I told him I wanted love and
He told me I was delusional.
You climbed into the clouds
Before she said you’d fall out
Of them. Stars shattered on the
Sidewalks, and their dust painted
Over by layers of graffiti.
He told me that this was it.
I said,
This cannot be all
That there is.

You found yourself on
The bottoms of coffee mugs
You filled them back up

He asked if she danced
She said, "only in my red" -
He asked if she bled.

Missing you; it came as a shock.
I was knocked onto the sofa, out of the
Conversation, down with the drops of confetti,
Stepped over and under before the screams started.
But I should have seen this coming.
Before, it had always been you
Letting me down, standing me up,
Calling me closer, beckoning with your
Finger by your lips and then
Shoving my head down right where you wanted it.
This time, it was me.
I told myself that there was a chance.
I knocked myself from the world.
Expectations had wound themselves inside of
My pockets and I couldn’t shake them off,
And there was no friendly boy with eyes glued to mine
That could come slip them out of my jeans.
I was alone and unprepared, without adequate supplies,
Without the veracity to watch myself unwind.
And so I was the one that lit the match,
Unbeknownst to even my own mind, wanting to
Rekindle our past, but only burning
Down and down; - I tried to drown it out,
Until the alcohol added fight to the flame.
Water was not on my radar and I was
Lonely and lost, fenced off from a savior.
I disembarked. I was the captain that does not
Sink with the ship. I left myself in a pile of ashes
And was briefly resurrected on a blank kitchen tile.
This is my fault, and I will not be rescued.
This was my fault, and I am the only one who can go back
To salvage the pieces of my shoulder, liver, aortas,
That I left behind. I will stitch myself unto myself
And I will leave you out
(This time)

I never thought it was my fault
Until everyone started telling me it wasn’t.
I was a little girl with two left feet and a
Right hand that shot up before everyone else’s
In class.
Now, I keep it in my lap,
Tucked safely beneath my left.
This is what you left.
This is why on Christmas, I get an email,
And you don’t get a response.
This is why, when I talk to boys,
I don’t see love until I know
Where their hands go during a fight.
I never thought I was damaged until I saw
How the other girls lay their heads casually
Down on warm chests, and
I realize my neck does not bend that direction.
This wasn’t an issue while I was strong,
But time is too long, and there are no
Body-sized indentions for me to lean against
On the walls that I stand inside.
I never thought you would be gone for seven whole years
Until each day, you didn’t come back.

She has always been loud and angry about
Her sadness.
She reaches into our rooms, plucks us up,
Sends our arms around her body
And piles her tears into the nooks of our clavicles.
I never learned how to reach like that.
My position was always upright, tense,
Resisting as much as I could
Without going back on my role.
I’m still not used to people touching me out of happiness.
I’m still not used to
Touching people, period.
I was brought here the same as each on both ends:
Large mouths and balled fists always on the verge of ready,
But we knew how to retreat when the world
Bound itself inside of you, heavier than
Your own heartbeat.
I’m not entirely sure which to call normal.
The way that she pours herself into our emptiness
And refuses to back away,
Or the way that we know to suffocate ourselves
Before ever, ever
Moving this into someone else.

“Stay happy!”
I guess we didn’t.
I leave in a week and
It just feels weird.
You were in my dreams last night,
And the night before.
“I don’t believe you”
- It’s still true.
You’ve started a war.
It actually isn’t bad,
Just some moments.
Good bargain.
“Do it for me!”
It’s okay,
Time will tell.
“I’ll see you again one day.”
(Eventually.)
Did it hurt?
It’s still better than before.
“I’ll win.”

And your eyes are painted on.
The feathers adhere to the side of your face,
Coated in a foundation, with layers of sparkles,
That lead to a cosmic undertone
But there is nothing there
You are an optical illusion
You care for light
And it shines from your darkness
The deepened tunnels in your eyes
Are empty holes
Don’t go down
If you can’t see the bottom
If the flashlight illuminates nothing
Take two steps back
Two more blinks
Two more kisses
“Besoin, besoin”
And away we will drift

Here is where the waves spray
Into your face and slide down,
In the sun it seeps inside and
You can’t get it out.
...
You left me alone to
Swim inside of our memories
Until I was pruned all over,
Until the scars didn’t show.
......
You didn’t want me before those
Thirty days into summer
When you waded out too deep
And felt the current sweep you back.
...
You kept your head down, like mine
You ****** in what was two molecules away
From your salvation, a salty, unholy substitute.
Always drowning yourself with all the wrong substances.
...
You swam back ashore two months too late,
After I was cocooned dry,
I was not waiting for you by the lighthouse
It shouldn’t surprise you – you never asked.
...
“It had always been my plan,”
You breathed into my side,
To leave me too far in the depths.
You are the reason why I learned to swim.

