when i cry at night just remember it's not because i want to die anymore

being lonely when you're not alone is a lot like being scared of the monsters under your bed in a fully lit room

this body has always felt more like a prison than a sanctuary but a life sentence beneath my skin seems less daunting since you've come around

plant yourself like a tree in my chest, root into my bones until there's nothing left dividing us

we grow up with the saying "find what you love and let it **** you" but when i told you i loved you with every drop of blood in my veins i never expected you to pull the trigger

lay me down like a quilt on your bed. unfold my legs like the linen. kiss me. kiss me like i am the black hole pulling you in and you can't fight it. kiss me like my lips are the x on the map you've been following. kiss me north. kiss me south. my legs will open like a front door, just shy of a mat welcoming you home.

whatever you do please don't leave me here standing in the winter breeze with nothing but a heart shaped hole on my sleeve

i'm sorry things had to get so terrible for them to get any better. i'm sorry this is what "better" feels like. i'm sorry for letting you break so often without offering to piece you back together. i'm sorry for letting you believe what people thought about you mattered even the slightest bit. it doesn't. you are so much more than i ever let you believe. i'm sorry for letting you dwell on yesterday. tomorrow has always been more important. all those times you hid in the dark, i should've laid with you and let you see how vibrant you can be. i should have helped you better when you needed me. i'm sorry i wasn't always there when you needed me. i'm sorry for letting you fall for boys who were never going to be good to you. i should've looked out for you better. i could've done more. i'm sorry i let you love people who never loved you back. i'm sorry i let those people make you feel like you weren't good enough. you have always been more than enough. never forget that. i'm sorry for teaching you how to fly but always calling you back down before you could reach the moon. i was jealous of how well you could fit in with the stars. i wanted you for myself. i promise to be your voice when you can't find yours and to hold you up when your knees crumble beneath you. i promise to be your eyes when your vision is blurred and to tell you i love you when your ears can't filter out the hatred anymore. i will love you with every ounce of light left in me if it means letting your flame grow brighter. i'm sorry for the way it always seems to get awful before it gets bearable. please remember that every morning the sun is still roaring, the earth is still moving and the rivers are still flowing. flowers will bloom in spring, waterfalls will rush in the summer and the sun will keep rising as long as you are here to see it.

the issue with vacating your own body is deciding which bones to pack and which to leave behind

the sky has clouded over with rain and the sun stopped rising in the early morning and you stopped calling and I refuse to believe it's coincidence that daylight left when you did

you can forget about me if you want but there's still a burning star in our skies named after the day you decided you loved me back

when I said "I understand" what I really meant was I understand I'm not what you want but I'm trying my best to become who you need

**** me 'til you're bored enough to leave me

in some backwards world you loved me back. you saw me in car radios and rolling tides, telling me I reminded you of the way wind swept dying dandelions into the air on a spring day. you loved me with 2am milkshakes and arcade games, sunflower gardens and star wars tattoos. it was a backwards love but it was ours and oh my god was it a great love.

I've been building tree forts in vacant chests but the foundation is always too wary for them to last

you won't understand me when I say "my eyes are heavy" but I mean I haven't slept in 6 days because I keep hearing your car keys crash against the concrete

when I say "I'll be fine" what I really mean is I'll be dead before it's over and right now it feels like you're clenching your fist inside my chest and everything's going cold

tell me about all the time you spent rearranging the furniture afraid of the silence being more comfortable than your duvet

the hardest part was realizing I still loved you. I spent months washing you out with bottles of whisky and could still taste your chapstick on my tongue. somehow the burning in my throat wasn't the liquor but it was your name reaching for a way out. maybe it came from the way that I noticed your socks weren't matching and your eyes were dark with circles again. it never made sense to me, you never made sense to me. I could go days without a smoke but the second I heard your name I was half way through a dart that smelt just like you. no matter how many packs I bought each smelled more and more like you than the last, the sweet pine you carried so ******* well. I tried sleeping with my socks on but couldn't bare it. you couldn't stand your socks on. I couldn't stand to ******* breathe because it kept reminding me of the soft hum that leaves your chest when you're asleep. you were my second love but my first real love and I can't get away from you. you're in every ******* light bulb and coffee mug, how am I supposed to move on when you won't let me stop loving you in the first place? I've found you in every new lover I've tried out and maybe that's why each night is more lonely than the last. you have her open legs and I have an open casket but we always knew you had a thing for a quick fix.

