I love you but I can't trust you anymore

Please just leave me alone for a while

I don't care how you're feeling, this isn't about your feelings

No, you don't get a say in our relationship now, the same way I didn't get a say in my own ******* bedroom

Do you know how much this ****** with my head

You were my best friend

Go **** yourself

I'm sorry

No
Because I don't want to
Because I said so
No
Because I said so
You're not going to change my mind
No
No
[His name]
Stop

DO YOU REMEMBER THE NIGHT I HAD SIX DRINKS AND YOU HAD NONE

BECAUSE I DON'T

The presumably burnt-out light bulb
merely needed to be
twisted back into place in order to
flicker on again.
The grey-haired woman standing on the chair
sighs, glad
she will not have to buy new ones.

I know where you are right now because I have been there too, I know how it feels to be so sad for so long that you can't imagine being happy again, to be so sad for so long that you stop trying to be happy again and so you just feed the sadness, just try to give it what it wants in the hope that it will be content enough to spare you, but feeding it only helps it grow. You have to starve it out. You have to lock it up, have to tell it "no", have to fight it. It will claw at the back of your eyelids, it will moan and howl so loud that you cannot hear your own thoughts, you will ache because it is aching and you and it are one but you have to remind yourself that it is created entirely of you, but only a portion of you is made of it. You have to make it shrink. It will not be easy. There will be days when you give in, when you feel bad for it, withering away, and so you throw it scraps of food under the table but there will also be days when it is silent. It will have grown so weak that it can no longer pound on the door, it will lie still there in the dark and you will forget about it, if only for a moment, and you have to hold onto that. There will be good days, days when you think to yourself "this is how happy people feel on a regular basis," days that remind you why you are fighting this beast in the first place and the next day may be bad again, you may not hear that silence again for weeks but when you cannot see an end to this torture, you have to remind yourself of the good days, you have to keep them tucked underneath your pillow and reminisce about the way walking felt easy for a day before you go to bed, you have to keep telling yourself that although this is an uphill battle, it will be so much easier on the way down the other side and the view from the mountaintop is breathtaking. You have to convince yourself that you want that mountaintop, have to tell yourself that the good days are worth the fight, that the sadness will not last forever, that you are not made of darkness although it is made of you. You have to starve it out; it is so much easier to live when you only have to feed yourself.

I have been told that a love left untouched will never disappear; that because the corrosive oils from our fingertips have not dissolved its coloring, it will, theoretically, endure perpetually. This love, left in its shrink-wrap casing, looming over the heads of the meek and the caustic feels like a scarlet letter hidden behind the robe, a feeling so foul none are to know but, Oh, what if it begins to fester, there in the moist dark?

This worry had been sitting in my stomach, churning with the bile and swallowed blood, coming up acid in my throat; I could feel it radiating out. Thought: it must be nuclear, must be radioactive and glowing, eating through me one layer at a time, but love –this uranium longing– has a half-life.

When first the reaction began it boiled and popped like lye on skin, singed off my eyelids so I could not help but see it there. I found myself woozy from the fumes, a high I had never experienced before so I inhaled, let it torch my lungs and leave me gagging. My hair began to fall out. I was soggy from the chemotherapy, tried pumping this bitterness into my bloodstream to remove the evil that already existed there, unaware that they were the same entity. It could not survive on a diet of itself and obsession, and so it began waning.

An exponential decay, the intensity of this passion varying directly with the frequency of contact and inversely with time, yet it will never be gone, entirely. It will decrease incrementally every time I say good bye, every time I see scarred knuckles, every time I want and he does not. I have counted the days since the day I counted on him and he was accountable and the number is growing larger and getting more difficult to remember. I have scribbled it onto scraps of paper and it has only browned the edges, no longer burns all the way through, and this love –this radium affair– has been losing its toxicity.

