I’m sorry I haven’t thanked you for the sacrifice
I’m sorry I ruined your body at 30
I’m sorry people say we look alike

I’m sorry I hurt you
again
and again

I’m sorry for the blood in the bathtub
and the purple dye
I’m sorry for the bleach

I’m sorry for the mold
and the rot
and the court dates

I’m sorry for the failure
and the soccer games
and the hurt knees

I’m sorry I wear all black
I’m sorry I orbit you like a first born curse
I’m sorry we are both too head strong

I’m sorry I make you look bad
I’m sorry for not calling
I’m sorry for wanting to leave

I’m sorry for the smoke
I’m sorry Mom
I’m sorry for the months I wouldn’t eat

I’m sorry for the bones
I’m sorry for the lies
and the stealing and the hospital stays

I’m sorry for the time
I’m sorry you were forced to make a commitment out of me
I’m sorry I’m 17

I’m sorry I’m sad
I’m sorry for the medicine I didn’t take
I’m sorry for the car accidents and the tears on your favorite sweaters

I’m sorry it’s taken me 17 years to say this
I’m sorry I am like a stray dog
I’m sorry I make it hard to love me

I fell in love with you all over again in a hospital waiting room

I fell in love with the deep purple under your eyes
like delicate bruising

I fell in love with the paleness of your lips
from lack of nutrients

I fell in love with the way you moved slowly
and achingly wrapped in a white blanket the color of your skin

I fell in love with the deep crimson of your blood
as it ran through your IV

I fell in love with you again as I laid with you in the hospital bed at 3 am

we’d been there for 10 hours
and you had a little too much morphine in your system
and a lack of sleep
when you pulled me close and said

“I could really see myself marrying you some day”

and that was right before you kissed me with your dye stained lips
so they could see your insides better on the x-ray

I fell in love with you again when you looked at me with your
big hazel eyes that turn black around the edges

You said god had sent me from heaven
An angel to watch over you

I'm not too sure about that but what I do know is:

I Do

Once you told me “I’m going to write you a poem”
I took your jawline in my fingers and held your eyes in mine and said
“Don’t ever”

only it came out a little strangled and raspy
like the voice cracking on a freckle faced pubescent boy

You didn’t heed my warning
and a week and a half later I got three pages of
star signs and
rose petals and
wishing wells and
my eyes compared to 24 other things

And three months later you started to look like
a wilting ivy
a dehydrated leaf
a floating corpse

and I still blame it on poetry
and the way it eats at your soul
and rips its way through the lines in your palms

it nails words into the gaps in your spine
and wraps itself so tightly inside you it contracts your muscles
until it controls you

until the letters desperately written are more like *****
just something forced out of you to let go of a little sickness

I could say
“I told you so”
if I was still 9 years old
and didn’t know how it felt to let a pen and 26 letters control you

I could say I told you so

but instead I am just buying my third cup of black coffee
and trying to find another pen

I’m sorry you fell for me in July
I’m sorry you kissed me in August
I’m sorry I broke your heart in September

I remember we first met in a parking lot in Lynchburg
and your skin burned a warm caramel in the sun

we went to the forest and walked on the trails
and I think you almost bent me over on a little wooden bridge
but instead I pulled you between my legs and kissed you
and your perfect gleaming teeth

we ran the trails
me in my beat up purple vans
and my beat up black and blue heart

and you with your pristine tye dye shirt
and the hard abs underneath
cross lateralled over bone

and because of you my favorite flower is now a
bright and vivid sunflower

we broke into an abandoned house
and laid in the dark on the cool floor

and I took pictures of you as you played earl sweatshirt

like hey maybe one day we could live in a place like this
and just...
be

but that was all before I crushed you
with the weight of my heavy heart

and left you in a pool of blood on the floor
of that abandoned house

and seemingly never looked back

Aaron Evans - Magic  
I love you, I really do
    
Alex Forte - ****
*******

Alex S - *****
I hate what you made me become

Andrew T -Beer
Do good in Rehab, dear

Austin Kearns - Lake Water
really?

Garrett A - Pretzels
Burn in Hell

Garrett F - Soy Sauce
I'm so sorry

Hunter G - Cigarettes
You still turn me on

Jason H - Bubblegum
I kissed you out of pity

Jeff C - Water
I'd still Hate *******

JJ S - Ciroc
What a regret

John Bradshaw - Football
How is Pennsylvania?

