You made a poet fall in love with you
And expected her not to write sonnets about your eyes
Haikus about the way you kissed her in the moonlight
Expected the fire in her heart not to inspire couplets
You made a poet fall in love with you, and when you left
Expected her not to write pages about the ache in her chest
Write a soliloquy dedicated to her tears
Expected her not to feel every gut wrenching moment of the pen hitting paper like your words hit her in the most vulnerable places of her mind.
You made a poet fall in love with you, and you expected her to be silent.
That is no fault of hers.

We are a collection of our own experiences. A destruction of our own making, we undo ourselves with what we've learned, unlove ourselves with what we've learned.

I have looked in the mirror to a stranger too many times for my liking. The girl that I became mirrored back in agony to the girl she wanted to be. She wanted to be a poet, she wanted to be a portrait. She wanted to be stronger.

My experiences have become me. But I don't want to be defined by broken hearted and tormented by my dreams. I don't want to be defined by the dark circles under my eyes, the heart beat in my ears. I wanted to be stronger.

I have looked in the mirror too many times and seen stranger, seen liar, seen a girl who kept too much bottled up and my demons creep behind me like the horror movies I'm so akin to watching. They wave hello like they belong and I have to break my stare.

The poet in me says this is another experience, another lifeline, another tether to the earth that I love so much. An earth that I love so much that it broke me.

The poet in me says this experience will make me stronger.

I am the world's best liar.
I'm not saying this because I forthrightly lie, no. Not to the people around me.

I lie to myself. I lie because I have to. Because how else am I supposed to get myself out of bed? How else do I live half alive and stuck in my mind?

   I tell myself I'm fine.

            That's the best lie I can think of

Scene one, Childhood

I never really learned to emotionally regulate,
Taking clues from Nickelodeon more than parents who set good examples,
Screaming fights and bruises and broken glass
Too much drinking, the smell of cigarettes
Moms broken bones
Make yourself small, make yourself gone
They may not notice you.

We played family a lot, curtaining blankets over a bunk bed to block the outside, and in family, I always took care of my babies.

Scene two, 18

I never really learned to emotionally regulate, taking clues from the friends around me more than parents who set any example.
A false father leaving, a mom losing her cash cow
The smell of Arbor Mist and ***** still makes me sick, mom’s incoherent fists still make contact in my sleep, I still wouldn’t have given her the keys.

We don’t play anymore. We’re mostly estranged. But we work. And in family, I always took care of my babies.

Scene three, 28

I’m trying to learn to emotionally regulate, the slideshow of couches and faces of therapists trying to set an example.
A son born to trauma, a marriage of consequence, I’m still learning to love myself, please, the sound of yelling still makes me sick,
I don’t know how to do this.

We are grown now, we are mostly put together. And now we live. But this is my family, and I will always take care of my babies

But I'll correct the **** out of their grammar.

I can't sleep anymore
      If only everything
               was the same.

I don't need drugs. My brain is drugs.

Maybe it's a side effect of a mother that dropped acid for the first trimester of pregnancy and then some.

Maybe it's a side effect of the abusive step father that told me I would never amount to anything and that I am *******.

My brain processes things at about a hundred miles per hour. In conversations I am always three steps ahead of what ever was said last. I make connections in things that are unconnected.

They tell me this is adult ADHD. They tell me I should be proscribed a pill to help my brain focus.

But focus isn't what I want. Nor is the drowsiness that comes with Lorazepam, the fog that goes with Prozac. I have been separately proscribed these things without ever filling the bottles.

But I fear that if I fix all my chemical imbalances, my medical maladies, that I will disappear into a fog.

Who am I without my OCD, without my brain over processing, over loving, over caring. Without the pain in my chest from another panic, my bouncing off the walls and singing to myself.

Maybe I am unwell.

But who am I without my unwellness?

Your eyes like the ocean, like the waves, like the sky, like a nice blue sports car. Things that are beautiful in passing, but are dangerous up close.

Danger. Loving you was danger.

You set me on fire, burning my body, burning through my brain. Passionate fire, then hot fire, then ******* I'm actually hurt fire. I still have the scars.

What I'm left with is dark and empty, unable to love another. Whispers on wind of what we used to be, secrets. I wasn't made to be a ***** little secret. I'm not your ***** little secret.

I loved you. All consuming love. Love like only a 17 year old knows. Love like only an 18 year old can hold. Love like only a 19 year old can endure. Love like only a 20 year old can let go.

I used to be sick over it. I used to wait for it. And now I've let go of it. Rain from the gray skies that are so like your eyes in the dark. Rain washes away everything I've remembered.

