there are parts of you left growing around me. in this sea of green and blue, I add salt in places so you cannot grow there anymore. I'm tired of seeing weeds in places sunflowers used to grow and where roses used to overflow, but all that's left are thorns and dead flowers that wish for someone else to water them. I can't water you anymore... you were never mine to take care of or to help grow. you're a lovely flower and all you deserve is the purest water in the world to help you to grow, and I just could never be the one to give it to you. my water is too toxic, too deadly, and too deficient of all the vitamins and the nutrients that you need to help you to flourish. and for that, I'm sorry. I know that I flooded you with my toxic water and I let myself choke you with my wrongdoings and my ignorance, and I know I can't make up for it, but you're a flower and you need to grow and I know, we all know, that in order for a flower to grow, it has to be nourished in the right manner. I wish I wouldn't have overwatered you with my toxic water, little flower, but it's time to go grow somewhere new. because my garden needs to be renewed and there's just simply nothing more that I can do for you.
*(it'll just hurt more if you stay in places where you're not meant to flourish anymore)

It terrifies me that we only get a limited amount of time with people. And that some people get more time than others who should have. I’m forever envious of those who’ve gotten more time with you than I have. That I may never get to be with you as long as they have. That our time is running out. And I miss you already. And I never want to say goodbye. At first it was slow, late nights in your car and afternoons in my bedroom. But now it feels like it’s happening all at once, like you’re doing a snow angel on my heart and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Kissing on the sidewalk, holding hands in your coat pocket because I forgot to bring gloves. Wandering around museums and having hard conversations on your couch that make me love you even more; even when the air becomes glass, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I feel to know you. That there’s no one else like you. My heart aches in your arms and aches when we’re apart. And I just want to be as close to you as possible, for as long as possible, because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and I love who I am when I’m with you.

196 lb
average male weight
ego not included

156 lb
average female weight
although one spoken sentence hits like a ton of bricks

20 lb
unsaid words,
searing, left in your throat

10 lb
“It won’t happen again”
guns for vocal chords

40 lb
a dead car battery

25 lb
for every bullet he left inside her spirit

a scale says 167 pounds
body mass measured
heavy heart unaccounted

19.30 g
roughly the weight of a wedding ring
she’s seen three removed from three different fingers

1.5 g
enough for six rotations
enough to feel zero

1.5 oz
enough for a shot
take six to feel a hundred

10 million tons
the weight of a star

10 million tons
the thought of her

we are loaded
dense
filled

made-to-break
paper-made
carbon-bounded
­heart-strung
fire-resistant

the weight we carry is not the
numbers on the scale
we are much more than the pounds we gain
the aches that we hold
the tears that did not fall

living with a hallowed heart does not make it any less heavier

these light words were not meant for these paper limbs
gravity could care less

we are pressured
felt
squeezed
until broken
forevermore

built strong
lasts shortly
bulldozed by just one fallowed swoop
we are demolished

you could build your vessel as ravenous and as merciless as you can
only to be held down by the world
we are defied

measured
counted
hated
loved
we are

i used to think that you were a gift from God.
after all, you came around after i was saved.
i used to use you in my testimony, too.
i never believed them when they said the Devil was testing me.
i had given in quite a few times to him.
but i never, not even for a second, believed that you were
anything but God-given.

what are you now?
a story i'll tell my children when they ask about
the many photos i have of us?
a tall-tale about love that i ruined with my
blackened heart and tarnished promises?
a lost girl with eyes of gold?
advice i'll give to those whom ask about our time together in relation
to their own problems?

my promise still stands.
i won't **** myself.
i have tried enough times to now that
i can't even do that much right.
but i was never going to **** myself over your words
or your actions.
i wanted to die because of myself
and the choices I've made in my own life that
have nothing to do with you.
I've made more mistakes than you could ever know,
leigh.
ones that nobody know about.

i think what is important is the betterment of myself
and of all.
and i don't believe that my death with help.
maybe you do,
but i do not.
i believe my life is worth a lot more than that,
for my God tells me so.

you can try to choke me with your words
and you can wish death upon me
and even declare that meeting me was the
most unluckiest thing that has ever happened in your life.
but just know that all I've ever wanted for you was the best.
and that means that the chapter of you in my life is now over,
because what is best for you is not me.
we should've known that a long time ago.
maybe we did,
but we just didn't want to say it out loud.

so have the best.
live a happy life.
be the best you can be.
smile, laugh, and learn from the unlucky chapter in your life that was
me.

that's all i can say.
i still believe that you were God-given,
you know.
like i said, i never once believed that you weren't.
so take your God-given gifts and love with all of your might.

you've taught me so much,
and i'll forever be grateful for the time you were in my life.
even though you don't feel the same about me.

"You're the kind of girl
that artists, poets, and musicians
have been obsessing over
since the beginning of man,"
he sighed and traced
the outline of my spine.

I'll laugh and agree,
reduce myself to
your fictional ideals
of a manic pixie dream girl,
if that'd make you want me.

you told me
as i laid in bed,
of our soon to be:

of the garden we
shall call our own,

the morning walks to
bring us home,

and the days where movie midnights
cause laughter to fill the rooms

would make us whole.

this was what any soul yearned for,
this was what was suppose to be..

yet i am shaking with fear,
weak on my knees.

i was not scared of my future,
until you stapled yourself into
my soon to be.

When I needed a google search to tell me if I was still a ******.

It took a game of dare or double dare to teach me I don’t know repeated sounds an awful lot like yes
and ******* can drop mountains on boundaries not yet built –
serrated edges on once innocent skin

I let you carve me.

Nine years later and I’m still trying to find air in the ocean where it all happened.
I took lessons, but I never learned how to swim.

I remember thinking you must’ve liked me, that was the reason
and returning the favor would’ve made it okay. I found you in my freshmen year yearbook.

But I was wearing a bikini shaped like ignorance and a smile lined with naïve

you weren’t reaching for my heart when you went to hold my hand,
forcibly lacing my fingers like ribs around your ****.

I still wonder if dropping the I don’t before the know would’ve made any difference.