i gave you a hug so you gave me the stars
and carried me home all the way from the bars
its the way that you laugh, its the way that you cry
or when my phone lights up and i catch that you spy

"my cat! my cat!" you scream it once more
i'll ask you "what's wrong?" as i look to the floor-
he ate your shoe laces, so I'll give you mine
while you give me shivers all over my spine

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'll say it once more-
The room is now spinning, the ceilings the floor.
Dont make me a stranger please do not erase me
I'm sorry that I always made you just chase me.

Why is it that we find our memories flooding our vision at this hour? It's almost 3 AM and I'm drowning in my thoughts of our tangled fingers and midnight rambles.

the sweetest angels and stars all came together and stitched together every blade of grass on our front yard,

/// wait scratch that; that isn't even remotely accurate ///

this house has seen tornadoes larger than any human eye could ever fathom; sunken heart aches in the living room and mood swings lingering on the chandelier

July 27, 1993 I was born down the street from where I'm sitting right now

This home embodies everything i am made of; it watched me grow little by little unlike the plants in our front yard that never could

i had a panic attack in this room at age 6 when i realized my dog, Goliath, would some day die and it was inevitable. What a weird thing for a six year old to be thinking about-

that same burning grows in my chest when i wonder what will be the defeat of this house one day

it's that little voice inside your head that screams anything is possible ******, go shave your head go kiss that human that looks so beautiful tonight. It doesn't matter who you are today if you want to be someone new tomorrow. i find glowing and growing with this unattainable energy each time I visit the big apple seeing one thousand faces today I'll never see again past this moment.

we are so ******* little in the bigger scheme of life, in the most beautiful, unique, unrepeatable way.

and this is how walls get built up a mile high;
when you leave the backdoor unlocked for someone and they come in and step on every precious flower you've been watching grow each morning when you wake-
and you can't tape it back together its just dead

and they spilt red wine all over your white fur and laughed while you frantically tried to clean up the whole **** mess;

give up.

go ahead and smoke a cigarette and give up.
that stain isn't going anywhere and cleaning it won't do a **** thing, will it?

he was the kind of beautifully terrifying you can't seem to let leave your head after you've met and their every move stains your brain as you replay it over and over. i don't know the last time someone excited me just by being their self so unintentionally - you can only hope you hold that kind of power when you waltz in and out of somones life like that.

you start to scan the room, and look up to the right
an unexpected pair of eyes you look into with fright
so quickly you grow flustered, then pull it all together
but then it all goes blank, theyre wearing your old sweater

you turn and face the left, as if you didn't know
their past haunts you so fiercely; but used to make you glow
you watch their eyes most past you, so lifeless and lethargic
your now a slave to your own past and start to feel psychotic

you're letting it go
you throw the towel in
you long for the days
when your dress would spin
theres no one to dance with
the playlist is through
you long for the faces
you thought that you knew
but time proves us wrong
and changes our names
todays filled with fights
you only complain
the room was so crowded
they push and they shove
theyre all empty bodies
not one that you love
so laugh at their jokes
go on drink a glass
but your expectations
are never surpassed

Il a dit, "au debut t'etais belle"
- C'est bon de te revoir, répondis-je.

reprends moi. Je veux parler français à nouveau Je veux boire du vin et danser toute la nuit avec toi. Je ne pense pas que je t'ai jamais vraiment laissé partir. Vous avez toujours été avec moi.

guess what? there’s so many people out there who are way better than you in so many different ways and that’s alright because there’s also hundreds of cities with thousands of people you’ve never met who would be madly in love with you for being exactly as you are today and if that doesn’t excite the **** out of you I’m not sure what will

"just give me ten more minutes"
you slide your hand on snooze;
you live in black and white
and see just what you choose

then mute life's little whispers
close blinds from whats to come
radiating dreams of color
then wake to siri's drum

"just give me five more minutes"
you hit your phone once more
the neon overtakes your brain
your conscience hits the floor

my thoughts tangle and slide down the small of your back while i can't help but laugh one more time because i just can't stop looking at the way you smile back at me when i can't keep it together because you've slapped the most unattainable grin onto my face

but my senses will give me that dreaded early wake up call and I know you wish I'd just push that snooze button one more time, and truly i'm sorry that my heart was thrown into his old smoothie blender and you're left trying to clean up this mess of strawberries and morning sunshine licking what's left off your finger tips

