Every time
We say goodbye
I hate myself
For not saying
Don't go.

Her lips tasted like peaches and I couldn't understand it
How we lost track of time and ended up here
Is time still passing?
Oh my God, this girl
This twenty one year old girl who still makes wishes on dandelions and stars
This girl who I have been kissing for the last twenty three and a half seconds
This girl who is completely blowing my mind out onto the wall behind us and has absolutely no idea
I need to figure out how to smile and kiss at the same time
I'm holding onto her hair so that I don't float away
I'm not convinced that I have a world to come back to after this
It took her eleven and three quarters of a second to completely erase everything else that has ever mattered
It took me fourteen seconds just to make sense of anything that has happened since we made contact
It took me fourteen and a quarter of a second to fall madly in love with her.

Let’s **** God

We made a game out of it
Who can make it to heaven hiding a pistol in their sock
What can you hide from God? What silver bullet?
What radiation?
What rage slowly leaking out of our veins and into the soil

I am that one night stand that God wants to dissolve in ethanol
So here I am running out of his apartment while he is still asleep
I’m late for work,
I’ve lost a shoe

My friend took medication
He said it helped but he went to bed crying

Dear Mom,
Please send Ibuprofen
I promise I’m listening to the doctors,
I love you

We just wanted to ask God what test was worth this
We felt worthless
My body gave up in the hospital bed
I left my arm tangled up in the sheets
I left part of myself on the waiting room floor
The first time it snowed in Atlanta
The one time we said grace before dinner

God made miracles and God made mountains and God made mistakes
Let him rip the steroids out of my veins and make me human again
Not this half cyborg, half dead, half human
Mostly bad at math...
Let me be holy again
This is a ****** prayer

This is poison
He wanted to **** God with poison,
Slowly, like when he was afraid my liver would rot
I had dreams about my feet growing necrotic
He held my hand
It wasn’t enough

The first time I went to the hospital without my dad
My doctor told me how composed I was in the waiting room
Are you kidding me?
You can’t cry while you rattle off the pain killers you’ve taken
You can’t cry while you try to make peace with anything that might make this stop
Stop

Stop listening!
This silence is sickening
He isn’t there
If he ever was, he left us like socks hanging on a clothesline
God forgot and moved away
Nobody bought the house
You stepped in quick sand and we’re stuck here because I will not leave you
But we have been left alone

God is a force I cannot believe in
But I keep getting told that he’s watching me anyways
So I still pray
Dear God, let my father get home safely
Dear God, guide my little sister
Dear God,
Good luck getting my hair out of your shower

Let me make this very clear
This is not your pain
You cannot take this from me and ball it up into something you can wish away
God is not going to fix this
I am the sock that God forgot on the clothes line
God forgot and moved away

It takes seven pills for my brain to work like it’s supposed to
That was my Christmas wish from the hospital in fifth grade
I didn’t want to be called to the nurse every day
I didn’t want the hours of intake papers and waiting rooms
I didn’t want my dresser to be covered in pill bottles
Everyone thinks my room is a mess
It probably is

Dear Mom,
Please send ibuprofen
The off brand gel caps that don’t make me sick
I promise I am still listening to the doctors
I love you

God made miracles and God made mountains and God made mistakes
Let him rip the steroids out of my veins and make me human again
Not this half cyborg, half dead, half human
Mostly bad at math...
Let me be whole again
This is a ****** prayer

The first time I went to the hospital without my dad
My doctor told me how composed I was in the waiting room
Are you kidding me?
You can’t cry while you rattle off the pain killers you’ve taken
But you can miss your therapy dog like you miss the leg you left tangled up in your bed sheets this morning
The last time you remember your foot on the ground was last night
The last time you were an entire person, all of your nerves were working

When I moved out, I did not just leave home
I left a healthcare network
I left a system where I didn’t have to repeat myself like a list of diagnoses

Remission for me was funny where it meant almost nothing
It was a noncommittal guarantee that I was O.K right then
And the day after I finally heard it from my doctor,
I wasn’t

So as a little bit of a letter to the people who think I take too much medication
Because I don’t look sick enough
If you could give me back any of he days I spent in hospital beds or urgent care or waiting rooms
If you could repay my mother for all of the days she spent worrying about me living on my own
If you could take back all of the time my father took off work to take me to doctor’s appointments, I would let you
I have wasted so much time believing that I am tissue paper melting in the hailstorm of a mistake my body can’t stop making
You have no say.

