"Some days she's stubborn as hell. She won't let me kiss her cheek because she needs her space, but the very next day she will smother me in all of her love and affection, until I have to beg her to stop. Some days she's so weak that she doesn't leave her bed, and she'll cry into my tshirt while I play with her hair. She won't say anything, so I won't ask. Sometimes she will tell me everything on her mind, no matter how much it hurts her or how much it will hurt me, and she'll stand with such bravery, I'll forget every time I held her while tears stained her little pink cheeks. When we are with her friends, I'll watch her laugh from across the room and she'll smile at me and I'll forget everytime we ever fought. I'll watch her cook with my mom, and they're so much alike, but I never knew that's what I needed until her. I see her smiling and laughing and crying and shaking and I know that she is everything I ever want.

I am like Autumn,
full of colors and warmth.
That's what you told me that October night in your bed, your arms wrapped around me, like I was your lifeline.
I am like Autumn,
more so than you'd think.
I am the leaves that fall from the tree, dying. The colors you love so much are my last, I'm a spark about to burn out, like all of the bonfires you took me to.
Autumn is full of death, and you think it's beautiful. So am I, but the kind of death I possess is hardly beautiful.

It's been a year since we talked but I know that if you called me and asked to go to coffee I'd drop everything in five seconds flat.
You told me once that you were going to lock me up so nobody else could have me and you kissed me on the forehead. I don't think you ever unlocked me though because whenever anyone's lips meet the top of my head, I shatter into a million pieces. Please unlock me.
I know you're with another girl who makes you smile more than I ever was able to, and I know that you kiss her forehead too, and you take her to coffee on her lunch break, but sometimes I see pictures of you together and I imagine your hand around my waist instead of hers.
I don't hate her. I was her, once, and I'd do anything to be able to be her again. You hold the key to my cage and if you want to come back to me I'll let you back in, I swear.

It gets easier, that's what my mom told me after the boy I would've died for pulled my heart out of my chest and watched me bury myself alive.
It gets easier to hide the tears when someone asks how you are, and it gets easier to pretend not to see them in the halls holding hands with the cute girl you always knew he liked. It gets easier to fight every urge in your body that wants to call him after you had four shots, and it gets easier to kiss the nice boy at the party who tastes like spring. It gets easier when you haven't talked to him and three months and you realize you don't think about him when you drive past the place you first held his sweaty hand. It gets easier when you can be by yourself and be okay with it.

There are letters under my bed,
Addressed to you that I never could send.
They spoke of the many nights I stayed up,
The nights when I knew you couldn't give a ****.
They are stained with coffee and tears,
And every single one of my wasted years.
I always knew something didn't feel right,
I just figured it would be fine later on at night,
I guess it was never meant to be,
I just wish you could have told me.

I know I haven't talked to you in years, I just wanted to update you on my life, five years after you walked out of it.
For a while I was okay, but it was just like the dentist, after the numbness goes away you just feel the pain you tried to hide away. Then I was mad, mad at you for leaving, mad at mom for losing herself, and mad at myself for not being able to fix it all. Then I cried, a lot. In the shower, in my bed, in the arms of the boyfriend who never would be able to understand why I was shards of glass on sad wrists. I must have come full circle in five years, because I'm numb again, but whether it's from you or the drinks I have at night to forget you, I don't know.

I don't want to dance anymore
I just want to cry
And if that makes me look like a mess
Well, I never did try.
You took all I had
Threw it against the wall
I watched as it shattered
Like it was nothing at all
It didn't matter much to me
I feel empty anyway
There wasn't much in me
I'm already in decay

I'm a mess in the supermarket, the lady down the aisle wears a worried face. I'm buying razors with mascara running down my face and she probably thinks I'm going to cut myself tonight from the safety of my bathroom. Maybe she thinks you broke my heart, maybe she's right. I'm not buying them to destroy myself with, I've learned how to do that from the inside out by now, but I've never been good with timing and execution has never been my thing so I'll let her worry about me because if I try to explain how I haven't been okay since the day you said hello to me I will leave with more wounds than I walked in with.

