it's been a while, so i thought to get back in the swing of things, i'd post a poem i wrote a few months back. enjoy.*

“some people, most people actually, die before they die. and the death of the mind is so much greater than the death of the body,” my therapist tells me,
his frown barely hidden behind his beard, his brows furrowed and forehead thick with sweat.
i sink into the soft leather couch, hoping the fabric will swallow me whole.
“you need to accept the fact that he is gone.”
so much of my spirit has been torn down.
yesterday, i had a panic attack in the supermarket because my mom picked up a box of cheerios, i was told to avoid two-lane freeways because it would be “too easy,” and i had to run to the bathroom to keep from collapsing because someone was wearing his cologne.
“in order to be happy, you need to let go,” my therapist tells me. i have done everything i can, spent countless hours purging my memory from anything having to do with him.
but i can’t breathe and small parts of me keep seeing him in flashes;
in the wildflowers that grow in the field next to my house, a cloud of smoke out the car window, in clouds and sunsets and the pages of every book i read.
these are the parts of me that don’t want to let go.
but i’m getting there. i am a warrior, i have battled my toughest opponent for years and it will always be myself.
and today, i woke up early, poured myself a cup of coffee, and watched the sun rise.
today, i learned in health class that the femur is the strongest part of the human body. but it’s not. it’s the heart.
see, mine has been broken; it’s been shattered, ripped, torn to pieces, and thrown to the floor like a plate of glass in a fit of rage.
and still, it manages to beat 100,000 times a day and pump 1.3 gallons of blood a minute through this tired body.
i learned that something is always fighting for me, even if it’s only my heart.
i learned that letting go is not necessarily a bad thing.
“but i also think that when we die a part of our soul sticks around those we love. so if you think about it, he is still with you,” my therapist tells me.
i think that’s beautiful.
i can breathe easier.

I drank two glasses of a cheap wine and it left a sour taste on my mouth. It was bitter like your tongue and the mindless remarks that escaped from your daydreams. I felt like it was quite appropriate.
Yesterday I read on the news it rained for three days in California. Isn’t it thoughtful of you that you took your rainy mood to fill the blue with clouds and the sun with thunder? Then I mentally cursed myself for hoping that you had taken your gray umbrella with you simply because it would match the gray from your tired eyes.
I drank two glasses of wine and, well, the alcohol didn’t work. The fridge was empty and so was the your side of the bed. I sat on the couch with a half bottle of wine as my company and it rained inside my apartment too. It didn’t leave marks, it didn’t water my plants or wet the books. It just rained and rained.
(I was with you in California.)
Until my eyes dried.
The bottle got warm.
My legs fell asleep and I tripped and fell on my way to the kitchen; I bruised my right knee. I bit my tongue and didn’t make a sound.
The rain didn’t leave any marks, the wine did. A blood red stain in my living room mat to match the dark red sleepless nights you left with your apology filled goodbye written on a wrinkled napkin. These sleepless nights you left me with to match with the city that never sleeps.
Oh, so very thoughtful of you.
(You should’ve left me with the whiskey I kept under the kitchen cabinet, your The Smiths album and some painkillers for my metaphorically shattered bones.)
(I never really liked red wine.)

If you need 
to see how old

I really am

just take a sharp blade

to my middle

and count the ring-
worms inside.

I’ve been keeping

my words, lately,

somewhere other

than here,

here where

my throat itches

with the dusty pollen

of verbal pollution

with every click.
You are beautiful,

so too are your words,

they could paint the sky,

and I could paint you

white.


What’s the point?

I’m finding satisfaction

in separation of self

from symbolism

and I would ask you

all to join me.

How many rings

did you find?

I am nearly 100-years

and a few more days

and I’m having a hard time

swallowing.


I keep choking

on air. That’s how old

I really am.

I keep a journal

in the dirt

but it keeps washing away

but at least the rain

doesn’t equate my fragments

to my figure.

At least the sun

has the decency to apologize

for burning bits of me

into the earth.

I love the girl who is too young to smoke cigarettes but lights them anyway. She sits on the high school bleachers at 9 on a Sunday night, gets tired of the smoke in her eyes, and tosses eventual death in the trash can.
I love the girl who has never enjoyed the taste of alcohol but feels like Holly Golightly when she holds a glass of Cabernet so she drinks it anyway. She sits in her grandfather’s lounge chair on a Monday night, plays the songs he taught her on the *****, neglects her English essay, and leaves the red remains in the bottle.
I love the girl who cannot stand the sound of my guitar, but pretends to like acoustics because she knows the music brings out the best in me, and that even if she asks me to stop, I will play anyway. She lies on the floor on a Tuesday night, wishing she were in another town too small to be called a city, listens to melodies that remind her of where she is, ignores my creations and leaves my heart in her hands as she finally falls asleep.

this is very jumpy. i have been up for 24 hours. i don't know

There are miles between us on the queen sized bed and all I know right now is *words words words and nothing spilling from chapped lips. Passion and lust and I need you's coming out in the form of long kisses and hands-on-my-chest types of expressionism. This isn't the kind of dizzy your momma warned you about. Deep sea swimming inside your head and I'm trying to figure out a way to mean more than just someone you want in your bed. There's a tug at the bottom of my navel pulling me away from the edge, but I've already dived in. Sparks flew where your careful fingers met my hip bones, but lightning struck where your feelings for me lay and with a thunder clap they were gone as fast as rain slides down a window.
The night I found out I was not important to you, regret was just a knot in my throat. But now, it is a hand choking my heart. How beautiful it would be for you to understand just how much I miss you.
I only wanted someone to hold me like I was the source of every bit of his happiness. This wasn't love but it sure as hell felt like it, or more like it than my hand being guided to the zipper of your jeans.
I can't think much else beyond 'I miss you' and it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Why can't I write about anything or anyone but you? I still can't shake the notion that this is a feeling best tried to outrun.
Our story is a half-packed suitcase. I will tell myself that this is going to be okay, that I am going to be okay. Even though I really think it won't be.

everything is silent outside,
but the screaming in my soul
gets louder as the day drags
on, and by twilight there is nothing
but noise in my head,

today i woke up with chaos
in the crevices of my eyelids
and terror like a rumor in my
chest, my legs begging to be
set free, to run away as fast
as they possibly can, but
my body is a caged bird, and
my heart, is telling me to stay.

i hope she loves you more than her thoughts could ever build the words.
i want her to hold your hand and laugh when you say the dumbest jokes.
whisper seductive things to make you stay.
i hope you stay.
happy? of course!
i hope she makes your grin stretch so far
you need a gps to find your way back to sanity.
i hope she leaves “i love you” spelled out in magnets on the fridge.
you deserve it! yes, yes, you do.
when you’re on the verge of tears
i hope she’s close enough to catch them just before they hit the floor.
i hope her kiss leaves you drunk and parched.
i hope you yearn, lust, fall so hard
that nor cement, concrete, or bricks could bring you to a halt.
let her be the best thing that’s ever stepped into your life.
memorize every inch from the strands of her hair to the space between her toes.
i hope her taste stains your tongue.
her touch leaves prints on everything.
i hope she tells her friends about you and lets her parents know you’re the one.
if you both happen to run into me
i’ll smile and chat about my day
ignoring that what she is to you
you used to be to me.
(but most of all i hope she breaks your heart.)