I’ve tasted real love

I stopped getting drunk
because your lips
were enough to make my head swim

and the only times I was getting high
was with you

I didn’t have to hide
besides
you heard all my bad jokes
a hundred times over

and you still laughed
like it was the first I told it

I’ve tasted real love
in the softness of your skin

I don’t need another girl’s body
you were enough

I’ve felt what it’s like to be in love at 4 a.m.
and when you dropped me
I felt what it’s like to shatter

I won’t bother with the broken pieces

I’ve tasted real love
and baby
that’s all I wanted

you left bruises on my skin

they’re not like the ones my father left
they feel more like love than hate

I’m afraid of letting them fade

they’re proof you were here
you were here
and when they’re gone..

I’ve spent too long trying to convince myself you still want me
and for a moment
it seemed as though you did
still want me..

but at the end of the day
you’re still with him

why is it kissing you tastes sweeter
knowing I shouldn’t

but I’m still choking back the bitter guilt

I don’t belong here..

you left bruises on my skin
in the shape of your lips
they don’t belong here either

but it’s the closest thing to love I’ve felt in a long time

and now he’s breathing “****” down your neck
and you’ve mistaken it for love

I had never laughed so hard in my life

and I knew if a girl could make me laugh like that she must be made of the stars

and to think

I fell for a girl with constellations inside of her



when all I asked for

was a kiss

I’m sick of writing about stars
and girls who will never be as good as I try to make them sound

I’ve exhausted my love for sappy cliches
and dumb metaphors that probably don’t make sense to anyone but me

she was filled with galaxies
she had constellations inside of her
she planted flowers in my lungs

I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t-

****
I can’t even remember what she looks like anymore..

I’m all closed lips
didn’t know how to say I love you without
sounding like all the people that never meant it the first time

I know you didn’t mean it the last time
come back
you left your roses in my chest
their thorns ripping holes in my lungs

this is not the place for flowers

I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t…

I miss you

2:04 a.m.
they said you're never coming back but all your things are still here

3:42 a.m.
none of your clothes smell like you anymore

3:42 a.m.
the brandy tastes more like you than he does

I decided that I loved your promises more than I hated my body so I let you have it

when you left
I took it with shots of brandy

I had been sober so long because your kiss was enough to make my head swim

and letting you walk away was one of the hardest things I've had to take

you said leaving me was hard
like when your dad died

and it was just as bitter as watching my mom fight cancer

for the second time

I'm still swallowing back the goodbyes I never got to say

when you left
I took it with shots of brandy

but even it doesn't burn the same

doctors have told me I've died eight times
everyone else keeps begging me to stop shooting smack into my wrists because I only have one life left

when I mixed dirt and blood and water in my veins like a chemistry project
I had intended to come home to you
I didn't mean to end up ******* air through a hollow chest or for my dad to see me broken
I spent five months in jail for not asking for help
instead just plunging needles into the soft spot in the crook of my elbow
and isn't that ironic?
that we don't try to save people that are hurting
and that when I came home you still asked how I was but didn't say that you love me
and maybe that's why I wanted to die

I can't forget you
every day I try to strip you from me like ruined sheets
it's bad enough I have your name embedded in my skin
what I would give to be 18 and carefree again
it took me three years of chewing my own thoughts to death
you left scars on my skin and I am not allowed to ask for you back

****

the universe doesn't recognize your suffering
and my dead mother doesn't care that I am bleeding
or that I am empty, save the sadness in my throat
BUT IF SHE WERE STILL ALIVE
she'd sit me up on the counter next to the sink
and pour peroxide on my skin knees
(that I got the moment all the air left my body all at once and I came crashing into reality)
no, if my mom were here
she's wrap me up in all the blankets in the house
and make a fort out of the couch
and give me glasses of ginger ale
because it's supposed to help with stomach aches
but it's my heart the's hurting
so how do you remedy this situation?
because I don't remember the last thing you said to me, Mom
and afterall
it feels like I will bleed for an eternity

.1. I pick mania over drug induced numbness any day
at least this way it's not wasted feeling
this blade at my wrist

2. I could get drunk on you white girl
when I remember that feeling of your lips on my neck
I know I'd never have to get high again
but I want to

3. YOU'RE WORTH DYING OVER
actually I think that's just the mania speaking
BUT ISN'T IT SOMETHING
TO NOT BE AFRAID OF DEATH ANYMORE?

