i was so afraid of losing you
that i held you tighter
but i was so afraid of holding you
that i lost you
i don't know what i'm doing with my life, so i'm holding onto little things and i'm sorry if you're one of them

Sometimes I want to peel the skin back from my body and expose you to the skeletal system too dry and brittle to hold all of my sadness in
And other times I want to replace my deflated organs with the brightness of your eyes and watch emotions and balance play out perfectly in front of your body
You have the world behind those eyes and I want to fall into them.  Get lost in them. I want to lay blankets and pillows down in your eye sockets and sleep to the rhythm of your blinking. I want to fan myself with your eyelashes and warm myself with your tears.
If only you could feel the void you create whenever you close your eyes, you would realize how much impact you have on life around you.

I don't ever want you to close your eyes

you want to save the world
be a hero
you're my best friend
dressed in combat boots
'Marines' on your back, on the way to pt

riding in your old Chevelle, on the way to take me home
blasting our music and singing at the top of our lungs
the wind blowing in and out of the car
because driving with the windows down makes you feel free

you make me feel free
when we walk from class to class
talking about things that don't matter
but i couldn't talk about those things with
anyone else

anyone else would look at us and say
we have the deepest fears
but with you in charge
with you by our side
there's absolutely nothing to worry about

i want to treat your heart like a blackboard
and write my name in white chalk
across the middle in big letters
i tried so hard to keep you around
but the problem with chalk on a blackboard is that
it can be erased and replaced so easily

hi
i wish you were here
i miss you so much
i'm so sad

there's no worse feeling than feeling like an imposter in your own body
when scratching an itch on your wrist feels rude
when sleeping in your own bed feels criminal
when dressing yourself feels perverted

i don't have a perfectly messy ponytail
my hair is chopped and styled in all the wrong directions
my skin is always too oily no matter how many times i wash my face in a day
i don't read nearly as much as i used to
my thoughts aren't "deep and insightful"
i won't reply to your text messages as quickly as you'll want me to
i write ****** poems that have no business being on a poetry website
my heart is too warm and too cold all at the same time
i have white scars on my body that spell out nothing but "weak"

but my eyes are a chocolate brown that could drown all of your sorrows
my small fingers are enough to lock hold on your heart
whenever i do reply to your messages, you'll have my full attention
my scars will fade
and my pores will shrink
my laugh will slice through the worst of times
and my size 6 feet will walk all over your demons

i needed a way out
so i called you
i had to fill myself back up with something that wasn't vile
and i still can't figure out why i thought you could do that for me
39 minutes of small talk
filled with repeated "how are you?'s" for lack of better conversation
39 minutes of small windows of silence hoping you could carry me with your words

instead all i got was 39 minutes of disappointment
once i realized that i had become more empty than before i dialed your number

i fall in love with at least 3 people a day
it's a disease, really
i fall in love with the way people glance down at their hands after being caught silently giggling with a baby bouncing happily on his mother's lap
i fall in love with the way people blink rapidly in attempt to regain their vision after rubbing their eyes so hard that stars are all they see
i fall in love with the way people grin sleepily when they snap themselves awake after nearly collapsing on a stranger's shoulder on the subway
perhaps this is something i should worry about
but for now, i'm okay with loving people temporarily

it's almost like when Vincent van Gogh ate yellow paint because he believed it would make him happy
i want to engulf your passionate fury and turn it into something we can both share
trying to spin the wheels on your spiderwebbed heart and watch the cogs rotate around a new start
swallow your inhibitions whole like a hunter and his prey
stare into the hearth behind your eyes and wait until my desire reaches the logs resting in your chest, igniting them with a flame so rich you lose all consciousness
wake up and find your hands searching for mine

my thoughts sometimes keep me up until 2 in the morning.
selfish things can't let me go quite as easy as you did.

since i can't be found in your heart, i hope you find me in other little places
like in the folds of your bed after a long day of work
or
in a commercial advertising a movie i dragged you to see
or
in the bobby pins and hair ties i "casually" left on your bedside table
or
in the letter i gave you spilling my guts (in which i still stand by)
or
in the old text messages i have banned myself from looking at
since i can't be found in your heart, i hope you'll find me in distant places
like 2 months from now
or
6 years from tomorrow
just find me, please. **because i'm still waiting for you.

