I write you letters on yellow notepads,
tear them out and use the other side,
my ****** cursive slanting the entire page,
adding things in the margins,
drawing hearts in the corners,
ending with our special
"See you then"
instead of a goodbye,
or a sincerely yours,
or an "I love you always."
That line said it all.

I didn't have an address to send them to
because you just moved and stamps cost a lot
for a broke college student who's just trying
to keep in touch.

You told me not to call you.
Not to ask you how you'd been.
So I didn't even bother asking for some place
to write on the outside of my envelopes.
I just kept writing them.

I get why you didn't want to come see me
before you left
because it would just make it harder to say goodbye
all over again,
and I get
why it's hard to talk to me
because you're busy and because you're two hours behind
and because this and because that.
They're just excuses.
You don't really want to talk to me.

And I,
I get that you're halfway across the country.
Don't you think I've memorized the distance by now?
I know exactly how far it is between your dot and mine
on a map.
I get that it's going to be hard and that it's probably not even worth trying,
but what you don't get
that I do
is that it's worth it.

I've kept bullshitting with you since I met you.
I've kept you around this long.

I'm not going to tell you how many times I sat up crying
about something you said to me, or something you didn't say
that I knew you felt
because it will just push you away.
You've known since the beginning
of whatever this is
that you're no good for me.
You're not good enough for me.
That's fair.

But what you don't get,
that I do
is that I don't care.

You're the best thing in my life
because everything that I do is only because of you,
only because of you believing that I can have it
all
if I try hard enough.

You told me I was the strongest person you knew.
That I was tough.
That I was going to be fine.

I am only those things because I have you
in my life
in one way or an even more complicated other.
So you can't just give up on me.
You can't just expect
to tell me you're done
you never started
and leave.
Because that's not okay with me.

I won't buy a plane ticket.
I won't talk to you every chance I get
(more likely every chance you get)
and I won't keep myself behind this line
because I'm saving myself for you.

But you have to stay with me, okay?
You have to at least try
to understand where I'm coming from
and you have to,
you have to
keep believing in me.

Because I'm not the strongest person you know,
you are.
I'm not tough,
you are.
I'm not always going to be fine,
but you are.

So I'll see you then.

I stepped out of the bathtub, slipped on my towel,
and ran down the stairs so I could grab us some drinks
out of the fridge in the garage,
a lager and a light.
It was cold, my tip toes were leaving imprints in the snow
my wet hair was freezing at the ends.
I tried to keep covered up while carrying things in my hands,
I got to the door and there you were
holding the **** with your steamy lips and boxers
I kept turning it, but it wouldn't budge
that's when you held up the key to the glass
waving it in my face like a sweet, sweet victory.
I gasped a little laugh that was half mad, half enticed-
you little ****.
 
"How am I supposed to get in?"
I asked as quiet as I could in fear of waking the neighbors,
you just looked at me stupidly,
your mouth foaming something *****
"drop it"
you said with a hand gesture towards my body.
I bit my lip holding back my smile, shaking my head in
denied disapproval.
You started walking away from the door,
"Wait!"
I let it go,
dropped the towel down to my ankles
and let my hands glide effortlessly to my hips.
I cocked one out, pursed my lips as I looked at you
devilishly-
your eyes got wide.
 
"Can I come in now?"
I begged with a little lean forward.
You put your fingers up to your chin,
drinking up my beauty that was dripping
from the tip of my nose to end of my feet.
"One lap," you said holding up the number.
You pressed your hands up to the glass,
I lined mine up with yours
I could tell you wanted to kiss me.
"One lap?"
I questioned with a stupid smirk,
I'd do anything for you-
I just like putting up a fight.
You shook your head up and down,
"I'm not going alone,"
I said backing away, folding my arms across my chest
defiantly begging you to join me.
"Fine" you said with a wide smile.
You threw off your boxers and opened the door.
 
"It's freezing!"
You yelled as soon as you walked out.
I shushed you with my lips and whispered
"It's too late now."
We ran around my house in the snow,
naked
you chasing me.
I tried my best not to scream,
but my heart was begging me
to release some pressure from it
some relief
from all the love you were filling it with.
I burst through the door and you followed,
trying to wrap your arms around me
but I wouldn't let up.
I ran up the stairs,
peeking behind me
to see if you were there.
 
"You can't catch me"
I taunted from the bathroom,
turning on the shower as hot as it could go.
That's when you knocked into me from behind,
tight
"Got you"
you whispered and you were right,
you had me
a lager and a light.

I know about the necklace.
How you re-gifted a leftover reject present
from a buddy who mentioned it the day before,
and I know about Lyndsey and the book of YOUR
favorite poems you bought for ME. I know you call me baby,
but I also know that I’m not the only one.
You demanded a certain elegance
that I always thought I carried, but really
I was just a bag of apologies
for simply existing in the same space that you were.
You know the night that I got drunk on cranberry and *****,
called you twice, and cried into a box of homemade
chocolate chip cookies? That wasn't the first time
I sat at your chair in your sweatpants
waiting for you to return from wherever
you said you weren't. I know about what you've done.
But, of course, as you so eagerly expected,
you’ll come in with a sigh and sleek smile,
and I’ll unclothe myself as I talk about
every detail of my day even though I know
you never bother to listen. I’ll lay naked
in your bed as you cradle what you believe
is your biggest mistake, while I silently hope
that faked ignorance can mask the reality
of how beautiful I should be and how ugly
I never wanted to admit you were.

Sometimes I picture myself in a red prom dress,
with converse under the tulle, and glitter
covering my eyes as I nervously glance
away from your face, inches from mine,
trying not to stare at your crooked bow-tie.
Sometimes we’re jumping over the tide’s
foam, under the moonlight, licking the salt from our lips—
my saddle shoes on the dunes, your jeans rolled
above the ankle, but my curls falling loose around my face.
Sometimes we’re moving black and white photographs,
1920’s with fringe and silver canes,
and sometimes

we’re like this. Naked on your mattress,
with the ceiling fan at a standstill, sipping
stale beer from old bottles you left lonely
on the windowsill. And sometimes I know better,
but tonight I answered your call and I came over
to your lazy bones on the sunken couch,
watching the lava lamp’s goo stick to the bottom,
yet still lighting
the entire room with a neon glow.
By now, you think I would know

that I can never count on you unless it’s cheap,
and convenient, and broken, and me. It’s only
ever me, but I can’t just haphazardly
stay in the spaces of your life that need filling.
I picture us, hugely, with a white house,
blue shutters, little kids building towers on the porch
just to knock them down.
The whole bit, picture it! But all
you ever see me as is figure
that you can reach if you squint hard enough—
a mirage that you like to believe
only you will ever hold.

