Loneliness eats me
Like an orange.
Fingernails carving away my skin,
To **** out that juicy pulp of hope
From the outside in.

He called me delicious, but that was lifetimes ago,
Words turning so sweet
They rotted.

I never should have believed him - “I’m
Not just a fruit to be eaten” - that's
I should have told him,
Before these cravings were cultivated. The ones that crawl in
Through the chasms of solitude
Like worms into the pores of my skin.

Because now all I want
Is to be squeezed out
By stronger hands
That make me feel delicious and
Turn my desires
Into the most mouthwatering of juices again.

We were all loved so imperfectly,
it's hard not to hate those that weren't.
The ones who don't flinch when they think about the past, but laugh.
And I've been trying to repaint the pictures hanging in those frames, soft from memory
Trying to find new shades and
Trying to admire the ways
That they are unique. They are mine. They're worth keeping.

I've considered suicide. She's attempted it four times. That could be our battle cry - "we never asked to be alive"
But now we're here
And what do we do?
In a place where there's no pity for ****-ups or pale scars on wrists or empty bowls burning from final embers, their lungs inhaling it so beautifully.

I never smoked it, but I'm in love with the silver dragons that swirl in the air all around it. I could watch it pour from their lips for hours, could soak in the sweet stench for days, could count away everything else until I count down to nothing.
Nothing. But here.

No more worries or chores or judgments or wondering what people think of me or caring too much or trying too hard and failing, failing.
He tells me that he's changed. Of course I still love him.
But it will never be the same.

You are the bright city lights of places I’ve never been.
And when I make way there, to those distances,
You are the sugar sweet cinnamon in cafes
Chasing down the coffee on my lips.
How do I explain you?

You… you’re laughter in the waiting room
And I find myself snorting with derision when
The other patients look over frowning, their eyes vacant.
Because you’re the inside joke no one else seems to get.
Oh, yes. You.

You’re the wind on the top of the mountain
And I spread my arms wide like wings
While the wind whips my hair around my face and
When I close my eyes, I can hear you sing
Across the mountain ranges
In hues of distant lavenders and blues.
I want to get lost in you.

You are the warm blanket fireside, where
Others are asking to join me and wrap themselves in.
You are a Great Lake, hidden
And I walked for miles to trace the edges
With blistered heels, chapped hands
Crouching down to send ripples across
Such a pure and clear surface
Reflecting the beauty of the glorious heavens.

Oh, yes. You.
Are a melody of metaphors beyond all reason or explanation.

You deserve to shine -
That's why
My heart is hammering, handing you roses,
Obliterated by the joy radiating from your smile in surprise
My hands shaking, heart racing, mouth so dry
As you reach out and embrace me, I’ve never felt so certain that
Everything is gonna be fine.

Lets talk. Get out of the drive-
Way, go inside, lean against the counter
You’re looking at me now with brand new eyes,
I’m probably blushing, you wanna hang out?
Yeah - now we go walking outside.

Under tall, dark pines, you and I
Sneakers slide on the overcast hues in the sky
Whatever you want to tell me, I’ll just keep listening,
Math class and kingfishers, eels and anime,
Weekends and hiking, improv and rock climbing,
Your childhood memories, skipping stones
You didn’t even laugh when I made a horrible throw,
But said it was stylish and when I had to go,
Held out my jacket for me.

Sitting next to you by the lake today, was everything.
There were no words necessary. So.
This poem is for you, and let me get this off of my chest:
I think that you deserve happiness.

They say I need healing
But what could they mean?
Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?
Walking alone down this road, planting seeds
Of myself into this poetry and
Watching it grow.
Maybe one day, it will start flowering, and they will see.

Waterfalls flow. They remind me of places I could go.
Of places I’ve been. Of things I know.
Of the loves that I’ve lost. Of the things I still hope.

If he were to come to me, what would I do?
Who have I been becoming? She
Is stronger, more capable than
Any other version of me.
But she is darker, harder, than I know that I truly should be.

