Shivering fingers, cradling a cold clay bowl
with dull roses surrounding the rim.
A Klondike bar cut like a grid on a paper towel.
My grandma used to let me eat one in the living room
"careful of the carpet"
on her yellow couches covered with sticky plastic.
She would play the Elvis Presley Christmas album,
To Ginny written in black sharpie on the sleeve
with a Love always, Mom underneath,
over and over again
while she hung bulbs of wood on the bottom branches
so her Welsh Corgi wouldn't break them with his paws.

Slate slabs with handprints
in purple paint every year for the holiday.
She'd set death aside in a coffin ashtray
to kiss my cheek.
Presley played in the background.

She'd rock
on the front porch in white wicker
coughing into the lid of a Pepsi can
until she'd catch me pressing my nose against the door glass,
tell me to turn around and sit on the couch.
It was too cold for me.
She'd only be a minute.

When we played, I'd hide between the two baskets
in the closet that held her hair products.
I could count all the bottles three times each
before she'd say she was too tired,
put on her coat, grab a white box, and hit play.
I always hated that album.

You were never meant for this
Grocery cart, bags of bones, pillow case
Dunking your head in the paper bags of letdown
Side street, gray walk, go’s and stops
Ticks and tocks
You were never meant for this
Fingerless gloves, holes in jeans, newspaper blankets
With words of people far more successful
Building money with their hands
Like a distorted counterfeit where it’s the priority
Above all that is breathing
You stare at their smudged pictures,
Their smiles full of cash, the green leaking between their teeth
Their suits all straight with hands out shaking
They stand around
The numbers increase
The excitement booms
That was supposed to be you
Who you once were
On Wall Street, drinking the coffee of accomplishment
Out of silver mugs with silver spoons
But you lost it all didn’t you?
The greed overtook you like a drug
Messing with your brain and judgment
Now look at you,
Vagabond, penny cup, ghost air
You were never meant for this,
You were supposed to be like those men in the paper
Those men on the streets
With their Bluetooth and briefcases
Stepping on cracks
You were never meant for this,
But you crashed
Got caught up in the money, the games, the race
Now look at you
Grocery cart, bag of bones, pillow case
Just jumping in defeat between the space
You were never meant for this.
Now look at you.

You asked if I was going to stay, I nodded,
but I'm just waiting here until your coffee cools,
until your feet go numb from sitting on them
so you have to switch positions, until the letters
magnetized to your fridge stop twisting themselves
into "sorry." Until I feel better about not calling you later.

Last night you asked if I liked Bon Iver,
I nodded, but I only did that in hopes that I could see
what the rest of your bra looked like, because
the strap was barely falling off your shoulder,
and I know you tried to tuck it neatly
under the straps of your dress, but darling,
I want to love you like a disaster. I want to tear
into your skin like your bones are a present,
it's Christmas morning, and I'm that little kid
sitting on the stairs, peaking. I want to line up
my heart with yours like they are those fridge magnets
with the thinest of barriers between them, your chest
a tiny cage that I have the key to, hidden
underneath my tongue. I want to rock you to that song
your telling me is your favorite that I promise
I'm not going to remember the name of. I want your sheets
curled between your toes as you breathe into my neck,
into my mouth, into my brain. I want to use your ribs
like a guitar, stroke them in a rhythm only I know,
only the two of us can hear the sound.
I want to come this close to falling
for you before I have to break free.

You asked if I really had to go, I nodded,
but in my mind I'm leaving you clues:
footprints on your carpet, my belt on the dresser,
my smile as I watched you through
the crack of light between the bathroom door
try to put your hair up ten different times
before you came to bed, just so you can find
my heart between the pillow cases
as I pull my car out of the driveway.

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.

You didn't hit me, but you might as well have
because silently crying
on the other side of your turned back,
holding my breath so the sobs
would kamikaze themselves into my ribs
hurts almost as much.
And maybe I should have red-flagged
the skipped goodnight kisses,
or even made you apologize
for leaving me alone in the library,
waiting at an empty table with two red apples
because I figured you skipped dinner
but by the time you got there,
I was just a core.