I just wanted to say
that I forgot what I wanted to say
because you look so cute bending over
to scoop the cereal out of the bottom container,
and your smile slants just like a three-day crescent moon
when you spill some Fruity Pebbles on the ground,
or how you cradle your cup of milk
like sometimes you cradle me when we’re half asleep
and our dreams start to play tag with one another,
dressing themselves in the fog we’ve created
from the steam our kisses drag out. And I guess I get
how ******* you get when you’re sneakers are unlaced
but your mind is tripping between hours spent here
smoking this and banging yourself up with that. I guess I get
how you can loose focus, but I’ve caught you at your lowest
and I’ve straightened you out just by kissing the pressure points
until you’ve been strained like elastic and your heart has thickened.
I just wanted to say
that I forgot what I wanted to say
because you pull at my thighs like I’m made of clay
when we’re messing around in the shower,
letting the water fall around us like our own little storm—
you’re the perfect sound of thunder. But you’ve left me
in puddles on my carpet, pulsing to the beat of my fluid heart
as I try to remember exactly what it is about your face that I love so much.
I bet you’re getting tired of hearing me ask if you’re up,
of if your’re busy, or if you could just knock on my door two times
instead of once so maybe I could feel it through the thick skin
I’ve grown over the years of stopping and locking and shutting down.  
And I guess I get that. But I also, just. . . you—
I forgot what I wanted to say.

So let me ask you then
how many nights I have spent lying on my kitchen floor like this
praying to a piece of paper that I find a way to make this all come out right?
And while I'm lying there have you tasted
the emptiness that settles on my lips as I count the stars on my fingertips
begging a soul I don't recognize any more to come and carry me?
Have you ever tried to hold something that heavy?
You don't make it far before you're dragging your feet
around a promise nobody had to make, but was clear

It was clear that you loved me more than I
always knew you did.

So let me ask you then
how I spend the time I don't have on fixations like that
hallucinating that I see your feet by my door or your name on my telephone?
And while I'm smudging my eyes from the minute reminder
that I waited longer than me and the god that holds me now knew I should have
I turn to the clock that haunts me.
Have you ever tried to feel how long that is?
You don't realize it until you're twenty-five staring the same blue-eyed problem in the face,
that grew from the memory you have of him as a kid you tossed through,
and you're wondering how you managed to scrape through with the amount of dignity
you gaze at in the reflection of the mirror.

I know that you love me more than I
always knew you did.

So let me ask you then
how come we aren't better than this?
How come it's 12:28 in the morning and I'm waiting on a call I'm never going to get?
How come we bank through changes with a common hand in hand,
but we can't make it through to see the sunrise?
How come we aren't better than a vulnerable night, a couple drinks, a wish
between the sheets of a bed with no destination that somehow
we'd wind up back in the fragmented places we've been?

How come we always want more, but we can't have it now?

How come you won't have me now?

When I know that you love me more than I
always knew you did.

We were kissing on the other side of the truck,
with trees bending over the bed as a dark shadow
in the hours after midnight.
You had your hands up my shirt and my beer can
was in the one hand I had wrapped around your neck.
We were pulling on each other from different ends.
You were telling me you had to leave between separate kisses,
whispering how you wanted me and even though
your body was walking away your hands decided to stay.
I was begging you to come back with tiny pleading and the trace of my fingers
in the spaces of yours
when a name floated from your lips and landed on mine
it tasted bad and wasn't right because it didn't fit
she wasn't me
"Jodi!"
I'm Sophie.

Your invisible fist came like a sucker punch to my chest,
all the breath gone and the steam reaching my tongue
until I was cross eyed with anger and tearing up
with my back against your body trying to apologize
for getting it wrong
when I felt hands on my face and suddenly your mouth
against mine in a deep, regretful silent message
that you were sorry for saying her name,
and I believed that kiss because it took the pressure off
of finally admitting I actually had feelings for you or actually cared
about you.
I believed you were sorry for calling me someone else,
but really you were just sorry you got caught and let it slip.

This was uncharted and I knew from the beginning that it wouldn't last,
but I haven't been telling anybody how mean you are to me
about that incident behind the truck
or how you back hand my writing and won't let me speak
about it because you give me that weird look and just start
touching me to shut me up.
I tell everyone you're busy when I show up without you,
but really you just found someone better to do.
I tell everyone it's no big deal when they hear you were somewhere
I said you weren't,
but it's just as a surprise to me and it stings just as much
as it did that night you called me her when I'm me.
I don't tell anyone how awful you are to me
because it would make me the fool
and it would justify every "I told you so"
that would come my way from the fair warnings I was given
when I said you were almost mine and we were sort of together
in a casual, "I'd still like to *******," way.

I don't tell anyone because I'm still waiting for you to fall in love with me,
and I'm dangerously surrounding myself with thoughts of you
when I can't sleep at night and I find myself
smiling when your name comes up on my phone
or blushing when I hear your voice
which isn't good, because it's not just a physical thing
where I have my fun and make my own breakfast in the morning.
It's a stupid romance that has me actually falling for you,
and I don't tell anyone how much damage I take from your
nonchalant words or your false commitment
because I want you to turn out right after all the mistaken ways.
I want to prove everyone, mostly myself, wrong
about how you don't really want me and how all you ever actually wanted
was a pretty body to pass the summer time
until you went to school.
I don't want to be the fool.
So I don't tell anyone the truth about you.
I don't tell anyone about you.

The winter gleam of the sun
off the snow, gray clouds dulling
the sparkle, shined through your window
onto my pale cheek at nine in the morning.
You were laying down as I sat up on your bed
trying not to lean back onto your feet.
Your black hair stood up on one side,
a giant curl falling just above your eyebrow,
and your thick lips parted just enough
to let out a small breaths that smelled like
stale beer and a ****** memory.
I pulled my feet up on the metal ledge
that supported your bed,
resting my elbows on my knees
so my hands could cradle my chin.

I pushed back my hair as I saw you move
out of my sideways look,
you rolled on your back, arms above your head
a false halo made of your hands,
baring your scruffy chest and chubby waistline.

I played with the corner of your sheets,
folding the flap up and back,
your snore my metronome one beat off
of my heart.

You took a big part of me and I'm sitting here
scanning your room trying to see if you
stashed it in a corner or if you hid it
somewhere I can't see.
You took a big part of me.

I asked you over and I don't know why.
We were lying in my bed in the dark when my parents pulled in.
I put my dress back on and you ran down the stairs.
Sat on the couch, turned on late night TV, and pretended
that you had been there all along.

I sat up next to you with a blanket covering my legs.
You were so mad at me.
My parents didn't mind you were there though,
in fact they thought the scared look on your face was priceless
and they wished you'd come over again.
They don't ask questions anymore
if that's what you're worried about.
They know that even if they asked I wouldn't have an answer.
Because like I said I asked you over and I don't know why.