I loved him with the best parts of myself.
I loved him like art. Like beauty itself
As down the mountains and silent Alps it fell
We sat together, his hand I held, sharing secrets I still can’t tell,
I felt as I had never felt, as if our souls were bound in a spell
To ever love and to ever impale
The quietest recesses of my most private self
I trusted him with my life, my love, my soul itself
And so, of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised when, he failed.

I was so young. So alive. So sure of myself.
So trusting, naive.

We worked together in the garden, pulling weeds
And churned yogurt and nuts in the kitchen, making muesli
We lay beneath the bright stars at night with a bottle of wine
Giggling together, talking, kissing, we
Were immortal then, impervious to doubts or fears, insecurities or death itself.

Every cell in my body, every fiber in my being, every thought and word and deed
Was vibrating for you, was alive to follow you, wherever you would choose to lead me.
Ah, so young, so drunk on possibilities, so naive.

Nobody else has these memories I keep locked inside of me.
I thought that we would be married.
I thought you were the one for me.
I wanted to give you my future, my everything.
So I did. And I lost myself, then.

I’m so scared, now. I don’t want that to ever happen again.

Because now I can’t see you. I can’t feel you.
You are nothingness to me.
You are worse than death, because that, at least, I could grieve.
You are non-entity, you are a gaping wound of anti-matter heavy inside of me.
You are thick poison, metallic in my bloodstream, slowing my movements, slowly killing me.

You are the haunting nobody else can see.
You are the reason I wake up everyday, fighting.
And I am so tired. So angry. So broken. Untrusting.
You wrecked the feminine inside of me, she’s run, gone from me.
Leaving nothing but furious warrior energy.
And he is determined to protect her from everyone and everything.
I can’t cry anymore. I don’t have that within me. Tenderness, vulnerability?
There is no part of me now that is weak. Diamond is my core.
Hard, tortured, unmoving, compacted into impregnable density.
Beautiful, but terrifying.

They say I need healing. But that means that I would have to be a living, feeling, growing thing.

And yet… Nothing lasts forever.
So, I suppose its just a matter of time,
Until maybe one day  I will encounter a love so bright
It melts down that diamond inside of me, transmuting me
Into something warmer, more brilliant, than this current version of me.

Why do I love people
That cannot love me back?

"You used to be much muchier"
And why is it that
Some people never feel those attacks?
Is there such a thing as strength?
Do I always have to be that?

I thought there was a “braver” ***
So why am I always saving them?
Taking care of them,
Playing pretend
In their little sandbox of existence?

No. The goddess within
Demands
More than I can
Ever seem to attract.

I want a man whose heart is so full -
Rainwater dripping from the pitcher on the drizzled grey of yesterday,
A soft sound in the great symphony of the wet garden,
Bejeweled and glistening,
Pianoforte drops
Upon the wet leaves
Falling.

I will know him by the way he writes, the kindness in his eyes -
Flashes of him in my professor,
In myself, caught laughing like a child,
In the quiet teenager who is becoming an
Unlikely philosopher, frontal cortex in heat,
With the implications of existence
(He’s awake in the early dawn, a furious Jacob,
wrestling with his God)

And he will be a Seeker of Beauty:
“There is no medium unworthy”
He will tell me, but never in words,
Crouching for perfection’s grace among leaves and dirt
Like a widow beneath rainbow fractals
At early morning’s mass.

He will be effortless, like the unspoken love
Between two old friends, bookends
Scattering crumbs of baguettes in the park
To clicking beaks, and dancing pigeon feet.

Burying himself in pages, when he thinks no one sees
(Was that you there, on the subway?
Dark eyes, fixated on the lines,
Crinkling with understanding?)

Both of us adventurous spirits -
“Let’s run away, you and me” and we will
Melt with ease into cityscapes, so transparent, adaptive,
Young and free,
Like the wood moths becoming one
With the aspen in its serenity,
We light upon
France, Spain… Italy.

I know I will find him
In my own verse.
Will discover him
In pages that I’ve turned.
Will recite his thoughts back to him, and will
Love him like poetry.
I will know him by heart.