this is a poem about how you sleep,
how your body grew cold like a corpse in a mortuary.
how it felt wrong to reach out and touch you.
did you know that you turned away from me
every time i tried to face you?
did you do it on purpose?
maybe you were afraid i would be able to see
you were dreaming of her,
that i would read it on your face.
lines by your mouth like obituary,
like roadmap, her bedroom,
the destination, mine, a pitstop.
loving you was like attending a funeral service for myself
and sitting in the front row. no.
loving you was like watching you pick out a casket
and call it practice. ****.
i know how sensitive you are about death.
i know it still hurts.
i know how everything hurts.
i am sorry for just being another thing that hurts.
i think i'm afraid to let you forget that you used to want me.
like if i can somehow dig deep enough,
wound you into remembering me.
i keep weapons-grade nostalgia in my back pocket
for the days i can feel myself slipping from your consciousness.  
i was born with scar tissue where skin should've been.
but this isn't about me.
this is about the way you sleep
like you're waiting for someone to close the lid,
cover you in dirt, and read a psalm.
this is about the way i tried to sing your pieces back together,
and the way my voice gives out
when i read the things you write for anyone other than me.
lover, friend, stranger,
i just wanted to show you how to love your darker parts.
i never meant to become one.
i am so ******* selfish.
but i swear i am trying to unlearn the steps.
and you used to think my two left feet were charming.
i am out of time in more ways than one.
i keep stepping on your toes.
i can't seem to stop tripping you up,
hoping that you'll fall back into whatever this was.

- m.f.

I’m wearing the sweatshirt you cried in
and I laugh to myself as I imagine you apologizing
for the salt stains on the cuff.

I’d say I forgive you,
like it was actually something
needing to be forgiven.

And maybe you’d believe me this time.
Small steps.

And maybe you’ll believe me next time.
Proper goals.

We used to say to burn to death would be
excruciating
But love,
You do not know
The extent of excruciating;
The pain of losing you.
To me now,
Burning to death
Would be a pleasant escape,
Compared to having to
Take breaths
And live each day
Without you being mine.

I am the filth of my mother's womb.
I am the earth beneath my brother's tomb.
I'd rather drink from the cup that had your blood
than the clean white one outside by the fountain.

I am a dark spot on the clearest piece of cloth. I am
the dark that kills the day. I am the dark that hides
my mother's blood. I am the dark that swallows you
entirely. I am the dark that swallows light.

I am a black hole.

I am the black hole that swallows myself. I am
the black hole that presses on your wounds until
the blood comes gushing out and into my mouth.
Gushing and gulping.

I am the knife that cuts you into pieces. I am the
***** that digs into the earth for holes that will
contain my brother. I build my brother's tomb
and I fill it with the filth from my mother's womb.

Seasons fade
into the years
a pen ablaze
with poet’s tears

A young boy
must be a man
to please the one
he never can

A girl in pain
lamenting fate
her trickster gods
arrived too late

Everyone took
and no one gave
an empty race
to fill a grave

Hearts are broken
love’s a *****
start a party
throw a war

I fear that I
forgot to say
I love you
it’s too late today
No more tears
to write or cry
alone at night
still asking why

this is not a poem. this is a plea. this is me begging you to hear me when i tell you that i love you. my voice is weak and shaking like the branches of a willow in the wind. my hands are trembling like tremors under the surface of the earth. my vision is so blurred that i can barely focus my eyes as i type. i can feel the impending collapse of my lungs as they are further crushed by the weight of all my anxieties. my strength is fading, but i'm still screaming for you, only you don't seem to hear me. i'm reaching for you but you won't take hold of my hand. i swear to god i'm trying with everything i have to hold you together, but i'm terrified it's not enough. the very thought of your nonexistence consumes me in a fear i have never known. i have never been good at telling people i need them, but i can tell you how vacant this world would be if you left it. everything would change. you can't come in to my life like you did and then just leave it with no warning. you can't do that to me. you can't tell me that you want to marry me and then try to disappear without so much as a goodbye. you just can't. so i don't mean to make you feel guilty, i just need you to understand. don't you know what it would do to me if you left? how many times are you going to almost-die before you realize i will never be the same if you do?

i kept my hatches battened but that
didn't stop your love from barreling toward me
like a runaway freight train with faulty breaks.
and god almighty, did we crash.
you came to a screeching halt at my doorstep
and i didn't know what else to do but let you in.
you looked so cold. we did not start with a spark but a full-on fire.
i told myself i wouldn't fall, instead i jumped.
our sinking frames somehow morphed into life preservers,
and we managed to keep each other's heads above the waves.
we had seemingly saved one another.
you tossed your pills, i flushed my razors, and for a while that was enough.
but we learned the hard way that even the deepest love
can only keep the storm clouds in your mind at bay for so long.
eventually our cracks began to show.
missed calls and silent hours built houses of cards
that were blown down by too many miles.
we hardly ever smiled anymore.
my hands were sieves and yours were sand.
i want to break the hands of the clock
that cursed us with this bad timing.
i have mourned all the hours i won't ever have with you.
i have felt the thunder that rumbles in my lungs
when i reminisce about the memories we'll never make.
the moment i realized i would never wake up beside you
an atom bomb went off in the center of my chest.
but the radiation is what's killing me.
the life is being drained from me here in the wake,
in the ache of your absence. but i won't beg.
i will live out the remainder of my days
tormented by wondering if maybe in another world
our love is perfect and neither of us bleed.

- m.f.

I’ve got these worn clotheslines
and street wires humming across my brain

in cold winters chill you told me I was eloquent
but I still cannot seem to remember your name

I stopped smoking to make room for you in my lungs
You didn't find that suitable enough so you left

We are the same person if your bed
has held more people in it than your heart

I see this warmth of a summer day
but I can never know the touch of it on my skin

I wonder what it feels like to be kissed by the sky
Probably kind of like kissing

**you