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Regine Howl Mar 2013
living without you is painful, at first
the amount of time crying over bath drains
oh then there's the drunken conversation with strangers
its embarassing, how i will tear my life apart when you're gone
then after about six months, someone with a hero complex comes along
and i will allow them to invest time and affection into me that i have no intentions of returning
it'll be a cheap distraction, not even thrilling - but i will project my attachment onto the unsuspecting soul
they won't know any better, and i will recover quickly after the break with them
in an attempt to rid my hair of your scent, to rub your prints off my bones
i will cover it up with strangers' lips and other boys' habits, a quick fix
then after a year or so i will allow myself to drink too much
and spend the night talking about who i am really
thinking of and if they're smart then they run
if not, they hang around and keep putting
****** adhesive on a wound that i
need therapy for and i grow
to resent them for trying to be
better than you, even though that's
what i trained them for, my body rolls
with waves of heat because there is no way
i turn into a cruel monster, breaking as many
minds as i can reach because if not, i would have to
admit to what i am feeling, and what i feel is the idea of
settling, the spine choking ***** inducing settling of your life being
mundane, accepting a life without you in it is exactly that to me
Regine Howl Mar 2013
Pick at your lips anxiously, the way you pick at everything.
Rip skin to the quick, til there’s red fingers pressed against your white teeth.
Wondering why the words she writes are so empty,
that she can’t stop anything from the numbing boredom.
She slams back a shot, with her tears to the back of her throat.
The amber liquid burns across her mouth,
leaving her tongue licking at the wounds like a flame.
Regine Howl Mar 2013
just let me crawl beside you,
I am fairly small,
you won’t notice I am there.
Trace my fingertips and keep one hand on my hair.
The rest of our bodies hardly touch,
except in moments of readjusting in our sleep.
Well,
besides our feet;
two pairs of cold feet that always manage to find each other across the space of secretive sheets.
You invited me to visit you,
to fly across the country,
and yet you claim to care so little for me.
Then I have read that you have asked to see others,
to write with others,
but you asked them
‘would you like to write with us?’
Is it safe to assume I was the other part to that team?
It’s never safe to assume with you
, I guess that’s why I stick around.
I keep following your cryptic directions to the imagined Wonderland,
and I am the pure, white apron wearer that is stained with your teas.
You call me a possible temptation,
you have referenced me as Satan,
as if you were afraid but you sir are intrigued.
You are the temptation, devil’s advocate, not me.
Because Satan does not wish for his victims to quell their fires and demons,
nor for them to reach their full potential.
But calling me the guilty party, the bad guy,
the bloodthirsty queen is how you can keep yourself away,
from the truth.
But you are mad for trying, for thinking you could.
Regine Howl Oct 2013
She's riding in my passenger seat, telling me about the girl who won't separate the sheets
Steering wheel hot under my hands as I drive down a service road miles away
The whiskey shots she had early hit my nose, and acid burns my eyes
Cause you're riding shotgun and I can feel the bleeding in my mind

I haven't spoken to you in months, despite your hidden attempts
Longer still, since I've seen you under the night sky with your love at your side
It has been almost a year since I kissed you last
I can taste you now because I smelled the mix of cigarettes and bourbon

Years it's been since I've known you, if ever at all
The dust in my car clings to the bits and pieces that remind me
***** amplifies the fact that your skin cells and hair are probably still embedded in the seats
Next to me the girl is still talking about the god ****** laundry

Just yesterday my email put me into a panic
There was your name, asking for friendship, within a cloak of invisibility of course
The tab flashed as brightly as a siren to me yet I didn't move nor budge
WBF he asked, just for a second, no more

No more, well how convenient for you isn't it?
It's always within your time frames, when you need it
Never friends when I have been crushed, when I lay cursing you in your last shirt you left
Abandoned on my floor