But I stayed in it, and I let you **** me
in the way I thought meant I love you
even though you never said it,
and in the way that meant
I'd be alone, again, waiting for you
to deliver yet another polished excuse
and a look that swears volumes, punches me,
guilts me into solidly believing
that it's my fault after all, because
space is just as important as answering your calls,
because independence outweighs how attached
I'd became to your lust and ten cent compliments.

Now, I've become rust in my hometown,
afraid to ask because I know the answer
and bitter, frozen and bitter,
because honestly I should have known.
I just should have known.

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'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.

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.

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.

If you were to come to me in the form
of a paper person linked by the knuckles
of other paper people, I would decorate
you with thick markers and call you
my soldier. I'd crown you in yellow smudges,
give you a sword out yarn and some cheap
glue.

You came to me in the form of a leftover
sports player with knees that needed therapy
and a size too big gym shorts. I fell for the sound
of you hitting your head off the microwave
when we were trying to kiss in my kitchen,
the way your hair felt in the spaces between
my fingers, how you always took the left
sock off before the right. I made you
into the paper figure next to mine, the half
who's creases matched up perfectly,
who we wanted the same exact things
as I. If you were to come to me now
in the form of water I'd boil you to make tea.
I'd put three sugars into you when you beg
me for none. I'd make you into some tragedy
that I'd hide underneath my bed in the way
of nasty journal entries and tired poems.
I'd love you like a miracle, like a prayer,
when really you are just a guy
who loves funny movies and can't
wake up for breakfast on time.

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.

I stopped pulling you towards me two pieces ago,
when you sliced my vision and ****** out the nectar,
tied the rope around my neck and dropped your anchor.
I tangled the nightmare of you in the wire of my mattress,
and punished your memory with a solid glass of wine
in my closet at two in the afternoon after I had to see you
push in the lock with her laughter on the other side of the door.
I’ve ignored you from the crowd, designed your ****** in my salad bowl,
had to kiss you through chocolate box comforts and a movie.
So, forgive me, if I don’t wrap myself around your infatuation (again)
all because you’ve taken an insomnia interest in me— excuse me,
my body. I don’t want to sound whiny in the form of a line,
but working you through my words and glazing
the misshapen mold I have of you with a poem or two
is the only solace I’ve found in these months of looking down when you pass
and cursing myself in the shower when I think my roommates are asleep.
This felt like falling in love until you had to blacken me
with your own corrupt expectations, until you took me
like a vile little shot and burned me all the way down.

But here I am, freshly rinsed and freshly pried open
from the loneliness, ready to accept your sins like a rotten Eucharist.
No matter the distance or the self-promising or the wasted
advice written on this paper every single night—

I’ll let you skip to the ending. I promise to wear my boots
back to my room and carry my jacket like the heart
you always give back when you’re finished.

My boyfriend used to take me to Pizza ****
(as we always called it)
after every home basketball game.
We'd fill up on bread sticks,
box the leftover slices,
just so they could sit in the back seat
of his green Chevy jeep
while we made out in the parking lot
with Eric Church's new CD on the stereo.

I told everyone the bruises on my thighs
were just an accident,
when really he pushed me
into the tires
after he had a few or dozen beers
at the party down Bear Run.
He never did like being told
what he shouldn't do.

We'd lay down the seats
and sleep on sweatshirts
with a cooler lid for a pillow
until 10a.m. on a Sunday,
an hour late for mass.
Silently we'd ride
until we'd reach the power plant.
He'd cough and I'd sigh,
quietly singing until we'd reach my driveway.
He never did kiss me
whenever he'd drop me off.

I came back spring break
the following year.
The jeep in his yard with a for sale sign
propped against the hood
and his cell number
written in blue window chalk
just above the windshield wipers.
I saw his little sister
peek behind the curtain
when I knocked on the door,
but no one came to answer.
So I lit a cigarette and drove home
listening to "Springsteen."