4. I KNOW I AM LOVED
BUT HELL I WANT THAT COLD BITE OF GLASS IN THE CROOK OF MY WRIST LIKE I NEED AIR TO BREATHE

5. I don't want to die
I just want to know what you taste like
OR MAYBE THAT'S THE SAME ******* THING

.1. when I said I had a odd sum of days clean
she said "I count on your days the way a catholic counts on rosary beads"
but I'm no saint and I'm destined to let you down again

2. when I have nightmares it's just my dad crying over my dead body
and she wonders why I never call when I never know what to say

3. I started skipping my meds again because I got sick of feeling normal
now I'm starting to see my dead mother every time I look in the mirror

4. I think my point is life is becoming a very morbid place to be
and I think about killing myself every time I wake up
but what if the last time I hugged my dad was dripping from the shower that he wrenched me from and outfitted in steel hand cuffs

what if I never hear her say she loves me again

in my dream I cultivate gardens in the contours of her throat
I plant daisies in the cavity of her chest
let ivy encircle itself in vines in her ribcage
AND SHE TELLS HERSELF SHE'S BEAUTIFUL
as if she wan't already a masterpiece before the artwork was installed

how do I say this

1. I wish I matched my reputation
maybe then this wouldn't sting so ******* bad
I spit at the word "darling" when I read it
and I can't tell you how worthless I felt describing dancing barefoot over concrete in the rain when I found out you already had a ***** on standby

2. you and I know a lot can happen in 24 hours
like you can let someone inside of you and blame it on me not loving you the right way
and I can cry over the way you spelled "future" like "temporary"
and how I already know too ******* much about that
and so I sort you into a pile with my dead mom and my daughter I'll never get to meet
and everything else that didn't last - like my clean date, our anniversary, the way you said "I love you", or my ******* name

3. you still think I wasn't serious
if a baby is what will make you want me
and you can name her after what it feels like to love something for once

so i'm sorry for that day some nine years ago
and I was already half a foot taller than you
when your eyes caught scarlet ribbon peek from beneath the hem of my shirt sleeve
and when you wrapped your fingers so delicately around my forearm
I'm sorry for the way I scoffed and said it shouldn't have taken three years to notice all the blood

2. and MOM I remember the way you cried for me for three years after that
I saw you collapsed on the floor outside my bedroom
and that's the reason I scrubbed the red from off the walls

3. misery loves company but I just like to wallow in my sadness
which made me think we had something in common
cause most days you didn't get out of bed either!
but you swear I'm more my Father's spitting image
so I cut off all my hair and drank my way home
and ever since these walls have stunk like bourbon and broken promises

my body aches
i miss my dead mom and my dope man just called so i bet you know what that means

i sleep on a mattress on the floor and my ex girlfriend used to think it was sweet
or romantic
or she just liked me so much she thought everything i did was cute

until i started falling out in public bathrooms
because then she just left me on the floor to die

i guess if i loved sleeping on the ******* floor so much i ought to just ******* stay there
right?

i'm sure you're sick of cracking ribs and kissing air into a hollow chest anyway

she use to think needles were **** and her lips always tasted like she had had a few too many

of what? i never quite figured it out

but i can still feel her skin under my fingertips
and my pillowcase still smells like you and this bed is too big for just one person and i want so badly to beg you to come back

i feel sick and the room feels like it's spinning and i can still taste you on my lips

my sister thought you were the sweetest girl until she heard you broke my heart but she still can't imagine you breaking mugs against my head so maybe you're not all bad

when i think about the family i'll never have i still think about waking up beside you and i still know exactly what to say to help you when your bad days come to get you and so maybe we're both not so bad but we're not all good either

and that's why i sleep with your ghost instead of you and that's why when the bad days come my voice gets swallowed up in fear and that's why today i don't feel so great

i didn't mean goodbye when i said it i only meant until to tomorrow

where are you

yesterday my PO showed up at my front door and my dad let her in
she ******* at me for skipping two months worth of tests
and for telling my best friend I'd get clean if she'd lie and say she loved me back

the next time i go to court i'm facing 5 to 7
with guidelines like that
the chances of me ever getting to meet my daughter are slim if
not nothing

my ex and i haven't spoken in weeks but i know she's getting high again
and i know she's still pretending like we were in love once

tell me about the first time you ever did blow
******
the first time you took whiskey in shots in a hotel room before swallowing xanax like tic tacs

