I keep telling people
I’ve moved on.

but every time
I close my eyes,
I still see you.

there are visions of you
still trapped in the
back of my eyelids.

you’re gone.
you’re not coming back.
you’re not here.
I know that.
so why haven’t you left me?

I keep telling people
I’ve moved on.
and I’m not lying
when I say that.

I’m telling the truth.
I have moved on.

...but maybe my mind hasn’t.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”
you said, quoting some author
I hadn’t heard of until then.

I wanted to tell you how
I loved it when you talked about
the books that you read,
how I loved hearing the passion
in your voice over something as
simple as a well-written paragraph.

I wanted to ask you how you always seemed able to live in the moment,
how the past never bothered you
and you always had faith
that the future would be beautiful,
and that somehow everything
works itself out in the end.

I wanted to say “I love you.”
I didn’t.

to this day, I don’t know what
stopped me. I tried to come up
with a reason, telling myself that
I was seeing someone else then,  
and it wasn’t a good time, and
I wasn’t sure if I loved you.

I told myself not to be impulsive
because we had the rest of
our lives to figure things out.

I see now how ******* stupid
those excuses were.

the man I was seeing then didn’t
care about me, and he didn’t
even try to act like he did.

and there’s no such thing as
a perfect time to say something
that you’re scared to say.

I remember how we stood on top
of this massive hill one summer,
and again, I found myself
wanting to say “I love you.”
and again, I didn’t.

the accident happened
a few months ago.
I just found out.

I’m sitting here, replaying
all of those moments in my head,
all of those conversations
where I didn’t tell you
what I wanted to say.

I should’ve screamed it from the
very top of that huge hill that day
so that you and I, and all
of the neighbors below us,
would know that I was sure of it.
they’d know that I meant it.
I did mean it, even if I didn’t
have the courage to say it.

my mind keeps taking me back
to that quote you said.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”

what if I am strong,
but sometimes
I don’t feel like it at all?
what does that mean?

I never got to say what I needed to say.
even though now, I’m the only one
who can hear it, I need to say it aloud.
I need to get these words onto paper
before they eat me alive from the inside out.

I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

and I always have.

my first love was young rebellion
and how it made me feel.
my second love was abuse.

I have been asked,
on more than one occasion,
how I could fall in love with
a man who I was scared of.

my masochism was
inside of me for years
before I admitted to it.
I like to talk about how
I didn’t know that it was
wrong for him to hurt me,
but somewhere deep in the
back of my young mind,
I did know.
I realize that now.

I realize now that
maybe I enjoyed it.
maybe that was part of it,
my own fantasies leaking
through the cracks of my
innocent, good girl persona.
or maybe I truly believed
that his abuse was
all I deserved.

my childhood had taught me that
I broke everything that I touched.
I came from a broken household
with a broken family.
I broke both of my legs at one time,
and started the next school year
with two bright casts.
I broke toys that weren’t mine,
and ceramic dishes that
I threw down too hard,
and the hinges of every
bedroom door that I slammed shut.
I broke hearts, including my own.

when I fell in love,
I had finally met someone
with no conscience and
no concept of morality.

he was a sociopath,
a narcissist, an abuser.
he was the perfect
subject for my poetry,
and the perfect match
to my masochism.

I looked at him and wrote
that he was the diagnoses
that flooded the pages
of some therapist’s notes.
he was the embodiment
of the pain that he inflicted,
terrifying but somehow
too attractive to resist.

he was a love story
jotted down by a nihilist,
a black hole taking me
deeper and deeper.
he was a blank slate
that could not be
written over.

he was as empty as a bottle in
the hands of an alcoholic,
a freshly dug grave waiting
patiently for a body.

I worshipped him
like an absent father,
idolizing his image
as if I had only ever
known of his appearance
and normality and charm.
I acted as if I had no idea
that beneath the surface of his skin,
he was nothing more than
a living corpse.

if chaos theory is
as real as death, and
if I was never traumatized
and grew up happily,
I doubt that any of this
would have happened.
but it did.

whenever someone asks how
I could fall in love with
a man who I was scared of,
I tell them this.

