but what is a broken home
when you've never known anything else?
anything beside empty chairs
and closed doors
floors that dont tell you
who's walking by the creaks
I dont recall how old I was
when I stopped peeking in your bedroom
every morning
to come crawl into bed with you
it seems so strange to me now
because we cant even seem to look
each other in the eye
and every goodbye is either prior to
or followed by
a sigh
I'm not quite sure when it started
and I don't know
that it can ever be stopped
we fought about simple things,
dinner and movies and
who'd pick up when the telephone rings
the arguments are silent now
nestled between closing doors
and awkward hello's
because we both know
I can never say for sure
when the door
will open again

loving you
was like having heart burn
on the wrong side of my chest
and doing my best to pretend
that still I felt nothing
in all of the places where
you once touched me

neck
collarbone
the backside of my knees

you destroyed me from the inside out
with such delicacy
that at times
I convinced myself it wasn't even
happening

loving you was a disease
that I wish
I could remember having

but now
I simply
feel
nothing

tomorrow was never promised. I know that, I guess I always knew that. one day too many yesterday's ago you told me that eventually, one day, we'd be waking up to each other in a bed two sizes too big for only two people but that was okay because your voice always had a way of filling every empty space, the void in the air or the empty between our sheets. a bed two sizes too big can quickly become two sizes too small when all you want to do is fall into a set of arms that are no longer laying there. too many yesterdays ago we spoke of tomorrows and forevers, of sunday mornings and tuesday brunch and kitchen counters and coffee tables. we spent days staring at globes picking out all the places where we knew we'd never go, and I couldn't breathe when you finally decided to pack your bags and leave.
part of me hoped you'd come back.
part of me still does.

I'm damaged goods.
the mail-in rebate you'll never quite get around to sending.
rather you neatly sit it atop your chestnut coffee table, politely acknowledge it's existence, and try to remember to buy postage stamps for an envelope you believe you will mail.
you won't.
you will ignore it.
just as you have ignored me.
legs crossed, sitting atop the coffee table we never bothered to buy, scraped knees and insecurities that you have tried your best to deny.
the mail in rebate will one day expire.
I pray that I will not.

7:22
and I'm thinking of you
and all the things I would do
to
forget

take a crowbar
to my ribcage
use the scar
as a book mark
and let the dark
remind you
of the time
you said
you would find

better

where i come from, people speak of peace as if it was, is and always will be an inanimate object of sorts. something far too great for mankind to reach out and grab, to hold, to touch. we speak of peace as if we do not live each day finding new ways to love ourselves and each other, as if we do not find solace in his arms or serenity along the creases of her palms. we have spent far too long searching for someone instead of somewhere to call home, too many yesterdays ago we spoke of prosperity in a sense that made us question our beliefs, something rooted so deep inside of us we lost sight of the peace we created with our lips, kisses that claimed every part of a heart that was stitched together with broken pieces of itself. hear me when I say that peace was never intangible, we hold it in our hands every day. the love letter you've read halfway through but stop before you get to the final "I love you" because laced within the lies is a good bye that you never agreed to, peace is freeing yourself from the anchors printed on card stock paper sealed by the lips of a girl whose name you may never forget. peace is 5 o'clock shadow sprinkled across his chin like cinnamon bun crumbs after six days of no sleep, spending each night celebrating the sunset and injecting the rainbow into his blood flow. it's the kind of high you'll never find laying along the bottom of the bottle at midnight when the world is challenging you to a mental fist fight, drinking yourself into amnesia or blowing out a cloud full of regret after taking a drag on your first cigarette. we were just freaks searching for peace in all the wrong places, we forgot how to live like each day was our last and started passing the time by wishing that it was. perhaps peace was most prominent in our childhood, like when you were a kid on the fourth of July and held a sparkler for the first time and your parents watched the fire reflecting in your eyes. when we were five peace was popsicles and nap time, we took the world by surprise and explored until our eyes were too heavy to continue. and since then peace has felt less like Popsicles and more like hour glass sand, slipping through our hands as if we never even held it at all. but hear me when I say that peace is a process of breaking down walls, it is composed of small symphonies in our heartbeats and the stories etched onto our feet from places we've been and sights that we've seen. peace is his hands and her hips, together again, love letters and Popsicles and skin upon skin.

