just let that girl be wild, let her
convince herself not to miss you, let
her stay headstrong and fearless,
standing in her own rain soaking wet,
let her dry herself off. let her run through
the woods all muddy and face-first to the
treetops. let her swing into rivers and scrape
her knees, let her break her wrist and cut her
hair, let her erase who she was when you touched
her last. just let that girl watch the deluge and
thunderstorms in the spring, let her wash away
who she was when you last said her name,
let her point to the sky and tell you *that came from
my chest, that came from my fingertips, that came
from everything you left, and it doesn't need you to
be real

i’m so sad that it doesn’t even feel like you anymore. it’s
vein deep and in the pit of my stomach, it’s
all around me and when i lie down it
clings to me like blankets in the summertime. and it
used to be you, you mouth, your hands, your words,
all wrapped up and ticking like a time bomb, but now it
is just me without you, my own mouth that feels like it’s
been scraped raw on the inside, my own hands that
never stop shaking when it rains or when it’s
too quiet or too dark, my own words that i haven’t
been able to collect back, all scattered on the floor
of your bedroom and underneath a mix of your clothes
and mine that neither of us have touched.
this used to be poetry about how it felt when you left me
but now it’s just poetry about how it felt when i
was not enough to make you stay.

and i am sorry, oh
god i am so sorry that
i cannot apologize for the
things that have made my love
hard. i cannot take blame for
the way other fingertips have burned
my skin, i cannot atone for the bite-marks
on my wrists, or the start and
finish lines, the races that have been run
down my thighs and to my ankles.
i cannot pardon the graveyard of past
love that vandalizes my body like an oil portrait,
i have always looked like a museum exhibit
for the art of leaving. i am carved out by
the stained glass of all of my goodbyes
and it has taken my love by the throat,
it has rubbed my mouth raw, it has made
gasps of air between the breaks of kisses
hurt my teeth. i am sorry that i cannot
excuse the people that have
made me flinch, made me distrust, made me
carry myself gentler when it rains. all i can do is
give you a paintbrush and tell you that
i will still be art when you are finished with me.

isnt it sweet?
how much the human heart is able to bare,
the lines between support and manipulations that
past-lovers have drawn for you,
isnt it sweet? how much you will
carry for the people who arent quite yet
past-lovers, how you will draw boundaries
and cross lines just to touch, just to feel, just to
create some sort of tangible memory for when you
sit with only their names left in your mouth, isnt the
line between sweet and naive based on experience?
isnt it naive? how far you will go to love people into
boxes, how you will let yourself fall apart and
you will watch them spit you out onto the floor and still
you have so much faith in every single rushed kiss and
almost-memory that one of these people you let touch you
with the lights off, one of these people you will drink
into your poetry will be more than just a past-lover?

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.