I was plunged into darnkess
It was windy when I walked to school this morning
Loud enough to hear
Strong enough that I wasn't wearing enough jackets
My friend hit me in the head yesterday
By accident of course, but
I haven't felt quite right since then
Maybe I needed time
Or a cup of hot tea
Or some sort of shelter out wind and drizzle that had kicked up
I finally understood the idea of dread
Like being pinned to the ground and screaming up at nothing
Like cold,
Like chills I couldn't possibly forget, my entire body moving, my blood a slow frozen river

And there was a great fire
It gripped onto her toes like Heaven as it pulled her closer to Hell
I've never seen someone in such ghastly pain stand so still
She didn't close her eyes until the flames cut her hair short
She shut them tight and heaved out, just before she collapsed
I felt myself lurch and the flames went out, all in slow motion
She was gone the same instant she hit the hardwood floor
Not burned, but poisoned by the air she had been breathing
And she still looked beautiful

Let's see what we're made of-
Said the chemist to the architect
They built a house out of glass and stone and burned it down
Their technical achievement is of little consolation to family they installed there

"Why don't you just put that down and work on your essays?"
"You know what Mom? Why don't I just drop everything I love?
Why don't I just become a stick straight, porcelain calculating and writing machine
With perfectly brushed blonde hair and blue eyes
Why don't I just become perfect-
Perfect-
(Broken record)
Perfect-"

Autumn hit us like a truck
Our 90 degree race was promptly followed by days of 40 degree practice
Our elbows chaffing against our shirts, nevertheless grateful for the rest,
The shelter from the humidity
I don't think I was actually breathing as I crossed the threshold of the second lap of our three mile loop
In some odd twist of fate, I'll be running in the varsity semifinals next week
As my lungs tried to tear themselves from my chest, I tried to remind myself that this wasn't my first run
I've had six months of slamming my heels into the ground, just like every other ******* this trail
I heave every time someone passes me
I think, "Just one more deep breath and I will cross that line,"
I think that my height is betraying me and my joints are grinding to a painful halt
I think that I am still moving.

We few, poorly oiled machines,
Working sixty hour weeks from age 16
Our sunburns as much a part of us as our high school transcripts
You can read us by sun stains on our skin
The places our burns peeled and left scars
We are not unlucky
I recieved a scholarship to an honors school
But I have to work for the rest of the tuition.
I have to work, so I miss pedicures and dinner dates
I'll take my notebook with me
I'll study on the walk home in the pouring rain if I have to
I have to work
People keep telling me that we all just want the world handed to us
I am halfway up the wall just grasping at the rope to climb
I am as privaleged as I'd like to be and still understand that
I have to work
I have to prove to you that I can contribute to the society holding my spine straight and my shoulders up
We lovely few insomniacs
Who will still be at practice in the morning
At work at night
And turn in an A- paper on time the next day
We are just getting to bed now
The alarm goes off in two hours and that's alright
We'll do what we have to and we'll love what we do
Life was not engineered to be a vacation. Nobody is holding our hands and we do not miss the hotel pool.

I want to be that girl you knew in high school
You associate me with the colour of my notebook
I always had an extra pencil or a bottle of water
I drank tea
yeah, that was it
I wore galaxy tshirts flowy skirts
And I was only there for a second
You turned away from me and I was gone
I walked home from school, you never saw me on buses or in car lines
But you saw me walking my dog
I went to every show you were in
I left a note in your cast bag each time
I invited you hiking every weekend in the spring
I never went
You always noticed when I wore a dress because I almost never wore a dress
We were in all the same classes
You always asked me "how I did on that test"
But you can't remember
You met my dog once,
When I was walking her through the park and you were fishing with your dad
that was you?
You remember me by my glasses and the length of my pony tail in gym
You remember me by my essays which the teacher used as examples
You remember me by the Facebook request that you never accepted or declined
You think you know me, but you can't remember
You saw me at a football game once,
maybe,
Or at the library some Saturdays
You saw my online profile listed next to "people you may know"
I have worked so hard to be part of your background

