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

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; 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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

& 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

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

& 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)

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

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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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,

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

day number 365 plus a few
and i still don't understand it

i'm just a tired girl with skinny arms and a drinking problem,
a sad sack, a sorry *******, a poor unfortunate soul

you are electricity in a nutshell, the very face of exultation,
the greatest thing your small town has ever seen.

i look at your face and understand why storms are named after people: you are the prettiest **** hurricane i've had the pleasure of meeting

god felt bad for all the **** that happened so he sent you to me, an angel if i've ever heard of one

you're imperfect in the best possible way,the  iridescence in a soapy puddle, the gold chain on a sinner's neck

maybe my shell-shocked love is why i'm sabotaging my own wretched heart: after it all, i cannot believe you'd love me back

so i'll stab my own back and break my own soul because i'm just me and you're..... you

why would a king look twice at a pauper, much less take her into the folds of his bruised heart and love her as an equal?

i'm still trying to figure it out, so until then, i'll write and second guess and drink and laugh bitterly

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.

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

& 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 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

⁢'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

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

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

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

& 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

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