I told you it was because my grandpa was sick and I was lonely.
Which is true and I really was.
But mostly I just wanted someone who knew my body to hold me.
I just wanted a night where I didn't have to be by myself
contemplating all the time I don't have left and all the things
I've still left unsaid.
Maybe I'm just in love when you're here and you shouldn't be.
And maybe I love you all the time but I hate you enough to not say it.
That makes no sense.
Neither does this.

I'm just screaming at walls that won't listen.
About how I could want you stay so badly but I don't need you here.
Your love's really nothing.
It's just something I've gotten so used to having that I expect it to be there.
All the time.
Even when
it makes no sense
for you to be kissing me like that or for telling me you'd stay up until I fell asleep.
I asked you over and I don't know why.
I'll keep asking you over and you'll keep coming but
we'll never really know why.

But I'd like it if you'd keep your hand there and not care
about what I'll feel like tomorrow or what I'll ask you to do next week.
I don't make sense anymore
but truly, I love you
and neither does this.

One finger over the other,
strands lacing together in blonde streaks
pulling the shadow back away
from my face,
tugging
at the missing pieces
until they all tucked neatly
in the right places.

You yelled at me last night
after we both got home.
I was in the shower, the steam
suffocating my already
weakened breath.
I could hear you shuffling
through the medicine cabinet
above the sink
"****!"
when the pills
spilled
all over the white tile floor,
and you without glasses
blindly searching for the pain relievers.

"I think you're taking this whole thing the wrong way"
you stated as I turned the faucet
all the way to the left.
The pressure of the shower
stabbed my back like hail
as you kept defending yourself
from the other side of the curtain.

I cried but you wouldn't be able
to tell which droplets were the tears.

I was silent the whole way through.
Pushing my hair back and massaging
my neck with my fingers
as you slammed the bathroom door.

I crawled in after I dried myself
with a towel I found in the hamper.
Your feet were hanging out of the covers.
I tucked them in and lied awake
until the alarm went off this morning.

You got out of work at eleven and I was there waiting for you.
Leaning against your car with my arms crossed,
hiding in the shadow of the security camera because no one
should have to see us like this before I made my peace or before
you tried to stop me.
You sauntered over with your hair fixed and your face black
from the powdered metal dust that stuck to your skin while you were doodling
on a notepad waiting for the tumbler to shut up and give you new parts
to start the process.

I've waited and waited for my parts to have back from you after you took them.
To start the process.
To be fine
once again.

With your hands in your pockets you angrily backhanded a reply to my fainted "hi"
above the noise of other workers clocking out their time cards,
punch in and punch out
"What are you doing here?"
I didn't think it needed an answer.
But since you questioned and since I've been silently mad for days and since
I'm almost to the breaking point I said something
that I can't remember in this late night, confused memory,
that went

Well since
you don't answer my calls and won't look at me and won't talk to me
just keep pushing past and past my presence in your life when you're looking
and in your mind when you're not,
I put myself here.
I put myself where you'd have to see me just so you could tell me
why it is you loved so deeply and left so quickly.

Then my eyes went hazy and my mouth fell sideways as you told me
something I expected to hear that still shocked my soul
because a large part of me that I don't like to admit
was still hoping for the answer I'd been praying for
or the realization of an epiphany you've had over loving me
as only a memory and wishing you could have it that real again.
But you clocked me-
punch in and punch out.
You used me to heal the bad stuff and then parted when you were done.
Parted and left me when you had what you needed
to get through another stubborn year of acting like you love me
but lying because you never really did.

I got in my car and waited at the factory red light
until it turned green and drove the opposite way you were leaving.
I watched the two headlights as they blurred themselves into direction.
I watched you and I knew that I had nothing to come back to.
Just empty words to be said and a desperate attempt
to get back what I thought I had again.

I’m ******* freezing.
I’ve been sitting here across from a parking lot
in a little patch of green, and the sprinklers
keep going on and off, but I sit here—
watch the droplets slide down my black leather boots,
shifting my legs in my soaked denim shorts,
picking at the soggy bread of my dollar menu sandwich.
I didn’t win the peel off sticker contest on the wrapping,
and I also missed the trashcan when I threw it out,
like you threw me out

and it’s not like I saw it coming. Considering our cat
is still at the vet and we just found a new couch,
but I guess my bag of clothes and one pair of clean underwear
are my only companions now as I wait
for some sort of direction or weird, metaphor
to slink down from the Maybelline billboard,
crawl up my skin and into my mind so I’m not just
sitting here, freezing.

But I guess it’s not as cold as that one time
you slid half a Klondike bar down my back
as I sat circling help-wanted ads in the paper.
I screamed, but you covered my mouth and kissed
the space behind my ears a million little time.
I licked your hand and you wiped it on my shoulder,
turning

back to the stove to stir the Campbell’s soup we found
behind the expired olives in the cupboard. Yet, I always thought
that I was your sliver of a masterpiece.

It’s not everyday that someone calls a girl beautiful
when she’s got bags the size of small countries
under her eyes or a flannel with five missing buttons.
But the way you held my collarbone in your hands,
or carried my sculptures to the shows, or bent
your life a little differently just to fit my mold.

I guess our love just grew old
to you, but I never thought that a parking lot,
after hours of drizzle and haze
rising from the blacktop, would look better
than the canopy we made from old t-shirts
that hung above our bed with a mobile
of everything I ever made up in my head
that you could be.

How many times have I been here like this
and how many times have I said "how many times"
before.
But I just gathered some of your clothes I had
lying on my floor for a while now,
and put them in your garage because it was left open
and you said you wouldn't be home for another hour and forty-five minutes
which is too long for me to wait up for before
I decide to just keep them and wait another day.
But we're always going to be here.

I'm always just going to be putting things in your garage
because you don't want to see me,
and not that you don't want to see me
but because you're afraid if you do you'll fall for me
and that will only make it harder for you when you leave.
And I'd like to believe that but you always make it
so ******* difficult to get a word in sometimes.
Not because you talk too much but because you never speak
honestly
about how you feel or what you want
so I just put things in your garage,
you just store things away until you have to
feel them at some point.
Like you have to feel me
at certain points.

And I allow myself to follow in your footsteps
and to just do what you ask me to do because I love you
and because I don't want you
to go away and because
I just want to be with you so badly
that I put my own baggage into your garage and my own feelings
into store
because if that means I could feel you,
if ignorance of better decisions and what really should happen
is what it takes for me to be next to you
I'll do it.

So I get it.
I get why you put things into your garage
for safe keeping
because it's what it takes
to not fall apart when you think about one day
it suddenly not being there
when you think about one day
me
suddenly just not being there.

I do it too.
I do it because I know you're not always going to be there,
so I check my emotions at the door before I enter
and I leave things in wrong places until I have to.
Until I have to deal with things like miles, maps, and distance.
Until I have to give up on trying to make something work
you don't want if it means it will be hard and bruised like it could be
if we didn't try hard enough and it failed.

