i miss my city and her smile
but i can't go home for a while

i heard a song and it broke my heart
it ripped me apart

jesus christ i feel like a black hole
and i just want to be whole

i can't trust who i thought i could
and i hate that i thought i should

i want to see how long i'll have to wait
til he sees my love has turned to hate

oh my god i think i'm drowning
i am a bird with a broken brown wing

i am so tired
i am so tired

if i had known
that the clock was ticking
that our time was running out
that we only had a few more breaths to take together
oh...
the list of things i would've done
(differently)
is miles long
your heart is above me now
dancing on the air and the stars and touching the moon
talking with god like long lost friends
i think he loved you, so he let you go,
let you come to me,
but he missed you so much he brought you home
and i get it
sixteen years is a long time to miss your best friend
i've barely survived these two years without you
i miss your spirit and your eyes and your brain
i still can't say goodbye
visit me
because i have so much left to say

i had words on my tongue and they were pretty enough to be let off their leash
but **** it, i have no energy for beauty and delicacy and heartbreak wrapped in gilded paper
i have hurt, though, and she's scratching at the roof of my mouth
hoping that her claws can be her deliverance
deliver us from evil...
...and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us
the lord's prayer is on repeat, a broken record in my head
what goes around comes around,
except i keep getting ******* on
but i put my heart out and give love and hope it'll come back for me
i forgive
but don't get me wrong: i do not forget
every wrong done against me has burrowed down in my mind
hibernating and waiting for winter to end
so they can come out with a fury
i forgive-but-don't-forget every time i was kissed and made to feel special,
then left aside waiting like laundry that's clean but not yet folded
but all the hurt
the dried up sadness caked and cracked like an old mud puddle
the wiped away tears only my shower walls have seen
the thudding breaking
sticks on my desk, a reminder,
that even if things are bad
i am not.
i give kisses and receive receding backs, because
...deliver us from evil...
the tables will turn soon
they always do
and i'm willing to wait for it

got drunk and a broken heart
funny how it happens so fast so often
i fell hard:
hand-on-thigh and chin-on-shoulder-from-behind hard
infectious-laugh and tender-eyes-across-the-room hard
he made me feel funny and desirable and soft
like it didn't matter that i was clumsy and frazzled at heart
i trusted him, a stranger
a stranger with a magnetic pull
and i handed him my glass femininity
he let it fall
and i fell with it
somehow every time i try to put the sadness in my gut into words it comes out sounding cliched and tired
i sound tired too
can't sleep now that i know he gives no ***** for me
he ****** and he left and he broke
i can't ******* take it
today i cleaned my room obsessively
as if scrubbing my desk could dry my eyes
i don't want to speak to my friends
because i'm afraid only pain will fall out of my mouth
mouth he kissed
mouth to mouth resuscitation in the truest form
he put life in my lungs and a fire under my toes
and it's still there
just a little less of it
i can't pull myself to tend to it
but for now that will have to be okay

i think i'm having a mid-life crisis.
like, i feel like when i look at myself i don't look like myself.
but i been looking at the same face for forever,
give or take the amount of eyeliner i got on.
when i was seven i had a mental breakdown
and when i was fourteen i tried to end it all.
now twenty-one is coming soon (too soon, not soon enough)
and i just feel like i feel nothing.
does this mean i'm gonna die in my early forties?
or tomorrow?
i look in the mirror and my face isn't my face,
my thighs aren't my thighs
but i feel my cheeks and it seems right.
there's gotta be a name for this in-between **** that's making me lose my mind,
lose myself,
lose my grasp on reality and
is this supposed to be happening?
my mama tells me all the time that i'm more normal than i think
but i think i feel like i'm dying and
i don't think everyone is feeling like that right now.
god i just feel like an ocean
i feel like i'm touching something, holding onto something,
but in the middle i'm huge and dark and full of everything and nobody gets me but everybody is on my surface.
when i was little i said "i feel like i won't ever be a cliche"
and here i am

jealousy
and i'm not afraid to admit it
i sit around all day hating that i'm alone
but the grass is always greener and i know
that if i got what i wanted it would be
the opposite of what i wanted
and i'd hate being known
open and bare and exposed
as the day i was born
but i just want somebody
to have and to hold
passion and blood and
arm rubs when i get cold
hands in mine, on me and
a promise that he'll never leave me and
i love the way a back looks
but not when it's walking out my door
i'll be afraid to close my eyes when we kiss
just in case i might miss
a flicker of regret or disinterest on his face
and if that's the case my heart will fall
and revert to its brokenness from before it all went right
i don't remember not wanting
or waiting
hoping and praying
for something i might not even want after all
jealousy
misplaced, maybe, but placed nonetheless

i'm trying my best
to wake up and be kind
to be soft to the world around me
to turn the other cheek
life has handed me her lemons
and i break my back each day,
bringing her lemonade with hands
****** and raw
the acid stings my open cuts but
i would rather feel this
feel everything
than sit numbly
death has entered my address book
and crossed off names most dear
and he has looked me in the eyes,
said "not you, not yet" and left me
with my memories and my ghosts
i'm trying my best
to live up to atlas
to not let the weight of my world
crush me
i fight, and the world fights back
i bite, and the world bites back
but i will not let life harden me
she's trying her best, too
and sometimes she's winning
and sometimes she's not
i have faith on my side
there's a reason,
i must believe,
that i stand here still
and i wake up and try my best
to figure out the "why" but
there is such beauty in this world
and such sadness
and i feel both in my heart,
in my bones,
in my tumultuous soul