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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

& 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

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

We don't ask for much.

We want a simple life, a love uncomplicated.

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

We want study dates and tender kisses.

We want time.

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

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

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

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