My head feels like it’s holding a $100,00 vase that weighs 100 pounds with my slippery butter fingers and I haven’t been to the gym in weeks and my arms are getting tired

i don't want to know your name
nor do i care who the ******* are, what makes you you
and i don't want to know that you can't eat spaghettios anymore because they made you throw up one time a couple years ago;
i'm not curious about your little secrets
and i certainly dont give a **** about your family tree

and i'll gently hold your face in my hands one more time tonight,
but you shouldn't expect to pick apart my brain after the lights turn on and the music stops playing  

( i watched my sanity drop like a disco ball onto your cement floor into ten million little pieces while the cats licked them off the ground and i just sat there and watched, i couldn't even move. )

and if you tried to kiss her,
she'd grown so hollow she
could most likely collapse.
a small concave girl with
nothing but words that roam
inside of her lungs.

it wraps around my neck
and whispers in my ear
commanding me to stop
dressed up in all my fears

and suddenly were speeding
were racing with mistakes
my nails dig in the leather
longing to be the brakes

I couldn't help it; it spread like wild fire, clenching my chest and burning my lungs with the overwhelming anxiety that you've blossomed into the most monstrous thing I've ever encountered

"Cheers to Lukie!"
We slammed our beer bottles together, I felt uncomfortable that in a tipsy spontaneous moment he'd yell that, I let it go.
"To Lukie!"
He yelled again and Lukie's face came rushing back into my memory; no ones supposed to die when they're this young.

I realized perhaps he wasn't in the wrong- keeping his spirit alive and present. I've been gone all these months but no one at home has forgotten him; he's not a name to keep tucked away on the bottom shelf. He was our friend. I knew the kid. It's surreal. He was kind, I don't claim to know him like the bunch who surrounded me in Salem tonight by any means, but I knew him. I've been to his house, I know his family, I understand. He was upbeat and in my experience with him, he was never anything but a fun time; he would've wanted us to celebrate I'd imagine.

"To Lukie," I said back.

everyone deserves forgiveness - but I thank every star in the sky you slammed the door shut on my fingers

( they told me she was toxic )

and I wrapped them up but I still would have let you back in,
played any song you liked honestly.

( and you didn't deserve that kind of generosity )

she moved to that island she always talked about and sent me a letter this morning that I didn't have the courage to read. If she asked me to knit her one more **** sweater for the windy nights I thought I'd *****.

( freeze )

oh my darling!
you make my head spin ever so wildly
drown me in wine
yell that you love me!
as i trace a master piece on your back with my fragile fingers

and they'll call us both mad
the lovers that danced until their feet crumbled
( though you claim you cannot dance )
as we will disregard them all, humanity, and however cliche our midnight rambles may become

Anastasia was my friend
her face was always pale
she always wore a ribbon
& her daddy went to yale

she was the talk of all the playground
the new girl always is
excited, unready to settle
like her coke-a-cola's fizz

until she sat beside me
& tapped me very slow
"i want to run away," she said
"but i don't know where to go"

i too was quite unpleased
"come and follow me"
so there we packed our knapsacks
and took off for Belize

my hospital band keeps sticking to my arm
and i can't  uncross my legs

she stuck the needle in the arm and missed
gave it a kiss, tried again as the arm bled red

perhaps it may look wrong;
the spots on the arm or the grin on the face
both similarly misplaced causing confusion
to their reader- context clues please read closely
or you may not pass the final exam

you've ruined songs, you've ruined restaurants, you've ruined the striped shirt i used to wear on happy days. you're the stain on a white couch i can never remove and will always despise

My truest self is June, 2014. I've just returned from France and I'm excited to simply wake up each morning having no idea where the **** I'll go with the rest of my life. I have no job, no real priorities, just curiosity. I'm still a ******. I've never told someone I loved them. I've got too many black clothes in my closet and I'm convinced I'm the long lost southern spice girl. My hair is ombre and I haven't cut it in three years. I gave my friend Sydney my shoes because she needed a pair. I listened to Sylvan Esso's new album in a bathtub for five hours in a hotel room in Marseille- day dreaming about all the different people I could pretend I was that day. I hadn't lost anyone before. I was writing beautiful tangly words everyday. I was no one's but my own. everything was going in my favor. I was happy and far too curious for my own good.