Johnny Bozeman II - Marlboro Reds
I just really ******* miss you

John Butler - Coffee
Don't ever touch me again

John G - Sugar
I'm sorry I ruined it

Julian R - Cherry Popsicles
Thank you for freeing me

Justin B - Cheap Wine
*******

Justin Haupt - Mint
I really enjoyed all the free *******

Katie Moorman - Red Lipstick
IloveyouImissyouI'msorry

Kyrstin Bruce - Grey Goose
I don't like kissing you

Mario Luppachino - Pool Water
I would've ****** you in my car that night

Michael H - Hash Brownies
Stay Away

Ryan T - Want
Kissing you made me *** in a school hallway

Rusty H - Need
I still wonder what became of you

Sam R - Mistakes
Heard you're a father now, congrats

Sean Ellis - Berry Hookah      
sigh
                  
Steven Spence - Gasoline
I'm a **** person and so are you

Taylor Vaughn - Sunset
Go back to your baby mama

Tim Hoback - Hangover at 7 am
You made me breakfast and gave me your pants

Trevor W - Candy
Time is a funny thing, huh?

Tyler Farris - Missed Connections
If I was a little prettier could I have been your baby?

How To Leave Someone Without Breaking Their Heart

How To Tell Him “I Love You” Without Using Poetry

How To Not Compare Yourself To Broken Glass

How To Not Make Life Another One Of Your Similes

How To Wake Up And Be Okay

How To Deal With Someone Saying You Are Too Much To Handle

How To Let The Light In

How To Tell Your Parents About The Last Six Years

How To Not Want To Jump Off Of A Roof

You did a really good impression of my dad
by walking out of the front door
and never looking back

and I think that’s quite why
I was so interested in you in the first place

you talk like a man
and walk like a ghost

and you disappear every afternoon around 5 pm
and you don’t show up until a little after 12 am

and you left me home with my mother
and this loaded gun

But they say home is where the heart is
and yours has since run cold

I’m fascinated by the way your faulty intestines
rest on the insides of your ribs when you lay on one side
and the way my spine tries to rip its way out of my back

I want to know why my shoulder blades feel as if
one day they will become wings
and allow me to fly away

I’ve wanted to be somewhere else for a long while now
my feet don’t really seem to fully hit the ground anymore
I am a vortex gaining speed

and they say getting hit by lightning twice is so highly improbable
but what happens when I am struck by lightning every night

what does it mean when I wake up covered in blood
and desperate for something unnamed
something that hides out in my dreams

and all I’ve ever wanted was a few answers

like if there is a god why does he allow hell on earth
because I’ve been burning at the stake ever since I turned 7

and this charred flesh of mine feels like acid
and tastes like asphalt

this little body does not feel like home

there's a buzzing in this spine
and a nervous rattling in this skull

You are a soft quiet pulsing
a slow sip of lukewarm coffee in the morning
the gentle caress of bathwater over skin

you are the rain in summer
the steady hum of an overhead fan

you are the melting liquid in a lava lamp
a candle in a windowsill

you are 5 am sunlight
the gentle wind that blows through hair
the first inhale of a just lit cigarette

you are a day of rest

you put your hand on my chest while you kissed me
and said you felt my heartbeat in your palm
like a gentle orb

and here I always thought I was
a gunshot in a back alley outside of a bar
just another unsolved ******

I am ripped plastic
an open landfill
I am blood dripping on tile

but I find I like your insistent denial

You say-
be gentle with me
and when I am
you move my hips and make my hands a bit rougher

until i am scratching at the skin on your chest
like I am trying to force my way inside you
but instead you’re just inside me

you told me not to pull up your shirt
or touch anywhere below your ribcage
because you have secrets you are not ready to share
and I will be patient of that

because you have more to offer than just
the holes in your stomach or
the bags under your eyes or
the disease in your veins and DNA

you are more than the hour and a half effort it takes you to shower
and not being able to eat if you want to see me

you are much more than the
skin that sticks to your bones

and I don’t know how to tell you that

1- Alex S
You were a rough hit to the stomach
a cold and ***** baptizing
I ****** you twice and never again
because of you I stopped eating
I haven’t seen you since I was 14
and that’s okay with both of us

2- Alex F
Your name still gives me chills
you remind me of a fox in winter
I really did love you like the waves love the ocean shore
I really would have drowned myself for you
im sorry I took your virginity

3- JJ S
It was a drunken hookup on a ***** couch
in a smoke filled basement that I had to sneak out of later
and you were 27 and should have known better
and it was really just too awful to talk about

4- Garrett F
In a Chinese restaurant parking lot at 9 pm
we used your backseat like it had
rose petals and candles
and you were my best friend
and it’s still one of my biggest regrets
and we stopped speaking after that

5- Michael H
Really I just wanted the free ****
and a place to spend the night
so, did you enjoy the taste of my tall black soul
that tends to smell of tar
and the dredges of a coffee ***?

