To a once close friend and a loved sister,

        I feel like I should miss you more than I do at this point in my life. I suppose after the year of drinking I have put us through, the 'us' I knew so well caught on fire and is now a pile of ash. I've managed to collect as much of it as I could before it was swept away, and I keep that in a safe place buried deep in the center of my heart.

        In those ashes are some of our fondest memories we spent together, almost always laughing and having a grand o' time, but now that all feels so distant, like it was many years ago. Sometimes it even feels as though I am remembering a great dream I had, or someone else told me a vivid memory that they shared with someone they called their best-friend, and I wanted a bond like that so much my mind convinced me it was really something I once had.

        It kills me inside to even think about how much I pushed you away but i'm doing what I can now to earn the right to even call you a friend. I know most of the time after this disease consumed my thoughts daily, and I moved out, it seemed as though I stopped caring about you and the friendship we spent our entire life building didn't matter anymore, but thats not the case. I can promise you that much. I understand if you chose not to believe me, because I am a liar, a thief, a cheat, an *******, but most of all an alcoholic. I'm in AA now to learn to change my ways of thinking and to learn what truly caused me to make the decisions I did. I know I need mental help, that much is obvious, and I did choose on my own to get sober and find the help I needed all along.

        My drinking after Chris left me increased drastically, to the point that I couldn't even get out of bed without being in morbid pain and shaking violently, unless I had alcohol to chase down my throbbing throat. At that point I had lost complete control of myself and I didn't really care about anybody but myself. At the same time though, from my understanding at least, you could've forced me to get sober and I would've received the help I needed and shown why what I doing was wrong, yet you deliberated chose not to. That says a lot to me, probably more than you realize. For I know if it had been you in the shoes I was walking around in, I would've used casey's law. You could tell just by looking at me that I was sick, and unable to change on my own. I literally was skin and bones and puked six or seven times a day, I know there is no way you didn't see that at least a couple of times.

        Knowing all of this brings tears to my eyes. It is the reason now why I still don't talk to you much, or really even attempt to keep you up to date with whats going on with me. Yet, at the same time, maybe thats just me being spiteful, I truly can't tell at this point. I do know I miss you quite a lot, but i'm not sure if i'm ready to look you in the eyes after all that has happened, at this point in time. I don't deserve your forgiveness but that doesn't mean I don't want to make amends. Maybe, someday in the future, we will call each other the best of friends, like we did when we were younger, and make more time for each other.

         Until then, I will carry those precious ashes in an air-tight jar,
                   with my chin up, proud of what they stand for.

                                                      -love your sister, the daydream girl

A smile is a band-aid,
We use it to cover the cracks,
Trying to mend a broken heart.

For every pang of pain,
For every memory that escapes
- runs free in your mind,
His laugh echoing,
His stare engaging,
His smile enchanting,
His touch enveloping,
His scent embracing,
For each of these searing memories that burn through
your mind, your heart,
You laugh.

For if you don't laugh your pain away,
The only other way to extinguish the burning of that dwindling fire,
Is with tears, but you can't do that now,
None left,
Empty.

they say no amount of alcohol can drown the pain but I've learned that when I'm with you and I'm ready to mourn the loss of what once was three glasses of red wine are enough to make my head spin and make me forget about the memories that once seemed irreplaceable

everytime you're late I turn on the same song and the same tears burn my cheeks, I'm surprised scarring hasn't happened by now because you've been late so many times that I've lost track and the result is constant pain

I wanted this to be a fairytale love, to be midnight swims and laughs, to be dancing and screaming in the best way possible, but I was given the remainder of an old love and forced to rebuild you, and now you're ready to move on and there's nothing I can do about that

please grab my hand and tell me it'll be okay, pull me in and kiss me harder than ever before and tell me that it'll be okay, squeeze my shoulders until they hurt, leave an imprint in my skin

convince me I'm not watching it fall apart or let me leave the remains while I can

My nails are a mess,
but not a mess like a 2 week perfect manicure 'mess',
a mess like chipped old blue nail varnish
where I have picked away at it.
A mess like peeling skin
when anxiety from deep within
has resulted in me absentmindedly scratching
until I am awoken by crimson blood,
pooling on pale flesh.
I grab a cloth and sigh,
as I realise I will now have to hide
my hands from onlookers,
who will probably tut disprovingly
because I'm a girl you see,
and it's my duty to present myself beautifully.
To be perfect on the outside, but how can that be?
You see my hands bear the scars that are inside of me.
You can't just paint over scars and expect to be free.

And so the foolish jeweller played
With rocks, minerals
Dirt that made
Precious gems
Time forged:

For ears to listen
For fingers to feel
For necks to hang above our hearts

For engaging a promise
For a gift
Or memory

Cut, processed
And boxed for a fee

True gems
Come from within
A soul mined deeply
A journey begins

Her heart sunk into a half moon
before fully disappearing from view.
Her head hung the way clothes do
from coat hangers
and no words could be said
to raise these organized thoughts
into some holy clarity.

She wept now
not for the lack of love,
but an abundance of it
and it ate at her illusionary ego
the way venues of vultures do cadavers.
Warm blood glazed on their beaks
in exhausting Saharan heat.
Hardly a reason to ruffle feathers
for the scavengers who have come to eat.

His words gushed in devious waves
like raging oceans unsure
of the storm still far from landfall
but she saw through the salty cover
of his convoluted spoken screeds
to see the tsunami approaching
with such ferocity.

"Are you breaking up with me?"
her voice trembled
like the echoing hiss of a violin
as it struck its final cord
in an auditorium of empty seats.
His lecture ceased,
he had yet to reach the conclusion
she had foreseen for several weeks.

The silence grew between them
calming both wind and sea.
The tidal wave would have demanded
rebuilding and temporary peace
but the nothingness arrives
on the hushed breath of the heavens,
bringing with it both
the ship from Delos
and the poison hemlock ****.

He drank of it,
thus his love of her succumb
to everlasting sleep.
It becomes but a past life,
only to visit him in haunting dreams.