"I'll give you a ******
For every feeling you talk about"

You built a cemetery for me in your head
Just in case you found a way
To bring back the dead

I am smiling
With a bucket full of raspberries
Feet soaked in mud
Freckled skin exposed
Hair tangled by the wind
Identity irrelevant
Forgotten
Today I am just a child
Exploring this Earth
While it still feels small enough
To fit in my bucket
Full of raspberries

If we fall in love with the people that remind us of our families
I should be in love with dead boys and distant hearts
But I am only in love with myself and everything I could be

When I was young I saw a bird break it's wings
I took it home with me and slept it with it on my chest
I still wake up and hear it's wings fluttering in my ears
I couldn't fix it, and ever since I've never been enough
I have spent a lifetime trying to fix every broken wing I find
Housed the flightless birds and waited for my redemption
I have weighed my worth against their ability to heal
But my chest is not a nest, nor my bed a sanctuary
And perhaps it is not me that is broken, it is just their wings

And with out question,
My heart of glass in my palms,
I dropped it and watched it shatter,
So I could hold your beer.

He was more himself
Than anyone I'd ever met
He laughed with his eyes
Made me sandwiches
While his friends
Told me about the good times
And the bad times
He held me tightly
In front of everyone
He wanted me everywhere
I wanted him too
I wanted him too much.
I ignored his habits
The medicine to sleep
The drinking to speak
Never leaving the house
Except to pick up
More and more habits
I wanted him too much
He didn't want me enough.

This is the sweet spot
No sweet tooth again
Needing less from me
I'll be less than I should

Someone told me once
To think of something constant
When it got too much
To look at the moon
And marvel at its permanence
Yet, if you could leave
Falling so far out of my sky
I know nothing is constant
If not you,
Then not even the moon.

My bones are too hollow
To hold my worth
My body is a chapel
I am begging to crumble
I hold holy water
In my collar bones
As I kneel before a mirror
I am praying to be emptier
Heaven tastes like ice water
I want to meet my maker
In a gown that doesn't fit me
The scale is an altar
I sacrifice my body to
Lord knows I know how to fast,
Am I holier when I'm hungry?

Was it wrong of me
To want you to love me
Differently

I'm so afraid
That I hurt you.
I'm more afraid
That I didn't.

When I was 7 years old
I lost my voice
"They won't believe you"
Ripped the vocal chords
From my throat
And buried them beside
My innocence
Years I spent
Blowing smoke signals
Drawing maps in my veins
Begging for help silently
Inwardly screaming
Through a sutured mouth
Teeth coated in paint thinner
When I was 19
I found my voice
I dug those vocal chords
Out of the ground
Breaking fingernails around a pen
Writing statements
Filing into court
Spilling truths out of a too full glass
Creating a beautiful mess
I could walk away from
"I believe you"
Rang through my ears
Into eternity
And tucked me in at night
Safely in a home he didn't live in
"I believe you"
Rang like church bells
Announcing my salvation
My safety, my safekeeping
"I believe you"
Rang like police sirens
Promising to lock the pain away
To protect and serve me always
I believe you. I believe you. I believe you.

At the end of the day,
I just need something,
Anything,
Inside of me,
To fill the voids,
If it comes in clear baggies,
Or leather jackets,
It matters not,
If it just stays for a while.

I got tired of filling my gas tank
Seeing fences around fields
Driving a decaying highway
I woke up to the sound of a lawnmower
I thought about the grass
How it never gets to grow
I got tired of filling my gas tank
Just to go no where with you
Listening to apathy echo
From minds I never could change
I thought about the yesterdays
How I never got to grow.

You never forget how this feels,
Bones setting straight,
Jaw clenching in tune with arrhythmia,
I will always remember how to forget,
Forget sorrow and heartache,
Forget them and their taste,
$50 in my veins is nothing,
Compared to the price of regret.

I wonder what I look like
In your memories
If the memories changed
With your feelings

Forgetting you exist
Should not have been easier
Than existing with you

Drunk at 6 in the morning again
Get some ******* sleep
And stop waking me from mine.