I was conceived on acid and whippets, the drugs a kaleidoscope of umbilical dreams.
I was conceived on bad luck and lust, from darkness and sexually exploitive childhood trauma.
I was conceived on teenage dreams and difficult childhoods, to black sheep children of 17.

I was raised on addiction and narcissism, a love bomb here and authoritarian abuse there.
I was raised on the chess long game, to lose a piece here means to win at the end.
I was raised on 2000s tv, Lorelei Gilmore my wish for a mother, Rory my idol.

I taught myself strength in building up a fantasy on the outside while my castle crumbled within.
I picked myself up by the tendrils of a lost childhood, by the whispers of good memories, by the hiding places I found in pages upon pages of someone else’s imagination.

And I let it all go at 28. To find peace. To start over. To build myself a new castle with no more haunted corners or echoes of pill bottles or smells of ***** and orange juice permeating the breaths of those who walk these sacred halls.
Rib cage cut open, heart destroyed and renewed, ancient umbilical nooses cut with teeth.

I will no longer fall victim to my mother’s circumstances or my father’s mistakes, I will never have the soul I’ve created look at me and ask himself if he is loved or safe.

I am cycle breaker,
I am generational karma’s worst ******* fear,
I am no longer frightened maiden,
I am fearsome mother.
I am new.

Four Marines lost their lives to what is being called domestic terrorism.
Some sicko with a gun shoots these guys. One of the dead is just 19 years old.
I did not cry because I was sad that four American men lost their lives to violence.
I cried because for the first time, I'm so glad that you're in Japan, so glad that you're so far away.
I'm so glad you're alive.

(M)aybe this doesn't come easy to me
(Y)es, I know I've done this before

(M)aybe there is more to see
(I)n all, I can give you more
(R)ead into this what you will
(A)sk me for my heart
(C)alm it though, keep it still
(L)ay in wait for your part
(E)verything comes down to a kiss

Don't fall victim
It's a trap
Sadness wants
To eat your soul
Away to
Nothing; nothing
Can
Ever replace you

I am lovable yet crazy
     The stigma there is overwhelming.
          Like, you have to pardon her for her panic attacks, she's still lovable underneath this
          Like, she's worth it I swear, but the nightmares that keep her up at night have left circles under her eyes.
          Like, she might be a little rough around the edges but she's cool for the most part.

I am not crazy.

Dear 17 year old me,

You'll fall in love with a boy this year that will bring you as much happiness as pain.
You'll fall in love with his eyes, and the dimples in his smile,
And dear girl you will cry when the loneliness of his departure makes the innermost of you empty and aching.

I would tell you to run now, that when your friend tries to give you his phone number, to turn her down.

But in this pain, five years later, five years of the highest highs and the lowest lows, as I ache from the innermost of me and feel empty, in this pain I tell you do not run.

Without him, you will not have a million poems, you will not have some of the best nights of your life. You will not sleeplessly wonder what you've done wrong, or sleepily whisper your "I love yous" into his ear.

And what is love without heartbreak?
What would I be without him?

Humor me, little past self. Fall in love with him. Write poems about his eyes, write letters to him with no end. Love him. Lose him. Fight him. Love him again.

And then come back as me, twice as strong and twice as weary.

You won't regret it.

Love, you at 21.

One of my co-workers has scars on her wrists, covered by tattoos that do no good to hide them.
Not if you know what to look for.
I know what to look for.
I wonder her past, the ghosts hiding under the beautiful face, the blonde hair with the pink strips, the smile.
I wonder if she had an abusive upbringing like I did. If, as a teenager, she hid against her door bringing a razor blade to ****** skin until the ghosts bled out.
I know what that's like.
I would never glorify selfharm, never wish upon anyone the hell of feeling the need to release your mental pain in a physical manifestation.
But the relief it gives me to know that I am not the only one hiding scars under tattooed skin and long pants...
The relief is enough to make me hug her at night.
Tell her I'm glad that I work with her.
She is 36, 15 years older than me.
But our souls seek each other out, the broken souls know other broken souls so well.
I am glad she survived her demons.
I'm glad I'm surviving mine.

Once upon a time, there was a man who wished to be an ice sculptor. He took a block of ice and a chisel and got straight to work.
He sculpted a woman, as beautiful as any other. He sculpted her to be his perfect complement, the woman he wished was real. He sculpted her with a smile and open arms, with kind eyes and a perfect body.
After he was finished, she was absolutely lovely, and absolutely everything that he had ever wanted his ice sculpture to be.
But then he went on to sculpt other things, and she started to become a further and further thought, distanced from his mind as his other projects became more important.
One day, he realized he'd forgotten all about his first piece of work. She'd started to crack and melt in places, but she was still almost perfect.
Instead of fixing her, the sculptor broke her in pieces with his chisel so he didn't have to worry about fixing her.

