I always let you walk all over me
Like I’m the actual ground you walk on
But I’m tired of the ******* footprints
That you leave on my heart
Thanks to you now I’ll never be the same
For I have the footsteps of a coward left on my soul

The diagnosis is love but it feels more like dying.
You’re under my skin now. I should’ve kept my distance,
but you were an exploding star and I’ve always had
a soft spot for hopeless things.

You, the smoke filling my lungs and the shrapnel
embedded between bones and blood vessels.
You took my body over like a cancer. A silent killer.
First the eyes, when I saw the black hole in you that
wanted to swallow my light.

Then my brain. You infected every neuron with this thing
called hope, like maybe I could love you. Like we could fill each
other and stop feeling so empty. By the time it spread to my
heart, my body felt ready for the morgue.

I’m killing myself with loving you. And I know it sounds crazy,
but pretty much anything can make sense if you love
someone enough. There is a lesson here. Now I know why
they tell you not to look down from tall heights.

Falling to your death must seem so romantic from a
rooftop right under the stars. We don’t build skyscrapers
to get close to God, we build them to remind us that the
only difference between living and dying is gravity.

Does it make sense to say that life is a burning building
and we’re all trying to find the fastest way out? Racing to throw
ourselves out of windows and forgetting to grow wings
for the way down.

I have a sixth sense about these things.
You tasted like disaster the first time we kissed, a little bit
like a dangerous tragedy. But I didn’t think you’d be the death of me.
I couldn’t get you out of my system if I tried, but I’m not trying.

Virus of the heart. You are rusting in my bloodstream,
inventing sicknesses my body does not understand
how to fight. There are worse things, I suppose,
to die for than love.

Things are going to be difficult. There are days where the northern winds will be a balm for your heart and others where it freezes the edges of your soul.
I would never deny to you that some days I feel like I have fallen from the edge of the earth. In the same breath, there are also times when the rainbows in my eyelashes color my thoughts like prisms.
Life is only complete with this contrast between happiness and pain, but that’s not to say you are weak when you are overwhelmed by it all. That makes you human.
You are not defeated and shattered; the proof is in the fact that you are still alive and fighting. I promise you there will be days where the sun shines from your eyes, and I promise you that right now your veins are filled with the stars from the night skies.
You are so much stronger than you think you are.
Only once the cracks are filled with gold will you realize how beautiful something that was broken can still be.

You were the first boy to ever tell me I was beautiful. We stayed up all night together until it was physically impossible to keep our eyes open any longer. You were always high on drugs. I was always high on your voice.

You and I were so innocent. It was a never ending lust. Both of us craved one another, but never said a word about it. After I was gone you told me you loved me. I apologized.

I hate beer, but I drank it so I could have a good time. I kissed you hard.

You tasted like strawberry flavored gum and cheap *****. I was on painkillers and you were drunk. We were never sober when we talked. I knew you were only using me for company, but I still felt the world when I was with you.

You picked me up at midnight to go to a lame party, we drank together the whole ride there. After three shots your arm was around me. You were bad news, but I loved every part of it. I don't remember much from that night, but when I woke up the next morning, your arms were still around me.

Roll me up and smoke me,
Enjoy me while you will.
And as my ashes fall
I'll make your thoughts go still.
With each inhale you take,
I elevate you.
I'm what takes away the ache.

all in a hurl of memories
now i understand
why storms
are named after
people

you traced the freckles
on my back
only to know
where to hit the gun

you were made of
well-structured sentences
that broke people apart

i sat there
trying to make you love me again
like a half-blown dandelion
just a few seconds away
from being dismembered

i ate the words
that you spoke to me
now i am left
alone and starving

now i carve crescent moons
on my skin
hoping they would reflect
sunlight into the darkest
corners of my soul
that you created

every fiber of my body
could burn into ashes
yet still i would
remember how it
once felt when the
warmth of your skin
met mine

but i will not destroy
the petals of these daisies
only to know that you love me not

i know now
that i was just
one of your cigarette breaks.

I was eleven, wondering why everyone was so much happier than I was.

I was twelve, I thought, "Is this really all it is?"

I was thirteen, I knew I wasn't doing something right.

I was fourteen, sitting in the bathtub of my own tears.

I was fifteen, wanting to rip my veins open.
I was fifteen, scratching at my skin.
I was fifteen, staring at that risky bottle of pills.
I was fifteen, plotting to give up.

I was fifteen; I wanted to be dead.

But I realized, I died far long ago.

Every night I spend alone knows your name.

I try to remember your promises;
you carried them in your back pockets.
And I think that if I were to check your
laundry,
I'd still find them waiting in your
shorts,
unfulfilled.

