I walked right out the back door as if I knew what I was doing
The whole white dress and heels thing didn't work for me
To the point where I gave up, halfway down the aisle and took my shoes off
I'd have to call that the biggest waste of $150 I can think of
But it made a great photograph

I left glasses all over the house with little chapstick kisses on them
At first, you hated picking them all up so that we would have something to drink out of,
But eventually, you loved the way I sipped each one exactly the same.
Water or tea or champagne, doesn't matter

Wesley was barking in the back yard while you were reading with me
You paused to comment on how silly it was that I named him after a TV show character
I laughed and you reluctantly ceded that it suits him
I never thought reading was a partner activity, but here we were, together

The summer I graduated graduate school, you asked me if it had been worth it
You were ROTC turned mechanic and never really got why I needed to be picked up from the lab six nights a week
But you did it anyway
So probably not
I would have been just fine as an accountant or an insurance seller
I kissed him
"But I wouldn't be nearly this good at chemistry."

When I took you up to Maine for the first time to meet my parents, I don't think you realized how little time I wanted to actually spend with them
Really, I wanted to take you sailing
We road horses with your dad down in Tennessee and I looked like an idiot, so it was only fair
You had your sea legs in a couple of minutes, though, and I had to intentionally capsize us to get your t-shirt wet
The water was too cold for you

You started a garden in the backyard
Granted, it took awhile
You killed everything in it the first three seasons,
But just when you said you didn't care, the strawberries came back
The ones you thought died last summer when you went away on business and I forgot to water them
You let me have the first one that was ripe

We were going to plant a cherry tree
Even though the birds were going to tear through it and make a mess
I was wrong about a lot of things, and I needed you to fix that
So I'm still going to plant that cherry tree
Just one more thing to be wrong about

I thought Christmas lights were kinda silly
We didn't have any kids and it doesn't really get cold here
But you insisted
You put an arch over our driveway and put on silly music
I am so glad that's how you proposed
It wasn't perfect, kind of a mess, actually
But there was no pressure, and you had it figured out

You need minds like me
I've bent over backwards to sculpt a vision of a human being
Some 3D model of a stained glass church window
I see that you've turned me into numbers
How thick and how tall?
How much time did I spend in the library?
But you missed the golden numbers
The ratio of the bones in my fingers which I have so carefully crafted for you
You overlooked the seventy hour work weeks (I was a first responder at a climbing site)
And I'm sure you failed to notice the pictures of my therapy dog on the website I built for you
I keep asking myself what went wrong
What about this wasn't good enough?
You.

God was dead
Or maybe God took a sick day

I'm going to take this love
This love, which I have poured out into paintings of bouquets,
As if my head was fragile,
Maybe if I let too much sun in, it would melt
So I'm going to take this love
All fluid and slippery
I'm going to save it for later

We skipped invocation
Or maybe we forgot or maybe we just knew
He wasn't coming

On the incredibly biased assumption that He is alive and real in the first place,
Steadfast stubbornness and ignorance,
Failure and grief combined
Have led me to believe that he doesn't give a rat's tail
His rat's tail
His creature

Your necklace...
Reflected stage lights in a way I don't think I can picture
Created wavelengths that flow in all the right directions
Your necklace meets my eyes unlike anything I may have considered
Your voice rides its brilliance and softly balances just inside my ears

He's not with us

She didn't cry in the theater
The sound would have echoed, her mascara would have run
Most undignified
So she went to the bathroom,
Hulled up, all lonely
Undignified doesn't begin to describe it
She lost herself, among the seats and the people she couldn't see against the lights
Among the eyeliner and the uncomfortable dress and the fake nails

He wasn't fair,
Or he was looking the other way
Or he was just wrong
I wanted to believe that he makes no mistakes,
But all the anecdotes, all the crying little girls who grow up to be crying young mothers over their crying children
God wasn't there.

