She was fifteen and messy haired, a sweet girl you would call "honey" without a tone of patronage, fuzzy pink sweater and braces and eyes that folded when she smiled, so much so we called her Squints McGee.
But what could so easily be hidden behind eyes crinkled with laughter and warm purple slippers were the names others whispered as she walked by, snakes that slithered out of slit lips and silent stealthy glares,
NAMES THEY CALL MY BEST FRIEND
****
*****
*****
Easy
Names that hurt me as I walked beside her, protecting her as a younger sister, my beautiful best friend. Begging others "don't judge her, you don't understand, just get to know her"
Parked outside the football field on January or was it November ish evening- fingers nervously tapping out confessions on the dashboard, honest melting eyes, she told me everything. What he promised her, what he stole from her, unwrapping her like a Christmas present, greedily, gift paper in strips on the living room floor.

I was seventeen and tall, with brown hair and hips that led boys in Whataburger late at night to make sounds as I walked by. I wore combat boots and wrote poetry on my phone and was known as the worst driver in my high school. But what could so easily be masked behind thick glasses lenses and chunky earrings was the ****** war raging in my brain
NAMES HE CALLED ME THAT NIGHT
****
*****
*****
Easy
And laying backstage at theatre rehearsal, I told her. Whispered I loved him and he was the one, he just made a mistake. He would come back, I was sure of it. But at home I dug razors into my thoughts and screamed emptiness into my pillow.

If he loved me, why did he hurt me? Break my body into pieces and choose the parts he wanted, squeeze my trust between his fingers, paint my mind with his anger and his drug addiction.

If he loved her, why did he hurt her? Kidnap her innocence and stamp her with a fragile mark, make her body a punchline to his friends, publish her secrets to the football team.

Because of him the word love will forever be associated with pain, the act of *** tainted with punishment, the idea of a companion smeared with abandonment.

Because of you I had a panic attack in my shower on Christmas Eve, naked and shaking on the cold tile floor, where blood looks oddly orange and my hair swirls into lines that look like a map to my messy mind.

And when my mother found me. And I told her the truth. Two years from the day she picked me up from the park late at night and begged me to tell her if I was hurt and I lied.

She told me the same thing had happened to her once too.

im sorry

"I've been doing so well," I type as I slide a thin silver blade down my hipbone. "I'm clean and I've been taking my medication and I've even been running." Blood gathers at the edges, draw swirls in the warmth.
Bright blue screen lights up my hopes and my heart does a flip.
"Can we talk later? I'm really tired."
"Of course! Sorry for keeping you up."
It's 3:49 in the ******* afternoon.
Remember when you were my best friend and you walked two miles to my house in the middle of the night because I told you I felt alone?
Remember when I was out of town for a day and you missed me so bad you bought me cupcakes?
Remember when you told me I was the only person you'd ever been in love with?
I'm so sorry.
I miss you.
Please.

I would trade my future for one last minute with you,
Cut into my memories and give the best slice to you,
Dance in the street wearing only my flaws for you,
Buy the finest brushes to paint my thoughts for you.

imissyouandiloveyouandineedyou

But life isn't fair, and my ****** job can only buy so many plane rides a year to see you.
And all of the love in the world from me can't generate love from you.
If I wrapped up the galaxy in a fancy box with a bow, it wouldn't mean a thing to you.
I could hide myself in my broken pieces, but I would have to send a map to you.

