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

I finally died on a Wednesday night

My dad was in Atlanta with his family
But that’s the way it’s always been
And that’s the way it will always be

My mother was at her boyfriend’s house 15 minutes away
Starting her new life
The one where she tries to forget about me
Maybe if she keeps redecorating his house
She can find a way to hide me in the corner
Collecting dust and spider webs
My picture on the wall hidden by a sea blue curtain

And my siblings were in his basement watching TV
Probably fighting and getting ready to sleep
I never knew that every time I refused dinner or a movie with them
I was sealing my fate like my coffin lid

I was born on a Wednesday evening
5:15 pm at 4 pounds
I entered this world early and that’s how I left it

I killed myself on a Wednesday

I left behind cabinets full of pills I always said I would take
I left 19 notebooks of half written poetry
A few finished paintings and pastel scribbles
And a bowl of almost empty cereal left in my drawer

I left with scars on my body and burns

I left three bobby pins in my boyfriend’s window sill
Locks of my hair still in the kitchen trash
Lighters and pipes still hidden under my mattress

I left my bath water in the tub, turning cold as my body
***** socks crumpled in the corners of my sheets
I left my favorite shirt on my floor

I left my books opened
Underlined all the words I never could say aloud
I kept my favorite CD in the player in my car

I left my toothbrush out and my window open

I left an unfinished prophecy

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

Why am I the happiest with
your hands around my neck

You have sharp teeth
and you leave indentions in my skin

I want to let you know that its okay
to want to crawl out of your skin

You awake with cracked bones
I chipped my jaw on your frozen over shoulder

I saw you digging in the backyard
Another hole to hide your growing secrets

I wonder when you will stop watering words
And start digging them up by the roots

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

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

When I was in second grade a boy punched me
and I punched him back
until his nose bled on mulch

and ever since then I don’t chase boys
and I do not care for blonde hair anymore

when I was in second grade I would make
homes for fairies in the dirt using
moss and leaves and dandelion stems

when I was in second grade I had a house I could rattle around in
I could sulk like an angry ghost in a house built in 1867

I would wander around in the forest with two boys
I convinced them we should break into old houses
and our neighbors sheds

We created a world of green and vine and stumps
For Christmas one year we decorated a tree

We were the little ones who never wanted to go home
We called ourselves Peter Pan
Because we were never growing up

That was all before I moved
And the last day with them they crowned me Queen

I would climb on the roof at night
and feel the warmth of the sun still lingering there
and that was back when I was scared of what was in my closet

but since then I’ve befriended it

I once sat on a blood stained pedestal
praying to a god made out of porcelain and water

I once saw through my enemies and
crushed their spirits under my black combat boots

I lie in the face of police
I lie in the face of my mother

I wear these scars like a noose

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

You told me the first time you ever met me
you knew you had to have me
I wonder when you realized I wasn’t some limited edition video game
that you could turn on and then leave for later

I guess never because all you ever did was play me

I fell in love with the sound of your name on my tongue
like a shiny copper penny dropping on hardwood floor

a l e x
al-EX-and-eR
ALEX

I fell in love with your 6’2 frame and the way
I could have sipped wine from your collarbones if I had desired to

Your favorite drink was strawberry *****
and I have to admit after drinking a whole bottle
in the shower with you one night
I’m a little partial to it now too

We started dating October 12, 2012
and our clothes fell off eight days later in your waterbed,
three days short of my sixteenth birthday

and that was the same day I met your mother
who hugged me and told me how beautiful I was

I wonder how long you wanted to return me
to get at least half of a refund

I’m not really sorry you never got your money and time back
You were never a game to me
I never pressed pause on you

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

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 heard you got hit by that train on your 17th birthday
Smoking **** on the tracks
Too bad it was only my dream

I wish the fall onto concrete left scars on your face instead of scrapes

I wish the cops caught you that night
Or the night after that
I would have wanted them to lock you up

You threw away the key to my heart
Pressed it flat like a keepsake penny made by machines
I wish I died when I crashed my car for the third time in a year
I know you wished I hadn’t walked away
Wish you weren’t the first person I texted

It has taken me nine months to start getting over you
Its been 5 weeks since I last cried in vain over your memory
It has taken the touch of six men to scrape you off of my skin

I heard every seven years all of your cells renew themselves
By 2019 you will have never touched me
I find some sort of peace in that

It has taken me nine months to think about loving someone else
But here I am
three weeks into a relationship and I'm doing perfectly fine
without you

I still know your middle name and the sound of your laughter
But somewhere I have forgotten your favorite color
I remember where all your hidden freckles are
But I have forgotten the weight of your skin
I could draw your bones on canvas with my eyes closed
I could not color your eyes in or the shape of your lips

I suppose I’m getting closer to forgetting you altogether
There are still remnants of you
Like 2 year old gum stuck to a sidewalk
Is it ever really gone?