Terrified
Written in cursive
Behind your eyes

The messy braided hair
Is all that's left of you
Standing in a white dress

It was seventy degrees outside
You shut the window

"I'm sorry,"
Your handwriting just vexed me
Your pen had too much ink

Your toenails were broken

The white page turned to gaping black
As you crossed out the words
I closed the door and walked away

You said you felt some sort of chill, and I believed you
Must have been a gap between the stark walls and the blanched window frame
I found you a blanket

My father told my sister and I that if we jumped and missed the ground, we'd be flying
And God, I believed him
We spent hours on that trampoline
Wore ourselves silly,
Got jabs from all the pine needles lost to the mesh from acid rain
Not allowed to come into the house until we hosed our feet off

We upgraded our efforts
My father had a pickup truck that we loved,
And we had umbrellas for walking to school with
We tried every height we thought we could get away with no broken bones
And we came close, I landed on my neck once
Morphine in the hospital is sort of like flying
Best attempt we had at the time

When I turned 18, I bought a plane ticket
I had to apologize to my mother, because I never stopped running away
We lived in the valley, and I always saw the moutains which enclosed us as a challenge
But she built us a home, our imaginary flight a simple trick to keep us grounded
It worked for so long, and she held on to her family
So it's only fair. She's earned this apology-
But I've earned this air space
I worked for the money, and paid for this ticket,
A guarenteed four hours of nothing but simulated pressure and clouds obscuring city lines

I should have fought like hell
I should have taken your face in my hands and kissed you all over
I should have woken up
This whole thing is a mess
I was supposed to be the eye of the hurricane, not the impetus
I should have promised
Should have sewn the soles of my shoes into the earth and locked myself down
I should have fought-

My father used to tell my older sister and I that if we wanted to fly
All we had to do was jump and miss the ground on the way back
And we tried
We spent days at a time on that trampoline, jumping and twisting our bodies
And always having something to catch us when we realized we weren't birds

I don't remember when we gave up on flying because we didn't
She bought a car and drove so fast her mind grew wings and she disapeared into smoke stacks of cities I've never heard of
I paid $250 or two weeks of working my part time job and got to really feel it for a couple of hours
My father is waiting for us, like the mesh of that trampoline
To realize that if any kind of bird,
We are homing pigeons

Please wake me up
Next time you see me sweating and clawing into my stomach
When you see the nightmares you can't hear or understand
Don't tell me I need more sleep, don't gently press my hair away
Don't say sweet things silently as if I can hear you
I can't.
Wake me up.

1.
My coat was still in my hand as I walked into school
My hand meant to throw it around my shoulders and zip it up
It was freezing
My hand forgot

2.
You kissed my head as I walked past you on my way out

3.
Good-bye is a curse developed by politicians
Meant to close an argument with the last word
You didn't even give me the chance
"See ya," I whispered under my breath
As if to lift it somehow
Good luck getting my hair out of your shower

4.
For some reason, we have more respect for airplanes than for beat-up off-road pickup trucks
His loafers were more worn out than his hiking boots
His foul-weather jacket has been dry for weeks
It hangs lifelessly on the back of his kitchen chair, waiting for him to get sick of all this and rush out in a hurry

5.
I looked again at the model in the sports magazine
Holding her ponytail out to the side
"She spent too much money on her running shoes," I thought.
"So did I."
But I abused the laces as if they were any other pair
If I had caught my breath, I think it would have been cheating

Qualifications
I'm afraid of falling
Out of airplanes or off cliffs or into the ocean
High heels make me feel as though I'm tiptoeing on the rings around planets
I cannot promise not to step on your toes

Description
When I say "strong," I don't mean that I need you to sweep me off my feet
At some point, we grew out of the Victorian Era,
Girls aren't ornamental glass paperweights
I will not live in my flower garden
I will work late nights, too

To Apply
The exam starts the instant you walk in the room
No way to cheat, but this time, there may be second chances
Your kisses have to mean something
You have to take decisive steps as we dance

Turns out I didn't need saving
Sure, I was in hell
I came out heaving and sweating
I would have taken a hand if it was offered
But it wasn't
Those who couldn't make it were pulled out by the collar of their shirts
So as much as I thought I was dying
As much as I thought I was one of those being packed up and sent home
As much as I didn't want to be gasping on the ground that day
There I was

I looked down at the field of cigarette butts and broken glass I was walking across
I would have laid down right there,
Even if the tiny fires hadn't gone out yet
We have to drag our corpses just a little bit further.