I'm trying so hard to get better, mom, I swear. It's just that I woke up this morning and couldn't find a single reason to get out of bed. You called last week and asked me how my anxiety is doing, as if it were a separate person entirely. It's okay though, sometimes I think it is too. I can't get out of bed because there's no good enough reason to shatter the floor with every step I take, so I hide under my covers and hope tomorrow will be better. It hasn't been, but I'm trying mom, I promise. Maybe soon I'll be able to call you back but the dial tone sends me into a panic attack so fierce that I stop breathing. I know your voice would calm me down but right now it's just too much. Keep calling, one day I'll be able to answer without crying. I love you mom, I love you so much. I'm so sorry.

You could bend me until I break, hell, you already do// or you could snap my neck, I'm sure that would work too// It doesn't matter how you do the killing if you're in it for the thrill// and I'm sure you don't mean it, you say you never do.// I guess I grew accustomed to the lack of air// you'd think i would be gasping// but the weight of your world is far too much to bare.// I thought I was in love with you but I just like the pain// It doesn't matter anyway,  I spent too long waiting for a train that never came.//

I changed my ring tone today. I couldn't hear it go off without wishing it was you. It's never you.
I replaced the picture of us at the ocean with a picture of me and my dad from father's day. We looked so happy at the beach but my dad taught me that the ocean seems calm but it can be dangerous if you lose yourself a little. You're kind of like the ocean.
I saw your friend at the mall today. He told me you are doing well in New York. I hope when you see the city lights at night you remember how much I loved them.
The clock you bought me for Christmas stopped ticking last night.  I think time sort of stopped when you left.

Baby, if you're going to explode like a million fireworks over the river I want to be there to feel like light and if you're going to crash on the pavement like the hail from last night's storm then put my right in the center to feel them hitting my shoulders because I want to bare the weight of the world for you when you get a little tired and I want to be there when things go so well that you have a little extra sparkle to give away, so baby, let me be there for you in rain or shine, I promise I won't let you down.

It wasn't until my knees were bruised and my knuckles ****** that I learned why you're not allowed to give yourself away to other people. I became part leap and part fall for you but it didn't matter in the end because I ended up a shattered mess at the bottom of the high and now I know that if you're going to love someone it might as well be yourself.

I changed my ring tone today. I couldn't hear it go off without wishing it was you. It's never you.
I replaced the picture of us at the ocean with a picture of me and my dad from father's day. We looked so happy at the beach but my dad taught me that the ocean seems calm but it can be dangerous if you lose yourself a little. You're kind of like the ocean.
I saw your friend at the mall today. He told me you are doing well in New York. I hope when you see the city lights at night you remember how much I loved them.
The clock you bought me for Christmas stopped ticking last night.  I think time sort of stopped when you left.

I'm tired of sleepless nights and stalemates. I want to say goodnight this time, to be happy when I close my eyes. I don't want to wonder if we'll be okay when the sun rises and I don't want to cry when you feel like you're on the other side of the world and the sun is shining only for you a million miles away. I want to feel whole and I want to feel your hands in mine. I want too much and that has always been my downfall, but this time I just want the basic necessities of you and me.

I love you too, but I feel nauseous every time you touch my knee.
I love you too, but when you kiss me on the forehead it throws me into a panic attack.
I love you too, but when you hold my hand I can't breathe and I feel sick.
I love you too, but your words make my head spin and I feel dizzy.
I love you too, but where do I go from here?

How did we go from holding hands and kissing in the rain to me feeling nauseous every time you put your hand on my hip or kiss my forehead? How did we go from texting all night to one sided conversations where you beg me to respond? How am I supposed to fall back in your arms at night and not break down into a sobbing mess? Where do we go from here?

