I saw the worst of myself in him,
I fell in love with my demons,
Now I miss them.

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?

I remember loud music,
Shades of reds and blues,
Laughter and warm bodies,
I thought "I will never be sober again"
I remember the shouting,
The color of blood and white sheets,
Sobbing and a cold body,
I thought "I will never be sober again."

Is it possible to be born 1000 times over
In a single lifetime?
To find new ways to feel the sun,
Even brighter reflected in your eyes
The air is different in a world
Existing beside you
Knowing that you are breathing it too
Has given it new meaning
In the same way my lungs collapse
And reform with every gasp
I will take you in
You have outshone the sun
I will be reborn in this love
1000 times over

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.

I imagined a life without you,
It looks the world did,
Before I got glasses,
Still in color,
But insignificant.

A mirror begs no forgiveness
When showing you the truth
So spare me your courtesy
You can't hide intent from the guilty

If I told you the truth,
Where my heart sleeps
And my mind wanders,
Would you still call this love?

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 didn't say hello
When he walked in
I never say hello
It is a big, big word
A concrete foundation
To make houses in human beings
I can't be sure I want to make my home
Or that I'll know how to find the exit
When the hearth gets cold
And the coffee is stale
When shelter turns to a prison
I stumble out of Saturday morning
It is a big, big word
And he builds big, big houses
But he never feels like home for long

They stamped out your fire
Only to burn you to ash
Too unclean to rest
Beneath their dirt
The salt of the earth
Nothing more than a pillar of salt
To them

I am not this kind of girl
I say to myself, to you, to them
I don't do these kinds of things
To myself, to you, to them
I swear, I swear
I am not this kind of girl.

I know what it is
To want revenge
To believe that
Killing my own
White Whale
Would give back
What I've lost to it
I know what it is
To lose all of myself
To the things
That only wanted
Parts of me

In my dreams he's still alive,
How cruel a curse,
Insomnia has been.

To have survived,
Is to have every touch,
Feel like theirs,
This is how they win.

To live anyways,
Is to let myself be loved,
Feel whole again,
This is how I win.

I would die 1000 different deaths
If only to be sure
That I could wake up just the once
To you knocking at my door
I would live 1000 different lives
Suffer millions more listless days
For just the chance
That I could wake up to your face

Honesty is not the same as truth
When we remember things so differently

How dare you come back
After all these years
Just to see if I'm still here
I tried my best
You left
You ****** up
You took my heart
And left it unrecognizable
How dare you come back
Better than you were
You always knew
That I'd wait
Forever

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

I struggle to get air
Beneath this mound of earth
I've buried myself in
So ashamed to be this *****
I've forgotten
That beneath the mud
Is where seeds grow

So they asked the tree
If you fell, why didn't you scream
But I did, it said
But I did

I used to take every bit of pain,
Rage burning, building, breaking me
I used to take it and place it on Ben Affleck
A shrine for my disappointment
A religion created to spare you my anger,
Funny how I couldn't hate him,
When I realized you were both the same Devil.

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

Do you remember the day my collar bone cracked?
The sound was so jarring, it echoed through me like my skull against concrete
It was the sound of a toy maker tinkering in the night
Creating his dolls, the ones that don't move unless he breaks and bends their arms at will
Yes. Cracking bone. The sound of my creation.
I'll never be the girl my mother made again, I'm something between yours and hers and not at all mine now.
Just metal and flesh. None of it my own .

Stumbling in unceremoniously
To perform the theft of me
I had never been afraid
Until you taught me I should be

This always happens
I never understood how the storms in your eyes
Could make my heart so still
In the center of your chaos
I found a purpose
A home
Until your eye settle
And stop looking into mine,
I will love you.

I keep coming home
To visit you
But you are never there
Oh old man
Where did you go?
I see your body in the chair
Your cup is still half full
But you're eyes see someone new
When I'm sitting
Where I used to
I introduce myself each time
But you ask again before I go
I keep coming by
Just to see you
But old man
You're never home

All my life I have kneeled down at your altar
Sacrificing my innocence and self worth
A lamb who's blood would gain me favor
"the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist"
Yes, I worshipped you like a God I was afraid of
Old Testament wrath brewed in our home
And I readied myself to **** what I loved
As Abraham would, as sheep do for their shepherds
For I knew my creator loved me, and called me love
"For he disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child. "
By the stripes inflicted upon me I would be freed
Of this shame and unworthiness you bestowed

But it turns out "Father" does not mean "God"
Sometimes it just means "alcoholic"
Sometimes discipline just means abuse
My faith is now placed in me, and the God that made us both.

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

He is cut from marble
Stoic, reformed, awe inspiring
Smells of mountain tops
Rain washed stone
Just as cold and clean
Voice unwavering
Could command war fleets
A murderous disinfectant
With a one track mind
Unloving, unlovable
He was leaned on
Never leaned into

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.