6- Julian R
I don’t know the first thing about you
besides the fact you are from New York
and 25
and play basketball for a college
and you pushed me down on the bed
and swallowed me whole

7- Sean E
It was Halloween
and we were drunk
and we undressed in the back of someone’s jeep
and laid under the stars at 4 am on a blanket in a backyard
the first time you were ever inside me

8- Johnny B
24 and never someone I’d normally ****
but I stayed at your house for 2 weeks
and we became connected on every piece of furniture
and I still never got enough of you
and god I miss you

9- Aaron E
You are the end of it all
and with you I am butter melting
I am grinding my teeth down in lust
I’ve never seen anyone look so perfect naked
and I’m wishing you were the only one in this list

They say one in 25 people is a psychopath
and I think you most certainly are one

I could say you are an emotional terrorist

you bit the hand that fed you

you are like a stray dog that is unaware of its situation;
you still think you have a home

you are a hungry wolf limping in winter-
you snarl only out of spite

when you breathe in smoke
you inhale like you are begging for cancer

you inhale like a rough drag can bring you hope

There is something in your face that
I am unable to capture in pictures
something in the way your eyes change from green to black

something in the bones of your fingers
and the way that I kiss them
the way I can’t think when I’m with you besides

youarebeautifulyouarebeautiful

so excuse the way I trip over air

because I’ve just been thinking of you
and the way your eyes close when I touch your face
and the way your laugh comes out fast and soft

and there’s something in the way you walk
something nameless in the way you kiss me

something about you makes me hungry for you to the core

sometimes you say you’re bad and mean
(and I’d have to disagree)

but even if you were a disease
I’d still invite you into my bloodstream

You once told me I was hypnotic
and a few days after that I had a vision
that included us killing each other

and you shot me dead
before I could even pull out my knife
and I think that’s a pretty **** accurate representation

I always said that to shoot someone is pretty non personal
and this is nothing but

so I started to carve little rotten raspberry slits in your skin
and the juice ran out in tiny rivulets on flayed open bone
because that’s true

you flayed me open with
the razor in your tongue and
the cold steel of your shoulder and
you broke my bones with the hammer in your eyes

so I guess I just feel like I deserve more than a
bullet to my chest

I don’t think I was the one who deserved to die

I have this antifreeze in my veins
I have icicles wrapping around my kidneys
and you thought you were the only one with a disease

I’m ******* the air out of your lungs
and nothing has ever tasted so sweet on my tongue

and I’m just trying to breathe you in

and sometimes I’m scared I will eat your skin
sometimes I think I'll cut my eyes on the glass in your smile

they say Betelgeuse will explode someday
and yet it is the brightest star in the sky

We both love things like creeping ivy
we swallow it all whole

I once broke your jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt it would make you soft-spoken

and I feel like a bull barreling down a thin hallway
and you are sleek black paint jobs

and I am just your unexpected ****** nose
spilling out onto the pavement and
dripping on your pressed button up shirt

I am this acid on your tongue slowly melting
and you wish I’d do it quicker
because I leave a bad taste in your mouth

and im sorry for that

I never meant to step on your toes with my
heavy boots
and this 35 pound heart

and this skin that seems to grow and fade from view
because I am in the midst of becoming invisible

and just last Thursday I walked through my first wall

But I guess you would know a thing or two about that

because I haven't seen you in over two months
so would you tell me where you disappeared to?

I was born in blood
and I have a tendency to like the darker things in life

I ate my twin in the womb
and I broke free into life with that victory

and ever since I have felt like a caged animal
all gleaming teeth
all bite
all bone

I am partial to the boys who have a side sweeping gaze that seems to say
“I could shoot you if I really cared enough to”
because there’s a little bit of danger in us all
and sometimes I just like the obvious

my heart isn’t on my sleeve
my heart is a long black drip
a charred line

my heart is an empty fireplace waiting to incinerate
whoever thinks the flames won’t really burn

I was born in high relief
and have spent my life keeping others from whittling me down

I am not a sculpture
I am not yours to mold

and here’s this boy putting the barrel of his loaded gun in my mouth

and here’s me saying take a walk on the wild side
wondering if my eyes can convey how badly I want him to

pull the trigger

I touched you in your dreams darling

I felt the cold steady beat of your heart
thawing out like flowers in spring

I touched you in your dreams my dear

like a coiled snake ready to strike
I tasted the venom in your teeth when I kissed you

I touched you in your dreams love

and I felt the slow shifting of my spine
as the vertebrae started their tender ache

I touched you in your dreams darling
and it felt like a mistake

So bide your time and be glad you’re not me

sometimes I wake up at 4 am
desperately stumbling out of bed
and knocking over the wine next to me

and squinting my eyes in the light fumbling
for a pen and paper

because I’ve got these words in me
that haunt me in my dreams

like hands reaching up through ancient graves

you are the crypt keeper
you feel like dust
and taste like paper

my life feels like a mausoleum

and if you are questioning how one’s life could be compared to such a thing it’s like I said-
be glad you aren’t me