Now when people think of us
They think of us as separate people
They pair you with the girl who salivates on your arm
Love was never the mistake
You were the mistake

Im stuck here with burn holes in my thighs
With vacant lonely eyes
I used to call you:
H o m e.

I should have never let a boy matter so much
I am made of stardust and rot
Never should have let you in
You never made me feel as special as I did to you
Dropped me in your kitchen when things got too hot
Looked at the shards on the floor and didn’t bother to sweep me up
Never thought about gluing me back together

You always said you didn’t know what youd do without me
But you do know
Today is six months with the girl you supposedly love now
Her name still makes me shudder a little
and when I saw you last I cried for 20 minutes
It burns me in unseen places to look at pictures of you two together
It burns me to know I am not the one you want

As Jim Morrison put it-

“come on baby light my fire”

Well consider me burnt

I am the embers of a dying flame
I am an ashtray in your heart

I am the curl of smoke on freshly lit incense

I am light
I am light

I am bones in a field

I am a solitary crow

I am smite
Baby, I am fading light

The first time we had ***
(Or made love as you like to put it)
I choked you

And if you really want to make love then you need to
close the door on me and use a triple deadbolt
I am incapable of making love

I am hot water on the burner on the stove bubbling over
and if you don’t want to get burned you need to put a lid on me

I wrapped my hands around your neck while I was on top of you
and I watched as your face changed colour
and your mouth opened and closed like a fish flopping on deck
but there was no air to breathe

And it was really making me excited until I realized that you liked it
so next time I held your throat with one hand and
bit your chest so hard you started to bleed in a few places
and for some reason you got off on that too

But when I asked you to spank me I got four tiny slaps
and then you held your hands around my neck gently
and told me that you couldn’t bear to hurt me because you loved me

So I guess that goes to show
You will get no love from me

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

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

I went to my last counseling appointment today
and when i stood up to leave
I felt as if I should shake her hand

but instead I walked out that door on tentative fawn legs
I stepped into the cold
and I felt like a stranger to myself

I bought coffee and a pack of cigarettes
and stood by the same ledge I always do
but it didn’t feel the same

I have her card in my front pocket for emergencies only
I feel as if I just stepped into harsh burning sunlight
I feel like there is winter air trapped in my lungs

I've come to the conclusion that
there’s nothing really wrong with me
but there’s nothing all that right either

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 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

Ill feed you honey off of a teaspoon in the morning
And I’ll cover up all the reflective surfaces and
hold you in the bathtub till about 2 pm

I’ll rub shampoo through your black hair until the water turns cold

We will read poetry under that big shady tree down the road
and chase each other in the maze at the library
but I’ll always let you catch me

You’ll eat out of my hands like a broken baby animal
on the back porch wrapped in an afghan
the colour of your eyes on a rainy day

We will turn on the lamps at night and count our freckles
while we are wrapped in the sheets

And if you still hate yourself after that
We will wash rinse and repeat
until you can look into the mirror and

see what I see

When a boy tells you that you are the only one and
It feels like the inside of a morgue to kiss him
Do not ignore the taste of dust and formaldehyde

Do you want to catch a movie
he asks in a voice like chocolate milk
Or maybe you'll catch chicken pox instead

You don’t really see the difference anymore
Either way you get these marks along your skin
that burst and glow like tiny fireworks

When a boy who carries a knife in his back pocket
and who has no scars on his fingers
tells you there is something special in you

do not believe him
do not stop and ask why
do not look back

He will not be able to tell you anything besides
how beautiful you are
He will not mention the depth in your mind

He will not sigh at the light casting shadows on the planes of your face
He will not talk about the slight curve of your spine
or the curl of your toes

When a boy who seems like paradise threatens to sweep you off your feet
chain yourself down do not be caught in a whirlwind
you were made for more than *this

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

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

We were on the jetty eating orange popsicles
and staring out at the glittering afternoon sea
I was eight years old the first time you ever uttered the word

cancer

it wasn’t a just a sickness anymore
it was definite
it was terminal
something permanent

I was eight years old the last time I held your hand
as we walked back to the car

I haven’t been back to Maine since
or on a jetty even though I’ve always loved them

I was eight when I went to church and prayed for you the entire service
little knobby knees kneeled on the velvet

