i passed your house on my way home from his
and i felt my eyes fill with tears
thinking bout every time i came over
and every time i wish i did over the years

i'm too stubborn to ever admit it
but god do i miss you
it takes up my dreams at all times of the day
but my pride won't let me tell you the truth

and even if i did,
if i pulled out my heart and wore it on my sleeve
would it even make a difference?
or would you still just turn and leave?

mom always said "you don't know til you try"
but either way, in the end, i'll be crying
so i keep my love to myself
i'm just so tired

bury my head in the sand
but leave my soul for the breeze
i'll die with these secrets
they'll stay between me and the trees
and i won't mind
never knowing if there was hope for you and i
because i sat on my hands and wondered,
"is it better to speak or to die?"

pride goes before the fall
but it comes after it, too
it's all that keeps me together at night
when i think about falling for you

i always think of you
and i always think of this
in the moments when i pass your house
on my way to his

EAT AND BE EATEN
and eat again, and probably be eaten again, too.
AND. and! finally. not a choice, not a decision to be made incorrectly or regretfully.
i can eat. AND. i can be eaten.
no!
I WILL EAT AND I WILL BE EATEN.
there is something very satisfying about the prospect of "both"
i am not afraid of being eaten. i am afraid to eat.
but if the worst consequence of conquering my fear is not a fear at all, then who am i to not be a conqueror?
i can dismantle and overthrow, and build my new empire up from the very first stones.
first i must create. first i must write something that, like a flask full of sweet liquor, i can bathe in for courage when my feet start to tremble. i need to write like i drink: urgently, passionately, as if my happiness depends on it.
if i have a drinking problem, so be it!
as long as i also have a writing problem.
i will send my liver down the river in a basket if it means i can welcome creativity into its place.
i will. i will!
i dare someone to stop me.

bare bones stained with blood
linking together with all the power they have
(and though they look weak,
they had no choice but to become incredibly strong)
holding up a gentle, bruised soul.
tired fingers sigh as they put down their pen and form their net,
preparing to catch the falling heart.
this is routine, like praying the rosary but colder.
the fingers strain under the weight but do not falter
then softly, slowly, transfer the iridescence to a feather bed.
she sleeps, and they watch.
they wish she would learn.
they shake their head and pick up the pen again.
golden light casts a moving shadow across the paper
as the barely holy spirit's chest rises and falls in her sleep.
soon, the fingers know, she will wake up in a sweat
unable to shake the nightmare,
and will be filled with an insatiable desire to dive
into the deep end of her limitless mind.
and when she jumps, they sigh, put down the pen,
and link to catch her once again.

four years and three months today
without you
the spirit in my attic
the white feather on my nose.
one time i picked up a ouija board
giggling with new friends and no expectations.
and you... you were sitting right next to me
and jumped at the chance to use your voice
(you were never good at keeping quiet).
you spelled hello into my hands
and when i asked you for your name
and the planchette moved to "L" then "U" then "C"
and one of the girls whispers "oh my god we summoned lucifer"
i smiled and a tear fell in my mouth
because my heart was weightless all of a sudden
and you were next to me all of a sudden
and i'm sorry it took me that long to realize
that you were still so close.
so we talked
and it was almost like the old days
and for the first time since you died i could hear your voice saying the words our hands spelled on the board
and--my god-- was it good to hear your voice
(sounds don't sound the same without you
and i can't sing on key without you).
as we talked i sobbed and laughed
and probably scared the girls around me
but it was me and you, you and i, like it always used to be
so i didn't care.
the best part was the white feather, dancing hazily above my hands while i spelled your words.
i hung on to every word
because i knew they might be the last for a long time
at least until you're ready to talk again.
when you said "goodbye" i felt my heart float back down into my body and my soul felt less sore
and then someone looked up "what do white feathers mean"
and google said "lifting of bereavement"
which i think was your way of telling me to man up.
and you're right! why should i grieve and bereave when you're still right next to me
in the white feathers that have fallen on me and followed me
every day since the ouija board chat?
i miss you still. of course i do.
but you're still here in every little white feather

last night i gave God an ultimatum.
i told Him that He had 24 hours to deliver me a heart
and if the 24 hours came and went,
without the heart in my hands,
i would accept His sign and move on.
there are three hours left,
and my hands are empty
but my faith is unbreakable.
every time i pray i tell God i'm ready to love,
to hold a heart and hold it close,
and most importantly,
to be held in return.
He knows it's taken me years to say that,
to take a deep breath and want to blow it into the world,
not keep it locked in my chest.
and He knows that when He made me,
He didn't put a whole lot of patience in me.
so i gripped my rosary and gave God an ultimatum.
at the end of the day,
when the 24 hours is up
(no matter the outcome)
my faith will glow even stronger
because whether my hands are empty or full,
whether my heart will be sent abroad or staying home,
i will have God, as He has always had me.