I told you I didn't trust myself to be alone the day you made me watch you leave through the screen door. maybe it was the night terrors or maybe it was the mediocre birthday cakes, but you never thought I was worth enough to explain. I laid on my bathroom floor for 6 days straight the following week. I didn't cry over you, don't worry. but I definitely didn't bother to eat over you, either. I stopped showering for the most part and only drank whiskey. I forgot to pay the electric bill and screamed for hours in the dark on my own hoping you'd show up to fix it. you didn't. I think I realized you were really gone when your mom stopped calling to see how I was 'holding up'. when our friends stopped inviting me to the parties to save you the awkward encounter. it took me 3 months to throw away your old clothes I was sleeping in. I'd be lying if I said I dumped them all, you know how much I loved that crew neck sweatshirt from Chicago. but, I shed as much of you as I could bare. I washed the sheets for the first time 2 weeks after that. I cried the whole time and couldn't sleep in the bed for days because it didn't smell like you anymore. it's been almost 6 months and I'm doing better. I changed our voice mail and took down your photos. I stopped waking up in a sweat with your name stuck between my teeth. I've started to drive again. since you walked out that screen door I realized it's not that I can't trust myself alone, it's that I always thought you were what made me better and ******* was I wrong.

for the first time in two years I didn't wake up screaming your name. it still sounded more like a plea for help than a confessional. it was somewhere between "not again" and "don't do this". but it wasn't you. it wasn't the sound of your sweater. it wasn't the smell of your favourite song. it wasn't the taste of your voice. it wasn't you. I'm sure your laughter still lingers on my lips looking for a way out. I knew the day you replaced my bed with hers I'd break. I knew you'd shatter me like your dad's car window. you'd leave me on the cold cement for someone else to clean up. you were always so obsessed with car wrecks it finally makes sense why you were so fixated on me. but why did you choose her? is it the way she can pick her cereal without crying? or is it because you don't have to hide all the knives in the house when she's having a bad day? you knew I was a ******* crime scene when you met me yet you still tore down my yellow caution tape. for the first time in 2 years I didn't wake up screaming your name because I know she already is.

I am still so in love with the person I thought you could be that I forgot to fall in love with who I've become without you.

I have been so mind numbingly lost between the static in this room that I've forgotten what your voice felt like. searching for the promises you buried in your pillow before I try to get out of bed every morning, I've forgotten what your hands sounded like. but, like broken glass on soft feet I walked recklessly into a fight I could never win with you. you were always stubborn and selfish. I spent years searching for reasons you couldn't love me in boys that swore they did and only ever came up with me loving you too much. I loved you too much I suffocated you with 3am drunken phone calls and 6am good morning texts. I loved you too much with surprise lunches and coffees when you're home alone. I loved you too much with poems and songs that have your name written on every page. I have been so whole heartedly consumed in your dark eyes I forgot how light your hair looks in the sun. I sold the devil my soul knowing **** well you never wanted me at all. but god knows I will always ******* want you.

I was raised to be titanium; sturdy steel surrounding a soft body, but no one ever told me titanium sinks.

I still remember the first time I ever fell asleep in your bed. every time I opened my eyes I saw your lips slowly part and your eyelashes flutter and I swore you were the most beautiful art piece I had ever seen. we spent the entire night high off of infinities only pills could promise, watching the world around us swirl into galaxies I had spent hours telling you about. we smoked two packs that night and after every one I swore it was my last. every time I outlined your lips I swore it'd be my last taste. every time I laced our fingers I swore it'd be the last time. every time I put my hands in your hair I swore it'd be different. 8 months later and I can still taste you when I smoke my cigarettes and I still see you through the clear capsules. I can still remember what it felt like to wake up to your grumbly hello and how nothing will ever quite compare. I still remember the first time I ever fell asleep in your bed. every time I opened my eyes I realized I'd never love another human being like I do, you. do you remember?