one night
many moons ago
I laid face down in the middle
of the street
spilling secrets to the concrete
and hoped
the stars would listen
your name poured
out of my mouth
like I was drawing a bath tub
full of doubt
and never stopping
to pull the plug
I'd let the water spill
over the edge and flood
the bathroom floor
forming a hurricane of
memories
where I swore
you loved me
more

I guess I was always best at making messes of things like the inside of your chest or the rest of the world. its a lot easier than anyone ever tells you to become addicted to the sick and twisted feeling in your stomach when you hear things like "he lives with his grandparents now" or "she tried to **** herself in ninth grade". cracked ribs and broken hearts are not one in the same. one will always hurt far worse than the other and it's always the one that hospitals can't fix. white washed walls and sterile hallways filled with empty people waiting for their lives to change raspy breath and pale skin I remember going to the hospital as a kid and asking "are there people dying in there?" my mother never did give me an answer. the truth is, there are people dying everywhere. only the lucky ones make it to the hospital. the truth is people die on bathroom floors with a stomach full of pills and a fist full of love letters that will never be sent. people die over the phone choking on a throat full of apologies they'll never spill. people die popping sorrys like pills and swallong broken teeth by eating glass as if it were easier than saying I love you for the last time. we break ribs to make space for people who have no intention of staying and the last time I spoke your name was three days ago in a drunken haze lying on my back and shouting to the moon "I love you more" wishing that it was you I've screamed your name to the raining sky more times that I'd like to say but each day I find myself swallowing your promises and choking on the forevers you ensured me we'd spend together as if you ever even meant it
you didn't
and I can't even ******* breathe because its always been me lying on the bathroom floor with more pills than I should even know exist with a fist full of letters I'll never get to kiss and I still pick up the phone just to hear the busy tone and mumble apologies until I dont know what I'm saying and I'm swallowing ***** bottles and chewing on glass to make saying I love you for the last time feel less like living and more like dying
im dying
im dying
im dying

we floated around in an ocean
of mediocrity
sharing poems etched into the skin
on our wrists
wondering when the weight of the world would drown us in our own thoughts
thoughts of people who didn't even know
we existed
places we would never go
and things we would never say
no one knows I still sing you happy birthday
in the room where you died in my arms
its only a metaphor, of course
I'm sure you're out there somewhere
in a city that could never care
about you
like I did
tattooing your skin with her bed sheets
and kissing over coffee tables made
of all the ways I'll never get to say
I love you
the coffee table you lay books on top of
but never read
or run your knee into and curse
under your breath
I imagine this is what loving you
would have been like
and still
the thought is enough to keep me up
at night

it was late one winter night
when I first realized
I was fighting a war I would never win
a fight that was fought within my own skin
skin that I realized
I would never feel comfortable in
now
I look at freckles like name tags
scars like reminders
and bruises as memories
that I wish I did not remember
I've since become accustomed to
long sleeves and blue jeans
and people asking things
like "how did you get that one?"
"oh, the door," I would quietly say,
never to tell that the door
had a name.

the invisible struggle that exists between wanting to write and not wanting people to know is named after you. late nights and sharpie scrawls on crumpled pieces of paper that will never see the outside of a trashcan. the insides of my eyelids and the paper slips kissed by dull pencil tips are the only ones who will ever know. 3 a.m is the closest thing I've ever had to a friend. the silence is deafening and sleeping is an impossible paradise because I belong on the opposite end of the world. somehow I know that no number of miles will suffice in the category of distance between our bodies. its been months but I still smell the alcohol on your breath that is a little too close to my ear. your hand by my thigh. a warmth on my neck that shouldn't even exist and I can hear myself saying no but my mouth isn't moving and I dont even ******* want to sit here and make rhymes about that night because you aren't ******* worth any of it. you aren't worth a ******* rhyme or a poem or a metaphor because you ruined *everything.

I'm lost in the land of whiskey and lies
trying to refamiliarize my hands with your skin
its been months
maybe years
since we've touched
each shot makes it that much harder
to remember
the freckle on your wrist
the creases in your palms
I can't seem to recall
and I was never a fan of alcohol
but forgetting for a night was never as bad
as remembering the next morning
waking to an empty bed and aching heart
breaking bones and throwing stones
didn't even come close
to the relentless pain
washing me away
with the january rain
that made a home inside your veins
and in a way
this makes me miss you more

it took me many years to figure out
why your love of math was so prevalent
to understand that you developed
a passion for consistency
and certainty
an assuring stability that you were
sure to find with the order of operations
or the apothecary system
a kind of reassurance that wasn't
compatible with me
and i have since come to terms with
my hatred of chemistry
because things in science cannot
be proven
only disproved
just like your love for me cannot be proven
only disproved over time and
with old age
and how someday i know i will
resemble a cold mug of coffee sitting
immotile on your kitchen counter
waiting for the occasional stir which
i know all too well will eventually
stop coming
as i watch with the utmost silence
you sip from your piping hot tea.

