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

i 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

I'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.

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

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

i'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