graveyards have started to feel a hell of a lot more like home than this god forsaken house ever could. it's easier to sit in front of strange graves in beds of grass and weeds than even consider looking at the empty space where your shoes used to block the doorway, where you turned our welcome mat into an ashtray. the comfort I find in headstones from people I'll never know is nothing compared to how I felt pressed against your chest listening to your own voice boom within your ribcage; shaking the walls with every consonant you let escape your mouth. the overwhelming sound of silence across the grounds is all that I can hear in my hallway now that your laughter isn't lingering between the wallpaper and drywall. I swear to god I hear wilting pedals from forgotten bouquets the second my ear touches my **** pillow every night, I miss your snoring. I've found sick comfort in the way the grass is welcoming and forgiving, the way it happily took every poem I wrote about you and decayed them into the earth beneath it. I've left every trace of you I had at that ******* graveyard but I still can't bear to wash my sheets. I'm as good as dead to you and maybe that's why I've found a home 6 feet under every word I've bled out in your name rather than in this house and body you abandoned.

If I ever get the chance to love you forever I promise you I will do it to my greatest capacity. I promise to listen to you when you get so invested in conversation you ramble for hours. I promise to accept you when you're being stubborn, and fight you when you're wrong. I promise to learn how to make your favourite meals from your mother, I know her cooking will always be your favourite. I promise to find every freckle on your body. I will kiss every single one. I promise to always say see you later rather than goodbye. I promise to protect you from heartache to the best of my ability. Actually, I promise to help you through heartache when it comes our way. You'll never be alone. I promise to kiss you when you first wake up even though we both know you get smelly. I promise to be your biggest fan and greatest supporter. I promise to scratch your back and pop your back pimples. I promise to watch your favourite television show even if I could honestly care less. I really don't care about zombies. I promise to never let us become your parents. I promise to never let you be like your father. I promise to never let you be like my father. I promise to be the best mother if you let me. I promise to tuck you in when you're drunk and give you water and Advil when you're hungover. I promise to be your home. I promise to make our house as home-y as possible. I promise to race you up the stairs. I promise to keep myself positive. I promise to let you pick me up when it feels like I can't do it myself. I promise to laugh at your baby photos with your sister and to talk to your father about his hobbies. I promise to make fun of you for being a mama's boy. I promise to love you for it, too. I promise to love you with every bone and muscle in my body. I promise to love you more than I did the day before. I promise to love you and love you and love you and lo

the devil has never been a red bodied monster with bull horns and the tail of a scorpion. the devil is a brown eyed boy who introduces himself to your father with a firm shake and a promise to keep you safe. he'll spill his guts onto your kitchen floor promising he's never told anyone else what he's shared with you. a few months in you'll meet his mother and she'll tell you how happy she is that he has found someone to keep him honest. you'll believe her when she says he's never talked about someone the way he has talked about you. you'll tell her you care about him and she'll say she knows. in the summer he'll tell you he loves you and he can't imagine his life without you. he'll joke about where you'll both be when you're 45, living in the suburbs with steady jobs and a couple of kids. you'll hope he means with him. he'll talk about the future like its so obvious he'll be a part of yours, like you have no reason to doubt him. fall will come around again and the leaves will change. he'll stop calling as often. the rain will relentlessly fall onto the streets. he'll stop coming by your house. the temperature will drop and rain will turn to snow and soon enough you'll have burned every poem you've ever written for him. you'll remember the night you almost sent him your suicide note but instead of being scared you felt bad for betraying him. february will come around and you'll try to remember the sound of his voice when he first wakes up but you can never imagine it just right. your parents will forget his name and his mom will stop telling you how she misses having you around the house and how his dog has been wondering where you've been. she'll tell you he hasn't been the same lately but you don't try to believe her. the seasons will change and months will pass and he'll forget your name and break every ******* promise he swore he could keep and ******* will it hurt.