You called me
Just to say
"I'm happy"
What you meant
To say was
"I'm happy
Without you"
So I said
"I'm happy too"
But what I meant
To say was
"I still love you."

When you feel like you're being devoured,
Sometimes you're just being led to a better place,
Yes, sometimes it's the belly of the whale
Carrying you back home

I am only one person
That is not a lot
It is still a lot more
Than I'd like to be
Today

You're an animal in bed.
By that I mean,
You devoured me
And then left the bones,
Like my body was scraps
For the starving.

His frame is that
Of a split willow branch
Splintered and narrow
Bendable and strong
He barely musters mutters
Words colliding, sticking
Like molasses on linen
His eyes are damp moss
I know from photographs
As his eyes won't meet mine
Too fragile, faithful , naive
To bear so many scars
He settles for shelter
He deserves a home

I am always outgrowing my shells
The new ones never fit quite right
I just want to feel like I belong here
Like something was made just for me
I am tired of being too much of myself
One day my shell will grow with me
The world will say to me,
"You, Hermit, are just enough,
You, Hermit, have a home here."

It does not end abruptly, nor is it brief.
It begins with sleeping in too late,
Sometimes lunch or dinner is forgotten,
Laughter sounds hoarse, even forced
They didn't do up their seatbelt yesterday,
Pharmacies will call for missed refills,
They won't make plans for next month,
Eventually they won't make plans at all,
When is the last time they showered?
Did you see them eat the other day?
Is their phone off?
Have you heard anything?

And so this is what it is
To want something so badly
I wish it never existed
To want something so badly
It is all that exists

I do not love what you do,
I cannot fall where you fall.
This is the fate of us,
To be together apart

You are afraid that if you are happy
It will hurt too much if you lose it
Grief fills the space where the happiness was,
To not feel either is just to be empty

You matter,
If not to me,
Then to someone,
And if not to anyone at all,
I hope at least to yourself.
You may not know this,
But you're laugh is like music
And it plays in people's heads
Long after you leave the room.
Your eyes are what inspire love poems,
Poems that don't ever do them justice,
Someone is thinking about those eyes right now.
If your sadness is going unnoticed,
That doesn't make it any less valid,
I hope you find a warm shoulder to cry on soon.
Your pain is not a sign of weakness,
And I'm sorry if you feel ashamed of it,
You are lovable, not "despite of" but "because of"
Your body is beautiful because it is yours,
It is holding you together right now,
It is lovable, you are loving, so love it.
You are as magical as Christmas mornings,
As miraculous as the universe you live in,
As awe-inspiring as sunsets over oceans.
You exist.
And I love that about you.

This sits between us
Like poison between
Skin and blood
If you could give back
What you stole
You wouldn't.
Offer yourself again
As if you are the equivalent
To the love lost
Colonizer lover,
Thief of my soul.

I'm addicted to happiness,
I wish it was my own,
I didn't leave,
When he asked me not to,
I only stayed,
Because I didn't want to.

Fill this emptiness
Beyond what I can hold
I crave a greater space
In a way only the shallows
Of the deepest sea
Could understand

This is for the "windows open and stars bright"
Your skin that smells like Hemingway novels,
The "ardently" Darcy spoke about,
For making the "silent unspeakable memories",
This is for bringing to life in me
Everything I read about,
To escape what I was living.
You are the book I always wanted to write,
The story I woke up in,
Living forever in the last chapter
Of my favorite fairy tales.

I am weaving should-have-beens
Through my here-and-nows
If I could have been a child
I'd have loved my home
Designed to delight the girl
I never was, never knew
I can almost feel it
I know the space where it belongs
I cannot fill it, not with all the world
No hocus pocus halloween magic
No christmas morning anticipation
I try to recreate what I think I lost
How do you bring back
Something that never was
If I could believe in wishes
I'd wish to believe in them
Like I think a child might,
Like I might have, if wishes came true.