I don't like change,
I keep it tucked away in my wallet,
the only space for it,
no good space,
really,

it just sits there,
weighs down on the frayed stitching in
my old jean pocket and makes things
too heavy on one side,

never worth much,
always just the leftovers,
the things I couldn't trade in for something else so
I got them back,
different now,
heavier,
a stale metallic smell,
not worth as much.

boy finds brand new camera in his Christmas stocking
photographs the night sky, Polaroid comes out dark
tiny feet slide inside of Daddy's loafers
tie drags on the ground between chubby legs
there's something hiding under the bed, Dad
never saw anything
said night sky, only saw dark

His tales of a place he once called home, now reduced to ruins and smolder, carry a weight he has become accustomed to straining the muscles of his back against. He keeps postcards in his wallet, folded and creased in the center to the point of perforation, pulls them out when he is homesick or when anyone asks about his origins, always tucks them back into the pocket with more spite than he cares to portray. Most observers simply nod their head, "how beautiful it is," –was– "you're lucky to have been a part of it." He smiles, the genuine kind of smile that takes precise attention to detail and years of practice to counterfeit, says "I know." Some bold and curious or ignorant and inconsiderate listeners poke their furrowed brows into his upturned palms, ask him, "did you see the fire?" They want to know –must know– if he could smell the smoke from the next town over, if he could see the sky illuminated in the distance, the red hue seeping into the blue-black night, they want to know how big it was, a house fire or a holocaust, if he tried to put it out or if he stood idle, looked for faces in the flames, if it left anything but charred floorboards and fireproof safes, the combinations written on scraps of paper now insignificant. You can see him fuming from across the room, his face illuminated, the red hue dripping down his neck, his voice becomes victim, tries to keep it steady but you can see losses on his tongue, he trails off into silence, leaves nothing but stubbed toes and sentiments, "I'm sorry I asked." When he talks about the people he knows –knew– there, he always starts with a chuckle, a little grin as if something had just reminded him of them, they were all kids back then, his eyes turn child again while he talks about how they played in the storm drains and then he snaps them shut, remembers the cigarette butts, remembers the lighters they bought at the drug store, how they had loved to see things burn until they couldn't stop it. He talks about this place he used to call home, doesn't know what to call it anymore.

if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it
it doesn't make a sound but you can feel it shake the ground for miles
feel it rattle the good china in the cupboard

if a tree fall in the forest and no one is around to find use for the wood
it just lays there until the early morning damp soaks all the way through
just lays there until pieces of it start to flake off

if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to count the years in its rings
it might never have lived at all
might never have been alive in the first place

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem.

I told myself reliving the same traumas
over
and over
would not aid in the healing process,
but these are not
the same traumas,
this is not
another **** poem,
there is just
so much ******* material
that it's starting to run together.

She went to a movie with him,
somewhere public,
somewhere safe,
and still he drug his hand
up her thigh,
she kept her mouth shut,
tried to push him away,
wouldn't want to interrupt the best scene,
whispered
"stop",
he didn't listen.

He was in his girlfriend's bedroom,
watched her sit in silence
fuming
when he said
"no"
for the fourth time,
told himself to
man up
when she said
"what, don't you love me?"
He swore he did,
he just couldn't show it like this,
she didn't listen.

She was at his apartment,
told him that morning
she just wasn't in the mood today,
she shifted inside herself
as he kissed her neck
the same way he had
hundreds of times before,
forced a laugh as she said
"I really don't want to,"
he didn't listen.

She was sitting on his couch
when he put his arm around her,
unwrapped herself from him,
he told her to
"just relax,"
became comfortable in a body
he was never invited into,
she got away,
called her brother from the next street over,
explained to him from the passenger seat
that she had said no,
he didn't listen.

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem
because I had convinced myself it wouldn't happen again,
had convinced myself that
my friends and family
were not a part of the statistic,

but every sobbing phone call
or hushed condolence
reminds me that
this happens every day,
that pretending **** culture does not exist
will not make it go away,
that 20% of human beings
in the United States
will be ***** in their lifetime,
that 20% of the people I love
will be ***** in their lifetime.