At 14 I was sent to the hospital twice because
I was hallucinating which is a fancy way of saying
hey, you’re batshit crazy so we’re going to pump you full of medication

Turns out all of the walls I had been seeing crashing down
and the fires that were never there
were always just a side effect of my depression medication
because I was on too high of a dose for my weight

And I told my ex-boyfriend this when I was 16
and now, 8 months later he is telling everyone I am schizophrenic

like baby there’s a lot of things I am but that’s not one of them

Like there’s a lot of things you are
but a good person was never something I would use to describe you

you're more of a waste of space
and I really wish you had never left Chicago

I wish I never even met you

I wish I hadn’t been so desperate for the way you moved
your thin body like a train down the rails

I wish I had never agreed to play with your hair in class
or sat in your lap with your arms around me tight

or caught sight of you in my eyes
like a glare through a window there was nothing else

The people that say passive aggressiveness is just a made up term
and doesn’t really exist
obviously have not met my grandmother

or been across from her at a Thanksgiving day get together
and heard her comments from over the hum of
green beans and dry turkey
that none of us are really so keen to eat
-
The people that say ADHD is just an excuse
and some kind of made up disorder to make people feel better
have not met my mother

or have had to witness a 47 year old middle school teacher quiver
at the thought of concentrating for more than an hour
without some kind of medication or break
or tear up at having to think about organization
-
The people that say being trapped in your own skin
is just a saying that has become overused
have obviously not met me

or have ever felt the need to open their ribcage
and let their bones fly free like little wings
or felt an itch deep inside their organs like some kind of ticking bomb
that could go off at any time  
-
We are all packaged explosives hidden deep in
rocky crevices in a hillside growing wild and green

Just because the outside isn't so frightening
doesn't mean there isn't something dark waiting underneath

At the end of it all, we said good bye a hundred different ways
but never with our words

and on Halloween we crept down the stairs as not to wake the others
and we burned every last piece of him you had left
and I let you cry yourself to sleep in my arms
and we lit a few candles and we started being
us

and you intimidated me because you were beautiful
and charming
and cunning
and smart

and I was just 15 years old and boring
and you were 18 and everything I ever wanted to be

and I guess I could say I love you

and the way your skin felt as I caressed it
as we laid in your bed (or mine)
wide eyed and heavy hearted

and you were not the first girl I ever kissed
but you were the first and only one I've ever loved

and oh how I ******* loved you
how I still ******* love you

I was born again the first day I ever laid eyes on you
Right there in the doorway

You in your little blue dress and white diamond smile
and me a little sad and scared and looking for something in your curves

I had been warned about you
I had been told you were
a snake
a plastic *****
a lunatic
a ****
and you were all of those things

but I worshipped you
as did everyone else
we kissed your golden feet

I listened to you like Eve in the garden of Eden
and I took a bite of that apple
and nothing has ever been the same since

for that short time I think I found a little bit of heaven in hell
and it was always bliss in your arms

and how you scraped your lips against my teeth in the dead of night

and dear lord who art in heaven hallow be thy name
I have prayed for you

I have prayed and I have called out your name

I met you on your eighteenth birthday
and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
and you are my roots reaching down into the green earth

you are the queen of all queens
you are made of divine intervention
you made me bleed

My mother used to believe in things like
fairies and
angels and
good spirits and
me

and she uses every available context to remind me of just that

and the whole world is making a huge deal about how
Pope Francis dropped the “F-bomb”
like it least it wasn’t an A-bomb
dropped in a country we can’t pronounce

or maybe even our own
because who would alert the media then
if we were all dead

I’m feeling a bit cynical tonight
and maybe it’s the result of reading too much
Poe and Shakespeare for homework

and if I’m honest I’ve really never felt much in the way of
inspiration from either of them
after being forced down my throat since the third grade

and we had a small play once
and ever since then I’ve thought of you as Romeo
and I’ve always felt a bit more connected to Edgar’s “Annabel Lee”
in that ****** sepulcher by the ever moving and sounding sea

I just wish I had someone pining over me

I still think of things that got lost under the waves
and how every inch of me was rubbed raw by shells
and shifting sand

and I couldn’t tell which way was up

I was in a world of frothy ocean
and jellyfish
and siren songs

and now I think I know how Alice felt
when she was tumbling into something we call wonderland

I think I found hell in the corners of my organs

I think I was poisoned
and the culprit is the sea

I think a mermaid tried to **** me

I had a dream I was walking on the beach
and the waves receded into a wall
like Moses parting the Red Sea

but it was only me
and it was only a dream

I’m sorry you were the result of seduction
I’m really very good at it and I used you
7 years my senior and supremely illegal
you were hesitant to kiss me

