take pictures. walk to the drug store on a crisp summer night
and buy one of those old cheap cameras. carry it like you would a child.
when you smile, genuinely, take a photo. when you feel that warm touch of the sun on your face
and the wind tangling your hair into knots, take a photo. every moment
is so precious. keep these pictures until you are seventy three
and barely remember the names of the faces you once pressed your lips to.
keep them until "film" is an unknown word.

when love is coarsing fast through your veins,
wrap your hands around the source. squeeze tighter, don't stifle your breath. don't let
your words drop like anchors down your throat. don't let the world tell you
that you're not enough. love is love. it is not a hand on your thighs or the shaking afterwards.
it is not purchased in pink giftwrap. it is whatever you make it. and even though
it may not last forever, you can only pretend that
this will be the last time you ever touch. love infinitely and exhaustively.

never let anyone's opinions or decisions
put a halt to the pursuit of your own happiness. you
are the creator of this life that you own. you were born with so much potential and so much passion
that it floods out of you like rainwater. destroy the drought. you are free to be anything
you could ever dream of, and more. there are always second chances; every moment
you feel is a failiure is only a lesson in a perilous disguise. if you are sad,
do not drown yourself in your own despair. do not douse yourself
in liquor. do not keep secrets packed away in dimly lit corners. someone loves you.
I love you. there is hope in even the places that seem forlorn.

above all else, live every day as if it is your only.
take chances.
take chances.
take chances.
never pass up on an opprotunity due to fear. you may
slip up and make a faulty choice. but in the end, your heaviest regrets
will be not getting into that car. not kissing the girl with the beautiful blonde hair.
not hugging someone goodbye, or calling them to tell them you love them in the peak of morning.
every second is more precious than money can label.
stop dragging yourself from the grasp of your sheets when you wake with a sigh- rise even earlier
to see the lavender sky and smile because you're alive and every single **** day
is a novel anxiously awaiting to be scribbled down. grab his hand
and squeeze it tighter. hold her hips and memorize their shape. never let go. ask questions.
push yourself. live.

I was born with a knack for reading and a passion for writing and a terrible, ten cent memory. although I can't recall what I ate for breakfast (unless your mother made it) I can still remember the first time we met.

I remember looking up at your apartment, seeking refuge from the cold, pushing away "this is a bad idea" and thinking maybe honey colored windows and smokey air could change my life. plants hang like bodies behind the blinds. now I think "this was a great idea" and I still can't decide if I should've ascended those stairs- two flights- right into your life. you were sitting on the couch and wouldn't look my way because the cigarette between your lips was far more intriguing. car horns and screams erupt from the tv. this is the first time we speak since I first saw you in middle school, pushing my friends into the bathroom of the wrong gender.

I remember spending every day working my way to the couch. first the floor. then the chair. then beside you. and once I found this place God knows I knew I was at home. I've never liked watching you play video games and swing from roof to roof and flip a truck with the push of a button, but now there's nothing I miss more than the sounds of that glowing controller. only when I traded my dark sweaters for a tight tee had I caught your attention.

I remember the night we taped your mouth closed and your wrists tight and tossed you in the trunk as a joke. I still have pictures. you tried to speak and although your words were muffled, I could understand. I was the translator. and I still am. you told me you'd be satisfied if you kissed my best friend before the night was over. I told you I couldn't handle myself on an empty stomach. I puked all over the side of the car.

I remember trying to start a fire for forty five minutes and chugging liquor like water before our friends returned. asking you to sit with me that night was an invitation to fall in love with me. however, the type of love you showed was not one I knew well. I never let anyone **** me because I was too afraid of myself. but I never stopped you because you weren't afraid of anything. I wonder if you still would have done it knowing how far along id take you. I wonder what kind of dreams you had when you passed out in the trunk and I shuttered in January air, 3 am and the tape from your mouth is on the steering wheel. there is no such thing as silence. there are only hands rubbing my back as I try to remember how the sun feels.

