there are ghosts that sing our story.
not inside of me, they surround and encompass
me and stick to me. i peel them off of me like
a wet blanket, like clothes that haven't dried all
the way through, like glue on the sticky hands
of a child. they write better than i ever could,
they wrote you this poem after i promised my
hands i would never compose another lyric about
how you left. you just left. you just keep leaving.
there are no words that can rhyme with your
descending footsteps, there are no
metaphors that can complement
the pen stain of your lips on mine. there are ghosts
that hum our story, they write about how we used
to puff cigarettes that we hated and drink ***** from the bottle
and walk around barefoot in the damp grass. they
scribble out all of our memories, like smoke tapping the
ceiling of the room with all of our remnants shelved
away. they have nowhere to go but up to the floorboards
of a chamber i can't get to. there are ghosts that keep
me awake, they whisper what you gave me and what
you took, they write you poems about how you can keep
what you have, about how i don't want it back. i would
never write you this poem. i would sit here and let the
hurt hit my face like rain, but i would keep the deluge
to myself. i would keep my stubborn arms folded across
my chest to keep my heart in its place. there are ghosts
that are not inside of me, they besiege me and they
say your name over and over. these ghosts still love you.
these ghosts know the things that i do not. they wrote you
this poem, they will write you poems like this until i forget
that your name sounds like sharpening a knife.
until i uncross my arms, until i let my
heart steady itself. there are ghosts that will love you until
the day i die. until the day i learn to love you until the day
i die, until the day i learn to exist in consensus with them,
until i become pliant, until i dry myself off, until i step out
of the rain and open doors to new places and let the
smoke of what we were never able to be find somewhere
else to go. go upwards, go out the window, go through the floorboards
of a room i am learning to unlock. there are ghosts that stand next
to me and catenate me just like shadows, they know the things
that i do not. they wrote you this poem.

longing
1. noun; a yearning desire
- i never used to be uncomfortable in my own bed. i knew your name before my rib cage started to sing it in my sleep. every night that has passed crosses itself off of a pocket-calendar that is stuck in the drawers of my chest. you move your favorite things into the empty spaces, you hang your worst fears up like clothes that are waiting to dry, you scratch how you love into the bedpost and put your handprints all over the walls. i can't take a deep breath without
hearing your voice in the refrain of my lungs.

yearnining
2. noun; a feeling of strong want or need
- the first time i heard your voice, it sounded exactly like what
your voice should sound like. soft, barely above a whisper, low
and confident and eager. when you spoke, i wanted
to cancel the outside noise of my breathing to listen to you. i wanted
to close my eyes and imagine that voice next to my ear, barely
above a whisper, low and confident and eager and right there
with both of our breathing suspended by its echo.

desire
3. noun; a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.
- every day it is something different. your eyes and how they
almost close when you smile. how your whole family has brown
eyes but you have bright blue ones that turn to gray as the
seasons wear on. your hands and how they look like you
should play an instrument, im saying put those hands to
good use and find something to strum. and we laugh because
you know what i mean. your laugh. it sounds like an answer
to a question i've been asking the silence.
give me someone to love like that. give me someone to love like that. give me-
like a call back from the
darkness. like, here he is in all of his glory and you
still can't have him.

girl rages war on the world after it breaks her heart* the
headlines read on a lazy sunday morning and it is used as
a coffee coaster or padding for packaging old antiques
that came from a shop that smells like the sheets your mom
uses (but only for the guests that don't come anymore.) girl
rages war on the world after it tears her to pieces, after
she walks around with glue in her hair and dirt under
her fingernails, collecting fragments of the people that used
to love her and the places she used to go to. girl rages war
on the cracks in the sidewalk, on the cracks against her mouth
by her fathers hand, every wall has cracks in it to signify how
all grows crooked. all grows upwards, forwards, east, west,
never downwards but never quite all the way straight.
girl rages war
on the world and screams to the sky, she shoots holes into the
blackness and creates constellations in the exit wounds and
melodies out of the echoes. girl makes her own thunder and
her own sequence for the midnight. she tells people who touch
her that they are in the crossfire for bloodshed, that every crack in
the sidewalk they step on is a battlefield, that every diplomatic
exchange between the moon and the tides is a reprise of her
strife.
girl rages war on the world after it breaks her heart and the
newspaper is flipped over to the home improvement ads, the
tv schedule for this week, there is a gunshot but no one flinches
or looks out their window.
after all, what does it matter what she destroys
in the crooked tantrum that all must grow towards?
she and her bullets are no match for the dirt and the
sky and the buildings that waver over her, she is no
match for the people that tower her and the places she will
never go back to.
no need to be alarmed, no need to collect the children and look for safety in empty
basements.
after all, she is just one girl.