Your shirt is in the garage.
It's next to the fridge and underneath it you'll find how I feel
right next to how you feel.
That's where I'll be.

I stopped mid-sidewalk at 11p.m. tonight
with my hat on backwards just to match my heart
and my sweatpants tucked into my boots
with green acrylic-splatter on the left toe
from when I was ****** and painting you as hard as I could
into the paper. I stopped
and attempted to fit myself into the splits
the clouds would make in the skies. I tried to make
a tiny infinity out of the two-pack Oreo wrapper
in my jacket pocket, but all I got was a crumble
that sort of looked like your face sitting in my palm
when I pull your cheek to the side and drag one last
goodnight kiss out of you. So, I threw it on the ground,
and I know that’s littering, but come on you treat me
like trash anyway. I pictured myself making one of those
sled-ride snow angels right in the middle of the grass,
and in my haphazard mind I figured it would be cinematic
and lively, but it was just ******* freezing and I was soaked
the rest of the way home. But I did it. At least I did something,
while you lie in your bed with tomorrow’s practice clothes laid out
just dissolving social media pixels in your head. And you could be calling
some other girl, how would I know?
She could be lying next to you with her yoga pants
tossed neatly on the bedpost, you ******* her while your roommate is asleep.
How would I know? The most you ever tell me
is how much beer is in the fridge or how you just won’t
have enough time to **** me quick before you gotta be somewhere
so I should just come back next week
like I’m a shopper waiting for the ripe strawberries to come in.
So I stopped in the snow and I cried a little
because I’ve let myself get so stupid over your sometimes.
And I hoped, hugely, that you would for once see me
slide into your dreams and make it into your mornings
like a gentle reminder that screams please, don’t forget about me
and hugs you like the sun,
but how would I know, anyway.

He had his fingers down between my thighs.  
I shook my head back and forth-
Eskimo kiss.
"No?" he asked.
We kiss again.
"Alright, that's all you had to say"

He never called again.

You’ve dammned yourself to hell,
crawled weakly back, back, back—
you knew where to find me.

I know, because I’ve dealt massiveley
with the way you’d hold me backwards
upon a plateau of lies that smell like liquor,
like liptstick, and like twisted lullabies.
No one should have to fall asleep at night
to an I told you so or the just let me go to sleep.
I know, because I’ve been hit without being touched.
I’ve catapulted through your dense disguise,
getting stuck in the aftermath, losing
myself in a realm of make-believe promises
to keep—
*******. Just keep yourself away from me!
I know, because I’ve loved you.
And maybe not in the cause and effect wedding band way,
but the kind where I was immersed, evolved into madness
from your lips on my lips or your hands on my hips.
I know, I know that you’re upset
with who you’ve finally become, because I know you.
Terribly enough, I know you.

So when the white blankets you slow with silence,
an invisible massacre, I’ll know—
I’ll know because I’ve almost been there—
that my face turned soft with glow
will guide you home
because I’m the only real thing you’ve ever known.

Your hat was pushed back on your head
so your hair could stick out in little tuffs
like black duck fluff
shadowing your forehead in crazy patterns
that I liked to trace with my eyes
because they'd lead me to your eyes
which were always cool.

You were always cool.
I felt that.

You made me feel pretty and you tempted
all my senses with the way your hand
would linger around my hips,
one finger dipping into
the backside waistband of my jeans.

I used to bite my lip but now I just bite yours.

Then you cut me out like the bad part of an apple,
biting around the soft parts just to get to the core.
I never saw you unless it was by some accident
that your reaction to my presence solidified
my conception that you'd do anything to prevent
having to pass me.
And now I'm not sure if you ever even looked at me.

You never really cared--
I was junk
that you could play around with until the rust set in,
until the shiny parts dulled,
until you were done and needed a new one.

I'm not sure if you ever even saw me.

I know that love has looked like an illusion to you lately.
That when you're lying with your head in your hands
with too many hours put into your midnight,
the truth of the slammed fists on the kitchen table
melts into the reality of what you're feeling.

I always knew you as a man
who kept his heart in the pit of the others,
stemmed belief in the people who had too much faith in you,
but also know that there is nothing
that you should ever have to handle on your own.

I know everything you shaped yourself after is shattered.
That you had to look your dad in the eye and listen
to him tell you how he can't cradle your mom any longer,
to see the footprints that walked you in the door
are now retracing themselves out the way they came.

I always knew you as a man
who was too afraid to be what he wanted
in fear that it wouldn't match up to what people thought you were,
but also know you gained a lot of strength
in figuring out who you wanted to model and how
you are now what that model came to be.

I know their hearts have felt heavy in your hands lately.
That you're trying to find the right way to not be so messed up,
an there's no way to quiet the silence that stings you now
between a bed that's begging to be come back to
and a place you're scared you can no longer call home.

But I've always known you as a man
who holds love as a suspension over his head
bending beauty until you were full grown,
but also know there is nothing
I'm ever going to let you handle on your own.

When I'm falling asleep in the teal hue
of our tiny, tiny room.
I'll look out the window,
drowning out the sound of your snoring
with the city sirens and taxi beeps,
and see how lovely
the lights glow on the glass.
How beautiful a picture they paint,
a stippled masterpiece of glitter specs,
glowing circles that blur at the edges
in every golden color, in every shimmering red.
When every odd is against us,
every gray cubicle and tan cracked sidewalk
that gets in our determined way,
I'll just remember how beautiful the world looked,
with your arm wrapped around me
looking at the color in the life
constantly living outside our window.
And how lucky we are
to be a part of it.

He pointed to the 4'' by 7'' framework
with two teenage girls faces pressed
against hers, an overbearing smile in the background
of a boy caught in the mist of poor lighting
and ******, drunken photography.
She told him about the field
laid green and black blades wet
from central PA rain and smashed,
meshed clumps of mud sticking to the rubber mazes
on the undersides of old work boots.
How the fire billowed over hazy introductions
and pressured joy of seeing someone no one
really ever wanted to see again.

She told him about the drive with two girls,
how many stops
it took to reach the county party
and how many times she counted the circles
on her thumbs before she was distracted
by another person wanting a picture or another beg
for a beer.
She laughed as she reflected, glancing up at the photo
then back at him as his hand
lay between the crease of her *** and thigh.


He was from Durham and didn't get it.
But she painted it so vividly with her tongue
as it danced over the summer memory
that he felt he could be there
if he let himself.

She unwound for him like a yo-yo
to which only he could pull her back up again.
Unaware that she mindlessly
let him control all the strings.

As she talked, jumping from picture to picture,
he noticed her leap frog
from each. She skipped three or four in the middle,
and even thought it seemed
as if she could open with the press of the right button
there were still some things she wouldn't let him
really see.
She held her breath when the story turned bad.
He saw her eyes balance on the phrase,
he now noticed, she carefully chose next.
She was no outburst. This was no plea.

