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 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

so much has changed since I met you

I  live in a different house now, left the old one behind
but I still keep my mom's key tied around my neck, an apology for all the things I couldn't take with me

I haven't driven down my old street since my dad left
he still calls me sometimes but I wonder if I'll ever really see him again
or my brother

I bought a new car, a Honda, go figure
and it almost feels like the last trip I took with my mom when I drive it
West Virginia, and how I thought we'd still be driving for days

and of course there's Her
I wore a pink cactus shirt when I married her
stayed in our home town for our honeymoon

so much has changed since I met you
and I miss handfuls of last year
and being a kid, coming home to my mom in our old house
but I'm happy here

I'm happy now

I think hard about numbers
and how nothing ever adds up to make sense

some nights I sleep in the back seat of my car
I call that my sense of freedom

most nights I fill my head with powder
and my thoughts blur past me faster than the lights on an almost empty street

I think about how most nights I feel pretty empty too

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

picture this
sixteen years old
the world at my feet
but it's four in the morning
and it's the third time tonight
that i've woken up feeling like i am drowning
and i am gasping for air
it's like trying to breathe around a hole in my chest
where i carved out my heart
handing it to you i said baby
if you're leaving take this with you
you can do a lot more good with it than i can
but i'm still trying to teach myself how to love again
replaced all the blood in my veins with gasoline
and struck a match on my teeth

i just wanted to remember what it was like to feel

she holds my hands
and i think it's so she'll stop shaking

i can taste all the pills in her stomach

they taste a little bit like she's saying goodbye

she keeps nodding off
so i keep telling her to open her eyes

i know she has a habit of talking in her sleep
and i'm just not ready to hear this

I am allergic to affection

the term “I love you” makes my stomach turn and my hands sweat
and I think that is why they leave

because I know how to type it all out
but when it comes from my lips it always sounded like a plea

I do not sound desperately in love
just desperate
even the way I touched you

like I wanted so badly for you to be there in the morning but
I didn’t know how to ask you to stay without screaming it

I can’t be alone anymore

I wanted to slice my skin to show you that I needed you
but instead I scared you away

I am allergic to affection

I have never known how to hold someone
how to kiss you without biting your lips

I wanted you to be mine

but you were always so much more

there is nothing extraordinary about me
nothing worth rescuing anymore

is it ****** up that when i heard my friend had died i cried
and wished i could be so lucky

i feel guilty more for never thinking about my mom
and how in two weeks it'll have been three years
and how i can still see it in my sister's jaw, the way she bites her tongue to keep from screaming

mostly i just wonder how she keeps it up
how i'm supposed to bite my tongue at all the razors come slip from between my lips, slash holes through my gentle girlfriend and my scared brother

i am so scared of how much longer i'm expected to keep this up
i have tried and tried and i cannot survive with this pain in my chest
there isn't any room left for new scars

i want to swallow all the pills i've ever kissed and drop off the edge of this ****** up cliff i've been ******* to for years

i want to know what it's like to finally sleep

i don't want to be rescued, i never did

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

and oh ****
but I just wanted you to love me

I never cared about any of it
so long as you were with me

now I wait hours alone
wondering if you’ll even remember my name
when yours has been running through my veins all year

I tried to let you go
opened up my skin to bleed you out
but you’re still the bitter taste in the back of my mouth

I miss you
and oh ****
but I just wanted you to love me

it's nights like this

i spend hours reliving
your hands on my skin

i want so badly
to hear you sighing my name
again

tell me you want me

i. you did not taste like your promises
not like "forever" or "i love you"
you tasted like desperation and old cigarette smoke
and i do not know which one i liked more

remember how she tasted the first time she kissed you

no one is vacant of fear

i swear i saw her lips tremble
even with my eyes closed

-i want the exact date and time of the moment you realized

-do you remember the first time we had ***? and was that before or after you told me you didn't love me?

-she doesn't love me
she doesn't love me
she doesn't love me

-and that's how i deal with getting high behind your back

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

April
your eyes shine brighter
than any star in the sky
i think i'm in love

May
i bought you flowers
roses, couldn't remember
your favorite, sorry

June
you are the first girl
i've ever wanted so bad
tell me you need me

July
she died this month and
i have never seen you so
broken, i love you

August
summer is ending
you'll go back to school, and i
will miss you like hell

September
happy birthday, babe
it's been hard the last few months
i know, hang in there

October
it's Halloween and
all i can think about is
how you look tonight

November
i just turned sixteen
i blew out my candles and
wished for your dad back

December
you haven't been the
same since he died, i guess that's
to be expected

January
you're moving away
so i'm going to Maryland
please don't forget me

February
my mom is bringing
you to come see me, i am
beyond excited

March
you left without an
"i love you" and i don't want
this to be goodbye

I miss you

like my dad's drinking habit
and how he only says he cares after he's punched me in the face

I miss you

like my mom crying in the hallway
because she can't stand to watch me **** myself anymore

I miss you

and how we fought
and ****** and ******
and fought
and never once did you say "I love you"

I miss you

like..
well,
I guess my point is

I don't.

she smells like cigars

and my garage when my dad drinks too much
and it doesn't matter how expensive his taste
it all smells cheap and it makes my head spin

and i don't think i'm still standing up
and everything's black
or silver
or

and someone's screaming at me and it doesn't matter how small i try to become
i can't get away
from all of the noise

and i guess that's what i get for only picking jobs where people yell at you all day

and for coming back every time i ran away

she smells like cigars

and recently i haven't been feeling so safe

your lips are the color of

like if you shot me in the chest and hung around long enough to watch me bleed out

i think it would look like your smile

bright red
and a little bit dead inside

but that's okay

your lips are still the only ones i want to kiss

it's 2 a.m. and I've been sober for a week and that's the longest I've been sober in months and you're asleep on the couch because you are too afraid to go upstairs after Matt especially at night and I have nightmares every time I close my eyes and oh god I am terrified

today I am more afraid to live

watching a boy I barely know rot inside his own flesh

begging me to stop it

whatever it is that is killing him


my life has come to its turning point
I just wish I could go back


I'm sorry

I can't wake up anymore
WITHOUT WANTING TO PUKE

and my house is haunted
by a dead boy still walking

and he says that he's sorry


but I still can't breathe

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".