imissyouandiloveyouandineedyou

From her dark purple lips hangs a cigarette with pink smoke, and headphones with no music play a tune inside her head, and she paints bright red words loud as a FRAGILE stamp on her skin, and maybe on yours too, but only when you seem particularly insightful. She knows every word to every song of a band you’ve never heard of, and when they play and she’s driving the car, she will literally pull over and close her eyes to absorb the sound into her bloodstream, which seems to be composed of tiny bits of the galaxy and maple syrup and diary entries she never lets you read. She will kiss you in the movies, but only in parts heavily dripping of gore and violence, a metaphor she’s explained countless times but you will just never understand. She will paint her nails with your name sprawled across the *******, hold your hand in the gas station while shaming glossy magazine covers and everything that’s just soooo wrong with societies expectations of women today (despite the fact she’s somehow maniacally maintained her perfect body in the three weeks you’ve known her), and tell you that you’re her favorite season, a thought that your mind will spin around in its head like you ran around your 3rd grade classroom when your teacher was introducing concepts of matter and announced “now switch from a solid to a gas!”
But she will never tell you she loves you.
She will curse under her breath when you climb your courage without a harness to break the cold silence of the night, while laying on your back on the street under the stars. She will whisper “I’m so sorry” and speed off into the night, running with an elegant skirt she found in a thrift shop- made in 1956 or some other far-off year- flicking like a black-and-white movie behind her, the last thing you see before she disappears into the night, before she disappears from the audience’s cares and back into your mind.
She was everything I wanted to be for as long as I could remember, a terrible destruction of the human mind, a horrific enigma that perfection was so messed up that perfection itself could never learn how to love. Manic Pixie Dream Girl was my role model, Manic Pixie Dream Girl wore shirts from France hand-painted with Swedish fables, Manic Pixie Dream Girl knew every Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros song on the xylophone but only played with her eyes closed, Manic Pixie Dream Girl hated her sister and her parents and told everyone she was a mess they didn’t want to clean up. A disgusting idea that a woman only exists to make a man happy, to cure a man of his dark cloud of spinning inhibitions, and if she dares become real then she no longer is deemed entertaining. Manic Pixie Dream Girl was my goal, and with this in mind I embarked upon puberty with a music taste straight out of a Wes Anderson movie and teal eyeliner and the idea that being broken was desirable.
Until I actually was.
Manic Pixie Dream Boy refused to listen to the radio, wanted to be a famous actor, planned days to simply lay in bed all day, and smoked over a pack a day despite asthma so bad I worried every time we went up the stairs. Manic Pixie Dream Boy wore clothes with animals on them, but said he didn’t believe in giraffes, Manic Pixie Dream Boy hated school but loved to learn, Manic Pixie Dream Boy was perfect. Until he became the thing I so desired, telling me relationships weren’t for him and he couldn’t possibly ever fall in love, he was too broken.
But now I was Manic Pixie Dream Girl, wasn’t I? Broken, just as she was? Just as I had so desired to be when re-watching The (500) Days of Summer over and over again in middle school?
I hate you Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I hate telling the kind boy with the good grades and nice intentions that I couldn’t possibly love again, I detest the enigma I now am.
But when new boy with blue eyes darker than the Pacific coast tells me to lay down with him in the gravel and tells me that he hates the number 63 more than wheat-brewed beer, I say yes and give into manic dreams again.

Today I want to die, but tomorrow I may be fine.
Such is the constant battle in my heart and on my mind.
I'm falling in love with the idea of being sick
I'm comfortable dating a guy who is a real ****
I see myself as nothing but my illness and my pain
My mind can only be described as unfriendly and insane
I ******* hating rhyming
So I'll stop all this **** now
Today is a bad day.

My stomach began to hurt about two days ago. That was the morning I woke up to an empty bed and throbbing head and no messages from you, no "hey darling I got here in one piece," no "goodnight dear." But then again I never date guys who talk like that. My stomach hurt all day and I wanted to talk to you so bad I gave into temptation and you said everything was good and you had "forgotten" to text me and I brushed it off later and didn't ask for the story when your friends kept teasing you about "the married woman you hit on."
My stomach still hurts and it's been two days now and today I told you it hurt and you said "I'm sorry" when all I needed to hear was "I love you, I'm here" and I cried harder than the sky did all the way home and tried to take a nap but now I sit here trying to scrawl down thoughts in the messy way I do when my mind screams with the need to spit them out. I can't understand how it always ends up like this, always hurts like this, LOVE ISNT SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE THIS. You've taken my mind in your hands and molded it and my body bends easily to your will and my words will never tell you how much you hurt me because I can't lose you and my head needs to get it out and everyone tells me that my poetry is best when it feels the most real well it feels PRETTY ******* REAL RIGHT NOW and the sickest part is that its when I am most ****** up that I can create the most beautiful things.
You're an artist. Finger-paint my messy mind because no brush strokes could do it justice. See the way that side is always a little smudged, darling? See the way my hands always shake a little, spiderweb lines that map out my grotesque sickness? See my broken inability to understand why you couldn't possibly love me, I know you can't love me, I've seen me I've felt me I've heard me.
You were perfect. Take that label and shove it up your *** hahahahaha. Or maybe stick it on my chest to be worn like a badge of detestable irony, I wish I could hate you but every time I try to breathe out the words "I'm leaving" my mouth says "kiss me" instead.
And all my friends and their cookie cutter boyfriends live their days in warm snuggles and cookies and I breathe blood bubbles and think about throwing my toaster in the shower just for ***** and giggles.
You were mine, are mine? Never mine.