I tell them that
I fell in love with him
because he was already
missing something inside.
his mind had glitched
somewhere in his past,
and then it failed to restart.
he did not feel emotions
the way that other people do.
I’m not sure if he could
feel anything at all.
he was already broken.

I fell in love with him
because he was the only thing
I had ever encountered that
I knew I couldn’t break.

I don't know why
I keep writing sad poetry.

I'm happy now.
I truly am.

my life is getting better
and my scars are fading

and I'm so proud because
at thirteen, I thought that
by now I would be dead.

so I don't understand.

how could I be so happy
if my mind is still
conjuring up these thoughts?

I'm finally looking
forward to the future,
so why is my mind still
thinking about the past?

when I picked up my pen,
I wanted to write about
gray skies
and thunderstorms
and the sound of rain
and laughter
and splashing in puddles.

I wanted to write about
the hole he left in the wall
by the staircase,
and how it seemed so much bigger
than his fist.
I couldn’t believe he made such an impact
with one blow
before he walked away.
I couldn’t believe he made such an impact
by walking away.

I wanted to write about
cigarettes and smoke
and young men with blackened lungs
and why we love
the things that destroy us.

I wanted to write about
this numbness
and how I feel nothing
but everything
at the same time,
and how I’m not sure
which is worse.

I wanted to write about
your cologne
and your citrus-scented shampoo
and how the smell lingered
on my pillow
long after you left,
and how I found someone new
but still fell asleep
to the thought of you.

I wanted to write until
my fingers blistered
and began to ache,
and my demons fell
from my overflowing mind
and drowned in ink.

but when I picked up my pen,
I had shaky hands.

I sat there silently
and I trembled
and broke down
and let my tears fall,
and my thoughts did not stop
racing through my head

but none of them
managed to escape onto paper.

you are dead.

I didn't say those words
aloud for months.

I didn't talk about you
in past-tense.

I didn't tell anyone
what had happened.

you were dead.
you are still dead.

but speaking those words
into existence made
them feel too real.

I thought that maybe
if I never talked about it,
I could convince myself
that it wasn't true.

I guess you could say
that I feel broken.

it's this feeling where
I'm in the room,
and you can see me,
but I'm not here.

it's kind of like
I left pieces of me
everywhere I went.

I dropped my
idea of safety
while I was running.

it landed on the corner
of Morris Park
and Fillmore street,
and was tainted by
my friend's blood
pouring out onto
the concrete.

I didn't want it back.

my innocence was
left shivering
on the pool table
in my first
boyfriend's basement.

I remember thinking
that this was the
right place to
leave it, and
then crying once
I realized it was gone.

my faith in humanity
was lost too.

it fell somewhere
between the cracks
in all of this violence,
and was swallowed
by the fog of dust
and debris.

I don't know
where the rest of me
disappeared to.

maybe I gave too much
of myself away
when I tried to help
everyone else,
and ended up
forgetting to
help myself.

or maybe
I left those pieces
with the people
I loved, in the
places where
we used to go.

maybe, if you looked,
you could still find me

in my laughter
echoing under
the streetlights

or hidden deep
in the shadows
where we used
to park our cars

or floating towards
the sky in a cloud
of marijuana smoke

or stuck to the lips
of someone I loved once.

but maybe,
there's a chance
that all of me is still here,
even though I feel
so broken.

maybe I'm not incomplete.

maybe I am still enough,
even with all of these
missing pieces.

and maybe, one day,
I will find myself again.

I constantly complain
about my hatred for society

because a few years ago,
I tried to **** myself.

the only souvenirs
I brought home
weren't purchased
in the hospital gift shop.

they were etched
into my body,
unwanted
but permanent.

