You ****** me up.
I said it.
You really did.
Before you
I was happy.
After you
I became a train wreck
Full with anxiety.
I forgive you.
I told you how you hurt me
Your excuse?
"You walked away when I needed you the most, so I don't understand how I hurt you"
Excuse me, since when was it okay
To leave a the one you love in a room 24/7 without offering them to go outside at least once?
When was it okay to convince the one you love to leave their family?
Since when was it ******* okay to isolate the person you love from everything they love?
Since when was it ******* okay to make their opinions irrelevant?!
But okay, I'm in the wrong for leaving when you have broken me the most.
But thank you. Thank you.
As much as I want to cuss you out,
And as much as I want to tell you
I forgive you.
You have made me strong.
You have shown me that
I Am a Woman worth more than ******* diamonds!
I matter, and my opinions matter!
My family and my friends matter!
You will no longer bring me down!!!

it takes 8 hours and 1 minute to get to Gansevoort Street

they say to truly love someone
you must know them through all four seasons

barricaded branches prevented you from coming February 6th

black leather interior seemed like the perfect place

to evaporate
like a cigarette outside Baby Huey
punch holes in your arm like a belt
so a finger can’t trace it

without being caught
hornets under Dixie cups
razored wings carve out this body
phantom knee, nerve extension
push your thumb into its stump

regret pushing the willow
walking the length of dead grass to a childhood hub
a reminder of which sits on your bedside
as an 8-year-old pilot
spearheading a UAV to TOR

Dundas Square sees you in an amber light.

You used to spell my name with a smiley face in the C.

When I see that you still do sometimes
my heart sinks like a pebble thrown in your favorite lake,

            skipped across the waters surface,

                                         suddenly heavy again

                                                             with gravity and grief.

I'd rather drown a hundred times than let my heart go free
Because I can't hear your horrid voice at the bottom of the sea
And you've ruined every chance of love
So I pulled when I was supposed to shove

You don't know how it feels to love so blindly
All trust enveloped into another soul
Only to have them crush your hopes and dreams with one fatal blow  
Breaking down, slowly
I decay with the rest
A dusty box of your old shirts
I could barely bring myself to collect
But I'm the one crying myself dry
I'm the one fighting to keep myself alive
I didn't sleep, I couldn't eat,
Not a single soul could help me.
I can't trust others
I barely trust myself
So at the end of the day
It's me, myself, and nobody else.

tell me you love me.
say it louder.
convince me that you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when I'm screaming at you,
even when I'm crying in your arms,
even when I destroy myself before your very eyes.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when my hair is a mess in the morning,
even when I haven't showered and I look like trash,
even when I'm still in my pajamas,
and it's three in the afternoon.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when my eyes are bloodshot,
even when my voice is gone,
even when I lie straight to your face.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when I don't know who I am,
even when I text you in the middle of the night,
even when I can't love myself.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when I double, triple, quadruple text you,
even when I message you on every app,
even when I tell you my true feelings in between memes.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
even when I can't process my thoughts,
even when I can't say what I mean,
even when I stutter when I talk.
tell me you love me.

tell me you love me.
say it louder.
convince me that you love me.

You to me are warmth;
a kind of light that shows itself
in rays whenever you smile or speak.
I would say that you’re the sun,
but you’re sweeter then it’s shine
and your touch on my skin effects
me greater then that stars heat.
You ignite a kind of fire within me
that makes my insides feel as if
they are in some way melting.
I hope your summer stays because-
I don’t want to be cold again.

how often I wish for 91 Brunswick Ave
compressed together in a claw foot,
your flesh my home
cakes baked in too shallow pans
I forget what song was playing when
you told me you loved me.

how often I wish for the freeway between
Cocoa Beach and Orlando,
a friendly chaperone asleep in the back
hands knotted thinking:
“this is ours”

how often I think of August bonfires
the terror of an international move
“you would be a day ahead of me for ten weeks”
I felt stronger than the 100-year-old ruins we were
standing in

how often I wish for The Standards,
High Line and East Village,
bacon cocktails and antiquated photobooths and
windswept harbour panoramas
my insubstantial voice begging
“don’t turn the red light off,
I need you to see where my bones shattered
and pierced my skin”

I.

there’s a boy with shaggy brown hair and bright eyes who runs after speeding trains and rubs my back when I’m scared and always helps me find the moon.

I can still feel his hand tracing circles down my spine.

he is not entirely unprecedented, he is not entirely polished and confident. sometimes both of us are too nervous to look each other in the eye,

but this is forgiven.

this is a boy with black-framed glasses who has suddenly grown strong and steady, whose arm around me is an anchor, who hasn’t missed a day in telling me that I’m beautiful. this is a boy who is causing a small earthquake in the heart of a girl who thought the fault lines shooting across its surface had settled

long ago.

it’s no secret that I’m still figuring out who I am,

how all of my fingers and elbows and teeth fit together, and that makes me nervous. I don’t want the boy to become

the latest casualty in my misguided journey of self-discovery.

on the knife-point between nineteen and twenty, teenager and adult, this is where we stand: the boy makes my heart flutter, and that’s all I know.

tell me I’m wrong, tell me I’m way ahead of you, and I’ll probably pay a price for it,

but just think about the way he ran after that train. the way he got distracted by the moon, the way he whispered to me in his car,

and tell me I’m wrong. go on, tell me.