Because you've been to jail enough
and didn't want to see a cell again

but I still unbuttoned your shirt
and traced the tattoos on your chest and all the way down your arm
spilling out onto your hand

and I still love the way it felt to sleep naked in your bed
and have your window half open and hear the rain pouring down
as you packed yet another **** hit at 2 am

and we always started movies we never got more than
30 minutes into
because of the way my fingers tested your willpower

and one night we were watching pulp fiction
and I still cant remember a solitary scene
and im sorry

and one night I came over
and you handed me a Marlboro Red and a cold 40
and asked me what my drug of choice was

and we taked about how the
acid in your spine is resting for the next 7 years

and your pupils were dilated so much so I could not see your pretty irises
and I guess what I’m saying is

I love your 24 year old self
and how you made me pizza
and let me wear your favorite shirt (and that’s it) around your house

and im sorry I always left you in bed
when you tried to pull me closer into you
I should have just stayed

and you would always say
“my pillow smells like you, come back. I miss you”

and I stopped dropping by your house in January
and I stopped talking to you

but sometimes at night I dream of the ink on your skin
and how you got hit by a bus
and how you called yourself the antichrist
and how the last four digits of your cellphone number are 7666

and how we ****** so hard I would pull the sheets off of your bed
and how you always kissed me in the small of my back
and the curve of my shoulders and

imsorryimsorryiloveyou

Vous disiez toujours mes mots sonnés le mieux en français
(You always said my words sounded best in French)

Comme ils fondaient de ma langue dans des tons de caramel
(Like they were melting off my tongue in caramel tones)

Vous me prieriez de chuchoter des choses comme
(You would beg me to whisper things like)

Je vous aime ou
(I love you or)

Vous êtes les seuls
(You are the only one )

Je pense que vous en avez vraiment seulement aimé l'ironie
(I think you really only liked the irony of it )

Parce que je n'étais jamais le seul pour vous
(Because I was never the only one for you)

I’m falling through the holes in your soul
like grains of sand through fingertips  

we always think we have found someone so beautiful
and it makes it hard for us to see the ugliness that is behind it

there is no pearl being formed in your shell, my dear

and I suppose that should make me afraid

but I haven’t been scared of the dark
or big bad wolves
or boys with a few stitches in their brains
for years now

so just ignore the dripping knife I have in my hand
and please don’t follow the blood trail into the woods

some things are better left unknown

haven’t you ever heard ignorance is bliss?

Kiss me with my lips that look like blood pooling
and eyes that look like an exit sign

Sitting on the back porch licking a popsicle
the color of your essence slowly with eyelids closed
and careful movements

I am a snake charmer
a deadly woman
and I am 12

you want me whispering stardust into your ears
and you’re trying to make yourself see it as wrong

But I am all want
I am need
something about me is saying please

I am silk sheets
a sunny day breeze
and I am 12

the edges of my blonde hair comes to the
third vertebrae in my spine
and you want your hands curled in it

you want me like
I am water to the flame that rests in your tongue

you’ve never read ****** before
but you swear I'm the one
Vladimir Nabokov had in mind

In fall I met a boy who had blue eyes and dark hair
and he towered over me thin and strong

and he had wheels for feet but wasn’t a rolling stone
no, that was always me

he told me he loved me with the lights on

and we became helplessly entangled in each other’s limbs
like we were turning into the jungle itself
until it got colder and we were ripped apart
-
in winter I met a girl who knocked the wind out of me
and my lungs have never quite been the same

she would read me poetry as we laid in her silk sheets naked
drinking coffee and she would light my cigarettes

and she taught me how to jump in head first
and how to be charm boys
and how to love *****
and more importantly,
her
-
in spring everything so tightly wound began to come undone
and love became more complicated

and in the end I had to choose whom I loved more
and even now I still question the faulty loyalties I had

and I catch myself driving by both of their houses
feeling unable to control my lungs
or my razor sharp memories
-
in summer the boy with the blue eyes who was my moon
started loving a little girl and we haven’t talked since

and while I waned he waxed
and I hope to never see him again

and the girl who was my rising and setting sun
kissed me for the last time in a smoke filled room

and I lent her my shoes and shirt
and I still think about her every day
-
It's been over a year
and I am still unable to allow these two people out of my head

like a guilty conscience that will never let you rest
and all I can think is

imissyouimissyouimissyou

like it is engraved in my heartbeat

I never planned to drop out of high school
but I never planned on wanting to **** myself either
so that’s just how it goes

And now I’m in college a year early
and I’m watching everyone around me getting into
serious relationships and having babies
and actually graduating with full scholarships to real universities
and moving in together like real grown people starting real lives

and here I am still missing you
still going to counseling every week
and failing my second semester worse than the first

here I am having to consider if going to a
mental hospital for 6 months is really the only thing ive got left

my mother says when I get out I could really start my life
you know, have real relationships
and not do drugs or have promiscuous ***
but what does she really even know about that

am I about to find out why the caged bird sings?