"Nina, why do you always date *****?" questions my best friend in the way that implies an answer is not needed nor wanted in the warm light of his front porch in the car that belongs to me but he offers to drive when my stomach is sick and a new ****-up is laid like fresh paint on my mind.
The question itself spins like a coin in my head that will never lay flat, like a bad autotune job, like a Rube Goldberg that will never halt, like it has too much truth to it.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because they don't seem like ***** when our eyes meet and the ***** of their smile makes my nose crinkle with an incessant desire to smell the warm scent of their chest as my head lays pillowed on it in the early morning calm before the loud realization of what events transpired the night before, before flashbacks of mixed bodies and sweaty whispers, before he decides he's seen enough of me, devoured his piece of meat, he's not hungry anymore.
When will I be his favorite food? The one he can have for breakfast lunch and dinner and still crave, the one he will always ask for seconds of, the one who is home to him. Every time I meet someone I call all of my friends and swear he's the ever so infamous "one," and every time I fall for the ******* lie that he "will not break me," YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME?! Then why am I shattered, laying in pieces on the cold tile floor, my mind a messy oozing disaster? But maybe my heart has always been just a taped up broken mess since Paula left, maybe when Aaron and Spain and Mitchell came along it was all too easy for them to pull at the poorly tied knotted strings I had sewn into my heart, maybe my soul was just a little too welcoming, maybe my mouth was a little too eager to feel theirs against it. But I can swear that when you "made love to me" it was really just *******, or else why would you take the one piece of me left only to complain after that I hadn't shaved. Well I've shaved every day since, cut bleeding patterns into my mortified anxiety, ripped tears from my eyes before I dare let them fall, and watched you kiss her over and over again. But if you asked me back I'd still say yes, rip the shredded heart from the box I've tended to keep it in and place it back in your hands to wear like a new notch in your belt, a new trophy for your collection.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because some wretched inner part of my being believes I deserve it.

A slam poem


Your contact picture was taken the day you forgot to buy me a Christmas present
And when I scroll through my phone and see your name I remember crying until my pillow was painted black with streams of dashed hopes and childish mistakes.
On our third date you took the clip out of my hair and put it in yours and I haven't worn it since. Now I keep that clip in a desk drawer and try not to remember the way your voice cracked when you whispered my name and breathed your secrets into my mouth before trying to rip them back out through my heart when you decided you'd had enough of laughing over clips in your hair.
At night I lay awake and command my mind to conjure up any thought that's not you in your grey tuxedo, you in your painted skin that you outgrew when you smoked your first cigarette, peeling layers of who you were when you still filmed ghost hunting videos and touch-ups of who you are now, with your tears like rare prizes I wish I could collect in bottles and auction off to every past girl you've ever loved. And ****, there's a lot of girls.
But in the grand essay of your every past love I am the typo on the third page that knocks down your grade two points, the ****-up you would do anything to hit backspace on, the messy extra letter that somehow is overlooked by your meticulous eye because it's 2 am and you stopped giving a **** at 10. I am the coffee stain that gives away your procrastination like a badge worn across your chest, like a bruise on your forehead she may notice when she leans in to kiss you, like a tear in your favorite tie that she will see when she slides it off your neck and slips it sensually onto her own, not knowing I think about hanging myself with that very tie 1036 times a day if only I thought for one second it would awaken you from the slumber you fell into when you found whiskey and me that one December night on the countertop that wasn't even our own.
And I awake every morning drenched in heartache and heavily breathing out the rhythm your heart would drum as I lay at night with my head on your chest and my heart in your hands and my body in your mind. I was the glass sculpture you couldn't resist playing with no matter how many times you were warned not to, I was the wet paint sign you couldn't resist testing, I was the fire alarm you just had to pull.
But I would burn my tongue on coffee watching the sunrise with you again and again and again if it would resurrect the Christmas lights that burned like dying stars in my stomach in the fleeting moment where I truly believed you could love me, your kisses like butterfly wings that became bats all too quickly, your love like a fever that broke too fast- sweating and crying in bed at 2 am-I MISS YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I NEED YOU.
Yet maybe I knew along that this would happen. Yes, maybe I saw you as an opportunity to rekindle my old romance with anger and pain and depression, maybe when my friends told me you were bad news, I rejoiced in the idea of my old friends returning so much so that I opened the door and said "come on in," arms opened wide, play dough mind in their hands.
Or maybe I just really loved you.