i think i have a problem,
for real this time,
because the only words i've been able to write for months are
"i'm drowning"
and just what the **** am i drowning in?
to be honest i think i'm just numb
like when you're drowning and your brain shuts off when you run out of breath and--
there i go again.
i need a hug, and maybe a plane ride.
or just to sit on the top of a mountain, away from the depths of a body of water.
because i think water is out to get me right now,
like it's planning something
(like drowning me)
because i haven't really cried in a while,
which is just absurdly rare for me.
i cry all the time! it's my thing!
but tears haven't fallen in a long time,
and i've been really dehydrated, too.
so i think the water is saving itself for the big event.
it's hurricane season again, after all.
why do i feel like i'm drowning, if the water is waiting?
she hasn't drowned me yet, so why do i feel like it's already happening, or is currently happening?
the only answer i have is that i'm just become too numb.
and bracing myself for every eventuality has numbed me into oblivion, and that's what the draining drowning feeling is.
i don't really understand any of this.
but the good news is: i don't have to!
because by the time i get close to an answer, hurricane season will have ended and started all over again.

how i wish i could see you grow
outlive the confines of cruel adolescence
become a man taller and more beautiful than me
outside, yes, but inside where the flowers bloom
and your heart blossoms proudly
you had to leave us
captivating smile carried away with the wind
in autumn, always autumn
and leaves crunch under foot as i chase the last of you
hand outstretched and begging for just one ash
you had to leave us, and i will never not wish for more:
more time with you and your glowing golden heart,
more laughter in a quiet room
i want to hold your hand again with everything in me
but if it's alright with you,
i'll stay here for a little while longer
say my goodbyes slowly and savor the sunlight
try not to miss me as much as i miss you
we will hold hands again soon, i promise

i just cried
and dear god
has a weight been lifted
i really needed this
purging of pain
cleansing
i am new again
my grandfather always said
"oh quit your blubbering"
but i'm an emotional girl
so i let myself blubber
and then i quit it
and i feel like i did
before hormones
controlled my life
i just cried
and *******
has this heart been freed

i fell in love with an idiot who didn't.
and it wasn't the first time,
and it probably won't be the last time,
no matter how hard i try.
he broke my heart
and i couldn't talk about it
because he was our friend.
and you don't fall in love with your friends.
it hurt so much
to feel so strongly and stay so silent.
drunk kisses are all fun and games until you never address them in the morning, and you sit across from him at lunch and in the library, and you stand next to each other at basketball games and museum exhibits, and you pretend you don't spend the night in each other's rooms in a different way than you do with all your other friends.
and i fell in love
and we still went home from parties together
and i knew i should stop
because he didn't care about me like that
and then i realized he didn't really care about me at all
and our friendship wasn't really real anymore
and everything hurt
because i was still in love
and my hopes were so high
and i couldn't bring them down or cut the cord.
over and over again
i read into things that he didn't think about
and i guess i broke my own heart,
if you think about it,
but it feels better to blame him.
right now i'm in the part of the cycle
where i don't think about him,
or if i do,
it's only like 12% sadness and 88% hatred.
right now, i'm good. i'm healing.
and it's only a matter of time,
no matter how hard i try,
only a matter of time.

i am in awe
of myself.
i am the most resilient person i know
and it really ******* ***** sometimes.
god made me incredibly strong,
empathetic,
the friend that supports their friends
and doesn't expect support in return.
but god also made me depressed
i forgive him,
but most times it's waves of sadness
and sometimes it's hurricane season
and i wish i knew how to ask for help.
i don't know how to swim
(this is true)
so normally i just stay out of the water
and sometimes i dip my toes in
and that's when the waves pull me
and they drown me.
there's no lifeguards
because there wasn't any but me to begin with,
and if there had been,
they would've gone home already,
because no one knows what to do when the lifeguard drowns.
i think sometimes i get into these depressions
where i can't breathe or do anything
except feel sorry for myself
because nobody feels sorry for me, a,
(which is my fault because i don't let them know
there's anything to feel sorry for at all)
and because i spend so much time
feeling sorry and saying sorry and being sorry
for everyone else
that sometimes it just hits me like a brick ******* wall.
i think, right now, i just need
a **** good cry.

