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"

when you're his favorite version of the word "******"
translates more towards "greedy"
and you **** him when you're hungry
tonight I'm starving
and there's nothing graceful about our touching
I'm just desperate for that next hit

mouth full of broken teeth
no wonder I don’t smile like I use to

I can’t feel you on me
and I’m dying for a reminder that you’re still here

I miss you
I stopped having nightmares a long time ago and now I’m just trying to remember what it was like to dream
my chest is heavy and I’m so sorry I couldn’t love you right
Please don’t leave

There are few things I really fear in this world

I use to believe that losing you was one of them but
since you left
I have decided that all I am
is not because of some girl

I am sure that one day
you will cease to roam my head and
I will stop writing about you but
until that day
I do not mind keeping you as a reminder

that even though we loved more passionately than the stars loved the night sky
I can live without you

I do not revolve around you
I am my own god and you
are just a girl

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 am more impressed with your ability to wake up

see, cause i know how you get
and that's not to say that you're too sensitive

but i love the way you look when you're mad
just hate the way your voice sounds like i'm doing something wrong
again

I was drunk the first time a girl kissed me

I wish I had been sober so I could remember it better

we were on the bed
she held my hands down above my head
I pretended to struggle

I didn’t want to seem too eager

she leaned down
and I swear

in that second before our lips met
every part of me came alive
I felt fire burning through my veins

and god
I’d never known anything better

i remember conversations in the dark
don't look at how my lips tremble when i say your name
i love the way you hold me
but couldn't love me
you're all hands and teeth
and baby devour me

And then I met you,
My ****** Queen

My too sick to sleep
Ode to bad dreams

I swear, ******* NEVER MEANT A THING TO ME
as long as you say you want me too..

and baby I know you  do
you kissed me so sweetly
never left a mark on me

made it easy to convince you weren't nearly as toxic
woke up after every death scene

you changed everything

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

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

all you ever did was drag me down

i'm not sorry you're gone

I’m a liar.
I want you back

I want your tired eyes and your smudged makeup

I want your shaky hands and even shakier voice
to keep telling me you love me

I want you back
**** I want you back

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 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 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 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

****

I like to pretend like three days sober
means I’m getting better
but

I’ve still got battlefields played out on my wrists

and just because my veins aren’t pumping liquor tonight
doesn’t mean those half empty bottles aren’t staring me in the face

and I can hear that rusty pipe calling out my name
like you and I both know
I can stop the bleeding for a few hits of the good stuff

and maybe then I won’t feel
the nasty bite as I claw through flesh

too many Oxy and I might lose my ****
literally


three days sober like I’m getting better
but when my head’s not swimming through alcohol dreams

I’ve just found another way to **** me

thanks sobriety
for leaving me tossing in bed at night
i still wake up crying sometimes
but i can never remember why

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

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

we went everywhere together
she was the only one to comfort me
2. i never left for school without gauze wrap in my back pack
i had already ruined the sleeves of too many shirts
3. she drowned out his yelling
and i did not have to be afraid
4. i still don't understand affection
she is the only one i know how to hold
5. there is a difference between coping to survive
and suicide
6. i get nervous around sharp metal
it reminds me of the scars
7. i am still attracted to toxic relationships
8. but a razor never hurt as bad as you

There is no happiness in this situation

In slitting my wrists every night before bed
In wishing I had woken up dead

In pretending like it wasn't all in my head
I know it was all in my head
But I couldn't make the voices stop..

