It's four in the morning, and I'm still in the same place.
In the same position.
In the universe of a thousand light years away from yours.
At the moment I do not feel anything.
That panic that radiated through my every pore
When when you left this afternoon
Merged with the walls of smoke that are slowly drenching
Stripped window glass.
You went forever.
I can not remember where.
My mind was preoccupied with memories of your hair,
The way you eat an orange
And of your eyes of the color of seaweed and the trees that are sunking into the sunset.
Separation went peacefully.
In the manners of black and white films that I can not stand.
You never asked me why.
You left me in silence,
Not even looking back while I watched from the window
How your dress crumpled while you were entering the cab.
Since then, I have no courage to walk through the apartment
Because every corner exudes with you,
Each object is wearing your fingerprint.
I wonder if I'll ever move from this place,
Make that first step without you.
Now officially.
I'm not bitter, I'm not afraid nor angry.
In fact, I feel empty.
Empty like the aquarium, which we stored in the closet
Once you gave our goldfish to your sister.
Maybe I'd feel better if the separation was more dramatic,
With some broken object and with slamming doors.
At least I'd feel something.
Anger, sadness, desire for revenge.
Any feeling that would force me to move on,
To not become a plant and to not stay
Frozen in time and space.
Quiet goodbyes are making you think
Of the things you want to forget forever,
Like your almond scent
And arm movements while you are shaking off cigarette ash.
If that separation was restless
I would do something now, maybe even sleeping.
I would not know the number of sunflowers on your dress
As you entered the cab
And at least I would once again hear your voice
While you would scream, cry
Or laughed at me in the face.
I can not stand quiet goodbyes.
You never asked me why.

My mother looked for God at the bottom of a wine glass as empty as her heart,
she shrunk herself down to curl up in the bottom of it
and I haven’t heard her pray since.

My father looked for God at a grave marked for a man that introduced them.
But saw only grass growing over dirt,
saw only unanswered pleas
and he has been six feet further away from being saved since.

My brother looked for God in the highest place he could reach.
He was met with only a long way to fall,
the ground beneath him wasn’t as soft as it had been when he was a child,
and he hasn’t looked up since.

I looked for God in unheard answers and nights of loneliness.
All that I got back were prayers soiled with tears.
I caved in on myself.
And i have learned something since.

The dark cavern between my ribs holds promises
The possibilities of a glass that is empty
is as much as an empty heart has;
to be filled.
The certainty that six feet under isn't where our loved ones lie
The blanket of a God that loves us enough to let us hate Him
The highest place we can reach on earth,
is kneeling before a God that is not hard to find, but is hard to see.
All I had to do, was look inside of myself.

From her dark purple lips hangs a cigarette with pink smoke, and headphones with no music play a tune inside her head, and she paints bright red words loud as a FRAGILE stamp on her skin, and maybe on yours too, but only when you seem particularly insightful. She knows every word to every song of a band you’ve never heard of, and when they play and she’s driving the car, she will literally pull over and close her eyes to absorb the sound into her bloodstream, which seems to be composed of tiny bits of the galaxy and maple syrup and diary entries she never lets you read. She will kiss you in the movies, but only in parts heavily dripping of gore and violence, a metaphor she’s explained countless times but you will just never understand. She will paint her nails with your name sprawled across the *******, hold your hand in the gas station while shaming glossy magazine covers and everything that’s just soooo wrong with societies expectations of women today (despite the fact she’s somehow maniacally maintained her perfect body in the three weeks you’ve known her), and tell you that you’re her favorite season, a thought that your mind will spin around in its head like you ran around your 3rd grade classroom when your teacher was introducing concepts of matter and announced “now switch from a solid to a gas!”
But she will never tell you she loves you.
She will curse under her breath when you climb your courage without a harness to break the cold silence of the night, while laying on your back on the street under the stars. She will whisper “I’m so sorry” and speed off into the night, running with an elegant skirt she found in a thrift shop- made in 1956 or some other far-off year- flicking like a black-and-white movie behind her, the last thing you see before she disappears into the night, before she disappears from the audience’s cares and back into your mind.
She was everything I wanted to be for as long as I could remember, a terrible destruction of the human mind, a horrific enigma that perfection was so messed up that perfection itself could never learn how to love. Manic Pixie Dream Girl was my role model, Manic Pixie Dream Girl wore shirts from France hand-painted with Swedish fables, Manic Pixie Dream Girl knew every Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros song on the xylophone but only played with her eyes closed, Manic Pixie Dream Girl hated her sister and her parents and told everyone she was a mess they didn’t want to clean up. A disgusting idea that a woman only exists to make a man happy, to cure a man of his dark cloud of spinning inhibitions, and if she dares become real then she no longer is deemed entertaining. Manic Pixie Dream Girl was my goal, and with this in mind I embarked upon puberty with a music taste straight out of a Wes Anderson movie and teal eyeliner and the idea that being broken was desirable.
Until I actually was.
Manic Pixie Dream Boy refused to listen to the radio, wanted to be a famous actor, planned days to simply lay in bed all day, and smoked over a pack a day despite asthma so bad I worried every time we went up the stairs. Manic Pixie Dream Boy wore clothes with animals on them, but said he didn’t believe in giraffes, Manic Pixie Dream Boy hated school but loved to learn, Manic Pixie Dream Boy was perfect. Until he became the thing I so desired, telling me relationships weren’t for him and he couldn’t possibly ever fall in love, he was too broken.
But now I was Manic Pixie Dream Girl, wasn’t I? Broken, just as she was? Just as I had so desired to be when re-watching The (500) Days of Summer over and over again in middle school?
I hate you Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I hate telling the kind boy with the good grades and nice intentions that I couldn’t possibly love again, I detest the enigma I now am.
But when new boy with blue eyes darker than the Pacific coast tells me to lay down with him in the gravel and tells me that he hates the number 63 more than wheat-brewed beer, I say yes and give into manic dreams again.