Close my eyes and breathe in and get through the day and whisper a prayer and hope with all of my heart that I don't run into you.
Lay in bed and clench my hands into fists to squeeze out all that's left of you holding them and try not to breathe in too fast or else the hole in my chest will surely cave in further and don't think of you, don't think of you, don't think of you.
Clean my room and don't notice the things you left behind when you left so quickly.
Make my bed and don't remember the way it was always just a little too small for the both of us.
Take a walk and don't walk past your house, or the restaurant we went on our first date, or the park where we kissed the first time, or the hill where you coughed a little too much and left me alone in the angry cold to lie on the grass and want to die.
Don't think about that. Definitely don't think about that.

Happiness was a boy in a rhino sweater and giraffe pants whose lips tasted like soft serve ice cream.
Happiness was a boy who loved video games and hookah and baking cookies, a boy who could name every episode of Parks and Rec, a boy who loved spoken word and also burritos, who saw finding new bands as a sport.
Sadness was a boy who walked everywhere, a boy who never finished high school and was sometimes still drunk at 9 am.  
Sadness was a boy who's eyes closed their curtains to me, who's heart slammed it's door to me, who's body said "come on in." A boy who said he could never love me the way he loved her, a boy who said he didn't think he was "ready for a relationship," a boy who put me out like an old cigarette.
But I'm sick of all these emotions.

I shot myself in the stomach with the memory of you telling me all about Guardians of the Galaxy when I saw the broken DVD case sitting on my counter next to a coffee ring I forgot to wipe up this morning.
My lip is bitten through and through with memories that shake my head because they're too loud and bright to stick inside and they need to be out and breathe.
But I try so hard to keep my buttons closed all day, try so hard to hold myself together but I'm a puzzle with a missing piece and sometimes that shows up when people take away the coaster I put over my left corner and wonder where the tip of the sail is and I have to tell them I lost it years ago.
But you always ******* hated puzzles, and loved ******* puzzles like me who would give you anything you asked for because back then I had all my pieces and a syrupy desire to be yours and yours only forever, sipping on coffee with too-much cream in the early morning hours, wrapped in you, with your heartbeat singing familiar patterns in my ear.
And my birthday's in two weeks but all I feel is a narrow candle of hope in the back of my mind that maybe you'll think to call, maybe I'll open my doors to find you with a smile and a can of whipped cream, and even Reese's peanut butter cups (my favorite but the irony always was you had a peanut allergy.)
For now my bed is too small to hold all these memories, but, honey, it always had room for you. My mind clings to song lyrics, oxygen, because they hint that someone someday felt what I feel now, what I have felt for months. The snow globe you gave me that one time is broken in shards of everything you promised me and our last kiss, and it lays on my bedroom floor in case you ever come back and I have reason to piece it back together.
But when I see you this Sunday for mass as usual, you won't know any of this.

It's not surprising that it was so easy for you to leave someone as ****** up as I am
Because my mind is a sea of monsters too dark and too primeval to ever be tamed
And they hide their faces in the day
But in the night my mind plays ***** dark tricks and I scream and thrash and I can understand how hard that would be on someone like you
Someone who defeated the darkness that used to terrorize them, and now lives as the king of their mind.
You were ****** up too once.
You woke up cold and sweaty with a screaming heart because your daddy left and you couldn't figure out why and you took six painkillers before Spanish one day and walked in high as **** and got expelled.
But nobody would guess that from your cookie cutter ties and polished shoes and phenomenal ******* eye contact when you shake a man's hand,
Nobody could ever imagine that when you got too drunk you'd grab my *** and throw me on the kitchen counter and bite my neck and your hands would explore places they shouldn't.
Because you hid yourself from the crowds and the daylight and the church congregation,
And when you stand behind me in line for communion I can hear your breathing and the hairs on my back stand up, but remember, my dear, when your nails would map lines down my back?
Oh **** am I ****** up.
And I warned you from the start that I was, that messing with me would only ***** up my broken mind again and again, my mind that's held together with yards of duck tape and the piece of gum we shared on our third date so your parents couldn't smell the whiskey on our breath.
I told you I was a mess, and you said you understood, but the minute my mind started to unravel in your lap you ran away as fast as you could.
I get it.

