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.

a poem a day while my heart is away*
this is not a poem about love, for once.
this is a poem about a dead best friend and how to move on.

step one: there is no such thing as moving on. every time you walk down the hall you turn to see if they're nearby. sometimes you find yourself waiting outside their classroom like you always did. you think of a funny joke and open a new text message, type it out, and remember right before you press send. at least two hundred times a day, their name tumbles through your mind and nearly dives off your tongue.

step two: it is okay to scream. crying won't happen initially; it's all throaty sobs and waterfalls of tears. you may or may not feel the urge to drive your fist through a wall, bawl into your knees, and stare at things blankly, all at the same time.

step three: you will feel numbness, and you will feel unbearable pain. they might come in short succession, and you will feel completely out of sorts.

step four: sometimes, it's more manageable. you can hear their favorite song, or see a shirt they would've liked and smile. other times, you may feel the need to throw up. you will hear the word suicide in class, or see a gun on tv, or watch a mother pick up a child with the same name, and it will hurt like nothing else.

step five: there is no such thing as moving on, but there is such thing as living. your best friend will forgive you for laughing, and smiling (and for being angry and sad and confused and jealous). you have two lives to live now in too short a time, so sob while you go.

and dear god, do you know how ******* frustrating it is?
cat's got my tongue and she's never giving it back,
but maybe she'll be able to speak the words that are stuck on the tip of it
the "no"s and the "come back"s and the "stay here"s

the wind doesn't have a problem speaking her mind
because she's always been round and she always will be and some loud words won't end her
but i
i
i am not the wind
i am not so fearless and casual and trusting
i am in pain, i am stuck in a barbed wire cage of writers' block and separation anxiety

when you leave a piece of my sanity falls away like cigarette ash and i watch it build a mountain at my feet
we've gotten to the point where  i can't even tell how much i love you, it's drowning my chest and turning everything into a sea of heartache and
and
and we know each other so well, it's a shame i see you never
we have our toes dipping into the same ocean but we live on different shores

maybe in the grand scheme of things this deafening longing doesn't mean anything
but god this shitstorm of love and desperation and distance and lust means everything to me

i filled a notebook with "you"
-a six word story

&i; am absolutely in love with the stars, how they glow with a humbling superiority from their cosmic, hallowed heights

i am kinder than the ocean waves, i hope, because they break with a strength to rival a jackhammer against the same shores they kiss gently

i am in awe when i see the evergreens— they stand powerful and proud and unreachable  and still, still, even after generations of hearing and seeing everything

i am jealous of the sun's rays, because they get to lay their tender golden fingers on your proud face while i'm far and away under the moon's guard

these are not my hands, they are my bow and arrows
they are my weapons, my self-defense, my fortified walls
they flex and bend and push and cradle and create and destroy
i find in them the source of my power
they're the brave ones, tracing down my thoughts when my lips are too cautious to speak
they're the proud ones, delicately vain as they sketch the skeletons of beauty onto dusty piano keys
when i am empty and numb they stir a spoon in a cup of tea and wait for me to feel something
when i am shaking with a great and terrible anger they clench and unclench and clench and unclench and clench and unclench and heal
my hands are my heroes
and they are my villains
i control the volume in my palms because sometimes it gets loud and because sometimes my heartache is deafening and because sometimes i need to drown in the thumping, the crashing, the assault of my fingers on the unassuming ivory
and because sometimes i wallow in my self pity and because sometimes it feels good to be surrounded by the quiet sound of my tears on my cheeks
from my fingertips to my wrist i am a goddess, all slender bone and delicate veins snaking under taut, soft skin
i feel capable and lovable and just able, just pure, when i crack my knuckles before returning to my writing
it is easy to forget that aphrodite could cause catastrophe too, that her face (my hands) were more than just pretty and decorative
i remember each hit
each poke
each grasp
each clench
each stretch
each caress
each punch
and i love them like my children
the pain i've brought, from my right hand to my left forearm and from my left hand to someone else's right cheek and everything in between, it is with me always like the scars i've left and i could hate myself
so easily
but in the aftermath of my earthquake, i love my power
comfort is knowing that i'm a straight shot
that my bow and arrows can execute what odysseus did
comfort is knowing that i'm a *****
that i unnerve those that deserve it and dethrone the prideful queen
so i sleep peacefully even when i don't sleep

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

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

there's only so many apologies I can whisper into the crook of your neck until my voice shrivels and cracks and takes a page from your book and is gone— perhaps, perhaps, you could tilt my chin up and purge my sin from my lips with yours