I hit the blinker, turn down the workhorse, and nod my head
Trying not to breathe deeply while agreeing with whatever she said
I dropped her off at the liquor store and as she slammed the door
My throat burned with a scream that you would never hear

Two long years, your scent stayed with me
In my hair, in my heart, in my bed
Even though you were happy in CO, living with your high school sweetheart
And I was home, fighting with mine instead

You came back, she ruined you is what you claimed
I left him and tried all the wrong ways to save you
So we fell asleep too many times together on someone else's couch
And after telling me you loved me and begging me to return it, you left me

Said you were in love, with a girl who hate ****** you
Screamed the word perpetuated into the phone
and that wound is the rotting hole that you used to be kept safe in
A soul that was so tightly wound with your snores and your thoughts and your beastly smile

The car is parked, and I do not cry for you even with the feeling
Like you could be right here, trying hard not to love my car dancing and my real laugh
I am a smart girl, I say today just as I did yesterday
Smart girl furious that I made it all up

I thought I knew the boy in the combat boots picking flowers
I believed him when he cried onto me and swore I wasn't a joke
That he wasn't saying them behind my back, the one he clinged to when he made love
That's what he told me we did, I said we were making stories

I forget from time to time, but I am furious that I believed him
That he let me believe him
More than anything, he was supposed to be my friend
He wanted me to be invisible
Regine Howl Mar 2013
you dug into my ribs, planted seeds of bitterness with your distance.
and now you’re back and here we go, I am going to tell you white lies just as you taught me to.
they’re growing around my tongue and I could bite it and choke down my blood,
but I think you’d prefer I just admit how I feel instead.
Regine Howl Apr 2013
There are bruises on my skin from my last night with you,
I wear them like badges of merit you earned as a boy.
Purple smears underneath my freckled blades,
and the blue stains on my thighs tell the truth.

Tell the truth you said.

Without saying the words,
my body tells of a pretty heartache,
the one not everyone gets to experience.
I will call myself lucky,
and run my fingerprints over the marks you left,
the sentences you wrote with your teeth and all your pressure.
When they fade, and I can still feel the ache under the skin,
I will miss the colors that others could see.
That the proof I never told,
the truth will slip away,
but it will not heal.
The left shoulder blade has the most beautifully articulated bruise.
It is a splatter of violets and pinks, and my tiny freckles look like stars in a galaxy.
But I am a black hole,
and I will take the bruise under
eat it up and fear that I will do the same to the story, to your memory.
So I will drunkenly scrawl facts and moments and details in the space in my lungs and heart.
You admitted you knew the smell of the air in my lungs,
so when can you admit you love me,
at least in the dark?
Regine Howl Mar 2013
After I met him, he stole all my words-
he extracted them from my throat with his silver tongue
There wasn't a story I wrote that he hadn't left his tone on
they weren't mine anymore
It was only silk spun tales of the way he kissed me,
and left bruises that made me wish they were scars
Even if he was neither the antagonist or protagonist,
the lines were all about who I wasn't admitting I was thinking of
Whether at the movies or laying alone in the grass,
he was the star
Cause at night or even in broad daylight
there has only been one guarding and protecting
my imaginative and deprecating designs
Regine Howl Jun 2015
It's me
HEY! ...it's me
I don't know why... but how many times did you leave that same message on my phone.
All three that I still have
They alI charge, under my bed
just so I can hear you say "It's me" Just so
So I can still get mad at the "Don't know why I called"'s
until I hear the pause, where you realize you need to go
GO RIGHT NOW
I miss the voicemails you left me
You wouldn't tell me but you would call religiously if I didn't answer
And I would call you, over and over and over
It was enough to see my name on the little screen I guess
But then you needed me to make a recording
so you could hear my voice when leaving short, self destructive messages
or lengthy two minute long translations of goodbye
You said "Just do it please... So I can hear your voice when you don't answer me."
You never called me back
And I still have no message for my machine.
Regine Howl May 2013
You called
Again
This time you left
Another voicemail
I shake my head, then roll my eyes
Then I feel myself begin to think
Perhaps he needs to talk to me
Specifically
I listen to your voice like I have so many times before
"I don't know why I called-"
I throw down my phone
Don't know?
Then don't
Just don't
Tears are inching towards the corners of my eyes
Hate is everywhere, in hot white flames inside my mouth
Blindly I splash water over me
Shaky hands because of our ruined foundation
My eyes find yours in the mirror
And I start screaming
The glass isn't who put me through Hell
Yet it suffers all your consequence
When it is covered in spit
One would think I would feel-
But no I am still insufficient
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I left my heart on the corner of Haight and Ashbury
Where my shoulders were bruised by you
and blood rushed from my lips and fingertips
You were wearing blue
and the unemployed cheered you on
I left my heart there
the day I decided to deny all you wanted
Regine Howl Jan 2014
spin webs; eat ink
she isn't there, she's wishing
clawing at locks; tell me
Because I haven't any words it seems