But curiosity killed the cat, and here I am on my ninth life walking on egg shells trying to keep it all together.

Dramatic ecstatic and all in between
You don't get your cake and you start to scream
Tomorrow you hate me today I am gold
But you are the one who claims this is old

as the storm of tears flooded down my face,
and into my ears as i lie on my back I swear
it has deafened me. And they're the same two
ears that heard you proclaim at the top of your
lungs that you loved me! you truly, truly loved me!
but then again maybe thats just me being a romantic.
Perhaps it was only a whisper after all, but nevertheless
I still heard what you were capable of muttering out.

i know what hanging on looks like
avoiding red flags so large they could blur your vision blind

i wonder if people were as uncomfortable as i am right now knowing you're holding onto something fictional

and she's burning a **** hole through my skull with the glare she's shooting at me sharing innocent eye contact with him; I'm the last girl she actually should be worrying about- but i've been there, territorial when you start to catch on that the ground beneath you is falling right under your feet

i'm so sorry
i wouldn't wish that feeling upon my worst enemy;
realizing what gave you joy was never even real

electric lips drooling the words i can't swallow,
technicolor thoughts too far for me to follow

and theres something about your electric sound that makes me believe I could be anyone, or anywhere.

and i can't explain it, everything becomes attractive as your melody dances around the room and wraps me in it's cotton candy bubble wrap, giggling and flirting with my brain as it melts like the neon lava cake i've always known it to be

and i'll play it over and over and over and over again while you're showing your beat to someone on the other side of the country

empty eyes and little lies
i used to know your name
little talks and skittle walks
i hate these kind of games

savannah's dead it's in my head
maybe i'm to blame

You've lost your spark. the twinkle in your eye was just a reflection of your phone lighting up as you texted someone irrelevant and the orchestra of sweet melodies that filled my heart was just a spotify playlist i made and put on at the right time. and i thought the warmth of your touch was all i needed to feel alive when i was too **** cold outside and maybe anything couldve been enough.

except for me; i was never enough for you was i?

It's not fair that you get to be on my mind when I don't want you here; I feel like a kid stuck in a three hour long car ride screaming how much longer will this freaking last ten minutes into the everlasting journey into a black hole to a relatives house I never asked to go visit.

How long do you get to be in my **** mind until I can wake up without the taste of your name on my tongue

i don't want to hold this anger in fact i'd like to let it shoot out of my palms onto anything, any surface, any face whatever the **** it takes just get the **** out of my head

I've never been so certain and confused all at the same time, and I can't tell you the last time I was even able to write. you blocked that part off from myself somehow. you made me mute. you made me beige. you made me a mom in khakis wearing a ***** pack who went to sleep at 8 pm to be safe; you made me safe in the worst way. you made me feel little. you made me feel less. and somehow in a way that i didn't even realize what was happening, i just wanted to make it work. i just wanted to be a flower that grew into a jungle but i was just a cactus in the living room you kept around because you only had to water me once in a while and if you forgot it was okay, I'd survive. I'd still be there. I'd still be beige and mute and anything you wanted me to be sitting happily. ****.

i heard ya talking in your sleep,
you told me of your dreams.
and how each time you fly away,
it all tares at the seams.
you kick, you cry, you laugh,
you die, you wake up in my bed.
this morning you spill last nights words,
you thought stayed in your head.
but the words they cling so tight to my ears!
they yell so loudly i can't even hear!
i kick, i cry, i laugh, i die,
i wake up in my bed.
your ghost still haunts me every night
yelling the words you said.

you're buzzing through my brain
you're buzzing through my bones
your tempo's a new pace
that i have never known

undress my thoughts,
tangle my limbs;
& you'll be the The
Boy Who Learned How
To Swim

i want to have mugs. mugs from places i've been and i can make coffee in the morning and go back to my room; where my name is on the lease and  can call it my home. i want plants i want books i want things that aren't essential to living but make me happy- three more days until I retire from being a gypsy and can find comfort again and I couldn't be happier to call Brooklyn home.

