I finally know why I smoke.
For six years I have ****** tar
and I used to think
I wanted to **** myself
Just very slowly.
A painful, drawn out death that I,
indeed, deserve.
Now, I think, I symbolically
am setting fire to the feelings I have
Every day
And let the ash
fall to ground
while I walk away
feeling better.

There once was a man.
His sole purpose in life was to put antiseptic and bandages on my wounds.
He read me a stories and gave each character a funny voice.
He took me wherever I wanted to go, and also, everywhere he'd ever wanted to show me.
He showed me the past, like
individual bricks on a wall,
and built me up to the roof
of a house.
Staring at stars and constellations and swirling dreams.
We played and conversed like equals,
alternating from being children to grownups, together.
We went to baseball games and aquariums and museums and beaches and parks and forests.
I danced on his toes, and sprouted his curly locks from my own head.

And when he died, I died, too.

There was nothing left for many years, until I held my own child.
My daughter,
who looks so much like my dad,
sometimes it hurts to see
the similarities.
The curl in her hair, the stars in her eyes, the magic in her shadow,
And it almost makes me feel like
Maybe he didn't leave me without love.
Maybe I didn't perish along with him.
Maybe he is still alive in me and in
the funny way my little girl scrunches up her nose when she giggles.
Or her preference of squash to green beans.
Maybe the world didn't end with my dad.
Maybe I would feel even sadder that she won't know him if I wasn't too busy soaking in her every moment like my father did mine.

And, one day I'll tell her,
"Eliza June, I once knew the most incredible man.
And he would have loved
to hear you call him,
'Grand Dad.'"

It’s been longer since we spoke
than the entire duration
of when our summer-long
conversation
ate away at our aching minds,
our cracked and caulked hearts.

While frost settles on my car
in the morning
on my way to work
like none of it ever happened.
My heart, too, is cold.

I have never known anyone like you.
I’m quite sure I won’t meet another.

Your words, my own thoughts
poured from you. My heart soaked in every letter, every pause and breath.
Fleeting dreams sprouted
from every seed our like-minds planted.

My life’s spring. After my life’s winter.
A promise of a never-ending summer.  

We’ve reached another seasonal winter.
But just as seasonal spring is a far off date

So is our summer.

I will not wait forever.
Like how the raindrops hold on to the clouds before falling
Falling, as Lucifer was flung from the heavens into Hell;
Hell, where I am
          waiting.
The way that orange and brown leaves cling to the limbs of trees in Fall
Or how you hesitate
before telling me bad news.

The last glimpse of sunlight at dusk before the halos around street lamps blot out the inky sky
Or how the stillness of night waits for us to awake in the morning,
filling the bright day with clutter
and bangs and squeals and chirps and songs and gleeful sounds
that couple well with sunlight.

Like my tears pair with nightfall.
Tearfully waiting.
For a new day to bring happy news and good thoughts,
For you to stay home and not go out seeking adventures
           without me.
Because I'm here
           waiting.

Sad, not only because I'm alone, but because I know that it is not my choice.
But that one day, very soon,
it will be.
Because you always leave me
            waiting.

I will not wait forever,
But for now I sit in your reception area
along with unrequited feelings
And bottled emotions that smell of liquor.
I smile vaguely at your memories
and wonder if I'm one of them.
I curse your broken past as it led you to your present decisions.

But I am loyal to every breath and hiccup that has made you, you.
For now, I wait
But I will not wait forever.

I cannot believe I'm here. I have been driven to new limits of my being. I was mad at you, and as I lay in bed without sleeping for the fourth night in a row due to your careless handling of my heart, I needed something to fill the absence you left in your wake.
Get up and go smoke a cigarette.
No, I need something stronger.
How about a shot of whiskey?
I don't want to taste its unpleasant tones that remind me of my past.

I just took a pain pill for the headache that always accompanies my tears...
Take another. Two won't hurt.
I don't want to wait to feel better, I need immediate relief. I won't have enough rest to get through tomorrow, another disappointment in store.
Take another. Take it
differently.
So I snorted a Vicodin. And I'm not proud. I'm new to this level of desperation, and oh my, how I pity all those who have ever done this before me.

Until.
Until now.
Until, now, I feel.
I feel better.
A new sensation arises in my face and in the back of my throat. I can practically feel the neurons dancing around in my brain, in my skull.
Inside of me. In my heart and body and mind.
In my skin. Dancing.