I have spent a lifetime
Healing the people that hurt me
In hopes that without their pain,
They will not need to inflict it,
My suffering should not be medicine,
My sadness should not be a cure,
Do not tell me I do too much,
I've scarred what you left bleeding.

Today I learned that I am worth at least $2.
I am worth not just a thought, but an action.
I am worth the walk to place it in my hands.
I have never felt more valuable then I do now.
Sipping a coffee I didn't know that I needed.

When I feel my ugliest
Aware of the softening
Straining and aching
Lines deepening
Changes from
Carrying little lives
I remember the skin horse
How beautifully real
I have become
As the little lives
Have loved me older
More alive

You know me as,
The creaky floorboards,
And the rattling doors
At midnight
I've been haunting you
For years now
I've been worried lately
You stopped singing
While you do the dishes
I've not seen you
Turn on the stove
In a month
You used to hear me
Breaking the silence
While you read books
Under your covers
But I don't remember
The last time
You sat in silence
With me and your thoughts
What is it
That you're drowning out?
You clean the house
Like the dirt is screaming
You scrub your body
Like your skin is poison
You fill the room
With background noise
Like you're afraid
Hollow air will choke you
The voices on the phone
Never last long enough
So you keep finding
More people to call
Youre always home
But youre never here
I'm just here
To say I miss you
To remind you I'm here
And that you're here
And that I'd like
To meet with you
In the stillness again
When your heart stops racing
Ans your breathing slows
I'd like to have the noise
Stop long enough
For you to notice
When I make
Floorboards creak
And doors rattle
When I'm lonely

I have thought about editing all of my love poems
To write you out of every beautiful moment
Where you inspired my sadness and my joy
But if I make you disappear from all of the imprints
I made of you then I have to let go of the aching
And the craving when my soul howls for you
In the middle of the night knowing you'll hear
Knowing you'll answer and help me write more
Love poems.

You were different.. I was different
Something was different
And now I'm left here
With a bitter taste in my mouth
Wondering how liquid
Could change a person so much
How bright lights and loud noises
Could drown out my existence
Until you forgot I was ever there

When faced with a mountain,
I discovered that I could climb
A raging river in my path,
I learned how well I could swim
In the midst of hatred,
I knew the depths of my love.

I wear my shame
Like a damp blanket
I'm sweating through
These sheets
And losing sleep
Over memories
**** these thoughts
Like a fever kills sickness
**** these dreams
Like a fever kills peace

I saw the first
While I was full
I emptied myself
To fill him up
I saw the second
While I was empty
I emptied him
To fill myself up

In the afternoon sunlight
Weakened by September mist
A scent trail sails by wind
Bourbon and sea salt
Inhaling deeply, 1..2..3.. breaths
I almost thought I'd see you
Emerging from shadows and fog
I faintly feel your fingertips
Carried to me by the breeze
Shivers spiral down my spine
You've been missing from me
For 100 Friday afternoons
Why do I still look for you?

Last night I ran out of patience
If only I could perform an exorcism
On the demon living on 50th St
I'm not possessed, he's just possessive

I retreat into the quiet world
Where wind sweeps softly
Through fields of poppies
Whispering sedative lullabies
While clouds of cotton roll by
Basking in salted sunshine
Light dances softly in the valley
To the songs of the morning

I blink my eyes open
You're still screaming

I drift back to the quiet world.

It isn't that I'm not enough,
No one could have filled that void,
I know I am not too much,
They were just too full to hold me,
I don't need to fit anywhere,
I am already the space I belong in.

You, with hands like Ambien
Talking me down off the ledges
I was born and raised on
Slowing down the heart
That's beating for you now
Out of my chest
Into your hands
Safer than it was with me
I didn't need to be medicated
Just loved,
Just loved.

Grief is a liquid
It is the tears in my pillow
Sweating you out into bedsheets
It is sickness in the morning
Whiskey in a mug before breakfast
It is the water I can't drink
It is the storm that kept me awake
The night you called
It is the rain that's followed me since
And the coffee gone cold on my nightstand
Where you left it.