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.

Disconnected by the root, wasting
our time between sheets instead
of between conversations You kept
yourself in backwards hats and vague
excuses to the questions I was asking.
I lit myself on fire, extinguished the flame
in the shower after we finished, cursing
at the droplets sliding down the curtain.
***** this! and ***** that after you ******* me
into the enjambment that was your free space—
your convenience. I fit only if you push, I matter
only if it’s after midnight and the world
outside your door and bed frame
doesn’t have to know. In the daylight,
I’m a ghost that you always see. I’m the ruby
spotted from the corner of your eyes, the shine
that hurts to look at, but no one can know.
Of course. No one can know the way your mouth
rests between sighs or how your eyes lock
into mine when your bruising the inside of my thighs.

I’m the extra beer in your back pocket.
I’m the ***** in the towel who’s promising
her better self that she won’t go again,
that she won’t allow herself to try to patch
the promise from too long ago. The relationship,
shattered early, that mended itself crooked,
that became a book thrown at the wall
and a sweet, dissipated call. I’m the secret solemnly kept
at night when you’re drunk and ugly and begging
for some beauty to curl up next to. I’m the last line
in the best country song, the whisper
you scream for when I’m gone.

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.

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.

You better kiss me,
your mouth parted and lips
wrecking into the vagabond breath
that escapes from the center of what
I've been talking, and talking, and talking about
all the while you're trying to just shut me up.
So you better kiss me, kiss me
with your hands below my hips
pushing the skin from my bones
and pulling the sins from my mouth
just to spread them on our bodies.
We collide, half-inspired and arching
my back with your hands cupping the dimples
above my tailbone, jumping over my vertebrates,
reaching for my neck to press yourself, harder,
into me. Lights out, sheets to the end of the bed,
I sigh into your ears, XO. Again, and again, and again
gently until I'm bruised and ripened, soft,
pulsing on the verge, releasing our glow
crashing into you, kiss me, kiss me
you better kiss me.

My peach yogurt tastes like your skin
in the morning when you used to stay
at my apartment, the leftover sweat
of a night spent loving each other,
and the sun slipping through my *****
blinds, while I'm eating my breakfast
at my desk checking emails, always peeking
over at you, bare-chested, snoring
through the sound of my fan and my music
turned down extra low.

It's five months later and my peach yogurt
tastes strangely like that iced tea
I had instead of liquor on the night my friends
threw a party in my living room, us
sneaking off to my bedroom just to kiss
ourselves through another evening
we'd rather spend in our underwear watching
a movie over smiling in group pictures
or dancing to cheap country music.

It's so much later and my yogurt
still tastes a little bitter, a little sour
on my tongue as I try to swallow
a breakup that's bigger than a jawbreaker.
It still kind of tastes like the bottom
of my sink as I put my dishes in it
just to wake you up, watch you
get dressed in a pair grey sweatpants,
sticky hair that I'd comb through.

It's far too late for me to think about
your hand in mine as we'd walk
as far as we could before we'd have to separate.
It's far too late and far too many people
have intercepted your memories and turned
them into something new to smile about,
but today I pulled the lid off the container
and licked the silver side clean
just to be reminded of how sweet
things like you used to taste.