If she came to me in a dream,
I sure as hell didn't notice
But she's here now
Hauling herself along side me
She doesn't carry any of the weight

I was heavy in my sneakers
Heavy across the joints in my knees
So heavy, my hair sagged as if it were wet
We stood there, on the edge of anything
Holding hands, kissing oxygen
She was tired

I inhaled the silence
We had used up everything,
Left nothing for the return trip
A sharp contrast to my conservative, planning self
I gave in to fear, threw up, let my hands tremble
She died, here, holding my hand. At least she wasn't alone this time

I cursed her name, the soles of her shoes, her chipping nail polish
If she came to me in a dream, I sure as hell didn't notice

I needed some sort of lullaby so I fell asleep with headphones in
But no music playing
The sound of my dog breathing,
Close enough

He told us to get used to it, so we did
Some odd combination of benadryl and lack of sleep
On that one occasion
Your skin felt like leather and your eyes didn't make any sense

You wanted to ask about my bruises
I saw it flash across your face for a second
You couldn't decide and I put my sweater back on and it didn't matter anymore
Out of sight, out of mind

We were smiling, and peaceful
We were happy, for ******* once, and then we woke up
Draped across your notebook
I was sideways in the chair like I always am
My calculator was out of battery

Thursday hit like very large, very loud truck

I glanced over at my long un-used bed,
Still un-made
My hair undone
I checked my phone for texts from you,
Threw my brush in my backpack already on my shoulder
Left my door open and my lights on

"Get used to it."

I regret the snow
It didn't make any sense to hear from a girl who hasn't known anything but the Northeast, but she wasn't done
I miss the grass

She was listening to country music
It ripped up her insides and forced her to spit them out
Hiraeth- homesick for a place you've never been
She stitched ankle bands that looked like Grecian sandals but had no souls
She went out and stood on rain soaked wood
I would have kissed her if she wanted to be kissed but she just wanted to be warm

I don't blame her, I guess
Seattle radio shows don't talk about the rain because it causes mass depression
But I gave her something to love
Something other than jump ropes made of hoses and raspberry thorns
I don't melt when the sun dissipates
I could have held her...
She left yesterday.

i stood there in the door frame for the first time
the one that led from your bathroom to your master,
if you could call it that,
the Veneer was chipping where my hand came to rest
i'm pretty sUre that it was the first time i'd seen another body.
i watched you breathe,
sLid my hand down the wall
couNted down, hoping to suddenly feel ready to expose myself
there you werE
you sank into the bed like it was something anyone else could have dRowned it
you couldn't, i observed
you remAined still, watching me as i watched you
slowly curling up into a smile
i matched your Body
moved so achingly sLowly
held on to nothing but night and lEarned to trust you

"'S hurts..." I slurred
"What hurts?"
"...hurts."
I certainly wish I could have been more coherent, but I fell kinda hard
A stranger ran his hands over me, pressed something up against my leg before he called the hospital
It was starting to drizzle
I heard it turn into a thunderstorm against the ambulance
He left our bikes and carried my body off the towpath
I'm not completely convinced I was still alive at the time
He had his shirt tied around my leg- they cut it off on the way, replaced it with something not soaked in sweat
People were asking me questions and I think I was answering but I'm not quite sure
I woke up in a hospital room, the stranger sat beside me
He put his head in his hands, breathing, "Oh thank God,"
He almost had to watch me die, a mistake in manufacturing bike chains
And a steep cliff
His clothes were covered in my blood but he wasn't
They cleaned him up and gave him a new shirt
"Thank you," I whispered. I wanted to say more
But I think I was still digging my way out of my deep grave on that bike path
I was discharged, took a taxi home, and never saw him again

It was either eat, or be eaten
Jump, or be pushed
And it was both
It was a memory you didn't want to keep
A person you didn't want to kiss
But your lips are stained, now

I tip-toed around it
Around you, sometimes
When I had to

I was digging in the yard the other day
I know you've always hated when I do that
I ended up finding things you wanted to keep buried
I would never ask you,
But sometimes you find it falling off your tongue like pebbles down a waterfall
We sat there for hours, ashamed of ourselves