I remember bruises on my thighs that looked like Van Gogh touched a canvas with a blindfold on. I swear I shook for three days after That: when I saw you, when I wanted you, when I thought of you. three things I still tackle with every morning smoke. I used to think you'd never speak to me after that night. who would've guessed we'd have a million more.

I remember the first time you had me completely exposed, and it was not just my skin. I was knocking things off my bucket list, knocking my head on the headboard, knocking on your door at midnight with a blunt in my back pocket. remember when you punched me in the throat on accident? I leaned into it. should've knocked some sense into me.

I remember laying on your bed listening to the messages my first love had left on my phone a year ago. "I love you, I love you. please come back. I love you." you thought they were creepy. I wanted you to need me this badly. I wanted you to hold me when I cried. "message deleted." "message deleted." I wanted to keep you from walking out of the room, and I wanted to keep your mother from walking in. she thought I was a good one. "I like her," she shouted, cackling over the sink. "she's good for you. she's so good for you." she doesn't know I carved her couch with your knife. she doesn't know how you dragged me in front of the mirror and told me I was beautiful. she once called me and told me I used her as a hotel. it was my home. I am still there, somewhere. I remember so many things and yet not one is valuable when I try to find words to fit. I can't tell you what love is. you can read every poem and hear every love song and see every photo and you will never know. but if you give me an hour and a bottle of wine, I can tell you what it's like when it's gone.

I hate reading you my writing. you've seen my skin split but that is nothing compared to this. I won't let you look at me because I am so afraid you might see how sorry I am. you can turn away but guilt is ebbing from your spine and I absorb it's heaving glow. I bet you didn't know flowers grow towards the sun
2. if I could count how many times I think you've lied to me I would need a thousand hands. every finger would be calloused and burnt but veracious. I've dived into glacial waters and lost perception of the surface. when I see the sky, I swim down to touch the sand
3. I once was with a boy who fell into an abyss of addiction. fourteen months of malicious intentions that rendered me to ash. now I am smeared across your mattress and swept into the cracked marble corner of the window sill, kissed by the silk rhythm of the curtains. I am the needles you dropped on your carpet. I would give you all of me but you don't want a fraction. you know, that boy had my ring that said "I Love You" and he tossed it in the lake. I had another that said "Always" and it's somewhere in your home now. the lake will dry before I ever see your bedroom again
4. you have more lyrics memorized than words printed in a novel. the backroads of Carolina are veiled by tree branches but these streets only seem significant when you're singing in the backseat of my car with your head cutting through the wind and your palms caressing the curves of the atmosphere. and after all, she is much more lovely than I. you recite songs we've heard in the exact locations where they flowed through us for the first time, although it's been months since we've listened. you can remember every time we've ever ****** but not one time you've grabbed my hands
5. we fell in love in the winter. it is so **** warm outside. I hate it because I can no longer become entangled beneath blankets heated by your body. you love it because there are a hundred places to be now. all of them without me. but it's the lack of words from you that destroys me much more than your dexterity. if you can kiss the hickeys on my neck why not the scars along my chest? why are there scratches marking up your frame like a road map and knive handles sticking from my back? twist them and I'll scream, cut me and I'll bleed, but nothing you will physically do can ever injure me.
6. there is something about the f word. and I don't mean any of the words you like to yell while you're ambling down the halls or skating down the street. this word: Forever- makes me want to hurl myself off a bridge. I wonder if you would stand there and try to talk me down like the one boy we saw who broke his bones. it was February sixth. It is April and I can't drive past there without wanting to mimick his very moves. maybe I pray for Forever so badly because you would never bless me with it. maybe its because sometimes I feel like my words are a foreign language and you only grow frustrated when I speak. maybe it's because loving you is mostly like sticking a loaded gun down my throat. I often slip into my fathers closet and pull his pistol from it's case just to remember how it feels. but you are far, far more dangerous
7. if you are hearing this you are sitting beside me, or beneath me, and you should know that you have saved me. when I found out you couldn't sleep in your own bed while I was gone (and how you could not write because music is too much like poetry) my brother told me, "good luck loving him as much as he loves you." what he doesn't know is how I can pick you out of a crowd of a thousand in just an instant. everyone asks me why I love you because they don't understand you. I don't understand you. that is why I love you.
8. I have read the minds of stupid boys with loud mouths and pretty smiles but your life is still just foggy windows that I cannot clear. I would love to hear you make promises but I don't think you can keep them. you were with me when you had two girls by your side- how could I ever know where your hands are now when I am not holding them? I would take a bullet for you but you're the one holding the gun. I always kiss you first. I always beg you to stay. but I am constantly so worried that you will slip away.