Day two and you tell me you love me. And I crave the words so bad that for a second I let them wash over me like it's reality.
But actually, you're just some tool.
But actually, you're not.

Where people use words like alcoholic and *******, I use words like healing and hurt. Too curious about a world that keeps burning you when you reach out the touch it.

I don't see this scary person that you warned me away from. But I see someone I relate to, someone I can easily speak my mind to. Someone who may just be in as much pain as I am but unable to admit it without metaphor.

I've never seen someone write that beautifully and hurt someone else.

The terrible thing about poets is we're all sadistic masochists.
We all want to read about heartache, and we all want to write about the demons that haunt us in our worst hours.
We never talk about our happiness, our productive days and nights where we slept enough.
We drown in each other's depression so nicely, a swimming pool of lonely writers, ink pooling around us each because we always carry pens in our pockets.
No one wants to know how happy we are. How our boring mundane human life of doing dishes and vacuuming the carpet went.
We all want to stick the knives in a little deeper, to draw out a little more of each other's blood. Because honestly, our poetry has always been written in blood, sweat, and tears.
That's the thing about poets. We'd rather be miserable and have something to write about than be happy and have nothing to write about.

The back of the fire truck says "call to report arsonists."
The 800 number is at the tips of my fingers.
     But how can I report hands that sent flames licking up my thighs, kisses that left my lips scorched, smiles that ignited a roar deep in my stomach.
     How can I report you for setting my world ablaze, my heart on fire...
                                 And then leaving.

I refuse to apologize for the things I've written.
I refuse to apologize for telling truths amongst the cacophony in rhymes, or rhythms, or word *****.
I refuse to not own this brain, to regret my depression, to swallow my anxiety with a pill.
I will not lie, as my family expands and my brain reconforms to standards I forgot, it gets harder to dig up the person that bled for these words.
She and I aren't the same anymore, but we belong to the same body.
So I call on her when I need her, let myself really feel everything, my alter ego: the poet.
As my boyfriend's family asks me what I do for fun, I try not to lie. To say that I pour words from my soul is distasteful. So I joke "I'm a poet of sorts, a writer."
And they look at me with frightened eyes, so I do not tell them this is what I want to do for a living.
I do not tell them about the razor blades beneath my bed at age 16, or the ****** assault at 20.
I do not tell them inside this head is a mess that is desperately hiding.
But I do not disown her. My mess. My poet heart.

I am constantly falling in love with strangers.
With words written in notebooks stashed away and forgotten about.
With the way the light hits the trees in the morning as the sun rises, the way the sky is light pink and orange before blue.
I fall in love with curves of lips as boys talk to girls on the streets.
With the way people walk, as if gliding over linoleum in the oddly bright supermarket.
With hands that gesticulate as tongues, mouths, and brains tell stories too wildly unimaginable for the layfolk.
But I will not let myself fall in love with you.

I'm so sorry for that.

I have finally found
    
                          exactly what I am looking for

Let's talk about consent for a minute
                    When I said no
                        I meant no

I did not mean
               Give me a few more drinks
                                  Or
                    Wait until I'm drunk

And I definitely did not mean
                                Yes

Let's talk about this for a minute
              Drunk does not mean yes
                   Only yes means yes
                            I said no

I count each movement as a small victory, each pain in my back and chest a triumph. I can hardly breathe and my chest is on fire but my God am I thankful for it.
I have created an infinity in what was once smaller than the dot on this i. A new universe in tiny fists no bigger than the scar on my knee. An other.
It is terrifying to know what power I hold, and what responsibility. My panic centers are always alive, my depression ebbing and flowing in tides unlike anything I can describe in mere human language.
But each movement, each new pain and new bump in the night, each ugly red fire mark on my skin, each heartburn...
Everything is worth it when I see your tiny black and white face in pictures.
In just three and a half months you will be in flesh.
I have created.

I never expected to fall back in.
I suppose jumping is the real word, because I've always been a headfirst without thinking kind of girl.
I've always called it fearless, the words forever tattooed into my ribs, scar tissue raising so that his hands graze it when they touch me,
But oh dear God am I terrified as I make room for my things in his closet
Take a breath and store my makeup under his sink.
This is the first time in forever I can say that I wish I wasn't jumping headfirst.
I am frightened I am falling, forever the fearless female
Now a pile of lovesick mess on the living room floor I share.

