There's a first time for everything, but, baby, I want you to be the last.
I've been choking on different ways to explain this to you.
The right words are stuck to the roof of my mouth and I can never seem to fit them through my teeth.
You are so beautiful, too.
I miss you most.
I won't let you win at battleship-
and I probably won't ever understand football or hockey-
But I will watch it with you anyways.
I will hold your hand even when our hands are sweaty.
I will still make fun of you for smoking menthol cigarettes.
I promise to always eat the tomatoes for you when we go out to eat.
I will drive around with you until we are out of gas,
But I won't stop telling you to wear your seatbelt.
(even if the gas station is RIGHT THERE)
I can't risk it.
I can't risk you.
You've been present, even when I wasn't.
You've made me comfortable in your arms.
your home.
And even my own skin.
you're cigarettes don't always match your lighters anymore,
But you're the Cory to my Topanga.
And I'm the luckiest girl in the world, because you are my world.
I appreciate you,
I adore you,
I miss you,
And I, unconditionally, love you.

Every summer brings
different adventures
but I still can't shake
the memory of
street light constellations
reflecting in your laugh,
or how warm we felt
in their artificial sunbeams
when we smuggled
your sister's beer in your car.

I still can't sleep some nights
 with that incessant glow
peeking through my blinds,
reminding me things
come and go
but you didn't
have to.

I see you in the dust particles
waltzing in late afternoon sunbeams
I see you in endless train tracks
curving out of sight and into
uncharted territory inside your chest.
I'm sorry I didn't know how to loosen
my dead bolt grip, you were your own world
and I selfishly believed
I could grasp your full potential in my tiny fingers.
I assumed you were linear,
two dimensional;
one chapter rather than
an entire library of life.
I know you wanted me to speak up,
unhinge my jaw and let
the unwritten poems of my mind
seep into your ears.
I didn't think telephone wires stretched
across so many miles just for dead air.
I didn't think you were
listening so hard with your eyes.
I've been shaking my head,
trying to find a solution
rattling around in some stray cranial nerves.
Maybe that's why they call it shock
when it's not electricity at all.
We went from caves and brutality
to covered patios and toxic taser tongues
ready to etch high voltage vocabulary
into my bones until that's all I have left.
You wanted a better fight
but you shorted my circuit.
I let go all at once and I couldn't turn away
when you stumbled and crashed into a new reality.
I still have trouble laughing
around the lump in my throat
when people joke about trees falling in forests
because the way you said my name
still has me by the throat and some days
I think your grip is what kept my feet on solid ground

If I could forget just one thing
I think I'd want it to be
how to get from my house to
yours.
and from there,
how to get from inside my car
to inside your room.
or which couch in the living room
you always stretched out on.
or where you would keep the
orange juice in your refrigerator.
or the names of your pets.

I know how to get to your house
from mine
like the back of my hand.
I don't even have to think about it.
like running my fingers through my hair,
it's become a part of me.

I feel it would be easier to forget you,
or at least let go of you,
if I didn't remember this so well
so long after I stopped feeling welcome
standing on your welcome mat.

Chapped lips
and split
knuckles.
Skin renews
itself every
twenty-eight
days.
But it's like
my body knew
I couldn't wait.
Ive always been
impatient.
December winds
have weathered
away my
shiny armor.
I am tired
of tasting my
own blood
in my smile.
I keep telling
myself to Hold On
until the Spring
but my
fingertips are
Fraying
and I scream
until I Wake Up.

I keep wiggling
My toes and
Focussing on
How the fabric
Of my socks
Feels against
My skin.
I get by with
Grand gestures
And some sort
Of wit.
Avoiding
Does not mean
Solving
The problem.
My socks don't match.
Neither do I.
I spilled paint
All over
My insides.
And it's made
A mess.
I keep thinking
It will be
Better
To clean it up
Alone.
I keep holding
People at
Arms length.
But I am
Trying to
Hold them
Nonetheless.
I can feel
My fingers
Slipping.
I Can Feel It.

