because i believed you
because i never realized how brown your eyes really were until i had the courage to stare
because you told me you were happier this way
because i don't feel suicidal when i'm with you
because you wanted me to meet your mother
because you never ask me what's wrong
because you don't care about anything
because i wanted to know what would happen
because i was too scared to ask
because ******* for leaving the first time
because i love you for coming back
because you only ever touch me when you're drunk
because his lips didn't feel like yours
because he made me laugh but not the way you could
because of 3 am nights with you are all i want to remember
because 3 am nights without you sit in the middle of my chest like a boulder
because my father warned me
because i can't do it anymore
because i can't do it anymore

If you give a girl a with a big heart your broken pieces,
she will gently pick them up and carry them in her soft hands,
and pay no mind to your sharp edges.
She will try to glue you back together
and she’ll do it in a way that made you forget you were ever broken.
With scratched finger tips and ****** palms,
she’ll lift you up to the sun,
letting it's blinding rays shine through you
to show you that even the worst things have things to love in them
and that even the shattered can again be whole.

If you give a girl with a big heart your body,
she will study you like an archaic God.
She will learn your curves and surfaces like braille,
she will adjust her hearing to the pitch of your laughter
so that no matter how far apart you become,
her ears will perk up like a dog's when you giggle,
and she will smile, knowing that you smile.

If you give a girl with a big heart your time,
she will make each second feel like infinity,
and each sunset like the end of the world.
You'll forget that the universe is as vast and wondrous as it is,
because you will be so captivated by the light that she emits
right where she sits,
by your side.

And if you take from a girl with a big heart,
please,
for the love of God,
do not take it all.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember that her love is not a renewable resource.
The wind and the sun and the water will forever be there to serve you but
she will run dry, and become another fact of history that will one day be forgotten.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember how sharp your edges were before her,
how lifeless your body was before she touched it,
and how meaningless time was before she made it into something magical.

last Easter I wrote a poem for you
with rhyming words and beautifully constructed stanzas
about the way your hair looks and the way I wanted you and the way things were changing but -
April came back around all too fast this year and I don't write poems like I used to.
this isn't poetry.
this is October nights with glazed eyes,  burning throats and so much trauma, so much trauma, so much ******* trau-
this is November afternoons smoking my lungs black and tears that i drowned in for every day of that month.
this is December mornings when I spent all my money on Christmas decorations because I thought it would be my last.
this is New Years Eve, clutching her back and sobbing into her shoulders because I couldn't believe I made it - how the hell did I make it?  this is me thanking her, and her, and her too for stitching me back together. this is champagne and the grace of God.
this is February when you came back to me  and as much as i wanted to throw dirt back in your face, I held onto it in hopes of planting something new.
this is March when it wouldn't stop snowing.
this isn't poetry.
this is April,
this is me taking the dirt and burying the idea of us six feet under.
this isn't poetry,
this is Spring and this is the last time you will be mentioned with it.

it only took one week for you to re-light the candle,
and it only took me six words to set afire
(i'm so sorry i ****** up)
you were reckless with heat and i was so easily flammable and ******* for coming back when you did

there's always been a whole lot of grey between us
it wasn't black and white from the start
i was always making exceptions and you were always doing the wrong thing,
but making it seem so right

it feels like the butterflies in my stomach have turned into bees
stinging and buzzing whenever we talk and
im far past the school-girl crush, with sweaty palms and shy giggles
my hands are shaky and there's a lump in my throat because this isn't romance anymore,
this is red eyes and fractured ribs.

you keep referring to her as "a mistake"
but i keep hearing you say "i want her back"
and i wish you knew that the more you try to disguise your anger as indifference,
the more apparent it is that you wish things were different.

i will always be the altarboy,
i will always wait for you on hands and feet.
i will never be enough for you.
*i will never be enough for you

Kissing him sounded like wailing sirens,
a traumatic experience already in motion

Your Dad was never around to teach you things
like riding a bike, or how to ask for the things you want
so you own a dirt bike now and steal for the thrill of it.
I still think you turned out just fine.

I  want to romanticize the way it felt to feel your presence but always being at such a distance from you,
but its hard to make something so painful sound poetic.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it all, just a little bit.

You'll call some other girl "babe"
and I'll change my mind
the same way the leaves go from green to red and
one day I won't think of trauma when I hear your name,
I won't be calm when I sense danger,
and I won't be at peace when I hear sirens wail.

A cell is not a home,
those bars keep you too far away.
We all try not to think about it too much,
and like this we keep ourselves sane.
We dance around the topic and I pretend not to hear Mom howling at night because if I don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't exist.
Has your vision faded to black and white?
Do you pretend that if you don't see the colour orange hanging from your body,
that you're just in another place?
Another empty room?
Another lonely night spent with  strangers at a location you're trying to make home?
You've always liked the way your hair looked long,
do you still like it now?
Have you began to hate the things you once loved yet?
Like cartoons, or colouring books, or the drugs that twisted and knotted your brain cells?
The drugs that sent you there?
The drugs that keep you there?
Have you began to resent every memory you have of us growing up?
Who do you see when you have nightmares?
Whose name do you curse when you awake in a cold sweat?
A cell is not a home
and those bars are going to ruin you.

"If I could paint a picture of how we used to be,
it would be a landscape of a field
with sunflowers that all look the exact same.
The exact same.
Over and over and over again."

it comes in flashes
bright, red-hot
you feel it take over and if you feel it fast enough,
you can destroy everything in your path within moments
you spew words like venom and leave scars without thinking twice
and when it's over and done with,
you hate yourself for it.
this is what anger is,
this is how you have made cynics out of every person that's ever loved you.