I was eight when you died

I was eight when I told god to go **** himself
and ever since then I’ve had a hard time with belief

I’ve had a hard time being in a church without feeling angry
I was eight when you were buried
and it still feels like it happened just yesterday

I hate when my counselor that I’ve seen 8 months
asks me why I shaved off part of my hair two weeks ago
like maybe I just wanted to and
this isn’t about Freud
now where are my test results

Sometimes I hate being so dependent on what axis my personality lies on like without a name for myself I will fall to pieces

And she delivers because no one refuses me for some reason
like they are afraid of something in the bone structure of my face
or in the hollow of my eyes

and she reads me what ive known since the day I turned 13
She reads me what I've known since I strangled
my cat in the woods when I was 14

She reads me what ive known since I stole
all my mothers pain medication and sold it when I was 15
She reads me what ive known since I was caught by the police at 16  
and didn’t bat an eyelash at the prospect of it all
because somehow it doesn’t matter

She reads me what ive known since I crashed
my car into a store and laughed
Since I totaled my car into a ditch at 90 with
no seatbelt and caught air and walked away
invincible because I cant get hurt

since I ran over my dog and played in its blood
and then made myself cry when I called my mom
and blamed it on an innocent guy

I’ve known what I am

but she is worried about putting a label on me
like maybe im not a sociopath or narcissist or borderline
like she doesn’t want to be the one to blame if shes not right

Call me evil
Because I am

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

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

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

Sometimes my hands get really itchy
like my bones are trying to crawl their way out of
the skin that entraps them

I get really nervous when I can’t write
You speak in riddles and you're making me crazy

And last night I told you that if hell was real
According to Dante there are 7 levels
and I think I belong in all of them

And we talked about heaven
and you said that you think heaven could be here on earth

And I laughed and said maybe in bits and pieces
but I think my heaven is all chopped up

And then it was silent for a long time
and I realized that you were subtly saying
that it felt like it was heaven with me

Maybe I just shouldn’t speak but I want you to realize is
I am all dark and sin
I am rust on your shine

I am not pink lace and bony knees
I am not please and thank you
I am now and because I said so

I am ripped jeans and skinned knees
I am not a thin wafer
I am a loud tongue

my body has never once been a temple
I am a volcano erupting at random intervals
I burn everything I touch

some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth
I was born with a hunger
for something I have yet to taste

I have never been meek
A proper lady
A lamb

I am harsh worded
I speak like a grater
I leave bruises and burns

I am a sinkhole
And if you're not careful
I will swallow you up

Its been almost a year
and I still can’t forget the way it felt like a graveyard to kiss you

I’m still trying to get the taste of dirt and formaldehyde off of my tongue

and according to a recent poll taken by me
I miss you more than the legal limit

so tonight I’m calling the police in hopes they will arrest me  

another broken heart taken off the streets

They say time stops in a black hole
but who is they and what do “they” really know

What I’ve learned here on earth is time stops when I am with you

in sheets or
the back of a car or
a living room or
darkness

Warm flesh melting
we are dripping
ticking

The way you tilt your head back with parted lips
and let something loose from the core of your stomach

and the way your eyelids flutter and roll
like you are a wave I am riding out perfectly

The way you tangle your fingers into my hair
and hold my hips in the palm of your hand like
this is it

writhing and uncomplicated

people speak of passion

I speak of lust and
want and
this is it

The way you bite into my neck like
you wish you could draw blood
but instead you bring marks to the surface that stay for days
leaving me with a scarlet harlot letter

and the weight of your hand on the back of my head
pushing you further into me
until my nose rests on your skin
and I can feel the tight tendons in your leg and
this is

it

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

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 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

Past:
I was never warned of the unnecessary evil that
was and is you

I was never told that I needed to heed the red collar
and let you not engulf me
like a house aflame in the country

I escaped to the forest like a refugee
and even now my heart is still locked in a tree

Present:
Your name sounds like it melts in my mouth
A freshly cut lawn of green grass

When will you realize I love you
when will you realize I ******* know you
And I still adore you

And how I sit in bed and write poetry
straight through to the morning
but even the sound of birds chirping outside my window
will not deter me

I need you to know I ******* love you
I love you I love you I love you

You said I'm "the one"
But I can't let my mind run away with my heart

I'm not trying to let myself unravel like a ball of string
I still need to be okay when the inevitable comes

Future:
I know you will leave me
eventually

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

I get sad too quickly and I wish I could change that
I get angry and I jump to conclusions like a summer time diving board