I turn eighteen in a little over 7 months
and I really don’t want to spend the time leading up to that
having a prescribed time to eat
and take my medication
and when to go to sleep

this isn’t how life is supposed to be

people say it isn’t easy
but killing yourself is seen as cowardly

well, we didn’t even have a choice of whether we wanted life or not
we were just put here because we won the race

so don’t talk to me about cowardice

I got my first tattoo when I was 15
and the feeling exhilarated me
and to this day the buzzing of the gun excites me

and even to this day the sound of your voice creates something inside of me

and last summer I had 4 people in my car that I later totaled

and we were smoking **** in the park
because we bought three blunts at $5 each

because we went down to southeast
and copped them from the black boys playing basketball in the street

and that was back when I still got paranoid about things

like smoke coming out of the car windows at night
and things like my mother knowing the redness in my eyes
wasn’t from my contacts

Here we are in the tunnel of a yellow slide at the park
with clumps of smoke falling from your mouth like mud
but I shouldn’t be surprised at that

we sat on your porch
and the veins in your arms were just asking to strangle me
and if I’m honest with myself I would have let them
because I couldn’t imagine a better way to end myself

and after work one day I went to the maze near your house

and it was raining warmth out of the dark sky

and I pulled the petals off of all the roses
and threw them in the air and let them rain down on me
because I needed to feel beautiful and dramatic for just a minute
after such a long day

and you watched from your car

because I was just a stupid silly girl that you didn’t want to get caught up in

I feel more comfortable in this vessel of mine than I ever have before
and I suppose I have you to thank for that

because now I can walk without seeming like a question mark
and trying to blend into the wall

I can walk without looking down like an apology
so this is me saying thank you

but now I realize that I don’t need you nor do I want you

and I am happy with the sense of freedom that comes with that

you weren’t special until I made you so
and I didn’t realize my worth until we were walking away from each other

and once, back when you were good
and I still believed in you

we climbed the roof of a school and took pictures
and I didn't want to jump off  

and I scraped my leg before we started doing graffiti

and we heard the sirens from two miles away
so we dropped the spray paint and ran

and I guess they were warning us in more ways than one

Hurry now
"Something wicked this way comes"

I let my phone die so I could experience something

and I can’t tell If its 9 am or 12 in the afternoon
and I’m looking at the light coming from under my black curtains

and I’m squinting my eyes and watching the whole world blur
which is just how I’ve always liked it
so today is no different

I’m writing myself sick and drawing pictures of the hole in your lip
and the freckles on the back of your ears

and I didn’t mean to make this poem about you
but I wasn’t in the mood to tell you I love you either

and I ******* hate sunsets they make me far too sad

and I’m kind of wishing
I could just let the sun burn out my vision once and for all

then all I would have left is the simplicity of dreams

and I still wish you broke all of your bones

I woke up in someone’s backyard under the stars
with a cracked iPhone and a handful of pills that weren’t mine
but I took them anyway

and you were laying half under me with white residue under your nose
and a black eye from where you punched zack trying to get away

because he’s on the run and we needed somewhere to stay
and he broke your brand new **** in half

I woke up in the backseat of your car under a blanket and you
from too much drunken *** in the middle of the woods

and I got out of the car and tucked your **** back into your ***** pants and watched the rest of the flames turn to embers

as our friends smoked the last of the ****
and I could have sworn Kyle was drinking the **** water
which was straight from the river

and you stole $14 from me that night
and you were bleeding from your brain
but that’s okay

because my heart is still the only thing harder than the
rock you cracked your skull on

I’m trying to tell you something
but there are no suitable words to explain how I feel

like I need you on top of me

and I need you in the ocean next to me

I need you holding my hand
and listening to me sing along to the radio

I need you drinking tea with me
and playing cards
and crunching leaves under our feet in fall

I need you on a blanket

and at the mall I need you by my side

I need you to snowboard down the ***** of my back

I need you to spank me over your lap
I need to get drunk with you

I need to smoke cigarettes with you

I need to taste wine on your lips
and drink ***** out of your collarbones

I need you like a quick striking match

I’ve spent all my wishes on you

I need to sleep next to you every night of my life
and watch you brush your teeth in the morning
and straighten the collar of your shirt

