I pried myself open to allow you a peek inside, and like a child in a museum you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, leaving your mark on every exposed piece of me. I didn’t care that you were leaving your ***** finger prints on my glass frames because at least you cared enough to look at them all. I never stopped to think how harmful this could be. That when the sun had set, and it was closing time, you would soon leave me vacant again though your imprints would remain. You left just enough of yourself behind to make me want you, but not enough to let me keep you.

"How did you move on from your last relationship?"
"I didn't, I just hoped that the woman selling sunflowers at the farmers market didn't see the tears in my eyes when I remembered the time my past love came into that coffee shop with a flower the size of her."

Don't try to kiss me with the same lips that tore me apart limb by limb. Don't try to hold me with those same hands that were once wrapped around my neck, while you watched my face turn as dark as your soul. Don't try to love me with the same body who got enjoyment out of leaving black and blue imprints on my skin. Don't try to mutter the words "I love you" when everything but those three words are screaming that you hate me.

I found myself wasted on the idea of your affection while you whispered sweet nothings into my ear. You found yourself telling me all of the things you knew I've been wanting to hear. I sat on your bedroom floor convincing myself that there were truth to the words you were spewing, though I knew they were nothing more than beautifully dressed up lies. You sat close enough that I could become intoxicated on your breath alone, yet you still had me wanting more. I found myself lost in the world wind that is you and you found your self lost in the world wind that the drink had provided. I'm drunk on your love and you're just drunk.

Your words flow so sickeningly sweet from your lips to my ears full of subtle comfort of promises that will never be fulfilled. Of how you no longer get goosebumps every time you hear her angelic voice begin to sing a song that once belonged to the two of you. Or how you no longer crave cigarettes simply because they remind you of the taste her lips had provided. Yet, I remember the first time I saw you light up that black and mild of yours knowing that it wasn't the only thing you were addicted to. That behind your want to light up there was an underlining want for her.  But how could I blame you for being in love with the constellations in the sky after creating your own out of the freckles on her body? How could I blame you for wanting to stay in heaven after experiencing an angel?

Do you remember all the drunken phone calls you would supply me with on countless three am mornings? Stumbling and fumbling on your words while you tried to tell me how horrible she was to you and all the little digs she had taken that day. Do you remember convincing me of her "sickness" because no sane person could ever dare touch your body and not fall madly in love with it. Do you remember the power you probably felt as you realized i was buying every lie you were selling to me? Because I remember the day I actually met your so called sick lover and how I looked down upon her because of the things I thought she had done to you. And the time that I wandered into that little coffee shop you both work at only to find her there and not you. And the conversation I had with her that night which blead into the next nine months and counting. And how surprised I was to find that the heart I was once convinced of being black is actually thriving. And the time that I realized that you weren't lying about the relationship being toxic but the cancer wasn't coming from her hands. And how mad I got that you spread rumors of abuse and torture that never truly existed. But see the ironic thing is after all that time the girl you claimed to be ill, your own personal patient, doesnt even hate you for the placebo you've been injecting into everyone and you know why? Because after all this time she was the doctor and you were the one needing medical attention.

Break open the top of that razor you bought for your legs to reveal the four little blades you will soon use as weapons against your wrist. Take one, two, three more sleeping pills than recommended. Take that lighter that once was used to light the candles in your room and place it on your skin leaving burns behind. Use those hands you hugged your mother with to punch black and blue marks onto your knees. Go to the store with the money you were supposed to spend on lunch that day and spend it on as many cigarettes as your lungs will allow and then some. Crack open that money jar and go buy the strongest alcohol you can afford and even if it stings drink it down to the last drop. Take your body away from helping fill the sandbags and throw it into the current. Take the space in your emergency suitcase full of clothes and pictures and force in letters from her in their place. It doesn't matter if you write words into your skin with that blade or if you love someone that doesn't love you, they're all the same. Self harm.

I could convince myself that I never fell in love with you, that I simply wrote you into a fiction novel that was my life. That you were merely a sub character written on three or four pages within the entire story, but that's not the truth. It was not a fiction story it was my life and you were the main character who was written on every page. There were traces of you running through every aspect of my being. Without realizing it my story revolved around you an my characters relationship. I wish we hadn't disappointed the readers and I could've made them happy about the fact that the two main characters ended happily ever after. That didn't happen though, our story didn't end happily it ended heartbroken.

When I was born, I was given up before my eyes could even adjust to the sight of my birth parents, only to be given back to them at age five. I was ***** by my mentally ******* uncle at age eight. I fell in love with a boy who beat me repeatedly at the age of sixteen. My house drowned in a flood at age twenty one.
And yes, I know that you’re trying to rip me to pieces darling and I don’t necessarily blame you, but just know that your efforts will go unnoticed. That throwing around words like “*****” and “*******” are going to have to be more bold and red than the blood i laid in at age eight looking up at good ole uncle Kevin. That no matter how many words you spew my way, I will not drown in them thanks to the flood waters that taught me how to swim. I know that giving me up was something easy for you to do, much like falling rather quickly into her bed, but don’t worry darling I will not let it get me down. You see, yes you’re a hurricane but where I live we have a lot of those. You experience it, pick up the pieces of your life you’re left with and then you build your life back up. The good thing about hurricanes though is they only come once. There will only be one hurricane elizabeth and you were her. So now that you’ve run your path leaving me a little bruised and beat up, I am gathering my belongings because I have already found a new home. One protected from you.

