i used to wish i could plant
you in my backyard- grow
a whole field of you to have
for myself. now i'd like to
plant myself there to see
what i'll grow into instead.

I don't stay
up
until 5 a.m.
anymore
because my brain
worked
way too much
on so little
sleep.
Because
the only words
I heard were
"you, you, you"
and I didn't
like it.
Because I woke up
with pen marks
all over my hands
and smears
on my face.
I don't stay
up
until 5 a.m.
anymore
because it started
to know
all of my secrets.

i am trying to remind myself that
i am the one who has always held
my skin together on the worst days,
the one who has sewed myself back
up time and time again. i have picked
my own body off the bathroom floor
more 4am's than there are numbers,
taken myself to bed. no one has cared
for me like i have cared for me and
yet i don't know when i stopped
thinking i was my own home.

i feel like i'm full of
weeds. i don't know
if that makes sense.
you wrote a letter at
the front of the journal
you bought for me and
i read the words over
and over when i'm lonely,
as if it's going to bring
you back. but it's not
going to bring you back,
is it? why can't i fall
out of love with you?

but what do you do when you're
a shell
a shell
a shell
of the being you used to be
i swear i thought i was the world
now i look at my hands and i
don't know them
don't know these freckles or those lines
i remember i used to tell my reflection
that she was strong and deserved
something good
but i don't know those eyes anymore
so how can i tell that to a stranger
tell them they're loved
how can i when she and i are all we have
and i don't love her

It seemed
only right
that the
day you
told me
you were
in love
with me
it poured
like our
town had
never seen
rain. When
I looked
out the big
windows
and turned
to you to
say "I wish
I was at
home" it
was like
you knew
the words
before I
said them
and you
nodded
slowly
and
bumped
your
shoulder
against
mine,
a simple
understanding,
and I was
sure I was
in love
with you,
too.

i do not know how to love
softly,
i walk across this ocean like
i am from heaven
but my feet keep slipping through
the surface,
roughly
i try to hold my bones inside my body
but i have gotten used to the way
they look on the outside,
quietly
i hold my own heart with my hands
because i cannot trust anyone else but,
tightly
too too tight.
but do not tell anyone, megan
do not tell anyone.
i wish i could have loved you,
softly.

My feet
a   c   h   e
for streets
they haven't
yet walked
and I want
to feel
concrete on
my fingers,
catch the
breeze of a
crowd as they
cross the street.
I need to be
somewhere
too big to
get lost.

I'd move to "the great white north" for you
in a nanosecond.
Just say the word and I would
pack up everything I have and make a life
with you anywhere you want, really.
Because I think I fell in love with you
the first time I met you
behind a church in the middle of June
where we played basketball with your band.
I'm fairly certain we're soul mates
but that could just be my eighteen-year-old heart
talking.
I think a relationship like ours would be
what planes are for and passports and endless possibilities.
I'm okay with not knowing what would happen
between us. I don't find it scary
that it's a giant risk.
I'm ready.

i feel like i am boiling.
i'm not sure if that makes sense.

i imagine you in grays and blues
and paved streets and brick
buildings. you are so very much
in your element on concrete and
in architectural feats. i knew you
would not settle (how could you)
with me but i was hoping for a
change of heart change of pace
change of of of of you and me and
some semblance of a future like we
talked about. where is the line
between wanting and needing
because i think i crossed it back in
november the first time you said
my name and squinted one eye
at me that way i like. sometimes i
look east and wonder if the london
air feels lucky to wrap itself
around you. do you ever look west
and wonder the same of me?

paint fingers,
jelly mouths,
katie's teletubbies
bike helmet.
mom said
now don't go too far
and the park was just
far enough to not be
able to see the house
but close enough to
smell dinner being made
and hear dad mowing
the front yard. no
skinned knees this day
just riding our bikes
through the grass,
down the big hill
that made us scream
until the bottom. wind
blowing through katie's
hair, too long then from
her refusal to have it
trimmed even one inch,
and capri sun's under
the weeping willow tree.
before the sun went all
the way to her bed, we
made flower crowns
from the dandelions,
picked an extra handful
for the dining table,
waved to donna as we
flew down the sidewalk,
ran hand in hand to the door
before dad had to call our
names one more time.