i'm trying to be happier.
it's really hard.
i got so used to being so sad
(for a reason, for no reason, all of the above)
i had to teach myself happiness again.
i forgot the things that brought me little joy.
i have so much love in my heart
and it hurts because i love like a little kid:
cautionless, full of emotion,
unwaveringly innocent.
and sometimes it crushes me
when people can't love like i do.
i'm depressed. i'm an artist.
everyone knows how this goes.
it doesn't matter,
because i'm going to be happier.
i light candles that smell good
and i play the piano until my fingers hurt
(because i have arthritis, probably)
and i laugh at twitter.
and i'm still sad sometimes
(for no reason, for a reason, all of the above)
it doesn't matter.
maybe nothing matters,
at least in the long run.
for now, i matter.
and i'm still going to love like a little kid
and fall and scrape my knee and cry for a minute
and keep going, keep going.
that's all there is to do.

hazy, lazy
bright and warm
she moves her foot
and opens her eyes
he's there, still,
sun coming in
in broken lines
striping his face
collarbones and chest
his mouth is open
hand on her leg
she has to move
but can't move away
so she waits
watching him breathe
sharing a pillow
she closes her eyes
and lets the sun
sing a morning lullaby

how do you solve a problem like
grieving?
i sat in a dark room for two and a half years
listening to old tapes of conversations with a dead person.
it was cold and unkind and thick with melancholy
and i couldn't find the door in the blackness
and i didn't call for help
and i didn't try to fight my way out.
it was horrible but it was comforting, somehow,
because i could tell there were other people trapped in other dark rooms with other unshakeable sorrows,
even if i was alone in mine.
and it was getting worse.
i should've been getting better,
adjusting to the lightlessness,
feeling around for the doorknob.
but i was sitting still
(and maybe going blind, too)
and here's the part of the story where everything gets better
...almost.
a ouija board grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards her
and it was the last thing i expected.
and a ghost
my ghost
spelled out his name and said hello
and i have never felt so at peace.
he said he missed me and that he was happy now
and my heart was floating in my body
and i was crying, as always,
but they were the happiest tears i've ever cried.
oh my GOD does it feel good to have your soul quieted
after two and a half years of unrest
and things you never got to say
and times you flaked on plans that you wish you'd kept
and laughs and hugs and
it wasn't all fun and games, when he was alive.
it was talking him down from panic attacks
and praying he wasn't hurting himself anymore
and faith that he would thrive
if he gave himself the chance.
it was the loss of innocence and the search for innocence
all wrapped up in the same two shared bodies.
we both tried our best.
and my heart cracked in a hundred places when he left
how do you solve a problem like a dead best friend?
i still don't know.
but a ghost by his name sent me love through a ouija board and told me to get my **** together,
just like i had told him when we were in the same world.
and it's almost three years
and i miss him just as much as i always have
but i think i can handle it now
at least a little better.
maybe next time i see him we'll be scarless and innocent again,
or maybe we'll be just as ****** up
but there's peace in knowing the reunion is coming,
no matter what form it takes.
.
.
.
for lucas, my heart. see you soon enough.

i thought i was done with him.
our friendship disintegrated and he poisoned the waters between us
because i loved him, which is my fault, and i tried to tell him
(which is my fault)
but he was so cruel and i know that isn't my fault.
he hurt me in the worst way
and i thought it would make me crumble but
i stand still and i hope still and i love still.
in a weird turn of events,
god sent me something new
right when i needed a distraction.
and i feel my heart growing fond for this new boy
but part of it is still aching for this old boy.
i wish i could push him away forever, if only because that seems to be what he wants
but there's this movie about love that i watched
and it changed me forever,
and the character faced the same dilemma i did
except his outcome was a happy one (at first)
"is it better to speak or to die"
and he spoke, so i spoke,
and everything fell to pieces around me,
and now i can't watch that movie without remembering him
you know, him. california.
i remember how much my fingers itched to be on him at all times,
and how much my stomach flipped when he came close.
sloppy drunk kisses that meant the world to me.
i remember how i still love him
and how i can't let him leave me
even though he hurts me, even though someone better came.
i think our story ends like the movie does:
sitting in front of a fire, tears and acceptance.
the world keeps spinning and my heart will have to keep beating,
even if she doesn't really want to sometimes.
i will have to go on.
some days will be cloudy but i think i'll survive.
after all, god knows i've seen worse.
our story ends without a resolution and i think that's okay,
because i think the closure would be less satisfying anyway.
there is no happy ending because
he doesn't love me like i love him, or at all, and that ***** now
but i know someone will love me ten times better someday and
maybe when they make a movie of our story it'll have a sequel.
or maybe not, and i have to be okay with that.
my california vacation has to end.