It is so cold outside
my toes burn
High on life?
Take a drag off of me
I'm trying to kiss you slowly
I meant ****
I meant both
My mouth is so sore
I'm throbbing
(Double entendre?)
Let me be your drugs
Let's take a bite out of these leaves
And inject cotton candy clouds
Into our bloodstream.
I feel so ghost
But ghosts can't eat Taco Bell
You feel so warm
But I've always dreamed about the East Coast

I ALWAYS COUNTED ON YOU,
BUT SOMETHING JUST NEVER
ADDED UP QUITE RIGHT.
IT HIT ME SO HARD,
I STILL HAVE DOUBLE VISION.
YOUR FACE IS STILL FUZZY
IN MY MEMORY.
BUT I THINK THAT CAME WITH
TIME.
TIME AWAY FROM YOU.
TIME TO BREATHE.
TIME TO WALK ON MY OWN.
BECAUSE THE **** CLOCK
NEVER HELD MY TREMBLING HANDS
LIKE YOU DID.
BUT IT NEVER LIED TO ME
LIKE YOU DID.

*   *   *   *  

WHEN I HEARD THE NEWS
ALL I COULD THINK WAS
"HOW DOES HE LIVE WITH HIMSELF?"
THEN I REMEMBERED YOU HAVE
TROUBLE SLEEPING AT NIGHT.
IS IT FROM THE GUILT?
OR THE CHORUS OF TEXTS
FROM ALL THE GIRLS
YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH?

   *   *   *   *

I WANT ALL MY TIME BACK.
I WANT TO GO BACK AND
NEVER LAY EYES ON YOU.
I WANT EVERYTHING BACK.
I WANT MY SECRETS,
SWEATERS, AND SERENITY BACK.
GIVE IT BACK, YOU ****.

You didn't know it yet,
but you made a mistake
by picking me out of the crowd.
I want more than your
recycled one liners
and puppy dog eyes.
more than you have to offer.


you weren't much for deep thought,
but I have to commend you for trying
...even though I really wish you didn't.
You tried to write poetry for me
because you knew it was my favorite,
but nothing was original,
nothing was special.


if I wanted to hear something
I've heard a million times already
I would have listened to Christmas music.
honey, this is not a game
and my life isn't a revolving door.
You can't just keep going
around and around and around.


if you wanted to be here,
you should have stayed.
now all I want for Christmas is you
walking out that door for good.

There's a lot to
learn about love
when I watch the
people I gave it to,
grow into strangers.
We stop making plans.
We start to forget things.
We meet brand new people.
We learn new things and we just
don't bother to share it all, anymore.
I stopped fighting for the person I met
When they stopped answering the phone.

I'm sorry.

I've been stretching inside my skin
I've been feeling these brick borders
for cracks to pick away at
I've been looking for a city to get lost in
because the air here is heavy.
Because the air here is toxic.
Because I am unable to walk through the door
without a hazmat suit.


I never was comfortable indoors.
The lack of sunshine made me wilt.
I was dying to get out
I was dying to get out
I was dying
And so was everything else
It makes sense, if you think about it
There's something cozy about the way
Tree branches tangle and hold each other

I wonder if mother nature
gets depressed in the winter too
I wonder if the word 'stay'
will ever stop feeling like a ticking time bomb.
Like a synonym for Already Gone.
I wonder if the word 'stay'
sounds like slamming doors to you too.

As a perpetually cold person,
I think it takes longer for indifference to thaw.
I think it takes longer to warm up to people
When I'm busy counting
goosebumps like stars
And waiting for spring
to scrub the remnants of ice
from the front yard (and my lungs)

I'm still waiting to breathe again.

I hate the way my chest reacts
When I see your eyes light up
I hate that you're favourite colour
Is my favourite colour.
I hate that you talked about
Some kind of future with me
And now I see it too.
You took my snow globe world
And like a child, you shook it.
My sedentary life became
Extraordinary.
I hate how much you don't care
I hate how much I do.
I hate how much I adore you.
That kind of rhymes and I kinda
Hate that too.

