"Nina, why do you always date *****?" questions my best friend in the way that implies an answer is not needed nor wanted in the warm light of his front porch in the car that belongs to me but he offers to drive when my stomach is sick and a new ****-up is laid like fresh paint on my mind.
The question itself spins like a coin in my head that will never lay flat, like a bad autotune job, like a Rube Goldberg that will never halt, like it has too much truth to it.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because they don't seem like ***** when our eyes meet and the ***** of their smile makes my nose crinkle with an incessant desire to smell the warm scent of their chest as my head lays pillowed on it in the early morning calm before the loud realization of what events transpired the night before, before flashbacks of mixed bodies and sweaty whispers, before he decides he's seen enough of me, devoured his piece of meat, he's not hungry anymore.
When will I be his favorite food? The one he can have for breakfast lunch and dinner and still crave, the one he will always ask for seconds of, the one who is home to him. Every time I meet someone I call all of my friends and swear he's the ever so infamous "one," and every time I fall for the ******* lie that he "will not break me," YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME?! Then why am I shattered, laying in pieces on the cold tile floor, my mind a messy oozing disaster? But maybe my heart has always been just a taped up broken mess since Paula left, maybe when Aaron and Spain and Mitchell came along it was all too easy for them to pull at the poorly tied knotted strings I had sewn into my heart, maybe my soul was just a little too welcoming, maybe my mouth was a little too eager to feel theirs against it. But I can swear that when you "made love to me" it was really just *******, or else why would you take the one piece of me left only to complain after that I hadn't shaved. Well I've shaved every day since, cut bleeding patterns into my mortified anxiety, ripped tears from my eyes before I dare let them fall, and watched you kiss her over and over again. But if you asked me back I'd still say yes, rip the shredded heart from the box I've tended to keep it in and place it back in your hands to wear like a new notch in your belt, a new trophy for your collection.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because some wretched inner part of my being believes I deserve it.

She’s the type to eat a bowl of ice cream,
shoot a gun, and be fine. I’ve never seen so many pieces
under someone’s rug before, but she keeps
herself in cookie jars, in ink cartridges, in book binds,
anything she can find. I’m surprised she even looks
in the mirror anymore. It’s not possible that she’s herself whole.
But she braids her hair back when she rides her horse,
she channels old Miranda Lambert
and pumps that kerosene melody through her veins
like it wont’ catch fire. I’ve seen her
poke her head through old sweaters like she thinks
it’ll be something new this time. I’ve seen her paint
her skin in expensive body washes, the washcloth
like sandpaper as she tries and tries to smooth
all of the uneven edges she’s collected.

I bet you could watch her memories in a wishing pool,
like in a mini mall, with all the pennies heads down.
They would spin themselves around the surface,
suffocating one another so that only the good ones would shine,
but she dare not pour herself into something that reflective.
It would only reveal what she ties into the waistband
of her old American Eagle jeans every morning,
and that would just be too **** hard. It’s easier
to venture ******* with a crummy perspective
and a realistic approach than it would be to even consider
that maybe this time it wasn’t her fault
for expecting to much, and that maybe people just ***** up.
That maybe, for once she wouldn't blame it on it getting her hopes up
that made her fall, but that no one was there to catch her.
I’d rather watch her cry herself to sleep for months

than to pretend I admire the harsh falsetto she bites back
in all of her lullabies. But she’s the type
to burn old pictures for fun, to delete contact names,
to swallow all her sadness and paint her bedroom a new color
than watch herself come undone.

"Life is art,  it's this huge blank canvas that we paint stories on every moment since the day we were born."

I look at you and I can feel the hairs on my skin standing up from the electricity building between us,
I look at you and I can see the stars in your dark brown eyes.

I look at you and I can hear the song we listened to in the car on our first date stuck on replay,
I look at you and I can taste the saliva drowning my mouth waiting for you to touch me.

I look at you and I can see your chest rising and falling to the same beat as my heart, saying that we not two, but one.
I look at you and I can hear your smile, saying that I am forever yours, and you are forever mine.

I have hands that shake
And eyes that wonder
I have a heart made of glass
That people often shatter

I have fingers that fiddle
And thoughts that swarm my mind
I have a head full of lies
And a record stuck on rewind

I have friends that laugh
And friends that cry
I have pain stabbing at my chest
With a long dull knife

I have blood dripping from my insides
Pouring from my soul
I have droplets on my sheets
And ink stains turning into a poem

I have dreams that turned to dust
That blew in the wind
I have dandelions growing from my lungs
And black rose petals are my sin

I have oxygen that is actually toxic
And hate that turned into joy
I have burns that feel like relief
And love that is seen as a decoy

I have hands that shake

This feeling is contagious
Spreading like wildfire
Burning everything in its way
Its not a sore nose, or a cough
Is a sickness deep in your heart
A constant aching pain
Like stubbing your toe
Its not a still beat,
Its just a loud throb
Aching for hands to hold
For arms to be carried in
And for eyes to linger at