decorate it in poetry as if it were anything more than another premature ending
but all I'm left with is shrines in the form of mixtapes
and days spent wondering what it would feel like if I was still in the backseat of your car
instead of sitting upright in the passenger side of his
he says he likes the song I'm playing
but I think he'd hate it if he knew it's just another epitaph for the nights I spent with you

He smelled like a bar I was too young to get into and marlboro lights
just for a while, I wanted to live something new
to wake up to pancakes in the morning and kisses on the cheek
instead of with my heart broken from the night before and a sinking feeling in my stomach
I hated you for the things you chose over me and the love you never gave
I hated you because a daughter should never have to beg her father for a relationship

some people were born to face more pain than all of the others combined
a stroke of luck or a generational curse
but don't assume my sensitivity adds up to a lack of strength
you touch me like I'm glass- like I may fall apart at any given moment
but I am not a mess for you to clean
I'm strong because the world has broken me more times than I could count
and I still approach love with the kind of vulnerability some may call ignorant
but I am not naive for believing in something so pure my scars won't make a difference
I am simply learning how to **** out those not meant for me

I am aware of the reality of you and me
but I like to believe that in another life we are what we aren't in this one
and I'll never tell you but the spaces between us became so comfortable
I felt like I'd spend my whole life waiting for you to fill them
I've become aquantainces with the truth and I know someday I won't think of you at all
but still sometimes I imagine us, in that alternate universe
the sweetest escape from what I am so painfully aware of

I want to create silence with you
to know your crevices and patterns
your good intentions and bad habits
please be patient with me
I grew up learning to make a fortress out of my fears
to find comfort in inconsistency
I'm sorry if the way I built my walls ever makes it difficult to see
and if you don't want to stay say it now
because I'm starting to feel at home when you sit next to me
I'm not sure of much but I'm sure of you

This is how it starts.
It's promises that feel like contracts and the feeling that this time, you got it right.
It's parking lot confessions and I like you so much it hurts.
It's I'm scared to lose you and you aren't even mine.
It's everything that's hurt has led me to you.
It's don't get out of the car, kiss me one more time.
I don't want to sleep without you tonight.
It's sunday morning.
It's a feeling in your stomach that makes you sick.
It's disappointment and it's why didn't I see this coming.
You don't want to feel it, but you can't help but drown in it.
It's bad timing.
It's do you still think of me?
It's 2 a.m.
It's don't answer that because I'm terrified of your response and ignorance is bliss.
It's bringing up memories that I should've put to rest the day you changed your mind.
It's crossing the street to avoid me.
It's my lip burning at the thought of never kissing you again.
It's I deleted your number and you're in a different city and I hope I never feel this much again.
This is how it ends.

I left you like a bad habit
I couldn't stop biting my nails but I can go weeks without thinking of you
there were days when your bedsheets were my home
and I don't lay awake thinking of the way she's tangled in them
but when he kissed me I looked to see if you were watching
and for a moment I wondered if you wished you were him

I always wondered about storms
if walking through the mud ever did anything besides ***** up my shoes
and make me think of what it's like to breathe without fear of being left behind
my dad always swore he loved me but I only remember him by bar stools and beer bottles
the sound of rain against windshields on the way to his house
was it my fault I've never seen him on my birthday?
the thing about storms is they never have mercy
they don't care about the one that swallowed you yesterday
and it rained for twenty days straight but I still wasn't clean

maybe it's easier to fall in love with strangers because they'll never watch while they rip you apart
they won't shy away at your tendency to say more than necessary or the thoughts you shouldn't speak but always do
they don't ask for quiet corners or hidden love or pieces of your heart without knowing the whole
if you were never mine or I yours there's no worry in my memory holding onto you
no 4 am whispers or hands feeling empty when you're gone
and he'll love me unconditionally because he'll never know enough to stop