I was home when you got there
You walked in with your coat off,
Turned around, put it back on and left
I found a friend to stay with, and she took me to church
I sat there, vacantly

We were home over the weekend
Cooked noodles, took the dog for a hike
Everything was fine,
The weather was unseasonably warm, I noticed
Over and over again

I think I hated you that night
And I think that it hurt me more than it hurt you
As if you got scratches while I was impaled-
But I am definitely wrong. We were both broken. Usually people come out of tragedy closer together
But we came out with our loaded guns still pointed at each other
I've never seen someone shake so much

Balcony doors,
Fourth floor motel room
Too far from home, too close to each other
I wish you would have struck me
As I was standing, the heels of my hands dug into the windowsill, whole heartedly ready to lose consciousness,
I needed absolutely any reason to leave that dead-end bedroom

"When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on."

I sat on the edge of the pool, heaving last Friday
"I thought this would be easy," I shouted at the lifeguard who was actually on duty in between heavy breaths
We've been mates for awhile I suppose, so I wasn't uncomfortable wearing almost no clothes in front of him
My relay partner was returning so I stood up, still breathing too hard,
Ignoring the bruises on my shins from the side of the pool
I jumped in, turning to face him (terminator style) as the water swallowed me,
Grabbed the brick, swam the fifty
Stood up on the edge right away this time, entirely focused on my body and my partner

I got lost on a mountain once
My friend and I had been climbing nearly straight up for an hour before we realized we'd lost the trail
We also realized that going down would be infinitely more challenging than coming up
Covered in scratches and bruises, with burs in our hair and the sun setting and no idea how we had lost the Appalachian, we called my dad
When I finally got home, with no help from him, he said,
"I'm glad you got lost. You learned something today."
The water I had hidden in his pickup truck may have saved our lives

A football player pushed me up onto the two foot side of the pool to do a tricep dip at the instruction of my teacher
This was the first time I realized how weak I was, pale and sickly and tired and trying to change
We have already done fifty nine pushups and sit ups and sprints on the deck
I passed out at six pm that night
And got up at six am the next day
Wrapped my wrists for English and chemistry,
And replaced the braces with grips when I got to the gym

I think disappointed was the only word I could come up with as my sister drove me to the ER the day before she left for college
She'd spent eighteen years growing up, and this was the first time I felt like she was still a child,
Scared and vulnerable, turning off the lights for me while we waited for the doctor and my dad
More CT scans,
"Lie still, don't move,"
I could swear I was in a mortuary, in my coffin, too young for my liking
This was before my second training session, and I was afraid I was going to have to quit

My girlfriend and I did our first run together, holding steady to her 11 minute-mile-pace
Except for the mandatory sprints on my training app
I took her in between trees and across the farmland I grew up on
There was no talking, we each had our own music
But she got to feel something I loved, and I got to be with her, sense her footsteps out of sync with my own
We got caught in the rain

"Excuse me, Coach, Sir," I said out of habit, when he told me to call him Coach and not Sir
It was the first time I passed my physical for a sport
He had me running three miles on the first day, and the second, and the third, and I got lost
(This became a running theme in my quest to "get better")
Suddenly, I wasn't the girl in the hospital gown anymore,
Although the one person on the team who knew me asked me if I had my medication every day
If I didn't, he stayed back with me
He was safe, for some reason
I ran my second 10k that year

At any given time
Brushing my teeth with my eyes clothes
Letting your soul leak out onto my skin
"This is crazy," I thought for the first time,
Singing vintage music in your beat-up convertible

I was in a good mood
Maybe it was John Mayer
Or my second Doctor Pepper
Or the cliff to the left of us
You were behind the wheel, and for the first time, I was not afraid of falling

Maybe there was a hurricane
I've never seen one before, I wouldn't know
All I know is that we came out kicking, and dancing
Like you had carried an old record player the whole way
Nothing but your grace keeping it dry
My heartbeat perfectly in tune to your footsteps
My soul, your rhythm
"My hands, your bones"

