i've been doing a lot of leaving lately and it's getting exhausting.
i keep getting all tangled up and just when i think all the knots are out,
i find new things to wind me up.
i keep trying to unravel myself,
but lately vulnerability sounds less like something i want
and more like a punishment for who i used to be.
all i know is i want some stability.
i feel like i've been walking a balance beam from april until now,
and i just need to sit down.
i've always liked vertigo,
but lately every breath overwhelms me.
i just want something solid.
i wanna be your blanket
or your mattress,
anything but the rug you leave your boots on when you come in the door,
and i can handle being my own mobile home,
but i'd rather be someone's bedroom.

she’s sweet like wasabi
and wicked like cinnamon.
she sleeps alone and she lives alone,
but she has the trees and the dirt and the birds,
so she isn’t really alone.
there’s ivy vining its way up her legs,
and cobwebs collecting around her chest,
but she holds hope like an amulet,
like someday someone will brush them away.
breathing isn't always easy for her
because she still carries the moon in her chest,
so she's got a heartbeat like a hex.
she’ll spider her way into your heart,
but before you know it she’ll disappear.  
she’ll be here as long as she can,
but she’s dangerously human.

i used to think my body would look prettier in a casket
but i spent hours looking at it in a mirror anyway.
sometimes I feel like my body doesn’t want me in it anymore,
or like my mind is trying to trick me into leaving.
my aching limbs and tired heart make me feel like
my body has been around for longer than I’ve been in it.
it's only just now starting to feel like it's mine
because when enough grown men yell at you from their pickup trucks
and enough frat boys shout at you from their porches,
you start to learn that your body isn’t really yours,
and it took me too long to be upset about that.
because when i stopped eating, i was the only one
who could feel that pit in my stomach,
and the only one who had to live in my exhausted body.
and i’m still not sure if i liked that or not,
but i do know that it made me feel strong.
and it took me too long to unlearn that feeling.
that safe feeling i’d get when i was all wrapped up in my hip bones and clavicles
and the waist i was always so scared to spill out of.
it took me years to learn that a cold heart isn't a blessing
but my feet still haven't gotten the message
i carry worry in my teeth
and shyness in my ankles,  
i’m filled to the brim with feelings that
mix together so much, i can't tell which is which anymore,
and i overflow so often that i should be drowning in saltwater by now.
my heart races so fast,
it's a miracle i’m still alive.
but on those days when i’m held together with safety pins and good intentions
when i wear lipstick like armor and couldn't look you in the eyes if i tried
i will curl my knees against my chest
and hope that that will be enough to keep me in my body.
my body, that’s filled with endless love and cruelty
but not enough courage
it’s an argument i can’t win
it's a house i’m locked inside of,
but i’m not planning on going anywhere.

i can smell saltwater when i walk outside
and it's like my body is finally home.
this little ocean town makes me feel safe and restless.
it makes me feel like falling in love
or getting so drunk i can't stand up
and i'm not sure i know the difference anymore.
i'm not sure i want to stay standing
and i don't know what's good for me anymore,
or maybe i do know and i just want the opposite.
either way, this saltwater is making me want to make a mistake.
i just want to let the ocean swallow me whole because nothing else seems to be able to.
i wanna waste away in this tourist town for the rest of my life.
i want to let the ocean's salt rub my skin away
so then maybe i won't feel so trapped.

i know sometimes you forget that i still exist when you’re not around.
i forget that sometimes too.
i know that no one has the right to rest their happiness on my shoulders
and i know that if i can't count on someone
i don't have to make sure they can count on me
and my fingers are the only ones i ever count on anyway.
i give because i don’t know how to take.
i pour out because i don’t know how to let you in.
and mostly it isn't even feel real
it doesn't come from my kindness,
it’s just all i know how to do.
it's automatic.
even if i don’t care about you,
i want you to feel cared about.
it’s like the less loved i feel,
the more i try to make sure other people feel loved.
because i can't control how people treat me
but i can control how i treat them.
i just don’t know if i can do it anymore.
i’m wearing thin and it feels like there’s not much of me left
and i feel like i have to save whatever leftovers there are for other people.
i always come home empty.
so i’m done feeling like the heels you keep in the back of your closet,
because you can’t just put me on when you want to feel better
and take me off when you’re done.
i'm not the porch light you forgot to turn off
and i'm not your one-word text message
i'm more like your right hand,
like you don’t even realize how important i am
until i’m too broken for you to keep using me.
i’m not here to help you **** time
and i don’t just exist when you need something.
i'm not your morning coffee
you can’t just pour me out when you’re done with me
because i pour out so much already
and i’m exhausted and you're not around
and i'm stuck cleaning up your mess
so that i can ignore how much of a mess i am.
it's like i'm last the last domino  
people fall back on me but i don't have anyone to fall back on.
i expend because i don't want to be expendable.
but if you were giving something back
i wouldn't mind giving so much of myself to you.

