I run to drown out fear
and to block out pain
no I do not run from them
I run for them

I run for heartbreaks
and nightmares
that cannot stop me
for I run

I run from love
and hate
because you cannot know one
without the other

didnt make it to
your wedding
but i sent your
anniversary gift
in mid-december
despite the
june event.

the circumstances
felt cold to me
anyway.

The body remembers, though it has been
four years since the summer you shattered your
knee but still limped out across the continent
to Boston to see him you idiot and
this is the fourth summer you've placed between
yourself and the last pin and the last *****
your body remembers, though in the
torturous lengthening of fused and toughened tissues
the bad leg is finally catching up,
and the scar with its ten numb inches of
puckered track has come to fade bone white
against your skin
but it’s still stored somewhere
in your sockets or cells and when you fall off your bike you still cry
Though you’re not really hurt your body remembers
So that when you’re confronted with their engagement photo
(you didn’t even know he was seeing anyone)
the darkened garden at the Plymouth Plantation
begins to bloom up around you before you can stop it
like a seizure or a vision, and you’re there again
trespassing after him through shadowy pines
and night-damp atlantic air
to where the white chairs encircle the altar.

Winter Stones
I. Her first love
was a boy that chased her around the play ground the way the wind chases leaves
Often he kept her close to the ground, but sometimes
he would spin her into small tornados  Untill she was dizzy and giggling
And sometimes he swept her up- the way wind does
Together they flew
he showed her the skies,
taught her how to manipulate the clouds and count the constellations one by one

II. She saw Galaxies in his eyes
Expansive depths that offered worlds of possibilities
And she cried when he cut his hair
Because he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen
And she knew that he was perfect with all his flaws
Because he was the sun and she the moon
And flaws were only clouds that temporarily dimmed light

III. Everyone told her
The story of how “The sun died every night to let the moon breathe”
But they had forgotten that it is the sun that rises and falls
So therefore the moon can only breathe when the sun says so.
And they forgot to mention that small tornados turn into big ones
That leaves in storms are nothing but collateral damage
And without a tree to hold them down are left and lost
to the whim of the wind

IV. All too soon
She began to find the wind suffocating
Yet salt still poured from her eyes when she realized
That leaves have no power to stay the wind
And the moon and the sun simply can’t exist at the same time

V. Still,
She never stopped loving him

VI. Then the night came
That he thought that maybe he loved her back
and when he kissed her it was with lips made of fire
Which burned her skin as easily as paper
And left her with scars when he said
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
They tell you scars are memories but really,
They just hurt

VII. They told her
That she was too young to know love
that what she had felt for him was only a shadow of love
So, logically, she could not possibly be heartbroken
But if this was only a shadow of love
Then she decided that she would go her whole life without falling
Yet her imagination still strayed
and she began to wonder if she was even capable of love
Because her pieces hadn’t quite fit back together right
And she knew
That she would never break the same way that she broke for him
Plus,
It was hard to break
When all he had left her with were bricks to build walls
And she did, tall and high

VIII. But the thing about walls
is that while they keep things out
they also keep them in
And so she was a trapped in a place without wind
But even if he had been there it wouldn't have mattered because,
She was no longer Autumn Leaves but
Winter Stones

You were trigger happy baby,
You never warned me let me free
It's not that complicated,
You keep on thinking
You were the only one
Too busy thinking
Love is a gun
Hit me like a slow bullet
Like a slow bullet
It took me some time to realise it

I should title all these after you
but then it'd feel more true
you're still all i write about
i think of you and want to shout
i ate up your lies
you ignored my cries
and now it's you i despise
so i've cut all our ties
but then i see your picture
with her, her and her AND her
what's a girl to do
when all she ever knew
walked out the door
left her alone on the floor
i always think i'm over it
but it still does hurt a bit
                              
~S

You made us bleed.*

Bleed from a place deep within us. Where it does not appear as a light red, or even crimson.

But a dark scarlet.

Darker than the void you so carelessly cast us in.

You left us with nothing but the company of the Solitude, who recites our failures to us with each nightfall like songs of victory.

Our only food was the shattered promises that you left behind with your departure, as they shred our tongue which spoke only words of affection and adoration to you.

Our only drink was the burning passion we once used to keep you warm during your cold isolation, which has now festered and rotted, tasting only of boiling venom now.

Yet despite this diet of agony and woe, we cannot help but love you.

But you do not reciprocate these feelings which we hold, you merely mocked them by filling our ears with fantasies and false assurances.

So we have grown tentative.

We have forged a fortress from the flesh of the fetid Solitude, to safeguard that which you have left in fine fragments.

From its bones we have constructed monolithic walls and barriers.

From its soul we have crafted chains and blades, to stave off those who would seek to destroy what is left of it.

We have assured ourselves that none shall have safe passage within, unless we so willed.

And yet when you return after months of silence with nothing more than your beautiful sapphire eyes, and your lips curled into a gentle smile, you have shaken the very foundation of our fortress.

Even the sight of your very name causes the whispers of the Solitude to echo in its halls.

We do not know what has brought you back to our tormented path, but know that it will not be as welcoming as it once was.

There will not be any words of gentleness or amour as before, but rather a single, bitter phrase.

*En garde.

I listen to your music
it makes me feel closer to you
and calms me down
since you've gone
I'll do it until I'm dead
god knows when the ****
that will be