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 have to make him a turkey sandwich,
crusts cut off, mayo on the left piece of bread,
in two triangle halves every single night
before he goes to sleep on the right side of the bed
with two pillows, fluffed twice each, slippers
tucked neatly underneath the bed skirt.
And every night I wonder
what would happen if I forgot the pickle on the side,
like the one time
we ran out of cheese and my car had a flat tire
and the supermarket was so far, but boy
did he give it to me. I’ve never seen someone count
to one-hundred so fast with their finger taps
before the table flipped. Never have I seen
someone clean up glass so slowly, each piece
thrown in the trash individually
just like my pieces
that have been carved away year after year,
loaf after loaf, as my eyes droop backwards
and rest on his haircut that I give
every six weeks on a Wednesday. Sometimes,
I try to kiss his neck when I let the scissors slip,
but he always reminds me that this slot
is “haircut time” and there’s no necessity in kissing
anyway. And I’ve tried to respect
his attic closet compartments with the key
that had gone missing when he was fifteen,
and I’ve tried to wish on misshapen pieces of cereal
in my bowl because I’m that desperate for a miracle.
Do you know?
Do you know how hard it is to lie next to someone
who you know doesn’t dream of you, not because he doesn’t
want to, but because he can’t. He can’t
do so many things and sometimes I’ll lay out a green tie
on a workday instead of blue just to watch him blow up
because at least that’s a feeling. At least that’s not white walls
and another **** turkey sandwich. And I know that’s sinful,
and I also know that I fold my hands wrong when I pray,
but I’ve tried to shape him for years and all I’ve gotten
is a cast with nothing to fill the mold. And I know my suitcase
has been packed for weeks, but. . . Dear God, you know I’ll never leave.
I save my laundry for Saturdays, don’t tell him why I’m crying
myself back to sleep, and check the fridge one last time
for the right deli meat.

Remember how I'd smoke after school
outside your classroom window
watching you pack up your briefcase,
pulling your arms through your blazer sleeves?
Four cigarettes in a ring
between my thumb and fingertips,

an "okay" sign.
You preferred jean dresses with the hips cut out,
knee-high fishnet socks,
my hair wrapped curiously in bandana red
with my eyes outlined in black.

I stole condoms and Twinkies,
brought them to your apartment
after you'd call to unwrap me

like penny candy
on the mattress in the middle of your floor,
each tear in synch with the teeth
of your zipper releasing.

A green wrapper
and an empty trash can
next to my book bag.
You licked your fingers
after the last bite.

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’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.

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.

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.

To his Best Friend

You can tell him how incredibly annoying
it is that he makes love with his socks on,
and you can tell him that no matter
how many country songs he plays
the jeep will still be broken and the sun
will still go down at five o’clock
despite the garage lights and the cans of Miller.

Tell him I really didn’t notice him when he walked in,
and tell him that maybe I’ll be over to the party Saturday,
or that he walks pigeon-toed and that’s why
he ***** at walking on the curbs.

You can tell him anything you want to, just
don’t tell him that I love the way he holds a spoon
like a shovel or how his hair sticks up in the front
outside his hood in the mornings, or that his pants
don’t fit his waist that dips in from his belly,
soft, skin warm from my body lying on top of his,
and don’t tell him

that the more backwards we bend the more forwards
I fall. Don’t tell him that sometimes I make the bed
just so I can stay longer, please,
don’t tell him that the way he looks in a towel
with water dripping from his bottom lip
makes me want to crawl back into bed, rattle
his bones, and **** the kisses with my teeth
as I dig myself deeper into this infrastructure,
this balance, between hating what I’ve done,
and loving someone
who’s never going to think you’re enough.

Don’t tell him that I’ve strung together our moments
like a necklace and that I wear that burden
on my chest, hoping, between prayers
that I find a way to breathe. Don’t tell him
that I’ve broken over him. Don’t tell him

that sometimes my double-takes are triple
and sometimes I cry in the bathroom
and sometimes—
just please (save me*) please don’t tell him.

