& if I held you to my ear I could feel your heartbeat, slow and content with my hand on your chest (speeding up as it moves down, down)

I could feel the softness of your skin, turned the deep pink of a blushing girl—the sun's work— and holding the heat of that close star's burning tendrils

I could feel movement in your muscles as your arm curls around my waist lazily, an afterthought, like it's a natural instinct to pull me tighter in your sleep

I could feel shivers on my bony spine while you kiss iridescence behind my eyes in the way your lips press where my jaw meets my neck

I could feel an utter wholeness that I've missed for so long

Except—
Except——
Except———

You're too far away, a distance that even the "phone call" between the ocean and the little child pressing the shell against her ear cannot fix

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 went to church
I asked for forgiveness from a god I don't even know if I believe in
I fell in love, and
I ****** it up
I broke my own heart again
I put my faith in the hands of a damaged lover and
I paid the price
I got my hopes up
I waited by the door for my father for two years
I remember him as the first man to hurt me
I dusted myself off and tried again
I prayed for guidance from above even if
I didn't know if it was a god or an overhead light that heard me
I wanted salvation
I looked for it in a bottle but came up empty
I hated my body
I begged it to be different, for him
I failed my own goals
I lied to my mother so much I lost track
I wished I was different but did nothing to change it
I ran away
I came back
I picked up where I left off
I hoped for the best
I began to try

⁢'s for my mother, because she taught me to cook and fix a car tire

she cleaned the house and sat with a beer in front of a Sunday football game

she cried and stood by stony faced

she was both and she was everything

it's not a broken home if there are pieces missing from the beginning and it's not a sad, father-less world if you've got a mother strong enough to raise her daughter right alone

your name
i hear it and i feel volcanic
it sets me off like a cannon and i feel like a gunshot
it triggers me triggers me triggers me triggers triggers triggers--
i close my eyes when i hear your name and my mind is filled with black pain
i feel like a ghost sometimes: floating limply through the motions of living but existing somewhere else
people talk around me but i hear numbness
your name is a fire in my heart and it burns so brightly that it blinds me and i love it, i do
i love feeling the flames of your incredibleness scorch my insides, hurt me and make me proud
being with you was better than heaven
and now i am not
we were two sinners that found each other in a world of pain and wove a cocoon of false paradise
your name is on the tip of my tongue every waking moment and when i speak it, i erupt
loss is not foreign to me
i'm the smallest scrap of a ripped family picture and i'm torn
maybe i romanticize (there's no maybe)
but i love you and i feel your name shatter my soul when i hear it, a beautiful melody fallen flat on deaf, ghostly ears
i shiver
you were my understander, my heart
and i live my life as a prayer to you
always

like a flower wilts
in winter, you will not last
depression's cold frost

& there was a lamppost, of course, because we met in the dark on the first night we kissed and it's only fitting that we met in the dark on our last night, too.

i waited until i got in the car to cry (i've never wanted to let you see my weakness) (nothing changed, nothing changed).

you are a heartless robot, only capable of judgment and anger and superiority. but maybe i wanted to give you a heart for all of those reasons.

it was bad and it was good, it was illumination and it was pitch black, all at once. my feet felt light but my heart felt heavy and my ears felt sore as you listed the whys and i asked the whys.

i could literally never hate you, but i sure have come close (your sweet talk and sugar kisses have pulled me off the ledge before, but this time i walked away on my own, content in my "it's not that i don't like you, it's that i don't like the things you've done to me" exenut)

part-time lover and full-time heartbreaker, i feel no twinge on my heart strings as i watch you walk away this time

I'm a liar, I'm a hypocrite, I'm alone and I'm defeated
I'm a sad girl with a sore heart and you're everything I've needed
I'm so ******* sorry and I feel so ******* guilty,
I'm sorry that he kissed me (I wish that he had killed me)
I'm sorry that I kissed him back and I'm sorry that it'll hurt you
I'm sorry I was mad when you told me you'd kissed her back, too
I'm torn and I'm ashamed for the ****** mess I've made
But most of all I'm sorry for thinking this would be an even trade
I'm a weak girl with crumbling walls that thought she could fix your heart
I'm sorry for only tearing you further apart

