to bring back what you love the most. to reach your
hands into the dirt and take it from its resting place, all
the dust you would brush off of its skin.  
i bury my losses in my stomach. i swallow every
grievance and eat loss whole. its not enough
just to lose you. i want to devour you.
to hold everything in your teeth for so long that
it turns into nothing, wet and falling apart against
your tongue. you cant repay what you owe just by
looking at it, just by being there. you have to do more
than just hold it to fix it.
nothing you bring back to life will ever be the same, cracks
form in new places and life grows in the space where your
skull meets the grass. if you lay still for too long, you will
hear the bugs whisper and feel the ground move.
to be reborn in
all of the places you're used to, like a mountain range
changing with every rock that falls.
to be able to look at the same person twice without flinching.
i just want all the things i can't have, my stomach twists when
i think about where you're lying under the pavement. to bring
back what you deserved to have taken away, to get on your
knees and beg for rain to wash this taste out of your mouth.
all the words you would spit up, all the stories you would
tell and bile you would choke on,
to bring back what you love the most.
to look at yourself.
to look at anything in the eyes.

ive been thinking a lot, you know, about being alone. about my body as a vacant room. about the loneliness of a room with someone in it that wishes they were somewhere else. no matter what corner i turn to, every room is empty.
ive been thinking about forming habits, too. about how they say it takes three weeks to develop a habit and four weeks for your skin cells to regenerate. as the days get closer i wonder if my skin will know that you're gone when the clock runs out on the last day. if it will feel like how you touched me before you left in some expulsion of your last traces. if my hands will shake and i will wish you were next to me again, all over me like you're hiding me from the world.
ive been thinking about how you hid me from the world. i get to this part and i stop writing. you asked me to fight everyone with you and start over, you asked me to run away and build from scratch and it sounded like seduction. you made it sound so good, i get to the part where i wanted it and i stop writing.
mostly ive been thinking about being alone, though. because i can't afford to write it down, i can't afford to break this habit. my skin wont know your touch but these words are burned into my hands, and thighs, my neck and face and chest. ive been thinking about your name burned into my chest. stamped, branded and
ive been thinking about if my dying skin cells are going to miss yours, ive been thinking about if youre dying to see me and if your skin itches like mine does. if every room you enter is empty when youre waiting for me to walk through the door like i used to, as it keeps getting closer, you want to keep the skin that knows my touch because its the only part of me you have left.

I want to call.
I want love to be less violent.
I want you to say something nice just so
I can hear it come out of your mouth.
I want your voice, and I want
You to tell me you love me, and I want you
To tell me I'm beautiful and
Calm me down. I want
You to talk me down from the ledge and
I really want to be next to you but I'd settle for a phone call
And I want you to tell me that everything is okay I don't know
What to do because you're the only person I want to
Talk to and I don't have anyone else to call with all of this hurt.

I want to write about what hurts because I think it will
Stop me from hurting. If I put these words on
A page then they will be easier to digest.
Poetry isn't curative by creation, it is
Just confession. Still, these remedial
Lines are what I turn to when I am holding
Too much in my hands. Right now, I feel
Like I am overflowing onto the ground below me.
For the first time,
I don't want to write about what hurts. I want
To keep it inside of me and let it burn me. I want
To carry it in my palms for as long as I can.
I should write
About how we've said goodbye so
Many times that it turned into a threat, a weapon
We made with our tongues.
I should write
About how I lied and got away with it,
How you got caught with
Your hands tied and no one to blame.
I should write
About how it was over before we waved the white
Flag, and I know what it means now
To hold onto a sinking ship.
I've never had anything to die for.
I should write about how I've never wanted
Something so much that I devastated it completely.
We loved in harsh conditions, under sun and darkness and
I don't know how to write about how
The love didn't save us.
I don't write about letting go as much as I write about
Holding on, and I want
That to change.
I don't want to write hurt just to feel it.
The next poem I write about you will be
About me. About how I held on and how I let go.
It won't be about your love, it will be about
Mine. It won't stop me from hurting, but
It is how I make it out
Of my love alive.

I am not testifying my emotion with the poetry, I am
atoning to it.
I write about God like a friend but we
Haven't been speaking.  
I confess my sins to
Whoever will play the part.
When I write about how quiet the moon has been,
I am saying I'm sorry.

My lack of honesty is writers-block.
I crave all of the hurt. I
Torture myself into unhappiness.
I have this habit of starting things I don't
Finish and they're usually letters
Bursting with nameless blame.
I shut down in the middle of
My emotions because they are too loud, I substitute
all of my connections for a painless quiet.
I am cold because it is easier than being warm,
Than getting burned, than being honest. I am cold
because it is easier than saying that
I am selfish in love. I drain, consume
devour everything that touches me and I
Don't know how to stop taking.

When I write about how I am scared that
Love and violence sound the same from an empty bed, I am saying I'm sorry.
I am not presenting my pain with the poetry,
I am conceding to it.
I can't take a pen to paper without punishing myself with the ink.

When I write about a fence with vines encasing the wood,
About neglect, about a garden full of overgrown weeds and
A cold house, I am saying
Forgive me.

Last night I read a poem about God, and
it sounded so good I almost believed it.
God, hands out the window and hair blowing,
God, smoking a cigarette in a passenger's seat.
Even when you humanize all of your fears,
You can still
Spit them out in the middle.
God, moving her lips with the music and the hot sun,
God, breaking the law with that look.
God, being small enough to cower over and close
Enough to stare in the face,
Where do you take someone like that when they ask?
All the way, I suppose.
The seat next to me is godless, and I almost believed it.
I imagine someone being strong enough to
Cleanse me just by looking at me,
I imagine holding onto something that feels holy and
Not having to deal with burnt palms.
If I could take God anywhere, I would take her to
My grandfathers grave. I would take her to my
Best friends grave, I would take her to the site of
My life changing and,
I would watch her chain smoke cigarettes and cough it all out.
God, with her sharp teeth and quiet tongue and
God, with her hair pulled back and her gaze removed.
If God was in my passenger seat, I would take her to
All of my hurt and ask her to pick it up.
I would ask her to take it all back,
And she would laugh.
God, that laugh.

they tell me
write me a love poem.
but i don't know who i'm writing from,
which version of me to sign it as,
authorized by the words
that make me seem believable.
a love poem about
eating even when you are full and
craving what you can't get your hands on.
a love poem about
two people pressed up against a tree,
how to get lost and
taking the easiest way out.
a love poem about
choking on
gripping fingers on
things i can't put into a love poem.
a love poem about
being afraid of getting caught, the
thrill of not knowing
what was
right and what was wrong.
a love poem about
what never comes. what is almost there.
how do you write about what it should've been without
sounding like an *******?
i could've written a better love story than this.
a love poem about
being stuck, about learning the curve of a body and
memorizing the sounds it makes, the
security of the first who can cover your heart with
their hands.
i can't address these poems.
signed, who?
the girl that i was molded into?
signed,