******* I just feel so heavy
Like a wet paper towel falling apart
As I replay the past year and a half through my beat up memory I let you use as your personal punching bag for far too long

a durable foundation creates a tall tower;
unfaltering in it's demeanor, anchored at peace.

why do we under romanticize stability?
building a house upon the waves knowing it's a
ticking time bomb before cascading our living
rooms into the ocean to sink beyond our reach.

i don't want my knit orange blanket under the water,
or to feel the roaring sea salt overflow my lungs ever again.

but i get it; wanting to wake with sun kissed skin and
dust the sand off your cheeks while cotton candy skies
shine into our eyes bringing a brand new day to us.

(having *** in the sea could cause a UTI, sand is unpleasantly itchy, and boys are poison, *******. take a shower and go home.)

And when the sun comes up I hope it's my face that greets you, my touch slipping back into your memory and like a bad dream you wake up and remember what you broke. A house full of mirrors you walked in like a psychopath with a baseball bat; swinging and swinging and swinging. I can't change what you've done here and i cut my hands on all the shards of your mess trying to make sense of it all. But I'll wrap up all the wounds and grow stronger. I'll watch flowers grow out of my shoes and find my back. Because I know if a drop of memory floats into my mind at night I pray you can't fall asleep because of the roaring thunderstorms of my laughter, the way I'd kiss you like we were the only ones on earth and now all you've got left is yourself and the ugly truth that wraps around your neck and slowly suffocates you as each lie comes to the surface and people whisper each one to someone else. Because I know if people look at me with the slightest glance of pity I pray their glare cuts you like you cut my trust in so many different ways.

I can't fathom how you get a wink of sleep at night if my mind tosses and turns like this.

& How Surreal Is This

One hand on the wheel, the other holding yours ///
I remember being in third grade trying to read your name tag on the corner of your desk in home room the first day I saw you actually
Fast forward 14 years old when you kissed me in my kitchen that summer night after catching fireflies and no one could slap that grin off my face

Here we are, Christmas Eve, and it's like nothing's ever changed you told me; you're the one thing that's never changed  

And I just couldn't stop laughing- eight, twelve, seventeen, twenty three.

So he grabbed my face and slurred something along the lines of if we made it to 26 without a family in our near future we'd have to make one of our own and ****** you know 15 years and 6 jack & cokes later I wasn't about to turn you down.

( & i've always loved that **** dog of yours )

shameful and blameless and all in between
stars fall from your face, you fall to your knees
you float down the river to sort it all out
but 5,000 fish proceed to all shout

like sand I watch you slip through my fingers again, and again, and again. ill pick you up once more, a little tighter this time, but my fight never seems to be quite strong enough for you. // I'd love you if you would please just let me.

tangly hair and light pink nails
a pretty little mess
disaster's got his eyes on you
and your black sequin dress

you sniff and sneeze just what you please
when all you want is wine and cheese
you've sent your brain over the seas
and give your love the rose gold keys

I feel it in my bones as my pulse heightens  

As I soberly fidget in my seat wondering when this is all going to change and I'll wake up happy again.
You've turned into that movie I used to watch over and over again but this time I didn't laugh. I didn't quote the whole **** thing. And the wifi connection is lost this time around but neither of us fight to fix it, or anything else regarding that matter.

Today I am Sally so happy and bright
Tomorrow I'm Sarah the queen of the night
Today I will love you with all of my might
Tomorrow I could runaway filled with fright

a wild little girl who chases
marvelous little dreams
with no intention of facing
what tomorrow may bring

but who could blame her?
he's wrapped around her
finger so beautifully that
she's started to believe it's
always looked this way

your sound is so familiar
your look is so peculiar-
i can't believe i didn't see
it's you, oh my old friend

and now it feels quite right
I've missed you in my sight
strings in my hand i understand
it's been far too long

and this is what i feared
that you wouldn't feel this near
and i admit I've shed a tear
but you're worth that my dear

these shoes have walked a bit
maybe too far i admit
but i know id never quit
running these miles for you