i am not sorry
for the times i tried to hold your hand
only to have you push me away.
i will not apologize
for the moments that i spent
sleeping on your porch
knocking at your door
begging you for something more.

i did not want to be a passing craze.
a seasonal fashion statement.
the tweed coat clinging to your chilly ribs.
i was supposed to be eternal,
i was going to serve my time.

a lifetime
of all the times i'll never say i'm sorry
for the ways i could never let you go.
for the drunken nights of
"i just had to let you know"
150 character texts,
i am not sorry i got so desperate
there at the end.

i will not apologize for your tireless hole,
or your insatiable itch.
i will not apologize for my inability
to fulfill any of it.

my heart is doing push-ups,
jumping jacks inside my chest
and i wish you hadn't kissed me.

i look like
a bed full of television static
ready to carry you to sleep
on saturday night
sunday early morning.

there is crying in the next room.
like they know you wont come home,
like yeah they know it too.

we are losing
we are lost.
the world is swallowing me again.
i do not fear the depth
the dead
swallowing me.

my heart is doing push ups,
jumping jacks inside of my chest
and i wish i wasn't such a ******* mess.

someone let their black balloon go
and i hope it finds you
a better, wiser, kinder man
than i once knew.
doesn't show love by
leaving a bruise.
childish selfishness saying
that i belong to him
and him to me.
i didn't take your breath away
so you didn't want to stay.
okay.

press my petals between pages of photo albums
you'll only visit every few years, trace my veins
tightly arranged into knots saying
"i was here"

keep me as a memento,
a thought you won't have
to go over more than once.

dust me off and hold me to your chest
throw me in the fire when everything has
passed, frame the better parts of me
as a way to remember the sweetest parts of the past

fall in love with the memory
of me.

call me a mess then
pack me into boxes. place me
on the driveway with your old
mattress and couches
better off with a guy who says i'm only
worth a dollar and 50 cents tell him to
buy your mother of pearl lamp set
and throw me in for free instead
i swear i did not make this up in my head
call me a mess then
pack me into boxes, along with
the 23 poems i wrote for you
a garage sale display of my
shattered periphery

i swear i did not make this up in my head

I miss you like I miss ******* running through my veins.
Like I miss forgetting my head was attached to my body.
Like skipping out on dinner dates to run suicides,
like yeah I was sweating red and white down my nose.
Like I forgot to call you and tell you I had gotten clean.
I miss you like the way I miss falling in love with you again in my dreams.
Like waking up to realize you’re not there.
Like trying to wiggle my way into your heart
and say I’m sorry I burned you here.
Like wishing I could have you near again.
I miss you like withdrawals and headaches that turned me inside out.
Like remembering the Morse code pattern of your mouth.
Like writing you to sleep.
Like hearing you say you loved me.