I need to open the door and find you there

I need to read thick books with you

I need to see you eating cereal for dinner
I need my head on your chest

I need to watch you shower
and shampoo your black hair

I need to love you
I need to LOVE you
I love you

They say home is where the heart is
Well, I don't care where I am

I need to call you home

Like shards of glass in the back of your throat
waiting for that steady drip

don’t breathe in through your nose or you’ll throw up

and it could be compared to a rollercoaster
but you described it as a soft and quiet floating between trees

like the wind is blowing you through the leaves

and then you said you’ve wasted your life on this
and talk to you when you happen to fall asleep

but it’s been seven days

and you haven’t fallen into this bed yet
I made the bed that you can’t sleep in

because life is just all about horrible irony

We fell together like we had no other choice

we fell like two body bags in the back of an ambulance

and suddenly you were killing me
a razor to the femoral artery in a bathtub

and there was nothing else

I used to pray to god for a cleansing rain to wash me of my sins
so that I didn’t burn if I stepped foot in his home

it has rained 729 times since then

and I am still stepping on hot coals

What do you do when
you fall in love with a boy who has a constellation on his chest

how do you leave someone
that is literally so made of stars it shines out on his skin

when his freckles make the big dipper
like he was kissed by the universe
and now he’s kissed by me

and I hope i can rub some of that star shine out on me
I need some of the light

and space dust that hides out in the marrow of his bones
and the gaps in his rib cage

I love him so much it makes me blink to look at him
like staring at the sun

and I got a tattoo of a blue full moon on my shoulder back in august
in hopes I could create something magic and rare
on something so ordinary and I’m still waiting for that to kick in

I told him he was made of stars
and he told me I was heaven sent

I want you hand rolled and in my mouth
I want your fingers curled around my hair
and I want to taste you

I always thought I would forever miss out
I am always searching for something just beyond my fingertips

Specks of dust floating three inches from your nose

and I see you in eyelashes
and freckles
and glimpses of a smile always so pure

I see you in black
and green
and blue

I see you in the colour of your lips after you’ve been kissing me

I see you in black

I see you in the way your hair moves in my hand
and the way the sun shines and your pupils dilate

I see you in high definition colour

Ive wanted to jump off the roof too many times to tell you
and you seem to be infiltrating my darkness with the warmth in your eyes

and theres a shine I can never fit into my drawings
and 5 minute sketches of your bones on lined paper

but you are not to be pinned down by ink and pencil

you are limitless and deep and I am falling

Only I am dreaming of falling into you instead of to the ground

I am breaking bleakness instead of bones
I never dreamed I wouldn't be alone

We always said we didn’t know what we would do without each other
But we did know

We’d only known each other for two years

I wasn’t there when your parents split up and each remarried
or when you had to get stitches on your face
or watched your first scary movie

And you weren’t there when I smoked my first cigarette
or tried to **** myself when I was 13
or when I won that soccer game my freshman year

The last time we had *** we were in a rush
because we had school in 37 minutes
and so we made it sloppy and fast in your shower
and then we drove to school together with wet hair and we laughed

The last time we had *** I got pregnant

This wasn’t one of those scares where you’re two weeks late
so you buy a few cheap tests and it’s negative
so you stash the rest in the back of your drawer and forget about it

I got pregnant on the first day of June and I never told you

I miscarried on the last day of August
and you never even knew how close you came to being a father

We stopped talking and I couldn’t even tell you
how I was stunned into silence when I realized I was going to be a mother and then knew I had to keep it a secret

Knew I had to keep our dark haired future to myself

So here it is the end of February

I should have been having the baby this week or next
and you NEVER EVEN KNEW

I watch you say how much you love this little 15 year old girl
you’ve been dating for six months

I miscarried the day you started dating so tell me that was just a

coincidence

But don't you dare ever tell me you don't know what you'd do without me
Well, I guess you wouldn't anymore

Seeing as how you don't want me

In the framework of the party house turned trap
you pushed a man to the wall and pulled out your glock 357
and held it to his temple like it wasn’t loaded
and you weren’t angry

and I was in the closet with a boy whose name I never thought to learn
and to this day I have kept your secret

I'll never know what you whispered in his ear as
the bass dropped somewhere downstairs

but I will never forget the way your trigger finger twitched

and the way he dropped his cup
and ***** mixed with cranberry juice fell to the floor
and soaked into the carpet

I wonder if the stain is still there
I wonder if they’d even care if they knew it could be blood
on the ground in their bedroom

and you stalked out after tucking the gun back into your waistband
and pushing your hair back into place

and he leaned against the wall and fell to his knees like he was seeing Jesus

You would tell me you loved me only when I was on you
We had *** in the street once at 2 am
Warm asphalt under our skin

You would moan that you loved me as you came inside me
I wonder if you noticed I never told you I loved you
unless we were fully clothed