When I told my therapist I was doing better, she asked what was working
"It helps to focus on the future," I said.
"And the Benadryl. The Benadryl helps a lot."
And turning the fan on too high, and leaving all the lights on until seconds before I fall asleep
In high school, I performed a poem about a girl telling her therapist about a vision
This doesn't feel like that
When I said somebody else's words, I always felt the anticipation, and the relief,
And the words being held back because you don't want the person who knows you're crazy to think you're crazy
This doctor mirrors me
Echoes the disappointment I feel in myself
I went home and called my mom:
She said it will take awhile to find someone I feel I can trust, and I said
"Yeah, I know,"
As I sat alone in my bedroom in my silent apartment with no friends to call
It's getting late, and I remember what my therapist said about the Benadryl
You can't drown things out by sleeping through them
The side effects shoot through my skull like walking into the same doorframe every morning
I don't usually stay up this late
They sell two brands at my small town drug store
The pharmacist knows me by the way I know exactly what I'm looking for
She said she was worried about me when I came less often
But I had just stopped taking antidepressants
I "didn't need to anymore."
I "had my life planned out."
Now, it's been three days since I did any dishes and three weeks since I've washed my clothes
I've been wearing the same workout shorts and Doctor Who tshirt on all of my little outings for days
I'm drinking lukewarm water from a mug and I'm fascinated by the little rings made by the oil in my chapstick
Some people call it agoraphobic but I call it safe
My therapist asked me if running was helping and I said
"Yes. While I'm sill running."
I learned as a kid that you can't run forever, but God I tried
I once ran until I fell over at the end of a road and had to call my parents for help
(I showed her the bruises)
I only just learned to sleep with my window open
I used to send my friend terrified messages at two in the morning
I don't think he was thoroughly convinced of the utter horror I felt when all he saw was the word "crickets"
But I am an expert Jeopardy player.
My therapist asked if trivia games make me feel better and I said
"No. Because sometimes I get a question wrong and I realize I haven't been working hard enough."
"The only thing I'm really confident of is that I'm not working hard enough"
I wrote that in my diary, after eight hours of classes and six hours of studying
I got dressed up for a dance I didn't go to
I ran out of Benadryl yesterday
So I'm still up a three thirty in the morning but that's alright
My therapist promised I'd be better off without it.

All the good girls don't want to be good anymore
They want to get undressed
They're stripping to their ******* and dancing to Take me to Church
Good girls getting high and eating carbohydrates
Good girls wondering what was so great about being good
About being skinny and sitting in the front of the class
Good girls shredding their 4.0 transcript and missing work for the first time
Good girls are ruining their best pair of shoes in the rain in the parking lot
All the good girls just traded in their carpools for motorcycles
They've burned their old textbooks
They're trading greek yogurt for whiskey
Good girls don't know what danger feels like
They don't understand near misses or almost endings
Icarus flew too close to the sun
But Icarus was a beautiful backlit silhouette before he dripped out of existence and drowned
All the good girls thought they were drowning,
Thought they could drink themselves out
Maybe their angel wings would melt in the neon lights and they would be human again
All the grit they put into class was supposed to hold them together
But they've decided it was just sand paper, tearing their skin off
They've swiped eyeshadow on their ******* and called it art

All the good girls woke up hungover for the first time in a stranger's bed
All the phone lines are jammed: they're calling their father's and their priests
They want to confess and apologize
They've thrown away all of the gifts they have been blessed with
Except one
She stopped believing in miracles
Something was different
Maybe it was the way she cut her hair
Or the tattoo she got on her ankle last night screaming courage out to her
But she'll kiss him one more time before she leaves and never see him again
She wants to stain his memories until she is nothing but a figment of his mind
She'll walk out to her car with just a tshirt over her *******, barefoot with heels in hand
She wants to drive him mad
Maybe it was the way she filled in her eyebrows
Or exactly the right amount of *****, but
Her mother was dead
And her father was a conservative who believed in closing the wage gap
She could be revolutionary