In medical rounds and hospital gowns
In every single missing persons report
And I still haven't been found

In breaking my bones on.. What?
Promises like..forever
Stay with me
Because I can't stand to be alone and I hate being lonely

In chasing down my fears with my favorite *****
In growing up being told I was born to lose.. Everything that I had worked so hard to get so eventually I just quit

In coughing up the pills I begged to stay in my stomach
In spending your life being diagnosed as sick
Diseased messed up in the head

Bipolar schizophrenic OCD
Just take your pick

I can tell you the side effects of every prescription that was supposed to fix me
Only turned me into a zombie

I don't eat..
And either I don't sleep or that's all I do
I don't have any friends outside of school

Can barely leave my room without an anxiety attack
Can't look in the mirror cause all I see is fat

Can't say how I feel cause I sound like a bother
Growing up with a drunk as a father

And a mom who wouldn't leave him despite what you said
The nights he stood by your bed

And spit in your face what a ******* disgrace you grew up to be
I hope you're ******* happy

she says it’s not healthy

and I can’t help but wonder
if she means loving girls I know will never love me back or
all the things I use to substitute so they don’t have to

she says she won’t kiss me with dip in my mouth or after I smoke a cigarette
I never really assumed she would

I know my habits are unattractive
constant nose bleeds and being so ******* angry all the time

she says it’s not healthy
I wonder why she even cares

she only says she loves me when she wants something
like *** or for me to quit drinking so much

she always complains that I taste like my depression
that I hold her with shaky hands and my smile seems to tremble with them

she says it’s not healthy
to keep living like this

I argue that at least I’m living

where it starts
1. your girlfriend will have a miscarriage
for the second time
and you, you'll start using needles
THERE WILL BE NO DIRECT CORRELATION BETWEEN THESE TWO THINGS
but you tell yourself
a daughter is what would make life worth living
and subsequently what it takes to get you sober

2. you lose your job
because you're always in the bathroom missing veins
loss of job will inevitably spiral into an
"intolerable depression"
or
"extended sadness"
or
"whatever version of this is easiest to swallow"

3. you get to spend every holiday from your birthday until The Day She Dies sitting next to your mother's hospital bed
(except for when you're always in the bathroom, missing veiins)

LATER
your sister reassures you that mom didn't know the way you also choked back guilt with all the bile and unpleasant things in your trips to the restroom
but for now you will hate yourself
hate the sticky needles
and hate the way your girlfriend leaves all her ghosts behind when she leaves you

4. you find that bathroom floors are your new home
splayed out after your 8th overdose
jail cells are just a normal tuesday
and you keep waking up to razor blades left neatly on your pillow

where it ends

5. giving up ****** is like pulling teeth
messy and painful but typically necessary
and so hard to do alone

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

u can't

This Is Where I'm From

I'm from stereo speakers
from Fender and Gibson
I'm from the brick path by the back door
rough and chipped
it felt like it left pieces of itself still embedded in my skin
I'm from the Mantis bush
the old Oak tree
that stood as tall as I dreamed I could
it was no surprise when they cut it down too
I'm from the silent dinners by myself
and hands too small to comfort me
from Sally and Emily and Mac
I'm from the drunks and bipolar

from worthless and disappointment
I'm from sinner
never had a chance because God can't love a queer
I'm from celts and kilts
and a little place in Bexley
Dad's liquor cabinet and too much caffeine
from the chair by my mother’s hospital bed in the cancer ward
the block of metal that makes up my father's knee
I'm from razor blades and gauze wrap
the years I spent trying to cut out the parts of me that wouldn't let me fit in
from the people whose faces I don't recognize
only met them in old photos
I'm from "don't think, know"
a house but it was never a home

I am angry also that I have composed symphonies for someone who has turned out deaf

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

she used me
she took everything because all I ever did was give

she took parts of me I wish I could take back
like my innocence
every ******* “I love you”

she used me and she ******* left
and when she left I begged her to come back to me
told her she was my everything
“I can’t live without you”

when really
she’s just another girl
who didn’t listen the first time I said no
so I just stopped talking

she’s gone because there was nothing left to take

good

go **** some other poor helpless kid
who made the mistake of thinking you were made of stars

I can live without you

watch me.