you see women like roadmaps,
wanna know how far they can get you
before you leave them crumpled on the floor of some gas station
you’ll never see again in your life.
you think i’ll help you find your way,
but i’m too lost myself.
i know you’re trying to figure out where you’re going,
but my veins won’t mark your path;
my lips won’t take you anywhere.
my heart’s not a compass as much as it is an alarm clock,
but i know you’d be gone long before morning anyway.

what i know is that when you’re standing on a beach,
the ocean looks like it never ends,
but that doesn’t change the fact that it eventually does.
so i know everything ends,
even when you can’t see it coming.
i know that someday soon,
this will all be taken away from me.
right now, you’re the only one who can make my heart pound,
so what’s gonna happen to it once you’re gone?
you’re still the only thing i feel like writing about.
whenever you reach out,
i move towards you,
even if i wasn’t the one you were reaching for in the first place.
you’ve got me feeling trapped and i kinda like it,
i kinda don’t wanna feel free again.
even when i’m hiding from you i’m still moving towards you.
i've spent a lot of time this summer wanting to drown myself in the ocean,
or to dive into it so i can feel small and insignificant,
or just let it take me somewhere new.
but now i’m landlocked again, and i just wanna drown myself in you,
because you’re the closest thing i can find to saltwater.
i want someone to touch me like they're a cigarette
and it's been too long since i’ve been burned,
and i think you're the only one who could do that.
i want you to touch me like you're a knife and i'm looking to see blood.
but you should know that i don’t keep my hand on my pocket knife anymore
when we’re walking alone at night, and i need you to know how huge that is.  
you should also know that i’m afraid of you,
but lately i’ve been acting reckless,
so i’m okay with puting my trust into someone who terrifies me.
i told the world i wanted some trauma and then there you were.
my world will quiet down once you’re not in it anymore,
and i don’t think i’m ready for that.
i know someday you won’t even remember my name,
but i bet i’ll still remember the way you smell.
everything comes to an end, even if you can’t see it from where you’re standing.

i've decided i'm done rooting around my closet trying to find skeletons
i'm realizing i don't need to bury everything right away
it's okay to still have secrets
it's okay to still have ghosts
it's okay to be a little broken
tearing yourself open to get to the poison
can hurt even more than leaving it there.
sometimes you have to have a little faith
that you're strong enough to handle a little poison.

lately i’ve been feeling like  lukewarm water
or a kitchen without spices.
i’m bored of everything i’m made of,
and my skin is making me feel restless.
how do you write about what you’re feeling when you’re not feeling anything?
so when i say, "give me something to write about,"
i don't mean for you to give me some english class writing prompt.
what i mean is that i want you to make me feel something worth writing about.
i want you to press  recklessness into my solar plexus,
plant hope in my tear ducts or **** me in public.
break my heart however you can,
just pretend like i’m not as fragile as i really am,
because i don't need a thunderstorm,
i need to get hit by lightning.
since lately i've been looking for trauma,
and i know that ****’s not healthy.
i've already broken open every
every scar i still have,
so give me some new ones.
it’s just that lately everything is making me sigh,
so why don’t you do the same?
if you can take every bored sigh still in me
and twist them into something more interesting before i breathe them out,
you’re what i’m looking for.
just don't be surprised if you show up in a poem.

