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.

I cut a negative hole from your earlobe
down to your shoulder blade,
and used the space to mask the personal void
between my separate ventricles,
pumping the breakup through, slowly,
in small doses.
The sculpted edges of your figure
kept close to my soft curves
holding together what you could salvage
from my tears and breathless begging
for a different set of circumstances,
but your bed

still smelled like sweat and *** from yesterday's,
I guess farewell, love making. And my baby blanket
covered your legs as I nuzzled into your bare chest,
drowning your pecks in sadness.
You kissed my nose twelve times, little nibbles,
like a button in a nursery rhyme,
lulling me into a coma of over thinking and restless
slumber.

I don't remember leaving in the morning,
but I remember ironing my collar, losing
the back of my earring in the carpet,
misplacing my books for my 9a.m.
I remember you holding my hand
under the table at breakfast while you dunked
pieces of hash brown into hot sauce
while I picked at the top of a blueberry muffin
barely able to say bless you,
God bless you when you sneezed.
But you carried me, my dishes I mean,
to the end of the line and you smiled
when we said goodbye.

We broke up a week ago, but
I still sleep in your bed every night
because there's a sink spot in the mattress,
your sheets smell like Old Spice,
and you hold my hand underneath the pillow
until our circulation gives, and the needles
***** our senses, pausing the blood flow
until we roll to our separate sides.
But when our hips collide,
hands playing my ribs like a harpsichord,
kissing your scruffy chin and collarbone line,
my dream begins to slip and I'm reminded again
how good it is to forget.

Coming to you is like coming home,
all washed-up and beautifully damaged.
So I draw the curtains and I turn on the fan
to lull us into another hand-painted, night design
where my lines intersect with yours,
the comforter overlapping us,
shadowing the fact that I shouldn't really be here,
but you dare not ask me to leave.

I've been trying to write all day because things are ending for me
and I've been trying to find a way to tell you about it.
But it's merely been a lot of empty conversation
between me and my mother as she unpacks grocery bags after grocery bags
of food I haven't eaten all day.
I've spoken to the vase of flowers across from me about you.
Stared at the yellow center just searching my broken mouth
for the absolute way to tell you how sorry I am
that I didn't love you in all the right ways I could have.
How I want to believe in now instead of then and how I want
you to be here and hold my hand as I try to make some sense
of why such bad things happen to such good people.
How I'm not going to see you everyday come the end of summer.
How a huge part of myself is over and how I always thought I'd never be
that upset until I looked over at you and realized
that soon enough you'll disappear and I'll be left here.
I'll be left here without you looking over at me.
And I've been trying to write about that.

Been trying to write about it all day when it's 40 degrees in May.
How impossible it is to feel even colder than that
when I'm wrapped in blankets sitting in my kitchen chair
with gray light for reading all the words I just haven't written yet
about anything that I feel or anything that I want to say to you.
I want to tell you that I love you and that I hope we wind up together.
That I don't know what to say a lot of the time, but you help me
get everything out
and maybe that's not tonight .

I've been trying to write about the nostalgia that chokes me after midnight.
How I'm so tired of being lonely.
I just haven't written a thing all day and it's killing me.
I don't know what to say a lot of the time, but you help me
get everything out
and maybe that's not tonight, and maybe
after all this time I don't really need you to be mine.
But a lot of things are ending for me and I've got
so much more that I need to say.

I spread my fingers through her hair, all in knots.
An empty pie tin lies on the floor, binged and dropped
from her side. I'm propping her on the dream she's slipped in.
Cherry goo stains her lip. I thumb the remains,
wiping it on my jeans as she breathes
stale, sugar crust. Her mascara clumps
underneath her lash-line, eyes blinking
like a monarch's wings.
I peel her socks off, cold toes resting
in my hands. She curls beneath
a layer of down and ratty, baby blanket.
Quietly, as she ties herself to another
panic-induced slumber, I flush
her ***** down the toilet and clean
the rim of the bowl with bleach
and the towel we wrapped
each other in the night before
after our shower.
She wakes at the sound of me *******
the lock on her bedroom door, begging
Do you really have to go?
I fall into the falsetto of her trance,
tasting her paleness before I've even
begun to kiss her skin to sleep again.
She sighs as I fit the mold,
wrapping my arms around her frailty,
tucking this Saturday night episode
under the bed skirt.

