1.) I never liked how I always felt like I was suffocating under the conviction that you were counting down the days to leaving an equation of your life that included me in the numbers and I never liked how I brushed it off under the false pretense that you were terrible at math.

2.) Every word you said was so lucid and real it felt like putting out a cigarette on my skin after asking for an ashtray a hundred times you're the one who pulled me out of my poetic dream-state so hard that I choked on condensation ice crystals from the clouds below me and now I am tied to the ground like a dog and I miss flying like that.

3.) I tasted her in the way you kissed me since the moment we met and I wanted to lock down every word I told you and erase everything that's been written for you but I didn't say anything because I was scared that I would float away without you.

4.) You came back and expected me to be fourteen and looking for someone to love me so hard that they fix me. Since your absence I had learned the hard way I don't need to be fixed. And even if I did, you would have never made a merciful god.

5.) I could sense the way you wanted control over me like a lion to its prey and feeling like I was being stalked by someone I tried to convince myself I loved was almost as exhausting as pretending I didn't notice.

6.) I was only beautiful on days you were drunk and wanted to outline the shape of my hips and I tried so hard to leave my consciousness in the other room while you never showed the decency to stay after you were finished with me because being used is better than being replaced.

7.) I shared the small things that brightened my heavy rain days with you. You made me feel like I was trying to plug in a nightlight in the middle of the dark.

8.) You devastated me and told me that's what love feels like; I still have moments of panic at sincerity and kind words seem foreign against the misery soaked syllables you broke me down and replaced me with.

9.) You did all of it because you were bored of watching the clock tick and you figured passing the time by ruining me was easier than repenting on the ways you've ruined other sad girls with cold hands.

10.) I was so used to throwing coins in the air hoping they would give me a heads or tail answer if dying would be easier than missing you forever that I didn't even notice when I ran out of money.

The word 'boyfriend' is so misleading.
"A boy who's a friend"--- that's a misreading
But if that's the meaning, then I must be keeping
A whole host of them (at least for the time-being).

All this time, I've been dating
Boys from Bio, English, Math, and Painting.
Boys I've met while debating
If chocolate or vanilla is better tasting.

Everyone has a boyfriend, even boys who are straight.
What do you call a captain who's got a first mate?
But all these boys have an expiration date.
All except one---
That's called your soulmate.

You are the sweetest of my torments.
You're the tangible torture of citrus
The bite followed by the ****
Fresh and unbearable in the same instance

You're the lemon zest scent;
Sultry, as I quarter fruit
In my hot summer kitchen.
You're the juice in the cut
As the knife knicks my thumb;
The sweetness meeting the wild coppery tang
of blood in my mouth.

You're in the twist in my chest
That exists somewhere between my heart and my stomach
Both organs being wrenched apart...
When I see your picture
And remember that we haven't spoken in months.