You almost kissed me,
and you shouldn't have.
On the gingham tablecloth in the yellow light,
you lifted me from the counter top onto my feet
putting your hat on my head and tickling my ribs.
You know it's my sweet spot,
leads straight to my heart if you're gentle enough.
I told you to stop and you walked away,
eyes lingering on my bare skin between where my top ended on my waist
and where my dark denim jeans began to hug my hips.
I flipped my hair back around, joining in some conversation too late
between a girl drunk on grape juice and a wedding crasher straggler
in a forest green flannel with camel cigarettes in the pocket.
That's when you came back over and started yelling
some story that happened to you the night before.
You told it well,
the circle captivated, me mesmerized
by how blue your eyes stayed all this time without me noticing.
You  had the whole room laughing with your wit and stupid vernacular,
but I was smiling because you looked so beautiful in those drunken
honest moments
where I recognized the person beneath the banter
where I saw you.
I was saying my goodbyes to the carhartt boys and their one night girls
when you grabbed me by the hand and spun me around
like we were dancing,
pulled me in by your hand pressed on my shoulder blades
the other around my waist
I gasped as your lips almost touched mine,
but then you looked down at me
with those same blue eyes
and took a deep breath,
slowly letting your hands glide down my back then to your sides.
I just stared back at you,
wishing you'd forget the logic and put your hands back where they were,
tracing your lips with that almost kiss,
and I could feel how much you wanted to be in this moment
desperately searching for a way to my lips
but something stopped us.
And I think it was because we knew it would only lead to something messier
than where we were at
it would be a backwards romance, reversing our ***** footsteps
in something we've tried and tried to understand
that it never works out the way either of us plans.
We were both doing so well, moving on
but in that moment we almost gave all that strength up
gave into something too tempting and too wrong.
Because we can't really stay away from each other all that long.
I mean,
you almost kissed me
and you shouldn't have,
but I swear
I wish you would have.

I grew up in the same house, same town, same place
my entire life.
Big brick house with a cinnamon smelling winter and lavender summer,
tiny garden around the corner edge filled with baby red tomatoes and daddy's carrots.
I used to splash around in the puddles the cracks in our sidewalk made
after a huge storm until mommy yelled for getting my dress all muddy.
Always warm, filled with fire, hope, and being together
with someone known that one is never going to lose.
I used to fit behind the sofa in the living room during hide and seek,
but then I grew too big and everyone started to find me-
no more secrets.
I grew up in the comfortable security of a real home,
consistent with the idea of family and love behind circumstance.

Then I met you,
shaggy hair, grey sweatshirt innocence
with loose jeans and a smile that felt safe when directed at me.
You took me,
to your fourth house by now,
after some time.
I walked in to the aroma of wet dirt mixed with grass and beer,
cigarette smoke smells sunk deep into the brown couch
with puffy yellow stuffing popping out of the seams.
Wood walls left uncovered, rusty nails sticking out
living underneath the minimal television light.
I could hear your dad outside chopping word,
his wife coughing over the sound of doing the dishes
and whatever program she wasn't pretending to listen to.
You told me you used to stick your clothing tags underneath the coffee table,
but you had to leave it behind when you moved.
There's a stain on the carpet and dog hair stuck on my jeans.
You told me you used to collect bottle caps from holes you dug in the ground,
until your dad told you to fill them all back up
as quickly as you could.
It was cold in there, but someone
I felt warm.
And I realized that no matter where I was,
if I was laying in your strong arms wrapped around me
pool blue eyes tracing my smile when I laughed,
then I was home.
I had something to crash into after the disaster of the day,
complaining about things that don't really matter
until you shut me up the way you know I love you to.

I realized,
the pencil height measure walls, the hush-hush closet hideouts
aren't what makes it feel like home.
The *** and pan rock bands, the albums on the shelf
don't really matter,
if you have no one to call your own.
You
are my home.
Somewhere I feel safe, secure, never left alone.
Somewhere with you,
even if the future is left unknown
if I'm in your arms,
I know I'm home.

I was in a real bad place this time last year.
I felt *****
all the time.
And all I wanted was to be with someone
who could make me feel even worse.

So I threw myself over people that could make me
feel a little right and hell of a lot wrong.
I poisoned the revival that was my passioned split,
and I kept binding myself to nights that had
no definite ending and put me in spacey places,
tripped me back to the things I wanted to forget,
always winding up in a grass bed with a body
that wouldn't recognize me in the sunlight but felt good.
Good in the way that made me feel wrecked,
empty, wretched, and sterilized
like a bad blood wound.