Its 4:30 pm and you still haven’t spoken to me
but I saw a conversation that you had 2 hours ago with your ex girlfriend and I never thought I would hate someone
who lives in a different country so much

she's never even kissed you so why does it matter to me
I like to lie to myself
and convince my brain I have more than enough confidence
and I think I might have tricked my eyes but the mind just isn’t as easy

I hate you (don’t leave me)

I've never tried this hard with anyone
and I think that's because I am more desperate
than even I would care to know

I think this (us) could really be the end

you know like we could be together forever

after I **** any other girl you’ve ever spoken to or passed on the street

yeah I think we are really meant to be

My mother once threatened me by saying she would cut off all of my hair like I guess she knows what my weakness is
and I think I’m like that biblical story about Sampson
All the strength is gone if I lose my hair

I wish I could tell her all the reasons I ever lied
but I can’t anymore so to my sisters: may the bridges I burn light the way

in 8 months I’ll be officially gone so just keep that as a little reminder
to be good you don’t ever want to end up like me

I spend my days with my head in my hands

and ever since I was little I’ve known I would die at 27
and I tell everyone I get close to
and they always look at me like I’m standing on
the edge of a building when I whisper this and maybe I am

and there’s a white lighter in my pocket for my autopsy
just like Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix

but maybe all I really want is someone to save me before I happen to fall

I feel like I've been in air tumbling to pavement for years
and somewhere in this time I've caught fire

So now I wonder if I'll burn out or break all my bones first
And if I'm being honest it doesn't really matter to me anymore

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

My professor is looking at cars on a white projection screen
I am wondering why it was worth my time to come today
Bought a book for $260 so here I am

The boy with a Mohawk and
Chiseled cheekbones looks at me
I always catch him glancing back 3 rows

I don't know the colour of his eyes
But I know the exact bone structure of his jaw
and the way he tightly clenches his fist until the knuckles are white

He makes me wonder what I am
To know that I want nothing more than
His hand colliding with my face
What does that say about me

My professor is an old man who can't walk without a cane
He shows us his ****** art he is so proud of
We are all in rose colored glasses
That does not go away no matter our age
And that is probably the saddest thing

I’m sorry I am all claws and
teeth and
sharp corners

I’m sorry for flaying your stomach open from the inside out
I’m sorry I am secretive and
quick tongued and
careless

I’m sorry I flinch
I’m sorry I run
I’m sorry I hide in plain sight

I’m sorry we ran out of band aids
I’m sorry you had to stitch yourself instead of save me

sorry I’m used and
vile and
dark

I’m sorry I wrote those horrible poems
I’m sorry I feel like a wet blanket
I’m sorry I snuffed your flame out

and never bothered to try and light it again

I’m sorry I’m the one you have to blame everything on

I'm sorry I make you cry in the dead of night

I'm sorry you can't sleep anymore

I'm sorry I can

I was born “I'll give you something to cry about”
I was born in a barn
I was born halfway up a mountain trail

I was born “you don’t need anyone”
I was born in a nest of bees
I was born on the back of a horse

I was born “I’m only showing you once so listen up”
I was born thigh high in a stream
I was born cutting wood with an axe

I was born “here’s how you **** a chicken’
I was born in a cranberry bog
I was born of land

I was born "show them what you're made of"
I was born in thorns
I was born with blackberry juice staining my lips

I was born “there’s no reason to be scared of the dark”
I was born boots laced jacket on
I was born running

I was born “as a girl you’ll have to try twice as hard”
I was born ready
I was born walking out the front door

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

We’re sitting in your car at 10 pm
listening to dubstep coming from the dashboard

And you are in my mouth breathing heavily with raised hips


And baby don’t leave me with this gun
This game just isn’t any fun without you and your leather coat

There's a knife in your pocket and its making me bleed

So tonight ill have to leave you alone

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 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 looking at you in the passenger seat
like maybe someday you can be my home

ill crawl up next to you under sheets
and we can keep each other warm
and listen to the sound of our quick beating hearts

I can see us on a porch in our late 20’s
in a nice place like Boston or Maine
but it doesn’t really matter to me
as long as we’re together

the scent of your skin is like a seatbelt
the soft caress of your hands on the small of my back
is a reminder that

I am yours

I couldn’t imagine a future without you
I see us holding hands in a park
licking ice-cream cones

I see you in the morning waking up next to me
hair disheveled with sleepy eyes

I see us in picture frames along our staircase
I see us drinking wine in bed at night

I think about kissing you every day of my life  
I see you in my dreams darling

and you feel like home