Your car breaking down on the narrowest stretch of that road,
As it does
Laughing at the sports cars driving too carefully on the pass
Leaning against your scrap heap in the middle of the road
"Totaled?" I asked
"Nah. But I'll sell it to someone who knows how to fix it."
Knowing that axel grease would make a perfect cologne, but you preferred pine

Let me be perfectly clear: we were not in love
Love would be complicated
Splitting hairs and asking about feelings
Your soul would be afraid to touch me, and your soul made me feel vibrant
We were nothing but real

I don't feel lucky
You would have found me if I were invisible
You were looking for a girl in hiking boots with her ball gown
Dancing to the tune caused by flickering stars on and off instead of the orchestra
And I don't know how many of us there really are anymore
Girls who aren't afraid to ruin their clothes and can still use a compass

The tow truck came at the just the wrong time
When you jokingly dipped me over the side of the road, like you were going to let go
But I've already explained- I was not afraid of heights
You were a sturdy harness maintained by a practiced climber
Any sort of chaos was braided into the ropes which made them stronger
We were laughing as we both crammed into single passenger seat of the truck and inched down the mountain

You were never meant to be real
I dreamed you up when I was six or seven and dismissed you as childish folly by age sixteen
Trust me, boys were the most escoteric of social constructs
Put in place to make skirts shorter and hair longer,
Eyes bluer,
Entirely alien
So when you kissed me on the bridge overlooking the waterfall we'd just climbed out of,
As my hair drenched the old, rotting wood underfoot,
We could've fallen apart
People wake up from dreams, right?
Today, I can't remember how the story goes

There's a theory in thermodynamics
For every reaction that occurs, some energy and order is lost to the universe
Heading towards complete disarray in the grand scheme of things
So naturally, right as things started to make sense,
As soon as my life clicked together in tessellated, repeating structures,
I followed the rules of my chemistry teacher and got black-out drunk
My life has become that floral shirt shirt you can't wear with anything
You thought it was pretty in the store-
They had it dressed up on a mannequin with sleek black pants
It looked edgy, and professional
But you aren't that mannequin

"I love you,"
Scrawled out as an afterthought
My handwriting increasing in size as I ran out of words for you
I have often been named a human dictionary, but I didn't want to give myself away this time
I wasn't even sure I wanted to leave a note
I taped it to the back of a painting
You'll find it eventually

The desert welcomed me with open arms, but was only a pause
Eighty years is a long time, and three days doesn't make a difference till the end
So my pocket radio cut in and out as I dipped into the grand canyon
They recommend a gallon of water per person,
But I figured a can of coke and a little soul could hold on for now

She wound up dead on a highway
"Bought a farm," said some of my favourite authors
"So it goes."


Her body's breaking down into smaller particles
Her hair is evaporating
All that's left is her ruined paint set in a plain white apartment

I don't even remember his name,
But at the time, I swore I was going to marry him
With as much conviction as someone with their finger halfway down on the trigger of a loaded gun
I have been fired at some odd angle towards bullet-proof glass
And for the first time in my entire life,
I don't know how I'm going to make it out of this

I needed something to hold onto
And maybe you weren't as sturdy as I had hoped for,
But you were in front of me
Some sort of rope to hold the universe together
You were the wrong kind of thread
One shouldn't use twine to sew skin

I remember the night I rushed home
That road looked like an oil slick
Halfway there, I hoped I could melt into the pavement,
As if mermaids could swim in asphalt
The emergency was that you had run out of cigarettes
I was a graduate student, out of money and out of place
And you were exactly like a hurricane

At some point I was so tired it didn't matter
I would have kissed anyone

There are so many broken windows
And we're
Fine
We're
dancing around the word because neither of us will say it
We promised to be honest in this relationship
But you have PTSD and I have to move on with my life

I have long brown hair and green blue eyes
I didn't realize I had blacked out until I noticed my reflection was in a hospital instrument and I was in a hospital gown
They call them gowns for a reason
I imagined you pulling me out of that cot and holding me up as we danced in the crowded emergency room hallway
But you weren't there when I came around
Or when they performed my exam
Or when I signed my discharge papers
You showed up only when you felt too guilty to send a taxi
I remembered the days I drove that car
And slipped into a dream where I was behind the wheel