"Some people will burn you when they touch you, baby girl. Some people's hands are on fire and when they grab your hand it might feel exciting, but you're going to walk out with third degree burns and scars that will make you cry every time you see them and remember how much you used to love the danger. Some peoples hands are so cold that when you grab their hand in a spur of the moment kind of thing,  they're going to turn you to ice and there's nothing you'll be able to do. Watch out for those people, pumpkin, some of those people have too much fight and some have too much ice in their heart and you're not capable of bringing them back to room temperature."
-my dad warned me about the fire in your touch and the ice in your soul but I thought maybe I could fix you

"The thing about you, your sister, and I, is that if someone tells us to go, they won't have to say it again," my mom told me on a six hour roadtrip. I understood what it meant, but it never fully hit me until you whispered to me, "why don't you just go?" And I've never been back since.

You can be friends with people your whole life and then wake up one day and realize that you need to move on. If you're sitting at lunch with them and you feel like you don't fit it, you're allowed to sit somewhere else.

2. Loving someone and loving the attention they give you are two completely different things. You don't love that boy who sits behind you in math, you just love that he calls you pretty. It's okay to want to be called that, but learn who will be there for you in the middle of the night when you feel sick to your stomach because your friends decided to make plans without you.

3. Your mom is right. Whether it be about going to bed before two in the morning on a school night or that senior boy with the really good hair at all the parties with a red solo cup in his hand, she's right. You're not going to listen to her at first, but when you come home a sleep-deprived mess with a broken heart, she'll be there to pick up the pieces.

4. Your grades are important. No, you shouldn't stay up all night and slave over your algebra homework, but try and do good, even when everything's a mess.

5. People will tell you, "please don't ever change!" Don't listen to them. Change a million times, change every day, every hour, every minute. Change for the better, grow to be a bigger and stronger person. Don't listen to anyone who wants you to be stationary, they're holding you back.

6. It's okay to fall apart every once in a while. Don't think you have to have it all together, you've got so much time to figure all of that out. If you need to cry a little bit, that's okay, and if you need to scream into your pillow, that's alright too. It'll all be okay in the end.

7. You're going to learn that people aren't going to take you seriously. That's okay, work hard to prove them wrong.

8. You're still a child, please don't make a huge fuss over it when people call you one. You don't have much longer and you're really going to miss when your mom would make you dinner and your dad paid for your phone bill. You don't have that many responsibilities and you have so much potential still. Be a child and be okay with it.

9. Don't litter your body with drugs and alcohol because the cute older boy does and you want to fit in with his crowd. Stand out on your own and they'll notice you for things you can be proud of.

10. They're not staring at you. They're not laughing at you. Keep walking with your head up, just because you think that your hair is too big today or your clothes don't fit right doesn't mean anyone else notices. Keep walking.

I feel so alone, and it's really nobodies fault but my own. I make excuses to stay home, even though I'd love to be with my friends at that party. I make excuses all the time and I don't know why.

You must know, I am much more than I seem.
I am a storm, and I try my best to minimize the damage but there's always a house and a person who seem to be destroyed in my wake.
I am a wave, crashing onto the shore as if I haven't seen it in years, hoping that if I crash hard enough into them I will stay forever, not knowing that you are the shore and we collided just a little too hard.
I am the sun, shining bright for the world, but I hurt people I don't intend to and you are the moon, glowing prettier than I ever could.
I am the storm that destroys what you love, the tide that could never stay long enough with the shore to help heal it, and the sun that is never allowed to be with a moon as beautiful as you.

We laughed and we cried and you said you'd be here forever but it still wasn't enough to keep you laying my bed, whispering my name in your sleep.

I gave and I gave and it still wasn't enough for you to call me to say goodnight but you took and you took everything I was and now I can't find myself anywhere.

I emptied my heart to make room for you, to let you fill me up with false happiness and little lies that would eventually leave me gasping for air but it still wasn't enough to make you stay, your eyes on mine and your smile for me.

