I've been the best friend,
the girlfriend,
the villain,
and the victim.
now I don't know who to become.

I miss the feelings I got from being high,
of belonging to the static in my mind.
I miss closing my eyes and just thinking,
waking up without a memory of anything
besides a feeling I only ever got with a pill
or two or ten,
but now I'm beside myself
feeling things I can't verbalize without beating the words to death,
and I can't handle any more death,
lost all my energy after creating a eulogy for everyone I tried to be.
all the butterflies in my stomach are words I swallowed once upon a time,
choked them down,
choked on them,
and I'm still trying to cough them out
all this time later.
I know breathing exercises,
but I don't think those matter when I can't catch my breath.
some things never change.

When I drive, I spend more time looking in the rearview mirror than I do in front of me.
No, that isn’t a metaphor, I mean it literally.
It’s more appealing to live in memories, forget the trauma as it’s happening.
I may never change, but I like living in the illusion of safety.

I have magic in me.
I can change my memories
to see myself differently.

The arms of a stranger feel like home when they hold you just right.
I saw the devil in his eyes;
I knew he had a past deeper than I could comfortably swim,
but none of that matters when “home” feels like more than just a word again.
I wanted to feel this feeling before it forgot me
but time wouldn’t slow and I couldn’t go
anywhere with him holding me down
oh, God, why didn’t I just stay
home?

A pin dropped onto my carpet, but I thought it was a body hitting the floor,
ran to check the front door, stopped to watch the cars’ light show.
I found no danger but had to check again when I heard a voice two rooms and a floor away whisper,
“You don’t need to sleep;” it felt like a dream.
I laid back down. All the lullabies I sing when babysitting taste like caffeine.
I lie in bed, in between awake and asleep, somewhere between nightmares and reality.
The light switch won’t turn off, the sun is right in my eyes,
I thought sleep was supposed to come naturally.

Pin prickles in my **** hand again;
I should get a handle on this
before I completely forget how to hold things
together
and lose myself in tangled, labyrinth veins.
Sneaky, the past catches up,
grabs me by the throat, but I don't choke;
I don't feel it, but I do feel myself slipping down
into oblivion, further and further from help.
She watches, sinks further into her chair,
further into her shell, leaves before she can be
categorized "scathed."
Reality bit her hard long ago,
and she hasn't left her head since.
But this isn't about her;
it's about realizing the clock still says 12:21am
and only half comprehending
that it isn't "still,"
that 24 hours have passed
and I didn't notice a single second.
I sat here trying to shake off the pins and needles
in my foot
and wondering why I never find myself standing
after another loss.
I shake and quiver and try to breathe,
but I'm too busy holding my breath.
I complain because she could've been saved
but didn't want to be,
but I'm no different.
I'm at a loss for words – idiomatic, idiotic,
how does one explain a literal void?
I write the words, but they write themselves off,
they were never there.
I guess the same could be said about me – never there.
But there's physical proof that I was,
proof that I am not a figment of my own imagination,
though I am a victim of it.
A victim of a withering mind, a wandering heart;
isn't that what a writer is?
After I write this, I will scavenge for a needle
and a spool of thread –
after what's broken is fixed,
maybe I'll stop feeling these incessant pins and needles.

I hadn't yet grown into my body
or my mind,
but I never had the time
to worry about it.
I guess I can see it now
when I keep my eyes open,
and I remember it was such a hard habit to stop
sleeping with one eye open,
and I'm afraid of going back.
I know my mind is pretty enough
when I imagine a garden
and even though it might be dying,
I'll plant plastic flowers.
will anyone notice the difference?

He doesn't say my name anymore; not since the first time around. I am baby girl, angel, gorgeous. He hasn't said my name since that day.
"Well, ---, I don't think this is going to work."
That was the day I drove to the boat ramp at my lake, cut the brakes in my car, and waited.
The day I quit my job, dropped out of school, and deleted all of my social media account.
The time I dedicated all my free time - and time was all I had anymore - to researching how to recreate that fire in me and then how to treat third-degree burns.
The day I learned that time melts like chocolate when you hold it long enough, and it looks a lot like blood on my hands.
The day I learned white knuckling memories doesn't mean they seal the fractures between my fingers.
The day I learned some things just aren't mine to keep.
I've been touchier since that day; just one poke and I'm black and blue - yellow is rare, but it happens sometimes.
The doctor gave me some pills to help with the ache, and they keep me pretty full, so I don't know why I still have that gurgle in my stomach almost all the time, why I still have that itch in my veins when something is almost but not quite.
I tell myself constantly that a substitute can only hold off the craving for a little, but I need it now, and I never learn.