I keep telling myself
I will not write another **** poem,

keep reminding myself
to look at the facts.

Oh, how perfect it is to want you,
how perfect it is to long for that which I know
I can never have, to see
the futility in my desires and to
desire them in spite of,

how perfect it is that you do not love me
anymore,
that we will not fall into mutual complacency
which would inevitably tarnish and blanch,
that the
unknown
will remain
unknowable,
that anything will continue to be possible
because nothing has been tested against fate,

how perfect it is to wish for the infeasible,
to strive toward a goal I will
never attain, to
never lack
something to search for,

oh, how perfect it is to want you;
how perfect it is to want too much.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch another person, for your skin to touch their skin, the warmth of blood flowing within two separate bodies to intertwine.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch you, for my thin fingers to catch on the callouses of your palms, to trace the scars on your knuckles, for the cold of my hands to mingle with the warmth seeping from the veins in your wrist.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to want you, for your hands to burrow themselves into my cerebrum, for the air in my shallow lungs to flow in unison with the cadence of your voice.

Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted. I wanted to show you my scars because I feel like a fraud and I wanted to show you my scars so you would know how pathetic I really am but you don't understand, my scars are not battle wounds, they are not badges I've earned, I do not wear them proudly, my scars are representative of all the times I was too weak to fight those battles, my scars are surrenders and do not call me brave if I didn't even bother fighting. I wanted to show you my scars so you would stop telling me how strong I am because I am not strong, I am weak and I am still hiding from you because you think these scars are things I have overcome but these scars are the very things that haunt me and who are you to know what I am going through simply because I have told you? I am falling apart and these scars are reopening, I am falling apart at the seams and you are calling me a hero but heroes do not hate themselves like this. Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted.

i just took a lot of cold medicine (a lot of cold medicine) and i think i love (love) you and i know you do not want to hear that now and i am sorry (i am sorry (i am sorry)) but i do not know what to do, i am losing faith in everything (everything) and now you are losing faith in me, too (you are losing faith in me, too)

You were in my dream last night and I think we were in love and my head didn't hurt anymore and suddenly I remembered how it felt for my chest cavity to be full of something other than steam and I swear to God it was real, I could feel your heartbeat while you slept but still I woke into a dark room and let the world slowly come back to me and I don't know how but that illusion felt more real than my life has for a while now and I started grasping for someone on the couch next to me only to find I was alone, and I keep waiting for someone to tell me to calm down, that this is all a bad dream, I keep hoping I'll wake up and this will all seem foggy and distant because last night couldn't have been in my head, I could feel your heartbeat while you slept.

This is for the girls that have ****** you. This is for the pale girls with short hair, the "she could be a lesbian but I'm not sure" type, the beanie wearing bad ******* with heavy baggage and a surplus of bandages. This is for the sad girls, the shipwrecked sailors searching for a beacon, the bruised rib cages and ****** knuckles. This is for the condoms, the purple box you keep in the drawer in your bedside table that we have all seen, the repeated observation that you have no ******* clue how to put on a ****** without looking like a child trying to stuff a water ****** into a sock. This is for the silence, the overwhelming quiet made quieter by skin hitting skin, the active avoidance of eye contact. This is for the fact that you consider foreplay "stalling," the speed with which you can please yourself via another person's body, the ******* that we have all faked at least twice. This is for the general consensus that your performance in bed can be summed up in three words: insecure, selfish, and pretentious. You are the Kanye West of ***; I'm not sure if you are going to let me finish. This is for the sore muscled sweethearts that saved your self-esteem and reassured you of your ****** orientation, for the courteous cuties who carried on until you came, this is for the girls that have ****** you. Godspeed.