I will never
give birth now.
I'll never hold
a child in my womb,
and it's possible
that I'll never hold
a child in my arms.

my body no longer
functions like that.
I'm broken.

and the worst part
is not having
anyone to blame.
I did this to myself.

a few days ago,
I talked to my brother
on the phone, and

I told him I was thankful
for my suicide attempt.

he was confused
because that day hurt me.
it destroyed me.
it broke me.

if that day
had never happened,
I'd have no scars and
I could still have children
and right now,
I wouldn't be writing
this sad poem.

but I wasn't lying to him.

despite how utterly
horrible it's been,
and despite how
it still affects me,

I am thankful
for my suicide attempt.

because if I still
had to call my friends
panicking over
a late period,

if I still had to worry
about that every month,

I might only be eating
one meal a day.

I might have to
sell my old jewelry.

I might resort to
stealing money.

I wouldn't want to
but if I didn't,
I would never be able
to afford tampons.

I am grateful
for my infertility,
and for almost dying,

because I know that I
wouldn't have the money
to pay for tampons.

that's ****** up.

and somehow
you're still wondering
why I hate our society.

what can you say
to someone who is slowly
sinking into their own self-hatred?

to a person who can’t even
cry themselves to sleep?

to a dreamer
turned insomniac?

to a hopeless romantic
now only hopeless?

to someone with tired eyes
and bruised knuckles?

to someone who flinches
at your touch
as if it hurts,
but can hurt themselves
without a second thought?

to someone who drives
down a small-town road
at 76 miles per hour,
who isn’t trying to crash
but wouldn’t care if they did?

to someone who loves the earth
but hates the people
living here?

to someone who assures you
that everything will be alright
despite not believing in
their own words?

to someone who you are
terrified to lose,
but who claims
to have lost themselves
a long time ago?

you can say
“please don’t leave me”
or
“I love you”
or
“I need you”
or
“I’m trying to be ok
and I’m doing my best.
but I don’t know how
to get through this
without you by my side.”

you can say
all of this and more,
but you have to realize
that they might not be listening.

you are the type of person I’d
write poems
about

but you’re also the reason
I stopped writing poetry
in the first place.

you told me once that
I have an old soul.
you were wrong.

I wish I had an old soul.
old souls are wise,
and kind, and helpful.
they contain beauty
that radiates
from the inside out.

no, I do not
have an old soul.
what I have is
an old mind,
packed with remnants
of the past that I
have tried my hardest
to forget.

how do you walk through
a mind like mine,
filled with fragile relics and
antiques that could easily fracture
if you aren’t careful?

how do you go on
without the fear of having
to pay for the damages
if anything shatters?

every moment we spent together
flows through my veins.
with each beat of my heart,
they are pumped through me.
these memories will always be there.

they will be there when
we’ve both grown old
and given up the reckless lifestyles
that we never wanted to lose.

they will be there when
you move far away from here
and hug your family goodbye,
knowing that someday
in whatever city you settle down in
you will start a family of your own.

they will be there when,
years from now, you sit in the backyard
of the house that you share
with the family that you assembled,
and tears fill your eyes
because you have lived a life
that you are proud of.

they will be there when
I finally stop running from my past
and find somewhere I want to stay,
somewhere that feels like home.

they will be there when
I kiss someone who isn’t you,
and I feel the same happiness
that at one time only you could give me.

they will be there when
I find the answers that
you inspired me to search for,
when I have this sudden epiphany
and I realize my purpose,
whatever that may be.

they will be there when,
years from now, I sit on my rooftop
staring up at the stars
above wherever I decided
to settle down, with tears
trickling down my cheeks
because I have lived a life
that I am proud of.

and you and I
will live these lives apart.
we’ll move on and forget
what it felt like to wake up
beside one another,
and we’ll find what
we’re looking for elsewhere,
and one day, we’ll understand
why this all had to happen
the way that it did.

what we have
will always exist somewhere.
in the sidewalk cracks
we used to walk over
hand-in-hand,
in the lyrics of old songs
that neither of us
have heard for years,
in the dust gathering
on boxes buried in our attics.