We crashed

At some point I was so tired it didn't matter
I would have kissed anyone

I fell asleep outside my first class room this morning
When my teacher arrived shortly thereafter, he quietly unlocked the door and let himself in, as he always does when I wash up like this
Which is frequently
Twenty four hours wasn't enough for one day
So I stretched it out for as long as I could

he died where he Stood
refused To fall
hit and hit again
i watched from a distance
Remembered who he was befOre he joined up
aNd it was just like this
just like him to stand there as lonG as he could
his buddy caught his shoulder, the first one to see him waiver aside from myself
he was gone before he hit the ground

I woke up on the couch with a blanket I didn't get for myself
He sat on the chair opposite of me, still in his army uniform
Like a brother I never had
"I got your letters. After all that, I wasn't going to wake you up."
Twelve weeks later and he still worried about me
I laughed before I even picked my head up
He sat on the coffee table in front of me and kissed my forehead
I almost fell asleep again, I felt safe
I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me up so we could hug
He stayed till midnight
He could have stayed forever, I wouldn't mind
We could have gone out for Italian ice.
But he had pt in the morning and I had lab and
I can't wait to see how he turns out

After all that, I still had my eyeliner on
My mascara-
After all that screaming
After you left
I feel like I'm in the waiting room at a hospital
My heart is in surgery
And it's not going to make it
I keep waiting for you to come back through the door but you're long gone
You're running away to Maryland, I'm waiting to turn 19
I messed up the nail polish on my toes in the same living room where it all shattered
I fell asleep hanging upside down off my bed with the lights on
And my eyeliner in place
And my mascara

Deconstruct my body
Pull my shoulders out and wrap them around your body
I'll stand here, still like a barbie doll
I guess I was built for it,
I was taught to be polite and always keep my hair neat
I walked back to my apartment alone at night
So deconstruct me
Find all the lifeless, plastic pieces in excruciating detail

I would have given anything for an ambien last night

"As many loops at possible," she whispered.
We were sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, hoping to see her sister's newborn child. She was sewing.
My hands were shaking, and the stitches came out crooked, but she said I did perfect

I was sweating.
It was late and I thought I had been dreaming, but I couldn't sleep
It was a hazy, drug induced dream
Muddled by clouds and glare from an unpresent sun

I was under water, all of a sudden, I guess
But my clothes felt as though they had been soaked forever, like I had grown up there in the lake
Or the sea, I couldn't tell
I held my breath, calm and steady, and found the surface
But I remained, until my heart beat solidified to stone,
And I breached oxygen

That bed was a prison
I couldn't imagine morning through my open blinds
All I can remember is my muscles curling in on themselves and my mind imploding
My body was a black hole I couldn't escape
2 am was eternity that I was slouching towards

She was looming over me, I must have passed out on the couch
She kissed my cheek and dragged me up
Breakfast was ready, she said
There was something across me
The blanket, she had finally finished sewing
Right in the center was the square I had sewn at the hospital
I thought she had thrown it out
As I stared hazily, trying to shake the cobwebs out,
She smiled from the kitchen
"Come on, up you get," she gestured, and disappeared into the light

I wish my lotion had glitter in it
I also wish my head didn't hurt
I had a nightmare that I was back in the hospital the day my insurance company denied my medication
I can't afford it,
So I can't sleep now
But yesterday I dreamed I was back in the hospital like when I was a kid
I was only there a couple of times, for testing and for times I forgot my medication
There was a bit of a learning curve for a seven year old
But I'm moving out next year
I've already learned
I take my vitamins, I go to my doctor visits
I finally got my sports clearances,
But I can't drive a car without my medication
I can't work somedays either
So as I lay here, by myself, I can't help but remember the nurse who gave me a friendship bracelet in the emergency room on Christmas
The saline in my arm was cold, and they stopped giving me blankets because I had a fever
I was twelve years old and it was snowing in Atlanta for the first time in years
I couldn't tell from my windowless room
The nurse put lotion on my hands with glitter in it
I had a fever because I was dehydrated
I was dehydrated because I forgot my medication at home in Pennsylvania.

I know I said I wasn't coming home tonight, but
Leave me space in the bed.