i'm writing a letter to my mama that i'm never gonna send.
because she'd worry, and because i can't find my stamps.
hey mama, i'll start,
i'm really ******* sad today.
my heart is broken and i don't know how to focus on school.
i fell for this boy because he was my best friend and we had *** this one time and then i was a goner.
and he hurt me so much, mama, in little ways that i ignored
because i refused to see the bad in him.
but he was bad from the beginning. he was a bad friend all along.
because a real friend wouldn't just touch you when he's drunk and pretend nothing happened when he's sober
and not just once, either.
i really loved him, i think.
i think i still do.
oh my god, mama, what am i supposed to do?
i still have to see him everywhere but even thinking about him makes my eyes water and i have a paper due tomorrow that i can't finish because somehow it reminds me of him.
this is really tough.
i kinda wish i was still little and you could cook me dinner and do my homework for me.
but now we live in different states and i won't see you until the semester is over and i just feel ******* lost.
growing up is so ******.
did you have to have me?
i made a mistake in kissing him in the first place,
but it seemed right at the time, and now i've spent an entire year of college crying over the same boy that doesn't care and never did and ******* this is awful and i can't even cry myself to sleep most nights because i have a roommate and--
but don't worry about me, ma.
i'll be home soon and we can watch tv and go for walks and spend four hours in target and maybe one night i'll tell you everything and how much it hurt even though you'll cry too because you couldn't protect me from a boy with long eyelashes and a great sense of humor.
love you! bye.
she's my best friend. so why can't i tell her when my heart is breaking? i'll lick the envelope but never send it and i think keeping this from her is the worst part of it all

and it is all over now.
i disturbed the universe, and it disturbed me back.
right now, i feel as if lava coated me and
seared me and
sealed me in unmovable stone.
my love has thrown me overboard and let me drown.
i tried so hard to make a happy home
out of  a house with no warmth to give
and it has hurt more than any hurt before it.
i loved him loved him
i really did
and oh my god he didn't even care one bit
not at all
and now i have an unrequited love and no best friend
because i opened my mouth and dared and lost it all in one roll.
i think i will never speak again.
this is the worst end of love of them all
he is gone for good and i'm stuck here, numb.
right now, i feel as if lava coated me and
seared me and
sealed me in unmovable stone.
maybe tomorrow i will feel different.
maybe tomorrow i will shake loose the crumbling rock.
maybe tomorrow i will dry my tears and put on pants and fall out of love with him.
until then i am in bed feeling so much that it feels like nothing.
i have so much beauty in my heart!
why do i spend it all on boys with their doors shut?
right now, i think i'll die still asking this question.
maybe tomorrow i will find someone better
because i am nothing if not resilient and my love is elastic and i know this isn't the end of me.
but for today it is.
i disturbed the universe, and it disturbed me back.
but i am full of light and hope and
i believe there was a reason for this pain.
i have to.

"and indeed there will be time
to wonder 'do i dare?'
...
do i dare
disturb the universe?"
i could wreck it all with the same breath it would take
to ask about his day, or tell him there's something in his teeth,
or suggest a new song.
and this power is deafening.
do i dare wake the gods?
surely they will want to see this,
this unraveling of my stability
(it does not matter that the "stability" was killing me)
they have such a cruel interest
in the blossoming and withering within my heart.
they tend the garden one minute and burn it the next
and they revel in watching the flames
and i think i do too.
i sit on the edge of a humbling world and waste time.
"and indeed there will  be time...
there will be time to ****** and create....
time for you and time for me"
but every second i deliberate i lose my resolve
and i resolve to bite my tongue
and get used to the taste of my blood.
i wait and deliberate and deliberately hurt myself
(old habits die hard) and i still can't swim
and i think this is drowning but it's just a puddle--
is this the way i go out? in a shallowness of my own making?
do i dare do i dare do i dare
step into the forest primeval and wreck it all
i know hope is useless but
something is telling me that maybe there will be time
for "affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient"
for a sigh of relief and what i so deeply desire.
he is all that i want
and the air that i breathe and i would hold my breath if he asked
and maybe i should hold my breath and tongue
do i dare do i dare do i dare
i'm toeing the line and there will be time
but i think i should just jump

i wish it was easier to be in love with you.
if i could feel a little less helpless,
a little less completely lost within loving you.
when you aren't around i feel weak,
afraid, half-empty.
and when you are...
when your arm is around my shoulders,
and your thumb is doing that gentle rubbing thing on my thigh,
when you let me take up my space in your bed,
and kiss my forehead before i leave...
loving you is so difficult, so painstaking and cruel
and time-consuming,
but i never thought it would be this easy
to want one thing with every little breath in my body.
to throw my whole self into wanting you and only you
is the simplest thing i have ever done.
to jump off the cliff was a no-brainer;
to fall lifelessly and wholeheartedly was uncomplicated.
it's the loving that is so **** tremendous.
out of all the things i've done,
the friends i've buried and lies i've told,
to be in love with you is the hardest of them all.
this heartache is nearly impossible,
but not loving you would be even worse.
you are endless
and you will be my end.
how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