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

Why is it that when
I hurt myself
It takes away the
Hurt you caused

How do you tell someone
You'd rather sink to the bottom
Than get in their boat

I can no longer be the only one,
The only one that loves you
You have to love yourself too

Grief begins to clump,
In the shallows of my stomach,
Clay settles, builds, hardens
How can one be so full
After such a loss?
I loved who I was,
I speak of myself like a eulogy,
I am a priest over my own bed,
Demanding myself to leave,
To come back,
To do anything but lay here
I am grieving myself,
Becoming a mold for my own casket.

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

There is more than one way to skin a cat
And there is more than one way to break a heart
I'm surprised you don't know this by now
You don't always have to rip it into shreds
With your bare hands tensed in rage
Intentionally destroying the pulsating thing you hold
You do not always have to spill it's blood
Watching the thick red liquid congeal on the floor
You need not always fill it with shame
Ridiculing it's nature, the way it beats, it's purpose
Until it's too small to believe in itself
All you need is to be loved by that heart
And every time you walk away it will follow
Pieces of it sewn into your jacket pocket
Or dangling proudly around your neck
And when you leave that jacket in a haunted house
With a haunted soul that robbed you of safety
I will not get that piece of me back
When the bright and beating pendent resting on your clavicle
Is torn off and lost in someone's couch cushions
The same place you lost your dignity and self worth
I will not get that piece of me back
My heart is sewn onto yours like a patchwork quilt
And whenever your heart breaks, mine does too
Wherever your blood is spilt, my heart is stained red too
There is more than one way to skin a cat
And there is more than one way to break a heart.

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.

I hate to say that you're always right,
Sometimes anxiety is just truth,
I'll keep you calm anyways,
Tell you you're not always right

I would have told you
About the way I wake up every night
About how some things
Just don't get better
How that is life
On life's terms
Healing doesn't make
The memories stop hurting
Healing make us
Stop hurting ourselves
That's all
The world will still hurt
But we could have laughed
At the brighter things
Together
Had you stuck around
Another day
We could have talked
At 2 am
If you'd have woken up
Just once more

I refuse to believe
That I am defective
I will not apologize
For the scar tissue
Proclaiming evidence
Of my battles
I did not start my war
I was not born
Fighting and clawing
I learned to do this
To win the wars
Waged upon me
I refuse to believe
That I am defective
My scar tissue shows
The wars I chose to finish

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

It's like being locked in a cold room,
With a window facing south,
Watching everyone bask in the sun,
Oh how you know it is there,
But you cannot feel it,
Yet you know you need it,
And that makes the cold so much worse.

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.

I was recovering,
But today I collapsed inward,
Light building inside of me,
Until I could not contain it,
I was not made to hold this,
Only to shrink,
To consume,
Addiction a supernova,
Eventually a black hole,
Yet here,
In the middle of it,
I feel only the warmth.

A world of chaos fell into silence
The stillness slowly sank into her
Warmth crept into chilled bones
As the dust settled, she wondered
"Is it wrong of me to be this safe,
And be lonely for my old fears?"

Are we more trusting,
If we're trustworthy?

If you were to ask me what I am looking for,
I think I'd only tell you what I've found
I found love in a bathtub I lived in
My body soaked in gin and glitter
He loved me like he'd love me more
If maybe I just wasn't me
So when he moved me out of my bathroom
Into a hardwood floor home
Changed my clothes and my hair
But not my habits
He decided it was my fault
For not being what he wanted to love
And not his fault for telling me he loved me
Instead of telling me that he might one day
And if I didnt try to leave him
He wouldn't have to lock the door from outside
And if I'd just remember to do the dishes
He wouldn't need to break them
And if I'd just say yes
He wouldn't have to make me.
I found love in a basement with a guitar
Hair pulled back in a ponytail
A pipe that never stopped burning white
Crystalline eyes and cheap wine
Slow dancing in the early hours
When we wouldn't wake up, but we'd get up
And that was enough to call it morning
Until I stopped turning our pipes
And he found veins he didn't know he had
Invited death into his bloodstream
And asked if he could share it with me
In a letter written in crayon
Sent to the rehab he'd begged me to go to
And was now begging me to leave
He tattooed me on his back
So he can pretend I didn't leave him
So I'll be a part of him when he leaves.
I found love in a room full of addicts
His head bent down making art out of sorrow
I wondered if he could make me beautiful
Like he did everything else
When he met my family they found love
In the lack of bruises he left
And in the way his nose was clean
And he slept at night
And we called that enough because at least it was more
But it was nothing at all when he left
While I did laundry and cleaned
Stared at a wall because nothing was beautiful
If he didn't make it so
And I remembered too late
That people like me love everything else
More than they love those who love them
I became the one counting minutes
Believing that tonight didn't mean in a few days
Believing it was my fault
For not already being beautiful
Or maybe for loving someone at all
So if you are asking me what I am looking for
I'd say that looking got me lost
And do you please have a map

Walmart on a Sunday evening
Feels like my brain
At 4 am
Every thought looks well made
Until I hold them
And feel the lack of substance
And then I realize
How many people I let in
That only came for something to do