the way you told me you didn't love me anymore sounded
like my father raising his voice.
i have always recoiled into loud noises, slamming
doors and heavy words have caused me to
flinch in record-reaction time. i fall in and in and
into myself and you say it quietly, but it
is louder than any breaking glass or screeching
tire noises in the driveway of my childhood home. i
have always chosen my words very carefully in a
world full of carelessness, i choose gentle and i choose
compassion and i choose kind. the way you told me
you didn't love me anymore sounded like the fight
where my mother said she was collecting her things.
the way you told me you didn't love me anymore sounded
like packing a suitcase and putting a for sale sign on the
glossy green suburban lawn. the way you told me you
didn't love me anymore sounded like the music my
sister would turn up to drown out the voices of adults
downstairs, or the creaking footsteps of a man coming
home late, wafting in someone else's perfume. the way you
told me you didn't love me anymore sounded like the wail
of a child after a blow to the face, after another blow to the
face, after another blow to the-
the way you told me you didn't love me anymore sounded
like something i had been waiting to hear since you told me
you loved me. the other shoe drops. the other shoe drops.
a swift, clean, repetitive blow to the face.

he says “we end nicely. with a hug and a kiss. we end before it gets bad so we can never hate each other.
and in five years i’m going to call you
and ask you to marry me. please
say yes.” and i’m laying in the bed of a boy
that broke my heart and i’m
crying and saying “in five years
i will be just like every other girl
you’ve loved. i will know better by then.”
and he doesnt reply so
eventually i say “i could have
loved you forever if you had
let me. you win. you win, you win,
you win.” and instead of
saying anything he pulls
me close for a second and it feels like normal,
like maybe everything is going to be okay, but every
inch between us is cold we
can both feel it on our skin. “this doesn’t feel like
winning. i will love you for the rest
of my life. this doesn’t feel like winning.”

there is a night
with the moon hung so low
it courses itself over my outstretched palms
and i lay in the middle of the street
with the gravel digging into my skin and
im repeating to a boy whos not listening to me
this doesn't make any sense and i try
my hardest to keep my fists clenched around
the surface of the moon but it falls through
my finger tips like sand he lies next to me
and tells me that maybe i am just hard to
love.

there is a morning
where i stumble down steps and into a bed
i pull blankets over my shoulders and i don't
cringe when you touch my stomach i used
to map out all of the bad parts on me like
a highway but all of my lines are blurred and
i feel less like roadwork and more like wandering
hands there is a version of you that i like most
it is right after we kiss and i pull away and
look right at you and i used to think that being
loved at all was the right thing to waste my time on
with car crash endings and angry words at least
it was love at least it was something now

there is the middle of the day
and all i am is that moment after i pull away
that split second where i feel so naive
for thinking i had any idea what love was before
i met you. that i could have ever let anyone convince me
the way they hurt me was a product of what my
heart could handle. that any love
besides this love was worth any of my time.
there is before and after,
night behind us and morning ahead of us and we
always just move forward.

it is a vision. an image. a clear view from the reflection of a surface of water.
you reach your hand out and it passes through, you pull
your hand back and your memories drip into the
pool and disperse. it makes sense. it is like clockwork. in and out.
it is a vision, image, reflection that has
no shape or form, but it falls off of your fingertips and formulates
rings around your mind.
we are standing in an empty room. i tell you that you
can do whatever you want with this space and all you
do is pull me close. it makes sense. it is like clockwork. it is
less like falling in love and more like opening your eyes,
letting your fists unclench when you didn't realize how
tightly you were holding onto what hurts. that's the
problem with letting go where you are used to holding on,
like muscle memory. like clockwork. it is less like
falling in love and more like i have been here this whole time
with my hands over my chest, always just a second-and-a-half
away, just missing you, on the other side of the pool just
waiting for your hands to grab hold of me. we are standing
in an empty room and i tell you that this is all i have and
i am waiting for you to reach through me. it is less like falling in
love and more like catching up. like, of course, there you are. finally.  
i've been looking all over for you.
and it makes sense.