i had a bit of a breakdown earlier today,
but i bet you're not surprised to hear this,
because i'm pretty sure you ghosts see everything
(kinda like god does).
but i bet you're also not surprised to hear this
because you knew that after you left,
until the last person who remembers you dies,
someone will be missing you.
you knew you'd break our hearts
and that we would long for the past when you were here
with every breath in our lungs
and freckle on our arms.
you knew you'd hurt us like this,
and put this infinite throbbing pain in our souls,
and still you left.
like a bridge over troubled water,
i will lay me down
(again and again and again)
because the sorry numbness of missing you is worth it,
just to reminisce on when you touched my hands,
and laughed with me,
and sang with me,
and cried to me.
i would go through every painful millisecond of missing you again
(and again and again and again)
if it meant i could remember you clearly.
but my memory is fading and your face is getting farther,
and it's harder to remember your voice and oh!
the prospect of losing you again is somehow worse
than losing you in the first place.
but this sad little glass is still half full,
because when i sat in the pew at your funeral
and sang your requiem,
god sat next to me and told me i would see you again.
and he told me to take my time
so i would have great stories to tell you
when i finally get to see you again.
old friend, other half of my sorry heart,
i'm making these memories for us,
and every day is for you, too.
but ******* it hurts to do it all alone.

i have decided that
it is better to die than to speak.
all my lips want to do is lie in bed with his,
lazy hazy days doing nothing but touching,
but i will keep them closed
as we go from this world to the next.
did i really think i could fall in love with my best friend?
that i would be loved in return?
that there could be a happy ending?
that i could continue to breathe without loving him?
oh... my heart feels frozen.
i cannot possibly move on,
but this current state will **** me.
i have to do something
i know i must.
but is it worth losing the best person in my life?
everyone has disappointed me, but him the least
and how can i just pack it all up and say goodbye
to some of my happiest moments?
under the covers
with sloppy drunk kisses
toes tickling toes
and hands on the warm parts.
this is the worst feeling.
my lips are fighting to stay closed against the waves of words on my tongue.
i see him and i turn to dust
like a forgotten city that waited too long in the sun.
i'm writing my own love spells,
last ditch efforts to pray something into existence
when there is no life to be had
in between our little hearts.
this love will pass.
it must.
so i will wait for the wind to carry this love away from me,
and i will not speak again until it does.

but he's not just a friend!
we crossed that line in a hazy, sweaty, drunken accident.
and my heart cannot possibly forget it,
even if, it seems, his can.
when he tells me how he touched another
in the same way he touched me,
and it meant nothing to them,
but everything to me.
and the times, they are a-changing.
because when it began it was just late night passion,
just twice before we got weird and scared
and suddenly our friendship was forced.
and then it began again,
and it was my whole world:
biting and kissing and laughing against his chest,
warm and kind.
love is blind.
but the gods are not, and they have made me love him
as a cruel turn of mindless entertainment.
this is my life with which they play,
and i feel like the girl in the music box,
stuck twisting to a pretty tune.
timeless and melancholy.
he makes me dizzy
in the best ways.
and i want to be his friend if that's all i can get,
so i keep my mouth shut and wait to see if he will love me.
and the cynic in my mind tells me he never will,
but the romantic in my heart tells me he soon will.
his mother loves me,
so why can't he?
"is it better to speak or to die"
apparently, to speak.
but no, my lips will not part for words
only to kiss him again and again.

i am holding tightly onto the belief that
if i keep the words to myself,
they will not become real.
because if i say them aloud
my fate becomes public property,
and i do not trust the world with the contents of my heart.
but i am losing the ability
to keep the seams from bursting.
and i cannot deny the truth to myself.
oh, my heart is so full of love for him!
my best friend, the one who sees my sorry mind
and the poor jokes and the past pain.
my favorite drunk kiss.
i knew all along that i could never let him touch me like that
and just go back to normal.
in the late summer heat he kissed my neck
and my grip on reality has slipped,
slowly,
as the leaves fell and the winter winds bit my lips.
infrequently tracing his fingers on my thigh,
smiling with a secret shining through his teeth.
my heart is all his if he would just pick it up
but it lies at his feet and he stoops down
and fakes me out,
my breath catching in my throat with anticipation.
and then he stands back up.
and sometimes he goes to someone else for the night.
and that pain is like pressing a bruise.
but i would give all the rest up,
let him bruise me in the worst ways
if it meant he would bruise me in the best ways.
i think he's afraid, even more than i am.
when the alcohol seeps through our judgement
and passes from his skin to mine
all i want is for time to freeze,
or to keep moving, but with him as mine
and me as his.
oh... if he would call me his...
my heart could stop happily.
and i wish i weren't so pathetic for him,
or that i was, but only if he were equally pathetic for me.
i know i can't breathe anymore without loving him.
and that is a terrible knowledge
when he is just a friend.