I just
Can't belive
It's you standing in front of me.
I just
Can't feel
Because I don't know how.
I remember loving you
But are you still the you that I loved?
I couldn't remember what your eyes looked like
Last night
When I went to sleep,
I cried because I didn't remember your voice
Your voice
Which could mov  mountains
And calm storms
Was absent from my thoughts.
I just
Want
I just want it to be you
Standing in front of me
But I just don't believe
That it is
It's time to wake up
And forgetthis memory.

One day, when you had made up your mind
When you had given up on your grandfather's graveyard of broken down cars
When you decided I had been alone long enough to burn myself out
You vanished.

Mother was the voice in your head promising that nothing would be easy
Our sister is the one telling you to get a running start
And I was whispering, "Be careful," but I've watched you
I can promise that you never heard me

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

I keep telling myself that she killed you
But I know that isn't true.
I know your soul got all mixed around, made some wrong turns
It isn't fair to believe that she loved you.
Believing that she understood all of the cracks in your skin just like I did hurts worse than the spot on my couch you don't take up anymore

The last time I saw you, you were buried in some sort of library
Some sort of maze you built around yourself so you wouldn't have to escape
I left you
But I can't help imagining someone dropped a cigarette,
Your mind ignited and fell to ashes

I hate you, because this was not a love story.

I
Hope
That
Right
Now
I
Am
On
Your
Mind

I don't miss the cold winter mornings
Walking to school all by myself
I miss the days that smelled of fall
When I knew that you would be there, too

Sometimes you need to walk into a thunderstorm
Sure
There is thunder
And lightning
But that will strike trees
You have to know that
You are safe where yoy stand
And then you can see
That where you stand is beautiful
The rain is wet
But wet won't hurt you
And no one can get to you
You can feel as you wish.

I went out
To bring my dog inside
But I got a little *******
In staring at the stars
And a little game of chase
It was nine o clock
But we didn't care
We were ******* in the stars
And the wonders they unfold

Apparently I'm crying
I hate it when I do that.
Most times I don't notice
Till my shirt's stained

I look at the clock and always think,
"By now, you're already asleep."
Considering you go to school before I wake up,
That's not unreasonable.
I just makes timing a little bit difficult.

I'll probably be asleep when you get this, when you wake up**
I'll probably be starting class when you get out
I'll probably be at lunch while your at dinner
You'll probably be asleep when I am,
Getting ready for bed when I get out of class

Tired
It comes in waves I do not wish to fight
Unfocused
Uncaring
Unwilling to think anymore
My troubles will not melt,
But dull
And I will sleep tonight,
Tired

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.

For a second today,
I didn't love you.

Today,
You seemed distant
As if I was a dream to you
Or a nightmare
As if I were holding out my hand to you,
But you were afraid to take it

Today
We were out of sync
I didn't know how you felt
And I was terrified

Today
I couldn't help you
How can I
deserve
To love you
If I can't help you

Today
You were distant
And we were out of sync
And I couldn't help you

Today
For a second,
I didn't love you.

I don't want to show my shoulders
In the silky dress
I bought months ago
It was so surreal then
And now,
It's just a few hours away
I can feel their eyes on me
It's tonight

I've never looked pretty
I bit my nails to the stub
I don't cover
My sun burnt face
With makeup
Until last week I only owned two pairs of shoes
Tennis shoes
And slightly nicer tennis shoes
I always wear my hair up
So people can't see it.