I sure am struggling.

but I still have a pen.

So just because this sounds like ****
Just because you don't like, you don't think I am worth remembering
One day I am going to write it
I will write it all, and maybe
Nobody will like it or get it
but you're going to hear me.

You are going to ******* hear me.
Regine Howl Apr 2013
If
You have cold feet
You shamelessly dance when cleaning the kitchen
You drink too much too often, before noon and all week long
I want closure
Regine Howl May 2013
Today I made a sad attempt to die
yet I had no rope
To make my thirteen loops
like an old man showed me to do
I thought about where I could find enough
to hold my body above the ground
Where my feet just barely touch
my hands limp beside thick thighs

Failing at my attempt at life
there seems no better time
When I have no hope
this is costly and for naught
I've nothing to offer here
and I have no want to
No being pulled apart and shoved beneath the rug
yet I lack motivation and drive
Even in this
so no progress will ever be made
I made a sad attempt to change my life today
Regine Howl Mar 2013
little pieces of concrete, tucked in between my toes
as I march towards my transportation
my little car that carries an inconceivable amount
memories tucked into the doors and cushions
evidence stashed in the glove box or under the seats
cigarettes and spiced ***, this decision will release the kraken
to try and remove those little pieces that attach so eagerly
the small tears and snips of paper flurries
oh it awakens me
finger drawings in the dirt, hand prints smashed against windows long ago
yearning doubles up and i want want want,
to need to let this go
sweet, bitter
yet i keep picking apart the past times spent
drive ins, concerts, back roads, gas stations, circles and triangles
all the curves and swerves, the lines that brought me right beside you
but i hoard, because i am so scared of forgetting
if i do that, i may lose sight of why it was worth it
fingernails scrape against plastic when it finds
it
USB cemented to the bottom of the cup holder
had been hiding under mix CDs and poetic receipts
no amount of pulling and prying would loose the thing
i grew more and more sick with every try
a flat head screwdriver finally did the trick
I took a moment to look fondly but I grew ill
to know this is how you must see me clinging
pathetic and sticky
so I responded in the same ways as you did then
it now lies somewhere
buried in a trash bin
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I am ready for summer to dance back into my life.
I will always love that season above all others.
I am ready for the heat and the long nights,
the bugs and fireworks.
I want nothing more than to care about only making sure that I am out of the house every single day more hours than I am inside.
I want scorching cement under my feet.
Chalk and bubble solution soaked into all of my clothes.
Every negative inch of my soul is brightened up just a bit under the summer sun.
Water balloons and the sun roof down.
I want it all back.
I know we all love Summer, most of us do anyways,
I guess I know a few people that can’t stand the heat.
But summer has always held this idea to me that I could become infinite.
I can change my entire life around with one fantastic summer,
if I just went headfirst into it.
I would come out with golden threads plaited into my hair,
pretty thighs and green flecks in my eyes.
I will come out with a sense of fearless courage I lost too long ago.
I can be sure to find my five year old self longer than a moment when Summer comes back.
She will sit with me, happy that I can find a natural smile in the muggy humidity.
I will hear her confidence in the back of my mind before I go bungee jumping.
She will tell me that we have never been scared of anything.
Her twang will pull at my heart strings,
and I will never resist such encouragement.
At night when shadows creep up my spine,
she’ll squeeze my hand and I’ll laugh at the monsters in my head.

