all my poems have stopped
sounding like poems and
just read like I'm trying to
write you the same letter
in eighty different ways.

breathe,
breathe.
you are
flakes of
silver and
copper tubing
and lilies at
sunrise. do
not be afraid
of the thickness
of your words
or the quake
of your laugh.
you are more
than the confines
of tongues that
have tried to
define you, more
than words spoken
into your neck.
you have a century's
old soul and the
things that have
written themselves
into the backs of
your hands are
just markers for
this lifetime.
you are okay.
breathe,
breathe.

i'm  finding  comfort
in the  fact that, even
for a little while, you
were  just  as  lost  as
i always  seem  to be

you
used
to look
at me like
i  had  been
plucked out of
the sky by some
magnificent being
just for you, like my
heart   was   n o t   an
abandoned  house, like
my fingertips could spell
out your  future  in the air
right before your eyes. god
what if i never find another
person  who will  love  me
the same  way you  did?

if you were here i like to
think that i would yell, i
would scream (because
even after all of this i
haven't lost my will to
be boisterously loud) or
maybe I would hit you
(god I've never actually
put my hands on another
person unless it was soft
and meant "hey i love you
please don't leave me")
i just want you to feel the
thunderstorm tumbling inside
me how can i make you see
that how can i make you see
that how can i make you i
wanted to buy a house with
you, you ******* *******

listen,
i avoid your shows
and your friends
and your mom (and
god i loved your
mom more than i
loved you, i think)
and i have even
stopped going to
target in case you
might be working.
i'm so tired of
going out of my
way to be normal.

i hope someday someone fixes you
(not fixes you,  really, that  word is
too  harsh)    i  hope  someone  will
love you enough for    you    to love
them back, for those gaping   holes
in your stories,inyour chest,inyour
futurethatyoualreadyhaveplanned
out to be sewn up tight and secure.
i hope  someday   you  let  someone
help  you  g e t  your  ****  together,
that you want to make it work     so
badly that you grovel, that you beg,
that you spit  your  guts  out  on the
sidewalk outside their house just to
prove    your point. i hope someday
y   o   u   '   r   e          h   a   p   p   y   .

i have let you keep me up at night for
too long. there used to be a limit to what i
would allow myself to do- how much i would
allow myself to think of you, to remember your
temperaments and the sound of your footsteps-
but i think i've forgotten what and where that
line was. lately i've been scared to be another
placeholder, scared to get attached to someone
new, scared to understand someone else's hand
gestures. i used to love the way you could paint
our future with your fingertips across the air,
across my skin, across my skin.

please just give me
a chance to rub
my name into
your heart like
you did to mine.

who I want to be is
trapped beneath my
skin, stretching
stretching,
tearing at my
seams.
she cries, "let him go
and the wound will
set me free. oh, god,
please."

do you dream
about me-
no lipstick left
and wild hair?
i hope i am
swallowed by
golden light in
all of them,
that you are only
able to see me in
the wilderness,
that you wake up
with a pain in the
middle of your
sternum where i
used to run my
fingers while we
watched movies or
listened to the rain
under your covers.

i think
i've forgotten
how to write.
they say you're
supposed to push
through that, but i
keep writing the
same thing over
and over again. i
can only say "holy
**** i miss you" in
so many ways. i
used to say it in
laced fingers and
lingering forehead
kisses. now i say it
in every syllable of
every word i've
posted on the
internet in case
you might see
them (aside from
the fact that they
would otherwise
drown me in my
sleep) and in
desperate
searches
for notes
that i just
maybe didn't
grab when i
threw out the
final pieces of
your things last
month. i don't
know how to
do this, Ryan.
i can't do this.

there is something serene
about  being  held  under
t h e pressure of an ocean
of a year's  worth of your
words.      i       sunk      in

                               quickly,

my only goal  b e i n g to
find the bottom in hopes
that  the  answer  to   a l l
your  problems might  be
down  there  somewhere,
but instead it  w a s thick
and   dark   and   when  i
looked back  i could  just
barely seethesunthrough
the   water.  n o w   i   am
s        t         u        c         k
in bubbles and blurs and
i swear all these canyons
down herearewhispering
sentences  o f   yours  i've
b e e n  trying   to  forget.
"you are  m y  light at the
end  of  the   t u n n e l . "

i shot off rockets into the sky months ago
that burst into words to  remind me to
keep going     keep breathing     keep
holding my heart   higher than the
river of   y o u r   hands that was
flooding down  m y  street and
threatening   to   break  down
my  door.  i  put all  my  best
pieces in aboxandsentthem
to myself    (cc: my closest
friends)   and i am ready
to get them back, to put
my    h e a r t   on   my
sleeve where i have
always  kept it,  to
have you   f e e l
from across this
town that you did
not break me, did not
damage   me,  did   n o t
destroy my gumption or my
eagerness to take on the world,
did not make me into something
i am not.   i am a    worrier but    a
w        a        r         r        i         o         r
and  i  will  not  stop  going  until  my
head is quiet and my hands are still.
and  this  thing you  did  to me- this
supposedly life altering thing- will
just be a soft  reminder  of  only
the  climb i  made  to get  me
back    to    where    i    am.