We'll be loud
Pushing back the doors with our callused hands
It's a revolution
One that we made with our besmirched American reputation and long oak hair
Things can change
We'll dance around
Letting go of what they tell us we can't do now
It's a revolution
One that we'll win with our strong voices and great zeal
We'll never silence the sound
Standing up even if they knock us down
It's a revolution
One that we'll feel with our faces against the stars
We'll be loud
Screams and shouts
Peace and proud
Oh, things can change

You said you wanted to take me on the roof to see the view because it was beautiful and so was I. But I never made it there. I never made it to where you are or where you were and I think I've decided that I never will.

For as long as I have loved you,
You could have walked around the world
       Barefoot and breathing
       Tracing every vein and skin lap on your
       Topographical map of a body
       That swings me in and out like a doorway
       Contemplating whether to keep it shut
       Or leave it open
       With an invitation that smells
       Like smoke and car oil
       Enticing the senses in my brain
       That’s been tampered with your deceiving smiles
       And touches of misconception
       Conveying everything you never really wanted
       Anyone in the world to know
       Every secret
       You tried to keep hidden in the forest of your heart
       Like blue jewel or golden locket
       You threw into the ocean to collect
       With the rest of the mistakes you make
       That you like to discard of into an abyss,
               Sometimes into my abyss when you feel like sharing
       Until all the little monsters swim back up to the surface,
       And you’re reminded of your imperfections
       Every chip in your complexion
       Like a carving in the trunks of the trees
       You use to conceal your appearance
       So no one else can know
       That deep down you’re just a little bit sentimental
       A little bit shy and accidental
       With the way you travel
       Like a vagabond with no discretion,
       But you were beautiful.
       You are oh so beautiful.
At least two hundred and seven times.

For as long as I have loved you,
You could have at least given some thought
Some sort of small consideration
To figure out how you could love me back.
       How you could love me back.

You
arduous, unreliable
tripping, stumbling, slipping
improvident, reckless, trying, fighting
loving, wanting, wishing
easy, constant
Me

I’m so exhausted and burned right to the fingertip,
blistering, painfully, every time we dare to touch.
You’ve worn me down, dragged me through
your loops of excuses and confessions and please,
try to understand, I never meant to hurt—
Yeah. I know. I said it’s alright.
But it was never alright to show up drunk
on a dinner date while I spent hours
on my make-up and you forgot to brush your teeth.
I’m so tired, baby. Have you ever had to look at yourself
in the public bathroom mirror, choking
on every tear and all the things you know
you should say, but don’t because you just want to be loved
at the end of everyday? Have you ever spit your emotions,
literally, into the sink, watching them swirl down the drain?
And have you ever had to tell yourself that you deserve this?
That this park bench is a coffin and you’ve killed yourself again.
That maybe, this actually is alright, because there’s things like
second chances, karma, wishing stars, and a bright side.
I’ve been here, not exactly, but in different ways that still felt
like I couldn’t breath right if you were here but I would die
if you were to leave. So I pulled my sweater sleeves over my hands,
sniffled while you weren’t listening, and laughed when you tickled
my ribs. Because this isn’t so bad. It could be worse. It’s alright.
I think I’ll have an iced tea.

I'm a stupid woman but you called me strong.
I took that with me when I left and always thought you were leaving too.
Turns out you're staying here.
And half of me
half my heart
considered everything just to stay.
Just to give it up and see if I could make something out of you
with just my hands and some deep night loving.
If maybe believing in you from the outside in
could make you smile in the mirror when you look at yourself in the morning.
I'm nakedly holding my love for you in my hands.
But I knew I had to go or you'd never take it.

I've dug enough graveyards in my life to earn myself a tombstone.
Script stupid love lyrics on the surface,
because that's all my beauty is made of.
Just some vulnerability I've conquered over all that time of knowing you
like this, in our way.
But you taught me that I don't have to bury myself any longer.
That loving myself means a lot more than if you love me back or not.
So I took that with me and now I've got a man.

He admires and reflects more of my happiness than his own.
There is a softness in his voice that I've never known.
And I don't have to try so hard to make him understand-
it's just effortless.
It's perfect because the pain isn't constant and because
we don't give up
on each other.

But know that I think about you all the time.
How much I would have liked to give it one last try.
I think about how much you gave me to smile about.
That you brought out a bigger version of who I'd become to be.
How without you I wouldn't be me.

The crowd is suffocating me with their sweaty,

Lifeless faces. Their bodies pressing up against me

With the way they sway and shove.

The pressure to not come back again

With nothing but rumble up to my knees

Is too much to bear with these hands taping my mouth shut

Muffling my screams, my “I want to do best.”

I’ve disappointed so many people already with my irrational,

Liberal mind. That finds itself escaping the poignant reality with everything fantasy.