and sometimes
we might remember each other.
when I see a young couple
laughing in a diner booth,
when the bright beams
of a car’s headlight
shine through your window
and jolt you awake,
when we pass road signs
that we once drove by together
and cross through
states we once visited.
we might think of each other,
even if only for a brief moment.

and despite how important
this all was to me,
and despite how important
it still is to me,
I’ve folded up the days
that I spent with you
and taped them into
the messy pages of my journal,
stuck somewhere between
my 3am thoughts and an old,
yellowing photograph of us.

and now, I’m running.
I’m running away from every
droplet of self-doubt
that is trying to wedge its way
between my ribs,
running in the opposite direction
of words like “regret”
and any intrusive feeling
that is trying to trick me
into worrying that
none of this was worth it,
and that I am destined to face
a life of bitter loneliness without you.

because those thoughts are convincing,
but they are liars.
because all of it meant something.
even if parts of it hurt,
even if, to this day, I still can’t
understand the meaning of some of it.
because all of it was worth it.

and maybe you and I
didn’t have the fairytale ending
that we always imagined.
maybe we didn’t live our
happily ever after.

maybe the only place
that you and I still exist together
is in crumbled photographs
and life lessons and
these memories that won’t go away.

and maybe, even now,
there’s still pain there.
maybe the wound has healed
but still feels sore when it’s touched.
maybe we wonder what we could
have done differently
and what our lives would
be like if we had.

but in the end,
it doesn’t matter
how we began or
how we fell apart.

because in the end,
I’m just so happy
that I got to love you at all.

have you ever felt a relationship die,
gasping for its last breath
between scattered texts
and awkward conversations?

have you ever paused
to find the words that you want to say
and force them out of your mouth,
or to find the words that
maybe you don’t want to say
but you know that they need to be said?

you wince in pain at each breath you inhale
because you know that the air
you are breathing into your lungs
is from a world where you are alone.
you are hurt and confused
and scared in this world,
and this world is no longer fictional.
this is your reality now.

you thought you had made
the right choice by not speaking,
but now you think that maybe
the silence is louder than
the words would have been.

you go to bed alone.
you struggle to fall asleep,
and sometimes you still wake up
screaming from the trauma
that broke you so long ago.

now, you turn over,
and no one is lying next to you.
no one is comforting you.
no one is holding you.
no one is telling you
that things are going to be ok.
and you can tell yourself
as many times as you want,
but you can’t believe it
when it isn’t said aloud.

you know that
you weren’t perfect, far from it.
you know how many
mistakes you made.
you know that
you are difficult to love.

you knew from the very start
that this wasn’t going to last forever,
yet somehow, you still
planned out your future as if it would.

you’re looking back on the memories,
mapping them out like a final road trip.
you can’t seem to pinpoint the exact
moment when things went wrong.

and you’re not sure if that’s good,
because it would mean that this
wasn’t caused by a single action
or mistake that you made,

or if that’s bad, because
it would mean that
somewhere along the way,
he fell out of love
and you didn’t even notice.

there are situations you
keep imagining in your mind,
ones where everything
magically returns to normal.

or where all of a sudden, you move on,
and love again, and trust again,
and it stops hurting and
it never hurts again.

those aren’t real. they’re not real,
but the pain is. it hurts. badly.
you’re angry, but you
don’t even know who you’re angry at.
you’re not angry at him, despite it all.
maybe you’re angry at the world,
at the injustice and unfairness
that your life has dealt you.

or maybe you’re angry at yourself.
you feel pathetic.
you don’t like to shower alone
because the razors used to call to you,
and now you don’t have anyone
to stand there by the bathroom door.

you don’t like to go to bed alone.
you don’t like to wake up alone.

these irrational fears that
you have absorbed from the years
of your traumatic past are still there.

he’s gone, but you are still afraid.
you’re not any more afraid
than you were before.
it’s the same. but now,
you have no one battling
those fears alongside you.

you feel incapable
and weak and childish,
and you don’t know what to do.

if you’ve ever felt like this,
then you understand.
if you’ve ever felt like this,
I’m sorry.