I found you last night
Slipping in and out of my dreams
Silently sliding through hallways and nudging creaking doors
Whispering as you tiptoed through my mind
I found you
As you pulled at one string a little too hard
And I was suddenly overcome with too many "one more kiss" memories, too many bucket-list items never completed, too many times when we tried so hard to fit ourselves together but everything was just too messy.
I found you this morning
Smoking a cigarette in the back of my mind
Making ghosts with the smoke that you used to teach me to spin into swirls
Laughing roughly in the dark way you would when things went to ****
I found you
As you coughed a little because you forgot to switch out puffs of your inhaler with your cigarette
And I was suddenly overcome with an emptiness that couldn't be filled with Netflix binges or Extra-Peanut-Butter Reese's cups or even the ****** poetry that I scribble down angrily with an aching hand and a desperate, gripping need to transfer so much pain through a pen and onto a page and out of me.
Because I miss the way the back of your neck smelled like smoke and nostalgia and the way your mouth tasted like Dr. Pepper and whiskey.
I found you this evening
But I told you I didn't want visitors anymore.

When you tell me that your mom's at work,
And invite me over,
I'm not a ******* idiot.
And I may slip into my nice lace *******, maybe even a matching bra.
But I also bring my favorite movie, and a sci-fi story I wrote for AP English that actually got a decent grade, and a package of Thin Mints, because I know they're your favorite.
Just in case this time is different.
Because I fell for you the moment you laughed at my joke about "That's So Raven" and I never stopped loving you even after everything.
I loved you when you asked for my number and when you took me out on that one date,
And I loved you even when the dates turned into "a quick meet-up because I have to be at work in twenty,"
And I loved you when you'd scratch scribbles on my back with your nails, painting your soul into my body,
And your body and mine would intertwine in sweaty messes and whispered "*****,"
And there'd be marks all on my hips and ***
That I'd awkwardly pass off as "I tripped and fell"
When I showed up to swim practice.
I loved you when your fingers were inside of me, creating murmured "ohs,"
And I loved you when you'd tell me "I can't take you home, I'm sorry."
Or the ever-so-present "I just can't commit to a relationship right now," that is branded in my mind white hot.
I love you, even though I know that to you all I am is a girl whose tights you can get on your bedroom floor in under five minutes.
But you told me today that you had a new girlfriend,
Who you like because she's a keeper, a real good girl, who you want to meet your family, and not another girl like me "who's just looking for a ****."
I. I just.
I love you.

I can finally see why you did what you did.
I can finally see how maybe I tried too hard to make you The One Good Thing,
When you never auditioned for the part.
I can finally see all the memories for what they really were-
How even when we were wrapped in one another, we were never really a perfect fit.
And how I tried so hard to unbutton your heart,
I may have ripped some of the seams along the way.
I can finally see why you gave me that movie,
I can finally see why you always walked home,
I can finally see why you sent me your poem,
I can finally see why you told me you could never write a poem about me.

Everything aches with a pain it never has before, but it's been three weeks, and I need to start picking myself up and putting my pieces back together. Yet every time I try to reassemble myself, I find that a piece of me is still attached to you, and no matter how hard I pull I can't detach it. So I'm stuck in a pile of what I used to be and I can't speak or think or move, and I'm struck with the sense that I truly did lose my other half, for it seems impossible for me to be me without somehow having you, too.

Take my heart and pin it up in your collection with all the others
Take my secrets and bottle them up to place on your shelf
Take my kisses and dissect each one until you have someone else's to pull apart
Take my "I love you's" and label them by the meaning behind each one
And when you're done, will I disappear from your memory?
Will I blend in with every past love, every past girl, every past ****?
Just another jar in your closet to look at once or twice a year.
I'll be gathering dust in your mind while you're staging an orchestra in mine.
But that's how love works, isn't it?
It doesn't split down the middle, it splits in shards and you're left gathering pieces like a child under a piñata. And whoever ends up with more candy ends up with more pain.
So I sit here mourning a boy who let me go five minutes after I became "past" to him.
Gathering dust.

