You talk like you know what you've been saying, but I have seen that twisted smile before and I know you're lying through your teeth. You're lungs must be rotten by now, considering how many ***** breathes you take, but I must admit, you do impress me. I watch you walk across the room with such bravery, as if nothing, no man or woman with iron eyes and steady breathes could take you down, and I know it's all forced, but you make it look so natural. It all comes back to me like a wave crashing on the shore; I know we've been here before but it feels so new this time around. Your tiny whispers crawling up my spine in the middle of the night suffocate me suddenly, and in the middle of this room I can hardly breathe. It's been so long since we talked, but you're a snake and you've been in all my dreams.

What a bitter end it is to sit across from your lover and feel nothing but rage, knowing the feeling is mutual. You still mutter "I love you" and make out under city lights and hold hands as you walk but someone always squeezes a little too hard or bites a little aggressively or is a little too snappy to believe there's anything left. It's all a game and neither of us want to lose. Going down in flames is so much more satisfying than fading away.

"It's okay to not be okay"
Until it isn't anymore
They say it all the time and maybe it's true
But I don't want this to be my new normal
I want to feel good again
To feel whole, or at least not so empty
I wish I were okay

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.

"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

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.

Do I love you or am I lonely?
Perhaps a little of both?
I think I was a little lonely when I decided to love you and then when I loved you I felt more alone than I'd ever been.
Why don't I just leave? Oh I don't know.
I don't think I could survive another fall.

You're sick and crazy
A twisted smile
A broken heart but a ruthless mind

You never lost track
You said you're too good for that
One path mind and no looking back

Your plan of attack
The knife by your side
Is it too late to bid you a goodbye?

It's a relief that you don't call or text me anymore
I always felt sick to my stomach, worried is say the wrong thing
I'd watch you explode, like fireworks over the lake.
I was so intrigued by you, and terrified all the same.
Please don't call me tonight, don't call me anymore.
I'm afraid that if I hear your voice, my fuse might be cut short.
Another explosion is not what we need right now.

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.

Your lips are like poison but I'm ready to die.

Give me meaning
When you kiss me hard and slow
Breathe beautiful nothings in
I'll exhale little lies back out

Give me life
I'll pretend like I treasure it
And when we dance late at night
We can both pretend forever lasts longer than a year

Give me your hand
I'll hold on tight
You'll squeeze too hard
And I'll bring you right down with me

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?

How do I confess
When you ask for a secret
That I'm not over my ex?
That the room in my heart is occupied
By lovers come and gone
By boys other than you?
Tell me, how do I let go
of the boys I loved before
When you're holding onto my hand?
Show me how to love
More of you and less of them
When you're not who I want to love.

I have to look at old pictures
From past adventures
Misplaced experiences
Remember what it felt like
Before the world fell at my feet
And I try to remember what it smelled like
What it sounded like
But I can't get back there anymore
So I look at the pictures
Reminisce about the times before you

There's a cute boy at work
And when he smiles I think of you
The two of you couldn't be any more different
Yet I find myself comparing you
Finding every little similarity

From the way his eyes flicker when he laughs
To the way he taps his fingers nervously
You used to do the same things
And I thought they were so beautiful

I wonder if you see me in the girls
You spend the night with

Broken bones never quite heal all the way, they're never quite as perfect as they once were.
We are like that, in a way.
We are strong until we snap, until we're just not.
You broke my heart that September night and ever since then, my heart has tried to mend itself, but like my arm I'll never be quite strong enough again.
They say broken bones break easier the second time around, I think that's true for me too.

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.

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.

When they tell you that everything will be okay,
They aren't lying.
I know that it feels like your heart will always be hollow and you'll never laugh again,
But I promise you that your days are going to be lighter and your smiles will come easier.
Eventually you'll stop biting your nails anxiously and you'll feel like you fit into your old sweater again,
You'll have a bad day and your first instinct won't be to text him, it will be to call your mom.
You'll dance in your room at night to your favorite song and even though you won't forget him singing it to you last September, you won't cry when the music starts.
You'll see a cute boy in the grocery store and when he asks for your phone number, you won't remember what it felt like when everything broke down, you'll only feel butterflies.
Things always have a habit of getting better, and even though you feel broken now, you won't be broken forever.

I'm having a very hard time
Staying alive on this earth
Maybe it's the weight of the world
Too heavy on my shoulders
Or the way you used to look at me
From underneath the covers
But everything seems harder now
Feels like I cannot breathe
Wish I knew what it was like
To simply just
Be.

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.

I can feel myself losing air
because the water is filling my lungs
and I can see the shore
but it's so far away
and the anchor around my waist
is pulling me farther away
than I want to be
and I can't breathe anymore
I told you the first night
that you'd be the death of me

You are the dreams I can't wake up from
And the hand I want to hold
You're warm tea on a cold winter night
And the sound of crunching fall leaves
You're the one I want to come home to
And the song I want to sing
You're the reason that I'm smiling
And you're everything to me.

I tried to write you a letter but the words I was writing could never properly explain how in love I am with the idea of us, but so utterly confused with the reality of me and you. I'm so tired, tired of me and tired of you and tired of us, but even in the complete exhaustion of you and I, I yearn for your arms.

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

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.

Will you still love me in the morning
When my clothes are back on my body
Instead of your floor?
Will you still love me in the morning
When my hands aren't in your hair
And your hands aren't on my chest?
Will you still love me in the morning
When you realize the promises you can't keep
And wish the words were never said?