i live and breathe my words.
that's why sometimes they're
complicated, difficult to get out.
i'm asthmatic, and struggle
to exhale and rhyme and write
without wheezing typos and not pressing enter for each new line.
but when i'm inspired,
my lungs have no limit.
i breathe in and out freely,
i write fluidly, and i create.
and i live.

they like to hide in the walls
i have never seen them and i have never heard them speak out loud
but i think i felt their hands slide gently up my spine and. they grasped at the back of my neck and they squeezed down. they watched me squirm until they let go and they laughed together.
they laughed, they laughed as i ran away
and i could not hear it but i felt it echo through my chest.

its getting hard to tell if they're here or if they simply want to watch me squirm.

but i am always afraid and i feel the cold running through my nerves and my eyes dart to the corner and i am rushing in an attempt to turn to look behind me and i am checking under the bed, like a child, i am hastily rooting through the closet, i am running to my bed and hiding beneath the covers.
you tell me, "monsters aren't real, there are no ghosts here, i've got you, you're safe, i've got you" and i cannot hear you
my heart is beating so fast there is nothing but fear i am no longer here, I am terrified, I am terrified
They Are Watching!!!!
And They Are Disappointed

love is sometimes a replacement for loneliness
a lost cause coupled with apathy and the blindness brought on by losing more than you gained
you see, the heart is a vessel supplying life long torture
and the mind is the keeper of chains for your slave of a heart
your eyes are in a constant search for the perfect locksmith
your hands endlessly craving a passionate touch (desired: exactly what you want)
but you have no idea what any of this means
no idea what any of this feels like
you walk around every day looking for an idea of love

who needs a broken heart when you have no one to give it to
who needs a place to call home when you forget your address every friday night
who wants to be loved when it ends with your heart taking a crippling blow
who wants to be loved when love ends with either death or being alone

love is an ether that the innocent and unknowing are quick to believe in
love binds the masses to a predetermined expectation of who should be holding hands
love takes everything you have and leaves you with two possible answers
yes
or no
love walks down the road at dusk and love jogs in the morning
love creeps into your house after work and love leaves when it needs to
love doesn’t cater to the unwilling and love thrashes the innocent
love beats the lovers and love has no meaning
love is a person
love is a feeling
love is unknown
love is simply being

tic tac toe to me
isn’t what you think
in fact it really stinks

this is what you think:
that I’m not true
because I follow
the directions on my orange bottle

tic tac toe to me
is a lengthy process
I’ve been off of them;
I cared about myself way less

tic tac toe to you
just reminds you of me;
just like everything else.
reminds you of all my tells.

tic tac toe resolves our woes
they can go from head to toes
I’ll never fill a void…
you’ll only think I toyed