You could destroy me, if you wanted to.
I gave you all the power, I placed it in the palm of your hands, knowing all too well that you could throw it against the wall, let it shatter to a million pieces on the ground. I gave you everything I have, with the hope that you don't demolish me, with the hope that I'm not left screaming and crying on a Wednesday night. You could destroy me, but the worst part is I'd probably let you.

I know it's not a big deal, that my chest aches and my throat burns when I say your name. It's not a big deal that when you left I could hear my ribcage crack to make room for my heart to fall into pieces in my chest. I know it's not a big deal that you texted me when you were drunk and you told me you still loved me. It's not a big deal because I know you were lying, that the ***** at three in the morning makes you say nice things but also tricks me into thinking that you'll want to spend the rest of your life with me. I know it's not a big deal, but if you could hear the way I scream your name in my sleep, you'd probably give yourself another chance, too.

Dear you,
We've been in a drought for a while and my mom won't let me take long showers in the morning, which I guess is fine except that's where it's okay to cry because I miss you so much. Please call me.

Dear you,
It's been a few months and still no rain, which I don't really mind except for that you remind me of the smell of the pavement after it starts to drizzle and now you're not here and neither is that smell and I think I'm going crazy. Please pick up the phone.

Dear you,
We may still be in our drought but I swear I've cries enough to fill up our empty lake and water all the plants. I left you a voicemail but you never called back.

Dear you,
I saw your mom in the supermarket today. She pretended she didn't see me at first, but we ended up in the same aisle and she had to say hi. I wanted to ask her about you but she wouldn't stop talking about the weather. I guess it's making us all a little crazy.

Dear you,
I miss you and I wish you were here.

Dear you,
I drank enough tonight to forget you. I guess it didn't work because I'm writing your name all over my receipt at this diner and the weather channel is on and I hate you.

Dear you,
I'm tired of hearing about the drought, I know you probably are too.

Dear you,
It finally rained today but I didn't think of you when the water hit the pavement. I guess this is it then.

I don't understand why they compare us to fire and ice because when you went up in flames I didn't die out slowly, I caught flame when you were trying to put yourself out and I burned like your old favorite picture and you were the match. Now I roll up my sleeves when I'm around an open flame and I wish I was the ******* ice because my heart is just ashes of who I used to be and my throat is still burning.

Red is anger, red is love. No, wait, red is disappointment, red is lust. Red is every emotion packed into one punch that leaves you gasping for air on your bathroom floor at two in the morning.  Red are your eyes when you've used all your tears on the boy who never really cared. Red is your face when your best friend stabs you in the back and red is the blood that you swear is dripping on the ground when she twists it. Red is everything you never wanted and everything you still think you need.

You told me your favorite color was orange at least three times, you loved everything about it. I never really liked it much, the fruit or the shade it was, it used to give me headaches. You said you loved the way it was part of the sunset, right before the sun hits the horizon and the colors start to blur, you loved the way it was everything all at once, and in my mind I thought, "just like you." I'd get married in an orange dress if I could spend the rest of my life with you, and I know it gives me headaches when I stare at it too long but you're like the orange sunset and I'd stare at you forever if you'd let me.

Yellow is the look on your face when I tell you I love you, and the color of the sunshine that lives in your soul. It's the favorite color of the young boy who lives across the street from me who brings me a dandelion every time I leave for work. Yellow is the color that smiles back at you on a bad day and that laughs with you on a good one. Yellow is the sun, fierce and bright, like you.

Green, I've learned, is the most greedy of colors. Green demands attention, a lot like you do, but green also represents jealousy, a lot like I do. You are the prettiest of greens, like the color of your eyes and the grassy hill we spent the day picking wildflowers and laughing under the sun. I am the green that's so dark and mixed with spite and anger and sickness. The green that's so bitter you can taste it in your mouth, and I suppose you got tired of inhaling it altogether.