She had a plan and undoubtedly knew
all that she wanted him to know.

As she flipped to the next page
he counted the seconds between the pauses
and moved his hand to her shoulderblade.

Reconciliation shots,
Grey Goose and Ciroc,
pouring one by one in chipped glasses
on your microwave with the door locked.
Shabba remix on the stereo,
your cotton boxers and my lace underwear
contrasting in the ****** overhead light.
I pursed my lips after the first,
you slapped my *** and said
Don't be a *****! Take it!
without a chaser and without
hesitation you once again
pushed me fearlessly into fate
like all the times before,
when I'd wake up from a graphic nightmare
with resonating touch and hallucinations
from an LSD-like perspective
and you'd hold my head into the crescent
of your neck and tickle my spine
like an instrument
just long enough to calm me into sleep again.
Or when I didn't want to go to that party,
or I was afraid to give that presentation
or I lost all ambition due to past lost confidence.

You kicked the back of my knees so I'd fall
straight into uncertainty,
but that doesn't mean my fragility
has been numbed by your persona.
You're standing in your dress clothes,
but I'm the one fixing your tie.
You get an A+ on the paper,
but I'm the one telling you what to write.
You're the one upset,
but I'm the one who ends up hurt.

So we take our clothes off and apologize
for being whatever we were that day
with reconciliation shots,
cheap Grey Goose and ****** Ciroc.

I’m mad at you for keeping the book open
and not telling me what chapter we’re on,
what pages you skipped, what summary
you tried to read but got bored with.
I’m mad at you for telling me you would stop in
and you didn’t. I’m mad at you for keeping me
in sheets all alone waiting for a phone call,
pretending that I wanted to just stay in and paint
pictures that I’ll tear up anyway, or that I really
really wanted to do laundry on a Saturday night.
I’m mad at you. I’m mad at you and why

is that so hard to tell you? The words reside
in my chest—they are rehearsed. I’ve whispered
them a thousand times to myself in the shower,
about how I’m frustrated and worn down
and confused as to what happened, how I could let
something I swore I memorized slip through my fingers.
Then you show up, clean shaven, perfect curves
from your hips down to your knees, and I lose it.
I swallow all my syllables and drown myself
in a kiss I’ve begged for. I can’t tell you

because I’m scared that one wrong phrase
and I’m out the door, just a girl you used to run away with.
I’m scared that I’m losing something, that I’ll wind up lost
if I disconnect myself from something I’ve envisioned
over and over again in my future. So I don’t say

anything. I just wait until the last possible second, minutes
before midnight, and I cry myself into a bear you gave me,
trying to figure out where I went wrong, what happened,
what page did I miss?

I want you to know you're better than the hospital bed you're lying in,
than the life you've been leading or the cuts on your hands.
"Just went a little too hard, I guess."
You guess.
Well, as long as I know you're going to be okay
then I won't feel so bad when I say
*******,
******* for scaring me with the telephone ring I wasn't expecting
from my best friend who got the ambulance call at four in the morning-
"Something's not right" she told me.
So I ran over here because I became somebody through loving you
even though I promised myself I wouldn't let you
bother me anymore with beating yourself up.
I came in my sweatpants with the mismatched socks and my white ghost
following me to the elevator trying to bring my void to the surface
so it could remind me how empty I feel without recognizing
how much I'm always going to care about you.
And to see you in that light yellow room with the nurse outside the glass,
breathing through the oxygen tubes with your dad and step mom
whispering to your sister in the corner
"How could we let this happen?" or hanging their heads with "didn't we see the signs?"
It made me so angry seeing them wipe their sweaty palms on their
shouldn't be guilty faces,
because it isn't their fault.
But should I feel selfish for wanting to punch you when you were down?
For wanting to yell at you when you were clinging on to an opening?
"I'm fine, don't you see that?"
No.
I'm not wrong for telling you the things you don't want to hear.
Because you are better
than this.
You are better than the things you can't see right now.
You are better than the road your choices are leading you on.
"I'm 19, it doesn't matter."
And so I'll yell at you until you get it.
I'll face you until the reality sets in.
I'll be here to fade through the pamphlets you're getting
on how to cure something you thought you'd never have.
I'll sponsor the recovery you don't want,
and I'll make sure you heal from everything that's damaged you
until you understand
that you
are better
than this.

I look at you under the cabin
arms around her peek-a-boo waist,
rubbing her skin with the thin layer
of spilt beer on your hands.
The snow is falling in little specs
like words out of your mouth,
the lights inside keep dimming
with the slaps of people's hands
hitting the ceiling as they dance
to the beat of cheap pop music,
cigarette smoke waving the frozen air
like paint mixing on a palette.
Sloppy, you turn to me letting go of her
rubbing your eyes trying to catch yourself
on the pillar to your right.
Another swig of your drink,
you ask where I've been.
I didn't know how to answer.
I've always been here.
She comes up to your side,
leaning into your ribs like a bridge
that carry her over to your lips.
You looked at me to say something,
but your tongue was too busy
tasting the liquor in her mouth.
I turn my head tucking the hair behind my ear
pretending I was anywhere but here.
She pulls away with such sound
just to make sure I heard her
poison your sweet candy center
with promises of bare and willing.
With one giant tug she immediately has
your hand in her front pocket and looks at me
with glassy eyes full of determination
a smirk with glances towards you,
gray sweatshirt perfection,
then back at me just so I know
that she won with pursed lips and a chuckle.

As she wildly begs you to come inside,
your reluctantly turn
but look back at me
with the clearest definition:
"I'm sorry, but this is the way it is."
Yes, this is the way it is.
You, head spinning with intoxication
partying back inside, because you don't know
what else better there is to do
waking up in the morning
not knowing who's next to you.
And then there's me,
standing out in the cold
putting my hands back in their mittens
looking up at the yellow light in the window
catching your silhouette wrapping around hers,
but backing away without a tear
not even tempted
to go in and stop you,
I've lost you.
and I'm sorry
but that's the way it is.

A lot can happen in for years.
I said, but you begged
You don’t think you’ll come back?
Not even for me?
Not even for you. Not even for you,
but you see this is just a ghost town
haunted by the very memory
of your wild existence,
calling a teenager after curfew to your street name,
a few skipped breaths in bed,
kid skin and little bellies
trapped by wide-spread fingers and an innocent
lust. *A lot can happen in four years.

Twenty two sounds a lot older when you’re eighteen
and beautiful, but really
we’re all just chasing cars, multiplying the distance,
confusing the circumstances and rebelling
against the plan. This place isn't how you left it.
I’m not the glass-eyed girl in your driveway
telling you I’d never change if you would just stay
within my reach. I know I missed a few calls.
I know you did, too.
But honestly, what more could we expect
from a dreamer and trailer boy with alcohol breath?
We’ve had our roles from the beginning.
We were unlucky crossing paths, supernovas
whose rubble fell together on the ground in a coded map
that only our hands could read.