Then there goes the hand, up shoots my arm without thought.

You can see it stand out like a beacon in the sea calling you home.

It’s up, and it’s willing to grab onto the fleshy ends of the stars

Breaking free of the people

Proving wrong all the expectations,

Strict limitations. Breathing down my neck

With their sick whispers of “you’ll never make it.”

I’ll make it, there goes the hand

It’s up, and it’s ready to be best.

I opened my heart up to you.
I bared it,
point blank
in a final attempt
to win you over.

I threw myself together
so I could confess the truth
that I'm still so completely
in love with you.

And when I woke up today
I promised myself,
made myself believe
that I would be okay.

But then the day was over,
and I grew lonely
thinking of you
hoping we could work it out.

So I opened my heart to you,
I bared it,
point blank
and you did nothing.
You did absolutely nothing.

You let it sit there,
simmering in the silence.
You didn't take,
didn't crush
didn't accept the fact
that maybe someone in your life
for once actually believed in you.
Understood you for who you are.

So if you ask me,
why I keep coming back.
It's because I opened my heart to you,
and if you're leaving me for good
I need you to close it.

Sloppy

slurring speech

fire burning

dropping bottles at your feet.

Catching glimpses behind glassy eyes
spilling, slipping
passing out beneath the skies.
Dancing on the table tops
acid leaking words from your tongue
screaming out songs at the top of your lungs.
Stumbling, sliding
blacking out in the dead of night
escaping the reality
poison dripping, losing sight.

I remember what you said to me,
shouting phrases, spitting words
pointing me out in the crowd
a villain just blaming her victims
trying so hard, unable to fix 'em.

I remember how you looked at me,
something you wanted but couldn't have
Praying for a rise out of me,
unsure of your special demise
twisting feelings with your eyes.

I remember crying in the backseat
curled up, head laying outside the door
just trying to figure out
how to get closer to the floor.

I remember how you destroyed
every picture I had of you,
set them up to burn
with the way you played your game,
night and day
your face even seemed to change
drunken with the addiction
that you could finally get away
from everything you didn't know
how to deal with, that wasn't okay.

I remember thinking
that this isn't the same boy
that rubbed my back
combed my hair,
wrapped his arms around me
pressed his lips against mine, so bare.

Sloppy

slurring speech

fire burning

dropping bottles at your feet

I remember it all,
I'll always remember this you I hated I knew
and you'll never know
you'll never remember
any of the mistakes you made
any of the hearts you break
any of the colors you fade.

Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your memories
are lying next to me
shaped like an outer mold
that holds me like you used to
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when I'm crumbling
at the ends of all your skeletons
haunting the emptiness
of this bed
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your lovers mark
is still stained on the sheets
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your memories
are lying next to me
shaped like an outer mold
that holds me like you used to

You called me from Ocean City the other night.
Silence in the background, a good friend by your side.
Drunk voice you spoke softly and asked what I was doing.
My sleepy voice was a distraction that kept you captivated in how lovely
it sounded over the telephone when you were dizzy and couldn't find your feet.
It sounded perfect when you couldn't feel a thing.
I'm a habit you'd love to break, but I'm already broken
and this is already fate.

I asked why you called and you said "yeah" three times too quickly,
waving off the question like you didn't have an answer
when really you just didn't want to tell me that
honestly
you just wanted to hear my voice when you found the fun had ended
and the games were over and the people had left and you were trying
to fix a fan meant to cool you off, but kept you frustrated
on why it wouldn't keep spinning like your world was and why it was
I kept you in the same place when you always thought you didn't need nobody
to bring closeness and completeness to your empty space.

You tried to hang up but something wouldn't let you.
Maybe the sand in your eyes or the sweating drink in your hand,
you slipped and pressed the button before you heard me finish the goodbye.
But it was better off this time,
or so you told yourself,
because what woman wants a man who's been drunk in the sand since 9 o'clock that morning.
What beauty that she has wants to be near a man who's *****.
You questioned yourself as your covered chest hit the bed and as your head
laid itself against the comfort of a place you told yourself you'd stay long enough
to forget that you wanted to be where I was.

You tried to call again but something wouldn't let you.
Maybe the incapability to hold a grasp or the darkness in your eyes took over,
you just shut your mouth and pretended to be sleeping
pretended you weren't dreaming of holding me next to you in that moment.
But to ease your worry, just know your memory matched mine.
Just know that I dialed your number seven times and I stared
at my ceiling fan begging it to stop spinning and spinning
around how many times I would find myself wanting you again
when I shouldn't.
Just know that I wanted to be wherever you were.
Just know that it wasn't over and I didn't want it to end.
Just know that while we weren't talking
you were always in my head.