I was in a real bad place and I want you to know you put me there.
Not because I want you to feel guilty, not because its my own
sick revenge on the things you tore within me.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
why it is I did those things and I why it is I couldn't talk to you
when you begged me for answers, or for reasons, or if I was okay.
I want you to know I wasn't okay.
Not because I want you to apologize or tell me it wasn't my fault.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
how I could feel so terribly and how that could feel so good.

The pain was better, yes better, because it was easier.
I clothed myself in darkness, painted my world without the color
I always believed you gave me.
I was in a real bad place and I want you to know I might still be there.
Because you're holding me now and it would be unfair if I didn't let you in
on the secrets I kept about how I dealt with the pieces after you.
Not because I expect us to be together, not because I want
everything to go back to the way it was before you left.
But I want you to know because I'm trying to explain to you,
that I don't ever want us to feel this way again.
I don't ever want to see you mask your happiness
or think you don't deserve more safety than you have,
more love than your given
more laughs than you create.

I might still be there, but you don't have to be.
You don't have to comfort me,
for the wrong or even the right reasons.
You don't have to tell me that I'm alright or that I'm beautiful.
I feel ugly all the time and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be,
and I want you to know
you don't have to stick around for me.

I smoked a pack while we unraveled white and black.
Wrapped in your bare sheets I slept best.
Dewey skin in the morning light,
candy tongue
tulip two lips.
Alarm goes off you ignore it.
I loved messing your hair up.
You look better that way.

I danced around naked on the pedestal you plopped me on
as I let you sketch me.
You scolded to stand still and slapped my *** when I didn't listen,
but you looked so cool holding your paintbrush in your teeth,
studying my figure,
peeking around the easel with your big eyes and crooked smile.

I always left with stains on my hands and your jacket
on my shoulders with a new Camel in the pocket.
Your hand slid down my jeans and I bit your lip.
I could have finished you.

You were so mean to me constantly,
and I curiously indulged in your temptations.
Your ecstasy whispers in my ear.
But there's something special about being loved
by someone who hates everyone.

You thought I was interesting.
Thought I was pure in my mini skirt, but tough
because I never cried when you were yelling.
I just yelled back.
Thought I was brave and wildly adventurous,
standing on edges and throwing things your way.
Even I thought it would be different this time.

But I should've probably listened
to you when you used to tell me not to get my hopes up.
That way I wouldn't be here,
praying, which I never do
that you didn't mean it and you didn't want me to ever have
to know
why you didn't come home.

You would rather
it be expected than me be disappointed
when it's the morning after and you're lying there restless
while you're passed out in the back of a van,
shoes off,
shirt hanging off your back,
with cuts from cans on your hands.

*** doesn't make a sound.
It's the loudest way to shut someone up.
It's the silence that cures.
It's the cork stop in a bottle,
but it will glimmer when you spin it upside down.
I'd love to smash it.

I came in that afternoon and burned the edges of your drawings with my lighter,
smeared the charcoal on all your new pages,
and stamped my boot until all your brushes were in half.
I picked up your jacket that I sewn a special patch in
with my initials,
and I hit snooze when your alarm went off.
You didn't move.

I watched the dewy skin of your back rise
and fall as you were breathing,
sheets ruffled,
pillows on the floor,
empty side next to yours,
all alone.

I decided you look better that way.

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.

Your dad hit you and you asked me not to tell anyone.
He took two business trips this week to get away from your mom,
because he doesn't know what to say to her anymore
and you're sitting on her bed next to her
at 2 in the morning after a romance movie
not knowing what the hell you're supposed to tell her,
because your dad asked you to keep secrets too
and you don't want her to know more than she has to.
Because you love her, and love means protection-
it means you'll take all the bullets for her.

But she's been shaking and you don't want to tell her
that everything is going to work out,
because you don't know that.
So you put in another movie and lie next to her,
hold her hand when she reaches for you
carry the weight of her sadness in your smile.
As she falls asleep you let a couple tears slip out
that you've been saving since last week when your dad confessed
to moving around because he couldn't deal with standing still
in a marriage he feels he's been stuck in for eighteen years now.
You let yourself break down now.

