no one ever warned me:
my tongue is a weapon,
scrutinizing an easy ****.
all the words are falling out like baby teeth,
and your name tastes like blood,
coating my tongue as if it was something
so sweet as sugar.
you always leave me shaking,
my bones flickering like an old-timey tv show
and i can't turn off the tv,
i can't stop the anxiety that's so acidic
that my bones could melt into nothing more
than one of the oceans you hold in your fingertips.
nothing more than fragments clatter down my chin,
words unsaid leave bruises,
my biggest flaw is my desire for perfection so vibrant,
staining my skin an awful color called "please notice me."
have you ever met a stranger and immediately trusted them,
doing everything but begging them, "hear me; learn me!"?
or maybe you spent that whole train ride next to them holding your breath
and praying you'd never see them again, paralyzed in fear?
have you ever wondered why, wondered if maybe you knew them in a previous life,
and maybe just maybe you're remembering the feelings they once gave you?
do you believe souls are recycled?
can i try to meet you again in another life
and tell you then, too, that i feel like i've known you forever?
soulmates - the word tries to make room for itself in every poem i write,
the unwanted guest who won't leave.
how can i believe in soulmates when all we are is strangers
who loan each other secrets with expiration dates?
i guess the timing was just never right.
you were such a calming presence, and i live in such chaos,
but you didn't come along until i began to pray for disorder
so that i wouldn't feel so alone in my madness.
maybe all i ever felt between us was our matching anxieties,
how they were bigger than us,
bigger than the world,
through the roof and resting with the stars.
and then there were the words that only occurred when you were here,
when you were real,
and i molded them to look like you,
taught them to spell out your name without using a single letter of it
so that you'd remain long after you left.
and now i can't figure out how to explain when people ask about you
that you left because it was easier than staying,
because you only ever loved my laugh
because it's what created the sound of the scribble of your pen,
that you left the first time you heard hers because hers is less raw,
and my achy bones caused yours to break.
do you remember the night we went to the park
with only the moon and stars as our source of light
and you looked blindly in my direction and said,
"the moon causes a slightly different feeling than the stars"?
every time i think of that,
i always try to share that information,
but it always comes out,
"i once fell in love with someone who had the planets aligned at their feet
but decided it wasn't enough,
so now they reside in that constellation right there,"
and i always point,
but all they hear coming from my mouth is static.
did you know the sound of static is created by the stars?

goosebumps.
like the ones you give me.
like the only things you left as proof
that we were real.
goosebumps.
the ones I got when you stroked my side with your thumb
and it tickled
but I didn't tell you because I was afraid you'd stop.
goosebumps.
the ones I got when you raised your voice
and threw plates across the room just to watch them shatter
like my father used to.
goosebumps.
the ones you gave me
when we'd sit in front of the fireplace
with our blankets and hot chocolate
on cold winter nights,
taking turns exchanging ghost stories.
goosebumps.
the ones I got when I found out you'd become
one of the ghosts from the stories we told.
goosebumps.
the ones I got when we lowered you into the ground
because it had become too hard for you to breathe air anymore.
goosebumps.
the ones I got from the whispers saying I could've saved you
but didn't.
goosebumps.
the ones I get when i feel you touch my arm
when I sit in front of the fireplace alone (like I did during fights)
and whisper, "I'm sorry," in my ear
in the middle of the night (like you used to after fights),
pretending it's your arm around me
instead of your favorite blanket.
goosebumps.
the only things that remind me I'm real.

