When you've reached the point
Where you can't even cry
And you don't feel anything anymore

It's more frightening
Than the most sorrowful of sorrows
Because it means you've given up

One day when you're lost
And you do not want to live
Just remember me

titled: The True Confessions Of A Heartless Girl

this is not an apology letter and i will not apologize about my words that reek of *****, neither will i express my heartfelt woeful regret for burying what was left of your love under black wilted roses. in September we spent four hours under a tree attempting to bind our hearts and minds but i crumpled them together with the fallen autumn leaves, leaving you staring at the exposed bits of yellow xanthophylls and orange beta-carotene blended with the beautifully bruised muscle. i’m not sorry that your flowers ended in the trashcan with the weeds, but they were crooked and fading. i’m not sorry that the love poem you requested from me was written in the cemetery on the back of your father’s obituary, and i’m definitely not sorry that the first tree i felled in my backyard was the one with our initials carved in your pinned dead heart. call me heartless, but this will clear up everything you were ever baffled about. i am heartless. no, not that type of heartless. i am literally heartless. in my chest there lies a chest of drawers which used to be unlocked and filled with human traits but somehow along the way i think the key to them ended up rusting in my bottomless pit of a stomach. i won’t ask if you still feel that tingle in your spine when my name is mentioned, but did the letters from her burn prettier than the ones from me? did your last name fit her better than it did with me? did the last petal you plucked ended with “she loves me”? i know she smells like honey and roses but i’m not sorry that i smell like roadkill and expired cheese. now it’s December and i’ve changed my name to Hollow then repainted my skin with cut out pieces of eulogies. once upon a time i was actually a teen girl with hummingbird heart beats and red apples for cheeks, but as of today i am completely out of touch with this world, painting nail varnish on cigarettes and tucking in tulips with the weeds. her sad words may be written on textured paper but mine will stand up and punch you in the eye. most of the time we learn that you have choices in life, but all i ever know is that for every big leap you take you’ll end up with a splintered bone and it’s just like writing your life story in permanent ink. maybe one day the ocean will freeze and you’ll find the hidden message in your coffee, but this is not an apology letter and i’m still not sorry for scalding your skin with a hot iron rod when we were twelve years old. see you in the pool of regret; i won’t be there, since i’m lacking a heart.

i wrote to you,
not here,
not in poetry,
not in private,
but to you,
the real you,
and you won't answer,
and i'm dying,
and you would never answer,
because you turned me off like a switch,
i'm dead to you,
and I'm dying,
you are killing me,
you are killing me
and I love you

Eventually,
You'll be aching
When you do
I'll be here,
Already over the pain
Not necessarily you

I hate you

"You don't hate him, you hate what he did to you"
My anger fills me to the brim
I'm not sure how or why
I don't remember
I feel at peace for a few hours
The next, I want to punch your face

I hate you

You're going to hurt, I hope you do
I'm sorry,
   ***** you
I don't need someone that doesn't need me
I don't need someone that can give up on me
Its not your fault entirely
I didn't love myself first,
I'm sorry

My love is like a star
whose light continues
for an eternity
even after it dies.
Look up, it is still there.

downtown Toronto
you left me there, last week
I walked expecting you to follow me, I didn't turn around
finally I turned, you were gone
I was lost,
stranded in a wave of people
looking for art

the drunk and high teens walking around for who knows what
causing ruckus and yelling wherever they went
you left me amongst the young and old artists
the photographers, writers, sculpters, you name it
you left me amongst the old lovers enjoying themselves
you left me amongst the smell of cigarettes, marijuana, **** and *****
and I can't believe it
you actually left

you left me on the corner of King and Yonge
I was lost, downtown Toronto
no where to go
I sat down on the curb of a hotel
A couple tried to help me
tried to get me somewhere safe
your hotel room?
no, absolutely not
she was hot, but that's illegal
I'm not legal
and I'm not dumb

I was scared and alone
is that what the homeless felt like?
I saw so many people walk by
no one with good intentions stopped
I didn't look homeless, I know that
kids stopped to stare at me and they'd tug on their parents clothes
...they kept walking

I had to reach out to my exboyfriend
I had to get him to meet with me again
He liked the packed streets of downtown
it's where he belongs
with that stupid skateboard he's left me for so many times
but it's his passion, I understand
He was in his nature, I was lost

"Meet up with me please, I'm scared
I don't know where I am"

I started walking
     I had to ***
          He found me

But it wasn't him anymore

He
Was
So
Cold

he screamed
"why did you leave me?"

Times like now,
I wonder what it would be like to never eat again

To give up

Lately I've been not myself.

Trying to keep from breaking down in all the inappropriate places. Those seem to be the places where the emptiness hits the hardest.
Church.
Birthday parties
In public.
In crowds

I look at my sister and apologize
I'm not the person I use to be.
I'm no fun. I'm no joy. I'm no peace.

I look at my husband and apologize
But he hasn't noticed.

Only around friends and family of my deceased am I able to capture snippets of joy.

And pretend.

What haunts me now,
Is the possibility of awareness that she had.
I thought she didn't.

But
If she did

Then I should have fought harder
Reminded her more
That my love for her could never go away.

But

I ran. Scared. Inadequate. Unprepared.  

And now I'm alone.
All of my regrets and terrible nightmares
Just sitting here. Smoking a cigarette.

Waiting.

don't think about the way he held you when he saw you cry for the first time. don't think about his smile when you turned around and caught him looking at you. don't remember the sound of his voice whispering your name to see if you were still awake at 2:48 in the morning. don't recall how perfect and warm his hands felt on your body and how gentle he was with you.

don't.

remember him shooting down your ideas and making a mockery of your opinion. remember how he called you pathetic in front of his friends and laughed as you tried to shake it off. think about how he told you that he was glad that you two could joke about anything with each other, after he called you a *****. realize the distance he created in the final weeks in the countdown to snipping the thread that delicately bound your heart to his.

remember him telling you that he never loved you. remember him treating you like a child, remember him calling you beautiful only when you laid on your back on his rough flannel blanket, staring at the ceiling until he decided he was satisfied.

remember waiting for him to text you and call you and talk to you, remember him ignoring you and making you feel worthless.

don't remember how his eyes sparkled when the sunlight hit them in the right spot. don't remember him pulling you close for a kiss.

(i was only in love with the idea of you)