Now I wasn't raised in the church, and I haven't got the slightest idea of what I believe in, and I also know that my morals have been slipping down the drain lately just like my tears after that terrible afternoon that I cannot bare to discuss. I am a little let down since no religion I have come in contact with has talked about a sad teenage girl who feels violated by a boy she once trusted. I don't know if this has anything to do with religion, but I remember learning in English about the seven deadly sins. There is gluttony, pride, lust, greed, sloth, envy, and wrath. And God do I want to somehow want to slowly etch your name between lust and greed. If I made the rules, I would create an eighth deadly sin with your name.
And I absolutely hate it, my mind has been wrapped up lately on what it felt like to have your bare hands running down my skin. I didn't even enjoy it, yet it haunts my mind. Please do not talk to me like I am less than you, because I have actually proved myself to be greater than you. Do not grab my arm much too forcefully and tell me to stay with those stupid eyes and that stupid mouth of yours.
You have nothing to prove. Nothing at all. I do not belong to you and I do not belong to him, although I wish I did. All I know is that you are my salvation, and I hope that one day he will become my redemption. It took me a year and one January afternoon gone horribly wrong to give up on you. It'll take me much longer to give up on him. I am selfish, consumed by lust and fire and blood and bruises and sin and broken glass and illegal substances and whiskey and mistakes. I hope people will not figure out that I am not the naive little girl I was two years ago. My pride has been diminished to almost nothing thanks to you and that January afternoon.
I'm not quite sure if I believe in God yet, but the Devil is someone I've made a close friend with. He laughs each time you somehow manage to manipulate me and use those stupid eyes of yours to get me to do things I would never ever want to do with you, only with him. Only with him. I'm not much for religion, and I do not own my own bible, but I do know for a fact that I whisper God's name when I'm thinking of him. Not you. I will continue to relate everything regarding him to sin and heaven and hell and paradise and sometimes purgatory. I hope that his mother warned him about girls like me, and I know that he will still sneak out of his house to see me during the deepest times of the night despite his mother's strong suggestions because all we've got to question is whether or not this is worth the sin. He is worth it. You are not. You are not worth the sin. He is. He is worth the sin.

*-andrea

i bet even after all this time
that if my chest were to
ache with emptiness enough
like it used to i could go to your house
and find the outline of our bodies
on your dark blue bed sheets
i have spent the last year
both trying to run from you
and find you at the same time
but i left everything i knew
about falling in love
on that mattress and
it's still settling there
like dust and
all i can do is write about you
until it comes back to me,
or by some kind of miracle,
you decide to.

It's not that I don't love you. It's the time I read my mom's old journals and every other paragraph included my fathers name. It's that he cheated on every girlfriend he had with my mom. It's that my mom didn't care she was a second choice or a one night stand. It's that my mother never talked to anyone about him after he got married to one of the many girlfriends. It's that she took twenty sleeping pills on the night of what would've been their anniversary. It's that he doesn't even know she's dead.

It's not that I don't love you. It's the couple I overheard in the bread aisle arguing over wheat or white. It's that I heard the woman say a lot of "she" and "****" and I saw her crumble to the ground. It's that he just shook his head and said he was sorry over and over again.

It's not that I don't love you. It's that my best friend is in love with a boy on the other side of the country. It's the morning she took a shower and cried over him. It's that he wasn't even awake to do anything about it. It's that he's always three hours behind and thousands too many miles away. It's that I mean both physically and mentally sometimes.

It's not that I don't love you. It's my geometry teacher, who brought up her husband when she taught me tangents. It's that she also brought up her husband when she taught me the circle unit
too. It's that she gets quiet and smiles after she talks about him. It's that he's been passed away for seven years now and she still has so much to say. It's that she still wears her wedding ring. It's that when she taught me special right triangles, I wondered what her laugh might sound like if he were still here.

What I'm trying to say is; It's not that I don't love you. It's that I do.

She was beautiful,
But not in the beautiful ways you like to think so
She did not have hair that dripped gold
Her eyes were not the colours of the cold sea
But her smile was crooked and bent
Her lips were chapped and thin
She did not have a gentle laugh
Nor did she speak humble thoughts
But she was beautiful
In the way the shore kisses my feet
In the way the moon hides itself in the curtain of darkness
She was beautiful
In the way wind dances with hair
In the way shy lovers hold hands
She was beautiful in the way of morning air
And black coffee
And the love poems that live in each broken heart
Spilling red oil into blue lungs,
Suffocating happiness right out of its shell
And she was beautiful
Because she refused to taste sadness
Even though it was the only thing she had left to eat.