The puppet strings were
always pulled so tight.
They restricted my movement
and my breathing.
Then you cut them off
With no
Warning.
We dance in the car
We hold hands
We do not take instructions
From cues prewritten
In teenage romance novels.
You don't listen
To indie pop.
You don't even like poetry.
But you like me
Even when you pretend
Otherwise.
The night you kissed me,
You spent thirty minutes
Talking about cars in the cold.
I didn't understand a word,
But I loved every minute.
We aren't delicate China,
We are a red sports car
On our way to the Smithsonian.
We aren't baby steps and blushing.
We are red sharpie,
Rewriting Rules For Happiness.
We are *******,
Pushing buttons until they jam.
We are awful singers.
We are louder than the radio.
We are just a moment
But it's a moment to look back on.

You talked about dying once
and let me tell ya,
Heaven won't take you.
But Honey,
Even the Devil cringes
When your name hits my ears.


You have a lot of girls feeling so
Heart eye emoji for ya
You didn't break my heart
See Sweetheart,
You're not James Dean enough.
I don't wait around for just anyone.


You joked about haunted houses
And I almost told ya
It's not nice to joke about yourself
Look Darling,
You can fill up all your spare time
It still won't fill that emptiness you feel.

I HOPE SOMEONE
HOOKS YOU.
I HOPE THEY TAKE
YOUR HEART WITHOUT
ASKING.
I HOPE THEY KEEP
YOU WAITING.
I HOPE THEY MAKE
YOU FEEL SPECIAL.
I HOPE THEY ARE
"THE ONE" FOR YOU.
I HOPE YOU FALL
IN LOVE WITH THEM
LIKE NO OTHER.
AND I HOPE,
GOD I HOPE,
THEY TREAT YOU
EXACTLY HOW
YOU TREATED ME.

I've been awake
to see the
Sunrise
Every day
for months now.
The early bird
gets the worm
But what about
the bird that never
went to sleep?
The traffic lights
have it out for me.
They are always
green, go.
Pushing me
to stop looking back.
I'd sell my soul
to fly South
for the winter.
If a bird stops
Singing every morning,
Will anyone notice?
I didn't mean
To hurt your ears
With all this
Silence.

I have been stretching inside my skin
and trying to fully wake myself up.
and still falling short of reaching
where my fingertips seem to be.
I'm falling short of all this potential that I have.
It is an endless pool of possibilities
and I have found myself cowering at the edge.
I found myself struggling to even test these waters.
The Dead Sea is almost impossible to sink in
but there's no promise of a similar salt content here.
I've been bleeding ink
and leaving tire marks over old verses
that never made sense to anyone else
because I thought success was measured by
how others viewed my accomplishments.
How others viewed me.
In that mind set,
everything is monochromatic.
In that mindset,
I would have everything I am
taken at face value alone.
I cannot accept this.
I am so lion-hearted at the end of the day
to let another summer storm wash away
everything I've worked for.
Life is not a series of chalk outlines
and my passion will leave marks
like cave drawings that will make those archeologists scratch their heads with wonder.
They will make new words in old dictionaries
to describe the way my heart burns everything it touches.
I never told anyone why
"go big or go home" was a kick in the teeth
because I didn't think it was a secret
that going home was never an option.
I didn't let my downfall be so simple.
I didn't let myself lose ground
just because I'm more comfortable in a shady park
than in the living room of my parents' house.
The Great Depression is over.
I stopped planning.
I started doing.
Everyone is watching things fall apart
but I'm seeing all the pieces
that are slowly coming together.
There's a battle in Gettysburg,
my head against my heart,
but now it's 1865
And they're finally willing to unearth my promise
I'm finally willing to learn how
to put my ***** hands on something clean.
How to stop shaking and start
dancing to the beat of my own voice
echoing something I am not ashamed of.
And let it be clear that
I'm not ashamed anymore.