I don't think so.

They come and go, the demons.
They scream in your ears but you can never understand what they're saying.
They claw at your back and you never quite heal.
They spend months and months destroying you, just to leave you.
They'll tell you they love you, but you never see it in their eyes.
But it's not the deafening screams or the blood dripping down your back or the lies that paralyze you that knock you down.
None of that really matters though, not when you see them staring back at you in the mirror.

In my anatomy class we learned that the ribcage was meant to protect the heart, but mine must be faulty because you reached right in and grabbed it out of my ******* chest and threw it against the wall. For someone who said they'd always be there, you're being kind of distant and if you're going to pretend I don't exist it'd be nice if you put me back together first.

I'll be the first to admit that I cried when you left. I cried for three god ****** weeks. I'm surprised my cheeks aren't permanently tear-streaked and red, and I'm sure my pillow is still damp. You broke my heart when you hung up the phone that night, and although I said you were the only one for me, today I saw a cute boy in the book store who smiled at me like I was the only girl there. And even though my heart is in a million pieces on my apartment floor, I'm willing to glue it back together if it means you will stop bothering me in my nightmares.

Somebody asked me the other day,
"If he asked for you to come back would you say yes?"I was ashamed to admit that I would in a heartbeat.
The thing about you is that I'll always come back, no matter how hard it was to stay.
I wish you would ask, but we're different people now. We were different people then, too.
I guess we both grew up but we grew in different directions, and as cliche as that sounds, it's true.
I wish we could be been that couple who lasts as long as the sea is wide, but we only lasted a few years and then we faded out.
I miss you every day. Some days I hate you, but most days I hate me. That's the thing, I guess, some days are bad and some days are worse. I don't think that's what it's like for you, though.  I think for you some days are good and some days could be better. That's okay, I'm happy for you.
I'll keep saying that, that I'm happy for you and how happy you became when we decided I needed to set you free. I am. I am happy for you. (I wonder how many times I'll have to say that for it to be true.) Maybe that makes me cruel, that I wish you were as sad as me. Oh well.
Maybe one day you'll wake up and wish you would have stayed. Maybe one day you'll miss me, too.

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.

I'm not sure I know
How to feel comfortable
With my hands laid by my side
Or what it's like to feel in love
Without holding my heart hostage
My hands clutching my knife

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.

You've forgotten what love was like in the same moment you couldn't quite remember what my perfume smelled like or how I said your name in my sleep. You knew it then--that you had misplaced the feeling of love in that girl from your astronomy class when you kissed her under the stars but could only remember holding my shaking body under the dim lights of the milky way when you knew you should have focused on the way her lips tasted. How did her lips taste, by the way? I have been meaning to ask. Did they taste like strawberry or blood? Did they taste like mine did that night in your bedroom when you swore you'd love me until the day you die? Or did they taste like broken promises and whatever drink she took a shot of last? Either way, you know you should be able to remember the way her hand felt in yours but you feel so guilty because you can only remember how we laughed at our clammy palms. I know you hope she doesn't get too upset when you're unable to keep your stories straight.

There is beauty in your goodbye
As the words dance across your lips
They cut into me like a knife
But I do not bleed for you

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.

It took me two months to fall in love with your laugh, your smile, your eyes. Two months to fall for your stories about high school and the way you talk about your mom. Eight weeks was all it took to be completely captivated by everything you were. The way you walked, the freckles on your arms, the deep breaths you took when you were focusing as hard as you could. And I swore that you were heaven shaped into a man and that if I could just pretend that you would stay forever, maybe it would be true. But just like my dad told me when I was little, good things never really last and boys who look like they can give you the world would rather hold oceans and mountains before they'd ever dream of holding you. You couldn't give me the world but I hope you at least take the sand with you when you go.

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 love you but I don't know what that means anymore

I dreamt about you last night
It's not an unusual occurrence, but it was different this time.
We were both aware of what had happened,
Knew that we weren't meant for eachother, afterall.
But there we were, up in your bedroom laying on the floor.
We were talking like we usually did, but you leaned a little closer than usual and I didn't back away.
I wish it was real with every fiber of my being,
I miss you so much.

You're in love!

you're going to wait by your phone for his response until you fall asleep at night, and that will be cute at first because you'll have talked all day long but now it's because you haven't heard from him all day and it feels like a punch to the gut.
* you're going to be constantly disappointed because the two of you have always been fundamentally different people and you just wanted this one thing to work out with the kind, cute boy whose hand is nice to hold.
* you're going to cry at night because you know you've been holding onto something that wasn't really even there to start, but you won't find it in yourself to let go.
* you're going to tear yourself apart, and for what?

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 happy that you're happy
I wish that's something I could be

I find myself searching for you in crowded places
But I never see you among all the faces

I feel myself longing for your touch
But you're so long gone

I'm glad you were able to move on
I wish you could teach me to do the same

I'm happy that you're happy
I'm sad it's not with me.

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.

"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 jumped out of a plane to find out if falling from thirteen thousand feet high would feel the same as falling for you. I guess it might of if I hadn't pulled the parachute, because I would have shattered on the ground like I did when you left and took everything I thought I was with you, but this time I found the ground and I was able to walk away in one piece.

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 think we both know I'm not the one
But hey, maybe this'll be fun.