i stutter every time i talk because it sounds nice in my head but my words turn into uneven breaks in a thunder storm
and your dark eyes send shivers down my spine
and i guess the lesson "boys like confident girls" never really got through to me
but i guess no lesson got through to me because i am a mess
and my hands won't stop shaking
and all i can think about is how soft your touch used to feel
and now it's like daggers every time our skin comes into contact
maybe i'm the only one who feels it
but maybe that's because i'm getting bad again
but all i ever wanted was you and now every piece of your existence makes me tremble
and i don't know how to get out of this rut because i don't want to feel daggers anymore
maybe i want to feel sea salt brushing against my feet
but then again i would want that water to turn into a hurricane so that something else can destroy me other than myself
how can i love you without casting tides to shore and pouring over us like there is nothing left and maybe there isn’t
i used to want to understand why your eyes flutter every time someone brings up natural disasters
but now i realize that maybe that’s why you love me

on october 12th, you kissed me 

for the first time without your veins being consumed by alcohol,

and i went home and brushed my

teeth six times 

and i drank mouthwash like it was 
water. 

i didn’t want you indented into my jaw like broken glass 

i didn’t want my mouth to burn every time i heard your favourite song

i chewed gum for weeks

and i still felt my veins tear

themselves open when i saw you

kiss her

sometimes i miss you at 2AM and i scream into the void,
and i wore the tightest clothes i could find because i swear i'm human and maybe you just never saw that.
i think the wind can hear me,
maybe so can you,
but you kissed me in past tense
and i felt 47 bones shatter under your finger tips
and i wonder if you know how many times i've cried over you in the middle of the night
and how many times my mom asked me why i was still awake at 4:32
in the morning.
and i wonder if she makes you happier than i ever could
because i never knew how to love you
without setting myself on fire.

your eyes reminded me of the old
oak door in my bedroom from my childhood
it wasn't always at 3 AM when i was writhing in the moonlight
or when i smoked enough cigarettes to make my lungs burn like when i told you i had to leave you
but it's at 5PM when i'm choking back my 26th cup of tea of the day and i can still taste you in every sip
BECAUSE I CAN'T STOP REMEMBERING DANCING IN YOUR LIVING ROOM
and it was a wednesday when you told me i was beautiful
but **** that
people always talk about how the sky is so beautiful
but it's just a mess of overcrowded, dead stars
i don't want to keep inhaling musty sunlight instead of your cologne
i've been writing metaphors about your fingers
and wasting paper on poetry about your smile
and god, what i would give for a good day

It's been 14 days since I've heard your voice and 12 since you last said you loved me.
God, we said we knew what love was, but I was always sitting in my room with ***** bottles scattered along the floor and empty cans of sugary drinks which ensured I spent the next 10 hours of headache loving you in a blurry daze.

And you were god knows where, kissing dark eyed girls who tasted like cigarettes and smelled like roses.
I hope her hands reminded you of me and when her voice slurred from the mickey of Jack she was drinking an hour ago, I hope you ran to the bathroom and washed off all the things you never said to me.
I hope that when you woke up beside her with your breaths tangled and your air conjoined, that you couldn't breathe without gasping because you remembered that I'm at home carving your name into trees.
I really should stop that, I don't have to ruin beautiful things just because you ruined me.
We used to lay on your couch and listen to each other's heartbeats through the lining of our chests.
I'm not so sure you would be able to hear mine anymore.

               Please come back.

you stayed out late hiding memories from incessant misery,
     drowning your thoughts in forty one percent alcohol and chasing it down with the pills you bought for cheap,
    because the regulars get a discount.

   you tried to forget everything she wish she didn't remember,
   but you picked up the phone before the dial tone could cut you off
    
  you emptied every bottle to represent how you felt inside,
    taking shot after shot till your vision blurred into missing me.
  i throw bottles at the wall to remember the crack in your voice when you told me you loved me.

  i would give anything to hear your voice hiding the slur of your rotting veins.
       i think it's about time you
sobered up.

It's the year 2027 and our house is crumbling beneath our fingertips. The kids are stomping on the floor again and I'm afraid the beams will crack beneath our feet. I swore I would never let anybody understand what it means to be from a broken home because I still struggle to remember a time when my father wasn't putting mortar in between our family, separating us like bricks. It's been years, and sometimes I still have to call my sister so I know that she's not just part of a dream that I wake up from, thinking it's real. I never understood the word family until they were gone and maybe that's why I've started letting go of things before they have the chance to leave themselves. Sometimes I think that my grandparents should have named my father after the way that his footsteps still echo even after he's gone. I remember a wall covered in holes from where my father's fist kissed it all so gently. I can only think that wall is what my heart might look like, but lately I've had trouble finding my pulse. I keep having this dream where the doctors are standing over me screaming that I'm empty, but I wake up before they're able to fill me up again or put something good inside of me. Maybe my ribs are still trying to hold onto something that isn't even there anymore and maybe my mother still keeps my baby shoes for the same reason.