anxiety is my middle name
i've got a sore heart and a rusted soul
***** tastes just like water if you drink it fast enough
but tonight is for working, for preemptive fixes,
for hand cramps and write-delete-write-delete-delete-delete
there comes a time where ******* and moaning just doesn't cut it anymore
and you have to slap your cheeks (to pull it together) to stay awake
putting down your security blanket is harder than it seems
but beauty is pain and pain is bloodshot eyes and all-nighters
so the bags under my eyes really are pretty then, right?
true or false:
-staying up all night will wash away your daytime memories like whisky never could
i don't drink coffee
i'm drowning myself in tea too sweet just to make it through the next few hours
because i have so ******* much work to do
it's okay, though, if only because i'm used to being surrounded by a hell of my own design
i can see the bottom of my mug now and it's sneering at me, mocking me
it knows that i'm seconds away from getting up and filling it with more sugar, more hot water
and so i do, fulfilling a prophecy i wrote myself
but to republish a correction: i don't like doing this, despite contradicting evidence
i don't like falling and failing and flailing
i don't like watching myself run out of breath and steam and ideas
i don't like hating myself
but i'm a wreck, a tragedy, a sorry *******, and so i don't try to fix it, not really
i drink tea

We don't ask for much.

We want a simple life, a love uncomplicated.

We want nights in with ice cream and movies, lazy mornings with tangled sheets and entwined limbs.

We want study dates and tender kisses.

We want time.

We are held apart by endless miles, barriers more cruel than cell walls.

We want a chance to be near and be happy and be unburdened and be free.

We have dreams,
and empty beds,
and dinners for one,
and phone call romance,
and nine hundred miles of what ifs and if I were with yous.

We will have each other, in the flesh someday, but until then we settle for wants and wishes.

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

"sober or drunk, it's always you" it's always you always you always you always you you you you you you you you you you "you're in my veins, you ****" you ******* ******* ******* ******* **** me over and over and over and every time i look at your face world war iv starts in my stomach, to punch or to kiss. iv lines in my arms, in my veins, just like you, you ******* ******* ******* absolute **** i cannot ******* believe i fell for your tricks, the 'it's always you" and the pretty words that created mt. vesuvius all over again in my shallow, sober heart. i was absolutely ******* drunk on your fake affection while you were ******* other girls for fake affection and my friends knew and while you were in my veins (you still are) they were under my skin with the patronizing "sympathy" as i cried after you left. you left and it felt like molten lava on my skin, like nothing could be right because you left because i'd put other things on my skin and if you were in my veins (you were. you are.) then i really truly did let you out with the other things i put on my skin that opened up my veins and it honest to god is my fault you're gone. honestly, god, i think it was a little unfair to make me fall in love with the boy who's smile left like fault lines and i was so terribly drunk in the beginning but you sobered me up when you left, isn't that right? isn't it right that it's my drunken fault that you left, but you see, my dear, it's always you, in my veins, you ******* ******* absolute ****

I'm having doubts again. See, I don't last very long with a good thing before I overthink and over analyze and over anticipate and overwhelm and suddenly it's a poison that's eating me alive. I felt alive and that was all that mattered, feeling love and loved at last, after time and time again where my heart and brain teamed up to destroy my iridescent hope and it was so good that I didn't even see the flaws, looked through them like glass. Except now, his glass is half empty-- but only for a split second before its half full and then totally full-- and he's not a mean drunk but he drinks so ******* much that it makes me sick and I'm sick of my own hypocrisy because God knows I drink more than I should but I'm not throwing my life away with every shot. I know we have a shot at fixing our problems before I let this love spiral down the drain but I just can't seem to make it out alive because self sabotage is so much easier. Maybe I should stop looking around, maybe I should wear blinders when I walk so I don't see potential replacements with "no flaws" and of course I know they're all flawed but... But... I didn't lose my train of thought I lost my conscience because how can I look elsewhere? I spent so much time wishing I would be loved back and now that I am I want nothing more than the freedom of watching a different back walk out my door whenever I want. It's just a real chin-scratcher, how on one hand I want forever with him-- his drinking problem and his floppy hair and his long distance and his standoffish-ness-- but on the other I want out.

a poem a day while my heart is away*
Six days feels like six months feels like six years

I hate going to sleep alone

Tell me I'll see you soon and dismiss my fears

I hate only talking on the phone

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

a poem a day while my heart is away*
i should be doing work right now, you see,
i should be doing something worth the while
papers are piling up all around me
but i'm too lazy to organize/file.
i can't stop thinking of how you kissed me,
how you made my lips feel new once again,
how you held my hands and called me baby,
how you touched me by windows streaked with rain.
god was surely feeling generous
when he gave me a perfect savior with
a tongue that could never be venomous,
and candy lips like the stuff from a myth.
i feel adored, blessed, carefree, and divine
that your iridescent love is all mine