TELL ME ABOUT THE FIRST BABY YOU LOST
tell me about the way you were going to get married in a week and you were hire someone vegan to cater even though i ******* hate the way tofu feels

tell me about the second baby you lost
tell me about how you named both of them after my daughter even though you never got to see their eyes

tell me about the boy you cheated on me with
the girl you let choke back ***** in my living room

tell me about how you kept coming to see me the last time i was locked up until suddenly it wasn't worth it anymore

i taste like sunshine with dirt in my veins and i know because you've written a hundred poems telling me so

"hey sorry I missed your call! what's up"

"I know you always tell me not to worry but I'm worrying so let me know you're okay please"

"It's been a couple hours and your mom just texted me?"

"this is a joke tell me it's a joke"

"please ******* answer me"

"I saw your car on the news I know it's your car tell me you're okay"

"they won't let me in the room they said you're hurt really badly"

"your mom is with me
we both can't stop crying
they've been in there with you for three hours"

"my brother says that's not good that it means you're not coming out"

missed call
voicemail
"I called to hear your voice again. We buried you today and I've never seen someone quake the way your mother did. I'm sorry I missed your call.. I know you always told me not to worry and I wish you were okay. I love you."

i wrote this to tell you all the things you'll never get to know about me

you will never get to know what i taste like with all 90 days under my belt

you'll never get to know how i handle the anniversary of my mother's death
or what watching my father die does to me

you'll never get to see me bailing my little brother out of jail
or find out about how i don't smile the same way anymore after serving two years inside

you'll never see me on my wedding day
and you will never hear me tell you "i do" or that i love you

or hear me announce that my wife is pregnant
and you'll certainly never get to meet my baby girl and she'll have eyes just like her mama

you will never hear me come home from work when we're in our late thirties and i always have a good reason to bring flowers

you won't ever find out what my favorite song is when i'm mowing the lawn out back
and you won't be there when i decide to press charges on the man that hurt me


my point is
you're gone.
and honestly, you might not care. you might not ever even think of me again.
but you will never get to know me.
and for that i am thankful

-sometimes I think about telling you how I imagine your lips taste like coming home
sticky from the **** beer you drink at 3 a.m.
but then you mention her
and I remember you could never want me

seasons start and end on your name

fall is coming
and all the leaves have turned a different variation of the color of your eyes

"I came for the first time since you"

and i don't mean the last time we hooked up in your car

i mean the last time we made love under sunset skies
the last time i tasted you without dirt in my veins

i'm begging you to cleanse me
and dress me in your love

it has been months since i have seen your smile
or heard the way you say my name

i walk through your office
every morning before i leave for work and i almost understand why dad is trying to run away from this house
it hasn't felt like home with you gone

i slept in your bed once and i was engulfed in memories of you
the way your hair smelled lying next to me here
but that was years ago

i'll be twenty soon
that will be the first birthday i ever spend without you and it is earth shattering having to stare across the table at your empty seat

my ex girlfriend loves make up
loves it the way she says i love needles in my veins
but this song isn't about that
not this time
it's about how many youtube channels she followed on my account
and that's one
and how i go online to read the **** she wrote about me when i thought we were still in love
and i play our soundtrack over and over
the way she asked to listen to led zeppelin in bed together
back when the powder wasn't nearly as scary
and she asks me how i'm so confident wearing war stories on my ******* sleeves
because all her burn scars she hides under all that make up
and i use to tell her how kissing her tasted like waking up safe for the first time in decades
and that's all i have
and how i labeled her as "home"
and left all my flaws and all my faults
buried under paperwork in one of her drawers
where i figured i'd never see them again
but my ex girlfriend loves make up
and when she removed it
well i'll be ****** if i'm ever going back

what does 47 days without ****** in your veins taste like?