I took a lot of medication
I've been sick since you left me
And now I'm feeling sad again
See, I went to this party
But even with the music blaring
And people all around me
I can't deny that I still feel
Really ******* lonely
This couple right beside me
Is going pretty hard
I remember when we were them
Before we had these scars
They're hotboxing the bathroom
The whole place reeks of ****
But I don't want to get messed up
I cling to sanity
I really ******* miss you
My heart is screaming loudly
And I wonder where you are right now
And if you're thinking of me
The couple right beside me
Has left now, holding hands
They're ******* in the bathroom
But they left their beer cans
I know I took a lot of pills
I know this can't be good
But ever since you left
Now one's understood
The pain I'm feeling deep inside
They all tell me "he was lame"
But truly you were perfect
No one else could be the same
I'm scared of where you are
What you're doing, and with who
I know you have no trouble
Finding girls to sleep with you
And maybe it's that thought
That finally sends me off the cliff
Or the couple in the bathroom
Who make me think "what if?"
What if we had made it?
Could that have been our life?
You mentioned a couple of times
That you could see me as your wife
But now it's all in ruins
Shards of us lay at my feet
I know I failed you
So now it's time to fail me
I don't know what I'm thinking
Suddenly I'm grabbing beers
I keep on chugging down and down
And then I hear the cheers
They don't know what I'm doing
They think it's all a game
They don't know that I hate beer
They don't even know my name
Everyone is watching
As I down another can
They don't realize that's it's over
My final race has been ran
I know I haven't got much time
Before the medicine reacts
And maybe I will die tonight
I may just hit my max
Yet that doesn't bother me
None of it really does
I stopped caring long ago
About what is and was
I hope that you sleep well
And if my life is ending
Don't think you could've helped me-
My heart was way past mending

Waking up is the hardest part
Black and too-early morning
Stinging eyes
Sinking stomach
When you're asleep
You can't feel the pain
And my mind spins dreams into
Constellations
That glimmer with your memory
But then I wake up
Sheen with sweat
And anger and desperation and a black hole behind my eyes
And I wish I could take a pill
For memories
Because my body physically aches with the crushing weight of a thousand memories
I remember waking up with you
Waking up was the best part
Because we had a tree-carved love
And you kept me in the tattoo on your wrist
And I kept you on the chain that hung from my neck
But now I throw up in the middle of the night
Or awake sobbing heavy tears
While you're miles away
Probably sleeping beside another girl
Stealing her breath as she sleeps so peacefully
Just as you stole my sanity.

I miss you like a burning ache in the back of my mind
And a constant crushing weight on my chest
And every time I try to take a breath, it aches and I struggle to inhale
Knowing that I will never again breathe into your mouth
Even though "that's really ******* hot please do that again."
And I've used my inhaler 68 times since you started to disappear
I know because there is a small black dial on the side that counts how many puffs I have left
The number keeps creeping closer and closer to zero.
And I am struck with the need to see it hit zero and the fear of what will happen when it does.
Already I am turning greyer and greyer everyday
My eyes and hair dripping off the brown they've worn all my life
And I remember how you turned grey and then white and then suddenly you were gone
And I wonder if the same will happen to me
In reality, my inhaler is all I can grip to
Artificial air.
You stole the real air right out of my lungs when you left me on the cold ground that night.
And I remember that your hands disappeared first, shedding the light shade of white your body had recently adopted.
And I remember crying because my hands loved the way they felt wrapped in yours.
And days go by that feel like hours, the clock melting off the wall.
But with you 5pm was suddenly midnight in a matter of a few needy kisses and deep conversations.
And maybe that's why it hurts so bad.
"Because it was real"
Which is from the movie we saw
The night I first noticed your colors were dimming.

If I could take every memory
The kisses that always went on way past "one more and then we have to go home,"
The laughs that hung to car windows in dense drops of dew
The frustration over you never letting me in your doors for more than a few minutes a night
The pain in the dark that cold Sunday
If I could take every memory
I'd place them in a shoebox
Sharpied "a beautiful disaster"
Each one wrapped in newspaper
And laid carefully inside
If I could take every memory
I'd walk the two miles to your house
Barefoot like you walked up that mountain
But that was September and this is January
And I'd place it on your doorstep
Because I don't want your memories
But I'd keep one in my pocket at all times
My favorite one. The one where we prayed together the first time.
And when I feel sick and nervous
And my heart is unraveling with every string being pulled
I'll reach in and burn my hand on that one last memory
And I'll remember that your love was fire
And it burned out way too fast
But still licked me nonetheless
If I could take every memory

The worst part is that writing is the only thing that makes me feel any better
The only thing that helps me cope with never-ending pain
But when you're the pain and all I can write about is you
Is it even possible to feel okay?