You were my habit
My obsession, my hobby, the sweetest scoop of ice cream, the prettiest sunset of summer
You were my habit
My "maybe someday", my hopes and dreams, the cherry on top, the last flower before fall
You were my habit
And then you stung me and it hurt like a *****
You were my habit
And then you clouded over my entire mind, so I switched you out for coffee
Because two shots of espresso can't break your heart
You were my habit
The closest I've ever come to success held right in my palms before drifting away
You were my habit
And I lost you, the only race I had a chance of winning
You were my habit
Beloved in the way you'd grip my hips and bite my lips and show me a taste of what it felt like to be two years in the future
Beloved in the way you'd tell me I was too immature and that you couldn't handle my problems and
You were my habit
From kissing me to breaking me and everything in between
Every argument and every cup of coffee bought as a caffeinated apology that I gulped down gratefully even when you burned my tongue
You were my habit
And just like everything worth loving, old habits die hard

music to you
walking to you
laughter to you
pain to you
love to you
sadness to you
strength to you

.sometimes it hurts more than anything
.and my neck is stiff with the stress of missing you
.sometimes i turn on the playlist called "L"
.and let it play for hours, crying softly under the flow of the shower stream
.sometimes i just can't stop thinking of you
.and it makes my cold heart shrivel up and weep
.sometimes i hate you
.and then i hate my selfishness
.sometimes your death feels like it wasn't real
.and then i remember holding your mother at your funeral

always, it is for you
my life is a song dedicated to my best friend, my secret keeper, my partner in crime, my whole heart
and i cry still

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.

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

& how can you hurt someone so much when they never let their teeth graze you? how can you squeeze their heart in your calloused fist when they've swallowed down every ounce of passion you've poured out? how can you kiss their mouth ruddy and raw and not say goodbye? how can you look them in the eye with the stars as witnesses with a knife hidden behind your back? how can lead them with a beautiful rope (don't tell them it's a noose, not yet) and promises of more, more, and let them fall down the cliff while you **** their best friend? how can you look at your reflection and not shudder at the horrors you've committed standing behind you?

i was convinced it was my heart that was dead,
-shriveled up and rotting like the corpses of people i loved
-cold and lifeless and still beating, but only technically
-so full of emptiness that it just imploded

and now, somehow, it can't be the dead thing, because it's warm again, loving again, bright and cherry red and beaming

but my lungs are gone
and my liver
and my sanity

somewhere on the road from suicidal to happy again,
from the edge of the cliff to the edge of glory
from hell to heaven
i ended up killing myself after all

i don't mind, though, because my body might be dying a bit faster than it already was, but my soul is living the ******* dream

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

& HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE CRESTING WAVES I BURNED DOWN TO GET CLOSER TO YOU?

AND STILL, I DID NOT REACH THEE. I NEVER WANTED TO SWALLOW FIRE BUT MY LUNGS WERE BLACKENED ON MY WAY THROUGH TIDES TO A YOU I NEVER TOUCHED (IT WAS WORTH IT)

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.

I feel so full I could burst
Longing and lovesickness and loud songs of sorrow filling my heart
I'm bittersweet to my core
Some days I wish I didn't feel so much
But I'd rather have a bruised heart and a cracked pride than be totally numb
It's easy to complain about the one wrong thing than be grateful for all the right
I never used to drink coffee like a second hobby
But now I'd sacrifice anything to wake myself up from this bad dream
I felt love touch my tender heart once
It turned me into a fire, bright and warm and endless
And then the wind came and blew me out
I was cold and it was dark in the circle of stones
And I was alive still in only the embers burning
"Almost" makes my soul crumple
It's never enough, never quenching, never fulfilling
Yet...
I feel so full I could burst

In the summer, it was too hot to know you. I spent the nights with everyone but you, crowded on the trampoline in my backyard. In the fall, you bloomed (too early or too late for spring?) into my cerebrum, every thought that crossed my mind. You stayed that way in winter, when maybe the cold never bothered me but you sure did, or maybe it was how I was moonstruck and frostbitten in lust with you. We will thaw in the spring, I feel it in my roots and branches and the way my heart will freeze over again (too early or too late for winter?). I don't want that, the way the image of you kissing her—just like how you kissed me, except with a fire the cold weather didn't permit— will invade the spaces just you (just you) did months before. I'll see your lips on her sober or drunk, awake or asleep, eyes open or closed. You are my sin, my soul, and my salvation, even if you love her (or the ones that'll follow) in the way I see you and you never saw me back. 525,600 times you played and plagued my seasons and my breath.