Remember the time we first met on that rooftop when our fingers danced around each other blurring the lines we knew we shouldn't cross but so badly wanted to
Remember the unbelievably adorable way you lost control of you words when I mentioned that you were young and you thought I meant too young for me
Remember the way you traced the words of my tattoo just to have a reason to touch me and the smirk you got when you realized my body tightened because of how nervous you made me
Remember the night you wrote the words "I love you" on my back as I fell asleep on that full sized mattress of yours and how you rewrote it and rewrote it until I half asleep rolled over to say it back
Remember the way we looked at each other during the first work party you ever took me to and how we shared whispers of love and *** while we fought the urge to sneak off to the bathroom together
Remember the first time that we laid awake on one of our many sleepless nights talking about my lost mother and your father and how we held each other so tight that our broken pieces felt whole again
I know that our future doesn't always seem as bright but I will fight for you and us until I don't have to anymore. But if my attempts fail and we crumble, remember all the things that held us together in the first place. Remember how fiercely I loved you and continue to love you. If your memory of me fades and I am no longer around to supply you with new ones please just read this and know that with you I don't feel as broken and with me you will always be loved.

You tied a knot around me to make sure I wouldn't wonder far away. All you needed was a three foot rope because neither of us could bare the thought of going any farther into the world without the other. Keeping near and dear was always your forte. Then one day without notice you brought home a new rope only it was six feet and a week later you brought home another one which was twelve. Slowly day by day we got farther and farther apart, but the distance the rope provided simply wasn't enough so you started running away while I was running thin from rope burn.

Don't get on the scale.
Do eat three meals a day.
Don't find yourself running to the bathroom to throw up the only thing you hate more than yourself.
Do get eight hours of sleep each night.
Don't purposely take too many sleeping pills on "accident" in order to fall into your silent slumber.
Do learn to look in the mirror.
Don't forget to remind yourself that the face looking back at you isn't the worst thing in the world.
Do learn to love yourself.
Don't let the world harden you.

You'll never be able to love someone so much that they'll love you back. You can't love someone into loving you.

I lay fresh flowers along your crumbling gravestone wondering why you left me in the way you did. You opened up my eyes to so much of the world, so how I could I have been so blind to the pain you were feeling? You’re gone and I can no longer hold on to you so I lay crying in my bed clinging to the letter you left me. You said it wasn’t my fault and that I was the closest thing to a savior you ever believed in yet you’re not here so I guess I failed and was never as good as you believed me to be.
You killed yourself and yet its as if you took my breath away instead of your own because here I am four years later still trying to find a way to breath.

I knew I had lost you the second I found myself looking you in the eyes and still missing you. I have your hands intertwined with mine, but your heart has long escaped to find home with a face unfamiliar to me. You still fill my ears with words that could make even the sweetest of candy jealous, but they taste stale. When we started finding comfort in exploring abandoned places that had long lost the life and light that was once in them, I never thought I would have that same feeling when looking at you. When did you become so vacant? When did you stop feeling me an only touching me? When did your words become so cold that they stopped having the ability to make me melt?

Twenty one years I've allowed myself to become frozen in time every moment I caught a glimpse of his work. Standing still and breathless taking in every stroke that went into his beautiful genius. His ability to make hours feel like minutes of my time was why I've always said he is my favorite artist, that no creator could ever be better. Then she took me to an art measum, pulled my hand towards one of his paintings and stood in front of me as she spewed out words of excitement. Glimpses of his flowers between the curls that fell on my face as she put her head on my shoulder. In that moment I had a greater appreciation for him than I ever have because he created this moment for us. Fingers intertwined. Awestruck fixation. Everything I had ever felt for him in twenty one years being pulled to the surface at once. Such a poet. Such a breathtaking masterpiece. As I was thinking those thoughts I realized my gaze wasn't on the painting but on her. And then I began to think that maybe he wasn't my favorite artist maybe god was or her parents or whatever source of life had created her. She was the beauty in a room full of renown art. She was the breathtaking one, she was the one that I wanted to spend hours examining every curl every freckle every scar because it was all beautiful.

I stare blankly at her back while I write words of sweet melodies that used to be the soundtrack to our lives. Her body my own personal notebook, except I've already written a bestseller with you. Her touch so beautiful but not as tender as your fingers when they danced around mine. Every aspect of her is worth loving and so I do. But the difference is I'm loving on her while I love you.