I'm going to throw up I'm going to faint I'm going to hit the floor and let the blood pound pound pound in my head like a ******* drum like the one that our good friend Chris plays.
And I'm going to cry and I'm going to scream and I'm going to tear out my skin and my eyes will burn red like a sunrise like the sunrise we watched that morning when I gave you everything.
I'm going to hit the wall with my fists and yell and yell until my throat is raw and "why did I fall so ******* deep oh my gosh HOW WAS I SO STUPID SO. *******. Stupid."
I can't even type because my hands are shaking and my head is pounding and my chest is heaving and I'm going to throw up. I'm going to throw up.

I am destroyed
Fallen
Crushed
Ripped to shreds
I am a mess
Black streams down my cheeks
Hiccups
"Oh God please let this pain stop. Please."
I am done
The world as seen through ***** glasses
Silent
Resigned
I am sick
My stomach is wrung
My chest is split wide open
I can't speak a word
I am still in love with you
Crazily
Secretly
It's quite a ****** up thing to love someone who causes you so much pain

You ripped me open like a present on Christmas Day.

Cold hands in a warm bed on a dark night.

The Eskimos and butterflies taught me how to kiss you.

You smell like cinnamon and shampoo and too many tears.

Jumping rope and sticky grins and blacktop promises in chalk.

I would trade my sanity for another kiss with you.

Sharing music with you was like reading you my diary.

Soiled sheets tell stories I could never bear to share.

Sometimes I wonder if you really smoke to **** yourself.

You taste like sin and safety at the same time.

I remember holding your hand, never wanting to let go.

Kiss me like I am oxygen and you're on Mars.

The lines on your hands are rivers, whispering your past.

Good music and elephants and heartbreak remind me of you.

I miss you so badly that when I take a breath all I can breathe in is your last goodbye and the way you kissed me once upon a time and your favorite e-cigarette flavor ("because I don't want to be blowing smoke in your face all the time" you said when you bought them and the lady behind the counter laughed and tapped into the register with too-long nails and asked you to tell her if they worked well and you rubbed your thumb in tiny circles as you gripped my hand as though you would never hold it again.) When I blink all I see is your favorite color and when I lay awake at night haunted by the promises you made and the ones you never made, I hear that one song by The Black Keys playing again and again. I know that wherever you are, you're doing better things and thinking better thoughts than I am, but I can't help but grip to the idea that maybe when you lay in bed at night you remember my heavy breathing on the couch where we made love and the music that made me cry and how cold I was the night you left.

you're my favorite book
pages worn and tear-stained
special moments dog-eared
quotes traced in bright yellow highlighter
notes scribbled in margins
spine torn and aging
cover bent and creased
stains and wrinkles spread throughout
you're my favorite book
I've read you at least one hundred times
I recommend you to my friends over coffee
but only to those who'd appreciate you
only a certain type of mind can appreciate you
understand all your themes and moods
understand the author's ideas and plans
and laugh at all the right moments
you're my favorite book
I carry you in my messenger bag everywhere I go
and I love the way you smell like nostalgia
and that page 46 still has a hot chocolate stain from that one camping trip
where I read you by lantern light under a heavy sleeping bag
and I love the way you feel in my hands
you're my favorite book
but that doesn't mean I don't read others sometimes I'll read another to find it's awful
other times quite fantastic
with battles that make you sweat
and deaths that make you cry
but none of them are you
you're my favorite book
and I suppose you always will be

it's been twenty four hours
since I last held your hand
kissed your lips
traced that one scar with my finger
it's been twenty four hours
since I was shivering in your doorway
my breath making ghosts in the frozen air
dancing away like the smoke rings you blow to impress me
even though I always say you should smoke less
its been twenty four hours
since you pressed our foreheads together
and your laugh danced off the walls
as I long to dance with you
and your crooked-tooth smile made me crave your mouth on mine
its been twenty four hours
since you kissed me like an Eskimo
and admired my slippers
despite the soles being more worn than the pages of my favorite book
it's been twenty four hours
since I promised to say a prayer for you every night
and you swore again and again that we would make it
and you told me you'd see me in may
even though may is hundreds of memories and firsts and new friends away
it's been twenty four hours
since we said goodbye.