This is for the people who don't have the suicide hotline number memorized just in case.
For the people who have never cried sitting across from a counselor because their lives are actually perfect.
For the people who have never chainsmoked a pack of cigarettes while their brain flirts with the danger of "what if..."
Whose hands don't shake uncontrollably with the memories of what used to be.
This is for the people who haven't drank an entire bottle just for the peace of sleep
The people who haven't wondered if waking up isn't the scariest part of their day
This is for the people who weren't diagnosed with PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression all in a spin of words.
The people who don't have to hold themselves together with fake promises that survival is only half the battle.
To the people who have never met the call of a razor blade with the skin of their bodies.
This is for the people who say that mental illness is just whining.
Do you realize just how lucky you actually are?

Occasionally I just have a day of
"I really can't do this anymore."
And my heart breaks over and over because the only thing I want
Is so unattainable.
I've worked so **** hard, but my body is tired of working.
I'm so tired of fighting.
I'm just ****** tired.
So I look through our old pictures and I feel so empty and so full at the same time.
Shaken up.
Nothing will ever go back, will it?

It's been a long time since I looked in the mirror and didn't see a stranger.
A long time since "you're beautiful" wasn't met with an instant shake of the head and a laugh.
I don't think he realizes what he's done to me.
While I was busy holding myself together with duct tape and glue, he was learning to stitch his own heart.
And our scars are reminders not of what horror we went through, but that we can make it through anything.
I'm not going to lie, I'm still a mess.
But he's helping me sweep up my broken pieces and catalog what caused the brokenness to begin with.
And as afraid as I am that failure is imminent,
His arms feel like a place I could call home for a long, long time.

I was once just a girl who thought I loved you.
Now I'm a woman who knows the difference between love and convenience.
     Between high school and the real world

I'm still in love with you.
Except, I don't know how to be.
Or how not to be.
I think a stupid part of me will always love you.
I think a stupid part of me will always be yours no matter how many times I've asked for it back.
I can lie to everyone, lie to myself, until I'm here in bed alone asking myself why I can't be alone without you in my brain.
Every part of me misses you.
It's my ***** little secret, I suppose, but
You were my soul mate.
You were supposed to be my happily ever after.
My dork in tinfoil with eyes like the ocean.
The eyes that held me behind bars for so long, terrified to move.
I want so badly to be a part of your life again,
I want so badly to be everything to you again.
I want so badly for you to miss me like I miss you,
But I guess it was all in my head.
The four years that we spent together an endless nightmare of the wait for the end.
And you ended it.
I so badly want for the words "I can't do this anymore" to be erased from your memory like a daydream you lost track of.
I want you to love me.
I want "I love you" whispered in my ears again.
I want you to be sick over the fact you lost me.
I don't think you're sick over the fact you lost me.
Our love was a sick game of loving too much and having too little.
I love you so much.

I guess every family has to have a black sheep, and in mine, it might as well be me.
With eight younger siblings, following like ducks in a row...
Getting pregnant and married at 22 was the worst thing I could have done, at least according to my mom.
She would have rather I got an abortion, or been a single mother, than would she have chose my marriage.
I guess love doesn't have a thing to do with it, because that's not a path she ever took.
I chose my own way, to do what was best for my family, and because it wasn't her way it was wrong.
I guess, if choosing my own path makes me bad, I have painted myself black, neck to belly, hips to toes.
And if God forbid my siblings cross her, I will always be the worst because I was the first.
So as far as black sheep go...
bahhhh

Bah bah black sheep, have you any wool?
We’ll shield your eyes and make you a fool

I still see your face in my dreams.

Is this what loss actually feels like? The way my whole body aches as these days work their way forward, as my brain refuses to think of you until the dark hours of the night when I can't think of literally anything else.

I love you
                                                             it's over
I need you
                                 I can't do this anymore

Back and forth back and forth
I am so empty without your hands holding my flyaway pieces together

I don't know why I wasn't good enough.

Today, I drove through a town filled with our ghosts.
I can almost see us flying over the tracks on 99 where you raced a train once, I can almost hear us screaming our heads off to Blink 182 lyrics. I can almost see us on the street late at night while you ran and I biked back to your house from my work.
I can almost see us walking around the mall, hand in hand. Making out in the back of the movie theater when you were supposed to be at school.
I can almost feel you beside me, laying on the couch with me. I can almost hear "I love you" in my ear.
The moon reflects all of the ghosts. The ones of you and me. The ghosts of what was and what could have been and what could be.
I can almost hear you now saying "don't get ahead of yourself." But this is how I process. And these ghosts need to be put to rest already.