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

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

everything tastes like
your perfume

i can still feel your skin
underneath my fingertips

tell me you love me
or that you need me

tell me you like the way
i touch you

i'm just begging you to stay

"our song"

the fragile broken rhythm of an unsteady heart trying to float above 32 bpm
surrounded by all the tangled machines counting how close to death I have strayed
when I stayed on the living room couch for two days
after choking down 26 pills in the shape of my anger

the sound of barely 100 lbs hitting the floor after two too many shots of somehing stronger than your courage
unsuccessful cpr and the way my ribs snap under the weight of our guilt

the silence swimming in the background of your converations with police sirens

the comments on your instagram  of tiny pin ****** securing my hand to yours

have you ever heard it sober?
our song
the sound of razorblades clattering against ******* stained mirrors
shattered from the last time I got high alone
that's seven years of bad luck, you know

and perhaps that's why you had to watch me die four times
and perhaps that's why I had to learn to live alone

I make a habit of frequenting the bar across the parking lot
in hopes of casually bumping into you

I rehearse in my head the way I'll avoid striking up conversation
leave my number tucked between bills in the host book on the table
stroll out the door, I promise myself I will not look back

My therapist says my unmedicated mania is dangerous
because I turn into disaster, the way I'm longing for your smile

Today's my birthday and I'm finally old enough to sit quietly alone with a glass of bourbon, the way my father does
I scratch my fingertips raw on the table longing for the clicking of graphite nails
But I cut them to the quick when I spent two days worrying about what you might think if you saw my hands

there's a hickey on my chest
and I know you are the one who left it there
because it is signed in the letters of your name

and if you come over...
I'll show you how it matches the black scratch ink between my shoulder blades

I do not love

I don’t even like the girls I sleep with
I just can’t sleep in an empty bed

and I do not miss you
or the way you taste

I’ve long forgotten the smell of your skin
the sound of your voice

I just miss having someone to hold
but I don’t want it to be you
do not come back here

I can’t stand the way your name sounds against my tongue
or the memories I have of you

I do not love

I didn’t even like her
just the way she told me I was better than the boys she ******

I do not love

they didn’t teach me that when I was in school
or how to feel when she leaves you

I had to figure these things out on my own
and I know I’m doing something wrong

but I do not care
I do not
I don’t

I do not love

but if I did
it would not be you

she's the color of

bleach down your throat

she knows all too well
the way stomach acid tastes

i've never seen someone

look

so

pale

tonight I'm celebrating 21 years of jumping head first through the clouds without so much as a goodbye kiss so we can just forget the parachute all together

You taste exactly the same as you did four years ago and I know that because I broke every rule I have ever made for myself so I could see you naked again

Does that sound ******? What I mean is, tonight I'm celebrating my 21st birthday and it wouldn't feel real enough if I couldn't still smell your perfume in patches in the back of my hair or along the collar of my shirt or anywhere your forget me not fingers have touched

Your taste in music and these black scratch tattoos are the only difference between the sweet 15 year old that stole my heart and the air from my lungs and all the blood from my veins and the nearly 20 year old pin up doll that only wants me when she feels lonely

But baby I've been lonely since I left you the last time so here I am
For you
Always

IT'D BE THE ONE LOVE POEM I EVER WROTE ABOUT SOMETHING BESIDES GETTING HIGH ALONE

my sister would commend me on my ability to write something beautiful for once
that stole someone's breath in a way that sounds like "stay with me"
instead of slamming the door in your face

it would probably be a very detailed description of the way your lips move when you're talking ****
and the way your tongue brushes along your back teeth when you're trying not to smile when I do it back
which honestly might be the easiest part to write

it'd be something really gay about your terrible choice in flowers or the color lilac or the TINIEST of confessions that are really too small to hear

it would be stamped in gold stars
and sold as quotes by people that aren't me

and probably aren't you
but I think you'd be okay with that
because then everyone would know how I feel about you

and if I could write a poem like the way you talk to me
everyone would already know anyway

this is not what I wanted

but god I missed the taste of your lips
the way a ship misses the shore

I missed your breath on my neck
more than fallen stars miss the night sky

and the way you wrapped your arms around me..
like I was something you didn’t want to let go..

