This is the last poem I will ever write about you.
Seriously.

I spent 367 days trying to pluck your name
Out of the spaces in-between my teeth.
I got so desperate that I picked up recreational flossing.
The taste of dish soap coats my tongue
As I think about being seven again
And having my mouth scrubbed with Dawn because I said a bad word.
It was much easier learning my lessons back then.

Baby, I loved you like a child locked out of the house during daylight.
Wildly, freely, without any underwear on.
Your voice echoed within me like a million cicadas
Dancing and singing.
Keeping me up at night.
You were summer sweat and tangled hair.
You were sand spurs and ant bites in between my fingers.

When I was little I domesticated a pool full of toads
So I could train and use them to take over the world.
No person should ever be allowed that much power,
Especially a child.
But the point is,
At a young age I learned how to love
Things that could never love me back-
The bugs I found underneath rocks,
The slimy, sticky creatures that have no
Understanding of nurture, just instinct-
The animals that only know how to be afraid
And survive and ****,
And I guess that's why I loved you so much.

I gave you a handful of earthworms and
You told me I had dirt under my nails.
You never asked me about my scars,
Your hands skipped over them like words
You didn't understand the meaning of.
While you choked on your silver spoon,
I used plastic forks to dig through the earth
In hopes to find gold,
But I found China instead.

Sometimes I wish I never came back.

Since this is the last poem I will ever write about you,
Seriously,
Let me clarify,
Very Clearly,
That I was never your honey.
Baby, I am the entire bee colony.
I am an intricate network of flower dust and star particles,
Gardens grow at my feet.
I am a force of golden, powerful life,
One that carries the weight of the entire universe, unfolding.

You see,
My Papa used to tell me a lot of stories about bees.
Like when a hornet invades a bee hive,
The bees swarm and rub against each other
Making their tiny bodies so hot
That the hornet dies a fiery death full of horror and chafing legs.
I'm not ashamed to admit
That I like to think of that as a beautiful metaphor
For me being way too hot for you, anyways.

Baby, what I'm trying to say is that
This poem is our initials carved into a tree
That I will never fall out of again.
This poem is the end of a thin, red string,
With nothing else attached.
This poem is the eulogy of the childhood I am about to forget
And the prologue of my adulthood I haven't written yet.
I never lost you.
I only gained myself.

I spent 367 days trying to pluck
Your name out of the spaces in-between my teeth,
And it was only until I found China again,
That it fell out of my mouth
And into the dirt
For the earth worms to eat.

Coffee stains and cigarette butts
I've found good company on the frame of a couch.
Everyone else sleeps while I reach the bottom of my broken mug.
It's funny how often I find myself at the bottom.
It's rainy in Portland.
Just as expected.
There's a girl much more beautiful than me
Half asleep
Half dead
Dying
In between sheets of complacency.
She is delicate and sometimes
I worry that her cotton sheets will scrape the skin right off her bones. .
I've waited three days for the sky to stop leaking,
I've waited three days for the clouds to mend themselves like I've had to my entire life
But no amount of brushing under the rug will suffice this time.
I think about where I am
And how these hands belong to me.
They're small and rough and
They've touched too many things.
I am nowhere and the tiniest accident.
I think about the planets and I think about the dead stars stuck underneath my skin
Waiting to break the thick surface
And reach other galaxies.
I get carried away and slip into Jupiter,
It's red storms and galactic dust burying me beneath mountains star things just like me.
There is a girl much more beautiful than me
Half asleep
Half dead
Dying
In between sheets of complacency.
She talks about losing her belly button
And the secrets I have to keep.

I hardly know what I'm doing
As I ask the clerk for a pack of naturals behind the counter.
My make-up from yesterday's shift preserved nicely,
So the exchange followed suit.
I'm not good at this.
Naturally.
Fifteen minutes before walking into the convenient store
I paced the empty terminals of a car wash
Rehearsing my demeanor and forced eye contact.
I hate eye contact.
Stand tall and look confident.
But not too confident.
Be charming,
But not desperate.
Don't try to be ****.
(You're not ****.)
I'm four foot ten
And twenty years old.
Buying a pack of cigarettes for an addiction I don't carry
Shouldn't be this hard.
I'm not damaged,
I'm not drunk.
I'm not struggling,
And I'm certainly not a cigarette smoker.
But I'm here,
In Boston,
Stuck in-between the fibers of a girl
Who writes bad poetry and
Hardly knows what she's doing with much of anything.
Naturally.

I am writing this poem as a letter of reference for my uncultured heart,
Unedited and uncensored and
Unlike the affections I so willingly gave you.
You read me your poems
As if I were the first girl to receive them,
And boy,
Did I receive them.
I took them and their delicate lettering that traced
My name written boldly and profoundly in the center
As if the world was handing itself over to me.
To: Olivia
From: Jupiter
No return address.
I kept your smooth words and slipped them into my coffee,
Tucked them underneath my pillow case,
And folded them into a book I virginally scribbled in.
I found them scattered across the night's sky
And sewn into the shirt you loved on me.
I planted them in good soil waiting for spring.
My good, rich soil.
Untouched and unused.
I Watered them carefully and buried them with a warmth
That the sun itself couldn't radiate.
You lit me up and I was burning so wildly for you.
For you, Jupiter.
My garden was beautiful, full.
Plentiful.
Abundant.
Good, rich.
Untouched and unused.
And little white lilies began to sprout and dot the I's of your
I love yous,
I miss yous,
I was thinking about you,
I love you,
I miss you.
I was thinking about you.
I love you.