and i simply cannot help myself
because i've never loved anything
as much as i love you

i want my name to be the only one
that passes through your lips
i want to be the last hand
you ever hold
the final heart
you claim to grasp

you wanted to be my first
(i want to be your last)

falling in love was kind of like
trying to explain what colors are
to a blind person
it was when you ran up the basement stairs as a kid
but never quite knew what it was
you were running away from
what it was that you hoped wasn't chasing you up the stairs
but you were always too scared
to turn around and look
or being afraid of the dark
even though you didn't know
what you were really scared of
its like laying in bed at night
in a more or less constant state of paranoia
and hearing a noise come from across the room
but not wanting to turn and see what it could be
see, we've never really known what it is that we're scared of
falling in love is being scared of everything that might happen
its being scared of what's chasing you up the stairs, lingering in the darkness or hiding in your bedroom
its being scared, but not caring
because you fall in love anyway

it's almost 3 a.m
and my eyes are begging for sleep
but my fingers are dreaming of your skin
and longing for your touch
and I miss you so much that
I started sleeping on your side of the bed
and I swear I can still feel your lips on my forehead
or the warmth of your voice in my ear whispering goodnight
I love you
you said
it's almost 3 a.m
and one side of the bed
will always be empty
it doesn't matter where I lay
because I swear I feel you everywhere
your name in my throat
and your fingers in my hair
but that doesn't even begin to compare
to the fact that when they asked me for my blood type
I almost choked on your smile
ten thousand miles between our veins and
you still manage to take my breath away
it's almost 3 a.m
and even when my blood turns to whiskey
my mind wanders back to you
in this drunken state of black and blue
I love you
you said
it's 3 a.m
goodnight from your side
of the bed

they told us boys weren't
supposed to be beautiful.
that girls don't get *****
and every single scraped knee
was worthy of a band aid,
and somehow no one made
it okay quite like your mother could.
boys weren't supposed to be beautiful,
but I don't think they ever saw
your eyes like I did.
and something about your smile
made me forget about skinned knees
and broken bones
and your laughter made me not worry
about sticks and stones.
boys weren't supposed to be beautiful,
but you were.
god, you were.

I'd sing for you until my vocal chords bled and I dread the day I can no longer play piano because its always been the only way I've ever known how to say that I love you without moving my lips or spreading my hips so I'll go until I can't feel my finger tips because what's something beautiful without a little pain? life's not worth living if you never go insane. so I'll play this ******* piano until I give myself arthritis but the night is young and our souls are old and my hands break more than they hold.

I remember one summer we planted sunflowers
and I don't remember much else about that time
except for the fact that one day I came outside
and suddenly they were taller than the house
they were beautiful
but they needed the sun to survive
it doesn't take a genius to conclude
that once winter arrived they died
and I've never been much of a gardener
but you were my sun and I was the flower

I can't help it
whenever I see photographs
I can't help but to say that they
would be better with you in them
your smile screams a hundred thousand sunsets and nights spent kissing somewhere
we shouldn't have been
there was something so twistedly romantic about hands touching among secrecy,
hearts racing that shouldn't be

I couldn't help but to love you
but I know
someday this will pass, too

I won't rest until you know
that my name sounded best
coming out of your mouth
sliding between your lips and
rolling off your tongue
and sticking onto the *****
of my neck

I need you to know
that your finger tips
belong on the small of my back
or pressed against my lips
amongst the silence before a kiss
and nothing on this earth beats
being tangled up
in your bed sheets
where my extra skin
and awkward curve
may surpass without the judgment
of your mattress and be caressed
as if you didn't have the nerve
and constant urge
to make me believe
I was beautiful

but I don't see it

because when I think of beautiful
I think of your smile
and popsicles
and sunsets

I think of how falling asleep in
your arms is only second best
to waking up in your chest
with your heartbeat in my ear
and my face against your flesh
you once told me

that your favorite time of day
was the way
the sun shifted in harmony
against the bay
of my labored breathing
crashing along the rocks
of your insides
in a nonstop riptide
at five a.m