it has been exactly a month
since I tasted salt on my tongue
and felt sand between
the ridges of our blankets.
the only thing I ever learned
from my parents
was that a boy
who loves his mother infinitely
would love me just the same
and you would've given yours
the world;
when you kissed my throat
could you taste the waves again?
I am so desperate to be the deepest parts of the earth-
I have veins like rivers
and you could dip your hands in.
my whispers may be cloudy
but my mouth is a cavern
the noise produced is dark-
you stole my sunshine, and you know
I don't think I've ever been so pale.
translucent and glowing like ice packed in piles beneath the stairwells
(in the neighborhood
where nobody knows my name)
it is warm but I love you just the same.
winter frosted the windows
shut for us
and when you dragged me
in front of the mirror
I was wide eyed and shaking
and you made me look
at my reflection-
"you look so beautiful"
the whole planet
should have looked in at the girl
with the cigarette
shaking between her lips,
and the bruises on her hips,
with the veins like rivers,
the cavern mouth
filled with diamonds,
that were planted by your kiss-
one day, I will be carried by the wind
or rushing through the sea-
and you will peer down at yourself
in the ripples of water,
see your reflection,
and you will look so beautiful.

it is exactly one month before my seventeenth birthday and I am standing in the road under dim streetlights that remind me of the candles that glow from the windows in the winter.

your silhouette beckons me from across the way and I drift towards it, executing each step slowly like a surgeon, although there's no need for silence anymore. it is 2:05 in the morning and I have left my house in the dead of night. I slip into the car and the welcoming aroma of menthol cigarettes and dr pepper engulfs me and I smile for the first time in a while. I am not afraid. I am not sad. I am home.

this right here is the part many will never understand. home is not made of four brick walls and a sturdy tin roof. it is not a fireplace or picture frames or a warm bed. home is where you feel like you belong. it is where you are loved. cared for. needed. this is my calling and I've reached out to answer it. this is the family I never had.

three hours in a messy car does not grind down my spirits of this little vacation I've begun. I have smoked half a pack and kissed you much less than id like to, but your presence brings the greatest peace of mind.

upon arrival, I take escape to the porch to see the waves lapping beautifully upon the shore and I think that I will miss this when I have to leave. it is 5 a.m. and the sun has not yet risen. we take shots of cheap tequila in celebration and pretend that they are water. only looking back on this do I realize what a hilarious irony it holds. in childhood, many of us would pretend that pretzels were cigarettes and take ***** shots with the caps of our water bottles. maybe this small act is a form of regression. maybe were all still children.

everyone begins to make music as inspiration spills onto them and I watch in awe. at 6 a.m. we are down on the beach. I do not remember how I got there. I can only remember seeing you sit high on the lifeguard stand, a king, looking down at the world as if it were yours, and I wish I could give it to you. my wind beaten cheeks meet the horizon as I topple into the sand in fits of laughter and happiness; I wish I could bottle this feeling so I would never lose it. Joy is a foreign language to me. others seem to comprehend it and spill it from their mouths so simply, while I do not understand a single syllable.

