seventy days felt like it could drag on for an eternity
felt like a thousand tiny almosts piled higher than the naked eye can see
felt..impossible

when I wrote about clean time I talked in measures of a few hours

it's been six hours since I held a needle to my wrist
a metaphoric gun to my head

it's been six hours since i felt the empty inside of me vanish

it's been fifteen hours since i woke up dope sick
I sweat through my sheets twice before I get tired of changing them

it's been twenty-four hours since the last time I got high so
I'm clean

Just For Today

she came and left in these late months, when the sun sets too early and the night stretches on for days

and the night really does seem to last an eternity on evenings like these, when I am missing you so deeply

I found new love, mom, and she doesn't make me feel small for wishing you were still here
and she has the most beautiful heart, and you would smile if you saw us together

she is so gentle, ma, she holds me with so much kindness and I know you would be so proud of me for finding love in someone who has just as much to give back to me

I could never feel empty pouring myself into someone who spends so much trying to fill me back up

I wish you knew her, ma
I wish she got to know the warmth I come from

it's not fair that you didn't get to see me turn out happy
after so long watching me struggle though pitch black nights,
you deserve to get to see your baby alive in the sunlight

this is my formal apology

I never wanted to believe I was in the wrong
like my actions were justified
like what I said was justified..

but as your lover
there are things I should not say
and I am sorry

I am sorry because I know I was the one that drove you away
I am sorry because you looked for love in someone else
and you found it

when you left I thought I would never recover
you are the girl I wanted to marry
and I am the reason you’re gone

I am sorry that I was cruel
I am sorry that some nights I refused to hold you when I know
that’s all you needed

but most of all
I am sorry that I spent months searching for the Exit Signs
because now that I’m out
I only wish I knew how to get back inside

this is my formal apology

I am sorry you regret me
but I understand why

nightmares
are crawling into bed alone
wrapping my arms around your ghost

i'll hold you until you feel safe
always

you deleted every reminder of me off of your Instagram
the pictures of us on your graduation day
prom
our anniversary

I wrote you a love poem to commemorate three years
of falling head first into empty photo albums

I still have the picture of you the day we started dating
the day you drew me a tiny snail while you searched for the courage to ask me for my blood red heart

I remember when your hair was blonde
and brunette
when it matched your eyes
with small streaks of honey gold
like firefly trails in the dark

still have the pictures of your swallowed pride
my sweet girl
what weren't you willing to trade for the nights we fell asleep in each other's arms

you deleted every reminder of me from the poems you wrote
patted over our matching scars with foundation that didn't match your skin color
they are blotchy like the letters you wrote me
stained in tears and too many "almosts"

but I still catch you standing at the door of my gate
outside my castle made of tomorrows
not quites
but I know they are coming

just like you

I’m going to marry this girl one day, and here’s why

she has shown me that she’s not willing to back down from a fight
when things get tough she gets tougher and we deal
she pays attention to small details and works to show me every day that she thinks about me constantly and that this will never only be one sided
when I told her I was an addict she applauded my good days and she stood by me in my bad
and when I told her I was scared I’d relapse again she bought Narcan and stayed up to measure my breathing
I have never for a second had to doubt whether or not she would be there because she always is

And I will spend the rest of my life trying to show her that her love was not in vain

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

she whispers into the space between my neck and my collar bone
she tells me she never wants to leave
her lips trace promises of tomorrow onto my skin
there is nothing outside of us
of her and me
these blankets
she says
this is all i know anymore
like i have forgotten how to taste like anything
but waking up beside you
i tell her
this is all i want to know anymore
these blankets and tasting like you
but the world does not turn only for me
and when she leaves my bed
she is just another girl
and i am just desperately waiting
for tomorrow

you still make appearances in my dreams
but only to taunt me with the parts of you I can never have
and I wake up tasting blood on my lips instead of you
and my chest feels tight
and ****
do I need you

Isn't it such a relief that I can show up 40 minutes early to work every single morning because
I'm not out chasing my next high 10 minutes after I roll out of bed

What an achievement that when I hide in the bathroom nobody misses me because
1) I'm not even on the clock and
2) I'm not spending 20 minutes figuring out which of these abused veins will take my ******* with out talking back to me

Doesn't it **** that I'm here again
On these tiled floors
Cold and sick to my stomach
But at least this time my heart's still beating! And every one notices the bright blue tattoo on my forearm before they ever mention the needle point I've been sewing into the crook of my elbow for three years

And it's sad sad sad that I can almost see the look on my best friend's face when she pried my lifeless body off of these same ****** tiles