In speech class they taught us that people speak only to entertain, to inform, or to persuade so when I texted you at 4:31am after swallowing the liquor cabinet and talked about three years ago in Michigan when we watched that movie after everybody else had fallen asleep, I was trying to entertain you, trying to remind you of all the fun we used to have together before you changed and when I told you I missed you I was trying to inform you of the pit in my stomach that you left when you removed yourself from me, of the way I feel when you say my name and of the fact that yes, I did notice that you stopped saying my name and when I told you I was dying I was trying to persuade you to come save me, made it life or death so you only had two options and if you made the wrong choice at least I wouldn't be around to see it, I was trying to convince you that you needed me by showing you how much you would miss me and when you showed up at my bedside, I know you were trying to tell me you loved me.

I've got scars on my wrist
I've got scars on my wrist from the time I got too drunk
I got too drunk because I wanted to be brave enough
To be brave enough to tell him I loved him
I told him I loved him in the same breath as I told him I was dying
I was dying because my eyes wouldn't stay open
Eyes wouldn't stay open because I kept closing them
Kept closing them because I didn't want to see the blood all over one of the good white towels
All over one of the good white towels because I tried to wash it off in the shower but it kept bleeding
Kept bleeding because I cut deeper than I thought I had
Cut deeper than I thought I had because I couldn't feel it
Couldn't feel it because I was too drunk
I was too drunk because I drank all the beers left in the fridge and the ***** in the freezer
The ***** in the freezer because the beer wasn't strong enough
Wasn't strong enough
Wasn't strong enough

girl goes to bed with makeup on, wakes up with sore muscles
girl goes to bed without locking the front door, wakes up in the driveway
girl goes to bed without saying goodnight, wakes up to brother shaking her shoulders
girl goes to bed with the phone off the hook, wakes up with mouthful of *****
girl goes to bed in the bathtub, wakes up with an armful of black thread
girl goes to bed in brother's room, wakes up with the tv still on
girl goes to bed next to boy, wakes up before he does
girl goes to bed without sleeping, wakes up the same time as always
girl goes to bed with a candle burning, wakes up to the sound of herself choking
girl goes to bed early, wakes up to obituary
girl goes to bed with her hand in the cabinet, decides not to wake up this time

Dear heartache,
I cannot say that I know you well,
I have never been in love
But I have loved,
Have loved deeply and quickly and without question,
Have loved quietly and cowardly,
Have been loved back.

Dear heartache,
I just wanted to know why you're still
Hanging around here,
Why you keep dropping by
When I have guests over,
They never stay once you show up.

Dear heartache,
I've only known you on the surface,
Have never known the right questions to ask
But I have memorized the structure of your being,
Can describe the color of your eyes down to every fleck of red-brown,
Can still feel every callous on your palm when I think about you,
You have become so commonplace.

Dear heartache,
I think I know what you're doing,
Think I have thought my way through your facade,
I think you are in love with love;
Think you have been following her around for so long
That you couldn't bare to let her go now,
Think you always show up too late,
Show up just as she walks out the door.

Dear heartache,
I cannot say that I know you well,
Cannot say that you have made a home for yourself
Somewhere within me,
Can only stand within your reach
And hope that someday while you are chasing love
She will find me.

Please understand that when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's the concrete in my stomach, it's the staples in between my toes, it's the zip ties around my wrists, it's the scars around my wrists, it's the coals in my throat, it's the liquor in my throat, it's the liquor in the cabinet my mom never had to put a lock on until I started hiding in it, it's the noose around my neck, it's the smoke in my eyes, it's the bullet in the barrel, it's the gun in my dad's closet, it's the gun in my hand, in my mouth, when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's all these things trying to get out.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning without the knot in my chest but I feel off balance so I try to put it back there, feel off balance like tilted bottles of triple sec sliding down my throat, feel off balance like waking up in a place I don't recognize.
Sometimes I smile when I'm sad but I'm scared my demons will feel betrayed so I try to hide it, scared to stare into the sun for too long, scared I'm not going to be able to feel anything anymore if I lose that.
Sometimes I decide I want to love myself again but I remember how I broke my heart before and I put walls up so I don't get hurt again, put walls up so I won't be surprised when I'm still lonely this time next year, put walls up so when I fail I can at least say I was never really trying.
Sometimes I think I'm getting better but I don't know where that leaves me so I think myself out of it, think myself into watercolor guilt, think myself into dying.