The first time I told you I loved you
we were eating homemade peach ice cream
and you were wearing your favorite red jacket
and we were talking about the planets at 8 pm by a hidden pond

The first time you told me you loved me
you were wearing crumpled plaid boxers around your feet
and we were writhing in the back seat of your tinted jeep at the park

The last time you told me you loved me
we were in my bed at 3 am running from the police
and you were in my mouth trying to create a victory that involved
me swallowing

And its funny that way

I was always swallowing bits and pieces of you
and even now I seem to be constantly on the verge of regurgitating memories and moments I thought had long since been forgotten

They say if you love someone, let them go

I let you fly like a paper airplane across a classroom
and you haven’t returned yet

One day I’m going to have to stop doing winged eyeliner
and getting drunk in public places

And one day I will have to admit to myself
that I don’t really know what love is

One day I will get in my car
and throw my just lighted cigarette out of the window
because I don't really need it after all

I’ll stop listening to depressing music when I’m home alone

I’ll stop showing up to your house at 1 in the morning

And I’ll stop throwing up in toilets every Friday

One day you’re going to find out about me -

How I’m used up and selfish and *****

One day you will notice my scars
and you won’t kiss them and tell me you love me through it all
because this is not a movie
and pain is not beautiful when it’s as obvious as
blood dripping in your mouth

You will not compare me to a wild flower
and want to **** the nectar out like an active bee and pollinate me

You will pull my sleeve back down
and look out of the window until I drop you off at your house
and you kiss me on the cheek once
instead of leaving marks on my collarbones
and you will not call me right away anymore

so I guess what im getting at is my demise was our own
and no one likes pain they have to look at

No one likes darkness when its up close and personal

I loved you so hard I would wake with bruises and bandages

My dreams turned into nightmares that started with beauty
and ended in blood

I put my hands on you and they came away burnt

You are a fire

And open pyre and my touch was the kerosene

I want to brush my teeth until my mouth forgets your name
and I know I shouldn’t feel the way I do

and I’m sitting by my phone waiting for it to ring
I’ve been here for three hours and nothing yet

I’m painting my nails purple in hopes of brightening
my ever decreasing levels in spirit

you want to know how I got these scars?

I fought a few demons
and i got locked in my closet with your skeletons as well as mine

you know you make my eyes burn

and I’ll never let anyone break me

I tried to poison your pictures

I stuck pins in a doll I made of you

I don’t want to be my mother and sit in my room on Sundays
with the door shut and blinds drawn
and use a headache as excuse of heartbreak

"I love you" should not be used as a choke chain
it should not bring you crawling back

You should have no Master

Anyone who says love hurts has been on a leash
I am no different
I too have marks around my neck

If you really want to hurt me do not call me
***** or sadist or selfish

If you really want to hurt me add a razors edge
when you whisper that I am
undeserving and weak

Pour salt on my pillow when you approach my sleeping form
and tell me I am not
mysterious or interesting

And I’ll pretend I was asleep the entire time
Another incident of hate put to rest with my sleepy head

And when I leave in the morning you will put the collar laced with lies around my neck

But love is about appreciation not possession
and you have never loved nor owned me

I’m sorry I drank your bottles of tequila
but you left me by myself the whole summer
with a broken heart and a ****** job and an empty house

you left me rattling in the wind
you left me like bones in a ditch

you left me with a drawer full of drugs
and smoke coming out of my pores

you left me trying to bleach my bones with the sunlight

and when you came home after 4 months of me destroying myself
and you found me in a drugged slumber with a cigarette in my hand

you threw the now empty bottles at the wall
and the shards are still there
cutting themselves in the glare through the window

but what did you expect
I'd been hearing things from people that i don't wanna talk to
like it matters who you're sleeping with now

Yes
The shards of glass are still embedded in the wall
You are still embedded in my heart

And here's me
Smoking a cigarette in your sweatshirt

And there's you
Anywhere but here

Have you ever seen someone in so much pain
something in their face looks like they are on fire?

I am in love with a burning man

Do you feel this in your heart

I cut my veins open so you could stitch yourself into them

And all you got from trying to steal that gargoyle statue
last semester was a cracked spine

I like to kiss the insides of your hip bones

I like to trace my tongue along the surgery scars

And run my fingertips along the space where
your bellybutton should be

You are a burning man
All intensity
Looking in your eyes reveals a fire

You drink liquor like its water
and always have a few pills ready to be crushed

Then again, so do I

I guess that’s why when we were listening to
Morrison in my friends back seat
I took my $2 bill and snorted a line straight to the brain

And she whispered
“you two are a match made in heaven”

And I guess we are
If we believed in all that

Personally, when I die I want to go to hell

Because Hell is where you always seem to be