you should never love someone who can't love you. you'll end up with 11 empty beer bottles and smashed glass on the floor when you realize every single word you've ever said has meant nothing to them. when you realize everyone knows every single breath they've ever taken has meant the ******* world to you, you'll remember smashing the 12th beer bottle on the ground after you called them and left a voicemail; you begged for 5 good reasons why you're not enough. you'll be sitting on your bathroom floor ******* near killing yourself, when they call back and make you drop that glass shard faster than the bullet you imagined running through your temple left that barrel. you'll hear their voice and convince yourself that it sounds like a love song but we all know there's nothing but pity passing those lips. that's when they'll say those 4 words that you've been telling yourself since the day you realized you'd be as good as dead if you couldn't tell them you loved them. if you couldn't scream, or kiss, or trace 'I love you' into their skin there was no point in breathing. but they tell you "I can't love you" and you feel your bones break beneath you, you feel every single cell shiver and quiver within your flesh. like a fist smashing a cheek bone you're spun around and knocked down with no chance to retaliate. you'll hear their even breathing on the other end of the line while you're gasping for whatever air is left in the room. you should never love someone who can't love you.

I fell in love with the way my name rolls off of your drunken tongue and you slur your way through the consonants. I fell in love with the way your touch wounds me with something like a bullet hole and you leave nothing but a band aid. I fell in love with the way I hear your voice scream "stop" through the smoke in my charring lungs. I fell in love with the way I can see your face at the bottom of my bottle, because we all know you mix best with whiskey. I fell in love with the way you watch me drive through red lights with a wicked grin across your lucid face. I fell in love with the way you leave a toxic haze everywhere you go, you make it impossible to not get drunk on you.

i keep writing about you, everyone is telling me my words are "beautiful, raw, meaningful" and i don’t know why but maybe it's because all these words are written for you and you’re beautiful in a way, maybe raw is a better word but, what they don’t know is that i stare at this blank ******* page for hours and all i feel is rage a stomach churning, heart wrenching rage, and anger and frustration because i write down all these words but none of them ever say what i need them to say; none of these ******* words i write ever seem to tell them how i feel about you but maybe if actions could be translated into words i could write down me shouting and cursing about you in my car while I'm alone and speeding down the highway because your favourite song came on my ******* playlist again and i swore i could hear you singing alone next to me; i would write me standing in the shower while i let the scolding hot water burn through my skin as i try to think of the exact moment i realized i would never be whole again if i didn’t ******* have you, if I couldnt call you mine, then i would write me shutting off the water in defeat and at an utter loss because i realized i have never even had you to begin with, i've never been whole because you've always had the missing piece; i would write how a fire starts burning in my chest whenever i hear about you and her, i’ve never envied another human being so much before, it's a physical pain that a bullet hole or a train wreck  could never compare to; i would write how my eyes sting as i continue to stare at this god ****** ceiling in this empty room at 3am missing you, being up that late is only fun when you're around,

i wish you would stick around.

i have no way to end this because
there’s no poetic way to say that i feel like ******* **** every time i realize i will never know what it feels like to be wanted by your heart and your hands, i'll never be a name on your list of ex lovers and i won't be a name on your list of hopefuls, either. i'm nothing to you but you're the air i breathe.

have you ever wondered how it must feel to drown?
to have water rush into your desperately deflating
lungs and create tidal waves within your rib cage?
have you ever wondered how it must feel to burn?
to feel every inch of your trembling skin catch flame
and spread heat throughout your draining corpse?
have you ever wondered how it must feel to love?
to know that you would drown and burn for another
person every second of every day just to hear their
heartbeat and to see happiness in their worn eyes?
have you ever wondered if loving someone is really
worth the pain or maybe dying by the hands of waves
and flames has always been more appealing than
loving someone who could so easily **** you, too?

I'm trying to escape this body but I'm trapped
I'm hammering my fists against the walls of my veins
but there's no way out and no way in
I'm left alone in this dark space that used to be my mind
there's nothing left here besides my slowly deteriorating corpse
I'm sorry

you don't realize this but you have eyes filled with stars and a mind composed of galaxies and I am infatuated with every last word rolling off of your tongue I swear you could make a hurricane warning sound like a love song you're the type of danger every father warns his daughter about but maybe that's why I never leave a bottle unfinished because I know you'll always be waiting for me at the bottom