We ate chicken sandwiches, mine
no bun, at a table with an 80's
geometric design on top of two silver
metal legs with our legs
intertwined. I tried
to draw a comic on the wrapper,
but you kept making me laugh
by reenacting the conversation
we had with the lady at the register
who gave us the wrong change,
but using a baby's voice instead.
The boy mopping the floors wished
desperately that we would leave, but
you looked so cute with ketchup
on your lip and I really, really
didn't want you to drop me off.
There was an Adele song
on the radio that we've heard for the second
time, but you sound more like
a forgotten track to a John Hughes film--
a little heavy, a little messed up, a whammy
bar progression with blonde hair
who wore jeans and had a really cool car.
I'd like to kiss you like Molly Ringwald
does Judd Nelson in that movie
we talked the whole way through as it played
on Netflix. I'd like to wear you
like a bad haircut; something no one else
understands but I pull off effortlessly.
You feel effortless to me. So refill
my take-out cup with five different sodas,
make a scene as we leave the restaurant,
my hand laced up in yours, and let me drink
you in as I pretend we aren't driving
back home just yet.

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.

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.

Back in 2003 I found a piece of me
buried, like a shard of pottery, in the sandbox.
A Hot Wheel’s car, little rusted with one tire missing
that I used to shove in the little zippered flap
of my Powerpuff Girls backpack. Older, fifteen,
I carved another piece of me out and pasted it
to a vanilla letter, sliding the envelope through the slits
in his locker door, and I lost it. I’m not even sure he read it.
Nineteen, faded and little stolen, I threw another piece of me
into my mother’s grave. Plush petals, rosary beads, crystal
liquid drops infused with microscopic memories. I cut
myself in slivers and jammed uneven edges together
just to gusto the void, compact the space, walk solid.
And now, twenty-three, I press my face against a mirror
and slide my arms into a flannel, grandpa, hammy-down.
You took the last piece. You crawled into my guard, tore the lining
and spit your black blood on the blank memoirs I had hanging
next to the split.

Take me, now, if that’s how it’s gunna be. You wanna live
with the dust bunnies in my baggage? Feed off my insecurities,
my staggered breath, or my mercury dreams? I don’t want to be saved.
I’ve made my own maze with only one way out, so you’re trapped
in the Miss Havisham model I’ve made, rotten cake. Build yourself
a new girl from my discards, suckle the marrow from my bones,
and blow, like a glass ornament, a pretty replica of who I am.
Isn’t that what you wanted? Wasn’t that part of the chase?
The sweet idea that you could pull some perfect women out of the rubble?
I bet that’d be nice to show off, you *******. But here’s the catch,

I know I’m broken. You don’t need to remind me. So take
the smiles I’ve learned to draw on my lips for two cents,
and give up the **** fight I know you won’t win.

"I wish we could have came into each other's lives
at a better time for me."
Because that's how things work.
It's all about timing,
and you ran the clock.

*** alarm,
wake up call.
I didn't even take my shoes off.

You talk so loud but you never say a thing.
Just push me against car doors
in the parking lot outside your apartment
with the lamppost's reflection blurring
on the rain covered pavement,
a ***** mirror
smearing our shadows together.

I yell but you only answer
with the breath from your open mouth
as you kiss the frustration out of me—
suffocation.
Your tongue speaks a language
only I thought I knew.

Turns out she did, too.

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

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.

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 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.

For me, you are Sunday. Today is Sunday,
and tomorrow will be Sunday. Because I am stuck
in gingham yellow sheets, small white saucers
with matching ceramic cups, cigarette ashes
like a crop circle around them as I sip homemade
coffee. The ***** brown liquid sloshing
in the back of my throat, scorching my insides
as I swallow something not nearly as
painful as looking up for an answer to the crossword
and realizing you are not in fact actually there, and your hand
is not on my thigh, tracing the outline of my knee
with your thumb. I am stuck

like a kid on the monkey bars. Deciphering
between reaching my hand out to grab
the next rung or just allowing myself
to fall into the wood chips, welcome
that scraped skin and soil in the worry lines
of my palms. Because calling you,
reaching out to that line, could end with me
face up on my bed staring at the blades of my fan
trying to pinpoint just one to follow around and around
again. Or I could get your voicemail. Or you could
see my number and decide to hang up. How close
were we really anyway?