i used to think it mattered that you never wanted to talk to me
i also used to think it mattered that everyone else got the chance to know you and i didn't

but you're just a person
you'll live and then you'll die
you'll be buried in the ground and flowers will adorn your grave
but before that
you'll burn your tongue on too-hot coffee and get scrapes and bruises when you fall
you'll get hangnails and scream when you try and pick them off
your feet will get sore from work and you'll buy the wrong size of shirts for your sister's birthday and she'll get sad

it's taken time to realize it
but you're just a person
and i don't think anything matters much anymore

it's nearing 3am and i can't really breathe comfortably
i'm thinking of being somewhere else
thinking of seeing new things
i think i could be losing my mind
i don't want to try and describe to you what's in my head because then it wouldn't be just mine
and see, i need something that is just mine, privately
because sometimes i don't feel like me
i think i could be losing my mind
i can see visions of myself in other forms
a mailman making his routes in Philadelphia
a woman in the waiting room of a hospital in the Bronx
a bee on the side of a tree in Georgia

i don't remember where i was going with this
it's 3am and i can't really breathe comfortably

everyone writes of "moving on" and "looking to the future"
as if things really do get better over night!
i'm still waiting for that, but my irritation has me second guessing nights such as those really exist

i've been thinking about a lot of things lately
but not nearly as much as i think about how everyone around me seems to be so good at being human beings
and i can't help but wonder
while i'm laying in bed on New Years, hoping that my next breath would be my last and instead hearing the fireworks going off and exploding into the eyes of a "new beginning"
is there any other way out?

"Everybody gets a second chance"

I'm more attractive in the form of a letter. There's no stuttering and no 'uh' in the place of 'I love you', only ink spills that can be disguised as abstract mistakes, but beautiful nonetheless. Maybe you were too afraid to make the drive and tell me to my needy and confused face or maybe you just didn't want to smell the orange juice and Marlboro's on my breath when you get to the point and all I do is stare blankly at you with my mouth open.

This isn't for the dancers dancing under the lonely streetlights with their partner, Jack Daniels coarsing through their pathetic veins
This isn't for you, sound asleep in your down comforters while your air conditioner sings to the household
This isn't for you, completely unaware of exactly how much you mean to me that after 4 months, I'm still crying every night
This is for me. For the one who can't cry herself to sleep because she can't sleep and for the one who can't "eat her feelings" because she can't eat. Yes, this is for the one who's heart is too big for her sleeve.

i don't care about the color of your wallet or
how worn the sole of your shoes are
i just want you to ask me things
with question marks filled with concern

i had the weirdest dreams last night
and finally, *you weren't in them.

somehow with the small specks of dirt under my fingernails
and the skeleton in my closet to keep me company i still manage to cower
under heaps of blankets
and wait for you there

give me time
because i need it
my fingers are bruised and my ribs are sore
my veins are dim and old
imprints left on my face from laying
on that burgundy mess
the flowers in your hair refuse to speak
i don't know how much longer i can look
at your waiting face

there aren't anymore sentences tucked away
in my brain
no more clever metaphors
only raw, grammatically incorrect lines
so i'll keep trying to put together words
in the form of pencil and paper and
try my best not to set them on fire

I get lost in thought
More often than not
And more often than not
I'm thinking about you
When I'm thinking about you
My breath slows and my heart gets big
"We live and we learn" you said
As if we were a science experiment that went haywire

It's been 3 days since I last spoke to you
And according to past experiences, in 4 days I will start to miss you terribly
So, should I wait until then to write a sappy poem expressing my need to see you since it's been 2 whole weeks since I've touched your skin?

my favorite person to talk to
is myself

i'm making memories that i can't hold on to
drowning in a pool that's more shallow than you
and i realize i will be looking up at this white ceiling forever, holding back tears that aren't there

i'm right here, you said
as if the sky never changes and
the seasons stand still
there was no rainbow in your step
no flag to be waved

332 days and your memory continues to haunt me

i'm feeding off of you
like a ghost feeds on fear
my eyes wander
but my ears are planted
I don't move my mouth
for fear of interruption
and you have one more time to cut me off

you aren't a hero and you never were
i can't believe how long it took me to realize that

i write too much about love
for someone who's never experienced it

i could never hate you
so the only other viable option was to
look in the mirror
close my eyes
point the finger

and place blame

if ever a wall existed that was made out of all the times i writhed under your touch
i swear, i'm backed right up to it

just once i want someone to tell me they need me
just once i want someone to beg me to stay, to not leave them

give me my heart back

I tried writing you into my tiny note space, but realized I had nothing left to say.

i watched the moon and played with the stars
midnight struck and you were still hanging by a thread in my mind