Jesus Christ I swear I'm trying it's just not working, everything keeps falling through, keeps slipping through, and maybe I'm not doing this right, maybe I'm just making mistakes, but I don't even know where to start, I'm trying to take it one step at a time but everything happens all at once and I'm not fast enough, I'm not strong enough to carry on like this, my feet are tired and I don't care enough to try any harder, I'm giving up, I'm sorry

I'm doing the best I can but I can't do this anymore, I keep crying in my sleep, keep having nightmares. I thought I saw a ghost yesterday until I realized I was looking in the ******* mirror, I'm haunting my own house, possessing my own body, I'm ******* the life out of myself. I tied a noose around my finger just to prove that I could do it, I keep a razor in my purse just to prove that I could do it, to prove to myself that I'm strong enough to not do it, but they keep whispering my name. The bottle of mouthwash with 5% alcohol keeps screaming at me and I can't use it anymore, it leaves that taste in my mouth, tastes like hangover and relapse and accidents, and they're all teasing me with promises of making it all just stop and God it sounds so sweet, sounds so sweet, I know it's not.

My body,

This overgrown graveyard,

This home for ghosts of the wrongly loved,

Doors open to broken souls,

Offering a warm bed,

Clean clothes,

A listening ear.



Most come in the winter

When the cold starts to ache and

The snow sinks through the gauze bandages and the wounds start to drip again,

There's never enough firewood,

Have to start chopping down trees,

Even the new peach tree at the edge of the yard,

So they can stay warm.

The blizzards shake the power out so they all congregate in the atrium,

Divulge tales around burning furniture

Of how they found this place,

This decrepit shelter

Turning more skeleton than home,

Their voices bounce off the hardwood floor,

Come to a resting point,

Fade out.



An old man with sad cheekbones who tried to drink his father back to life but only stumbled through the front door drunk,

A child in her Auntie's pearls led to the porch by a boy hungry for anyone,

The brokenhearted boy and the girl he could never hold tight enough who walked in on the same night but never called it fate,

The swollen lung man who choked on his words and fell blue faced in the entryway,

They all take up rooms here,

Mark their heights on the pantry door even though it never changes,

Claim ownership of these walls as they pull off the paper and paint over the scraps left behind,

The roof is starting to cave in because

They've started using the pillars for kindling.



They don't call this place home,

Don't plant any seeds in the garden that will take too long to sprout,

They call it an in-between,

Call it a place to spend the night,

Call it falling apart

As they tear it down,

Call it a place to hide while they fix their mistakes,

Leave their mistakes stuffed in the knife drawer.



When winter begins to melt

And the grass sticks up through the snow

They find their way out,

Leave with fresh pink scars,

Leave their used bandages in the bathtub,

Take a strip of wallpaper,

A peach from the tree by the edge of the yard

To remember it by.

Hi, I'm sorry for texting you so late it's just that everything feels like it's falling apart and I can't even recognize myself anymore sometimes it feels like I'm not even the one living my life I'm just watching it like a movie I'm just going through the motions and I don't know who to talk to anymore because I just keep making more problems but I need help I need someone to hold me and tell me it's okay I don't know how to make it through this on my own please just come save me

Today I watched your
lungs turn inside out against themselves,
the air unsure of where to go so it just
hovered
in that middle space between coughs,
when you thought you'd caught your breath but
your voice hitched when you tried to talk and
you started choking again,

I saw
that today, your
eyes watering as you struggled to
remind your body how to sustain itself,
you cussed between fits and asked,
"isn't this supposed to happen on its own,"
you wheezed,
"shouldn't something so
instinctual
be easier than this?"