Tonight
I have silver sandals
And hard
Fake nails
I bought a strapless dress
That I would never wear

Tonight
People will take pictures
Of the ball gowns
And the suits
Will guys be wearing suits?
I feel so,
So,
Not ready

Tonight
I guess I'm not myself
Because I only wear sneakers
And I don't wear makeup
I certainly do not wear flowy pink dresses
But

Tonight
I want to be a
Princess

I stood there
Because I was too late,
And watched the flame go out

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

The thing that kills me is that we can't get to everyone in time
"Was found in critical condition after suicide attempt in his room..."
I wonder if their friends couldn't hear them crying
I wonder if they closed their door too many times
I wonder if they forgot to smile
It's a small failure everytime you hear,
"Teenager hung themselves from door frame with a belt,"
Every headline that reads,
"Mother of Two Overdosed on Prozac"
I wonder how everyone forgot to tell them that they are important
I wonder if I am the only teenager that woke up this morning to a story of yet another suicide
All I could tell my friend this morning on the phone was that I didn't understand
Who failed to say, "I love you."?
I remember every story I read about someone choking on carbon monoxide
I remember the day I accidentally turned on the car with the garage door closed and my mother cried:
To every single person who has killed themselves-
There is someone in the world who wants to hold your hand right now, and they can't!
I still can't understand death when I'm staring right at it!
I remember the first time I had a friend who cut themselves and I didn't do anything!
I left...
Every person is a story, and you don't need to end yours before someone can hear it.

Right now I should be sleeping
Late at night,
I sing songs so that I don't cry
I'm not depressed
I just don't want to be touched
I shouldn't have been touched
Just poking my face violated me
I begged you not to touch me
You and your friend
Please get out of my face
Stay out of my dreams!
Stay out of my nightmares!
You get to laugh
While I stay up crying.
You're not worth crying over

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

Trusting you was like being stabbed in the back
And the eye
And my foot.
I'm not dead yet
But when I see you
I might as well be.
Because I can not say anything
That I will not regret saying to you
You will repeat everything
I try to walk away
But you need help
And I have to help
But helping you is hurting me
And I do not like being hurt.

I fell asleep last night pretending you were next to me
I woke up from a nightmare and was startled when I couldn't find your hand

I turn off the world at night
I'm only a child
But I lock the doors
Close the windows
And turn out the lights
My mother is asleep by the time I do
And my father is out of town
He'll be back tomorrow
But tonight
I braid my own hair
And read to my little sister
I don't mind that he's gone
Or that mother's asleep
I know they love me very much
I'm just careful not to fall down the stairs
In the dark

I turn on the morning
Up before the sun rises
I turn on the lights
And heat up the oven
I start singing softly
And the dogs and cats wake up
My mom's alarm goes off
And I flee the scene
My mother takes over the house
Lit up like a Christmas tree

You have become completely two dimensional
You live in photographs and in the shadows
In the rings left by a finished cup of tea
You're face is dripping with nostalgia and regret
And it's not your own
We were both bleeding
I couldn't kiss you better
I couldn't stitch up your hand, I couldn't even hold it
I was terrified
Now you live in old journal posts
And those few pictures I can't bring myself to delete
I can't shake you