You don’t think you’ll come back?
You said, but now
1,910 miles between,
I know that it’s you that won’t come back for me.

I’m easily annoyed
Some things just make me want to scream
Like why it is birds are stupid enough to fly into clear things, like windows
Why leaves seem to be the only things I like that change,
And no matter how many times they do
They always grow back the same.
Some things just amaze me
Like how many things a hand can hold
Or the way people can mask themselves like criminals
Just stealing the honesty right out of every moment,
The way truth is robbed without even speaking.
Some things just make me want to hurl
Like why it is people’s minds are so **** *****
And why it is we find it so **** funny.
Why it is we cuss for emphasis, we hit for impact,
And we love openly for fear of being lonely.
Some things just **** me
Like you
And your big dumb smile,
Your big dumb hands
Or your big dumb heart
They **** me because I want them
To have everything to do with me
Like hold me in a way my body isn’t used to
Or kiss me in a way my lips have never felt
Some things just confuse me,
Like why it is on this earth everything *****
But you
Everything annoys me,
But you
and the only thing I want
Is you.

Only 3 people in my life have seen me cry,
unless you count that one guy on that tailgate that one night that one time
but I don't because I was drunk and it wouldn't matter in the morning.
You are one of those three and for you I cried the heaviest.
In your arms, fog catching, trying to suspend myself
in the gravity that kept me clung to your chest with fingers in your hair
kissing your ears between tears saying how much I love you
and that I'll miss you and that
every night I Google map the distance
just praying and praying that
the blue line between your point and mine
becomes shorter and shorter in time.

But it never does.

You told me you really will miss me,
that I'm one of the only one's
who actually cares about you
which isn't true but if you want
to put me there I will be because you are
that security and you are
everything that is brilliant in my life
and to know that you will no longer be
that close to where I am is like pulling at my heart
and getting nothing back
but a 10 minute phone call and I
wish you were here.

But you never are.

So I cried.
I mean,
I cried and cried until it came down to
you holding me so I would stop shaking and telling me
that I was strong and that I'll be fine
and that
it wasn't a goodbye just a
see you then.

But I've tried to hold "then"
in my hands and I've tried to write it
on my calendar at home but I can't find it,
and I'm afraid that will turn into not finding you
when it's 2am but it's your midnight and there's no
commonplace where you and I can just relive
this moment where I cried and cried and told you that I loved you
and you smiled with your eyes.

But the comfort that holds me is you know I can do this,
you know that I'm worthy,
and you know that I'm strong.
So I tell myself that when I don't feel it and I recognize
that if you can believe in me so much than I must be able
to do this without you and to move on
without you
constantly being here.
It gets me through until I can say when,
until the next time I see you
until see you then.

it's these moments that I miss you,
when I'm sitting here and no one can seem to understand
no one looks at me the way you do
in the eyes, gentle smile, one hand in mine the other in my hair
letting me know that it was okay to fall apart
that I didn't have to be perfect
and no can seem to understand that
that I'm not perfect like I come off to be,
that I fake a good portion of the smiles I put on
and holding things in my hands is harder than it looks,
no one looks at me the way you do
and every time you do, it makes me want to be more
makes me want to try harder and fight longer
it's these moments that I miss you,
miss your voice telling me that it's all going to be okay
miss your words encouraging every phenomenal dream I have
miss your lips on my cheek when there aren't any words to make everything alright
miss your constant reassurance that this time
it wasn't going to fall apart
and I feel like I've missed my chance on you again
look I miss you
not just in these moments where I need someone to steal me away,
hide me from reality in the comfort of a chest to lay on and a hand to hold,
and whisper that no matter what happened you were never going to leave,
I miss you all the time
not just when I need you,
but when I don't need you
because no one looks at me the way you do
like I'm worth it, like I'm not insane, like it doesn't matter if I'm good enough
I miss you
and I feel like I've missed my chance on you again
I've missed my part two
and you've already taken my heart with you.

Sometimes,

I sit and run my fingers along the brim of my coffee cup.

I move them in circles after circles,

Feeling the warmth of the steam on my skin.

I do it over and over again,

Until I forget why I started.

Sometimes,

I fall back

Into your arms

Even though I know,

You haven’t always caught me.

I do it over and over again,                                                    

Until I forget why I started.

However long
whatever went wrong
I didn't mean it,
it was just a little mistake
and I mean
I know I'm fickle
I like rushing into things
and my hearts too big for my hands
but it's only because I believe life is a bomb
and we'll all just waiting to explode.
Maybe I'm too emotional
I'm too honest
and I say things at the wrong time
but it's only because I'm afraid of missing the chances
I have to speak.
However long,
whatever went wrong
I didn't mean it,
it was just a little mistake
and I mean
I know I'm not perfect
I like fixing people up
and my judgment is probably a little skewed
but it's only because I believe in finding little beauties
in the oddest of things.
Maybe I like you too much
I'm trying too hard
and I should have just let it go
but I only held on because I know
whatever went wrong
with you is where I belong.

I look at you under the cabin
arms around her peek-a-boo waist,
rubbing her skin with the thin layer
of spilt beer on your hands.
The snow is falling in little specs
like words out of your mouth,
the lights inside keep dimming
with the slaps of people's hands
hitting the ceiling as they dance
to the beat of cheap pop music,
cigarette smoke waving the frozen air
like paint mixing on a palette.
Sloppy, you turn to me letting go of her
rubbing your eyes trying to catch yourself
on the pillar to your right.
Another swig of your drink,
you ask where I've been.
I didn't know how to answer.
I've always been here.
She comes up to your side,
leaning into your ribs like a bridge
that carry her over to your lips.
You looked at me to say something,
but your tongue was too busy
tasting the liquor in her mouth.
I turn my head tucking the hair behind my ear
pretending I was anywhere but here.
She pulls away with such sound
just to make sure I heard her
poison your sweet candy center
with promises of bare and willing.
With one giant tug she immediately has
your hand in her front pocket and looks at me
with glassy eyes full of determination
a smirk with glances towards you,
gray sweatshirt perfection,
then back at me just so I know
that she won with pursed lips and a chuckle.

As she wildly begs you to come inside,
your reluctantly turn
but look back at me
with the clearest definition:
"I'm sorry, but this is the way it is."
Yes, this is the way it is.
You, head spinning with intoxication
partying back inside, because you don't know
what else better there is to do
waking up in the morning
not knowing who's next to you.
And then there's me,
standing out in the cold
putting my hands back in their mittens
looking up at the yellow light in the window
catching your silhouette wrapping around hers,
but backing away without a tear
not even tempted
to go in and stop you,
I've lost you.
and I'm sorry
but that's the way it is.