I am nothing.
Full of empty hope, stolen kisses, unfulfilled dreams
Full of starlight and sunshine
But really, full of last night's ***** and wasted promise.
I am nothing. Pouring tears, wastoid of God's creation
Covered in bruises and scars and tattoos and sweat and contempt from onlookers
I am nothing. Nothingness in its truest form, the lack of soul, the lack of feeling.
Call me Robot.
Call me Wasteling
Call me Loser
Call me Ugly.
Just ******* call me.
For I am nothing,
        Without you.

1) when you tell him you love him and he says "thank you"
Says "I know"
Says absolutely nothing
Pretend like the cavity where your heart used to be isn't endlessly throbbing. Pretend like you don't crave the words, pretend like it doesn't hurt, pretend like you're not empty.
2) imagine, remember hearing him say the words back. Imagine, remember the way his lips feel pressed against yours. Imagine, remember the sound of his heart beating against your ear when he says your name. Imagine, remember the smell of him on your skin and clothes
3) when you see his family out in the town you can't leave, say hi. Smile, ask them about themselves. Hug his little sister. After 4 years, 3 months, 9 days (who's counting right) you've earned the right to be civil to them. You've earned the right to be friends with them.
4) after 4 years 3 months and 9 days, when you tell him you love him and he doesn't say anything... don't stop telling him you love him. Even though your heart belongs to him, even though the empty spaces in your chest hurt, tell him you love him again. Because maybe one day, he'll say it back.

I miss you, okay? Even though it was my fault it ended and even though I want to punch you in your stupid face,
I also want to kiss your stupid face.
I'm so mad at everything and you and myself and fate and God
I just want to wrap myself in blankets
Or all of your stolen clothes..
And I want to not want to cry and I want to cry and **** I just.
Just ****.
Where are the words I need to explain what I'm feeling so that I can just deal with it?
Why can't I ******* deal with it?
I hate everything about this, every ******* moment I wish I could talk to you, every moment I know I can't. I can't.
Why can't I?

This place, with its cold white walls and it's sterile gray speckled floors.
The nurses take my mouth that cusses far too often as a sign I'm on some kind of drugs, I guess. When I answer the question about what kind of medicine I take they look at me with questions in their eyes when I say "none."
I know that the bruises on my body look bad. I'm malnourished, okay. I don't have time to eat. Need more potassium. I don't shoot up ****** or snort pills. I just take ibuprofen like a normal person.
My head is spinning. But not like normal. Like it's taking me twenty minutes to write this ******* poem. I feel like passing out.
And the doctor will see you now, at the cost of 1,000 dollars to sit in this dumb bed.
I hate our healthcare system.
Why do hospitals feel so much like your trapped in their walls? And so little like they're actually out to help you.

After him, I swore I'd never fall in love again. Swore it in contract and oath to God and in the eyes of the state of Ohio. After him, I promised I'd never love another boy.
I never meant to lie, to be so madly in love with someone else that it consumes my entire day. To be needed so much that my marriage might be shoved to the back burner. I never meant to be so deeply mad about someone else, to put their needs before my own; to care more about them then I care about my own life.
I never meant to love so deeply this brown eyed boy, this young soul, newly loveable. This boy with the same eyes as his father, as my husband. This boy that will someday call me mom.

Rekindling old flames and lighting half gone cigarettes is what I'm known for.
It never is quite the same, really. The taste is all but gone, the flint gone from the match before you can even strike it. The taste of you is just a bitter reminder, like kicking that habit for good and taking the first drag off a cigarette in six months.
Then I started over.
There's a difference really from starting an entirely new fire and trying to relight pieces of charred and half burned pine that got rained on. One will burn bright for a minute and fizzle out. The other will burn a lifetime.
That last drag on a new cigarette never tasted more like addiction.

I live a life of leaving.
Half my **** is packed into my car, and to have the mindset I could leave with it all...
I live a life of unsettled, restless passion
A life full of wanting things I can't have
A life full of smiling at strangers, buying coffee for the chick that had a bad day, a life full of filling the world with just a little happiness.
I live a life full of fixing. I fix things. I fix everything. I fall apart myself, but the smiles keep me going.

I want to pack it all up again. I want to leave home again. I want to smile at all new strangers in all new cities and buy cups of coffee for all new people having bad days.

And I want to fix you.

I feel so much like you don't care
And I've lost myself deep somewhere
Between whispered lies and whispered truths
I guess ours was the love of youth

But to get you back is all I need
And if you'd give me a clue, give me a lead
I'd wander along, barefoot on broken glass
Just to feed you the questions I need to ask

You are what I want, what I most miss
So feed me your lies along with a kiss