My five year old self would kick my *** for the ways I act today.
My head floods with the best of old memories when July creeps upon me,
I will see skipping rocks, and trails,
and all the smiles I put on people’s faces.
I will hear the pride in my dad’s voice,
and it will sound like it is in my reach to get it back.
Wild innocence will grow back inside my heart,
if only for a few months…
The backbone that bends without breaking will straighten itself with threads of spider’s silk
and I will look people in the eye,
and I won’t care what they see inside of mine.
Then August will make it’s appearance,
and I will balk, like a horse at flowing water.
I’ll dig my feet into the hard earth and my head will fly back and shake the mirrors in my face.
I will only see the awful darkness that awaits me the rest of the three seasons.
Then I will hear that voice, asking me to promise, to be honest…
to try all year long, because there is nothing to be scared of.
I cry at the end of every summer, just because I can’t stand for my happiness to leave me.
She will tell me if I cry, she won’t stick around;
and I know that I should swear,
pinky promise and try my damnedest.
But by the time September is here, I am a mess.
The shadows and monsters have taken up residence
and Fear has his hands crawling up my back,
undoing all the threads that were holding up my spine;
smiling all the while, bringing up goosebumps on my paling skin.
Fear takes me while I wait for Summer to save me.
Regine Howl Jan 2014
Let Them Linger->
no don't **** them.
Oh dear, HERE is the conflict,
frozen solid...

don't regret anything; learn from it.
Learn from WHAT?!

- don't talk
- say it all
- stay home
- chase them
- give them space
- let them go
- they come back
- they leave again

Then there's you.
- breaking hearts
- ******* boys
- hating yourself
- so you mistreat them

You realize the cycle
So what? Just stop?
okay.
now what?
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I can't write
And I can't love
I am not a friend
I am
In fact
Driving with one knee
Turning at 70
Smashing the keys with one hand
And ripping into an orange with the other
It's dark out, gotta get my vitamin d somehow
Mildred
Millican
Wellborn
Retreat
You are all the ******* same
Just take what's closest
There's nothing good about this
There is no ******* center stripe
Regine Howl Mar 2013
we spun threads of truth with our kisses, tween our hearts
and though I parted from you, my gold thread was still pulled taught
but yours grew slack with loneliness or anger, I do not pretend to know which
either or, the shine fell away, it could not hold up to this, decay
I plucked my thread lightly, to see if it still coiled with your own, but there was a snag
it broke your thread and now I am sitting in a memory of a garden, holding very pretty strings
That are no longer connected to anything
Regine Howl Dec 2013
Get out of my mouth
Cold night air, the calm before the storm
I haven't had a taste of you in ages
What brings it on?
I want to claw you out
Rub til tears
Taste someone new, yet
I'm
Either empty
Or remember you
Regine Howl Dec 2013
dumb & anxious
longhaired
I lived on the edge, a ******
to any single thing you shared
words, kisses, hate, spit, secrets
dares
to live without you
I cleaned, with alcohol
I scrubbed, with *******
now there's nothing in here
notes, pictures, stories, feelings
no more nerve endings for you
numb & nervous
empty stare
Regine Howl Jan 2014
I have burned things for hours
to see what color they would turn
When you burned me, and we know you did
what color did you see?
you probably didn't even look you *****.
Regine Howl Mar 2013
Where your kisses go, stardust follows.
It will not leave my skin, it will never leave me.
These pieces of outer space were yours, and you fed them to me-
I took it all in so willingly, but now I wonder,
did you know that it meant your scent would always
be with me?
Regine Howl Mar 2013
I hate to say that I need you
Because they say you never need anyone,
to need is vulnerable, weak, desperate, and wrong.
But want is not strong enough,
I want cookies or longer hair,
I want things but they do not speed up and slow down time when I get them.
So I don’t say that I want or need you,
but after so long, that lie builds up and bubbles over and it comes out like a mantra.
I need you, I want you
I want you, I need you
I want to need you
and I need to want you
The wanting needs to happen
The need is so wanton
Please, oh please
I need you and I want you
Neither is wrong and I feel neither more greatly than the other
but right now I feel nothing else at all
So I will need you, as I want to
Because I want to need you
And I do, and that is the truth
Regine Howl Mar 2013
I’ll take you now, all that you are. Bite into my arms, you’re not trying to hurt me I know so I smile, you are just trying to be as close as you can for awhile. While you cannot feel guilt, while you forget to second guess. Your hands encase my wrists and your eyes bore into my own, I know what you’re looking for - the parts we never show. You outline the digits of my hand like they are your favorite tools to manipulate, that they are the only phrases you may entertwine with your own at the height of moments. My skin glides above yours, begging for the dissertation that you only can write.