It's the most American thing I can think of
They've been wrapped around my body since 4:15 am
It takes 30 students 2 hours to stick 2,996 flags into our soccer field
The array becomes mangled as our hands blister
As the mud cakes into our clothing
The first stains I will never be able to wash out or forget
It's impossible to envision each flag growing out of the ground into a human being who can go home to their family
Because they can't; we've just stuck sticks into the ground
As if that's any solace to anyone, us, let alone their loved ones
Dead, mowed grass cakes in the hem of my new jeans
Thick and durable, woven for farm work
All of the little kids will wonder why the flags are there- it was before their time
Taught to them as history, the start of the War on Terrorism
I remember it as smoke, as human lives, as stitches in my blue jeans
As people who didn't turn away when freedom was compromised
Our virtues true, we patriots must rise
More than the flags, more than the smoke
More than crashed airplanes and burning buildings

I'll cry all night if I have to.
I can't shake the feeling that I'm imperfect
And for some reason,
That still matters

And you can do that
You are free to leave at any time, just
Don't expect me to follow you

Her plait was just as much a part of her as the vertibrae it brushed against

All I can see in my head is her running away from me

Old windows and old floors that aren't soundproof
Forty year old cigarette habits
And a dying town
A town full of people who hope they'll get washed away by the tides in their sleep
A town full of people who don't want to talk about how much they've spent on smoking or why they didn't just get a ******* divorce
Multimillion dollar homes and unpainted wood
It feels unfinished to me, but really
They're empty
I couldn't sleep through the ghastly silence
Of dying people who will never walk onto their five acre yards or 25 acre forests
It's too hard for their old, decaying bodies
Old lights that twinkle with effort to turn on and shut off as though they've been holding their breath
These people are holding their breath
They think they can never change and things will get better
Nature will bend to their will and they can get back to their old, dusty lives
But nature has just over grown
Sends it's condolences for the death of the woman who is still alive

I watched you leave me like you left everyone else
I think you forgot I was human
You thought you could just fade out
But when I give my speech at graduation,
I will deliberately leave holes where you should be
All the places we've been
That was us!
Together
You can't just decided to walk away
You have to say something
You have to stitch yourself shut
You shot me and left me with my hand over the bullet wound as if I could stop any bleeding
You didn't want me to die and you figured I'd figure it out
I will never admire you again
You will never be the god I though you were
You're just a wooden carving, just a story told to children to make then behave
But you aren't human

It would take them about an hour to realize I wasn't coming home from work
My father left me a truck and a full tank of gas
My house is two miles in a near straight line
But there are three highways 350 feet away and I could go 25 to 90 in seconds
Home must be hundreds of miles away
Because it's late but the street lamps look seductive
How easily I could leave it all behind
How hard it would be for anyone to tell which way I went
I turned left at the stoplight
House is a mile away in a straight line
Home is drowning in road signs and streetlights behind me
But it promises ressurect when I lose faith again tomorrow.

Heroes aren't real,
And you were always too good to be true

I've been letting home feel less like home
It feels like an apartment I'm borrowing for the semester
My friends suggested detachment and I embraced it
I've got no one to come back to
I've read that text a thousand times since I let myself think about it
Every time I do I feel an inch further away
Something broken, but the edges were soft
There was nothing to cut myself on or trip over except for him
He left himself square in the way, but he also left.
He hurts, all on his own

I sat in my truck with the ac on and the radio off
I was humming and flashing back and forward in time, looking for somewhere to fit
When I didn't find one, I opened my eyes to the sunset and the building I work in
I need to go home
But there's an on ramp to the highway just down the road
Far away felt so much closer than home did
I wonder how long I'll force myself to stay if I don't just hold onto the acceleration
I wonder how many times I'll paint mars before I lose my mind and burn the papers
"She's dreaming of outer spaces but she's studying to be an accountant"
She's got the brains for it, too
She could build her own rocketship and take off tomorrow
Texas is a thirty six hour drive away that I have typed into my gps more times than I would like to admit before turning it off
Just to see what traffic's like
The radio that isn't on is like flies in my ear
All of the songs about leaving
Just one right turn and I would never see this place again
But I've got to go to bed, I've got work tomorrow

She looked dangerous,
Standing there smiling over her shoulder
She had a word to herself
A word that ruined lives
Broke worlds, tore our castle down
But it could have been worth it
Sickeningly beautiful
I couldn't find it anywhere else
Only in her and her english
Relentless, she pursued this fantasy
She was getting herself killed but fireworks are stunning
I was stunned and stuck in my place
She was driving too fast and leaving without me
Just her smile left to haunt me from the mirrors of her car
Reckless.

