To the two boys who think I owe them something.
My heart doesn't belong to either of you,
and your spindly fingers clenching it
don't look enough like ribbon
to fool me into thinking that
my love is a gift to you.
To the two of you,
so willing to give me
your monthly allowances of text messages
yet not your loyalty.
For thinking that an "honest" apology
fixes me having to question why
just me was never good enough
for either of you.
You were both greedy,
you always wanted more.
Now run free and fill your stomach with all the flavours that will burn your taste buds and scorch your tongue.
To both of you for being willing enough to open my box with a key that I never gave you,
rifle through my thoughts and feelings,
and not even open your ears to them,
leaving the lid off
and the contents strewn across your floor.
For offering to help me pick them back up again,
but only because my "small, little arms" are not strong enough to carry my own weight that I've carried for
fifteen years on my own.
Here's to both of you for putting me down about being small.
That is NOT my fault.
I have a mighty big cathedral for a heart and a generous brain
and that's all within 5"2.
It doesn't make you any bigger than me
(metaphorically).
Your few feet advantage doesn't give you
the power above me,
even if you can see the roots of my hair in more detail
than you would ever care to observe
the fault lines of my cracked smile.
Boys are being taught that
to love me
is to fix me,
that I am some kind of messy enigma,
a project, a goal.
I'm just a girl with a family, a girl with a head, with a spiders web of veins and a lifetime of lessons that I'm opening my arms and my heart to.
You mistake yourself for a lesson,
when I'm fully qualified to teach myself.

You diagnose yourselves
as "depressed".
Mental illness is not an accessory,
nor a quirk to make you seem more vulnerable to me.
Don't brandish it in the air,
it is not a weapon against me.
It doesn't make you adorable,
or some kind of cuddly bear boy.
Everything that's
"killing you"
is just as toxic to me.
You set my skin into blue flames
because I won't give myself to you.
No,
no,
no.
I'm tangled in my rejection,
and it thickens.
I can't be with you out of pity.
My guilt, raging deep within my bowels,
marching violently through my organs,
exploding into a supernova of
thinking that love and guilt are almost the same thing.
"I'll do anything",
I don't want anything from you.
"I'll write you a poem because I know how much you love that."
I also love being respected but neither of you ever gave me that.
My craft is not a tool of trickery,
and your words not a trance.
"I'm not like him".
But you still act like my skin is a carpet to your home,
and you walk across it with muddy boots.

You think you're a blanket to keep me warm,
but you ended up suffocating me.
To the boys who think I owe you them something,
go home.

I had my first dream last night that you weren't in.
not even a minor character,
your ****** name wasn't even in the credits,
let alone plastered across the sky in flashing lights
like you want it to be.
my first reality that you didn't belong in,
and it was the most blissful peace that I can remember since we bathed in pools of cloud.

I heard the first song that didn't make me think of you yesterday.
the lyrics, for once, were just lyrics,
not an embodiment of you and the things you do.
guess what?
it was coldplay.
you always hated coldplay.

this morning, I basked in the sun and didn't picture you coated in gold light beside me.
I didn't look at the leaves adorning the trees and picture your face laughing beneath it.

I didn't trace the plate lines of my palm and imagine the earthquake we used to create when yours collided with mine.

I didn't eat new food that I wanted you to try and I didn't want to share the smallest details of my day with you.

you may have won this poem, loverboy,
but don't be too triumphant.
your victory won't last long.
it's the era of my new beginnings without you and I'm going to be just fine.

I don't think about it any more
I take out the trash
noting
Sticks caught in the crotch of a tree
The wind does what the wind does
breaks weaker branches down
does not care where
it leaves
them
on its invisible way

Days do what the days do
they don't count themselves
worthy as they go
to release
the afternoon
to evening—
an artless
emptying
to a low spot
where tears tend to pool
if I'd let them down

“You know,
in that low spot
out there...?”
Where it's hard to see
Where its hard to care?

They take heart
out
divide it by energy
for sadness—
I haven't got

Watched the clock go round
wipe out my little plans
with relentless hands

...and I never got dressed today

you wake up
his hair is spilled across the pillow,
the sun slants across his cheekbone
and his breath is slow and even.
he smells like an open field
and his body is wrapped around yours
so he keeps you warm.
you think,
there is no moment better than this,
that he is too perfect to exist.
but you wake up gasping,
skin soaked in sweat.
you lie there for a long time,
in your completely empty bed.

to be loved in the open

this is all I can ask

as a girl who has been
   kissed only in dark corners
   pushed out of view at the last second
   always unclaimed

the darkest days were the ones where
   old loves pretended not to know how they knew me
   my body felt used and cheap

discarded. my dear,

I ask to be loved in the light

and claimed

Your body is a sanctuary

I look at you and
I see the places you have gone

Your body is a spaceship

What textures have traveled beneath your fingertips?
What sights have you seen?

I worship at your temple
Bless me with yourself