I miss you.

I was thinking about you, Jupi.

But drier than your recycled sentiments,
My soil
Became parched and emaciated
As more of your lilies grew.
My coffee became bitter,
My pillow case as soft as sand paper.
The small, black journal I carefully pressed flowers with
Now stained and sopping wet with Your cheap ink
That ran down my skin and into
Creases you left your finger prints.
Your lilies, though small and sweet,
Were deadlier than any poison ivy
I'd ever touched previously.
The little plot of earth I saved for myself
Was now a pile of your cigarette ash
And venomous weeds.
I burned so wildly for you,
But without you.
For you,
Not with you.
I was another one of your American Spirits,
Smoked, put out and
Tossed into the grave of another fruitless harvest.
Taken, left, and used.

I woke up late today and
looked in between my sheets
Hoping to meet the
Corners of the body I loved too much
And too often hid myself underneath.
The safety of your sleep
So close
Pulling the universe inside of me.
I couldn't find you
Did you leave again?
I made the bed that is now to big for me
Evening out the
Wrinkles of your space
Only to find a receipt
And a thumb tack that fell behind the side table.
I put it in my pocket
And allowed the cool air to
Bite my lungs
As I stared at the tapestry you hung for me
Because I was too short to reach.
(I could never reach.)
Where did you go?
I checked underneath the hanging sheet
Longing to meet the arms
I lost too easily in the night
The familiar comfort of your warmth
Slowly extinguishing itself
From me.
I opened the window
Inviting the sun to fill the space
Of my empty room
But the clouds slipped in and
Lingered in your chair
Behind the door that
I can no longer sit in.
Where are you hiding?
I ran downstairs with a handful of creamer
To make coffee for two
Only to find the mugs we shared
Were already used.
Will you be back?
I looked outside hoping to meet you
And forgive you for your temporary absence.
The safety of you I took for granted
My desperation to touch you
And keep you safe
And comfort you
And hold you
Slowly paralyzing the uneven beats
Of my swelling heart.
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry
I didn't mean it, I take it back.
I understand.
I wish I knew.
Will you be back?
But as it turns out
I woke up early enough
To say good bye
Instead of good morning
And good luck
As the sun came in
And buried itself underneath
The salty dunes dusted around the corners
Of my eyes
That could no longer find you.

Today I found your toothbrush
Sitting in the same cup as mine
I stared at it
Remembering that you were
Here only a week ago
With a bad case of morning breath
And my toothpaste tucked in the corner
Of your smile.
Hesitantly waking up
I stared at it
Remembering that you were
Here only a week ago
My concept of time
Now revolving around the way
You touched me
Only a week ago
The way you loved me
Only a week ago
This toothbrush
This blue toothbrush I bought from the dollar store
Brushing along the tremors of my
Uneven breath threatened to
Defeat me
Threatened to put me back to sleep and
Try again tomorrow
Resolve the reoccurring bouts
Of sadness tomorrow.
But instead
I looked at it
I looked at your toothbrush with a certain familiarity
I looked at your toothbrush with a sincere smile
And remembered that
I was lucky enough to share my space
With someone
Only a week ago
I was lucky enough to fill my room with
Comfort and soft conversations
Only a week ago
I was lucky enough to
See you again
Lucky enough to touch you again
Lucky enough to bother you again
Only a week ago
And for the first time
For the very first time
I looked at everything I gained
Instead of my impending losses
My expired emptiness and hollow thoughts.
Because I realized
Only a week ago
The entire world unfolded itself in front of me
And gave me
Two toothbrushes.

i am a terrible poet.
the words i tied together in attempt
to annunciate 
the way your kisses felt
along the soft of my 
cheeks were
mediocre and just barely enough.

just barely.

there weren't enough ways that i could describe
the mouthful 
of stars that spilled at the seams of my

lips as you gently traced them with warm finger tips.

mm, your finger tips.

your finger tips felt like a personal extension from god himself as

they dusted the empty jars i left untouched

in the forgotten spaces of me.

you held them tightly and filled them to the top

with a breathful of morning secrets

and hidden places to meet.

i found you.

i found you and allowed the words to slip

through my small hands

as you kissed my palms gently and sweetly

and folded them into your own to keep for just a little bit.
(
i could stay here)
i could lay underneath your tired smiles

and messy hair

until stars realigned themselves and directed

me to you all over again.
(
i could stay here)

i could tangle in-between your pale sheets
and make up all the words that

effortlessly translate the way i melted and simmered

at the sheer thought of waking up and knowing you again.

i could illustrate all of the galaxies you whispered

onto the trail of my back with

colors and warmth i never knew

and turn them into poorly strung together,

black and white strings of thought.

you were my favorite secret

and the cause of all of my writer’s block.

(i could stay here)


i’ve lived in florida my entire life

and have spent more days than i can count

under the sun and in the wake of rays that always burned,

but i’ve never felt more warmth than lying underneath

your expired thoughts and eclipsing eyes

as the moon seeped through your broken window blinds.

i forgot what it was like to breathe

until you took my face
sweetly and sincerely
and kissed me.
the paragraphs and ellipses that perforated my parenthetical
sighs of relief
stained the corners of my mouth
and lingered
long enough for me to remember
the after taste of your recycled sunshine
as you left me.

i am a terrible poet,
but a better kept secret it seems.