there's a slam of a front door
that sends a signal to my lungs
to tell them that they need nicotine
and another to the dry throat that
says it's time for a cup of coffee

i conduct a symphony of
slowly getting out of bed

taking the first sip of coffee
always reminds me of that
first kiss we shared on
new years at midnight,
i knew i would regret it

lately, the drinks i pour in
the evening feel worse than
a burnt tongue, because it
slides down my throat, into the
into the stomach, into the veins,
into the brain that usually tells me
do not think about this tonight but

i am drunk
i am obsessive
i am harmless

i have grown so exhausted of
always being the wrong kind of
brave

when i feel the dull burn of a car window rolled down in 50 degree weather, when i am showing someone else my favorite books and films, when a boy is holding one hand and a cigarette is holding my other, i will think of someone who tried to better themselves and that it's okay if it isn't because of me.

when i approach my first day of college and there is a hand held out to me in an attempt to meet my acquaintance or a nerve-calming crack at the teacher by an upper classman, i will take that as an invitation to get right what i didn't in high school.

when i find a friend that will take me to the hottest parties a suburban chemical factory can hold, but who won't sit outside and wait the 40 seconds i have left of my cigarette to keep me company, i will gently decline and decide that i deserve better.

when i hear a sound as demanding as a freight train cutting slowly through the calm small-town winter night, i will think of the conversations between me and an old dear friend, on a front porch lit by a giant christmas star. i will smile fondly and choke back the nostalgia.

when i think of my adventures through the year 2014, although achingly transient, i owe it to myself not to pull my hair over what could have been, but instead pull my arms around the people who deserve it, and hug a little tighter, love a little harder, and demand a lot better.

i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.

but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.

i remember the way love used to taste
it crept up my sternum, crawled up the back of my throat, strangled my tongue, and leaped out of my mouth with a trembling, shaking "i don't know how to feel like this anywhere else so please let me stay"
although there was an eviction notice stuck in between the door and the frame but i didn't open the door, to leave, to see it
and i used to look at people who could find something good and run from it and wonder how they could possibly do that when i ran to every doorstep, pleading for someone to let me in and planting my feet firmly into their ground as soon as they did
there are pieces of myself in every corner of these rooms, every crack in these walls, clumped in bathroom sink drains and i understand now
the more love you give that is unrequited, the less you have to give out again

and i'm only a few drunken, empty i-love-you's away from running dry

i used to pace my room
in confusion of why i couldn't get over
the single month we spent together
sharing coffee, kisses, stories, bodies
i barely knew your middle name
but we talked again a few days ago
and i asked you, "do you think
if the people we are now were to
have met eachother before the
people we were then, we would've
had a chance?"

inthe moment it took
for you to reply
i finally figured it out
me and him, we are the
connection, as opposed
to the attraction i have
mistaken it for, he taught
me how to love softly, he
talks like he still knows me
and i still don't trust it but
i have never experienced
anything like this and
now i am pacing my room
again, caught on a simple
text message, sent 11:29am,
that reads "yes, i do."

i am sitting on my back porch with you
more satisfied from your presence than
the nicotine between our fingers, and i'm
holding back laughter to hear yours first
because it's cold out and the sound of it
puts the warmth back into the air and
i can breathe again.

until your leg brushes against mine
then pulls back faster than i could notice
it was even there in the first place

the space between our bodies is a purgatory

you’re a lot like the second shot of whiskey,
warm, burning, has anyone told you that your hands
they are are firecrackers, taking off into the night?
and i’m a lot like coming down from the high
and the thought that you and i somehow
ended up in the same universe was the only thing
helping me fall asleep peacefully in my own sheets

but the moon has said goodbye to me,
and the sun comes up to welcome you another day
and i am burning my tongue on my coffee,
desperately hoping you'll text me

in the midst of all the chaos in my life right now, i have a tiny sliver of hope
in the form of a christmas card, written
wishing you well
            merry christmas,
                   skip

all i can do now is think about
being in missouri city by this time next year
spending holidays with a family i can stand
maybe i'll go to back to school with the comfort
of having someone stand behind me and
understand when i say that the weight
of my fear is too much to hold inside my body
and i will shatter on impact with the floor
if i try to get out of bed today

maybe i will never have to think about
the life i have now, with the mother who
does not and will not understand the words
"e m o t i o n a l  a b u s e"
and the chemical-reliant sister who doesn't
know the meaning of love and respect
and the man who can't step up and be the
adult and tell me that it is not my decision to make
maybe i will never touch another bottle
maybe i will be able to talk to the people
that it has hurt me to love, without a can in my hand
maybe i will love myself in turn of adding back
the half of my life that i have slowly lost
over the past twelve and a half years
father, despite leaving me to wonder why
i didn't know if you were even alive,
the thought of you is the purest thing
in my reach, this holiday.