You say,
"I'm sorry for dragging you
into my life"
and I want to laugh the loudest
laugh possible for my lungs to emit, my
chest heaving with the irony, the
actuality that I was not dragged in forcefully
I stepped in willingly
to a door already closing

-

I hope she loves you as well as
I never got the chance to
I hope she speaks about
how full her heart is and how
easy it is to be with you
I hope this half ton of weight that
is finally off my chest makes
its way on to yours
I hope it's not too much to carry but
then again I do

-

You say,
"I'm sorry, don't hate me"
but my dear,
don't you know that it is myself that
is always the target of disappointment?

-

I hope I'm washed out of your mouth by
the time you kiss hers
the sour, the whiskey, the passionate hatred,
the coming back again,
tonight the neighbors are having a party and
all I can think about is
us at 2 in the morning dancing
to the noise of each other

-

You say,
"I'm sorry, I've tried calling"
but we both know the lack of dial tone in your voice and
the absence of ring in mine says enough
I waited for an answer but
you hung up

-

I am certain that
I will spend the rest of my time in this city
searching for you in other people,
I am convinced that
I will need sleeping pills to forget
the music in your voice, your singing in my ears
has become nothing more than a repeated knocking

-

You say,
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry"
I say nothing but
in my head I say thank for
untying this knot we
got ourselves into
-

this is about a future that does not have you in it
one where I will pick at my food while you
pick at her shirt, pulling off clumps of cotton, laughing,
while I try to fill this empty stomach with anything but
sorrow and morosity

this is a poem about a song that isn't for me
she's a poet too,
how fitting

Note that when I say boy
I say it with purpose
I say boy
Because only men know how to hurt with intention
And you never did

I knew it then
And I know it now
You were too good for me
You are the glowing sun on a california morning
And I am a rainy dark seattle afternoon
The only time my city ever saw blue skies and sunshine
Was when you were in it
You made me laugh
On days when the weight of the world fell on top of me
You always made things light again
I am stubborn
I always have been
I was a bull that you never tried to tame
You never asked me to slow down
Only waited patiently with open arms
For me to come to a halt
I was rough
I would pluck and pull at your thorns until you reached your breaking point
You never did though
And in my moments of panic,
All you wanted to do
Was comfort me and try to understand
I'd push you away before you could even attempt to
I remember laying in bed
Your arms outstreched and caring
And me refusing to give in
Because of some grudge I was still holding on to
We fought a lot
But every time you were the first to forgive
I mastered the art of crossed arms and silence
While you sat laughing out of frustration
Because I was so ******* ridiculous
I picked at you until you bled
Waiting for you to hurt me back
But you never did
Only men know how to hurt with intention
And hurt was the one thing you were incapable of doing
I don't think you could have
Even if you wanted to
You were the first one who didn't try to break me
And I guess I was just expecting you to
I could say I only treated you this way because I didn't know love could be stable
But I think the real reason
Was that I feared if you knew
How great you really are
You would leave
I think the real reason
I treated you so poorly
Was that I was afraid of losing you
I want you to know
That I never intended to hurt you
I know now
I should have loved you better
I should have loved you
The way you loved me.

I am the kind of person
Who has mental breakdowns in the line at subway
Decision making is difficult
Or maybe I'm just crazy
And I might be
Every day is unpredictable
Every day I wake up in the same body
A different person
People never believe me
But believe me when I say
I change on a daily basis
My mood is completely erratic
And always shifting
It is not desirable
To be this unstable
With the daily possibility of hurricane
And ever-present disaster
There is bound to be destruction
I think deeply about everything
Too much and too often
My personality is introverted
Yet I get upset when I'm alone for too long
Human contact is critical to my being
But sometimes I get upset if I am looked at the wrong way
I push people away
And then get mad when they don't come back
I don't make much sense at all
Really, I don't
Potato
I got a massage once
And cried for the whole 80 minutes
Because I had realized
I needed to pay someone to touch me for that long
It was still worth it
It's not normal
To fall apart this often
But I do
So often that it's become my daily routine
A repetition
Of overanalyzing
Freaking out
And then worrying
Followed by bouts of hysterical crying
I cry at the most irrelevant things
But never serious situations
I've been to two funerals in my life
And didn't cry at either
I didn't know how to
I am impulsive
I have seven tattoos
All of which were added within a span of three months
I make my decisions at the last minute
I'm addicted to netflix
I bawl my eyes out every time I watch lilo & stitch
Which is often
Sad music makes me depressed
But it's still the only thing I listen to
I say I hate hookups
And then spend a night with someone who will never speak to me again after
I look for love in all the wrong places
And then get ****** when I don't find it
Yell at happy couples because they are happy and I am not
I smoke cigarettes only because I like the smell of them
I drink too much
And then not enough
I look good some days and then like hell the next
My pillow has a permanent imprint of my head because I sleep a lot
Some nights I don't sleep at all
And then cry about it in the morning
I think I cry too much
And most days I realize this
I realize that I am
A mess
A whirlwind of ugly
Black and white
Back and forth
Thunder storm tidal waves
That constantly pick up and crash
A kaleidoscope of everything wrong in this world
All put together in one single being
I am the definition
Of insanity
But when you look at it
In the right perspective
I guess it starts to make sense
Starts to fold into something other than just breakage
I can't see the appeal in the chaos
I can't see the beauty
In any of this
But maybe someday
Someone will.

The smell of whiskey makes my teeth hurt and today I woke up gasping for breath
Missing you kind of feels like rubbing alcohol on every paper cut from the scraps left behind
Some days it is a hollow swelling but the majority feel more sunburn, easy to forget but sore when touched

I used to dream about waking up with you as a normal routine, instead there is only quiet
I hold my hands together when I sleep to fill the space of a bed too big
I find pieces everywhere, your hair on my pillow, your cologne on my sweater, your sock, just one, tucked into a drawer I didn't know existed

I don't think about you often but when I do it becomes a sinking
A hole jammed into the side of a ship that had just learned how to stay afloat
There is never enough time for me to save myself from drifting off and I give up

It is back to you, and the guilt washing on your face when you said this feels weird, lips building lies like the fixing of shelter after a storm
When another someone tells me how soft my skin is, I want to light it on fire to burn off your fingerprints,
To forget that you said the same so often

I want to call you and ask why you haven't tried to reach me
I want to remind you that we live in the same city, big, enough distance apart to ignore
I want to pull your hands out of my hair and your breath off of my neck but I'm aware of the inexistence of both

I'm aware that now you have become nothing more than a figment of my imagination
Gone from reality but still alive in memory I do not try to erase
I'm not waiting for your return, I know you wont but I am waiting for the day my tastebuds don't crave you
It will happen, sooner or later but
for  now I still do

It was always kind of sad.
She had a traveling spirit
Dreaming of adventure
Of far away lands
All the memories
She wished to make
But she could never leave
Maybe one day,
She kept telling herself
But that one day kept getting further away
There were too many distractions
Too many things strapped to her back
Making her body too weighed down
To let even her heart wander