i have a habit of
forming habits of
doing the same thing
until i feel safe

i could write so many ******* poems
about your stupid,
******* face.

early morning grey Greeley
Violet's cats woke me up
and I left her roommate
taking a hit upstairs, just
wanted to leave, just wanted
to leave, didn't want to think
that this was the same kind
of life you were living. i'm
still not used to this you
that I don't even know
still not used to this
you that was there
all
along.

at a point during
the neutral milk
hotel concert, I
wasn't there at
all, I was searching
the crowd for your
a face, any face that
looked like yours.

i tried to write an open letter to your new girlfriend. i sat for hours, writing draft after draft, typing over backspace after backspace, all in vain. i realized at the end of it, i had no words for her. i had no wistful compliments, or tips dipped in nostalgia, or even warnings -- i realized none of those are mine to give. i remembered that there have been at least a dozen girls between me and her; you are no longer mine to giveaway. i am no longer the ex. i was never really the ex, but i am no longer the anything. i'm a girl you used to know. years ago. a girl you'll come across in the yearbook, decades from now, and blink -- was that really her name? you'll swear to yourself that it was more beautiful, back when you moaned it in my ear. you'll show me to your kids, or even your wife, laughing and saying there's my high school . . . you'll pause and stick-in the word 'girlfriend' because it's the closest thing that fits, but we both know better. i was never your girlfriend, i was just your ******* girl.

there is no fondness to this story. there is nothing for you to tell your kids, unless you're ready to ******* jade them; there's the girl who starved for me in year nine, there's the girl who didn't say she loved me until it was over, there's the girl who couldn't function with or without me.

there's your girl. one of your girls. a notch in your belt. now that i think about it, maybe you'll just flip past me in the yearbook. and maybe, if we ever see each other again, all you'll do is blink.