Every one of the people I consider friends has taught me something worthwhile, and I want to take a minute to thank them.
To Josh, who taught me that anyone can fight for what they believe in.
To Brandon, who taught me that a smile can be the sunshine to someone's day.
To Nigel, who taught me that anyone can improve, no matter what.
To Noah, who taught me that now matter how big you are in the world, you can be kind to anyone.
To dear Holly, who taught me that every voice deserves to be heard, no matter how small.
And to Thomas. For being my best friend for so many long, happy years.
To the entire class of Lapel, 2015: Thank you.

She ****** you up.
He did the same to me.
Just promise we won't do it to each other.

What more can you even take?
******* for making me feel like a mistake.
I would still give you everything-
If you just wouldn't take all of it away.
I wish I didn't still care so much about you.

Maybe, maybe you don't love me,
But you could still care?
You no longer want me,
But when I'm hurt you could still be there.
No. That's silly.
I'm sorry, I know you don't love me,
And I shouldn't love you.

You couldn't have hurt me so much when I was hopeless-
When I had nothing to lose.
******* for showing me what it was to feel bliss,
And then to feel worthless and used.
I hate that even now I need you.

You made me happy, you made me pathetic.
******* for hurting me,
Just know you'll regret it.
Because you always do.
It's a cycle, I know you.
What's most messed up is I want you to come back again-
Want to give you another chance.

I remember when you held my broken pieces in those cold hands of yours,
Let's try again and maybe the pain will stop before my heart does.
My fleeting uncaring weak dear love.
No. Not mine.
But I'm yours.
Forever yours,

I don't think our love could ever be rekindled because it's always so fleeting
These feelings and missing and wanting and loving and hoping for something
better to happen, but

I miss you like the grass misses the rain and the boy across the street misses his drugs and like my best friend misses the love she shared with a boy who couldn't figure himself out.

I miss you like the deaf miss music and blind miss sunsets
I miss your smile and your laugh and your hands and your hair,
even when I poke fun at it.
I wish I wasn't so harsh to you sometimes because really, I'm trying my best to be tough so I don't melt into your arms when I see you because
I'm that scared.

I miss arguing with you like a brother and talking with you like a counselor and loving you like you were the only one left.
Sometimes, I miss just talking to you. Just the sound of your voice or how you used to defend me and tell me you love me and you don't anymore.
You don't do any of that and you wonder why we don't go for coffee 24/7 anymore.
I miss going out for coffee, 24/7.
I miss everything that happened and I wish I could take it all back because I swear to God, if there was one person I felt was meant for me in this whole world,
it would be you.

You said this was the end forever.
You promised me this would be better.
You swore you wouldn't become a stranger.
Before you left you kissed me twice and the second time you lingered.

But in all the days since,
I've not gotten a single look, a word, a kiss.
You've replaced me with an empty distance.
I wish you would've said yes when I asked if I'd be missed.

You held me to make the panic attacks go away.
You sat down beside me when I begged for a few more minutes you'd stay.
You said leaving me wasn't easy-
But now I'm dead to you today.

You said this wasn't the end.
That even though you were leaving you'd be back again.
That even if I wasn't yours I could still be your best friend.
I should've known your words were just pretend.

uncomfortable in skin
repulsed by mirror images
fragmented, yellow face
white paste to hide the decay
slit the belly open
and watch everything
hang open

BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.

Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the cornet staccato and the tuba oompa, gigglers, God knows, gigglers daffy with life's razzle dazzle.

Slow good-night melodies and Home Sweet Home. And the snare drummer bookkeeper in a hardware store nods hello to the daughter of a railroad conductor-a giggler, God knows, a giggler-and the summer-white dresses filter fanwise out of the public square.

The crushed strawberries of ice cream soda places, the night wind in cottonwoods and willows, the lattice shadows of doorsteps and porches, these know more of the story.

I think I loved you most the winter your heating was broken
And we’d stay inside all morning
Pretending to complain that we couldn’t get out of bed
Our clothes becoming little islands on the floor,
Ones that we could not quite find the courage to visit

Your hand stayed glued to my hip,
Your breath warming my shoulder
Like a long drag of whiskey
That kind that had a home so far away,
In a glass bottle on top of your refrigerator.
The one that would not be opened
Until that fateful day in February,
When everything went wrong

And on that unbearable night
When you joked that you’d freeze to death if I left you
There was a long silence
Like it might be true.

Now it’s warm enough
That I show too much skin when sitting in bars
And you avoid me like the plague,
Whispering in any girl’s ear that’s near to you
Every time you see me watching out of the corner of your eye

We should have stayed inside when the ice began to melt
Because I think
When those doors opened and we finally ventured outside
The world had changed,
And so had you and I.