like trying to explain to every **** person that you meet that you're not sick anymore
it just takes time to put the weight back on

like my girlfriend moved out and left half of her things behind
and that was ten ******* months ago
and sometimes when we **** in her backseat
i recognize my t-shirt on her floor
and so i'm still wondering if that means "i miss you"

like i think i'm way too over-medicated but everybody keeps saying "fixed" like i'm okay and i know i'm not

because my girlfriend left ten ******* months ago and i still have her t-shirts in my closet


and i bet you think that means i miss you, I don't.

she will never forgive me for picking ******

she says the *** is the best when i'm still shaking
says she hasn't seen me need something so badly since i met her

says i broke her heart for a dub of dope

like twenty dollars could ever replace her

i reread every poem i could find tagged in my initials

you keep saying i love ****** more than you but i tried to die when you left me and i tried to find you when i stopped getting high so what i think you meant to say was

you're scared

i mean how many times can you watch someone **** themselves before it in turn kills you

i never stopped wanting you

coming home meant carrying convictions back to the street with me
meant the weight of "******" etched into my shoulders

2. i waited until two days after my two months to celebrate
and two days is all it took for my mom to die while i was too busy with my eyes closed and my back turned

3. i fell in love eighteen times while i was locked up
and it was only after the first six that i realized i only kissed her because she has the same eyes as our daughter

4. nothing about ****** tastes sweet
and nothing about shaking all night tastes sweet either
and so i spent four hours asking myself why i let a girl with my dead baby's eyes kiss smack into my veins

5. there is nothing small about this
it has swallowed me entirely and it is the size of the rest of my life come crashing down

my heart still aches

i. when i came home i did weird **** like peeing with the door open and falling asleep with my clothes on

ii. when i came home i ate all of my wife's cooking and i never asked what was in it

iii. when i came home i started counting the number of naps i took a day and i didn't leave my room for a week

iv. when i came home i walked there barefoot and higher than when i left

v. when i got home i didn't just bang dope i shot anything i could break down

vi. when i got home i tried to measure the moments between my wife not loving me and my last OD
and i never made it past six

i am completely vulnerable to your bite. i love the way your teeth pinch at my skin, it reminds me of the way a needle feels in the crook of my arm. and i hope it ******* eats you alive, knowing i will never love you like salt in my veins

2. boys like skinny girls
and i'll never weigh more than i can buy in dope
i cannot remember the last time i ate

3. i am completely vulnerable to your bite
and the way your lips wrap around the word "******" like that is the only way you could describe me

4. what i cannot do in dope i will make up for in any way that deteriorates the light in your eye when you look at me

5. i will look you dead in the face and tell you i love you as i steal forty dollars from your wallet

6. it's been three years and she still says "i love you" when we hook up
i don't say it back this time because i can't remember the last time i meant it

7. my hands are always shaky
except when tapping the end of a full rig

8. i started stealing money after my mom died

9. you will still tell me i am a good person until the day i cut out your heart and sell it for dope money

10. i will never ******* love you like salt in my ******* veins

keep day dreaming of girls i've never met kissing smack into my wrists
i'm ready for something ******* lethal
and love poems aren't the same as saying i like the way you **** me like i owe you something
you're dangerous
and i swear

nothing tastes like you

seems impossible at this point
cause every time we kiss
i can taste the ******* on your lips

and i'm starting to feel numb again

my PO asks about new track marks and i am too embarrassed to admit
i stay up half the night shooting blanks into my wrist

"i'm just trying to get high"