all i have is my laughter
because i'm the idiot with trust issues
the idiot who trusts everyone and
they hurt me every time and
i still come back for more!
it's my fault:
i let him bend me over,
hand locked in my hair,
grinning and lovebit and vulnerable.
and right then he ****** a knife into my back.
i can still feel the blade
twisting and snarling and making fun of
the girl with the ****** holes
framing her spine.
no i know, it's my fault
because i trust no one even though i trust everyone
and i trust that i'll trust again
for you i was a flame...
and i can be again i know i can
because i live in this bruise of a cycle
and i can't seem to break out of it
so i get backstabbed and live to tell the tale,
again and again and again

it took a year and five months without you as mine to make me realize that i broke your heart.
and i am so sorry.
when we've tried to be friends in the time apart,
and you told me you didn't want to come see me because you were afraid your heart would still bleed for me, and mine wouldn't for you,
i should've known.
but it took until now,
when you said you still update the playlist you made me
called "hers"
and i saw that i took your love and squeezed it
juices dripping over my fingertips
and i realized that even though i had gone numb when we ended our little romance novel,
you hadn't.
how was i so blind?
how did i miss that you were missing me?
and now i feel my heart beat backwards,
i feel everything i felt in the three years i knew you come hurtling back to me
my stomach is heavy with you again.
but the miles between us are tripled now,
and i don't believe in going back,
and i can't believe that i hurt you
in that order.
but i miss you, miss you
and i can't help but feel regret weigh me down
---
i wrote this days ago and i didn't have the courage
to make my thoughts public
to admit a little bit of my heart still bursts with love for you.
and my pregnant pause has reared its ugly head,
because now i know that someone else loves you too
she is beautiful and kind and everything
everything
you deserve that i could not give back to you
and she is right there,
something i could never be for you, not for more than two days at a time and here's what hurts:
i only ever wanted your happiness
but now i watch from my phone as someone else kisses you and
laughs with you and
thinks of you and
i hate that you are happy with the life we deserved
and i broke your heart and she has fixed it and nothing in my world is fair but this
this is the worst of it all
my first love, my most tender bruise.
being absentmindedly pressed by another

it's embarrassing but it's true.
i just googled "how to fall in love".
and i googled "how to fall in love" because i am not in love right now and i really, really want to be.
my google searchings were inconclusive and i am just as unsatisfied
mind, body, and spirit
as i was when i started typing "h" into the search bar
there is nothing in my heart right now.
my mother knocked and no one was home.
it makes me anxious:
how did i go from someone so overwhelmed by the enormity and ever-presence of her emotions
to someone so void of them that i feel an echo in my chest when someone says my name?
i've also googled sociopathy,
but apparently i'm not one of those.
so here i am, somewhere on a sliding scale
between all or nothing.
and i report from the field that it is not, in fact, all or nothing.
i know i'm not alone out here,
but it sure does feel like it,
when i reach out and even shadows don't reach back.
it's not like i've already accepted dying alone but it's not looking likely that i'll be marrying my college sweetheart, either.
i just want my feelings back.
is there a link to that in the first page of google results?
i'll even pay for shipping, i guess.

i think i knew it before
but i didn't know it until now,
sun drifting through the window and the cold city smiling in:
heartbreak is not exclusive to romantic love.
and this is sad because it means the number of times my heart has been broken is even higher than i thought.
if you love someone, no matter how you love them,
they can (and most likely will) break your heart.
sometimes it's just a little splintering,
a pinch under your ribcage and a quickening in your blood.
and sometimes it is mind-altering pain down to the pit of your stomach.
lucas was the best thing that ever happened to me
and he was the worst.
he made me a better person,
but he destroyed my heart in the process.
a bull in a china shop.
i loved him so fiercely, the maternal instincts i didn't think i'd know for years coming out and devouring him
i would've (should've) protected him to my very last breath,
but i didn't and one gunshot on an early afternoon roof
shattered my sense of myself and decimated my heart.
i ache at the thought of him
dull throbbing in my lungs and toes.
i know this is heartbreak because the wound is still brand new and it has been twenty six months to the day.
maybe this anniversary is why i came to my eureka moment,
in this pale morning light, nose cold above blankets.
lucas, my constant train of thought,
you broke me.
but i have loved every minute of it because it was a minute spent loving you.