breathe.
because you know what you
do when someone ***** you
over? you calmly take your
heart out of their hands
and leave. you think maybe
you'll sew it back on to
your sleeve but not now, not
today. you put their things
in a box (their cds, their
shirts, their books, their
notes, the little things you
picked up on your dates)
and you put it on the
highest shelf in your
closet, because someday
you will want to remember
them, maybe. if you don't
want to remember them, you
give them the box, you
donate the box, you throw
the box in the river. and
you breathe. because you
deserve better. you deserve
someone who doesn't consider
you a fallback, a plan b.
you will be someone's plan.
you will be the only plan.
you will be my-god-what-
was-i-doing-before-you-
walked-around-that-
corner. remember that
you are enough.
breathe.

i like that my bloodlines
run like your bloodlines
like the salty sea spray
you exhale when you
dream at night

orange soda, fizzy tongue,
creamsicle smiles.
we lived in sync, there,
with an ocean breathing
between us.
i would have swallowed
the sun if it could have
helped cool you down
but i wanted to burn
god, how i wanted to burn.

I don't remember
a time
when I was ready for change.
I always seem to take it
right in my lungs
and let it out so slowly
that people get annoyed.
No, yeah, I wasn't prepared.
Sorry.
Here, teach me how
to be like you
and pretend this was my idea.
I told you
you'd be happier
with someone else.
Duh.

your thumbprint wore
off of my top left rib
and there was a hole
there
hole there
hole there

i remember we were dripping gold,
streaming from our fingertips,
and i thought this
must be what it feels like to be
free.

I want to be
the ponytail holders
you find on your
bedside table
long after I've left
in the morning.

i think i am spread across
c o n s t e l l a t i o n s
my heart on too many suns
to keep track now.
if home is where
your heart is then my home
is in missouri
so we keep begging the sky
to give us one day together,
tie bedsheets in a line headed
west and east like we're
going to stretch across the
atlantic one of these days.
i swear some mornings
when it's quiet i can hear
a buzzing inside my chest
and i've known for a while
it was you. but how do
i whisper that across a
static line, to your face as
small as the screen on my
phone? we deserve much
better moments than
we've been allowed.

I miss the way
I layed
draped
across you
in your "cloud bed"
that night. You told me
about your stuffed Simba
toy and how you hid
him under your bed
so he would be close
to your heart.
Then you said,
"I want to keep you there, too"
for the same reason, I think.
And I told you,
"When I was little
I thought my
Mary Jane's
could turn me
into Cinderella."
And you didn't think
it was stupid.
I should have kept you.

Sometimes I remember
the way his hands felt in mine
while we picked out movies or played
in the rain. He would always smoke
but he'd say, "Is it cool if I...?"
before lighting up.
Because he cared a little bit.
Sometimes I walk past someone
who wears the same cologne as he did,
and I think of pillows and
the softest white blankets in the world.
Sometimes I see his parents
out in public
and they always stop to talk to me.
They say my name with the same accent he had
but it's not the same without his lips
so close to my own.
Sometimes I hurt
because it was so nice to have a person
to call my own and put a claim to,
to know that if I needed the strongest hugs
in the middle of the night, he'd be there.
But then I think
of how much he loved drugs
and how much I love sunflowers
and how those things don't go together.

how sad that I thought
we were going to end
up together- something
you called "soulmates"
and something I called
"settling down"- but
you ripped the parts
of me that I gave you
to shreds and scattered
them in all the places
I have never visited but
always wanted to. now
every city I long for is
tainted with your name,
with my constant need
to do right by you, with
my feelings of inadequacy.
I think I probably hate you.

If I am still what I eat
then today I want to
have hot air balloons
for breakfast and silly
string for lunch, star-
shaped tissue paper
and the center of
Ryan's heart. I only
want to be something
that is worthwhile.

My bed feels empty
without you even
though you never
slept here. So isn't
it funny how your
side of the bed
still belongs to you
in a place you
weren't a part of?

“i was born to make biscuits”
and so we let him.
flour, butter, one egg, messiest
table in the hole entire county.
mom watches bug and the boys
roll in the leaves outside, and
greg and i drink coffee by the fire
in thick socks and knitted throws.
a burst of the season arrives with
each sibling but we smile anyway,
kisses and cold hands pressed on
our warm cheeks until we're all
the same temperature. pop's biscuits
are done, so we sit and don't say
grace- just thank each other for
the things we have which no one
else could have given us. mom's
already missing the birds, and
wendy says she thinks she found
one of katy's old hats in the back
of her garage last month and she
even brought it with her this time.
we talk and we laugh and the little
boys nap and we just are.
we just are.

I drove past that place
where we went to see
the fireworks and there
was some ghost of me
leaning against a ghost
of you. I saw myself
grumble "we missed
them" into your navy
striped shirt, watched
you kiss my forehead
and whisper "we'll find
others, beautiful. there
are always others."