You didn't sound like you wanted an answer so I
kept my mouth shut,
brought you a glass of water.

When you decided to stop smoking
you kept buying cigarettes,
still carried them around in the
pocket of your jeans
but told yourself that
every time you lit one
you'd have to put it out on your hand,
and so you savored every moment
that smoke rushed through your lungs,
let them all burn down to the ****
before you took a deep breath
and pressed it against your palm.
You still smoke.

To fill the emptiness with hollow things

To speak through our teeth only in whispers

To find remorse in the beautiful memories

To pour the milk ourselves

To walk away from that which we hold closest

To clog the drain with pebbles from our shoes

To hate those who love us

To hate those who cannot

To dog-ear the pages in borrowed novels

To hide lies beneath our skin

To lie thorns beneath the bedsheets

To forget to say hello

To forget to say good bye

Sustenance for my frail body
contained in gel-coated pills
split into thirds,
one for morning,
one for night,
one to slip beneath my tongue.

A glass of water
–or milk, with breakfast–
rumbles through my throat,
resists peristalsis,
hits stomach.

The heater clicks on
as the thermostat flashes 68 degrees,
then shuts off at night,
replaced by
one sheet,
one throw blanket,
one quilt.

Your hand, inches from
my fingertips,
not yet near enough
for electricity to jump between,
will go unacknowledged;
one feeble attempt at loving within my means.

The black of your faded comforter
and grey walls with paint swatches in
tasteful shades of yellow
Against our timid skin
blushing with sun exposure
we have not seen in months
Dim rays slipping in between the blinds
and the rain
–in line segments–
makes its way down your window
We whisper so
the neighbors cannot hear us
pretending to make promises
Five past four
still too early

I tried to burn the first flower you ever gave me but
it filled the room with smoke like
cigarettes and
I felt it fill my lungs like your
breath
when we used to kiss and
my throat is raw with missing you

I have been told by four different people that I'm not really trying to get better, that I'm just wallowing in this sorrow and letting it swallow me, like bleach, but from you, I think was the worst. No, no it wasn't, the worst was the first time, from the first boy I ever kissed, I remember how sweetly he said it, "I just think you let it get the best of you sometimes," and how I exploded, and so I was prepared when you said it, had been through this fight before, had a witty retort prepared for every "well if you just did this you could fix it" you threw at me, I have years of experience in defending my sadness. So when you told me that if I have lived this long just so I won't break any more hearts than I have to then I should just keep going, and I said "Good night", understand that I only left because that poses a question that I have not been brave enough to answer yet, that I know to you it makes perfect sense but there are days when the only thing that keeps me going is the promise that I will eventually die, and when you try to push that back, try to tell me that it will not happen as soon as I have been promising myself, I lose hope. So yes, you made some valid points, and yes, I probably could be working a little harder, and, yes, I am still mad at you. You're an *******. Good night.

I can't let myself
fall for you; I'm too close to
the edge as it is.

Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness
stitched into the tag in the neck of their coat.
They carry it like a wallet weathered from use
and old gift cards in the pocket poke at the seams.
They keep it tucked away like a pressed flower
in between the pages of their favorite novel
and find it while they're thumbing through
for that line about love that they have forgotten.
They leave it in the bottom of their shoe
and let it poke at their soles when they walk,
and, becoming accustomed to it,
no longer feel it at all.

But I don't want you
to think this is me pouring
my heart out to you.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution,
but
we've all
heard that
before.
It feels like
originality is impossible
when only given
twenty-six
characters to work with,
and so
these are not
my thoughts,
this does not
belong to me,
I am
writing the same things
that all those before me have written.
We are either replicas or denying it.