Jumpy. That’s what they’ll call me.
The girl who’s jumpy but doesn’t like to go too far from home or too far out of her own head. Jumpy. Around people. From conclusion to conclusion to somewhere way further outside the lines than I should be coloring. Hey, maybe someone came in and scared me and it all happened so fast. You can’t ever fully erase anything, you know?
What will they think of me?
Will they ask why I left?
“I was *****,” I will tell them. I may say more. I may not. Either way, my face will burn. Either way, I will regret it. Either way, they will be more lenient with me because I am glass and they don’t want to have to pay for what they break. I am not worth the extra $2.50 out of their bank accounts.
Do they all feel like this? This daze, where even when they’re wearing their glasses, the furniture blends into the floor blends into the walls blends into the ceiling blends into the doorways and they can’t see the exit either? The people moving in front of them are the ants that I stared at for hours at a time outside my father’s house in over 100 degree weather because anything is better than rat infestations. Anything is better than hands all over you. Anything is better than the drunkenness that permeates throughout the house, and yes, it is contagious.
Yes, I am contagious. You will want to wash me off of you before you even touch me. That’s okay, I do it too. Only it won’t stay off of me. I live inside of myself, but not really. There is not that solid final Russian doll inside the others. That is not me, and it never will be. And I’m sorry if you’re wasting your time looking, because you just will never find her. And that’s something you will have to either accept or move on from. So which will it be?

I.
Put a hand on your stomach.
Diaphragmatic breathing eases anxiety.
So does counting.
I count how many times my stomach rises
until my pulse lowers.

II.
Grounding keeps your feet on Earth,
your mind in the present.
It's called 5-4-3-2-1, but I never get to one.
Five things I see:
starting with all the ashes of things I've burned -
cigarettes to incense to old pictures of us;
posters haphazardly taped to my wall
threatening to fall off at any second;
feathers of my dreamcatcher tangling together;
my ceiling fan rocking from side to side;
an emptiness that fills the room,
painted in the white on the walls.
Four things I can touch:
grasping at words that are working against me;
the oils of my sweating hands,
nervously binding me to my human exterior;
everything else is too far away to touch.
Three things I hear:
the drumming of my anxious fingers
on anything nearby;
the scribble of my pen;
my thoughts demanding to find something
that will get me heard.
Hush, please. Hush.

III.
Your name still carves itself onto my tongue
and settles in my dreams.
You always were good at making yourself
feel at home.

IV.
I am the type of girl whose entire body
becomes whatever color I am dying my hair.
Today, I am red.

V.
I don't feel the words slide off my tongue anymore.
I barely notice them.
I watch them jab at you,
and I feel bad.
I don't mean them.

VI.
"You aren't looking at the whole picture."
The canvas is too big.
I'll take a step back.
My therapist says I take too many steps back.
I'm just trying to see the whole picture.

VII.
The foggy weather proves that I can keep my feet on Earth
and my head in the clouds.
I feel my eyes wide as a deer
as I remember my first love telling me
deer are the most stupid animals,
that they deserve to die,
hours after telling me I remind him of one.

VIII.
That sinking feeling in your stomach
doesn't only occur on roller coasters.

IX.
My head rests in the space behind closed eyes,
the one where shapes and faces appear and disappear
as they please.
I see a door floating in that space,
and I lock my emotions in there
since you hand me the ones I should feel
as necessary.

X.
There are days I see people as people
instead of the feelings they give me -
dread, anger, fear, love.
Their ****** features soften and become more human.
Today is one of those days.

XI.
Today, I see you as human instead of the feelings you give me.
Your ****** features harden,
the look you give me is literally shocking.
I feel more fear than love.

XII.
I fear the sound of slamming doors.
They sound like you.
They are rough,
and I am weak.

XIII.
She showed me a song while singing along.
I wanted to hang onto that feeling,
so I listened to it alone.
It's not the same.

XIV.
I'm talking right now,
but they're unimportant words.
They'll be forgotten in the next five minutes.
Would you believe me,
saying that I once had gardens in my mind?

i went looking for my home and wound up in a hotel room for one -
what does that say about me?
the view is nice -
no oceans in sight,
rather tall buildings that add daylight to the night sky.
when my mom and i rent a hotel room,
we get a room with a queen bed and share it;
tonight, i went looking for my home and i ended up in a hotel room for one
with a king-sized bed big enough for three,
but i'm the only one here.
i went looking for my home and i wound up in a hotel room for one -
what does that say about me?

if i tattoo a one-way ticket to heaven on my wrist,
will god remember me as an angel
and accept me back into heaven?
will he make me a priority
and guide me by the hand
and help me back to my home?
on earth, i am so close to hell,
and while i'm also so close to heaven (home), but i'm so far from it.
and i constantly have nightmares that you'll forget me
long before sleep caresses your brain.
how could falling for a human have made me fall? you have dreams! and wishes! and fears!
i have so many new fears;
they drag me down, keep me close to earth.
this new heart creates a melody i don't recognize.
i don't feel real.
and these nightmares won't stop.
i think it was when i forgot to wish her sweet dreams -
her nightmares denied me sleep for an entire week.
and god clipped my wings before i fell so i'd have to exist here,
and they fell off feather by feather.
and i've been trying to piece myself back together,
but there are fragments of me everywhere,
pieces of myself in everyone,
and i can't get them back; all i can do is cut myself on the memories.
all i do now is drive.
i wait for it to storm,
and last night the sky kept lighting up
while it was midnight,
and i swear storms are the closest any of us will ever get to heaven
unless i can convince god that i no longer wish to be fallen.

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.