Blue, I suppose, is the saddest color. It's the color of my mom's eyes and I always saw her crying after dad left. It's the color you're supposed to turn when you stop breathing because the boy you loved ripped your heart right out of your ribcage. It's the color of the sky on a beautiful day, but the soft blue horizon provides no comfort when you remember how blue you feel.

My mom told me when I was thirteen years old, that friends can really be enemies in masks and you won't notice until you're crying in your room at two in the morning because they said something that cut so deep that you think you might bleed out right there. She told me to stop talking to those people because they're going to destroy you, or even worse, they'll make you destroy yourself. What she failed to mention was that getting the poison out of your blood is so much more difficult than anyone will tell you. When I was thirteen, I brushed off her warnings and told her things weren't like that with us.  I wish I could tell myself what I know now, because it's always easier to quit before the poison hits your bloodstream.

This is a poem for you,
For all the empty "I love you's" and the even emptier apologies.  
For all the drunk kisses and sweaty hands that used to hold so much promise but now I can feel myself slipping out of them.
This is a poem for you,
For you and all of your white lies
For the way they settled in me like dust, clinging to anything that might resemble something sturdy.
This is a poem for you,
For all the ways you used to take my breath away, and the way I used to love it.
For all the ways it now makes me dizzy in the worst ways and the way your hands aren't there to catch me.
This is a poem for you,
For the way we once were
For the ways we will never be again.

You always used to complain about the smell of my cigarettes that clung to the seats of my car, so I quit smoking because I'd rather lose the things that make me calm than lose you.
You always complained about the smell of the liquor and beer on my breathe and the way it tasted in your mouth when we kissed, so I quit drinking even though it was the only way to feel normal. I'd rather lose my sanity than lose you're arms around my waist.
You wanted me to quit all the things you thought were killing me slowly, so maybe that's why you decided to leave, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. It's what I have to keep telling myself.
I've been drinking and smoking myself into ash since the week you stopped calling me and the nicotine and ***** may be helping, but you're certainly the one killing me.

It doesn't really matter if I choose to ignore you, because my eyes are always drawn to you like you're the only other person in the world and sometimes I wish I was blind because pretending to not notice you is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I'm sure it wouldn't do me much good because I can feel you in every bone of my body, as if you were a flame and I was paper and we got just a little too close. I swear I caught on fire the first night you kissed me but for some reason I haven't fallen to ashes on the floor yet, but jesus **** I wish I could.

You can't give your heart away to every boy who calls you beautiful. He won't call you the next night and soon enough you'll be wondering why your heart is empty while you cry in the bathroom. You can't change everything about yourself so the people you call your friends accept you. You'll look in the mirror one day and won't recognize the person staring back at you and I promise you that it will be the scariest moment of your life. You have to learn to love who you are, flaws and all, or one day you're going to forget who you used to be before you thought you weren't enough and when you finally figure it out, it's going to be too late.

The truth is, we can want whatever we want. People will make you feel bad about wanting another cookie or a second serving of pie, or maybe that guy who is a few years older than you but looks at you like every star in the galaxy is hiding underneath your skin. They make you feel guilty when you want to travel Europe when you just got home from Disneyland. ***** those people,  you don't need them. You are allowed to eat and crush and dream and be whoever the ******* want to be. It doesn't matter if they don't want you to have those things, if you want them, take them.

I guess I thought your arms were a safe place to rest my head and your words were a blanket I could hide under when things got to be too much to handle but your hands are leavino bruises on my heart and your words are getting so sharp that I think if I don't run away now you'll find me in a pool of my own blood so I'm sorry but it's time for me to go.

I know it was selfish of me to think you could fix me, for I know of all the bruises my heart has housed, and all the tears my eyes have seen. I'm sorry for letting you believe your love would be enough to make my heart stop trying to claw itself out my chest.