Or you could answer and we could talk through
how bad the weather is, how we've been doing,
and then get to the poignant silence, that hum
in the background that coils through the wires
into my ear, down the canal, and sinks into my heart
until the pressure becomes too much. Until
I tell you that its Sunday. That I need the 1994
Tony Award winning musical for 3 across, and hopefully,
you'll give me the right answer.

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.

You look best in my lamp light. Your belly scar
rough underneath my fingertips as I jump the scratch
and attach myself to your hips, kiss your pelvic bone
until even my teeth can taste your sweetness. I can feel
black kettles and the burn from the ironing board crash of 1999.
When we’re wrestling in my duvet covers, the shadows
cast your memories up like a sanctuary projection. I see red race cars,
your brother jumping on the couch, fishing bait kept
in your back pocket. Your lips taste like liquor but I hear nursery rhymes
from when you were little, wobbly, an over-all dream
in the yard seen through the kitchen window. I know,
that you’ve dressed yourself in bad dreams
and broke yourself over footballs and houses of green paper,
but you look best in my lamp light when my hands
cram your face into my palms, your blush dripping
from you cheeks. Because I see the way
you burrow yourself into my chest when you think
I’ve gone to sleep, and I’ve seen the way your foot catches
on the edge of the woodwork right before you fall.

You dipped into me like a pool
you hadn't swam in all summer, a hole
in the back of your mind you almost forgot
was still there. It was as if you predicted
the big splash, the droplets like crystals
I could see through to your heart, reading
your feelings like a bestseller on a lounge chair,
basking in the sun on the side. You broke
through my surface with your hands, those hands
that strip me down to just my tan
and hold my ribs like a steering wheel, driving
our bodies together as I kiss the chlorine
from your lips. I'd wrap you up in a towel
just to trace the ***** of it from hip to hip,
use that momentum to tell you
how much I love the way your smile looks
when you think my eyes are closed
as we lay on top of the sheets with a fan
circulating in the limited space we leave between
my baby sundress and your khaki shorts,
our bare feet playing with each others toes.
I like the way your hands feel in my hair,
pulling it down the line drawn on my back
with your knuckles, landing in the dimples
of my back like a raft, floating
on the feeling suspended in this moment
where I bite your lip and you sigh into another kiss.
I like how it doesn't get dark until eight,
how you make little circles around my hipbones,
the sound of your laugh as it bounces off my own,
smiling into another push as you pull
my heart over yours into the shade to cool.

If I painted a picture of you
I think I’d call it Daniel and his Favorite Cigarette
and I’d delay passing the sugar
because you couldn’t wait four more seconds
for your daughter to finish her story.
I would buy all of the newspapers in town
with the crummy headline Fauster & Brown
Up in Sales for 3rd Week Straight and burn them
all the way through to the sports section
just to watch your favorite team’s numbers
go up in flames. I would rewrite
all those Father’s Day cards, remove the empty seat
in the third row on the left from my poetry reading
that I had reserved, stop putting new batteries
in the remote when you complains. But of course

I won’t. I’ll just make a scene at Sunday brunch
after we finish saying prayers to my dead big brother
at his grave, that dash like a tattoo on my bones—
Yes, Dad, I could have worn a tie
but I like the fact that I still smell like yesterday
cause I know my brother will never know
the scent of tomorrow. I will only curse
between sips of coffee and I’ll stroke my sisters hair
so she knows at least someone has been listening
these past ten years.

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.

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.

You think I rub my arms over and over again
because it’s a little chilly and I should have worn a sweater,
but really I need to distract myself from the reflection
of you playing cat’s cradle with her fingers and nuzzling
your kiss into her wild hair. It’s not me who’s there even though
when the moon’s face wears the night to it’s annual masquerade
you’re the one who’s reaching out to me. Maybe we don’t kiss
but we don’t have to, because our souls have been suspended
above our heads like mistletoe and you chose
a long, long time ago to hold her instead of me. And you think
I’ve found recovery in the time, found separation
between the summers, but I tuck my hair behind my ears
and crush my lips back into my teeth not out of habit
but so that I don’t scream, That was supposed to be me!
That was supposed to be me. You know, too, or else you wouldn’t
recall some stupid puddle memory just so I’ll cling
to that last ember in the bottom of my heart and light it on fire.
So I’ll be the one to remind you of the frame you cut from my soft cedar
to put her in. You can turn my light down. I’ve got nothing for you now.