I try to remember what you looked like
the last time I saw you;
how her name was waiting on your lips,
hanging in the air between us
like a thread waiting to be cut.
I remember how you loved my body
and pitied my mind,
and fell asleep with the door open.

I walked home in the snow,
but it was warmer
than laying next to you.

Your soul is an array of colors.
Your voice makes flowers bloom happy.
You're more precious than a spring meadow.
You are full of galaxies, complexities, and contradictions which makes you a universe within yourself.
There are melodies written along your cheekbones and songs being sung through your veins.
If you open your eyes, you can see that there is a sun rising along our horizon cheering for you to be alive.
You are allowed to love, hate, and lust all in one.
You are worth everything you are being put through,
And I hope you feel euphoric, always.

I accidently poured winter
into your tea.
and I think you've caught a chill.
I wish I could have warned you,
but I'm colder than any frostbite
you will ever have.

there is an ocean 
in my eyes. you want 
to hold me close and listen
 to the sea inside, but please 
be aware, i will consume you. 
all of my lovers sink and 
drown in my sadness.
it’s me that floods towns,
destroys the community,
breaks hearts,
and leaves a mess behind.

if i was her, i’d ask about
all of the scars on your hands.
i would trace every callus on your palms
and wonder how life could have been
so cruel
towards someone like you.

if i was her, i'd ask why
you are so self-destructive
towards your own beauty
and wonder how you could be so blind
so naive
to think i didn't love you completely.

i hope you think of me sometimes still.
i hope that when you're driving in your car and hear a love song, it reminds you of me, and how you would sing to me at night.
i hope that when you're playing guitar, you remember how i told you i wish i could watch you play.
i hope that when you sit down on your bed that i never had a chance to lay with you in, you straighten out the sheets and picture me in your head.
i hope that when you hear my name somewhere, you feel a rush of what we had, and wonder what i've been up to.
i hope that you scroll through the contacts in your phone every now and then, thinking about calling me like you used to.
i just hope you think of me sometimes,
and maybe even miss me a little bit,
because i miss you.

i have forgotten how to be myself, as if once when i was walking in a dream i forgot to wake my soul up. maybe it’s curled up sleeping in some far spiral of my fingerprints.
my friend tells me she can’t figure me out. she says the attic light is still flickering but the rest of the house looks dark. she says if you stare too hard at my eyes, you can see a noose up on the roof beam. she says i am standing on a stool, trying to decide if my life is worth taking.
i don’t know how to control myself. i lie awake at night wondering why i did things that make me cringe as soon as they happen. i lie awake asking myself how hard it would be to be normal. i tell myself that tomorrow, i will be perfect. i won’t laugh too loud, i won’t be a burden, i won’t speak unless i have to.
i spend so much time worrying about being perfect that i never get it right.

I do envy those who claim they have never been lonely. I envy that they have never felt that pain like I so often have. But I also pity them. I pity those who haven’t fallen to the lowest depths of human sadness. I pity those who have never climbed down the ladder of depression into the deepest well of suffering. Because if you haven’t experienced the misery, if you haven’t experienced the total absence of everything good, how can you expect to appreciate the joy?

I am a thousand head-collisions of two
tractor trailers and you are the EMTs’
who come and save the motorists I put
in peril. I am that one-too-many shot of
***** that causes someone to crawl
to the bathroom on hands and knees
and you are the friend who holds their
hair back while they dispose of what
made them sick; me. I am the cancer
invading a loved one’s bones and you
are the chemotherapy that brings them
to a full recovery.
You are the beautiful arrangement of rays
that the sun glimmers down on peoples'
faces during the summer time, I am the
numbing frostbite from the coldest and
loneliest night of winter. You're all of the good
qualities made up in a person, and I am all of the flaws.

As a little girl, my mother and father would drive around while smoking in the car, with the window rolled down, as I would roll up the ends of my sleeves clenching them towards my nose to be rid of the smell I have never liked.

I believed that when my parents would smoke around me, I was a smoker too. I had had the scent of a smoker too. But when I was with you, it was different.

That night, not caring how much I hated those sticks of paper as a child, I would watch you put it in your mouth and on your lips, inhaling it until you couldn't any further.  I silently sat in the backseat admiring how you would slowly inhale and exhale the toxic fumes it gave off.

That night, I went home.
I walked in through my back door.
I slid my shoes off and tiptoed toward my bedroom.
I passed my parents' room, witnessing them sound asleep next to each other, peacefully.
I took off my old grey sweatshirt and inhaled slowly, the smell of your secondhand smoke, and smiled.
Because it was yours.