yes strings attached.
my heart is fully yours
just because you've been between my thighs
i know, i know,
it makes me weak to fall so simply
one touch
one smirk as you shadow over me
and i give up my soul--
but i don't care!
i get hurt every time, but
the look in your eyes when you speechlessly tell me to
come over
and the gentle brush of your fingers on mine when we're not alone
i live in those moments.
the dull throb of my heart when it all
inevitably
falls apart
is so worth it, just to have the time with you

i dream about reunions.
my eyes close and my mind runs there.
it will be star kissed and blooming, wet and kind.
i can already feel my cheeks, sore with smiling.
and i will be with them:

my ghosts

i've missed them so ******* much.
but all the galaxies and years and pain keeping me from those i have loved will be nothing (forgotten) when i can touch them again.

oh...
i never thought i'd say it
but
i miss heartbreak
i miss staggering love and feeling the earth change direction
below my feet
with every crush and fall-in-love
i guess my teenage days of hazy,
delirious infatuation
(with every boy who smiled at me)
the days have set and this--
this twilight time--
is it
i'll live out my life with a lethargic lack of love
oh i just want to feel
like i did when i was fourteen
my stomach lifting to my throat when he passed me
my lips tugged up and hung up in a smile
at the thought of his hands
it was a blessing and a curse
but
i'd rather drive mountains and valleys
than be a flatline

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

i like to sit and listen
he poured his heart into every note he wrote
and i feel his weathered soul in his music
played by steady hands and passion

i like to sit and listen
and wish i could train my sorry fingers
into bringing beauty from a page to life
but instead i write sad little love poems

i like to sit and listen
there's warm and then there's sun-warm
and sun-warm is like if happiness had a temperature
so i'm washing my heart in the rays

i like to sit and listen
and feel clean and whole again
when it falls i'll fall too and be cold
but until then i'm listening

it's so cold outside that i can hardly think
think of anything but you
my fingers are too numb to write you
all the sappy love poems you deserve
see, i've got this vision stuck in my head
of you and me together in the best ways
and it dances around behind my eyes
every waking second and it's driving me mad
i've imagined we have this fire
this passion and earth-shattering love
it keeps me warm on the coldest nights
and it makes me question my faith and
everything i thought to be true
god, i just want to be alone with you so i can explain
explain that i hate endings and bad blood
and reality and so we should stay in bed
give me inspiration for songs
i write them in my head when i look at you
and when i think about your eyes
i feel my breath leave my body
when they look up at me from below
it makes belief in a miracle seem natural
'cause seeing is believing and i've seen
the unbelievable in those ocean eyes
your hands... is it too much to ask
for them to keep mine warm?
i've got bad circulation and a tendency to rely on people
your lips on my ears and stomach and everywhere
there's no reason to not go back to that
and stay in that
and build our home in that
but right now i'm standing outside the party
that i left alone with you inside,
kissing some other girl
i can't give you much but i can promise
poems with my heart poured out like ink
and a place in my bed and
more devotion than you deserve
right now i'm waiting in the cold to go home
but no matter how far i go from you
i can't get you off my mind and i can't
erase where your hands have been
in, on, under, over...
i won't be over this anytime soon
even if i did make a new year's resolution to do just that
you are in the air i breathe (however reluctantly)
and reluctantly i just cannot for the life of me
let you go

you lovesick metronome
sluggish and sinful
reluctant to let go and be whole
a newborn clinging to its past lives
disappointing your hopes
gripping memories like gripped hips gone cold
"over it" but not really
melancholic and panicked:
if you cannot forget what wasn't worthy
then how will you rise up and
make a name for yourself and
do something worthwhile and
make your mother proud and
you know she's proud no matter what but
she could have everything if you worked harder but
you can't even convince yourself
that you deserve it
that you can make it, make it, make it
make it something incredible
you treacherous dreamer
be a household name
come hell or high water

if a heart breaks in any other chord progression than Am-F-C-G
did it really break at all
i sense a rhythm, feel a pattern
and my pitiful little fool of a heart keeps time to its failures
again and again i sit in the same boat
and sing the same sad love songs
and cry over someone who doesn't give a ****
i know the words from memory and feel my throat catch at the same time every time
the repetition is comforting and disquieting all at once
shouldn't a heart as battered as this learn by now
that it will be hurt and used and crushed
shouldn't a sorry sucker like me
not trust anymore
but faith in humanity gets the better of me
and the bridge of a song hints at the promise of a change of words
a happier adjustment in the upcoming chorus
every **** time i wait like a puppy at the door
and my ears fall when it's just the mailman, right on time as always
the chorus is the same soul-gutting melody as before
and i fall asleep alone