                & I look at your blood, now dried and caked under my nails, and the tears wash it out, because I weep at the monster I have become

a poem a day while my heart is away*
here i feel the numbness, the dull ache on unkissed lips and ungripped hips
i didn't know what i was missing all those months apart but
but
but now i've tasted freedom and bliss and sin and martyrdom,
and living without you again seems horribly impossible.
we walked amongst dying trees and you held my cold, bony hands in your warm ones,
and i kissed your chapped lips and realized that if every day of my life was like that one, i don't think i'd ever be plagued by my usual sadness again
is it wrong to need you so?
is it wrong to love you so?
thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged
i've never loved being broken as much as i do when it's by your hands
and i miss you
and i miss you
and i don't know when i'll see you again
and i hate that

isn't it sad how your friends aren't your friends anymore?
how the people you spent every moment with are now nothing more than distant stars,
how your memories and inside jokes have sunk to the bottom of the ocean,
how--
how?
i didn't mean for us to grow apart. i didn't mean to stop calling, to stop loving you all
you made me feel whole and confident and able and funny and wanted
and now we're nothing more than ships on the same sea waves, sea floors,
see, it just doesn't feel right because one of us is missing,
and we never thought that "till death do we part" would ever come true.
come on, did you expect us to last forever?
i did, if only because endings rip my heart in two
two months can make the whole difference and we haven't talked in forever and i barely know you anymore
i know that this is life and i should get used to it, but
somehow, after all of the storms i've-- we've-- weathered, loss still hits me like a ship to an iceberg
and i'm sinking, and all my friends are dead and gone

And here we are, on the threshold of spring,
My icy heart is thawing
Something is blossoming within me
I'm coming to life in the way you kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,
Two January's ago I froze— Rapids white with frost
Your body heat is just so much prettier than a radiator
And just like anyone, I chose the most beautiful flower in the bouquet to win myself back from me

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.

New year, same me. Same aching in the pit of my stomach to get out get out get out

I can't push any harder, so I'll stop. I'm not defeated, because I'm still on my feet, right?

Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war. I don't know if this could be considered winning, but I'm pretty sure it's a step in the right direction.

Maybe this year, with its nice rounded and whole-looking numbers, will be the year I grow a pair (*****? Wings?) and get out get out get *out

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.

Someday it'll be ten years
Without a whole heart, without a best friend, without you
Time moves slowly and quickly all at once
I've missed you for ten months and sometimes it feels like ten minutes, the hurt is open and raw and deafening
Sometimes it feels like ten centuries, a prolonged breaking of my spirit
I'm selfish for missing you and I'm greedy for wanting you back
But I wasn't ready to say goodbye and sweet jesus I wish I had loved you when I had the chance
Before I hugged your mother and told her I was sorry for her loss
Before I stared at your ashes in a jar in front of an altar
Before I spent everyday since wishing you were still here
Too dry for tears
My heart swelled with rivers of missing you and now I have nothing left to mourn
How is it that I can write ****** poetry but I can't look your brother in the eye?
Come home is too selfish, too greedy
You packed your bags and left for the longest ******* road trip ever and of course I miss you, with every hair on my head and every freckle on my arms
But I know you needed closure
And for you, that came in a shot on a roof
I want more time with you
And I want to rush recklessly toward you in whatever heaven exists
My sins hold me back,
Save my seat below, my wish to stay alive (to live the life you couldn't and to keep my mother happy and to comfort your father and to smile for us both) holds me back
I miss you, miss you
And I can't wait for the day that I rise, a balloon without a hand tethering it to earth, until I hit the sun
Until I hit you, bright and burning

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

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

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

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.

and a string pulls me back, tugging my wings shut with a sigh
making it just too hard to leave
how am i so reluctant all of a sudden?
i was past ready, my longing to fly off overripe
but a sweet song, an invisible tie,
floating on the melancholy of a mid-may moment of bliss,
wraps me in the warmth of staying home
i hate my timing
swoosh in the net and i am trapped
swimming pool eyes make walking away ache
springtime always made me sad because no one should be able to move on while i'm standing still,
but now i'm moments from a departure long overdue and i stop:
the edge of the cliff is my favorite place to live
it feels like walking down the aisle after a decade-long engagement just to find a boat waiting to carry you back to the beginning
i want to go
nothing ties me to "home" anymore,
my heart is packed away six feet underground
but it's bursting and gasping for air and begging to see light and
i want to stay

& it was quiet, rain on windows and radio on low
then she turned down the volume and asked, "do you still believe in god?"

and i was stumped

do i believe in god, after it all?
after the hurricanes that broke down my house over and over again

and it was quiet again, as i turned the question over on my tongue like fine wine (even though i'm too poor for the good stuff)

and i do
i have to
i have to believe in god,
in the potential for salvation even though my sins paint my soul
in the potential for happiness that my boys couldn't find on earth
in the potential for painless forevers

i believe in god like i did santa: faith keeps him alive in my mind even if he's not real, because believing in him is easier than believing in a void

and so i said this, and she asked why and i said why and she asked, "are you sure?"