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.

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

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.

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 miss your skin,
thermal t-shirts
two buttons at the top
I miss your fingers in your hair
pushing it behind then back again
without even thinking
I miss your logic of this mess we wrapped ourselves in
telling me it was perfect
because we had waited so long
just to look at each other the way we do
it didn't matter how fast it went
it didn't matter what complications got in the way
you were in this if I was in this
and I'm in this
deeper than I think either of us ever intended
that's why I miss your healing hands
and heartstring cords that sang me songs
of trust in every smile
I miss your skin,
because it was the most tangible way
I could feel you
and now that time has past
and my memories of you have faded
into delicate blurs of almost was
I can't feel you anymore
I can't feel anything

Some guy's picture on the inside of a book sleeve
told me that he could help me write something other
than the worthless crap I'd been spewing for the past couple months.
Takes ten steps-
normal stuff
like
1. Clear your mind (which means you have to have a mind to begin with).
2. Don't be afraid
3.
4.
5.
Poetry is like this.. writing a poem is like that..

6. Pick a subject that means something

I mean all the real stuff you need to know
you should know by now, right?
Well I didn't **** anyone. My innocence didn't die when I was fifteen.
In fact, I still pretend two water drops are racing each other
when the fall down my car window-
and like a real contest I take bets.
I bet on a lot of things
like how long it will take me to get to the point-
the point
so how am I supposed to write beautifully about tragic things
I never experienced?
Worst thing that happened to me this week
was I put too much mayonnaise on my sandwich, making it mushy
and no one wants to read about that.

So the book then tells me, once I've scraped tediously through chapter 7,
that I should use bizarre words in real conversations
to spark my "withheld creativity"
because I'm "too scared" to let it show.
Here's a tip the book doesn't tell you-
don't ask your two best friends for help
because they'll come up with things like
"sparkling parachute pants"
or even "scented paraffin"
and who the hell knows what a paraffin is.
Then they'll start calling themselves your "muse"
and you'll never hear the end of it.
But they'll buy you drinks to make you feel better about
how ****** you feel and the ten blank word documents you have at home.
So I guess you probably should ask your friends after all.

Chapter 10 is when it gets really weird,
because it starts wondering which side of the brain writes what-
telling me to start writing things with my left hand
because it's "neurologically different" then what your right hand would do.
But last time I checked, I didn't write poetry with my right hand
because it surged some hidden message onto the page.
I did it because I'm right handed.
I advise you just completely skip chapter 10
unless you're a shrink and need some Sunday pleasure reading.

The final chapter becomes really inspirational-
reminding my tired heart how much originality I possess
and there's still lyrical words "hidden up my sleeve."
(they use a lot of clichés like that).
It will tell you how every great writer has been there.
How they all started just like you.
How "hero's get remembered, but legends never die"
Wait sorry, that's something else.
See what these books will do to you?
They'll make you crazy
you'll start drinking things like chai tea and reading soap opera magazines.
You'll stop going to the bathroom entirely-
and they'll tell you to do stupid **** like that
because they understand that right now
you're so desperate to write something
ANYTHING
that you'll start romancing about the stuffed animal in the corner
or the piece of lint you just know is under your bed.
Before you know it you'll start listening to Norah Jones on the weekends,
not shaving,
wearing glasses
snapping
the whole bit,
because that's how empty you feel
because writing
is like breathing
and when you stop writing
you stop breathing-
it's that easy.

But I advise you to finish the book.
It'll be worth it.
However, you won't start writing a **** thing
until you laugh at all the prose sections in a book
meant to tell you how to write poetry,
but here's the secret they don't tell you.
No one can tell you how to write poetry.
You just have to do it.
You just have to **** for a good while before you start writing
something better than "seasons farewell" or the other Robert Frost snippets
you've been scratching on pages lately.

What I learned
after 398 pages of poorly constructed criticism and self help
is that the reason you aren't writing
isn't because you're scared you won't get published
you can't pick a subject
or you don't have any time.
"Don't try to dissect the moment, or it'll be gone."
The reason you can't write right now
is because you won't let yourself ****.
Be bad, have a beer, and eat a lot
it'll make you feel better
than writing something flawless the first time through.