Cold hands
Shaking lips
Burning eyes
Stinging cheeks
I'm haunted by
Your memory
And I have lost
My sanity
And in everything
I think I see
You

I wanted it all too badly
I wanted it so bad I could have given my life for it, drained my blood for it, torn out my hair for it
You ****** me up
And I still crave you
Dream about you
All I want is to write one good poem about you
But I have so many feelings and so many things to say and way too many thoughts and my throat burns and my eyes sting and the wind is colder than my hands that time you held them for the first time and why did you leave when you swore you wouldn't why did you leave
Whydidyoufuckingleave
You ****** me up
And the ringing in my ears still sings your name like an old tune and the smell of you lingers on my clothes like a reminder in the pit of my stomach and the bottom of my heart of how deep I let myself get. How deep I fell. And I remember humming my secrets into your ear, and I remember how you were there.
And I thought "remember this moment, because he won't be here forever." But you seemed so real with your lips on my neck and your teeth on my ear and your strong arms on my back. You seemed so real. ****, you seemed so real.
But now it's 3 am and I lay alone on sheets haunted by your memory and the train is too loud outside my window and remember that time I told you we should hop on a train and never return?
And you never did tell me your favorite band because you didn't want to ruin it with my memory, and I'm happy for your sake. Because that's what I am now. A memory.
You ****** me up.
And I hope wherever you are you know that the smell of whiskey still reminds me of you and so does the feeling of confusion. And I'm sorry for all the times I tried too hard to fit us together, when we belonged on different ends of the puzzle.
We ****** each other up.

I just want you to know that before you came along I was fine-no, more than fine, good even. I was good. I had a future and I wasn't even looking for a boy but you just came into my life and you were so strong and you wrapped your tongue in mine and I was ******.
And I think of wine all the time, sweet as your sugar coated lips and burning in my throat and deep in the pit of my stomach and making me dizzy and crazy and making the **** lights spin again. And I remember when we made love the first time, and you brought the wine and there was sweat all over and pain and the crinkles on your forehead mapped out the way to my sanity, but I couldn't find it. Crinkled clothing and crinkled eyes and crinkled lives.
Time went by too fast for us, my love. We sped through life going 109 and when the red truck in front of us slammed on it's breaks we were destined to crash. Skidding over ice, skidding through fire. For weeks I thought of fire all the time. Burning so beautiful, shield from the cold, but too dangerous to get close to, too hot. And I've been third degreed. Ashes.
I just want you to know that even now the sound of your name makes my heart beat faster than the rain did on the roof of your car the night you made me cry the first time. But by now I've cried more than a thousand tears for you, and the ache in my heart is a constant pain that doesn't leave and I wish I was a blunt so you could breathe me in and still want me even more.
But most of all, I miss falling asleep in your arms.

Your poetry is a lot better than mine
Professional
Clean
Passion-filled

I write.
I wrote?
I write.
From time to time.
But not like you.
I've seen your work.

Verbs brighter than a Sunday comic strip
Reminds me of playing dominos with my sisters after church
Play-dough sculptures
My hands can create anything, Mom!

But what now?
Broken hands
Broken mind
Broken poetry

I write.
But it's all ****.
It's been **** for months.
Not a **** analogy to come to mind
Except cliche darkness and awkward fumbling

So when you take my hand in yours
And kiss my forehead
And ask me if I write
I say
No

Bubbling up inside me
Fizzy cola
Beach breeze
One hand on my knee
The other dangling a cigarette
Lost traveler
No home
Will you stay here with me
I'd like eternity
But one night will do
Free of charge
Except my sanity
And while you're at it
Leave a tip
The broken ends of what I was
Warm bubbles
Champagne lover
Twirling and twirling under the unforgiving stars
Better than my favorite dream
But how quickly, my dear,
Dreams become nightmares
Broken glass
Echoing screams
Twirling and twirling
Come and rest with me
Leave your bags
I've always got room
For maybe one more
But this one is the right one
I know it for sure
Pure white underwear
The darkest intentions
And dusty sheets
And a brown eyed boy
With a passion for nothing in the world
Except a ****** drink
And me
Or so I tell myself
As I lie awake and listen to the sound of his breathing
Warm body
Greedy hands
Fizzy cola
Fizzy cola