I work three jobs
I'm not home much but when i am i'm usually asleep
unless i'm pushing needles into veins
(which is actually more often than not)

you work part time and you're home more than you're not
unless you're out with boys who claim to love you when they're getting off

i'm angry about a lot of things and you ******* a grown man that still needs help paying rent is absolutely one of them

and she doesn't look anything like you

and shes's warmer than she is angry and she looks at me with these eyes

and they aren't yours
so i should be happy
that's what everyone keeps saying
"i'm so happy you've moved on, you deserve someone who is good for you"

i know you're no good for me and i ******* love it
and i love you
i love the way you smell and the way you feel pressed up against my chest when we're together because when we're good we are so ******* good the world stops to smile at us

and i know i'm not good to you like i could be (should be)
but i'm trying

and i want so badly to be consumed by you
so what if you're ******* someone else
i'm still the one you love

disaster

i'm like comparing honey suckles to rose thorns

both of my arms ******* ache
in more ways than just longing for another needle

my house is cluttered with your ghosts

whispers telling me you're still coming home

you used to tell me you loved the way my voice sounded when i read my poetry to you
and now i don't ever feel like writing

except i saw you two days ago
and you said i tasted sweet and you kissed me like we were still getting married tomorrow

and i've wanted to die ever since

except you called me names and slapped me hard and it didn't feel like making love

except for when we kissed and suddenly i was drowning

you're ******* other people and i'm trying to pretend like that doesn't bother me
he hurts you when he ***** you and you come curl up in my arms for safety so how can you tell me he loves you more

or that you love him

we made love again

even if it was angry and rough
we still made love
over and over and over again

every time you looked at me

I am dope sick for the third time this week
which means at least three times this week i've gotten so high my body couldnt handle the come down
which means i'm shooting for a fourth

you have a new boyfriend
except you wont admit to me how you feel about him because you think i still love you

i still love you
which means i'm sick from more than just the dope
which means i still havent gotten over you

but four times says i'm **** well trying

I CAN'T STAY CLEAN LONG ENOUGH TO THINK ABOUT YOU
*******
I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING I HAD AND YOU BLAMED ME WHEN I WAS ******* EMPTY
YOU TOOK EVERYTHING *******

I want to make love to you not this stupid pity **** trying to convince ourselves this is ok
I hate this I hate seeing you
I want to kiss you I want to be consumed by you
I'm so sick of pretending this is ok I hate this

i'm getting bad again

the blood in my mouth
tastes like the way you use to tell me you love me

feels more like
closed fists

I wasn't kidding when i said you spit ******* acid
I can feel all of my humanity melt away
along with the skin off my cheeks

tell me how much you miss me

I make myself sick with the way i don't love you anymore

I hate the way you grab me like you've got something to prove

the blood in my mouth
tastes just like you

you spit ******* acid

stupid stupid stupid selfish girl
you taste like the tone of your voice

******* bitter

get the **** away from me
i hate the way you try to convince your friends we're good people

you're not a good person
and that's what you keep ******* telling me

you spit ******* acid in my face

i don't get high anymore and you taste like *******

******* BITTER

i like to write about the way a bag of fentanyl with a big letter "H" on the front tastes like

i like to write about coming home to my wife crying on the steps as the paramedics drag my best friend's body out of my house

i like remembering the way my heart sounded just like 15 cops pounding on my front door

i can't tell if i'm swallowing back bile or guilt anymore
i can't tell if burning all the needles in my drawer was a sign that i'm moving on or denial of what I've done

i hate thinking about my friend with blue lips
last time i saw him he was snorting back three hundred dollars without blinking
he says he doesn't really get out of bed anymore

I know exactly what he means

I haven't gotten high in weeks and I'm starting to feel dope sick again

Or maybe just the normal sick I always felt before you

I mistook your lips for oxys and wonder why they keep biting back at me

The whole world tastes like morphine and I taste like I am suffocating and she tells me all the time

I helped **** my best friend and I am reminded every time he messages me

I'm so ******* sick
I'm shaking

My mother is ashamed of how I turned out and I am not the only one who knows it

She looks at me with the sad eyes I have desperately stared into for the past six years
please I am so sorry I broke you
please find a way to forgive me
please I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry

Six years I have watched her cry for me
to be better

Six years she has told me enough was enough
I’m done
please i am begging you
please be good to yourself this time
please I am so sick of finding you in hospital beds

I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry

It's 2 a.m. And I'm high for the first time in I can't remember how long and you're asleep in our bed and baby we're home and I'm not afraid of anything

I'm only afraid of waking up alone

i do not write poetry

there is nothing beautiful about her suffering

nothing beautiful about watching her tear herself into pieces

she treats pain like some kind of game

she wants to know
how small she can become