We were in two separate rooms,
two separate beds,
two separate worlds
just begging
to be together,
but neither one of us wanted to take the chance
to be with one another
when we know
one of us would eventually get hurt
in the end.
And we're so tired of hurting each other.
So we just pretended,
we decided we'd dream up an instance
where our brilliance wasn't severed
with evaded truth that burned likes acid
sticking to our skin
We put together our separate's
and made one same
one identical dream
where we put the beer in the back
of your jeep, climbed into the front
with a duffel full of clothes and some water for the road,
along with a CD packed with the latest country.
When we reached the beach it was raining,
it was hot, humid, and beautiful.
The sun had already set, and no one was around
so we took of our shoes and danced in the sand
even though you didn't want to,
you did it for me.
I laughed because,
well it was funny
to have you hold me awkwardly
and move against the beat
of the song I was humming,
but it was fine
jut to have your arms around me.
We were soaked,
so we took off our shirts
and played tag your it
like we were a bunch of kids.
The rain never settled, and soon enough
I got cold
so you told me we could lay down the seats
wrap up in blankets
and go to sleep,
but of course we didn't.
We stayed up all night trying to get warm
talking about the stars and the little things
most people miss when they're just passing through.
I kissed you accidentally.
I'm sorry,
I just couldn't help myself
you looked so perfect in the moonlight.
You kissed me back,
like you weren't sorry
and we just couldn't help ourselves
from entangling together like two half molds
who just found each other.
The love we made was sweet and sticky,
kind of gentle yet kind of rough
like a honeysuckle leaking it's syrup
all over our pale-touched skin.
The love we made was warm and comfortable
kind of stupid yet kind of perfect
with the way we fit together.
We lost each other, in a sort of frenzy
then we had to be pulled back to reality
and reality is this
that I want to be together,
but you don't want to fit.

I can barely talk about you without my tongue
swelling up and my jaw clench too tight,
because no matter how much you like me
you're always going to love her.
You're apologizing for things you're never going to stop doing,
angrily saying you're sorry just because you think you should
even thought you know in time you'll be saying
the same lines over again.
You're an addiction that never leaves,
punching the glory out of my own self pride
washing the dignity away with every time
you show me what it's like to love somebody all wrong.
And no matter how much you like me,
no matter how many temptations you give into
or how many vulnerable nights you let me in
you're always going to love her.

I search for a star in your stomach sometimes,
seeing maybe the glow of it will radiate up your throat
onto your lips so I can kiss some celestial honesty
some reminder that maybe way deep down you feel for me
the way I always feel for you.
I caress your body catastrophe for some care,
feel your skin for some skipped heartbeat or uneven pulse
some gentle cue that maybe underneath it all you wouldn't want me to walk away
like I've thought about doing so many times.

It all collects to the poignant moment where I realize,
that never wanting to hurt somebody doesn't mean you won't
that believing in somebody doesn't mean they believe in themselves
and nakedly holding someone after beautiful movement intoxication
isn't love.
Finding something to cling to among the wreckage isn't some meaning,
hoping that one day maybe I'll be the one
isn't love.
It's a heavy like mixed with wanting to heal oneself with another.
It's a backwards devotion that takes shape in the awe of each other.
It's nothing worth giving life to if it's just messing with someone
you might honestly care for,
because you can't have the one you actually want.
It's buying time until the real thing comes home.
It's using someone
you might honestly care for,
because you can't stand the idea of being alone.
And it hurts, deeper than I know you ever meant it to
knowing your fake love is a lesson I never learned
and no matter how much you like me,
you're always going to love her.

I have a secret,
but I'd like it to stay between the two of us,
I used to smoke
like twelve cigarettes at a time,
because I thought it would impress you.
I used to wear jean dresses with cut-oust in the hips,
knee high fishnet socks,
and wear my hair in one of those bandanas
with thick black eyeliner
because I thought it was your definition
of a rebel.
I used to scream really loudly,
and drink ***** out of shot glasses
with glitter at the bottom
listening to something toxic on the radio
telling  me to get high,
because I thought that's what you wanted.
I used to steal things from convenient stores
with a bunch of boys in thermal jackets,
things like bubblegum and alcohol
late at night,
because I thought it was cool.
I used to move from place to place,
the speed of a lonely heart dragging me,
after I just made love to some guy I met
who was dancing up on me in the mosh pit,
because I thought somehow it would get me to you.
I used to **** around like it wouldn't catch up to me,
I used to bury my skin in lies like it would change the truth
that this love is a drug
and I'm addicted to you

We were lying there and I was asking about forever.
You told me you didn't believe in words that had an "ever."
You didn't believe in any happily ever after
not a believer
no everlasting
wheresoever
in your
whatever.

Just a lot of moments and drinking
and calling me and holding me and pulling me
towards your chest or towards your hips
while I'm trying to put things in my head
in reverse
so maybe we'll be born again into this hour
just a little younger than we are now
so we won't have to grow up and leave
so soon.

You say you don't want a relationship but I didn't ask you for one.
I didn't
ask you for one.

All I want is for you to kiss my forehead and tell me you're going to miss me,
maybe for reasons you can't clearly see yet
but you'll miss me in some way when it's midnight
and you're lonely
and you can't ask me because I can't fly
all those miles in just a minute
to get to you.

The only hope I cling to is that
you'll end up calling and I can hear your voice
tell me that everything I have is going to be okay
and that you miss me and that you'll see me
sooner than it feels.

But you'll hang up angry because you let your pretty guard down and called
the girl from home who used to love you separately
from all the things in your life that were promised equally to be evermore
like your mom's marriage
or your grandma's life
or your sister's safety.
You'll hang up and all the memories of everything that was ever
good in your life will flood to the surface and blind you
from feeling so terribly in love with me anymore.
You'll hang up and regret calling in the first place,
but when the line is dead and a tear is falling
I'll be the one whispering "forever" on the other end
of what you're still trying to sever.

You picked me up
in your broken down
Cherokee truck.
Drove through the night
with me sleeping
in the seat at your side.
You paid for a room
with your paycheck
and change from the cup holder.
Woke me up,
fiddled with the key
in the cold air and dim light
of the hotel's fickle lock.
Walked me inside,
closed the curtains,
all the blinds.
Picked me up,
laid me down on the bed,
and kissed me slowly.
Not even giving me a moment
to comprehend.
Pushed my hair
out of my face
with your hands
that smelled like dirt and mulch.
Laughing at how soft
my skin was,
******* up the sweetness
in between my teeth.
Softly you drew away
the straps of my dress,
and tore off
your beaten work shirt,
blowing your breath
on my neck.
Pulled me up
with the back of your wrist
pressing me closely
against you.
You tugged the string
from the single light bulb
that lit up our room,
and clicked it off
So we could make love
in the darkness.

And I'll savor
every second.
Because come morning
you won't remember me.
You won't want
to remember this.
How you broke down,
needed me.
And I,
I won't want to remember
that sometimes
I break down,
and need you too.