I have been learning how to die,
have prepared myself at every
intersection or doctor's office,
have been whispering
Good Bye
like last words,
every time.

I have been learning how to be a corpse,
have been rotting from the
inside out,
have been peeling away the decaying flesh
beside my fingernails,
on the inside of my lip,
around the wounds that I know will never get the chance to heal now.

I have been learning how to be a skeleton,
have been leaving empty spaces
between ribs
and
vertebrae,
have been training myself to lie still
in small, dark places.

I have been learning how to be a ghost,
have haunted my own
home,
have found solace
in inhabiting this body
that I claim to belong in,
I have been learning how to regret.

This year will be bigger and better and involve less time in bed or possibly much more and this year will be loud and there will be bright lights and high heels and there will be hand holding and so many ******* hugs and I will eat pasta because I love pasta and I will not feel bad about that and I will make plans and then not cancel them and I will show up despite the knot in my stomach and I will laugh way too loud because I can and that is a beautiful thing and I will treat new acquaintances like old friends because people like it when you do that because it makes them feel good about themselves and I will make people feel good about themselves because that is a beautiful thing and I will feel good about myself because I deserve that and I will eat three meals a day and exercise and sleep eight hours a night because I deserve that and I will buy an unnecessary but adorable sweater every now and then because I have earned that and I will tell people I love them because they have earned that and they deserve to hear that and I will mean it when I tell people that life is great because I deserve that.

We used to spend hours
driving around looking at houses and
I never understood why you went to
the middle class neighborhoods
with the big homes that all looked the same and
pointed to the ones with
heavy wooden doors and thick brick walls
and all the cars in the garage and
called them your favorite
until I heard your voice crack when you said
they just look so sturdy
and I knew that
your walls were rotting and
falling down and
your foundation was cracked and
your windows were shattered and
the ceiling was starting to
cave in and
you liked the
big homes with
heavy wooden doors and thick brick walls
and all the cars in the garage because
they were
strong
when you
weren't.

Give me one world at a time,
I am doing the best I can
but there are still so many things
that I will never understand
and all I have is myself
yet I don't know who I am,
I'm still trying to accept the fact
that I am only human.

Sleep with a mason jar
Under your bed
Try to forgive all the things
That we never said

Ache within reason
Regurgitate your pride
There is strength in always
Having something to hide

Dig you claws into the mountainside
Feel slate crumble and fall
Get a grip on something permanent
Or on nothing at all

Face your fears with
Grace and poise
Use your screams to drown out
All this **** noise

Remind yourself
Of where you've been
And where you'll go
When your time here ends

Here she lies still
Breaking the box spring
Twisting words around
Her father's wedding ring

"Dying," she whispers
Her hand on her chest
Prepares for the evening
Of eternal unrest

There's a creak from the closet
There's a crash from outside
A boneyard war being waged
A corpse trying to hide

"It's never enough,"
That's what we'll assume
The dead go on living
And their dreams are exhumed

Bust through the coffin lid
Break your own heart
The dead and the dying
Are only six feet apart

You like it, don't you? You hate yourself and you love that about you, you love your brooding pain, the way you can't say your own name without choking. You love to see how close to the bottom you can get before you start gasping for air, you want to swallow salt water, let it fill your lungs like tar, you want them to miss you, want them to feel guilty, want him to love your pain as much as you do, want him to appreciate how well you can destroy things, want his vision to be distorted by the scars on your wrists, want him to kiss them, want him to feed your pain. You want troubled girl meets nice boy, want him to try to save her, want her to die anyways, want him to be troubled boy to meet nice girl, want her to try to save him, want him to die anyways, want to start a cycle, want the world to resonate with the aching hollowness of your last words, want everyone to know how much you're hurting, how strong you are for still being here, for still fighting, but you're not fighting, are you? You gave up a long time ago and aside from the adrenaline attacks of optimism you are weak, but they will never know this, they cannot know this, they have to believe that you're an inspiration, that you fought as hard as you could but it wasn't enough, that you never gave in, that your dying breath was a whisper of purity, that you are a godsend, an idol to be worshipped, you are the messiah. You are so brave.