I don't remember how we arrived back inside. everyone seperated. we climbed into the bed that an old friend had broken and made love as the sun rose. it cut sharp through the glass door behind us and sprayed waves of light on my skin like liquid gold. I am thinking this could be the last time, I am hoping it is not. we fall asleep not long after, and this piece of communion that was placed so gently on my tongue dissolves and the bitter taste in my mouth begins as soon as I wake, a few hours later.

day two is a chapter I would most likely title: The Panic. it does not begin right away. our day mostly consists of laying on the beach and kicking sand at one another like ratty, wild dogs, forcing each other into the pit of frozen waters, and making bets we will never go through with. around this time news has reached me that my mother and father have the police looking for me. I try to push it towards the back of my head.

but you see, the inner depths of my mind are already flooded with sinister ideas and broken secrets I may never share, and this panic tip-toes throughout my body and sets into my bones, weighing me down as if I had boulders in my pockets.

I am told to "calm down, everything will be Okay." when tears frequently line my eyes in silence. they continue to tell me this when we find ourselves in the kitchen scrambling to pack our things because we've heard the cops are coming for me. they also tell me this when I'm screaming apologies and holding your hand in the backseat of the car. they tell me it when I say goodbye at a nearby park and give hugs I think may be my last for a while. but the thing about this statement is, I am always calm. I am in a numb state of inner silence hungering for bliss and just four little days of freedom. but nothing will ever be Okay, no matter how long I've gone away.

the walk home, only a mile, was beyond limits of the word beautiful. the stars were practically beaming and the air was cold but in the good way like a puppies nose when it's kissing your face. or like mist falling from the sky on a summer night. I don't believe in God or any higher power, but I take this walk home as a sign that maybe everything will be okay when I walk back into that house.

if I could describe how the weather should have been that night to match the actions that played out when I arrived, they would be along the lines of destruction. trees ripped from the ground with their roots showing. winds sweeping the roofs off this suburbian wasteland. lighting strikes bringing on raging fires. it must've looked like that to match the look in my fathers eyes. thunder should've accompanied the sound of him shoving my sore body against the wall. pulling my long brown hair and tossing me to the floor like the garbage I was.

the full wave of panic washes onto me in that moment. for some reason I thought of the father I once had that didn't drink every night with his girlfriend, the only one that ever seemed to matter anymore. I thought of the father before he left my mother. I thought of him banging scratched pots in the sink and slamming doors with the strength of one thousand men and shouting with the voice of a man with a million sources of pain. I thought of how he tried to leave us once. and then how he really left us. I wish he could understand. to me, this is the ultimate level of hypocrisy. I am persecuted for leaving the man that left me in my time of need.

I am almost relieved when he says I must talk to the police. I have never been a fan of the flashing red and blue lights and the uniformed men who are paid to protect you but only arrest you. I believe they do mostly harm to many innocent people. you may not understand this. you may not know how it feels to walk up to this figure with the badge and want to tell him everything, to see if some shred of understanding lies beneath the deep cold stare in his eyes. but he only accuses me and attacks me with loose words that do not phase me. he does not let me speak. he is not here to help.

and so starts the beginning of the end. finally reaching the point where I am as trapped as I have always felt on the inside. the only question I keep getting asked is "why did you do it?" and I have yet to answer this. maybe I was homesick for a place that did not really exist. maybe I thought I would find salvation in a bed id never slept in but already loved more than my own. maybe I thought it was too repulsing for the two people who brought me onto this earth to be one of many reasons I desperately wanted to leave it.

I would love to tell them, my parents. everything. the abuse, the drugs, the cutting, the suicide attempt, the hell that eats me away everyday...they should know. but when your mother laughs when your doctor tells her that you show signs of major depression, you tend to believe this is just a game to her. talking to false friends on the phone and playing rich sports will always be more important. my fathers favorite tv shows and nightly few bottles of wine will overpower my tears and pleads for help. I am always stuck in an all knowing silence that everyone takes for stupidity. I've always said "darkness is my only friend now" but I think that night time is too beautiful to be an aquaintance of mine, and my friends are the Family by my side when my fists are full of blades and my feet are on the edge. I think this is the type of darkness that welcomes me as I wake every morning and sleep every night. it is the only place I know on this gigantic prison called earth. it settles inside of me and runs through my veins. it is carved in the walls of my skull and keeps my heart beating in a steady, empty rhythm. home, sweet home.