I know you get mad when I say that I know you're going to leave but it's really all I know and I can't help but think that youll leave too because if i let myself believe for even a second that you'll always be here I'll be right back at square one and I'll watch as my heart gets torn apart and thrown on the floor and I'm sorry, I wish I could put all my faith in your words, but I can't risk watching myself deteriorate again.

I used to think that love was when the whole world stopped when they smiled at you and when your heart skipped a beat because of their laugh.  When you saw them everything came to a halt and your eyes couldn't find another place to rest because your heart had chose them. Your whole world was for them. When my heart chose you, I loved the way I couldn't think straight when you were around and how my heart was always thudding inside my chest, as if it were begging to jump out. Now I understand that it's trying to claw itself out and my heart was screaming at me, "RUN AWAY" and my eyes won't look away from you as you grab her hips the way you used to grab me and I wish that my world wouldn't stop at every sight.

You don't have to be on fire to feel like you're burning alive and you don't have to be anchored to the bottom of the ocean to feel like you're drowning and can't catch your breath. You can die a million times and not have a single cut or bruise or broken bone, but your soul can be empty and you'll cry on your kitchen floor at 3 in the morning and you'll wish that your skin was on fire or water filled your lungs.

They'll hold your hand and kiss your lips, make you believe that you're the only one they'll ever love. They'll write you poems and sing you to sleep, and you'll believe them. After a while you'll notice that their grip is a little tight because they don't want you to find an escape, and the reason you're dizzy after you kiss isn't love but the poison they spit in your mouth. They captivate you and make you believe that's what love is but then you're being held captive and now you're not so sure.

Flight attendants always warn you to put your mask on before helping anyone else, because you have to safe yourself before you can save others. The same goes when you're in a pool trying to help someone drowning; you have to be able to keep yourself afloat or you'll both drown. I've never been a good listener though so I'd crash and burn for you because it really doesn't matter if my lungs fill up with water and I drown from the inside out as long as your breath comes easier at night.

You were better than any pills I could take to my my head stop pounding and my eyes a little heavier. You were better than homemade soup and backrubs and damp washcloths on my forehead. You were so much better than the chemicals, so I got addicted to you instead. But you have no warning label, and I must have overdosed, because people can't be medicine but you can die if they poison your bloodstream.

You're not allowed to stay up and text me until 3 in the morning and then pretend you don't know me in the hallway on monday. You're not allowed to hold my hand at my house and then ignore me when you see me with my friends at the mall. You're not allowed to take my heart and run off with it unless you're going to invite me to drive the getaway car. You're not allowed to **** me from the inside out and then turn around and call me beautiful.  It doesn't work that way. You're not allowed to tear a person to the ground, push them into the depths of hell for you, and then pretend like you saved them from the fire.

I found you in a pool of blood in the bathtub of your grandfather's house and I swear it took a lifetime for the ambulance to show up and I was crying and holding your hand and watching the life drain from your eyes that once were so beautiful and blue but now are just hollow and dead and they wouldn't let me see you for almost a day but I cried in the waiting room the entire time. I guess you weren't lying when you said that house reminded you of death.

The circle of life says that anything born must die and Jesus **** I must have died at least a hundred times by now and I swore my heart stopped beating when you slammed the door but I can still hear the 'I love you's' and I can still see the way you look at her and grab her by the hips with the same hands that you had around my ******* neck so it only makes sense that someone would have put me in the ground by now but I guess the poison you spit into my mouth hasn't made its way to my bloodstream yet.

I don't really mind if you got a C in history your sophomore year in high school or if you sometimes laugh so hard you snort. I don't mind if you talk in your sleep or if you can't dance to save your life. It's okay if you sometimes have one too many drinks at the bar and you come home drunk, or if you hate Crazy, Stupid, Love. If you don't like my meatloaf or you can't stand my best friend,  that's okay. As long as you promise to always **** spiders for me and keep my feet warm, and you don't go around giving free 'I love you's' to any girl who smiles at you like I did, I'll love you until the day I die.