I didn't lie down that night
I sat up by the muted television
I closed my eyes and listened to nothing
I just didn't lie down

It's not that I didn't want her to be happy
I just thought that I was more interesting than a highway
I thought her furniture looked better in our apartment than her car
But she thought otherwise

I'm still listening to nothing
It's still not morning
She's still not here

I'm still not in bed

I keep imagining laying across the road
I keep forgetting that she wasn't the sun and I wasn't made for her
She left to chase down her own stars
I wasn't her star
So I didn't lie down that night
I didn't give up to become part of the pavement

I opened my eyes to the muted television
And the empty room, and my desk in the corner
It isn't much, I can't afford much, but she's living in her car right now
She's somewhere out West sitting up on the side of the road

I stayed here. My stars are here. But I'm sitting just as straight.

She didn't leave to leave him,
She left to leave

"I'm sorry," I whispered
As I drove away from the rain
And the city
And the people I've always known
As I skipped practice to drink tea and drive fast
But I didn't believe it,
And nobody who might have been listening did, either

I know it's you
All of the fake names and the smoke
I'm choking and maybe it's making me crazy
But I swear it's you
After all this time, you still sound just like you
Like all you've ever written is your own name in permanent marker
Over and over again
I swear it's you

I watched her
It was like the she was breathing for the first time
Brand new lungs, air that wasn't holographic
No more illusions or tricks, just
In and out

And that's when she walked away
Saying goodbye was the first time she had ever experienced oxygen
She suddenly understood the rhythmic movements of my chest
And why I had never liked diving

And I started to choke

I only saw her for a second
Just a flash, an apparition
A dream that I would **** myself to see again
I've never wanted to hold onto something so badly
And she was the most intangible thing I've ever touched
Like alcohol, running through my finger and evaporating at the same time
Gone more quickly than she came
Maybe she was salvation and I just missed my chance
Maybe if I close my eyes more tightly and wish harder
Or maybe she's just gone
I'm not a safe harbour
I've got no light to bring her back to me
I hope she thinks to turn around, all on her own
I'll be waiting for her, if she does, arm outstretched
Or if something better comes along

I don't think about it as jagged
I see little crystals, reflecting light
I see picket fences, your smile feels like coming home
I see clouds and little black holes in between
- Little galaxies I can fall into, stories I can tell later
I see you, unique, I can't imagine you any other way
I see you smiling
And now I'm smiling, too

I kissed fire but still froze

Give me ink, I will give you freedom
I will give you all the escape you could possibly want
You don't have to run away anymore
I've hidden oceans within tiny cursive scrawl
I loved watching it dry quickly on the page,
All the messiness of hand lettering
And the beauty in story-telling
I will help you be free

God didn't want me to hold you
He did everything in his power to take you away from me
He moved you away and made cell phone plans expensive
He made skype crash and different timezones
He cursed us with bad timing and just a couple of seconds
He cursed us with years of patience
God didn't want me to hold you, but he let me love you
He let me see photographs and your messages in the mornings
I did everything in my power to stay
God cursed me with patience and let me love you so far away
God blessed you with the ability to walk away
And I never felt your skin

I am so sick of the crashing cars
The intersections don't make any sense anymore
Everyone's going at the wrong time and it never stopped
I was smiling until I saw smoke
I thought the glass was rain, or fire hydrant had popped, I
Didn't here the sound until I saw him
When they hit, his tire exploded
In a straight-on collision, he pulled over to put his head in his hands
Exasperated relief, he almost made it home
The man on the motorcycle flew over the stoplight
And in that split second we all prayed he sprouted wings and would never come back down
But his vehicle was in pieces hitting my windshield
I was nearly sick at the sound
Dead weight on the road still breathing
I am so sick of never slowing down
It's so impossible
He may never walk again but I couldn't tell you what colour that stoplight was
And the other man won't make it home for dinner
He was so close, did everything right
I hope he kissed his kids before he left that morning
Because he almost didn't make it home
He will. He'll be late but he's coming home.
She isn't.