this is not what I wanted
( I want you )

I relapsed after our phone call
and like an idiot I split my lip on the razor I used to cut lines

****** IS SO SILLY!
cause you can never tell what it's made of
until you're
c
 r
  a
   s
    h
     i
     n
       g            that's where we have something in common

       d
      o
     w
    n

and I know that it's just the blood in my mouth
that tastes so much like you
because the dope has always been
sweeter

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

ONE

WHO THE **** SAYS ****** WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU

TWO

"SQUIRRELS"IS MY DAD'S "LESS OFFENSIVE" TERM TO DESCRIBE ******* AFTER I CAME OUT IN 7TH GRADE

THREE

I WILL NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR CHOOSING ALCOHOL OVER MY RELATIONSHIP
MY MOM SAYS I AM MY FATHER'S SPITTING IMAGE

FOUR

MY MOM SAYS I AM MY FATHER'S SPITTING IMAGE
i think that says enough

I blacked out in my bed last week, which is almost like falling asleep

until she told me my lips turned blue and my chest stopped dipping

and my head's still spinning trying to imagine the look on her face when she cracked three of my ribs while she begged 911 dispatch to tell her how to make me breathe again

I hate everything about waking up naked tangled up in tubes and wires and a face mask after my little brother dragged me on to the floor so EMT had a clear path to get to me

nothing about this is beautiful anymore
I've got a sick sense of Deja Vu and I still haven't quite caught my breath

i have never been
soft spoken

always so loud and harsh
and never cared who heard me

now my words are heavy
and god
i hope you're listening

i can't keep it to myself
anymore

i want you

****
but i need you so much more

you drive me crazy
and not in a good way

you make my ******* skin crawl

and I am trying to figure out how
to rip you from my veins

you have always left a sour taste in my mouth
and I am trying to wash you out

but I can't forget the way you made me bleed
when I begged you

no
it never meant anything to you
that's why you never stopped when I begged you

no
please stop
please please please

you drive me crazy
in the "I want to blow my brains out" kind of way

do not touch me again
I can still feel my skin crawl

and I am trying to figure out how
to get rid of you

you called me, rambled nonsense of love lost through the telephone before saying you'd only see me if I promise not to write about it

as if you've ever known a moment with me that didn't one day end up on paper

fastforward after dinner, we're in the Costco parking lot
and somehow I think, we're both still hungry

you ask me if my new tattoo has anything to do with the way you get naked before the door to your apartment drops shut behind us
I promise not everything I do, I do with you in mind

but it's a quarter to eight and we're in the backseat of your car
(and if I had a dollar for everytime we wound up here I wouldn't even have to write anymore)

I am crushed between seats that do not lean far enough forward, when you finally notice the music has stopped playing

this is the first time in four years you have ever seemed uneasy in the quiet

so I kiss you until your body relaxes
you have cried three times since you took your shirt off
you don't stop telling me you love me until suddenly

your hands are everywhere
and I have permission to write about tonight because obviously this means we are still in love

fastforward 24 hours
I'm back in your car after a stop to the pub and there's enough liqour in me to drown out my voice

we fall asleep holding hands while the heat blasts like a furnace ready to burn down this so well put together home

that's two nights in a row I have lost my way home and somehow found myself tangled up in ... well not really sheets, I guess
maybe just each others clothes?

alright skip ahead another day
you're asking if I'll see you and for the first time in four years my answer is no

we promise a rain check and then next day I'm drunk again and only think
about kissing you until I fall asleep sweaty and with a pulsing headache

I'm thinking about leaving my job so I'll have more time to admire the way you look with all this confidence

it's only with you that I will ever say no to getting high
because with you I already can't feel my face

and I guess you could say I love it

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