I then decided

that the way the rays of sunday
morning sunshine
bent before our eyes
knew nothing of beauty compared
to the warmth that lies
between our blankets and
a fresh black brew

fingers and toes and
god only knows
the only place I feel beautiful
is among the morning dew
in bed with you

all of the sudden its hard to breathe and I can't think straight and my throat wants to ******* scream but my vocal chords are knotted up with your name and I swear to god if I hear one more person ask me about you my ear drums are going to explode and the blood won't stop pumping to my brain and through my veins and I wish that I didn't wish that it would stop I can't feel my fingers and my hands are going numb at the thought of you holding hers and every time I close my eyes I see your face and you're smiling. you're ******* smiling but I'm sitting here at 3:27 a.m barely able to breathe because I love you and I ******* hate myself and somehow that's always been okay with me.

my mother asks me
quite frequently
why I ever even gave you
the time of day
because all you ever left me with
was ****** knuckles you didn't
have the decency to kiss
before you left me standing
in an empty room
with broken picture frames of you

now

the only wall decor I own
are holes
a little too big
to fit my fists
and I wonder
if this
was how you pictured it to be
as you left me
standing in a sea of equal parts
empty and envy

envious of whoever's sheets
you're sleeping in tonight
and I know two wrongs
don't make a right
but the two of us did

you kissed all the wounded
parts of my skin
and I don't know if you realized
the worst of the damage was done
on the inside
I don't think you knew that
I was the kind of sick
that a first aid kit
could never fix

and I knew someday
you wouldn't have time for this anymore
but I can't remember
how I breathed before
I had you to exhale life
into my lungs and
plant kisses on my skin

and I'll never get the chance
to hold your hand again
all I'm left with are the memories
broken glass
walls with holes
and a sea of broken dreams

growing up my mother always said
that ***** hands and scraped knees
were good for me
my father taught me
how to ride a bike
and drive a car
but you taught me that life was only
worth living if you lived it with
someone you loved

I guess my father loved cigarettes
more than he loved kissing my mother
and I suppose I loved your hands
much more than any other
set of bones on your body because
it was much harder to recover
from nights of an empty bed and
lonely legs than it was for you to say

goodbye
or
why

my mother failed to mention that
broken hearts and open arms spent waiting
in half made beds behind unlocked doors know much more of pain than ****** elbows and yellowed bruises

my hips had hoped to make your hands
their final resting place
and my lips knew no greater taste
than the toxcity of your kisses
and I wonder
if this is
good
for
me

I guess
all I ever really wanted
was to be symbolic of something
equal parts happiness and freedom
like the way your flesh lept as your heartbeat slowed inside your chest
as you held her hand
and how my blood turned thick
and cold at the sight of her lips
on your cheek and her smile at
your laughter

I want to tell her that
on the second of September
I kissed you so hard I swore
my lips would have fallen off
had it not been for the way
your voice seemed
to stitch up all the breaking
parts of me

and I wonder if shes seen
the inside of your bedroom yet
where the walls watched us talk and
the windows saw us whisper
midnight secrets

I bet she doesn't even write poetry
about the way you blink when you think
of something good to say or how your shirt wrinkles as you breathe and if she doesn't count your heartbeats before you fall asleep I don't know how I'll live with myself knowing that I lost you to someone who symbolizes happiness with inanimate objects like dog houses and swing sets or white picket  fences and NOT THE WAY YOUR LIPS MOVE WHEN YOU SAY I LOVE YOU OR HOW YOUR VOICE CRACKS AS YOU APOLOGIZE

I don't know how to end this without crying and trying to tell myself that happiness does not only exist
in your kisses
and this is
the closest I'll ever come
to saying I love you
again

what you don't know
is that amongst the midnight hours of slumber
my fingers still subconsciously reach
for your skin
and I want to dive down under
twelve blankets and a comforter
with you
and do some 2 a.m soul searching
what you don't know
is that your name still manages to fall out of my mouth every single morning when the six o'clock sunshine streaks my face
its almost as warm as your touch was
and when people ask my how I've been I feel like the biggest compulsive liar on the planet as I more or less continuously state that I'm okay
I'm not okay
its getting harder every day to put the pieces of your face back together in my head
I'm not okay
and your voice sounds a little different each time I try to replay it in my mind
its been years since I've heard you say my name
I'm not okay
I miss you every day
but you probably don't miss me at all
and no, I am not okay