church for the nonbeliever
sainthood for the irredeemable soul
i feel hands around my throat and breathe thanks to god
i feel fire in my belly and say his name like a chaser
my hands are raw with sins and holy water stings them like salt in an open wound
no longer the god-fearing seven year old in a white dress at his feet
i look to records for the religion i've lost
pray for sanity and forgiveness in the blank moments filled with music and nothing else
they have consumed me
i beg god for motivation and ambition so i can fulfill his image of me
but in his radio silence i wonder if he's finally done
if there is one sin too many,
one prayer too insincere
has he forgotten me as i have myself?
too many questions and not enough answers
so i get high and listen to songs about losing faith
and i sleep and wake up again
still wondering if
i have any faith at all, and
if i do then when my will deliverance come
in answered prayers and cups runneth-ing over
and ashes in a cross on my forehead
my mother says i'm no longer who i was
and i laugh and tell myself to bite my lip and swallow my tears
i know
a lost soul, a wandering and wondering little girl
that is who i am, who i was, and who i will die as
so i pour another shot and hope for the best in the end
god will come through
even if i don't know if i believe in him

we still have hearts shaped for each other
soft spots on our sore souls
my first love, my dearest friend, my worst goodbye
to be over you is to be dead, nonexistent
and i am so alive
in the friendship we struggle to build from the ashes of a desperate love
in the toeing the line
in the winter we spent entwined
i grew into a fire with you
and now i am cold and the sky is dull and i wish for your hand on my leg in the lazy part of the day
i love you still
my first
and i know your heart still beats in time with my fingers on the piano
i hear it from our great distance
and it lulls me to sleep on my loneliest nights
you are the aching in my chest and i hate it
you are the lightening of my stomach
you are the sorrow in my sorry heart
i don't need you but i'll be ****** if i don't want you
i miss you in the way i know you whisper my name when you're alone
in the way i know you reach for me even when your bed is half empty
in the way i know you realize how good i was to you, unbearably so
we are in love until the end
so let's go down in flames

pure and rare, full of rain
this is a heart after it has loved and lost
and it continues to beat
with adoration for life even now
twisted and strained and bloodied
and raw
you left your mark
like you said you would
but still this is a heart in love with living and loving
and it cannot be bested
conquered
ransacked
yet regal and poised
everything unloved
this is a heart that has made its home
from ruins and ashes
undefined but shaped by them
and more than them
built on betrayal and pain
full of love and power

to be full of light again
young again
in love again
with you again...
summers with bedtime sunsets just beyond our fingertips
and blessed cold grass just below our toes
autumns with scarves to protect the wind from slitting our slender throats
and leaves crunching under clouds of visible breath
winters with snowball fights and your tongue stuck to an icicle
and craning our necks to hear hooves on the roof
springs with the rebirth and the flutter of butterflies (in my stomach)
and a flower that you tucked into the curls of my hair
now we are godless and without rules,
without boundaries and without each other
it's all one big game of make-believe out here, alone,
and i write sorry lines into the corners of my heart
and you watch me from whatever happens after this life
and i scream your name into my pillow and grow up too fast
and you laugh and send messages that you miss me
miss me miss me miss me miss--
but we're still different than who we were
and who we really are
and who we could or should or would be
innocent or
together or
happy or
careless or
anything, really, as long as we were sure of it
i wait for sunsets to remember your bright love
i feel your hand in mine again when i sing
i hope to god i see you again
i miss you terribly
these are the golden years,
making my own bedtime and wearing "work shoes" and using scarves to hide lovebites and fighting with my fists and not believing in the fantastic anymore and crying when things come back to life (because you won't) and feeling sick no butterflies and--
even still, even after all this
heartbreak and
sore-souled living and
perpetual drunkenness and
coffee addiction and
pain and
living--
even still it's worth it to be able to say i had you at all
and you remain in the palm of my hands and the hole in my heart
full of light
young
in love
you

little room
with your small windows and your unimpressive door
dirt floors and a cavernous ceiling
but shelter is shelter and a heart is still a home
you hold me and keep me warm and there's never a thank you for a house but i'll write as many words as i can to show my love
you are a buoy in a choppy sea
and though you be but plain,
just four corners and bare white walls,
you are refuge, you are hope, you are the love i never knew i held so dear