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Ris Howie Dec 2013
I can only make myself write about the people who don't hurt, those that don't matter.
I can't wait for the day that I can write about you.
Ris Howie Dec 2013
September 25th 2012
I was in your bathtub and we were laughing about the fact that we were so close awkward moments didn't exist. I put bubbles on your thigh and you made that squeaky noise I wasn't supposed to tell anyone you could make, it wasn't manly.
October 1st 2012
I was driving on highway 80 and I couldn't really see because the windshield wipers didn't work on water inside of the car. You couldn't tell me what you wanted and I knew that meant it wasn't me you just didn't fully know it yet.
October 2nd 2012
You tried to do it with 180 characters but I wasn't having that and when you called your voice broke before you could say my name. The number of times you said I love you in those twenty minutes outnumbered how many times you had in the past two weeks, by tens.
November 10th 2012
I cried in your sisters arms because yours weren't there and she smelled like your fabric softener.
November 25th 2012
I packaged all your letters in a box with a few of my own and mailed them back. You called me to ask why I would do that to you. I asked you why it mattered and you told me you slept with the blanket we made love on every night. I didn't know why that mattered either.
December 27th 2012
I laid in someone else's arms and they held me while I cried about whether anyone else's arms felt like home. He didn't deserve it, neither did I. This is my apology for trying to move on and bringing him into it.
January 11th 2013
You saw me for the first time and even though you hate tattoos you told me mine was ****. You were drunk and you thought my shirt needed a few more buttons, you didn't like anyone else to see  me when you couldn't. You told me not to tell you I wasn't in love with you anymore. I told you that was what you had wanted.
February 13th 2013
He had cancer and you were the only person I knew how to tell. But you were busy and you said if I was going to pull that **** to take it somewhere else. I learned who you were that night even though you'd always told me.
March 2nd 2013
It wasn't a special day, nothing happened. But I realized I had stopped letting it be about you. I stopped thanking you for letting me go and just let go.
Ris Howie Dec 2013
They said it's too late to die young,
I think you took that as an invitation to grow up, grow old.
What you like to imply is that the scares don't really hurt anymore,
because even though they **** me on the inside,
you live under the impression that your insides have already died.

The poetry in your veins tells you the first time you died was when your mom had better things to do that watch you live,
I think you believe death has engulfed your soul,
I want to tell you to breath that burst says you're alive.

If you can no longer feel your heart allow me to,
and remember if the only way to remember you're still here is to mark it down on you,
remember only live tissue can turn black and blue
Ris Howie Dec 2013
My English teacher always said let's unpack the meaning,
sometimes I really wanted to tell her *******- maybe the person who wrote it wanted it to stay packaged nicely in it's box.

We write because we feel
or because we don't.

If the brook is running into the ocean, and the water is flowing fast
why does it need to be symbolic for the tears that flow through the current of our lives and empty us,
let it be a **** brook.

We write because we feel
or because we don't.

If the wallpaper is yellow, it's fading, it's flowers now appear to be dripping off the walls,
why does it need to be a metaphor for the rejection of a lover and the deterioration of a soul,
let it be a **** old house.

We write because we feel
or because we don't.

My English teacher always said let's unpack the meaning,
sometimes I really wanted to tell her *******- because when I wrote my last piece
I let the pieces of me burst because I didn't want the world to see how I was feeling.

We write because we feel
*until we don't.
Ris Howie Dec 2013
I haven't met someone I wanted to be vulnerable to around, really ever.

The intimacy always snuck up on me with quiet and calculated missteps,
or I forced it in.
I never did it right I never took it slow.

But the fact that the only place your hand has ever been is on the top of my thigh, resting carefully palm open, trying to reflect no meaning--
I feel safe.
I hope someday you get to love me,

because for the first time I feel safe to let you
Ris Howie Dec 2013
When I dreamt of my future it didn't include the cheap polyester of sterilized hospital gowns.

I didn't envision the white walls of my castle would hold brightly colored doctor's office posters.
They forget to mention the princess pale skin doesn't always come with a crown,
And cherry lips don't always result from a prince.
When you are told at age eight to be the hero of your own story,
It's forgotten to say that some find superhero strength forced upon them as the solitary option.

When I dreamt of my future it didn't include the cheap polyester of sterilized hospital gowns.
But now it's a perk of the gig,
the perpetually ill princess kid.
Ris Howie Dec 2013
Composition books are too much of a commitment for me.

An everyday analogy for the girl who sneaks

Across Memphis streets at four a.m.

To keep from staying too long in the sheets above you

And previously below me.
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