I love the way your lips say my name and how something about your tongue tastes like sunshine on mine and your voice sounds like summer during the day and star dust at night and I aspire to make you acutely aware of how incredible it is to lose myself in your laughter and find myself in your veins I want to wake up each and every morning on the wrong side of the right bed with your sheets tangled around my ankles and your fingers intertwined with mine and I want to look at you through sun kissed bedroom air and tired eyes and tell you how ******* beautiful you are

its 4 am and I'm drunk off the very thought of you and I'm looking at the moon thinking about the first time we ever kissed and how the sun peeked over your shoulders and for a very brief moment my lips touched yours and your soul touched mine but now I'm alone at 4 in the morning and my blood is cold and slow and I'm staring at the moon wondering if its staring back at me from outer space as I'm forming galaxies of thoughts in my head imagining who invented things like semi colons and sentences and punctuation and I want to break every single grammar rule in existance by telling you that I am the human form of a run on sentence and that I love you more than any string of words could ever hope to say

I wish to identify myself
with every familiar part of you
to turn and face you at the break
of dawn and find comfort in the way
you breathe as you awake
and rest quite contently on your shoulders
as they bear the impossible weight
of an apology

I took shelter beneath your finger tips
as they turned the pages
of your favorite book
and I found myself seeking refuge
in your palms as you shook
my fathers hand

the same hand that held a
million different demanded
apologies and fragments of
broken promises and hooks
that wrenched themselves
around our hearts and
sunk down into our skin

the same hand that shoke
hastily at the arms of rapture
with veins that resembled
lightening strikes embedded in
our flesh

I want to forget the rest
of the world and go get
lost inside your chest
I want to call your body home
make friends with your bones and
take shelter beneath your ribcage

your smile radiates a rendered
warmth that my lips
haven't felt in days,
and as I turn to face your empty
bed side at the break of dawn
my mind suddenly recalls
the way your lips curled up
as you said you'd always stay

where, oh where have you gone

this is not a love letter.
I watched you breathe your last breath and stood there in silence as every last ounce of life left your body and I waited in the room as if still in silent hopes that your soul would condensate around me and fill my lungs with your voice and my hands with your heart and I can't ******* breathe because my brain doesn't know how to operate properly without your constant presence in my every day life.
this is not a love letter.
I have no idea what love is when you can't be in it with someone else. and as you left me I had half a mind to invite you to take my old notebooks and crumpled up papers and broken pencils and my love of poetry with you because now what the **** am I supposed to do?
you're gone.
you're gone you're gone you're gone and
oh my god I am alone.
I am alone, and this is not a love letter.
*This is not a love letter.
(I love you)

all choked up on words that lay hidden in the spaces between your fingers and the color behind your eyes
I found the beginnings to poems within your most worn down belt holes and favorite story books
and it was very close to impossible to pass you each morning and remind myself that gravity is merely a factor of the earth and not human beings
because when I saw you it was as if I knew again what a heart beat sounded like and how blood felt running through your veins
and I swore to myself I was done writing about love
but darling, without you nothing's the same

I fell in love with the way he flicked
a cigarette and tasted death between his lips at midnight
And took an immense amount of comfort in the fact that his tongue tasted like black coffee and vanilla
and when he smiled I felt like maybe
I wasn't as lost as I believed to be
And every ounce of me despised smoking and pumping the only lungs you would ever get full of nothing but negative years and future tears that would streak the cheeks of everyone you never knew loved you
but ****, there was something so beautifully intoxicating about the way
you cursed gods name
and gently gripped another cigarette between your finger tips
And your eyes were tired but they screamed of stories left untold
like how you died before you were ever even born
and I think that's when I first knew that your heart would never beat quite right,
it would always be half way torn.

We were all that we would ever be
A hopelessly long list that consisted of maybe's
And someday's
I loved you in ways that resembled sunshine on winter days and rays of light passing through foggy window panes
I had grown accustomed to faces painted with tears and lungs tainted with cigarettes
And the only known cure for things like insomnia and disconnect was found folded in between your arms
A place so warm and filled with thorns
that made my heart resemble something like a thunderstorm
With your voice shaking me with a swarm of unborn feelings and words I couldn't bring myself to speak
I loved you despite the fact that I was dying on the street
Screaming your name at the raining sky to make my voice seem complete