I hope that when you think of me
the teeth of my memory
sink into your skin
stretched tight like snare drums
around your ribs and across your hips
and no matter how many times I heard
my name drip between your lips
it will never feel real
because now my lungs have turned to steel and my heart still beats but hasn't healed
I hope your flesh turns to fire
at the remembrance of my touch
I hope your blood boils in your veins and your brain decides it's too much
I hope that when you think of me
you're six feet below where I plan to be
I hope it burns
I hope your stomach turns and
I hope it kills you to see me
smiling
I hope I cross your mind as many times that exist between never and forever
every second of the day spent wondering and regretting and remembering to forget me
and I'm somewhere between
*******
and thank you
for forgetting me
for destroying me at fourteen
thank you
for the metaphorical skinned knees
and excuses that resembled
it was never meant to be
the holes in my walls say with sincerity
thank you
because they wouldn't be here
had it not been for you
when I was fourteen
I thought that was the right thing to do
when I was fourteen
I didn't know how to think
the pills I never took
the alcohol I didn't drink
the tears I didn't cry
the night I didn't die
the night I realized
I never needed you
because the sun would still rise
and the sky was still blue
the earth would still turn
and I didn't need you

I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I can't manage to fall asleep without seeing your face laced across the inside of my eyelids. its a dark kind of beautiful. I haven't quite yet decided if that's a good or a bad thing. and I havent yet decided why I keep drawing solar systems on my skin with ink almost as blue as your blood before it kissed the very air we find ourselves effortlessly inhaling and exhaling second after second without giving a second thought as to why or how our lungs are always working even when we wish they would stop. sometimes I have this dream where I'm drowning in an ocean that's named after you and the way your lips smiled between midnight kisses and just as I'm about to inhale every ounce of you and allow death to do your ***** work I wake up in a sea of black bed sheets that have been empty for weeks and I'm looking down at my solar system covered skin wondering where you might be in this world, wondering who's neck you're kissing at day break and why you still make me feel so small. I have the entire universe imprinted on my skin, but it doesn't mean anything at all. tonight I'm breathing out every ocean of madness you've ever put me in, washing away the world you drew on my skin. this isn't where it ends, I'll say. this is where it begins.

I've got this theory
that at night my chest fills
with memories of you
and my lungs turn to steel
breathing is nearly as impossible
as it was to let you go
and I swear its like I'm inhaling your smile and exhaling smoke
that sits amongst the midnight atmosphere
in silent hopes
that this isn't real
clinging to the dark earth like dense
black fabric that can't help but to choke
on your name
there are some things that even time
can't manage to heal
and I think it was the first night
I overdosed on sleeping pills
that I drempt of you holding my hand
and pumping my veins full of your laughter
because only I knew that it was a high
no one but you and I
would ever fully understand
I woke up empty handed and stranded
in a foreign land where calendar days weren't named after the way
your voice cracked when we met
and hurricanes came from the coast
but I think they spilled out from under your tongue when you woke up at one a.m fighting my memories back down your throat and swearing to yourself that you didn't love me anymore
and I don't exactly know how to end this without washing up on the shore
of nostalgia and broken promises
being washed away by the relentless tide that came rushing out of your mouth
and sliding between your eyes
sometimes I can't tell if im choking on fire or water
but I'm drowning in the sea of losing you and burning on the thought
of you missing me
too