and i turned my head back to the road ahead of me, and let the miles drown me

a poem a day while my heart is away*
It got too hard
To write,
To sleep,
To eat,
To be

It felt wrong and it felt constricting

There wasn't freedom and happiness in the only things that brought me joy

I guess that's what happens when writers block takes over your entire life, clogs your pores and dams up your soul

Poetry hasn't tasted the same

Maybe it's because my heart is miles away from me, maybe it's because I forgot how it feels to be loved in his absence

So I put down the pen in frustration

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

together our family was a flower
              and petals got ripped off
                              and now we're pressed and preserved and dead in a
                                               photo album

some of us are dead, another body in a grave and an x-ed out name on a family tree
some of us are alive, carrying on and telling the stories of who we were with wet eyes and crumpled hearts

we have burns and scars and bruises and still, even in the funeral-home-quiet of our messy souls, we breathe again, another generation of loud and emotional and freckled kids following us

in the wake of loss and ache and everything raw, life proves its beauty once again: we are our darkest moments, the genetic disease we pass to our children
but we are our brightest, too, and we hold each other as we create from the ashes

and until the rivers run dry,
until the evergreens fade,
until the gods stop cursing,
until the sun falters on its path,
until the seasons fail to change,
until the fish forget how to swim,
until the music loses its beauty,
until the stars turn black,
until all this...
a woman's heart will still break
each time she realizes that
she couldn't change him

THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT
THIS ONE IS KIND
THIS ONE IS EXTRAORDINARY
THIS ONE IS MINE

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

sick again,
heart beating too fast and stomach clenching too tight.
it's staring at me
the last little line, little reminder, little pain,
intersecting my veins with it's pale puckered lips.
619 days since it appeared,
since i dug the little trench in my too-white skin, soft skin.
i have hated every day that it has stayed there, staring up at me, taunting me to give it more friends.
and i know that i'm sick, again, always,
but i have some self control, some semblance of sanity that hasn't left me like everyone else did.
and it's okay, my rotting, lips blue like my veins through my skin, the rivers that lead me home.
it's staring with expectant eyes, daring
me to be weak and to be strong.
it's the devil and the angel all in one,
so i pull on a sweater and i pretend it's not too hot next to the fire in the winter, under the sun in the summer, and i drown the eyes of my scar(s) and fill the rivers with another drink.
sick again,

And yet, somehow, nonetheless, even so,
I am loved
And I love
And I love and get loved and love and get loved in an endless cycle
His name makes my heartstrings loosen
He's a million miles away and when his voice filters through my phone I feel my lungs get in the car and drive to him
I wish it wasn't so
And yet
I wish nothing will ever change
Day after day,
I make plans
What I'll do when I see him next,
What I'll say when he asks me to marry him,
What I'll name our first
Second
Third
Fourth?
Child and what I'll do when they get into college
What I'll do if he dies before me
What I'll want written on my grave, next to his, because if we can't spend these moments together now, it's only fair we get eternity
And yet,
We're young and things might not go as planned
But I'll wake up tomorrow and make a new plan
Because when you love and are loved in return, you have time

a poem a day while my heart is away*

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is for the villainous smile in the miles that keep us apart, taunting me and haunting me in my sleep and in my veins
E there's extraordinary beauty in your eyes and extraordinary cruelty in the gods that don't let me see you every minute of forever and ever
LOVE is made for you and me, except we have to work for it, swim against the current for it

and for all my complaining, I don't mind

a poem a day while my heart is away*
& i just can't stop thinking about that kiss
it's so disney cliche, but i felt my heart stop and start again, all at once
i felt the hands of a god lift my blackened soul away
i felt redemption and torture at the same time
i felt regret and pride
-
i wish it was my first kiss
(and my last kiss)
and every kiss in between
i wish every other set of lips mine have touched would burn and drown like useless feathers
i wish i could exorcise the memory of them
you are the alpha and omega and i see balance in the way you kiss
-
you're cruel, really,
expecting me to go on with living without living with you
i trace sonnets in the sand
and limericks into the sheets you left half-empty
lights off when i'm with you, then you're light years away
kisses are redefined now thanks to your lips of spun gold
and i'm left here waiting

