I look for you
In passing faces
A stranger's glance
In haunted places

I feel you among
Nature's grandest setting
It is you that I remember
Even when I'm forgetting

I see you wherever I go
In everyone I meet
Your words echo in conversations
That pass me on the street

Your soft, easy way
That safe familiar tone
That always takes me back
To a time long gone

the monday morning migraine
rears its ugly head
yet again
it is 9:52
and I am thinking
about how you
can make a poem
out of anything
love letters and
hate letters
and
goodbye and
hello letters
all the same
because either
you feel the pain
now
or you save it
til the end
so I need someone
to tell me
what constitutes
an end

I look past my reflection in the mirror;
whale-sized thighs, and
arms too big for the oceans
rain pours down like sharp daggers
into my flesh, and I’m tired
teeth hurt, and I’m tired
heart pounding, and I’m tired
my mermaid waves leave my head like
an old porcelain doll, dying
and I’m tired
I teach my body how to stop needing,
in with the calories, and I’m tired
out with the calories, and I’m really tired
silent screams echo at the fake reflection
that stares blindly through the broken
mirrors
**** me up, I’m seeing stars tonight
bones aching, and I’m smiling
bullets to the head, and I’m smiling
painstakingly dancing through the night
till I’m void of nothing,
they say empty is beautiful, and I want
so dearly to feel beautiful
calories scattered on the floor, like the
those scattered thoughts of everything
I used to be
and everything I am now
scatterbrain, tell me how you feel
when your insides are void of
self-love
you eat hatred for breakfast
and spit self-pity into your toilet
tell me again, silly girl,
do you feel beautiful now?

remember when you told me sleep was just practice? remember how when i asked what for, all you could manage was sea-foaming at the mouth and tired eyes?

funny how i see in black and white now. funny how i can still see sea-foam-blue.

one of the many things you taught me was to always keep eulogies tucked between my ribs in hopes of memorizing them by heart. i never knew heart break until words i can't remember writing—or, maybe, wont remember writing came spilling out of my mouth like reverse lockjaw.

but i remember the way you choked up and coughed out apologies as if you were fighting tides of pride; words getting caught in your throat—a foreshadowing of salt the water in your lungs.

i know i tend to ramble, and i know you tend to hate that but i swear god this had a point. i guess what i'm trying to say is, i never meant to be your anchor. i never wanted to drag you down.