in the small towns with unknown names, mothers drive vans with grass stains painted across the backseats. in the winters coated with snowfall, mothers make hot chocolate for frozen fingers to grasp and sip, letting it settle on little tongues like some untold secret. in the storms, mothers bring a candle and a story from the past to light the darkness.

and what can a mother do when she does not hear the rain on the rooftops? how does one illuminate pale walls and faded curtains without a guide of light? you could never sense the darkness. you could never hold my hand. mother, my fingertips are poisoned. you weren't going to touch them anyways. you know he says there's a forest in my eyes. but you prefer the city skyline, don't you?

I told father I never wanted to see you again. besides, he doesn't have to. why should I stick to this cracked leather couch when you rest on some beautiful bed down the street? mother, you can only **** a married man for so long. the stones on his ring are brighter than you. I might've kissed you, mother, but there have been too many lips pressed to mine, and you're immune to this sickness, and what is a sign of love without a flicker of pain?

when is the last time I smiled at you? there is a photo somewhere and I am nestled in your arms, and I'm wearing a red dress, and I think I would have slipped away if I knew who you really were. mother, do you want to see the cuts on my wrist? I should've given you that suicide note. remember that day you thought I was sick? I guess you never saw the pills were gone. you shouldn't have kept the matches so far away when you knew I loved the fire. you know, mother, I bet you don't know what a trigger feels like. you know, I was ten when I decided that I did not love you. I am the sliver of moon starving to vanish in the sky and mother, I swear I'll be new.

it has been seven days and I have smoked six packs of cigarettes, been in the car for five days, slept four nights, made three new friends each afternoon, stole from the same two stores, and died once. I don't remember the last time I had a meal, although you've tried so hard to cook for me.

I keep saying "I should stop" and hearing "just one more" and wondering how long it's been now, a year or a minute, and I have decided a lifetime can be lived in a single moment. however I am not alive. I can not decide if this is a blessing or an omen.

on mornings when the sun leaks through the spines of the pine trees, we drive back to where you ran away from. there is a sign at the entrance that says "drive as if your kid lives here." I wonder what your parents think when they see that. I wonder if they wake up in the morning and make you breakfast thinking you'll come down to the kitchen with messy hair and a crooked smile. you say you're too prideful to fall back to love. but I think you are lost in this jungle. these houses all look the same anyways. you must have lost your way.

I have sat in the backseat of at least a hundred drug deals and my favorite part is watching the eyes of the kids right before they open the car door that has been kissed with ice and dented from the product of your recklessness. half of their bodies are shaking and the other half are motionless, paralyzed, fingers skinny and stained with smoke like some characters from a book, and although I thought I was once a writer I am simply the antagonist of this tragedy.

I have learned that people keep the plastic on their cigarette packs to put their drugs in later, so I started giving them mine, and they started telling me they loved me. they started clinging to me like precious gold, and they told me my eyes were emeralds, and my body was their greatest treasure stolen away from an old ship beneath miles of ocean, and I started to believe every word as if it were written in blood. but I have found that you are only loved for how willing you are to hop in the trunk, how many pulls you take from the bottle, and how many words you can memorize from their favorite songs.

I have tattooed the lyrics on the backs of my eyelids and I will close my eyes and sing forever if it means someone will just look at me different for once. when these songs came on as we jumped in your parents bed, I pretended not to think of all the other times I heard them. when you woke me up by dancing your fingers across my skin at three thirty in the morning, I pretended to be asleep. when you told me you liked your coffee black, I pretended that wasn't some form of poetry.

I managed to betray the boy who loves me in the back of his car but he still held me when everyone fell asleep. he was shaking. they are always shaking. but not me, not anymore, because the blood has been drained. the sun now shines above the tree tops and the pines wait in vain for warmth to return. the world smiles at me with bleached teeth and hungry blue eyes. but even with this boundless mind and these knuckles lined with silver, I have never been so worthless. I have never felt so cold.