I'm so
sorry
to have
loved
you this
much.

I have enough
money to run
away to a pretty
city but for some
reason I'm still
here.

i wanted it all- your
picket fence promises
and the daisies on the
last   digit   of   your
f   i   n  g   e   r   s

today i touched
trees and smelled
leaves and took
a nap with my
dog and my mom
told me, "meg,
you're going to
be just fine."

today was the type
of day I know you
love and if you had
been around (and we
were the kind of
normal we used to
be) we would have
stood at the big doors
side
by
side
and watched the drops
run down the length
of the windows and
you would have leaned
down close, whispered
"I wish we were out in
that" and squeezed my
arm the way I liked.
I miss you.

we are destiny
we are fate
we are- what do people call it?
soulmates?
no not soulmates but something else
that translates to "meant for this"
something that stands for "I cannot break from you, please don't leave me"
I don't want to build a life with
anyone else

there is this   candle that i keep
in a box and i save it for nights
when i want to think   of  y o u,
when the summer air is too hot
a n d   i  can  imagine  that  you
would   have  turned  o u r   air
conditioning  up so high  t h a t
i would   have had  to put  on a
sweater     while    you stripped
downtonearlynothing.i wonder
if  we  would  have  had   those
gardens you talked about   or if
you would    have taught me to
tolerate beer. i usedto think you
were the  s o l e  orchestrator of
every sunset i had ever     seen,
that you  m u s t  have bartered
some  part  of   y o u r    soul  in
exchange for that laugh       you
had, that all of the absolute ****
i had gone through was simply
there  t o   l e a d   m e   t o  you.
but you did not love me     t h e
same way, you  d i d  n o t  love
m e     the       s a m e           way.

i
am
s  o
sorry
that   i
couldn't
help you
find  your
way    back
to your heart.

This does not hurt
as much as I had
thought it would.
Although you ran
a bulldozer over
my midsection, I am
somehow still breathing,
somehow still getting up
and moving, because
what else can I do
except go on?

it's just

that I hope macaroni and
cheese makes you miss me
and that you'll be downtown
and drive by my building and
see my car and feel an ache in
your chest because you are not
allowed inside anymore and
that your hands can barely
play all those songs you wrote
about me at your shows and
that the book on astronomy I
gave you glares at you from
the shelf and that no one will
kiss you like I did, no one will
make you shiver like I did, no
one will light a fire inside of you
like
I
did.

y  o  u
a l w a y s
told    m e    i
was too  skinny
but no no no i am
beautiful, i am strong
(stronger than i used to
imagine i  could be)  and
my heart is still thumping
like   it   has   been   for   all
these   centuries   i've   lived
even after losing you, even
after feeling like i wasn't
enough  to   make  you
happy.    b u t    jesus
c h r i s t    i    w a s
enough     i    was
enough   i   a m
e n o u g h   .

I lost the power to write long
words about you back when
you lost faith in what I had
to offer. Instead you have
become a jumbled mess
on paper, the only problem
on the sheet I can't solve.
I have begged for
reconciliation for months
now, traveled down a
path you paved just
for me to find that
you built a concrete wall
with a ladder only
on your side.
I deserve so
much more
than this.

i feel less like
chunks of me
a r e     falling
into  the river
that i  so very
love.     thank
y  o  u    f  o  r
walking away
from what we
could    h a v e
b e e n.  i   a m
w o r t h   t h e
entire     s k y-
every   star  in
the milky way
-and   i f   you
couldn't   s e e
that  then  you
shouldn'thave
been   allowed
to    c a l l   me
y   o   u   r   s  .

I'm sure by this point I have
exploded and expanded,
breached countless lines
and crossed several borders,
wrote my name in the
clouds with yours following
it just to see what it would
look like strung out like
that. I want to be purple
and green (and blue so
you'll notice me) and as
orange as the third inner-
most layer of the sun. Please
pay attention to me. It's
the least you could do to
pay me back for the way I
have been overwhelmed
by you for this long.

I was never
going to be
enough for you
because I'm not
strong and I'm
not as smart as
you used to tell
me, and you
were so smart-
god were you
brilliant- but you
always used these
drugged-up phrases
and I never kept
your pace at any
point. So why did
we keep trying
when we didn't
get each other and
our hands didn't
even match right
in the first place?
I let you press
your name all
over my body
but in the end
I just couldn't
figure out how
to put myself
in your lungs.

i
l  i  k  e
y o u r    ***
breath  and   t h e
way  your  hair  seems
to grow from you running
your fingers     through it
through   it   through   it
until your bones settle
in   m y       h a n d s.