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

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

I USED TO HAVE YOU SOMETIMES AND NOW I HAVE YOU NONETIMES—
IT'S ALL GOING WRONG AND NOTHING IS GOING RIGHT AND IT WASN'T ENOUGH IN THE FIRST PLACE SO HOW COULD IT BE OKAY NOW?
YOU AVOID ME LIKE THE UNDERSIDE OF A DESK, AFRAID TO GET GUM ON YOUR HAND
I'M GONNA START AVOIDING ALL MY RESPONSIBILITIES AGAIN
BUT YOU STILL DESERVE ALL THE SLEEP THAT I'VE LOST
WITHOUT ALL THE SMUDGES ON MY PILLOWCASE FROM MAKEUP I WAS TOO SAD-LAZY TO TAKE OFF (SO I CRIED IT OFF)
Does it bother you, that I spend time with your upgrade?
Perhaps you shouldn't have traded me in for my best friend as a newer model
I remember the October brick wall against my back when you called and started all of this
But now I'm wishing I'd tied those bricks round my waist and jumped into the river before I got this deep
It's okay, it's okay, I'll never tell you about the times I beg my hands to make up for the you-shaped hole in my heart— WHY DID I EXPECT ANY DIFFERENTLY?
YOU WARNED ME FROM THE START
YOU WARNED ME FROM THE START

I found god again
In the way my feet move in my sleep,
Like I'm accelerating and braking on the roads that'll take me to you.

I found god again
In the way your eyes get heavy and tired,
Blurry on my phone screen,
Your smile insisting that you're not too tired to hang up because this is all we have.

I found god again
In the way this distance is crippling but our faith in us steadies the hands,
Holds us strong against the current.

I found god again
In the way the wind kisses you,
Even when I can't,
In the way the wind carries my prayers
Across the miles and rivers and mountains and forests.

& I found god again
In the way you care

it's such a cliche, but my heart is so sore
i didn't know ice could feel pain but this freezer burn really burns
when it rains, it pours, because
this torrential downpour **** has
put holes in my umbrella
and my shirt is soaking wet but
you're only looking at my bra--
my fault for wearing white, i guess; you
opened me up but shut me off like a faucet when you finished
washing your hands
and flicker out like the streetlamp that watched our first kiss
i don't remember how to rhyme or
speak or stop my dams from breaking because your lips
your lips your lips--
i miss them. i hate them for the way they curl into a smile when
you look at her, next to me,
as if i'm not there (*******, little ghost, your eyes whisper hot on my neck)
she won't fall like i did, because i did and she won't hurt me like you did and she won't do what you did
to him because she's better than you (better than me, too) , doesn't hurt
to feel pleasure
but you're true to the stars you were
born under--
passionate (my purple neck speaks to that)
and proud
and holier than thou (your crucifix is
bigger than mine
when they tangle like we do)
past and present are so tense, so
interwoven and unsure and
absolutely careful
(although you aren't when you throw me on
your bed)
because we're not kissing now but it happened in the pst and even god doesn't know if it'll happen again
in the meantime, i'll lick my
wounds and let my glacial insides freeze over again
i've tossed in the towel, given up on
the umbrella and let the
rain soak me (like you did)
it's a perfect storm, really, because--
because-- because--
you look at her like you looked at me and he's
turned his head away from me (when i wanted him
to stop looking, i never
imagined it would hurt like this and)
I'm just watching it all fall down
ring around the rosie
ring for me when you want me again and i'll
come, of course, like your
salt on my tongue, because
your hands will be on me even if your mind is on her
open the drain like you opened me all
those months ago (icy and numb from the
last crack at my heart, baseball bat and
all) and watch me wash down the pipes

It's happening again:

I don't feel a bit of anything, I feel nothing.
I'm numb and I'm empty and I'm a hand that's fallen asleep, tingling only as a reminder that I can't feel a **** thing.

I hate this feeling.
It scares me.
I don't feel love for the one that won my heart. I don't feel guilt or pity or happiness or curiousity.
I fear that I will spend the rest of my life in the black-and-white fuzz on a tv screen.
I fear that I will die unfulfilled, feeling nothing and saying nothing.
I stare into the empty mug and I am an iced injury, cold and stiff and callous.

I hate this and I keep hating it and fearing it and suddenly the fog lifts, the hum of radio static dies and I can wiggle my fingers once again and--

I am left with anger.
I am left with sorrow.
I am left with an aching dullness in my lungs.

I am left with the unshakeable desire to drink until I am full, until my heart bursts with songs of lost emotion.

It's cold in my chamber of fear and hatred, but my stomach is warm with another, another, another...

a poem a day while my heart is away*
i'll be drinking again tonight
drowning in liquor that makes stars look blue
i'll be drunk again tonight
because i won't be with you

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.

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