Our story never
Began, which is why I know
It is not over

There was a liquid secreting from the cracks in your lips,
Something like justice, something like idealism
The two combined within your vociferous skins and
Coated me clean
And I was who you wanted me to be
Our eyes shut and our fingertips grasping,
We held each other inside of our roles
Without giving any thought to the figure we were
Sculpting
Into us

I am out of time’s clutches; -
Spiraling my irises downstream, until they penetrate
The solid wall of translucent wrapping paper
That encapsulates silver beads into a
Necklace that never breaks.
He fastens it behind my neck, reminding
Me of those parallel universes, those mirrors I
Used to play within. But that is over,
We are separate.
…
I am out of tune, a piano that has been left dusty.
Musical notes rot inside of me. Inside the damp, dank
Habitat that I fashioned out of my organs.
Laughter was being harvested, under the most desirable
Conditions. Artificial lighting shone and droplets of
Dirt held it in. No one ever got close to escaping.
Not from this body.
And so they leave me to gather dust, dismantling
Every inaction with a word that is made of serifs
And daggers. I cannot go back.

But that doesn’t cancel out what I feel right now and all the space floating around with nowhere to go but deeper down inside of me, waiting for the right words someone inflicts upon my sensitive eardrums to bring it out again. And the words will come and the pain will return and I’ll think back on this moment with a different perspective than the one I’ll have tomorrow.

And I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s smile because this right now feels more real than anything and I don’t want to forgive them even if they deserve it and I don’t want to cancel out everything I feel now as a distant memory because it’s so strong and it belongs here. And it is justified, even if that’s just in my own mind, and I don’t want them to go on believing that
I
am
indestructible.

You wormed your way into my room through tendrils
Of smoke curling through my hair
You sat on my bed as if you belonged there, and
Who was I to tell you any different?
This is not a hate poem; this is a coming-to-terms with my own emotions.
We kept the lights off, a deliberate foreshadowing.
I could feel you sinking lower into my sheets,
The conversation didn’t bother itself to become memorable.
You said you were six feet tall, I’m still not sure if that’s true.
I made you stand up to compare, but didn’t garner much,
Other than what it feels like to have your breath gently flow towards
My perked face, to have your hands withering at your sides before
Stretching out, over my torso. We sat back down. Conversational squares
Emerged. You kissed me, like I knew you would, without hesitancy or
Any questions at all. I had a few, but your lips stemmed them, and I figured
Your body was answer enough. It was. At least the first time.
It felt good. You were good. Especially to me.
You wound your way throughout my body and stroked my worries
Into oblivion. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted it. We both did.
But looking back, I wish there had been questions.
I wish you hadn’t known that I would give myself to you.
Just like all the other girls before, just like all the ones after and during.
Nothing that happened was wrong. I came away from the night with
A new sort of tingling and a spreading smile and endorphins that
Seemed to bounce from side to side within me.
But I still wish I had been special. – Not what happened, but me.
This is my greatest downfall.

You pluck at the stems of grass,
Unwinding the world one strand at a time,
Forcing them into alignment,
Making a pattern, making it fit.
But it always unravels, doesn’t it.
The continents spin and the
Tectonic plates will not remain still
Enough for us to get a firm grip.
We reach towards the centerfolds
But our hands always slip.

It is May again;
And this means you are coming back.
You have registered once more for your territory in my aortas
As if you never left,
As if there was never a five-month ache
Before the last beat
Was heard again.
You’re back just in time to celebrate
The anniversary of our high school hookup
That you expected me to find my way
Out of
On my own.
Part of me likes you because you are
In no way condescending.
The other part wonders how you could
Possibly think that my skin,
That you touched, that I thought you knew,
Could ever be malleable enough
To be full one moment and empty the next.
The hole you opened inside of me waxed and waned
For months,
And I found someone else to slow it,
To fill it until it was still.
But here you are again,
Back as an echo,
Reverberating throughout me,
And here I am divided.
Still alone; because it is May again,
And this means that I wait until you decide
You want to be back.
You always do, but only in
Bits and pieces,
And you stack our memories together as stones,
3 piles high all around me,
Dulling the edges so that
I will not remember being made your
Sacrifice the last time.
I wonder if I should be worried that I
Already want to talk to you every day again.
I shouldn’t feel so lonely
After six hours back with your words
Not wrapped around me.
I shouldn’t wear our conversations like
Tattoos, and feel off-center when I cannot
Touch what you told me.
But it is May again,
And no one is surprised.
I am still alone, but
Hope whispered that you told her
You were on your way home.