Those first sentences will tentatively start with brushes of fingertips, touches at my arms and thighs, but they will pause after an introduction of lips and I will feel as I have at every single one of your readings. Foreplay is just your way of working up to your main point, no pun intended. The facts and examples are the neck kisses and when we undress you bring forth your objectives in a way I could never deny, would never ignore. Another moment to take each other in, as if we were opposing sides of the debate but that is hardly the case. But it doesn’t last and who’s to say who is to blame, who could not stand the wait. The lines you spin, so soft across my mouth I will murmur like quotes I have read in books, but the hooks that pull you closer to the truth, are teeth in my bottom lip demanding I be closer to you. Undertones whisper past my ears as your hands find themselves tangled in my curls and I lose myself to your voice, calming and soothing, as strange as that may seem. The tone you have set is one of urgency, but with a need to get the point across and not lost in it’s volatile haste.

The words you lose to my mouth in a kiss, and I forget the voice you are using, because I no longer need to hear you because I feel you instead. The strife, the iron in your soul and the somehow simultaneous fear and lust for life are pulling me into you. Or you into me. The body paragraphs have come together all so suddenly that I could cry out, but your mouth swallows mine and I am enthralled with the story we are writing for a short time. While you cannot doubt yourself, while I am free and neither are second guessing. We take advantage of such moments with a vigilante manner as if to say it was what should have been happening all along. My nails and teeth on your collarbones give you that extra, that bite of reality you needed to know you were on the right track. We spread out a colorful vocabulary of bruises and smears and scratches on our pages, tearing at all the feelings we assess only under wearisome candlelight and strong liquor. You have come full circle and your hands firm on my hips are when you make your final call to end the case, eyes on mine and mouths only responding to the other instead of their original owner.

We have reached our conclusion, or have we? Fiction or reality?
Regine Howl Mar 2013
We put ourselves on the shelves,
shoved with our spines into the shadows,
opposites the hard and paper backs.
Our works unfinished and scattered,
we hide ourselves in the pages of others’ books because we are too afraid to write our own.
Between the holy book and Mary Shelley,
you lie and profess,
you condemn and encourage me.
You shout down then retreat,
but I hear you,
even when you don’t speak.
I am flitting back and forth,
between Proust and Kierkegaard,
to Ginsberg and Kerouac,
scanning over the ink,
looking for scraps and hints as to where you pour your pints.
Eyes ferociously hunting for your form and style,
for your words in someone else’s…
I am searching for the key,
to your trap doors I fall through.
But you won’t give it to me,
because you are hiding it from yourself.
Are you waiting on something,
are you waiting on you?

— The End —