I don't know much,
but I can tell you what "whole" looks like.
I've seen it stumble forward
with weary eyes and tired hands.
Come close,
I will hand you a mirror
and tell you to look carefully.
Can you not hear the galaxies
beneath your skin?
They paint in whispers
that even oceans cannot grasp.
I know it took a hurricane and two floods,
but there is soil in your ribcage;
your scars told me so.
Don't mind them though,
they're just reminders
that you love harder than anyone else.
I know you might feel hollow,
but there is a reason your heart
has lofted ceilings.
Never forget how you fought
for all that space.
Look carefully.
These gray skies inside your lungs
are simply a canvas,
and you rain so beautifully.
Oh darling,
you rain so beautifully.

i. I am sixteen years old, with an increasingly curved spine and blood so thick it doesn't reach my fingers and shoulders so weak they fall apart at the slightest pressure, much like I do at the mention of your name.

ii. You see, when I was six years old I may have been a toothpick girl but at least I was healthy and the first time I remember feeling like maybe my body wasn't quite right was when your smile first touched mine.

iii. These things get worse with time and I think that's why I was so determined I was never in love with you, why now it's gotten to the point where I can remember the bruises your words left and I can't help but miss them because you left a part of yourself in me, somewhere under my tongue or in the base of my skull where I fear I will never be able to get it out.

iv. It's been nearly three years since I first felt the brand of your name on my heart and I guess I'm a slow cooker because it's just now that I'm realizing that even if it never could have worked, what I was trying to convince myself was puppy love was most likely full-fledged and strong and unlikely to ever appear in my life again.

v. Who else will write me love letters in different pens so I could read the color coded poems you hid in them? Who else will call me, drunk and fifteen years old and crying because you've let me down?

vi. I'm not sure I will ever be able to remove your touch from my wrists or my cheeks even though the skin you touched is just thousands of dust particles by now. Your touch is scattered on the air I breathe and perhaps that's why I can't escape you.

vii. Perhaps that's why my body is broken; it's to make up for when my heart never was.

I should have realized
from all of the half-filled
coffee cups that
you’d leave everything
unfinished.

One day you might look back,
and you might not remember
how I cracked open
my already splintered ribcage
to give you whatever I had
left inside.
You might not remember
how stars went dim
when we walked in empty streets.
You might not remember
silences that felt too full,
or nights that felt too short.
But please,
please remember;
at least I tried.