I mean you already know everything you need to know by now.
So just write
and **** at it-
it'll be worth it.
Trust me.

We don't look at each other anymore.
The hurting is its own kind of sad
that I've framed with the words you never told me.
And you'd think because I gave you
so much of my own self-requited happiness and help,
that because I did pull you up from the trash can facade
you threw yourself in
covering your skin in your own garbage and alcohol rain
that you'd see me.
You'd think because I loved you that things would be different.

No, I didn't ******* in the back bedroom
like that sophomore did the weekend before.
But I did clean up the beer you spilt that you couldn't afford
on the night you shouldn't have been drinking.
I did let you hold me when you looked around the crowded room
of people you didn't know
realizing you were alone.

No, I didn't laugh when you smashed your hand
through that window on a dare.
But I did wash the blood from your cuts with a gentle cloth
when you weren't looking so it wouldn't hurt.
I did call your brother to tell him you were alright
when you were supposed to be home an hour ago and he couldn't find you.
I took a lot of your pain away.
In different ways than the beer bottles in you back pockets
or the empty body you left lying on the bed.
I did talk you through a long night when you didn't know what to do-
I did that for you.
I did help you pack away the parts of you you didn't like-
I'll always do that for you.

And you'd think that'd make you look my way.
Because all the things I did do
should outweigh the things I didn't.
You'd think because I loved you that things would be different.

But you don't even look at me anymore,
it's like I'm some broken angel on your shoulder you can't see.
I just always thought I was more important
than the things I couldn't be.

We used to sit in your parent's basement
with your two dogs on their little beds
in the corner by the old desktop computer,
wooden hand-me-down grandmother cabinetry,
lace doilies underneath all the candles
on the coffee table. I made you turn out the lights.
We would sit there and pretend
that we could find something better to do
than kiss between commercials
or talk about all the things we used
to dream about in high school, how I
got mine and how yours were like
the back bumper of a car that got left
out in the rain too long-- a little rusty.

Your kissing was a little rusty,
but I let it go because you didn't make fun
of me ordering a double grilled cheese
on our first date. You also didn't judge
when I got drips on my dress
from my ice cream cone. I can still
remember the way you'd yell at me
for stopping too far out at intersections,
laughing how I was gonna get us killed
one day, but I think
you just really loved to hear me sing
over you. I think you really loved

me, and here I was playing teeter
totter on curbs in little jean shorts
with a guy who gave me a slice
of leftover pizza. Here I was, burning
down your own ambitions because
they didn't seem as glittery as my own,
because you didn't quite match all the sketches,
all the plans I had on my map. Because
if we were to draw straws I always thought
you would come up a little short.
I think you really loved me and I left you
like a penny in between that couch
we used to sit on.

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

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.

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.

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.

"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 let your lips touch mine like church wine.
Just a taste,
my legs around your waist
you led me to the bed.
I saw our silhouettes reflect in the mirror,
you standing there
hands upon my face
running softly along my hair
you laid me down just so you could stare
at how bare my body was and how beautiful
it looked in the hold your eyes had on this moment
where you could trace your fingers along my edges
just to feel how soft it was when you pressed upon it.

It's not always like this.
Sometimes I hate you when don't respond
to something so honest,
but the way you lay your head into my neck
and just breathe
without using your eyes
our bodies
our own little infinity
that I can't even fathom beyond being there.

This was our goodbye.
This was you saying
"I don't want you to wait around for me,
because I want these next four years to be you
doing everything
you've always told me you wanted to do."
This was because of me loving you.

A year made a circumference around my brain
when I was baring myself naked to you
it lapped my skin and touched my lips until I was frightened
from speech and just kept breathing
seven heavy sighs of separation
until I convinced myself that's what it would take
for me to get back to you.

I've been here so many times but not like this.
Not like this where there's no more chances.
Just the shower running and my head on your chest,
just you pushing my hand down when I resist.
But you were slow and gentle and made it feel alright,
and I shouldn't have been crying
but it was so beautiful and this was so beautiful and you
are so beautiful

This was our final moment
one last night,
here we go,
I loved you always
goodbye.