I never really fall for people who have dark hair
but somehow you rock it.
There's something in the back of your brown eyes
that makes sense even knowing you for 6 seconds only,
but feeling like I could know you for a lifetime
and it would easy.

You brushed your thumb against your cheekbone,
as if you were wiping away an invisible tear
and I could tell your touch was angel gentle,
would melt my bones if my skin was under your own,
which I imagined in my dreams at night to be there.
I wanted your shadow to brush up against mine,
danced in the light's framework together
as if two half pairs found their whole,
while our bodies kept a distance only touched
by fingertips in their secret reaching.

The hardest thing to make a woman feel is beautiful
when she believes she isn't.
I've destroyed a good chunk of my own happiness,
because I chose the wrong things or I believed the wrong voices,
but sitting here on your couch with your tan hands in my blonde hair,
coiling the ends around your knuckles and tugging
just to pull me in closer-
I never felt something like that.

I was steady and so were you and we shared
in- I think it's called trust? - together.
I never lie and neither do you.
But not because we're just good people,
and not because you're god like
(actually we're both far from it we've proven)
but because we don't have to.

I've never laughed the way you make me do.
I can't breathe sometimes and it's not like
the way literature describes or the way a guitarist writes
in the perfect, sentimental, slow song.
I literally cannot breathe because you
are stunning.

I've been driven down a lot of bad roads
by people I let make me feel inferior and allowed
to push me around because I didn't put faith into my own
self-sufficient standing.
But here I am and I haven't faltered nor shaken nor cried.
I'm still.

I don't usually fall for people who are good for me,
but somehow you changed that.

You came crashing into me that night when there was a super moon
shining through the blinds onto an unmade bed where you laid
your head against the softness of my chest and kissed between
my two moons
holding me to their atmosphere and brightening
the stars that fell from my mouth with every sigh.
I closed my eyes and let you lead me through,
and through, and through again until I was tired and slow
and you kissed me so good.
You cradled my head with light kisses to spread the pressure
from the bruise of hitting the headboard when you moved me-
how you moved me and how good that felt to be intertwined with a body
that was thick and warm and made me feel
enticed with how your fingers would run against my thighs.
My lips were sore from your tongue on their insides,
rolled over to see your glistening body come into mine
so simply with tension breathing between the space of our next kiss.
Our sleepless night turned into a rushing morning where the aqua twilight
would fade over your smile as you pulled back from my lips.
Your skin was warm and the air was cold as you pulled up the covers
to darken the sky we created with the steam from our bodies and from
being so close and so complete in a single moment
in a simple night
where our beauty was felt with only our hands.

There I am in this white room
my hands over my ears
elbows straight out
my eyes are shut so tight it hurts
and I'm screaming at you,
spitting fire in between my teeth
a book whizzes past my head
I hear a chair collapse
it's you throwing things again
loosening your tie
cuffs unbuttoned
that one piece of hair in your eyes
All we ever do is fight anymore
yell at each other about stupid things
like why I didn't introduce myself properly
why you forgot to do the dishes
but those stupid things
start to grow into big things
like why it is you never call anymore
on that sin black telephone
why does it never ring!
Why I'm such a ***** about people coming over
how I can't understand how to let things go
all we do is fight
all through the night
until my hairs a mess and your skins hot
until the liquor wears off and our close-knit screaming
has turned into us sitting in separate rooms
boring holes in the walls and biting our nails
until the pain sets in
Neither one of us wants to make the first move
to reconcile, to give in
of course it's never you
it's always me
the one apologizing
it's always me
kissing your neck until you'll forgive
You'll say it's alright,
pat my hand
get dressed and leave again
while I jump in the shower
turn it as hot as it can go
as I watch the dirt slide off my skin
the slime from last night's meltdown
because I know it'll happen once more
I know I shouldn't be sorry
I know you don't really forgive
I'm so sick of being lonely
I'm so tired of being without
So I'll just stay in this white room
and scream until my lungs give out.

A blue bubble blew up
on my screen one night at 12:31.
I knocked a glass of melted ice
onto the carpet and it bounced
like rubber off the floor,
rolling under my bed and hitting the box beneath it.
Your name like a gunshot through
my insomniac mind, crippled
with dreams
I swear
really happen sometimes.

"I need youu tto buy me a ** tel"
As if I could instantly flip money from my fingertips
and have it lie in the palm of your hand
to slide over the marble counter for a key in exchange.
"I need to get out of here honestlyy"
As if I could come carry you myself up the stairs
because elevators scare you.
"No you come here"
I can't, sweetheart.


As if I could be on a plane in the next ten minutes,
fly so far to where you are.
As if I could land in your arms one more time,
and promise you that everything
would be okay--
tell you that you're fine.

I can't, sweetheart.

The neon sign's piping glows cool amber
through the glass's core like an unholy
halo, drowning in the now half-empty
bottle of Miller. The liquid calls me
home, sliding down my throat, tickling my tongue.
As I see her slight figure framed by light—
dipping at the waist, my fingers begin
to trace the curves, her body full, alive.
"Picture" by Kid Rock comes on the jukebox,
while the guys knock down a last round of pool.
She sweats through a humid night in Fort Knox.
Drops sit on her neck like pretty faux pearls—

I cradle the bottle like a blue sin.
Taking another sip, I drink her in.

I know you hear my zipper tab click against the teeth
of my boots when I walked down the hall,
and my ring clinking against my glazed coffee mug
with the Hello Kitty sticker on the side.
I know you see my shadow pass in the space
of the door you left cracked open.
I know you hear me hum Springsteen,
the Eric Church kind,
while I let the filter water fountain fill up my cup.
I walk past your door ten times a day,
and you have to know I don't actually drink that much tea.
I just want you to notice me.

I packed you perfectly
like one packs organs in ice
to preserve them--
to keep the memory breathing
in a box of souvenirs from our six years
fragmentally put together,
until I'd need to relive them again.

I scanned our pictures like x-rays,
the bones glowing silver linings,
blurred and blue.
You always light up.
In any recollection,
you will always be the clarity
I connect to.

I have my moments-- Don't you too?
Nothing is what I thought it was.
I feel you pulsate like blood
under a bad bruise
I packed you perfectly.
You didn't move.

I put you together with a song
the shape, the sound, the length
two months before you were gone.

You didn't really feel that far away
because I still thought of you
as that close,
hand beneath my head above the pillow,
pictures on the nightstand,
kissing you in my dreams.
You were still that close to me.

You didn't really feel that far away
until you got far away.
Until the distance wasn't a number
it was me not calling every hour
it was me not tracing all your steps
it was me starting to
not forget
but just
push past it.

You feel really far away from me now.
Like it wouldn't be just a plane ride.
It would take a lot more than an old photo in a frame
or a backwards hat memory
of something we loved when you were here
and you were mine.

You feel really far away from me now.