But today I'm just wishing I was
I'm not really high these days
So at least it's not that

i can almost feel your hands on me
hear myself begging you to stay
this time
it's suddenly so much harder to breathe
watching you walk away
come back
because i am so sick of waking up alone

i made love to you with the lights on and called it a poem

every line was just the way i touched you like you meant something to me
fingertips tracing patterns between your freckles raised by the tiny hills of your cheekbones

how many different ways can i relate you to a flower blooming?
your legs stretching open at the touch of my lips

you can't imagine the way brown eyes look in the light if you haven't seen them for yourself

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'm getting bad again

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

heart beat. no air. empty lungs. breathe slow. don't move. heart beat. blue lips. heart beat. dial tone. pick up. pick up. sirens. no air. dial tone. voices. empty lungs. no pulse. pick up. pick up. 911. over and over. again. again. again. "I'm sorry". heart beat. needles. short breaths. come on.

teenagers run when they get scared.

he's just a boy. heavy pulse. blue lips. why.

why why why why why

sirens. "I love you". sirens. "I'm sorry". sirens. "I'm leaving now". sirens.

he's gone.
knock knock. "open up". "police".

you see, my hands shake
and i've broken most of my teeth
and i lose weight like i lose sleep
and my eyes are open but this still feels like a dream
and i don't know how to wake up

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

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 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

CHILDHOOD ON MY TONGUE

looks so much like
-red cargo shorts and
-slit wrists long before 13

she, my white girl, smells just like
-bourbon
-and we figured out why everyone calls me MIckey
-cigarette smoke
-and drenching my house in gasoline

actually
I think ******* might be kind of bitter
or you are
it's kind of hard to tell when you kiss me after every line

I do know this
I love you both

and it's killing me

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 always find myself running after things I know are no good for me

like you.

and *******
but at least the blow leaves me feeling good
told me I was a god

you just left me feeling empty

i've got the world at my feet
and better things to chase

you were never worth my time

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'm only afraid of waking up alone

I am made up of thousands of tiny cracks in composure

I have a scar on my right wrist from a pair of handcuffs, when a cop was a little more than cordial with me
I've got at least two from running face first into counter tops or door frames..
I could name four off the top of my head that my ***** ex girlfriend left me, they look like shaky trails on a treasure map. maybe her excitement got the better of her, but I got her best..and worst
I've got a constellation of pin ****** across my shoulders of acne scars that'll never heal right after my seventh trip to lockup
And now that I've gained and lost my full body weight in five months, I've got three dozen pretty pink stretch marks I'm afraid won't ever turn white

And I guess besides that I have whole novels written down my sleeves.
Most of my arm doesn't even look like an arm anymore
And the only good I can say about that is, I was 17 the last time I had to cover up my "mental health days" with bright blue mickey mouse band aids
that's four years of wearing my wrist band that reads "I have healed now"
My patchwork is messy, I have to admit, but it holds together nicely

And now that they're all just gentle interruptions..nothing gory or too scary to see..I wear my own skin so comfortably
I'm not proud of the disaster I left on my own body, but I'm not ashamed that I made it out alive either.

"I have healed now" but I was there when you burned your own house down to try to feel warm again, and it's been four years but I remember the way that cold touched my bones, I wear this scrapbook of knife work so you know that the good days are coming, one day they will only be scars, one day they will only be memories
even if it takes time

i've never been one
to leave the lights on

i don't know
what it is i'm hiding from

but i'm not afraid anymore

Maybe because I'm honest with her

Told her how your fists were sculpted by your father's drug addiction
And the way your mother left him

I tell her about the nights my fingers wrap around the softer parts of you
The way in which I reminded you of the boy who ***** you
So it's no surprise when you finally started fighting back

I tell her what your blood looks like running down the crook of your arm
Or the inside of your thighs

I tell her you could never really love me except from a distance
Because I have always been made from razor blades and ****** needles
Too sharp to touch
Never soft enough to hold

What's it like falling asleep beside a ghost?

-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

so I'm starting over

packed up everything with your name tattooed on it
and set it on fire
and I guess that means pieces of myself too..

so like a snake shedding its skin I don't want any reminders of you

I threw away my favorite jacket.
the black one
because it's the first thing you ever saw me wear
and when I look too closely at it I can see the way your hungry eyes ate up all the air between us
and I have never been sweet enough for you to devour

so I bottled up all my love magic
like a molotov cocktail
and watched it crash into the building where we met
the hallways that spelled out "eventually"
and "maybe this time we might get it right"

I'd burn out my bloodstream like gasoline
if it meant I could erase your handprints from around my heart

you exist in every corner of my life
the shadows in the peripheral of my line of sight
it's a shame that flames leave scars too and that's the only way I can think to get rid of you

but I'm getting used to the heat

she does not taste like you

she tastes bitter with anger
and she’ll never say she loves me

but something about the way she kisses me
makes me think it’ll be okay

my whole life all i’ve known is silence
shut up. get up.