I remember we used to dance. Your hand cradled mine with the delicacy you always use with me. Every word you speak you're framing a moment in which you think I will finally
lose it
if you're not careful enough.
Do not handle me like a child. I cry, not like a child, but as a woman weeping for a man that is dead to her before he's even left the room.
And you shut down as soon as you see a single ******* tear.

Am I not worth any effort after all this time?
When I make you mad, we talk about it and I apologize. I'm so sorry.
So sorry.

I will retreat into myself. I will reach my deserted island where you can't reach me.
No one will get to me here.
I'm surfing waves on seas you will never sail.
I'm building castles in sand that you can't ever put your hands on.
I am catching rays from an alien sun.
I am experiencing something completely new! And you are only feeling my cold silence.
That's new, isn't it?

Instead of hearing my pleas to mend our busted road of communication, you see me happily
waving from the other side of a massive divide.
I'm so sorry.
I'm smiling.
I can't hear you.
I'm not that sorry anymore.

And for a moment, I wonder which you prefer.
I wonder if you'll be happy with my new habit for the first several weeks only because you don't know what's mellowed me out so well.
I am steamrolled, my true emotions flattened on the ground around me.
Beyond my reach.

I'm not reaching out.
To you.
To me.

I'm surfing seas. I'm building castles, of which I am the queen, a luxury you never allowed for me.

This is new. And I'm not sorry.

They say poems don't have to rhyme.
That time heals all wounds And absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I'm no Scarlett or Juliet, but I can swear among all the things I never want to have to say to you, the most embarrassing is "I missed you so badly, I couldn't get out of bed today."

They say there are other fish in the sea, well, I don't swim. I don't breathe water.
I drown.

And you're the lifeguard, flirting with that ***** in a bikini.

But it's okay. Poems don't have to rhyme. A lot of good that does me.

One. I loved you for five years back when that was eternity. But we grew closer and further apart, simultaneously, and though it killed me to. I could not wait any longer for you to make me a priority.

Two. I was very drunk and so were you.

Three. I had the desire to become careless. You were too young and I thought you wouldn't tell anyone. Thanks for keeping my secrets.

Four. I heard you call me pretty.

Five. You told me to meet you in the back room of that party. You lied to everyone rather than admit it.

Six. We listened to some great music and I found things out about you that no one else knew. I admired you for some reason, but you wanted more that I couldn't give.

Seven. You couldn't "rise to the occasion," but I always counted you anyway, since we were there and I would have if you could have.

Eight. We'd made out a few times in lockers rooms and in the dark curtains on stages. Ha! You were an orphan that made everyone else believe it was their fault and like they owed you some kind of an apology. Well, fast forward a few years and you're drunk and joined up and you ***** me. I'd already been ruined enough, so I stuck around. Never hoping for anything better for myself. I was only good enough for you at three am when you needed a ride home, you drunken coward. But I wasn't good enough for you the nine months I carried our daughter, the last year and a half our lives. You've missed out on all the joy she's brought me, and for someone without a family, I expected better. I hope you burn in hell.

Nine. Post-baby, feeling bad about my new body. I had rounded in places previously flattened, and you were a trial run for something I knew shouldn't be as important to me as it was.

Ten. All good things come to those who wait. The only man worthy of my love. I wish I had preserved every good thought and feeling in a jar so that I could share with you. You aren't completely unflawed, but that's fine. You somehow accept me with all my baggage and emotional trauma and tear-streaked moments. I thank God for you every moment I breathe, and you're my salvation from a world that makes women feel like nothing but an object, even though I played the part convincingly. I could never go on without you.

Well, I'll chalk up
Writing
As another thing that
I am no good at.  
Unless there is
A few girls born in
1995
That would disagree.
You would know better than I.
I knew better then.
Nineteen years old
All glitter and flame
Straight, no chaser
There was hell to pay.

Oh, dad. If you were here now.

If you saw the red lines in my eyes or could smell the liquor on my tongue and in my sweat.
If you saw me drop out of college. Or quit that job. Oh, and that other job.
If you saw the ******* that would call you grandad.

Would you still love me then?
Or would you sweep my failure under a rug with your cigars that you still hid from grandma after forty years on this earth?
Could you love me after seeing the men I'd slept with, knowing what I did to them?  
How I had to close my eyes while I did it.
Holding tears back just to get through it.  

Did you die because you knew it?  

Was I not worth living for as a child because you saw a future you did not want to live?  

I'm only still living to prove that it was you who caused this torment.

And what I miss most of all
Was the feeling of my troubles
Blowing out of the car
Through cracked windows
On windy roads
That never ended
As long as you were by my side.

Not you, telling me where to turn next.