I fell asleep staring at my phone
Waiting for you
Hoping sometime you'd hear
My whispers that never existed
My mind caving in and my walls giving out
I'm waiting for you tonight
One more attempt at your hand
I miss being allowed to love you
When I get a chance I still lace in the words
Of my favourite songs and I'm waiting for you to notice.
I'm waiting for you in my dreams
I wonder if I've been waiting for you for too long,
Or if you've been waiting for me, too
But I won't ask, because somebody might answer
I won't ask because I might give up on you
I might stop thinking that every shadow on the wall is your silhouette
I might stop loving your beautiful ghost
I'm holding on to nothing because nothing is the most I've ever had
I'm waiting for you to tell me you love me, and if I wait forever, I don't care
Because I've fallen in love with the idea of holding your hand
You are not gone, you're just waiting in the shadows
One of these days, I'll get to see your face again,
Rounding the corner fast enough.
I remember all the days I wake up screaming, and hope that you can fix everything.
All the days you fade into vapour,
It makes rainbows as it passes by the light
So maybe something good is about to happen
I need to hear your voice somewhere other than my mind
Sometimes I feel like everything is tearing me apart
Sometimes I feel like the tears are made of acid,
Working the way that water can break glass
Or fingertips can crack chalk
I am sad tonight, and if sad means beautiful to you,
Then society has made a mistake.
When did we start describing blood as beautiful crimson?
I think today will be the first time that I've cried myself to sleep
Missing you
And fearing the dreams I haven't even had yet

I loved him as much as I was capable of understanding love, but I don't think he really understood enough to love me

You're suspended somewhere in my timeline
But I'm not sure you really exist
The snow doesn't remind me of you anymore

Let's keep this short
This is my body
My legs and arms, and my hair
That one is yours
This is not some Neapolitan ice cream, where you may not like strawberry, but you’re going to get a little strawberry
We are different candies made in different factories
And it is our choice to take off the wrappers

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

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

this can't exist anymore

Don't you fall asleep before the sun goes down
Just listen to my voice and stay awake

The fire barely burned you, darling
You won't feel the pain
Just listen to my voice and stay awake

I don't understand
I watch the way they talk
And laugh
I don't fit
I won't say that I don't fit in,
Because I don't want to fit in
I don't want to become them
And I really don't like the way they act
Or talk
Or laugh
But I'd still like to be included

The plane’s wing is longer than I can reach
It’s not your plane
But I don’t know when your’s is coming.
The rain chinks of the wings
Silvery and soft
My clothes are drenched and likely ruin
But I can hear your voice in my head
Hey there Delilah
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
I closed my eyes
And let the rain hit my face
It was cool
And wet
A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
And I am just too tired to buy a ticket
I am too tired to run away with you
and I am too tired to stop being patient.
I hope that I am good to you,
I hope that I will wait long enough
When I get upset that you aren’t here
Or that I haven’t heard from you,
I fear that you don’t like me anymore
Or that I don’t like you.
Most days I don’t mind waiting,
But today I want you to walk home
In the rain
Slashing at the sidewalk
Through the mud and shadows
Under the streetlamps flickering on,
With me
*Our friends would all make fun of us
And we'll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way

I wonder why you kissed me
It was the wrong time and you had no reason to
We didn't talk about it
The world didn't stop all around us while we were otherwise engaged
But your hand was all tangled in my hair and...
We don't need to talk about it.

She drinks her iced tea with whipped cream
She fell asleep an hour ago;
Laptop open, mug on her desk
Her cups leave little rings on the wood-
She keeps saying she'll paint over them
There's this garden where she always finds butterflies
She has a photo album on her computer,
Calls it her "real-life fairytale"
She says that the twigs in her hair are "artistic" and that the paint on all her clothes adds character
She paid way too much for that shirt that she tore on a branch the first time she wore it,
But still wore it enough to fade the colours and soften the fabric
We went swimming at the lake: She left it at my house and it smells like her-
It smells like pinewood and eraser shavings and hairspray
It smells like the over-sweetened tea that I bring her for class every morning
I'm always late for trig after that, but I don't care
She makes me go for runs on the weekends, even slows down for me sometimes
She sings songs in a minor key every time she cooks
She makes rice almost every night, but she never sits down to eat-
Sets a formal place at the kitchen stove and plays orchestral music
She reads my text messages at one in the morning, almost never replies
But I can imagine her sitting up all alone, quietly humming or tapping her fingers on the mattress
Her hair just makes sense- she likes to braid it over her right shoulder so that it hangs when she leans over somethings