Men put tiny fences
on mountains
and call it theirs.

I'm sorry,
I hung up on you tonight,
and a few nights before that
(And a few nights before that)

I didn't mean,
to close the door
or turn off the lights,

I just needed
to open a window,
feel cold air,
and sit with my thoughts.

You are
a yellow bird,
and
you make everything
a little brighter

And I'm sorry
that my words
sometimes
clip your wings
(I really don't mean to)

I wish that things were easier.
We both know all to well,
that things don't always end up
like we want them to.

But you're (almost) here
and that matters
and you matter
and I'm sorry.

We share a dream,
a hope,
of a little tiny house
with a basement
and knives not sold in a set.

Of a dog and a car
and a bed on the ground,
and being a little late on the monthly rent.

Of goodbye kisses
when you'd leave for work
and I'd be off to school.
Of watching snow
off our back patio
and sneaking into the neighbors pool.

Of borrowing each others flannels,
and kissing our noses
and drinking tea in springtime
before I prune the roses.

Of our morning coffee,
yours black, mine sweet,
and I'd still make fun of you
for the way that you eat.

For fights about vinyl
and paint and a movie,
but not about the things
that you shouldn't have done to me.

So we want that,
we both do,
and here's where it stinks
is that you ****** it up
in our fight after drinks.

And I know you regret it,
and I'm sorry to say
that sometimes apologies
don't cut it that way.

I miss you, I do
and you miss me too,
and I want our little house
and our dog and you.

But you put her name
above mine on the list,
and if you asked me a month ago
who I would want to kiss
to you I'd be true
but it wouldn't be me,
if they instead asked you.

We share a dream, a want and a need
for places colder,
for dirt and for skiis.
Of snow caps and pine trees
and people to leave.

But I don't trust you,
with my heart or my mind
and while I still really like you
I can't decide
if it's worth all this trouble
you've shook up in your wake
If your the one with the heart
or the one with the stake.

I'm back home,
sleeping in the bed we made love on.

We haven't spoken in a few weeks now.

I miss you.
I didn't think I would,
and I know I shouldn't.

I hate you,
I hate so much about you,
I hate all the awful things you did to me
and I hate that you hate me now too.

I walk past the places you kissed me,
I sleep in the bed where you first told me you loved me
(remember? You said it when I told you I was leaving you.)

I know about all the manipulations and the lies,
but somehow,
when I think of you,
all I can think about
is the way you would tell me how small my hands were,
you would fold them in yours and kiss all my fingers.

Our weekend rituals.
The summer weeks where your parents would go to Nevada and we would stay in your bed all day.
When we built a fort out of blankets in my room and spent the whole weekend watching netflix in our castle.
Your stupid ******* tiny car with your spiderman plush ball on the dash.
(I still have the Iron Man one you gave me in my dorm room.)

I'm drinking the same wine we used to sip,
until you stopped drinking.
So I started drinking by myself,
(You said you loved it when I got drunk because I kissed you more)


I never wanted to love you,
I knew you were bad for me,
I knew you were going to **** me up,
and believe me, you did.

But I can't stop thinking about the way you would kiss my shoulders,
the way we would sit in my car in the rain listening to the Killers after school, how we would drive down to Roseville for no other reason than you thought I deserved a nice dinner.

Sometimes, just for a drunken moment, I forget that you were literally the worst thing that ever happened to me.

(I hate that I still care about you)
(I hate that you ever ******* came into my life)

I grew up in the cabbage patch,
224 rows of deep roots to care for.

You were born on the first boat your father ever owned,
and his father before that.

Two legacies that would never intertwine.
Oil on sea.

I had two sisters and one brother and we were all destined for the same life of dirt and hard work and fresh baked pies.

Your only child complex made you a trophy son to all your fathers drinking buddies. You swore you could almost smell his pride leaking out his mouth when he would talk about the fish you caught together the past weekend.

I walked in narrow steps with hunched shoulders and I was just trying to find the elevator when you turned my whole existence upside down with your shoulders back, head held high wide stride.

I wanted to gather myself and run away, I would have rather been anywhere but in front of you. My feet were glued to the ground and I couldn't tell up from down or day from night all I could see was your soft hair and your soft skin and your round eyes and the way they looked at me like no one had ever looked at me before.

You were the high tide and I was a cesspool. You came and went as you pleased and what you gave to me in passing I would hold on to for years. I lay stagnant and fermenting in my own thoughts and you had the entire ocean in your fingertips.

I watched quietly as you sped through mania and love-stricken grief. I would watch you start to unwind and dismantle and I would hold my breath as you forced yourself to shatter. No other cause than the wind was too cold or you were scared of the way it sounded when you talked about your future.

I would silently crumble and help you pick up the pieces of yourself and watch, amazed, at the speed in which you could put yourself back together.

We shared a bed and a home and, for a time, a name. We spoke without words and made memories that gathered dust on a shelf.

I loved the silence of snow and frozen ground, you missed warm sand and couldn't stand being away from the sea.

We were unfolding and our shaky foundation had holes that were now too large for me to patch.

We used to sit and talk for hours about nothing at all. Now it's four in the morning and I haven't heard your voice in over three years.

You once told me that we were blight. We tore away at each other until we were empty stalks on a poisoned field.

When you finally left I sat on our front porch steps for almost the rest of the night. I never cried or fell apart, just stared down the dirt road trying to figure out where we went wrong, or if we ever did anything right.

I think some older part of me now believes that we were always in this kind of delusional state. Kidding ourselves with promises to each other about  a future that was built on ash.

I missed my sisters and I sold the house and when I went back to my family's farm the dirt just reminded me of you.

I spent the first night in my old room crying and shaking the bed frame until my chest felt tight and hallow and I heaved from my stomach a kind of sadness I didn't know someone could have. My mouth tasted like ***** and lavender and your shoulders and I threw up until I could only ******* own decay.

I knew the sound of your footsteps, your tossing and turning, your starting to spiral down voice, your hurried walk, your fingers in my hair. It took me so long to try and unlearn these things but even gin couldn't drown you out of my head.

In spring things got better, because my sister had a baby with fat cheeks and small hands and she named her Anna and when she would cry at night I would sometimes go in there and cry with her.

I think about the boy with the ocean in his fingertips, and my silence on his tongue and I whisper to Anna that people are messy and I'm sorry she has to learn this someday.

I look down a different dirt road and wonder if I'll ever see your soft curls again. I wonder if you've found another person in this world, and if she is as plain compared to you as I was. She probably is. I wonder if you're running your fathers fishing business like you said you were going to, like you always knew you were meant too. I wonder if the sea smells exactly like you remember. I wonder if you're happy. If your fits of self-destruction have stopped, if you're still scared of being alone.

You were the whole ocean and I was just a girl. I didn't know how to be with you anymore than you knew how to be with me. I watched you in awe and I think I always knew we were never meant to last.

We were cracking from the start, but man, the way we shattered was beautiful.

Spit your ******* venom at me,
tell me about all the things I lied about,
tell me all the things I did wrong.

Call me every horrible name you can think of,
like I care what you think of me anymore.

As soon as I was away from you,
I finally saw how bad things were.
I'm not your ******* puppet anymore.

You're ******* toxic,
and I've been choking on you for years.

I let you morph me into what you wanted,
I compromised my values and self-worth to please you,
and don't think for a second it didn't destroy me.
It did.
I hated myself, what I had become in the hopes of trying to fix you.
Help you.
You weren't worth it.

You're ******* psychotic.

I'm so happy,
I never have to let you touch me again.