Your dad hit you and you asked me not to tell anyone.
But I'm crying over your mom as I listen to you tell me
how helpless she looks with the covers over her lips and her hand
still sitting in yours.
Your family's falling apart and you asked me not to worry about it.
I love you too much but that's not important right now.
But it's hard when he's not home and
I'm trying everything I can and I don't know what to do anymore,
because your dad hit you and you asked me
your dad tore your mom's heart out and you asked me
your brother's still healing and you asked me
you asked me
not tell anyone.

And because you asked me to, and because I love you, and because
because I am who I am and because we are where we are
I won't.
I'll just soak up your tears with my skin and hold memories of blessed things
over your head so you can look up to something other than the ceilings
you trace with your eyes in the dark.
I'll pick up your call and I'll start crying when it's disconnected.
Because some things in life are just too hard.
And I don't want to have to worry about you, but I will because
because I am who I am and because we are where we are and because
I love you too much.

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.

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.

I watched you drive your red truck around for years,
and years, and years with mulch in the back on a dead road
to a new job where you'd lay some grass and trim
trim back all the rustle that got in the way,
just like you cut me out because I was an obstacle
in your plan to ruin yourself.
I watched you drive your red truck around for years,
and years, and years when you didn't think I was still watching.
I did because you trained me how to fix you
when we were just fifteen and being twenty five means nothing
when you've been an adult since you were a kid,
had to grow up real quick if you wanted to control yourself
through every pretty little detail,
through every
pretty little feeling.

I thought I gave you feeling.
*******.
But I watched you for years, and years, and years
in your apartment on a black night carrying two cases of beer inside.
And that might sound creepy but I think twelve years of kissing you
constitutes it being okay that I watch you just to make sure you're okay.
I watched you.
You didn't know it
but I cared.
I never really wanted you to know that because it made me feel inferior.
Made me feel like you had power over me,
and since you had to have power over everything else
I didn't want you to have that satisfaction over me.

So I'll watch you drive your red truck around for years,
and years, and years without feeling.
Until you spin out at the dead end and wind face up in the windshield,
staring at stars that remind you of my eyes,
finding yourself right where you've always been
only this time I won't be at your side.

I fall in love with every backwards hat, the way a boy holds
a Natural Light, his scarred knuckles stretching over the aluminum,
an *** in a great pair of khaki’s, how he bobs his head to the perfect
pre-game song. I fall in love with every you’re so gorgeous, or body scan,
or even when the drunken façade has faded and we are left
hanging onto window curtains and thin sheets, talking
about our dads or how he broke his arm in the 6th grade.
The way he balances his eyes on my shoulder blades, stares
at my lips like he just can’t wait until I stop talking so we can kiss.
I fall for every nightly temptation, every Tuesday morning regret,
every hug around my waist. I fall for every circle drawn with a thumb
around my hip bones, over and over again, until my skin is numb
and my expectation collides with this temporary high. And if you could collect
all the lover’s I left on slips of paper, I bet their sparks would glow purple,
neon confetti in the night air, just like stars. Because they fell,
whether momentarily or not, in love with me somewhere between
the ******* and the kissing and the tongue gracing the corner of my mouth
when he’s trying to pick me up at the party, or how I let my hand sit
in the loop of my jeans, how I take no ******* moonslide line
for bald truth. I just use it to get to people like you, because the fraction
of time in which I live begs for the short-term. It thrives on the idea
that one night and one small shatter is better than a committed sever
of someone you just got too ******* close to. Because I can’t want
to fall for your pride, your integrity, the way you picture your kids
using your old baseball glove. My generation needs fire just to feel a burn.
I can’t want to love you honestly, with dinner date plates, with a door
held open just a little longer, without the liquor. I’m just doll
living in the freelance design of a good time. My bedroom is your heart,
and I wear the lace high up on my thighs, just waiting for someone to play with me.