this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

words. offered last-minute from thin-air and handed off heavy-hearted. words. nights spent sleepless and throats filled with sand & secrets and fingernails blackened by scratching away at the excess and unnecessary. words. all they do is **** me off because i can't use them right and i find myself drowning in recycled metaphors and romanticized abstract thoughts that have been regurgitated from a hundred different mouths and audaciously labeled as poetry. but i am not a poet, at least not a good one, in fact i can't stand most of my writing but i still try. because words, are the only way i can get the myriad of ideas inside my head to make some kind of sense but they're hardly worth a dollar so that's probably why i'm always broke. words. i learned to read them at five and i thought that was impressive but nowadays children half that age are already doing that, so i guess i'm not that special. but words, at times my only friend and often my greatest enemy, have the power to reduce crowds of thousands to tears and according to the book on my father's bedside table they once parted a sea. words can change a world. but they can be weapons of unfathomable destruction. it was words, that made me think i was ugly. words i longed to hear but never did drove me to starve for affirmation from the opposite ***. words on magazines told me what i needed to be and told me nobody would want me if i didn't comply. so it was words that made me stop eating, but not for long, because i am lucky enough that my love of food overpowers the hatred i have for my body. words made me tear my skin to shreds in the still of the night because they somehow managed to crawl beneath it without ever having actually entered in through my ears. words can either give life or they can take it. words are sticks and heavy stones and swords and we're taught that they can't break your bones but tell that to the first generation to have anti-bullying laws enacted because of nooses around necks and bullets through brains and blades on wrists all caused by words. so i urge you to craft your words with care and let them be like summer breezes upon the ears you speak them to. let your words be bandaids and hot air balloons instead of daggers and eulogies. speak like honeysuckle not wisteria. words are vines that wrap themselves around and consume whomever they have been said to. people can have memories shockingly resemblant to pachyderms so be aware that your words can live on like ghosts long after you thought they would have died. words are oceans upon which people can either float or sink below, and you are the decider.

- m.f.

this is a poem dedicated to distance.
to every time i have wanted to kiss you, but couldn't.
to every time i looked at my empty hands and thought of yours.
to every time i was in a crowded room and secretly hoped that i'd find your face.
to every happy couple we see that inadvertently mocks our inability to be near each other.
to every time i've played your laughter over and over in my head to drown out the silence.
to every time you just wanted to hear my voice, but i was busy.
to every missed call and every undelivered text and every time your internet was down.
to every miscommunicated statement and every typo.
to every time that one of us was asleep when the other needed them.
to every time you wept and i wasn't there to hold you.
to every self-destructive tendency we share.
to every pill your mother has hidden and every razor blade i have flushed.
to every worry that plagues my consciousness whenever you take long to reply.
to every night we have been together through a screen, but alone in our beds.
to every, "i miss you" and "i wish you were here".
to every broken-record apology that never makes it better.
to every makeup stain that mars the sweater you sent me so that i could
feel like i was sleeping with you (and to the fact that it doesn't smell like you anymore).
to every hour, every minute, every second of difference in the time between us.
to every dollar i don't have, and every time i wished for your chest against my back.
to every, "why are you even with me?" and "you could do better".
to every spectator and cynic that has told us we'd fail.
to every doubt of mine and to all your jealousy.
to every ounce of water in the pacific ocean.
to every ******* mile between my head and your chest (i checked, and there are 9,752).

you will not win.

- m.f.

i can't remember when i last heard your voice
and i need you to know that i miss you.
but i don't think the words alone are enough.

i miss you.

I MISS YOU LIKE A BLIND MAN'S BULLSEYE.

I MISS YOU THE WAY A POOR MAN MISSES A ROOF OVER HIS HEAD.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE RUMBLING IN HIS UNFED STOMACH.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE COLD ACHY SPACE IN THIS HALF-EMPTY BED.

I MISS YOU LIKE EVERY POEM I ALMOST WROTE BUT FORGOT ABOUT BEFORE I FOUND A PEN TO WRITE IT DOWN.

I MISS YOU LIKE A FORGOTTEN BIRTHDAY.

I MISS YOU THE WAY JANUARY MISSES GREEN.

I MISS YOU LIKE MY FATHER'S BEDTIME STORIES.

I MISS YOU LIKE THE LAST TRAIN HOME.

MY CHEST IS CAVING. MY LUNGS ARE SHRIVELING,
AND WITH MY LAST BREATH I WILL SCREAM
THROUGH SPACE AND TIME - I MISS YOU.

IT'S TRUE, WHAT ALL THOSE POETS SAY ABOUT THE SUN & MOON - THAT THEY ARE GOING TO KEEP CHASING EACH OTHER FOR ETERNITY, THAT THEY WILL NEVER KNOW ONE ANOTHER'S TOUCH. SO I AM SENDING UP VENDING-MACHINE PRAYERS TO A MAY-OR-MAY-NOT-BE-THERE GOD, BEGGING HIM TO CLOSE THE GAP BETWEEN YOUR FINGERS AND THE SPACES BETWEEN MINE.

- m.f.

this is not a poem. this is a plea. this is me begging you to hear me when i tell you that i love you. my voice is weak and shaking like the branches of a willow in the wind. my hands are trembling like tremors under the surface of the earth. my vision is so blurred that i can barely focus my eyes as i type. i can feel the impending collapse of my lungs as they are further crushed by the weight of all my anxieties. my strength is fading, but i'm still screaming for you, only you don't seem to hear me. i'm reaching for you but you won't take hold of my hand. i swear to god i'm trying with everything i have to hold you together, but i'm terrified it's not enough. the very thought of your nonexistence consumes me in a fear i have never known. i have never been good at telling people i need them, but i can tell you how vacant this world would be if you left it. everything would change. you can't come in to my life like you did and then just leave it with no warning. you can't do that to me. you can't tell me that you want to marry me and then try to disappear without so much as a goodbye. you just can't. so i don't mean to make you feel guilty, i just need you to understand. don't you know what it would do to me if you left? how many times are you going to almost-die before you realize i will never be the same if you do?

this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.  

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.

my darling,
you were my heaven -
hallowed be thy veins.
thy kingdom come, my affection won.
your love, though a hellfire, was heaven.
give me a chance to clear my head.
forgive me, for not recognizing
your voice among the masses,
as i forgive those who break my trust.
lead me not into isolation
but deliver me from myself.
for thine is the space
here in my ribcage
forever & ever.
amen.

- m.f.