I can't drink a Miller without the taste
of a backyard, bonfire
raising and your name
only catching speed
in my throat before I gasp
too many, too late confessions. I can't
let the liquid rest with me,
just before I swallow,
or else I'll drown in reminiscing.
So I gulp.
I ferment my own mind and I punish
bottle after bottle even though
every breath after just reminds me
of inhaling your own
when we'd wind ourselves back up
after a drunken escapade
in your bed after everyone else
went to sleep and our dreams
had no chance of catching up to us. I can't
think of you too long
unless I balance on distance
and YOU'RE NEVER COMING BACK!
That's it. I can't
decide whether I'm happy that you've grasped
something so real and sturdy
after all the times I've played the crutch,
or if I hate you,
still, for leaving me by the fingertips,
dangling on a prayer for your safety,
basking in the light of your brilliance,
only to find myself here
in my shower
with a Miller
and an old country song on the radio.

I've been writing for what seems like forever about you.
In different ways I've been severed angry.
In manic ways I've been crazy for you.
I've cried over you, I've cried for you, I've cried beneath you.
I've been the weight under your thumb and the force that guides your arms.
I've held you and I've written about that in a thousand different ways.
When you've been too heavy and when you wouldn't let me
put my arms around you long enough for you to realize
that I'm here and I'm tired of saying it-
I've already written it down.  
It's been six years but it feels like forever.
It feels like I've said all I can say, but I'm not done speaking.
I'm not done yelling and I'm not done writing.

But there's only so many poetic ways to call you an *******.
There's only so many more nights
that I have you around close enough to feel you
and that's what I like to write about.
How I feel you.

You'll be gone soon and I haven't decided how to deal with that yet.
I just write about it because in some twisted ******* way I think that will fix it.
You're going away, but I won't tell you I miss you.
I'm not going to tell you that even if you beg me to say it.
Because that will make me weak and I need to learn
to be strong without you.

So when you get on your plane I won't be crying in the terminal.
I won't even make it to the airport actually,
because you don't want me there and I don't want to see you hate me
as the last sight of you before you go.
I'll be at home and when the clock strikes 6:45 I'll know you're leaving.
I know you'll be gone.
Then I'll crack open a bottle of red wine even though it's too early in the morning.
I'll sit on my couch and watch the sun come up without your existence,
pull out a pen and paper and write through you.
Write right black through you until the day has ended
which will feel like forever.
Forever, I'll write again.

Covered in sweat,
hairs a mess,
lying between the curb and the pavement,
spewing out the alphabet in cursive
saying things you'll regret in the morning
making crowns out of cardboard beer boxes
because you think you're the ******* king,
news flash
you're just another kid to everyone else
you're not special
you're not any better than anyone else
because you can hold down your liquor longer
than the girl in the ripped white jeans
or the college boy who's been doing this since he was sixteen.
you're no better than anyone else
because you stay up until five in the morning,
forgetting how you got from one place to the other,
but oh wait sorry
I forgot we're young and this is what makes you you
I forgot that this was what you gave me up to do.
So I hope this makes you feel important,
I hope it replaces all the warmth I thought I was giving you
I hope it was worth hurting me for,
I hope it was worth trashing all that belief I put in you,
when you used to be my king
I hope the sweat sticks, the concrete cracks, you break your own heart
and I hope you wear your crown like the king you are.

What you didn't see in me,
is just a mirror of yourself
reflecting all that you gave up;
all that you gave up in me.
It wouldn't be wrong of you to say
it's too late,
because if our love was an hourglass
your half of time has ran out.
It would be better to forget it
I'm not about to ruin what I have,
It would be better to forget it
don't try coming back for me.
Even though I'll always love you
I'm going to walk away because
I deserve to.
I've spent all my time without you
trying to comprehend
what it is you didn't see in me,
but now I know
it wasn't me
it really was you
and what you didn't
what you couldn't see in yourself.
And I'm tired of trying to get you to believe
that you're brilliant and worth it,
I'm tired of trying to get you to believe
that my love is all you really need.
So it wasn't what you didn't see in me,
it wasn't me
it really was you
and even though I'll always love you
I'm going to walk away this time
despite your efforts of coming back,
because I deserve to
I deserve to.

I opened my heart up to you.
I bared it,
point blank
in a final attempt
to win you over.

I threw myself together
so I could confess the truth
that I'm still so completely
in love with you.