This was our goodbye and let's face it,
a big part of me knows
that it won't just be a year until I see you.
You're never coming back, heart attack
against the realization that once you're gone "for now"
you're gone for good.
So I kissed you like our lips were magnetized and would stay together
even 1,619.9 miles away.
I kissed you to erase the picture of the map in my head,
from point A to point B
and from the start of a journey to its end.

The morning when you leave for the airport and I'm getting dressed alone,
won't be our goodbye
not even when you leave the key and drive
not even when you kiss my forehead
or promise to call
or I'm falling to my knees.

This is our goodbye.
This is our
I believe in you
I'll love you always
goodbye.

I know that things didn't turn out perfect.
And I know that falling for me wasn't quite in your plans,
not like you counted on all these wounds representing your lovin
but I don't want you to miss out on something worth holding
between the moments of should I go back or look ahead.

Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

I haven't gone to my apartment yet.
I've been sitting in my car listening
to all the decisions bounce off the guardrails I've constructed
on the edges of my brain
where it haphazardly connects to my heart.

You held me the other night.
Lips pressed to my neck,
pulling the sheets overtop us like a shadow
that only you could create with trying to hide
the parts of me I didn't like.

I don't want to steal a chance from you,
because love shouldn't be selfish
and I know that giving up any ties you had to my side
would let you be free enough to let me go.


"You can be mad in the morning,"
you used to tell me
"but don't leave me now. "

Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

I've been pressing on the lines the leather makes
in my driver's seat
trying to count the stitches until the numbers add up
crooked like your spine feels
after some backwards bending over my mistakes.
I know I'll never know forgiveness.

That's why I have to break the bond you have on me,
because you deserve the opportunity to love somebody good,
for the right reasons
instead of just a macramé of excuses and cover ups
for all the times I didn't.
I just didn't.
For all the times I never let you go
when I could have.

*Because if I didn't love you, you would know.

Don't tell me I have your attention when I don't.
Captivated you in a church dress with the hole in the stockings,
eating salted tomatoes between two slices of bread
feet touching mine under the table
on a Sunday after my Confirmation ceremony.

Don't tell me how naughty a catholic school girl can be
with your hand on my thigh and a thumb on my cheek.
Kissing me hard and heavy, leaving a bite on my lip with a grunt
smiling while you whip your hair back from your tan skin and brown eyes.

Don't tell me you love the way I look when you don't know me yet.
Cigarette drag me out
breathing smoke behind my ears as you lay your hand
out the window beside your bed,
while my mama's sleeping and doesn't know where I am
and my white blouse is on the chair
hanging next to my purity.

Don't tell me how unholy I've been when you don't know faith.
How it's not worth praying for something I don't have any more,
lost in my own disillusions that you created out of words you swear you left unsaid,
with a tear pressed against the part of me that felt like it was falling in love.

Don't tell me that it's all my fault.

Don't call me your lady
when all I ever wanted was for you
to settle down with me like a safety,
anchor your trust in my belly
made to keep my body warm, but your icy cold.

Don't rip or tear or strike out your own mistakes on my body.

Don't tell me how ****** up innocence is
when all I was before you came was a Mary Jane
shoe with some of the leather worn on the sole from walking
too far to find someone to caress my hair.

Don't leave me open and dry
when all this ever was, was an advantage you took too easily
on an infatuated girl who was too young
and didn't know the difference.

I should have looked both ways.
Instead I followed the way your ribs
concave when you breathe like an optical illusion,
your lips the remedy, hypnotizing me
until I dangled like a puppet
in your amazing little show.
I danced for you on table tops just to grab your attention,
hid my coat in the corner of the kitchen, and stole
another beer from the back of the fridge
like you stole my heart when you walked in.
I created myself, like a piece of art
with lines you could tangle yourself into,
caves where my passion hung like a stalagmite,
glittering in your oppression and hardening with your lust
just when the light hit me right. You followed
my brush strokes on the page until you got distracted,
and I should have looked both ways
before I crossed myself into you. I should have noticed
the girl behind me in the black leggings and belly
that was flatter than your ambition, or the one
with the dark hair and cherry lips,
but I shouldn’t judge. I’m a carbon copy
with a sensible heart and dreams that could fill
perfume bottles if only you would take them off the self.

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.