"today my professor told me

every cell in our entire body

is destroyed and replaced

every seven years.

how comforting it is to know

one day i will have a body

you will have never touched."

we just passed six years last friday.
that means, with each and every day that passes, it'll be one day closer
to a life where you were practically never here.
you never existed.
never mind the drunk calls in the middle of the night that came after.
pay no mind to the night you told me that you loved me,
you loved me and i would never feel for you
the way you felt about me.
you already forgot about those.

each and every day i face a small reminder of what you did to me
but soon, soon there will be nothing left of you at all.
no skin cells left to remind me of the way your eyes burned holes in me,
no brain cells left rattling the memory of the screams
they echoed to just reach out,
just reach out and touch...

three-hundred and sixty-one days.
that's all that is left between you and me.

i said,
the car carving its way around the mountainside,
"this is going to be the song i play when you leave me."

you used to smirk with this kind of arrogance,
like you knew so much better.

yet here we are, five months later,
and as she arched her hips into me,
the song played softly in the background.

and i've got to hand it to you -
it's like i finally figured out why you smiled.

because even at my most distracted,
fingers fumbling in someone else's hair
and testing the tenderness of her skin...

that song,
or maybe that memory,
still turned my head away from
her and back towards my phone, back
towards the missed calls and angry messages,
towards the accusations and the insults,
and it brought me away from her
and somewhere closer to you,
to the mountainside.
and it reminded me of the
pretty weather, those blue skies
and the rocks piled high around us,
and what seemed like a joke but maybe
turned out to be more like a promise.
and you smiled, because
it's almost like
you knew.

The last time that I wrote about you,
I talked about the artwork you left,
whispering secrets across my clavicle

Now I'm stuck gasping on words
and choking on feelings,
because lately the air's been a little different around here

It's been an uphill battle for the last six months,
and babygirl, we both were getting weary,
and we both needed a chance to sit down

But I haven't slept in days now,
and this fight is getting ridiculous
We both have a hard time admitting when things get out of hand

So if you could just hear me out,
take the time to listen to the things I have to say,
maybe we can work for something instead of against it

I will love you until the end of time
I want nothing but the best for you
I have given everything I could give you and I wish I could give more

And sometimes I talk too much
And I know that I am so spoiled and so selfish
And I know that it gets in the way of everything

I know that it makes it hard for you to understand
But you were the only thing that made sense anymore
And I don't want to lose that

So tell me what to do, or tell me what to say ,
because I don't know what to do with all this empty space
and I don't know what to tell the ghost you left behind

The pain settled
in the marrow of her bones
like termites feeding on timber.
The pain battled
with the beautiful thoughts of her mind
like a prize-fighter pinned against the ropes.
The pain dragged
her youth and her innocence

and tossed her off a twelve story parking garage.

The grief stole
the satisfaction of life from his control
like a gust of wind upon candlelight.
The grief fogged
the gleam of hope in his eyes
like factory steam blots out the stars.
The grief shackled
his energy and his spirit

and bound him to a hospital bed.

...why couldn't they find a hand to hold?

i wish i wasn't
so ****
human

maybe my hands shake because
i've been told settling is wrong,
and my fingers have been kept
in their skin for too long

(if i shed, i'm sure i'll grow wings)

when i asked you why you hate
thursdays, your hands twitched,
and all i wanted
was to hold them close

you had always
kept your
**** together
when you felt like
falling apart, and i

i want to be brave like
that.