we sat in the car in front of the fabric store
talking about the pink elephant that had found
a permanent residence inside of our home:
my future.
i wish that eyes came with personal windshield wipers
because you cried over the fact that i didn't believe in god
that i didn't want to go to a christian college
that i didn't want to worship
and i wish my kneecaps came with airbags,
so i would find it easier to pray,
but i'm sorry mom, that is not who i am.
your baby girl has been cutting the strings from
being sewed in for so long, and using them to patch
up your own heart because it hurts me to know that you know
i am not saturday morning church pews,
i am not someone who judges the length of someone's
skirt because deep inside i really wish i had the legs
to pull it off. i am not empty hallelujah's, amen's, preach it,
i am not a believer in depending on god to choose where the dice fall,
because i refuse to believe that life is rigged,
i'll take the punches as they come and put on my boxing gloves,
i don't care if i fall out of the ring, because i know now i'm strong enough to get back in,
and for me that hasn't been something realized through bowing my head
it's been something realized through holding my head high
and trying my best to do right,
and it's sad that you don't believe there can't be good without god.

what hurt the most
wasn't that you refuse to pay for another college
wasn't that you have so much faith invested in the guy upstairs
that you forgot to put some towards your daughter
who's only looking for pride from her mother,
it was when you said,
"next thing i know, you're gonna be bringing a girl home."

this closet, is getting smaller everyday,
and being trapped in here with all of these skeletons
is starting to hurt.
boys are cool,
but *****
are ******* awesome.
and if i ever do fall in love with a girl,
i'll write our names into all the bibles i can find.
because there's a verse in there somewhere
that says that our bodies are a temple,
so with her i'll have no problem with going to church everyday.
if i had a genie, i would never stop rubbing my lamp,
wishing that i would be able
to care for things without the expense
of losing the ones that care for me.

I've been listening to sermons since i was a day old,
and what I've learned is that God is love,
so if there is someone looking out for me up there,
he should know better than anyone else
that loving someone with the same
secret body parts as mine
is anything but bad, is anything but a sin,
is anything but wrong,
it is me holding a girl's hand
it is me being just as human as anyone else.

i guess I just don't understand
how she can hold your hand
and never have to wear long
sleeves or turtlenecks.
maybe to her you aren't a thunderstorm.
maybe it just hurts to know that i never deserved
the calm before the storm.
i'm jealous of her shorts and t-shirts,
i can never look at her without searching
for bruises and crossed fingers.

was it just that I never deserved
to feel your breath against
my neck without your hand
digging into my wrist,
leaving marks of your lack
of tenderness in the same shade
as violets;
i always tried to find beauty in you.

i'm sorry that i could never be enough

i'm sorry if i hurt you,
but you should know it
was only to make sure that
my own heart was beating.
i held interventions with
all of the ghosts of your
pasts, and the skeletons
living in your closet even
decided to move out, but i never
asked for anything return.
no kisses, no belonging to each other,
i don't mean to be cold, i swear.
but affection is salt,
and i am still an open wound,
all i can do is apologize
and pray you'll stay despite
the fact that i don't want to ****.
my first taught me that pain
will come again after healing,
and my second taught me that
maybe i'm better off alone, so i've
decided to live my life permanently
bleeding, so i won't have to cut myself
open for whoever comes along,
i'm putting myself on display,
but please do not touch.
do not touch.

do not ******* touch.

all i ask is that you have respect
for the fact that my body still trembles
over the dreams of a boy with closed
fists, and i still wake up from nightmares
of his smile after telling me he loved me.
i am still in the process of healing,
i am still in the process of accepting
that those months were not my fault,
that the bruises weren't caused by me.
i should've known by his name,
that he would leave behind more things than one.
i mean, Mark?
is that not ironic?

so, once again,
i'm sorry that i will
never be what you want
me to be, that i will never
hold your hand in public
or whisper into your ear
and kiss the nape of your neck.
i don't think you'd
want that from the
living dead, a fully functioning
cold-as-stone zombie.

this,
this is what relapse feels like.
sore knees, aching smiles,
bruised shins,
heart's been beating too fast,
afraid to tell mom and dad.
close the door, turn the shower on,
and bow to your master.
shove it down, get it out,
"i'm so tired, **** i'm so tired."
"keep going, keep going,
i promise it'll all be worth it."
my brother is only two rooms away,
but this,
this is the epitome of loneliness.
flush it down, unlock the door,
get out.
and start again.

this,
this is what relapse looks like,
teenage girl with a plastered grin,
this time she's letting everyone in,
maybe she really does have to use the bathroom,
smile, smile, smile, she's full of hate.
"i'm so happy, **** i'm so happy.
recovery is going great."
rip apart the meal plan, swallow nothing but words,
they won't find out this time,
i won't let them find out.
my brother is two rooms away,
but i,
i am the most introverted extrovert.
a master of disguise, pulling the
wool over your eyes.

it's not me, i swear it's not me.
it's not me, i swear it's not me.

i haven't been me in a while.

I left a trail of tears in the universe,
starting from the examination bed where my mother
gave birth,
to the linoleum floor of my high school bathroom,
i've been taught that every teardrop needs a written excuse,
because "sad" can't be something that i just "feel"
some mornings, i wake up and my body is an anvil,
intent on staying in bed instead
of dropping on someone's head, my heart is heavier
than bags of sand, i've tried to build a castle.
only to have the waves bring it down, bring it back to sea,
because the depression is hard to fight when your only
weapons are pills and untouched skin,
i've been told that it's my own fault for letting the sadness in.
it's my own fault that i can't laugh without my lungs
cracking from the rust, like a tin man with no heart,
i've followed the yellow brick road countless times,
meal plans, therapists, prozac, hospitalizations, treatment centers, god,
but none of them work as well as digging my heels into the ground
and telling myself, "you are here. you were born from the stars,
there is a galaxy inside of you. breathe with the universe, just breathe."
on countless days, my skin became a blank canvas, my
toolbox filled with razors and thumb tacks,
but on my drive home yesterday, the moon was bright red,
and i learned that even planets have to bleed sometimes. she poured herself
out like red wine, but tonight she is going to be reborn, white
as a wedding dress,
I do.
I do.
I do promise to love you on the days when
you can feel your bones caving in, on the days when
even your fingers feel too heavy, i promise to treat
each of your scars like roadmaps, showing you where you've been,
the scratches on your shoulders, the bruises on your chest,
the fading marks on your wrists and hips, they are not the definition of your future.
on the mornings when the light is hard to see behind the dark, place your
hand over your heart.
and count.
one beat, two beats, three beats, four.
they are as infinite as the number of stars, each beat is
a reason for you to stay.
you've spilled bottles of prescriptions into your hands,
and held your future in your palms,
but you've still gotten up.
you were on a first name basis with rock bottom,
but still you got up.
and don't you think that there's a reason
behind why your spine is still straight
despite the hours you spent curled up in a ball, praying for it to all go away.
don't be ashamed when strangers give you weird looks or ask you to stop
when you cry over the feeling of sunlight dancing over your skin.
these are the good tears, these are the tears that i don't need excuses for.
so please shut the hell up and let me drown the universe if i have to,
because the night before i wanted to die,
but this morning i woke up and felt the air coming in through
my nostrils and filling my lungs, and i'd never felt more eternal.