don’t open your mouth
don’t close your hands

don’t make him think you’re fighting back
don’t you dare fight back

quick tongue don’t mean nothing
‘less ya got hands just as quick

in my house
threats are met by fists

and you can pray all you want
cause in this house
words don’t mean ****

unless you’re soft..

but belts and beatings never hurt as bad
as my daddy sayin’ he’d rather be dead..
than wake up every day with me as his kid

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 got sober to prove a point
that the only thing that really kept me high was the way you taste at 4 o'clock in the morning
when the sky is darkest and there's no light left in my eyes

I got sober and my PO checks up on me when I don't answer my phone because I still don't show up when I'm supposed to because I'm busy daydreaming about how waking up dead would feel

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

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

the sun is hazy, dripping in behind the curtains
I am scratching wooden table tops, sorting bits of us into piles of each other
you'll take my lazy smile, I'll have your small hands curled into anatomically incorrect hearts
you are lying in waves against my mattress on the floor, one leg is wrapped around and around and around my waist as I work huddled over my wooden table top
the brown or beige fingerprints that determine who we will become when they set into the pores of our skin, marking the traits that belong to us alone, are unevenly built into sand castles
I speak as quickly as the sound of razors against the divets in my wooden table top, "a one night affair with her won't change how I love you, and I am desperate to know what she feels like under my skin"
you do not whisper but nearly scream the distaste in the idea of another woman in my veins, where you have been memorizing the paths to my fingertips
the plastic straw that brushes the edge of my nostril is striped, looks just like my left arm, instead of spotted like your upper thigh
I laugh too harshly and agree to stay to the quieter things
you convince yourself to believe me

the first time I cheat on you with a mistress sharper than the way you spit my name out of your teeth these days
I'm in the parking lot down the street from our house
the backseat of a blonde boy's blue SUV
I use an alcohol wipe, sterile needles and a cotton ball
I measure the water to poison ratio so that I know that it will not **** me
when I get home we lie in the grass in front of our apartment and watch the sun, it's hazy, or I'm just high
I hide the pin ***** under the ******* my watch and listen to the hands tick away the orange in the sky until it is dark

the last time
I am at a stop light on the way to your house, we're going to a meeting together
but I hurt so badly my teeth chatter as I pull with them the head band above my elbow
I pour a cap full of poison into my chemistry project and mix in enough water to watch it melt
I tear the filter out of my cigarette and count to three before pulling all of the dripping amber sunset into a needle that costs the rest of my sanity
I say your name in my head three times, can't find a vein, won't register, I never liked roses anyway
when she kisses me it is almost like saying goodnight
her voice sounds so much like yours and then I see you
piling into the backseat of my silver pick up truck
I whisper that I love you the most
you convince yourself to believe me

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 think i’m dying
and i don’t know if i should be scared or.. relieved maybe?
i think i’ve been waiting for this to happen
for a long time

it’s terrifying that i really don’t feel anything
i never thought i’d go back to slitting my wrists but i needed to know this was real
i needed to see blood i needed to know that i am real
i don’t know if i’m real and i think that scares me

everything seems.. distant
and i don’t know if it is because i am still so in love with her or
if it is because i swallowed too many pills but
it’s like i can’t quite reach anything

it isn’t empty yet
but i think i am
i’ve felt so empty for so long..
and i use to feel everything

and i don’t know which i prefer
at least now my head is quiet and my heart is soft
my hands still tremble
but i never expected them to stop

i think i am dying

How can

I ever

Get you to understand.. I

Have never felt so

you deserve someone who kisses you like they want to fall in love
not like they just want to ****

that’s my problem
I always wanted to fall in love
it looked so beautiful
the way the other poets wrote it
and just thinking of what you tasted like ..sober
but I’ve tasted you with shots of brandy
you do not taste as sweet as your promises
****
the brandy burned sweeter than you
I wanted to feel you on me
hear “I love your lips on my hips
the way your fingertips knew exactly where to go
like following the edges of a map”
but not “I love you”
the thing I so often heard
and heard myself say

you are more toxic
than the drinks I use to
chase you down

I just want to ****
I just want to ****
I just want to-
******* look so beautiful tonight
not nearly as poisonous
and even your “**** me” didn’t taste as bitter

when you left
I took it with shots of brandy
it didn’t sting like your hand against my cheek
and it felt warmer than you ever did
emptied the bottle into tall glasses
tall like you
I always wondered what you tasted like
sober
maybe like you wanted to fall in love
but your brandy lips sounded like you just wanted to ****

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

When you asked me not to leave
it sounded more like a plea
tastes desperate like

You couldn’t take someone else walking away
at least with me it wasn’t lead through my brain