i set my ringtone to a heartbeat
because i don't feel mine
enough to comfort me anymore,
but i get enough texts
to make it feel real.
i feel your words
trying to breathe me back to life,
but they aren't powerful enough
to do any good.
tell me to my face,
make the words more than words,
let me hear your voice crack
as you speak the truth that hurts you to be real,
write them out with your mother's lipstick
on your bathroom mirror at 3am again
just to bring them to life,
to make sure you're alive
and i'm alive
and i'm not living in a completely made-up universe.
your words are drumming against my ribs,
which are cracking and caving under the pressure and strain,
and the dread can't seem to find any of the exits.
my anxiety is here, trying to comfort me,
trying to lull me into her arms,
and she's holding my hand,
but it feels like it's 100 degrees when she's around
even though it's snowing outside
and so cold in my room that i can see my breath,
the only proof i'm a living human and not fiction or made up.
and she won't let go
because she's scared if she leaves me alone, i'll be alone forever.
i think my anxiety fears being alone more than i do.
my bones tremble when i'm alone
and they never seem to fully stop.
goosebumps cover me like blankets,
but nothing warms me anymore.

there are so many things i want to say to you
but don’t know how to say
without sounding like i’m ripping apart at the seams.
i think i might be.
maybe i should start again,
maybe i should find something to say you’ll want to hear,
maybe i should find something that will draw you in
and make you want to be so close to me
that if i’m the flame and you’re the moth,
i’ll burn you alive,
but it’s okay, because you’ve always loved danger.
there are so many things i want to ask you
but i don’t know how to ask
without sounding like i’ve lost my mind.
i think i have.
where do thoughts go after you forget them?
where does time go when you’ve lost track of it?
do you still believe in god?
when my youth leader prays,
she just repeats, “jesus…jesus…jesus,”
with so much love and admiration in her voice.
it’s the same tone i use
when i talk about you,
when i can say your name without crying.
the only time you saw me cry,
you pulled me into you and whispered,
“i’m gonna turn you into a softie.”
now i’m so soft that i fall apart when someone breathes the wrong way,
when someone tries to help me up,
i slip through the cracks of their fingers,
i break off if you touch me too roughly.
you made me soft,
but soft isn’t what i want to be
when everyone around me is made of glass and nails
and i end up getting cut and withering to nothing.
you left me with nothing,
not even so much as my name,
stripped me to the bone,
wrote about me until everyone could see my insides,
“dissected my spirit,”
left me to die,
but it’s okay, because you visit me every night.
i see your face in the dead of night
when i’m passed out from all the pills i took to forget you.
you’re in every dream,
every nightmare,
everywhere i don’t want you.
every dream results the way it really happened,
and i cry every night for someone who probably wasn’t even real.
there are about 1,025,100 words in the english language,
but i can’t ever seem to find a way to string them together
to explain the way my stomach feels when i realize you’re really gone.
i guess i could give it a shot,
but you said the word “shot” triggers you,
and the word “trigger” triggers me
because it’s way too close to the memory of that picture you sent me of the gun you had in your mouth,
could’ve pulled the trigger, almost wound up dead.
dead.
my friend saw me try to dart in front of traffic,
thinking i didn’t see the cars,
but i just didn’t care.
the headlights looked like the way out of the tunnel,
and i’d been stranded in there for so long,
that i couldn’t tell if i was laying down or standing up
or spinning in circles
or laying face down on the ground,
and i took my chances and ran,
hoping i’d catch up to you.
she screamed my name and pulled me back,
back to the present,
back to the sidewalk,
back to a world i no longer want to belong to
and hugged me tightly
and i pretended she was you.
i was left in the wake of you,
following the light,
and all i do now is sit down and ache.

we have lonely hearts,
and hungry hands,
and we want to love,
but we don't know how.
we have tired eyes,
and achy lips,
and we want to love,
but we don't know how.
we have too many thoughts
and no one to listen,
and we just want to love,
but we don't know how.
we have so much to give
and no one to take
and we will probably always be alone.
we have shaky hands
that only hold pens
and trembling lips
that only kiss cigarettes
and watery eyes
that never know how to look okay.
we are the ones you forget you raised this way,
teaching us fear
instead of how to love
or maybe just maybe we might know how.
we're the ones who make up things to believe in
to keep us going
and maybe we made up the concept of love
because we have no proof that it's real.