And when I woke up today
I promised myself,
made myself believe
that I would be okay.

But then the day was over,
and I grew lonely
thinking of you
hoping we could work it out.

So I opened my heart to you,
I bared it,
point blank
and you did nothing.
You did absolutely nothing.

You let it sit there,
simmering in the silence.
You didn't take,
didn't crush
didn't accept the fact
that maybe someone in your life
for once actually believed in you.
Understood you for who you are.

So if you ask me,
why I keep coming back.
It's because I opened my heart to you,
and if you're leaving me for good
I need you to close it.

I like when the hero's you.
I like being saved,
but you're so far away
and, and suddenly your face
that I promised you I'd remember
is becoming a melody of ghosts
screaming to me that I ******* up,
that somewhere along the lines drawn
I lost you.
And it's so cold here,
miles from where you are,
my mind is so tired
I can't find you.
I know you're out there,
somewhere,
maybe in the middle of it all,
but I just can't reach you any longer.
I forgotten what it's like to have you here.
I know you told me to be strong,
but it's so hard
and, and I've grown so weary of pretending
that I'm strong enough to be the hero.
I like when the hero's you
when you're the one saving me.
So come home please,
come save me
You're just too far away.

"How've you been?"
You said like we were done.
Like I was finished.
The words stung like someone
was pouring salt in all my cuts.
It wasn't the question itself.
In fact it was quite compassionate of you
to ask of my current state.
If I was making it,
if I was okay.
It was that you had to use
the past tense, not the present.
Not a simple, "How are you?"
But a question you hadn't asked in a while,
something you didn't already know the answer to.
"How've you been?"
How have I been.
Have.
More or less the inquiry was toxic
asking me plainly
how I was doing without you...

Well truth is
I am barely holding myself together.
I can't go a day
a moment
a second
where I don't think about you.
And just when I get a minute
where you're less apparent in my mind,
something happens
and I think of you
all over again.
I fall apart every night
when it's cold
and I have no one to hold
me.
I breakdown and reluctantly weep
over pictures of you
of the past, not the present.
Not a simple, "Now"
but a then.
Back when
we were fixable.
I'm not okay.
I haven't been doing alright
without you.

..."I'm alright,
How are you?

I broke the sugarglass
the substance you pulled
from your heartstrings.
As I saw my reflection in it
I realized it wasn't even real.
The sweet stick of the candy lick
was enough to get me hooked,
but now that I see my tears
in the glassy surface,
the cracks showing their true meaning
I know the red was just a weapon
to entice me into your game,
made me play until I lost.

So yeah
I broke the sugarglass
that fake love mask
you tricked me into adoring.

Excuses
That's all we ever were,
just a bunch of exceptions and alibis
I couldn't see it when we were together,
I was so blinded
thinking if I could just keep believing in you
then maybe those excuses
those reasons, those loses
would turn into truth
would turn into reality.
I was so blinded
my world was caving in
but I kept pushing it up,
because I thought that if I could just keep
believing in you
then maybe those times
I said
"Oh, but it's just him"
defending you,
then maybe you'd learn to love me
like I loved you.
Now looking back,
I realize that those patches
that were so blurry
so caught up in you
were only remembering the good parts
the solid moments
where you made me think we had this
we could have had this.
I realize that all we ever were
was excuses
reasons, loses
we were a distant boy with a broken soul
and a lost girl who kept using that as an defense
for why you couldn't love her.
We were just excuse after excuse
apology after apology
rain after rain
we were nothing
that I can see
I can now see
we never stood a chance
to have this.

Hi
How are you?
I'm fine
That's good

Hi
How are you?
I'm fine
That's good

Everyday
The same old thing
The same fake together
The same forgetting to remember.

Hi
How are you?
I'm fine
That's good

Same time, same place
Pass in the hall
You say the same thing.
I feel the same sting.

Truth is,
I'm barely holding it together
with each and every time
I remember.
That we were once beautiful
in everything we did.
But I won't tell you that.
I don't want you to know I still love you,
I still care.
I never would.

So Hi
How are you?
I'm fine
That's good.

Withstanding your magic
was very hard to do,
you
who caked my breaks
with superglue
I knew it wouldn't last long
before I'd give in
to your sweet smile
perfect skin
it's just I was scared
of getting hurt all over again
blundering back to black and blue,
you
who loved my lies
made them true
So I'm giving up,
I'm giving in to you
no matter how scared I am
that you'll wind up like him
you're just irresistible
I'm giving up,
I'm giving in to
you
who gave me sparkle
shiny and new
I'm giving up
for you.