i cant help but replay it
like an old tape, flipped over and
shoved into dusty corners of bedrooms,
labels scratched off, there is a scrapbook
of the first time you touched me and there are
no pictures, this story has written itself and has been
stuck to the refrigerator like surviving it is some
accomplishment that i am patted on the back for and
it repeats, its stuck somewhere and i stare and flip it
over hoping that each time i hear your voice it will say
something different, something softer, something
sweeter there is a notebook somewhere quiet
and it sits by itself with my ink scratched into its pages
it has words you promised me that i haven't touched like
every time i hear this song there is ringing in my ears it
is static, there is torture dripping off the lines where you said
i am yours, i am yours, i am yours and i cant force myself
to let go of it just yet, it has made comfort in my chest it has
made its own home and i keep waiting for this story to
end differently, i keep waiting to write about something else
but its all over, i cant help but replay it, in every part of me and all encompassing like a virus like something i fall asleep
wishing i hadn't heard, i cant help it baby i am
yours, i am yours, i am yours

i want to fix myself with more
than just glue and tape i want
to calm down i don't want
to be so much i want to let the
water wash the broken parts of me
away but i always get caught in the
tides, in the waves, in the stream
they keep saying
"if you do this,
what will be left?
what will be left?"
i keep my feet out of the water.
i don't have an answer.

there are girls who exist just like the
ocean, she is in love with the
moon she lets stars run through the
gaps of her gentle fingers like
sand she will say that she has
been in a love that burns and all she will
tell you is that it keeps her humble
and you look at her, all sad and
made up and empty space and you see
something you need to fix, some tide
you need to find a rhythm to while she
brushes her hair with the sunlight and she
fills her mouth with seashells maybe she
is not entirely beautiful because she
is not entirely here because she
would rather float around tied down to the
world like a balloon on a string and you see
this girl, all tired eyes and pouty mouths,
cheeks like wine and movements that
drip honey from her legs and you think that maybe
if you say the right words, you can keep her
close to the ground you can cover her
mouth as she wishes to be a part of the earth
a part of the trees, a part of the flowers that
grow around her feet when she walks you think
for one second, you can take all of her
not-entirely-beautiful and tame it like a
wild horse like a rose you pick the thorns off of
but you cannot love something that
cannot be restrained i am telling you, there are
girls who are made up of other people's words
and their handprints tattoo her body, she has been
hurt but she remains kind
and warm like no one has
done her wrong, and her hair is always messy and you
cannot have her because you do not know how to
love tender, you do not know how to be humble like
she does you are not soft enough to
keep her in your hands without breaking her.
she is in love with the moon because she knows she is
made up of something else entirely, she does not
need your love to keep her contained.
she does not need to be contained.

there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice. i should have asked you who taught you to
lace up your shoes in an instinct
that feels just like a memory,
your luggage is always packed.
you love out of a suitcase, always
ready to pick up and move. your hands are stained with their last
names you have boarding flights tattooed
on your palms because you're so used to
leaving, there is never a good-bye it is
always departure gates and terminals, and i'm writing this in on connecting flight over the ocean because close to nowhere is
the closest we've been in months
just to tell your passport that i understand
how you cannot love me. i could
taste it in your gas-station coffee breath i could
feel it in the hesitance of your fingertips
you are always close to the highway you are always waiting to hitch a ride with a new girl who will write poetry about how badly you feel like permanence and i
am always trying to unpack you, begging
you to stay one more night.
i understand how you cannot love me, i stay on the ground and you buy plane tickets with spare cash, with a turbulence that makes me
want to fasten my seatbelt.
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice and i whisper to the sheets
"i thought i could've made you stay."
your face is always towards the
humming of the window and
i like to imagine you can hear
me if you can hear me, you can leave all you
want. you can travel across the world and exchange your
heart for currency, you can walk through
security and stuff your belongings into the closets of cheap
hotels. i understand how you cannot stay because you're always too busy leaving,
but there will always be a place for you to
unpack in my chest.
there is a home that remains unoccupied.
there is a bed that
you haven't slept in twice, i keep it unmade in case you
ever feel like coming back.

in the forefront of the cataclysm that is
begged to be overcome you have
scratched yourself raw and abandoned the blueprints
of your body. deformed
into a vision of someone that is easy to touch,
simpler of mind,
yes please, no thank you,
it's okay, i forgive you, no really,
i forgive you.
and they are foreign words that are spit out
in your own tongue regardless of how they taste
with the intent of contorting yourself into a
girl that is easy to love,
every hand is a shock to the system even
comfort finds a dishonest undertone.
in a last-minute effort to convince him to stay,
you have sewn tragedy into your skin and hidden it
with magic tricks, with makeup, with
yes please, no thank you, i forgive you.
bite the hand that feeds the girl who
puts her entity into edges who
makes herself small and ready to touch who
is glass-eyed, hung like a hunted deer and shelved
like a trophy bite the hand that feeds the girl who is a
bird, circling all day from
one end of a metal trap to another and
the brief delusion of freedom in flight is
just enough to knock the wind
from your lungs, from under your wings, the second
your eyes open and you remember
that no matter which direction you take of from
you are still banging on the bars of a cage

it repeats in my head like a
mantra or a desperate prayer,
hands clasped tight over a
crucifix necklace. but i cant envision
myself praying just to god, i am so
desperate at this point i am yelling
my invocations to any force that will
listen and my eyes are shut tight like
a little girl wishing for time to
slow down, reciting
"please dont get sick of me please
dont get sick of me
please dont get sick of me" and i
am never sure of what happens when
i open my eyes and i am terrified to
unfold my palms as if someone will
catch me by my wrists and hit my hands
with a ruler and assume i have ever wanted
anything this bad before in my whole life

I. I am so angry it burns my lips to speak, lava drips from my tongue and chars my skin and fries my hair and melts my clothes. I am so angry it consumes me it hurts me and it burns me and i do not get to feel any of it.

II. I wish I was a tape recorder. I wish I could remember things better, I wish I could spin myself around the words and play them back in my head later and never forget them. The only thing I can't press pause, or rewind, or erase, is exactly how you sounded when you left.

III. Sometimes I miss you so much I feel like I am running a race dead last and I have anchor weights on my ankles, I never think I'm going to make it.

IV. I think this is for the best but oh god I’m sorry my heart feels like it’s going to fall out of my mouth and onto the pavement

V. Last night someone took advantage of me and today I woke up feeling like it was my fault, it is nostalgic in the most terrifying way. I don't know how I'm doing this without you anymore.

VI. If this is love I want nothing to do with it.

VII. I am forced to become exactly what I need. I have spent too much time nailed to the floorboards right where you left me. I am right where you left me.

VIII. I think about how you have touched me and I feel sick, I think about your hands on me and I want to take showers and scrub my skin and I can’t breathe. I wish no one would ever touch me or kiss me or put their hands on me ever again.

IX. I don’t want to feel anything anymore. I told you I was going to be close to you in two months and you waited until four AM to tell me that seeing me would make you remember what you have done to me. I was awake. I told you to never forget it.

X. Get out of my head, I will not let you turn me hard. I felt soft, I still fall asleep wondering if your hands are cold. I do not want to let you convince me that love is bad.

XI. Yesterday, you told me you missed me. Yesterday, I couldn't force myself to look at you. Yesterday, I said, "I miss you too, but there is empty space where you told me you did not love me. There is nothing here for you anymore." Yesterday, I lied but I will repeat that mantra into my head until I undo whatever damage you have done to me. I will not let you convince me that love is bad.