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

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 had been ready to die for a long time

but now that you’re gone
and I’ll die having forgotten what you look like
and how you felt

I’m not so ready anymore

Four o'clock in the morning
Is the worst time
To be missing you

But I am

I’m sorry I didn’t come see you

I’m sorry I never called
that I didn’t tell you I loved you before you left

I don’t know what I expected when I heard you got sick
but it wasn’t this

I’m sorry I couldn’t come after you died
that I never said goodbye

I’m so sorry

I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to get out of bed
that I couldn’t stop crying long enough to call your wife

to tell her I’m sorry

I’m sorry I got angry every time a stranger
told me they were sorry for my loss

but it hurts so ******* bad


I’m sorry

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

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

i'm sorry i didn't take better care of her
i know i promised and i tried so hard
but she does not love me
and it is hard to keep her safe when she is walking away

i am spiraling out

and i can feel it because i'm always rubbing my eyes
and i think my hair is falling out
because i keep waking up to my dreams left on my pillows

i am spiraling out

and i don't remember the last time i felt ok
or the last time i took my meds

BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THOSE AREN'T RELATED

but at least drugs stop the screaming
and the shaking
and the constant paranoia

WHY IS SHE ALWAYS TRYING TO LEAVE ME

i don't know what i did wrong

I WANT TO GET HIGH

"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."

your touch
sets every nerve in my body on fire

you make my skin burn
and everything feels electric

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

you once planted daisies in my rib cage

you said the flowers were supposed to make me beautiful inside
but I have never felt beautiful

****
the closest thing to beauty I know

is the way the letters of your name hang on the tip of my tongue
and when we kissed

I felt the galaxies inside of you
open up like they could swallow me whole
and I know they could

I knew the stars lived inside of you the first time you looked at me
and all I had were flowers

but baby I don’t think you remembered
how easily flowers wilt
when you forget to water them

maybe you thought
because the lights are on
someone’s home

but this house has been empty for years
I only left the door unlocked hoping you would find your way back inside

I left everything the way you like it
I remember you telling me all of your favorite things the night it was too cloudy to see the stars in the sky
or maybe it was because they had already made their way into your eyes

truth of the matter is
I never really cared for daisies until

I tried roses once
or maybe twice
but their thorns tore open my lungs and it was already so hard to breathe around you
I ripped them out of my chest like weeds

and I would much rather have your daisies back

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

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

did you know I drag myself out of bed with six lines in the mornings
did you know I sniffle more than I blow because it's the blow I'm trying to push down my throat
that cringe worthy drip is all I'm living for anymore
did you know I've been high for five years
constantly patting away nose bleeds and I chipped all of my teeth
did you know that addiction is something we made up in our heads
that being high is only as good as the crash
did you know when I was sixteen I tried to get sober
did you know when I was sixteen I said **** it because the crash was way better than waking up alone
cause now I don't bother waking up
or ever going to sleep
or eating
did you know I find some sick pleasure in watching the scale drop
and I ain't never gonna tell nobody
did you know my smile was cut by razor blades
along with six lines of something bitter
did you know..
well no, of course not

she wants late afternoons in bed

I want to come home after a long day at work and drink until I can’t tell the difference between my bed and the floor
I want to sleep with half the girls I meet

she says she wants to wake up to my smile every morning

I do not want to have to worry about waking up to a girl whose name I can’t even remember

she’s still waiting on “I love you”

but I’ve already said goodbye

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 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 started drinking again

but I never get the urge to call you
and beg you to come back to me

maybe because I don’t miss you anymore

I only think it’s surprising because
when we used to get drunk together

you begged me for love
but not the kind I asked in return

you only ever told me you loved the way I touched you
how I made you feel good

I asked you to love me at one in the morning when I could not feel your arms around me
or hear your heart beat next to mine
asked you to promise to be here when I woke up

I got used to hungover mornings without you
and I think that’s why I don’t reach for you

I wanted to tell you I still love you
but I don’t know if I ever did

I started drinking again
and I haven’t even texted you

I don’t want you to come back
and I’m okay with that

i am lost in my own feelings
i want to tell you i love you
but it feels like you're already too busy
being in love with everyone else
how ****** would it sound
if i said maybe
this isn't what you need
i want to make you feel stable
but i think there's something about you that enjoys
going off the deep end
but see, i never learned how to swim

i love you so much
i think i'm drowning

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

I am so sick of playing the good guy

of keeping my mouth shut
of checking up on you every ******* time something goes wrong
and wishing you well with a boy I can’t ******* stand
of keeping my problems to myself
of letting you tell me you love me everytime you leave

I ****** you to show you that that’s all you are to me
one night
not even an “I love you”
a “shut the hell up before someone hears you”
a fist around your throat and lips on your inner thigh

it wasn’t even for you
I didn’t care how good it made you feel

I wanted to have some ******* control for once

I am so sick of you leaving hickeys on my neck
of getting me high to show me you still own me
of your fingers in my hair and your nails on my back

you drive me ******* insane
and I am so sick of always coming back to you

go ahead and drink
'cause the room's already spinning
at least now you'll have something to blame it on

And this isn’t some sad love poem about how I still love you
I don’t

But out of all of my mistakes, you’re still my favorite

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