Finally doing laundry,
It’s been two months.
As I sit and I fold,
Careful not to leave wrinkles,
I can’t help but think,
How many more times will I have to pick up the pieces?

As I drive in my car,
Careful to go the speed limit,
The wind caressing my face and arm
As it blows through my windows,
I feel the melancholy sink in.
How much longer will I ache for what has been?

It’s sunny and the warmth radiates downward,
Embracing my body as if to say “Welcome back”.
I can finally feel it again,
My skin is a part of me,
Something I can feel.
How many more times will I lose this feeling?

I’ve spent weeks in a chemical haze,
But not one of my doing.
My brain had once again said “Too much”
And shuddered to a halt,
Spinning out on its way to a restless place.
How much longer will I suffer this fate?

Everything is different,
But it all feels the same.
I’m coming back now from a tiresome journey.
A blast from the past,
I am still exactly who I was four years ago.
How many more times will I lose my sanity?

As I pick up the pieces,
I can’t help but wonder,
How long will I exist in this cyclical race?
When they gave me the pills,
They gave me a life sentence.
How much longer will I last in this unstable state?

Unfortunately, I know.
This is a life sentence.  
I will always be at the mercy of these highs and those lows.
There will be reprieves from time to time,
But it will always crumble once again. So I ask myself…
How many more times can I pick up the pieces?

I fell in love to James Bay’s first album.
The words to each song spilling off of our tongues.
You’d sing in the driver’s seat, careful not to swerve
And I’d sing to the sky, my hand out the sunroof beside yours.
I remember looking at you, just like I do now,
A smile on my face, God, you make me so proud.
Your eyes are divine, with golden flecks of sunlight
That light up my world when the sun hits them just right.
Your smile, slightly off center, and imperfectly aligned,
I’m so grateful for you lips, when you kiss me— all mine.
Our love has a soundtrack, each song all our own,
We sit in our spot listening to it on repeat, enjoying life’s wonder, together alone.
“Incomplete” makes my heart ache, just knowing its true,
it hurts to know that’s just what I am whenever I’m not with you.
“Best Fake Smile” makes us scream sing at the top of our lungs,
Each time it ends, we’re out of breath, and you wrap me in your hugs.
“If You Ever Want to be in Love” is our anthem,
like he simply took our love and put it to a rhythm.
I fell in love to this album, and you did, too.
Not a moment passes by that I don’t want to be with you.
So kiss me and hug me and smile once more,
before we pause our love playlist, and I open the truck door.

She made me say it.
I looked at her every day,
Learning her deepest secrets,
And wildest dreams,
And greatest talents.
I spent every waking moment with her,
Couldn’t escape her even if I tried.
She made it impossible not to say it.
She was so beautiful and whole and lively,
And everything I ever wanted.
The more attention I paid to her,
The more impossible it was to keep it in.
One day I couldn’t hold back anymore.
She made me say it.

I.
I love.
I love you.
I love you so much.
I love you so much, dear.
I love you so much, dear self.

I want to be your greatest adventure
If I’m not, please let me go.
When you look at me,
see the sunshine as it flickers through leaves overhead in the redwood forest
If you don’t, let me go.
The moment I touch you,
I want you to feel the warm summer breeze of the coast
If you don’t, let me go.
When you kiss me,
I want you to know the feeling of a rollercoaster dropping from the highest peak
If your stomach doesn’t do a somersault, let me go.

If for some reason, when you hold me
you don’t feel as though you're sitting before a fireplace on a cold winter night,
then ******* you, let me go.
When I wake you up with a kiss,
if grateful is not the first thing you feel, let me go.
Don’t force me to stay and waste my time by being indifferent.
If I’m not the passport to the life of your dreams,
give me up, let me go.
If you’re anything less than enamored with me,
what are you waiting for? Let me go.

If the sound of my voice isn’t your forgotten favorite song
And my scent isn’t your favorite summer flower
And my smile isn’t the perfect polaroid
And my laugh isn’t the wind chimes on the porch of your grandma’s house
And you can’t see the whole world in my eyes when they lock yours,
Do us both a favor, and let me go.

You may be hesitant,
and I would be too
If I had the universe in my arms by chance
And I treated it like anything less by choice.

Let me go.