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

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

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

in other news, i wrote a love letter.
see, i can bare my soul to strangers on the internet, but i can't tell my mother how i feel about having pasta for dinner.
the letters were stuck like an ink traffic jam, bottle-necking in the pen and refusing to pour out onto the page.
but my heart was a white blank page (and a swelling rage) when this began, and now it's black and blue in the best possible way, covered with the evidence of what loving you looks like.
look carefully and make sure not to touch the artwork, the sign says, except you're the artist so i really beg you to touch your masterpiece.
i've been working real hard, see, at mastering my emotions and letting them out and so i wrote a letter with the words 'i' and 'love' and 'you' in it, in that order, no other words between.
i'm tired of the space between us but i can't do much about it in the moment, so i forced through the blood clot and let the inky words flow, coursing across the page like an uninhibited river, Rapids and all.
and rapidly, the page filled, and then the next and the next and i wrote the words that i've dammed back for almost as long as i've known you, the words that the strangers on the internet know i feel and my mother claims she doesn't hear often enough.
and it's enough, i hope, the three words with strength to fell empires and dynasties and crack open the proud heart of a teenage girl, enough that you (someday, when you really mean it) will say back

complacency is killing us; our blind acceptance of who and what and where God is will **** us. we are not fighting, not the way we should be. i have all the fires and brimstone of hell inside of me-- does that mean all of those sinners get sent to me? i am dissatisfied with this and i will fight, fire with fire, until one has been put out and the other consumes all. if i have options, i have one right to choose. we need to question, we need to strike, because we are the people and no one can silence this, no one can put this down. fight back and ponder the credibility of your God and walk into your church and stare at that cross and ask your God the questions you weren't taught to ask. o farmers: pick up the rifle and put down the plow-- the time to fight is now because it's now or never, blindly loving children of God, but do not give me your answers. keep them to yourselves and let them fester with an infection that no amount of praying can drive out. are you going to keep fighting God, or are you going to collapse into the arms of God? question everything He has taught you but do not be afraid, because He will still let you into His kingdom once you have found in this cookie cutter religion what it is you need and want. you have to get out of this terrifying ignorance and into the harsh truth you formulate. the blind dark may be appealing, beckoning you, but however painful, the reality is your paradise so get out of the palace of the pharoh and into the new world; God will open his arms to you still

blessed are they who are left behind, for theirs is the kingdom of sorrow

the only omniscient  thing in this world is my sad, drunken state

God cannot possibly  be real, because why would he desert me? i turned my life into a song of prayer to Him

but my song has become a wilted requiem and i see no proof of heaven

i cry out in the chapel abandoned and scream into the confessional, all the names of my sins and i beg for forgiveness

my priest is afraid of me. when i cried onto his white sleeves-- too pure for me-- when i cried out he whispered that God had yet to create a prayer that would absolve me, that there weren't enough Hail Mary's in the world to reconcile my broken bits

so i sit in the pew and i let my tears fall to the stone floor in hopes that the salt will burn a hole that'll lead me to hell

because clearly i don't belong here, not where a man on a wooden cross is staring down blankly and not helping

deep down, deeper down than hell, i know in my battered heart and fickle soul that no matter what, i believe

faith is what has kept me alive through thick and thin, through threadbare afternoons and thorny thoughts and were i to give up now, to give in to an assault of cynicism and disbelief, i would fall (and faith is the only thing that kept me on my feet anyway)

so i walk a hypocritical tightrope: how do i question everything and remain devoted? is my trust in my faith really my own, or do i have generations of guilt-dishing irish catholics to credit? am i religious or just spiritual?

and i teeter, and the tempestuous winds blow at me, and i lose my footing

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?

and it's all quite a bit ****** up, isn't it?
              there's fire burning my corners black and my feet are too numb to continue up the mountain
                             and my heart is heavy
and my lips are dizzy
         and i can't fully remember how to be whole
                                                    but i like the way this feels, sick as it is
                        because the shore hates the river but loves the water
and i can't breath, can't make full sentences (how can i be full if my heart is this empty?)
                                        it's okay, though, if only because it has to be
     but i'm not complaining
                   and your eyes adjust to blackness if you've been in the dark for so long

Grab your popcorn and take a seat,
Because the unraveling of my tired soul is about to play out on the screen for everyone to see.
Is this the punishment for my sins?
My heart fracturing every time I watch them leave together
My stomach crumpling every time her name rolls off his tongue
My hands itching to be that close to his, just a centimeter away from being held
I know when a ship has sailed.
It's my fault, really, for taking my time walking to the docks
The path was smooth and the sun was setting and I got caught up in the beauty of it all that by the time I realized I wanted to get on board, I was running and crying out for the captain to wait
He was gone
There's no use in diving in the water and swimming after the boat
Another one with a pretty sail and a welcoming anchor will come along soon enough, so I'll bide my time in the salty sea air
I know when a ship has sailed.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to watch it fade over the horizon.
Maybe my sins are more numerous than I thought, or maybe I was a serial killer in a past life and I'm paying the price in this one
Either way I am sore and wretched and weary hearted and just so ******* tired of
Watching another back walk out my door

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.

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.

"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

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