♧How does someone
with a heavy heart
have such a
lighthearted laugh?
I get tongue tied around you.
I trip over my laces.
We pretend
we don't notice
the road rash.
We pretend
it's just from my palms
meeting the pavement
too many times.
♧You are trains and buses,
always ready to leave.
We used to go on road trips
and I'd stare at you
staring out the window.
Staring at the sky.
Staring at the trees.
Staring at the hills.
I could never meet your eye.
You overlooked every attempt.
Every grand gesture.
♧I don't drive too far now.
I learned distance
isn't just in miles.
You're not just busy,
You've gone missing.
I'm scared I might
see you're green eyes
staring back at me
If I look out the window.
I'm scared they won't
recognize me anymore.

I had never
laughed so hard
at 3 am.

I had never
grown so attached
so **** quickly.

I had never
tried so hard
to be patient.

I had never
felt so tiny,
so painfully human.

I had never
been in love.

I will never
let myself again.

When I asked God to give me a sign,
a Sagittarius wasn't what I had in mind,
but I want nothing more than
to spend everyday tripping over our feet
and into new adventures.

You have a wicked sense of humour that
makes your eyes sparkle
and when you laugh I feel it in my chest.
I feel everything,
Like when you wouldn't let go of my
hand when you got that tattoo
or when you told me about
all the things you would change about yourself.
I felt that and I broke.

I still remember when you wrinkled your nose
and told me about the scar on your thigh.
You have a birthmark shaped like Massachusetts
and I want to take you everywhere.
You worry too much
about too much
and I don't mind reassuring you
that I'm the one with good balance
and you're the one that ought to be careful.

I didn't mean to fall in love with you,
love is an anchor and
baby I believed I was built for speed.
I like how you slow things down, though.
I didn't notice how many things
are living and loving
until we fed the ducks at the park
and watched some ants build a home.
I've never had a home, but I never had you before.

We never took pictures together
because you don't like how big your eyes are
I would drown in them for you
but you would be too busy
watching the sunrise to notice.
You have glasses because you're blind
But they aren't the right prescription
because you still don't see your beauty.

I remember the night you had me drive
two hours away from the city lights
just so you could point out
all the constellations you memorized
when you were younger.
I let you go on and on about stars,
waiting for you to mention the way
you outshine all of them
But you kissed me instead
and I think that was even better.

Even when Summer faded out,
you would always smell like sunshine.
I wanted to live forever in the daydream
of you and me walking along the shoreline.
Your laughter was synonymous
with sunflowers
and how everytime you caught sight of them
you couldn't stop yourself from smiling.

But that should have been my warning sign
because Russia's official flower is the Sunflower
and ever since you left
I've traded water for *****
and this winter has been unusually rainy
but it's still too bright for me to go outside.

I stared at
You
Staring at
Paintings
On the walls.

"How marvelous"
You remarked.

"Yes"
You really are.

When I was little
I fell off the monkey bars
and scraped my knee
Instead of running off to the swings
I got back up there
and I held on to each rung
so tightly
I had blisters in my palms
but when I got to the end I felt breathless
and maybe that's where it started.

When I began driving
I would grasp the wheel
so tightly
as if the more pressure I applied,
the better I could steer.
I always got perfect scores
on my driving tests
but my fingers ached
when I finally had it in park.

I've been clinging
to the remnants of a friendship
that I tripped into
and I didn't try to get back up
or strive for perfection
because I liked it the way it was
and I keep smiling while you walk away
but I can't wave
Because you broke my wrist
when you pulled away
but I don't think
that's all that's
Broken.

I came face to face with God
His breath stunk with alcohol
He just kept staring at his hands
And apologizing.
Volcanoes erupted
Every time he cleared his throat.
I didn't ask
Why
I just stared.
He never met my eye
And that's when
I knew
There are
mountains
Even He can't move.