i used hold onto sadness like it was what kept me afloat,
not what was drowning me in the first place.
i thought my pain was poetic,
that my self-hatred was what made me lovable.
i’m not like that anymore.            
now, i don’t think about myself like a problem that needs solved
or like something that needs to be glued back together.
i treat myself like something precious, not something damaged.
because i fought a war with myself,
and i deserve to enjoy the spoils.
but not everyone knows that,
because my voice is still quiet and my eyes still look sad.
i know what you think you see when you look at me,
but i promise i'm not what you're looking for.
you want a girl who looks at you like you’re the sun  
when she hasn’t seen the sky for weeks,
but looks at her reflection like her body is a photo album
billed with pictures that hurt to look at.
who never has a kind word to spare for herself,
but somehow always has enough for you.
who will hold her body out  to you like a white flag.
that won't ever be me.
i’m not as sweet as you want me to be
and i’m meaner than you think.
and i might not tell you to *******,
but i sure as hell won’t *******.
you want my thighs wrapped around you,
but you don't know the work it took for me to love them
so why should i let you?
i’ve spent most of my life starving myself of self-worth,
so now i eat vanity for breakfast.
i've spent too long thinking you needed to be broken to be loved,
but i now i know that that isn't true.
you want someone you can rescue,
but i can do that myself.  
so don’t think my doe eyes mean that i’m just a fawn who need your shelter,
because you might be a maple tree,
but i’m the whole **** forest.

i can't drink hot apple cider without thinking about the house
with uneven kitchen counters and gloomy walls.
back when i used to steal rachel’s cinnamon
and stay locked in my room whenever i heard people talking in the house.
the year i lived in that house was the year jenny and i did a full moon ritual
to cleanse ourselves of whatever was weighing us down.
we broke bottles against a wall
and spent hours talking about  the tattoos we wanted
and the people who made us feel like the walls were closing in.
i let omar pay for my concert ticket and my drinks
until he wouldn't let me pay for his.
i told him i wasn't interested in boys,
but then in january i fell so hard for a boy who left the country,
i had to find a new word for myself.
i didn’t believe in ghosts,
but i knew our house was haunted
because i could hear the piano playing at night
and there were some nights i had to stay up until dawn
because i couldn’t fall asleep in the dark.
that was back when i used to walk everywhere,
and when i closed my finger in the door
and had to start painting my nails to cover up the black spot.
that winter was the worst.
my feet got stuck to the scale
and i decided to stop eating and keep smoking
until the number i saw was less than three digits.
i was so deep in my own head,
i didn’t notice how everyone i was close to was drifting out of my life.
i cried on my nineteenth birthday
and spent a night drinking so much
i came home and fought with rachel
and was as honest as i needed to be.
so in january i started packing up shoe boxes
and taking them with me every time i went back home.
the fort st. house was never my home,
i just lived there.
jenny and turner had two black cats,
and i still wonder if they split the cats up when they broke up.
i always thought i’d get to see willow grow up.
i wanted to live alone so bad,
and most of the time it’s exactly what i need,
but sometimes i miss those late night conversations on my bed
or having someone to talk to while i cook dinner
or even just knowing you’re sharing space with another living being.  
but if i could relive any part of that year,
it would be sitting under that november full moon with jenny,
reading our secrets to each other
before setting them on fire.
that night we went to her parent’s house and ate cookies and drank tea
and we stayed up late and watched practical magic
and i still have those secrets written down somewhere
and i hope they're not still true.
i want to believe we really did work magic that night
because i wanna believe something about that year was permanent.

i think that fragile people are attracted to me
like someone who is lost in the woods
would find a berry bush,
but they don't know i'm poison.
i look like someone who will be gentle with you,
but that's just the surface,
and if you scratch it neither of us will get out in one piece.
i wouldn't go out of my way to hurt you,
but i might not go out of my way to keep you safe either.
so run while you still can.
run, don't even give me the chance to hurt you.
stay away from sunshowers like me.
my sunny skies will keep you so distracted
you won't even notice the rain
until you're soaked to the bone.
so stay away from my cold war heart
and my civil war mouth,
for both of our sakes.
i'm sorry i smile like i want  you safe.
i should come with warning labels,
with signs that say "beware,"
and caution tape around my heart.
i should look poisonous, not innocent.

you always wanted to love yourself
but the timing was never right.
you're a worried sunday
and a vicious compliment
and you're fading away.
you're a rusty nail posing as a daisy.
you're still the only one who knows me.

i spend a lot of time thinking about you
and on one hand, i hope you think about me all the time too
but on the other hand, what a waste that would be,
because the one thing more frustrating
than the person i want not wanting me
is for both of us to want each other but for nothing to come of it
still, i hope you think about me more than sometimes.