I hope you don't understand me,
hope I remain something mysterious to you,
hope you romanticize me into something complex rather than a body and a series of chemical reactions,
I hope I can fool you into believing that I mean more than what I say,
hope you write about me and analyze it to find some sort of answer,
hope you look for symbolism in the way I do my makeup,
hope you think me into a work of art and spill it from your veins,
I hope I burn on the way back out,
hope you have scars on your fingers from trying to dissect me,
hope I make you nervous,
hope you think about how to phrase things before you say them around me,
hope you ask every question strategically,
hope you think I know exactly what you're up to,
I hope you play word games with me to see how my mind works,
hope you still can't grasp it,
hope I'm always close enough to touch but not to get a firm grip on,
hope you dig yourself into a hole walking in circles to get a better view of me,
hope you never say my name for fear of manifesting the sound incorrectly,
hope you have no ******* clue what any of this means,
I hope you never understand me

I cannot tell you I love you,
cannot let you know what you mean to me
because it will only make it harder for me to leave,
cannot give you the burden of my last sentiments,
cannot curse you without your consent
and God forbid you say it back,
God forbid you shorten the list of things this place lacks,
I just want to go,
want to get out of here on my own,
want to spoil my own reputation
so you will not curse the earth for my disintegration,
I cannot leave you with anything to miss,
cannot let you regret the moments we did not kiss,
I cannot tell you I love you.

if I promise I don't love you can you hold me again
can you trace your fingers over my thigh and pretend it's not a sin
can you hold my hand and pretend that it isn't too cold
like we used to do before I got too sad and you got too old
can you kiss my neck like you just want to touch me
can you press my head to your chest so I can feel your heartbeat
if I promise I don't love you will you tell me that you love me

there is a noose hanging in my
throat
and when I try to tell you I love you
it tangles around the words and
I start to choke
so I keep my mouth shut

and this is not to say that I do not love you but
love doesn't feel like a blessing anymore,
it feels like guilt,
it feels like another promise that
I will not be able to keep, it feels like
an apology that my lips will never speak.

when I try to tell you I love you
I remind myself that
you don't want me to anymore,
remind myself that
this is not what you want to hear from me,
remind myself that
you will not say it back.

when I try to tell you I love you it is not because
I think you need to hear it,
it is because
I want to say it,
it is because
that word has been eating a hole in the pit of my stomach for
too long,
it is because when I
repeat a word too many times
it stops sounding like one
so I'm hoping that if I say it out loud it will
regain its meaning,
it is because I do not know if it's true and
I want you to tell me it is,
it is because I am
selfish
and this is entirely for my own
benefit and/or destruction

and I am sorry because
when I tell you I love you it will be
the last thing I say to you.

I don't know why I can't write anything today.
I am so ******* empty but my mind keeps slipping back to
you,
and I hate myself with a fervor
unmatched by any passion I've felt before and that is
terrifying.
You aren't allowed to leave without saying
you'll come back,
you aren't allowed to love her without killing your love for me first.
Why do you do this to me?
Why do I do this to myself?
Honestly, you're innocent but
I need somewhere to place the guilt other than
myself
because my arms are full and
I cannot carry anymore.
I haven't seen you in weeks.
We used to talk,
you used to love me,
now do you even ******* care?
Do you ever think of me anymore?
Because I think about you all the time.
You are the reason I've been hungover the past two days,
you are the reason my friends are worried about me,
you are the reason I can't turn in any of the poems I write to my English teacher.
I do not love you like you want me to,
at least I don't think I do,
but I do love you,
oh god I do,
but what the hell does that even mean? All I know is
today I felt like crying because of all the things you've said to me
and the only thing I knew would make it better would be if
you said my name.
You didn't.