The walls of your childhood home
used to hold their breath when you got upset.
I would pretend I didn't notice the holes
in the closet door and you would pretend
they didn't mirror the holes in your chest.
You never told me about your father, but
when you were drunk you'd mention your old man
and I could see all those
miles of running in your eyes.
I saw a picture in your mom's living room
of a man with the same jawline as you.
Always clenched,
always tense,
always ready to leave at a moments notice.
You said I made you softer.
I didn't know if that was a compliment
with the amount of venom you spat it out with.
You felt you were above vulnerability
but I remember
walking to your house in the rain
to shoo away your insecurites.
The door was unlocked
but you never really let me inside.
You didn't speak to me
for three days after it burned down.
When you finally did show up
at my doorstep you said
you were ready to come home.
I was ready to keep you warm in the winter
but I had forgotten
about your fists in the drywall
and the way you slammed doors
until the front window shattered.

You made me feel like such a **** child and every attempt I made to hold your hand, you shook off and ignored until it was convenient for you.

Everything was so infantile to you. You had already reached goals I set for myself and you were bored. "Small" was synonymous with my dreams in your book.

Maybe I was naive, but you're rigid attitude towards me has taught me how to shed those jejune fantasies and keep everyone I meet at arms length.

I see no point in these frivolous feelings that used to steer me into shipwrecks. I'm too busy drinking bleach to **** these butterflies to answer your calls.

I will not be my parents.


For every negative comment they exchange,
I will have something positive to say.
For every door that slams,
I will hold one open.

I will not let myself bring unhappiness to the table, then wonder why supper is so bitter.

Windows so thin, the ice outside is in your veins. I saw it in the way you wouldn't look at me. I recognized it in the answer you gave when you refused to speak to me. You used to say they can't ignore you if you don't give them anything to ignore.

I am still shaking from the last time I tried to warm you up. I wasn't prepared for your frigid stares, I didn't know I could feel so distant from someone I grew so close to. You felt like home until one day I found all the doors locked and realized I never recieved a key.

Clouds so thick, you forgot the sun could shine. Even if it did you would miss it, still hiding from reality in your bed and in your head. You thought you were just sleeping in on the anxiety but I haven't seen you in weeks. You are a stranger to even yourself these days.

Maybe you were right. Maybe you called it when you said I was scared of moving forward. Maybe that's why I still put off buying that **** car. Because I know if I do, I'll find myself packing a bag and running from all the things that used to hold me to this place. I have no reason to stay put.

Constantly brushing my teeth in a desperate attempt to get the taste of you out of my mouth.

Unrequited Love is like the clouds blocking the sun from kissing me throught the window, but inside my chest.

Everybody who has ever kissed me regrets it and they wonder why I try to convince myself being alone is a choice and not all I have left.

Your fingertips traced my spine and I
s  h  a  t  t  e  r  e  d  .

Never understood why people always compared Love to Whiskey until you held me in your arms and I felt the burn in my throat when you let go.

I wonder how raw your hands are from scrubbing away the memories of what my skin felt like that night.

Had a dream you were sitting inside my chest, ripping construction paper in two and that's what it feels like when we talk.   It's tearing me apart.  

I stopped letting you take pictures of me out of fear that your eyes would adjust and see me the way I see myself.

It never occured to you that our hands and how they never fit together perfectly was a flashing neon sign saying TURN BACK NOW.

I've only ever held hands with one boy and sometimes I still feel the shadow of his fingertips and that's why both my wrists are broken.

All the picture frames are facing down because I can't shake the shadows that cling to our faces.

I am something to be ashamed of, your ***** little secret that you can only let yourself want when everything is still and quiet.

I JUST KEEP PUNCHING THE WALLS AND BREAKING DOWN BECAUSE THEY WON'T EVER BREAK THE WAY YOU BROKE ME. I CAN'T REPLICATE THE DAMAGE YOU'VE DONE.