I hated those sticks of paper full of toxic fumes.
I hated the smell of those sticks of paper full of toxic fumes.
Now, myself, I am one of those sticks of paper full of toxic fumes.
We both have touched your pink, chapped lips, got used, and are now thrown away.

Sometimes feelings don’t translate to words.
Sometimes they can only manage to translate to silence. 

And sometimes the best thing you can hope for is having someone to understand the poetry of your quietness.

Sorry I fail at communicating.
    Sometimes I get nervous when I talk; my words don't always come out right.
Sorry about the thing I said.
     I promise it didn't sound that way in my head; I'm trying to get better at that, I promise.
Sorry I'm bad at having conversations.
     I care a lot about what you think of me. Sometimes I get scared that I'll say something wrong, so I won't say anything at all. This is one of those times.
Sorry I don't speak a lot.
      I'm really interested in what you're talking about, I just can't think of things to say right now.
  Some toddlers can hold conversations better than I can.
  Thanks for putting up with me anyway.

Sometimes things aren’t fair and I have to remind myself to keep breathing so I don’t fall apart in the middle of class and I just want to scream but I have no voice in this huge world filled with so many others. It’s just not fair.

Sometimes I think so much it makes my head ache because all the thoughts are like knives in my brain and I used to wince every time one pierced my mind but now I barely blink.

Sometimes I hurt and my chest feels like it’s going to cave in and I can’t stop crying because everything I do isn’t good enough and I will always be a disappointment.

Sometimes I want to die because I see no point in living when my future is a black hole just waiting to **** all the light out of my life and swallow me whole. The stars in my eyes will fade and the planets in my hair will disintegrate and I won’t be able to do a single thing about it.

// Jan 17th, 3:57am //
  I just wanna hold you.

// Jan 17th, 8:38pm //
  Can I have you forever?

// Jan 18th, 9:01pm //
   Really, I just want to hold your hand and run around like stupid idiots together, not caring about what other people think.

// Jan 19th, 9:49pm //
  You're all I care about anymore.
    
// Jan 19th, 10:56pm //
  I knew I loved you the second I put eyes on you.

// Jan 19th, 11:00pm //
   Babe, can we run away together? Just get rid of all the bad things an have it just me and you, forever?

// Jan 20th, 3:20am //
  But I love you. Right now, if I could, I would tell the whole world that I love you. I love you with all of my heart babe.

// Jan 20th, 3:45am //
   I love you so ******* much.

// Feb 22, 7:47pm //
   Baby, you're perfect and beautiful just the way you are. You make me feel like the luckiest man in the world. I love you. Don't you ever forget it.

when someone says
they want to get to know you
make sure to tell them how
you're named after a character in your moms favorite book
that your favorite color is vibrant red
or that you spend your free time sitting at the pier
but make sure you don't say
that when people call your name
it sounds like they are addressing a stranger
because there's been a graveyard
growing inside you
since age twelve
and that you spend a lot of time
deciding what the date
on your headstone will be
and don't explain
that you love vibrant red because
it's the color of relief
when it's dripping down your wrist
and don't let them know
that when you sit on the pier
you daydream of tying rocks to your ankles
and going for a swim

you were the only boy i let close enough to see the blue beauty mark that’s on my left cheek.
you were the only boy i let ******* cherry flavored chapstick that i used to smother all over my lips. (i can't even use it anymore because of you)
you were the only boy i let close enough to see the scars that are drawn across my body in places that people could only see if they cared enough to.
you were the only boy that told me that there were entire worlds hidden in my eyes, that aphrodite, venus, and achlys were nothing compared to me.
and i was so stupid to think that all of these sweet nothings were true.
ever since you left it feels like the lilac sky that used to hover over us has turned into a deep purple, green and blue kind of sky that only comes right before a storm starts.
ever since you left i haven’t been able to listen to the songs that once were my salvation because when I hear them I can only think of your face. the face that has put me through hell, but that same ******* face that made me feel like I was on top of the world.
and even though it’s so ****** up of me to say this, but if you showed up at my door right now saying sorry for making me feel like a black hole that was collapsing in my lungs,
for making me feel so numb that the only thing i can feel was my heart beating faster than the first time you held me.
i would still open my arms and blossom like a flower for you.
you're my weakness.

I became accustomed to the simple life. To the way that boys liked it when I ran my fingers through their hair and toyed with their belts. The way that coffee tasted dull without sugar, and the way that the newspaper was always delivered at three minutes past seven. Doorbells all had the same melody and I was required to tip the waiter seventeen percent of the bill.
       And that's why you scared me. Because complexity followed you like the smoky tail of a cigarette, always near and entirely ungraspable. I couldn't see you as simple, and I was frightened yet intrigued by the way that you reminded me of the ocean; swallowing both the moon and the sun in the same day.