She always smiled as she left
She said it was because she was looking for next time, and there always was a next time,
Until we graduated high school and she said she was moving to Texas
As far away as possible, she said
I loved her sleek ponytail and her blue eyes
I remember her as an apparition, walking out my front door
Smiling gracefully, over and over
She didn't smile when she left for Texas
I think she made a mistake
I don't understand how a girl from the coast of Maine can live like that
The heat and the desert
All she's ever known is snow
I remember one time her parents let me sleep over with her because of a storm
Her pajamas were soft and we came down with the same cold two days later, but nobody asked questions
I was convinced that we were going to be together
She wanted to be in the Navy
I joined up yesterday
She said she just wanted something exciting
But she was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen, all packaged into a human being
She didn't have to go
Any school would've taken her and we could have had a life right here
I miss her
She sends me pictures of her and her tan friends in stupid hats and I hate her so much now and
I save every single one

I'm so sick of the crashing cars and the ambulance sirens
God, the traffic light was on fire
God, my heart stopped when the brakes didn't
My body is decaying
With all of who I was on display for somebody else to clean up
God, put me back into time
I don't want to wander back to the intersection
I've sat on the curb for what must have been hours, but only stared at that one second
I'm still dying

God, I regret every day I spent on my couch
I wasted so much time licking my scars and praying for sleep
Wanting to rest because the world was so heavy and I carried my part
I've learned patience since the then, but here we are
You and I
And the stop light, halfway between yellow and red
I didn't understand while my foot was on the acceleration
I didn't understand speeding until I stopped

God, I was running away from everything
I was looking for something beautiful and I found a fuse
It could've been fireworks or a forest fire and I didn't know until I lit the match
Either way, that car is burning
I can feel the heat from the still flames
Smell the hexane leaking out, seeking ignition
But I can't pull the woman from her car
I can't continue her life for her
That's her decision, or God, maybe it's yours
It was my decision to get into the car this morning

God, I didn't choose death
I chose to ride my bike without a helmet
And to swim all alone at night
But I didn't choose to die
I should have paid more attention in driving school,
Or even just the road that day
It has my complete focus now, my unceasing fascination with this one moment
God, please put me back into time
Let me go with her to the hospital
Let me die there, knowing that she lived

I'll bet she was responsible,
Turned in her homework on time and went to bed at ten
I'll bet she looked both ways and couldn't see me coming on too fast
I'll bet she has a little brother waving her off to college in the fall
And her parents are very proud
God, she has a story
As many hours as I do, an entire life I may have just ended in seconds
She built herself, she wants to be something
She is so beautiful right before the airbag goes off
I died before the airbag could go off
God, I will not give up
I won't leave her,
I'll stay right here in case this second finally bleeds into the next one

Thank you for not washing your dishes before you left
They sat there on the counter all day while I was at work and with my family
And thank you for leaving your key with the spare
I found it before I found out you had gone
I found your note while I cooked dinner
Nothing changes
I had rice on the stove and half-thawed chicken in the toaster oven
I had on the same sweatshirt I've always worn in the evenings
I had on the same show in the background
I let my hair down and slammed my body against the appartment door
You hadn't even the decency to speak to me
I knew we were tired but

You just left

With all brutality and unceremoniously, you pulled yourself out of my life,
All of your clothes out of my apartment
Half of our photographs, your computer and your body wash
I brushed my teeth and I slept on the couch
I went to work the next morning
I don't have time to mourn you
I would have helped you walk away
If you were really gone, I wouldn't have kept trying to love you
I could have helped you move out
I could have told you I'm sorry it didn't work
I could have kissed our scars better and you would still be standing here
But you left, empty bottle on the coffee table
***** breakfast dishes in the sink

And if you dissolved
If you somehow danced off into the atmosphere
If all you are now is stardust and broken promises
Please remember that I was one of them