It tastes like you,
From start to finish.
As I flick the lighter,
And the flame warms my face,
I can feel your light blinding me again.
That first inhale,
It’s something divine,
Like when you open the door for me,
Wearing leggings and a cropped long sleeve.
As I inhale, the flames burn my throat
Like saying goodnight after one of our long talks.
Holding it in my lungs, I’m transported.
On your porch, leaning against each other,
In your car, singing a Disney song
In your kitchen, crying about a hypothetical.
As I exhale, I can feel it
The words coming out of my mouth
Like a waterfall I can’t control
“I like you so much,
You’re so beautiful”
So I continue to smoke them,
One puff at a time,
And remember our moments,
Trying to keep them all mine.
The last hit always burns my lips a little,
Warm and sweet,
Like your lips were on mine.
It’s killing me slowly,
But then, so were you.

Everybody said I was sorry too much,
And honestly, I was.
So I’d say sorry for being sorry,
And for bumping into them,
And being tired,
And staying home too much,
And taking up space.
In truth, I was sorry.
So sorry for existing and getting in the way.
Then one day I was holding his hand
And brushing his thumb tenderly.
In that moment, I realized
I wasn’t just sorry to them but to myself.
Sorry I couldn’t love and be kind to me
Like I was to him.
Couldn’t smile when the sun kissed my face
Or feel alive when I woke up in the morning.
The truth is, I am sorry too much;
I’m sorry to me.

I quite love the way people seem.
In truth, I love it more than I could ever love the people themselves.
They’re simply knick-knacks to me,
Wonderful to look at and admire,
But lacking any true value or charm.
Surely, I love the way their eyes twinkle in the sun,
And their tongues brush their teeth when they talk,
And its all fine and amusing and well,
But that is all.
I don’t care to know their ugliness,
Unless they’ll let me romanticize that as well.
And they won’t,
They’ll be too ugly, too true,
So I may not even want to.
So I’ll observe from afar
And love them with no real context or substance.
They’re only beautiful until I know them,
And although that superficiality is not true beauty,
It is all I seek--
After all, nobody cares what art is made of
as long as they like the way it looks through their cloudy lens.

I can’t remember the day I decided to tie the knot.
I don’t even remember when I decided it was time to pick up the rope
or when a rope stopped looking like a rope
and started looking like an escape route.
We used to climb them in gym
and man it was dreadful,
I had no upper body strength.
Was that a sign I would never be stronger than the inanimate weave of rough fiber?
Whenever it was,
I must’ve chosen to tie it.
Perhaps it was every time I chose to do something
I didn’t want to just to make somebody else happy.
Or just less angry with me.
Or maybe I tied it when I skipped school to stay home
or told people I was okay when I wasn’t just so I wouldn’t bother them
or because I didn’t know what to say.
Nonetheless it’s tied
and I feel it around my neck every day.
It’s always there,
chafing on my skin,
reminding me who’s in charge.

Your words burn like venom,
Numbing my body as they hit me.
I sink further into your black pleather couch,
I can’t believe this time, you bit me.
The room spins, my mind blurs, the walls start to close in.
What you’re saying is stinging, and I won’t be able to shake
Just how you betrayed me and climbed under my skin.
“You don’t know hard it is, you don’t even try,
You stopped going to the gym, plus, you work all the time”.
Each statement like a bullet, you don’t even stop as I cry.
“You shouldn’t be in a relationship, you shouldn’t have come over”.
Shock sets in, just minutes before I jumped in my car, you told me you loved me.
Your words are like a cold shower, no longer drunk in love-- I’m sober.
I’m sobbing now and looking down,
But you just keep going, cruelties pouring out like a waterfall,
I can’t believe this, you’re letting, no, you’re making me drown.
“I don’t know if I can do this, I think you should go”.
I don’t know the man in front of me,
I stumble out the front door, but can’t make it home.
My body is crumbling, you’ve made me physically sick.
I haven’t eaten in weeks, I really can’t go,
So I have to stay here tonight, not really my pick.
I fumble to the bed, and climb in, goodnight.
We’ll talk in the morning, I think you say,
Or maybe not, my mind isn’t quite right.
You fall asleep quickly, as if nothing has happened.
But I stay up for hours, just thinking and backtracking.
I don’t know why you said those things to me, so cruel and off hand.
All I know as I lay here, wrapped in your blankets, my thoughts intermixed
Is that maybe this is it, perhaps this is the night that we broke it,
And that maybe, it’s hopeless. After all, not all that is broken can even be fixed.

Looking at him by that door,
****.  
It hurts like your first baby tooth falling out.
A space left empty by something so familiar.
I can still feel the warmth of his pressure on my chest,
And boy, I miss it.
He looks like a kicked puppy when he has to leave,
But I feel like one.
And every night,
I turn the lock to the right then back to the left.
I can’t lock this door.
I can’t for fear that I’ll walk into my room
And he’ll run up,
Meeting a barrier which I allowed
To come between us,
And I can’t for hope that he will come back,
Arms open, jaw set crooked, biting his lip.