"You looked so skinny in those photos."

I remember being a ghost trapped in a haunted house. This town is a graveyard of all the people I've been. I remember building altars made of scales. This house is a headstone made of ash and bone.

"You look so different now."

My life is dangling like a pendulum going between dead and alive. You never call anymore. My heart is like a gold plated wedding band because it's beautiful on the outside but on the inside nothing is real. You told me you felt lonelier when I was there.

"You've gained weight."

I can feel myself dying again. I can feel myself dying again. I can feel myself dying again. I can feel myself dying again.

"You're not the same anymore."

*I wonder to which version of me you refer.

You let me draw mountains on your shoulders, as if you needed a reminder of what you carried with you every day. Atlas, bearing the world on your shoulders. You were always stronger than me.

"You'll still be here when I wake up, right?"
"I'm no good for you, or for anybody."

Imagine a sunset made of the colors of every person you've loved's eyes. Imagine it setting over the ocean. If you listen closely, the waves sound a lot like, "is it okay if I kiss you?" But now the moon won't stop hiding.

You are a dream that I can never remember in the morning. Eyes the color of glass shards you find on the beach, I'm an ocean full of Valentines that say "please text me back, I don't know what I did wrong" and "I liked it better when you said 'hello' in the hallways." You kissed like shooting stars and left like meteor showers.

You looked at me like I was a carousel at 3 in the morning in July. Most nights I'm not sure if I'm real or not, but with you I know I'm a ghost. I still dance with the devil every now and again, and he keeps asking me where you've been.

You'll always be just a daydream away.

you made me feel like i was chained to the stars, like every part of me lit up, even the ones i wasn’t so proud of. i was too young to be wild and free and you stopped holding my hand when it was dark outside. i said i love you because i thought that would fix it, you said goodbye like it was the only word you knew.

2. you were like watching the sun rise from behind thick blinds: a little sliver of dark becomes a little sliver of light and then you’re gone. i loved you like you were a storm that i was driving into. i kissed you like swerving off the road. i loved you like when it’s freezing outside and once you come back inside it’s too hot. there was no medium. it was all or nothing. once i got the strength to leave you thanked me and hugged me like you were checking my back for exit wounds.

3. you’re a ghost now and for a long time i thought my heart was buried 6 feet under with you, thought i was as frozen as the ice that made your tires skid, thought it would have been better if i had gone to the funeral.

4. you said my smile was stupid so now i cover my mouth when i laugh. you said i look silly when i sleep so i stopped spending the night. i thought it was my fault when you told me i wasn’t worth it anymore. you said you wanted a necklace with a feather on it so i cut off my wings and made you one, but you never liked it anyway. when you left i said “you promised” but you said “we never shook on it.”

5. the boy with the ‘check engine’ light on his chest. i spent a lot of time tripping over the rug you swept your problems under, spent a lot of time trying to rip the seams you sewed. even a trigger is soft until you pull on it. i always felt like something you lost but didn’t want to look for anymore. you never knew what my voicemail sounded like and i wonder if it’s because i was always so eager to talk to you that i never let it ring more than twice or because you never bothered to call. i wonder if you are finally realizing that you can’t be the ****** weapon and the search party, can’t be the hero and the villain. i was the first aid kit that couldn’t fix you. you always looked out windows like you belonged somewhere else. remember the first time you burned your hand when you were 7 and touched the stove top. remember the first time you kissed me. remember how you said you couldn’t tell the difference because it hurt just the same. the day that i told you i was leaving you said, “god, it’s so awful to see the people you love have dreams.”

The way that your skin pulls across your bones,
doors holding that skeleton inside your closet,
the color of the sky early in the morning,
eyes like the ocean before a storm.

when i hear voices i pretend they're all you because it makes me feel better, like you don't keep leaving every time i get close to you. i like it when they tell me they're watching me. i blow them kisses.

your words are like salt in my cuts that you put there but i'll take it because at least now you're ******* talking to me. all i am to you is the one who showed you that love isn't beautiful. love is choosing the gun over the knife because it's faster.

no one wants you when you're dying. i made friends with the moon so that i would never feel that 3 in the morning loneliness again. you are the only thing i love that doesn't hurt me. sometimes i wonder if you laugh when you leave me because you know that if love were a game, you would be winning. i feel like i'm on a plane about to crash, but i don't care because you're holding my hand. once upon a time you held me tight enough to leave bruises and now that you're gone, they're all i have left. i pace the upstairs of my house for 33 minutes like i'm looking for something that i lost, and in a sense i am. when i talk to you, i ask myself "what's the point" and i've been searching for an answer since before i can remember. you paint pictures onto the parts of my walls that are cracked and bruised. you're making it beautiful as you tear it down. i am a forest fire and you are a rainstorm, and i want you to put me out.
you're my home but you keep leaving.

you give me your jacket when it's freezing outside,
and i want so badly to be better for you. you deserve
so much more than someone who thrives on saltwater
tears and the numbers on scales.

you hold my hands when they're shaking and i wish
that you wouldn't because you shouldn't have to take
care of me. you deserve someone that can look at the
world like it's beautiful.

i'm just so sorry that i can't be better.

it's the middle of the night and
you love me like it's your job-
but, hell, you're good at it.

i love you so much that i think
if you let go then the earth might
shift, and i would slip into something
more comfortable-
like the second layer of inferno:
painful punishment while i watch you
holding onto her instead of me.

(i'm a ******* but i have my limits)

your arms fit around me and i pray
they will leave scars so that you will
always be with me.

i feel like an angel that only feels pure when
the sky is full of smoke and i'm covered in
glitter and saltwater. i need you because my
world is a haunted house painted pink to match
my lip gloss.

i said that i wish my wings were made of broken
bottles and my heart was made of diamonds and
ice. i wish that i breathed smoke so i could make
you gasp for air.

i've never loved anything that didn't hurt me until i met you.

there are people and things
that take the pain away.

who tell you you're pretty
and kiss your lips until you believe.

who don't keep quiet when they see
your treasure map wrists.

who talk until 2 in the morning
when you need a distraction.

but even the most beautiful
stories have a last page,

and the ones who fixed the pain
become the ones who cause it.