The cold wind beckoned, 
And caused the leaves to come alive,
Dancing around the bushes.
Rustling softy,
They fell
Golden
        Brown
                  Red
From their branches
To join the piles below.
The trees were shedding at
An alarmingly fast rate,
Shivering their layers off
With every gust of icy air.
Their long, brown trunks showcased many
Knots
      Twists
              Turns
As they reached for the
Ominous grey clouds above.
The trees swayed in unison,
Shaking their branches
To silent music.
Even in the thickest part of the forest,
Where the trees have
Tangled their wooden arms togehter,
There was still a
Strong, undeniable sense of Loneliness.
A Whisper of forgotten moments
That I did not Dare disturb.

2:19 am
The only noise is coming from his boots
Meeting the laminate wood floors.
I should be sleeping, but I cant help but
Notice the frustration in his steps.
Another long night at work?
My mother's voice cracks as she pleads him
To come to bed.
Her footsteps are only a whisper as she walks
Back to their room, alone.

2:23 am
The sound of a beer bottle opening
Echoes in my mind.
It made me nervous how he found
More comfort in a drink
Than in her arms.

2:33 am
I remember how he said I take after my mother.
And it stings to think I could spend
My whole life with someone
Who could hardly stand me
And call it happiness.

There is something about the way you try to behave when you are holding me.
You pull my shirt down over my stomach
....and trace my hip bones so softly, all the wine glasses shatter.
You pull my hair out of my face, away from my neck,
And go in for the ****.
Kissing me into a secret heaven I never heard of in church. You're one sin I don't want to be saved from.

And I didnt believe in God until I felt your hands on my skin. Because nothing that perfect came from a drunken party accident.

Accident.

As if you could be anything other than deliberate.  Anything other than precise.  You take what you want, but share it with me until I'm far past breathless.

You fill up all my empty spaces, be it in my chest, my mind, or the prized gap between my thighs.
The bed sheets are jealous of how warm you keep me.

My bones still snap-crackle-pop,
Protesting to getting out of bed
And facing the day.

I know you won't be there today.
Tomorrow.
Next week.
Next year.

But now at least, I know that I will.

I am myself
I am myself
I am myself

I am not construction paper torn in two.

I am not a metaphor.

I am myself.

One day, that will be enough.

*******.
I'm trying to write and it's all about
You.

I am tired
Of writing about you.
I don't want to remember
Your hand in mine.
I don't want to think about
How you kissed me
Or how you touched my face
Or how you called yourself
Superman.

I'm done
Writing ******, sad poetry
About you
As if you hung the ******* moon.

The sun slinked into the room through
The spaces in the blinds,
Exposing the dust particles floating
In the afternoon air.
She pulled the curtains closed and sat
With her back to the window.
Her eyes wouldnt meet mine,
To focused on the lines in her palms.
When I asked why she despised the sun,
She grimaced and whispered
The sun was all you left her when
You walked away.

I find myself shrugging.
A lot.
I lost my keys.
My lunch.
My smile.

Shrug.

It's not like
I can do anything about it.
I lose
Everything.
But, that's not why
I'm labeled a loser.

We could never agree on music.
You didn't like acoustic piece,
I said they were quiet, like me.
"Is it still a song if there are no words?"

You talked about traveling,
I told you about the Dead Sea.
Our fingers locked
And you turned a key inside my chest.
Is it still "just friends" if I can still feel
Shadows of your mouth on mine?

Christmas came early when
You smiled at me.
Winter was a blur.
We spent days at the park,
Admiring Mother Nature's new look.
Is it still death if it's so beautiful?

The rain clouds outside my window
Gravitated into my brain.
I strived for perfection
And you supported me.
"Just five more pounds",
You would remind me.
Is it still a disorder if you're helping me?

I carved your name
Out of my favourite memories.
I swallowed shards of glass
And ate three meals a day.
It is really recovery if it's so bitter?

The TV screamed
"Love yourself"
My parents screamed
"Love yourself"
I couldn't get the words
Past my grinding teeth.
Is it still love if there is no confession?