I walked

but my feet are tired and there are holes worn in the soles of my shoes
everything feels heavy

it wasn’t just you I was walking away from

it was everyone after you
it was the girl next door who swore she loved me even when I wasn’t ******* her

it was calm voices and steady hands that never tried to hurt me
but I kept walking

now
I don’t know the difference between a loving embrace and a cold fist

you changed me
I am not a calm voice and steady hands

I am a tornado
pushing past everything in my way
sweeping her off her feet just to lay her in the rubble

I am a storm
and the only quiet that comes after
comes after I am dead

When you asked me not to leave you held open the door

and maybe I was the one pleading

like I tried to tell you I could fix it
we could fix it
give me a chance to show you
I know I tasted too desperate
and maybe that’s why you wouldn’t even kiss me goodbye

And you don't talk to me like you used to
I wonder if you still write about the boy who ***** you
and do you think that gives Him power or
You?

and you've settled somewhere you feel like you belong
but half of my bed is still in the shape of you so really
what I meant

was when are you coming home
because nothing feels like home when you're gone

you are worse than ******

what a compliment, that you could so easily **** off all the good left in me with just a taste

*******
****** was sweeter than you, vinegar and baking soda and something worse than death

I never missed you for a second
I never missed you at all

I forget about your name on my skin and she never mentions you

she kisses the back of my neck before she falls asleep every night and it is almost like you never existed at all


you wrote on my bedroom wall so I moved my bed, she wrote over it

the only times I think of you are to wish you were dead
I wish you felt the pain it was to be with you

but more than anything I feel sorry
you will never know what it is to have my heart

this is a feeling I thought I had almost forgotten

I haven’t felt this numb in months

this is why i stopped smoking so much

turned to a drug that at least made me feel something

I’m sick of biting my lip until it bleeds

I’m sick of having to remind myself that I am still real

the first time you kissed me
I could've fallen out of the chair I sat in
begging to feel the weight of you against me

you kept your distance

the only things that touched
were our lips
and your hair curled over my cheek

the first time you asked me
"what are we? what is it we're doing? and what do you want?"
I swore that the idea of you falling asleep on someone else's chest didn't steal all of the sanity from my brain
that I could imagine the rest of my life only existing when you needed me

it's funny how much I didn't mean it, but that's exactly where we are now

the only things that touched
were my lips to the phone receiver
I can't remember exactly how many times you didn't answer

the first time you asked me to marry you
the first time I asked you to run away with me
the first time we fought with our fists and then

the only things that touched
were your lips together
when you packed up all of the things you could reach

and still keep your distance

my father loves the taste of bourbon

I do not know why
I am too afraid to ask

if it is because the burn it leaves in the back of his throat
and the pit of his stomach
is sweeter than that of his broken body

or if it is because after seven glasses
he forgets his middle name or that
his body is even broken at all

I do not know
I am too afraid to ask

if he is addicted to the alcohol
or just being able to move without wanting to scream in pain

the only nights my father sleeps
are those when he is too intoxicated to even stand

I do not know if he even likes the way it tastes
or if it’s just familiar now but

I have never been more scared than watching my father
stagger up the stairs to our door
and throw himself heavy onto the couch

thinking
what if this time he doesn’t wake up

I’m addicted to feeling numb

and my ex is right what they say about me, I’m so sorry for the girl lying here beside me

time didn’t make it easier and I think I’m still sick, I think I’m getting sicker

I didn’t mean to hurt her, I don’t want anyone to have to hurt like this

if you ignore hunger pains long enough, you stop feeling them
I just want to stop feeling this

I've never known anything simpler
Or more complicated than love

It is easy for me to love her when she grinds against my hand
Urging my fingers deeper
Her nails on my back and her breath on my ear

It is easy for me to love her when we are lying on my mattress
Blankets half thrown over us
Pillows scatter the floor
Half asleep it does not take much effort to smile because I can feel her on my chest

It is easy for me to love her when she straddles my lap
When her lips find mine in a frenzy of lust
Or when we are curled up with each other watching the same movie for the sixth time because we were too busy to pay attention for the first five

It is easy for me to love her when it is just us

When I tell my friends about her I have to keep myself from jumping up and down
Have to remember not to mention her name
I don't want her to face the consequences of loving me

It is hard for me to keep my hands to myself
To try not to lean into her kiss
I have to remind myself of who might be watching

It is hard for me not to hold her hand whenever I am close enough to reach her
To call her by her name in front of our parents because baby is the first word to touch my tongue

It is hard to listen to my friends talk about the way they would touch her
I always want to tell them she's mine
But I know she'll always be more than that

It is hard to pretend like I'm not so completely involved
I don't want to make the mistake of ruining what we have
And she deserves something better
I want to give her something better than “friend”