kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

Was so fragile-
She could be cut by callused palms.
Could be bruised-
With the stroke of her makeup brush.
Lays so sound-
She could wake up to the car door slamming in the garage.

She is so thin-
Light shines not just through her eyes-
But through her chest, hips, lips, and-
No warmth is transferred through her kiss.

She breaks like hardened mud.
You could sink into her like quicksand.
Her body, is built like a storm.

You can watch the blood in her veins-
Meet your fingers at the surface-
You can still see what you have drawn in the morning-
If you can even crawl out of bed to crack the blinds.

She likes thunderstorms.
She likes the smell of dirt.
Her eyes were gray-
And her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She can dance in the sun-
clumsily-
And still be the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

She could sing-
Off key-
But her emotion is what makes those notes gold.

She lays like stone.
She moves like running glass fast forwarded.
Her voice is thunder-
And her eyes are the winter.

She lays hands on you-
Only to heal.
She can mend you-
as easy as bending a wire coat hanger.

Her skeleton is like flint-
How it sparks against mine.
Her body is so fragile-
A word could hurt her.
and a stick or stone-
would certainly **** her.