I remembered
All I allowed you to do.
I recalled
Everything I pretended to ignore.
Is it really letting go if I only forgive myself?

It can be a song without words
Just like how love can exist without the
Confession.
Death isn't my friend
And neither are you.
I am more than you can see.
I am enough.
And I have finally forgiven myself.

We emphasize how
Beautiful
Nature is when it dies,
Yet we shun the mentally unwell
When they are in the midst
Of their own harsh winter.
Nobody ever noticed them asking for help
The same way the leaves change colours
Before they fall from their branches.
There is nothing lovely about
Falling from Grace,
But it is not an invisible thing.
It can be seen in the
Lack of shine in young eyes,
It can be heard in
Earsplitting silences that say more
Than any words in the Oxford English Dictionary.
There is hope.
If you push through Winter,
You will wake up to the feeling of Spring,
And you too can be Reborn again.

I've been braiding my dreams
into a pretty silver rope to
Keep me from forgetting how
To see things in a positive light.
But somehow I got tangled,
And lately all these dreams
Have felt more like a noose
Than anything else.
Maybe it's time to cut all these
Naive wishes into pieces.
Maybe it's time to kick the chair.
Maybe this is what it means to
Grow Up.

I swallowed a thesaurus the first day of
Summer and swore I'd write until I wasn't so hollow. All I wanted was to get out of this state but I couldn't convince myself to leave my room.

I remember the first time I saw your room. It was clean, immaculate. Even with blurry vision I could see how it all lined up. My mother always said people with clean environments had control of their life.

We clashed; black and white. Yet we got
Comfortable in the shades of grey we
Discovered in late night conversations.

Fate vs free will, you never believed things
happened for a reason. I never believed you would choose to stay.

We grew restless and tired. The leaves used to blush at the way you said my name and then you stopped letting it fall from your tongue.

I started to change colours and we stopped
Finding ways to ignore our problems. The last time I saw you, your room was covered in shredded paper and ***** laundry.

I never meant to burn it down. You didn't
Pause long enough for me to find the right
Words. I'm still choking up synonyms for
sorry in letters I'm still hiding under my mattress.

♤A couple weeks before you left,
I caught you in the foyer staring
At your father's old clock on the wall-
Weeping, wobbling and whispering half drunk
"I want it back, give it back. I need it back"
I don't know if it was my heart
Or the seconds ticking by that
Echoed in my head as I tiptoed back to bed.

♡I used to call you
But eventually,
Even your machine got tired
They said it's best
I stop coming by,
You're comfortable
And they are content with that.
But how can you cling to the hospital bed
When I'm sleeping in ours alone?

♢There are places in this city
And rooms in our house
That I still can't go near.
I burned all your letters,
But keep the ashes in a vase on the mantle.
I heard it's easier to move on
If I pretend you're dead.
You're fifteen minutes away,
But the distance between us is so much more.

♧I had a dream last week
You came home for Christmas
There were dozens of cardboard boxes
Crowded under our tiny tree,
Each full of broken clock hands
And shredded envelopes
All addressed to
Different versions of yourself
You still can't forget.

When I was little my mother put me in several ballet classes in hopes to bring some grace to my stumbling gait.

I grew up walking on eggshells, wobbling to keep my balance on a tightrope that never really ended.

 My instructor pinched my thighs and shook her bony finger at me every tuesday and thursday for three and a half years.

4 am, I'm still tiptoeing around the creaks in the stairs as if anyone would notice an empty bed.

 This Christmas I came across the broken reminents of the ballerina ornaments my younger sister used to play with.

I never did master the delicate posture I was expected to adopt. My feet fell a bit too heavy, I suppose, on the ice tonight.

I'm not cold anymore, just exhausted from attempting to balance the wrong things for too long.

My life is flashing before my eyes, but all I see is a younger version of myself practicing Grand Battements on thin ice while everyone slept.