You love my eyes, my smile, my hair—
But what of the dryness of my hands,
The birthmark on my neck?

Am I still beautiful at 2 a.m:
Makeup smudged, hair undone,
Eyes half-closed?

What of the wetness beneath my eyes,
My swollen lips and cracked apology?
Do you still think I'm pretty
When I'm crying?
When I've got bruises on my knees,
Blisters on my ankles?

It's morning-time, mid-spring,
The time of freckles, bee stings,
And sweaty cheeks.
If you want me, you'll take it all—
I will not shatter myself
So you can love one piece.

The same houses, the same desks with little chairs, the same road signs,
But nothing feels familiar;
And the people, heaven knows who they are,
Are smiling and laughing and kissing and
I'm so sad I can't breathe.
I've always wanted to be far away,
But now the distance breaks my heart,
And there's no comfort in coming home
Because I don't have one. I don't even know who I am—
I am tired, I am crazy
I am lonely.
I am a girl who can't stop thinking:
Why is everybody so different
And how did I become this person without noticing?
The worst part is that no one sees how dark things are—
They wake up married with two kids who wake up married with two kids, And then they're alone in a house by the beach
Because everyone said they would be happy, but they're not
And no one really is,
And they just want to do it all over because
All the **** houses, desks with little chairs, and road signs are the same but nothing feels familiar.
I'm just so sad I can't breathe.

There is a love I wish I'd never known;
Its bitter taste still burning on my tongue
Like steaming coffee sipped in haste.
I held my air tight to my chest, but you
Ripped it from my lungs with no warning,
Replacing it with your breath, old cigarettes,
And fumes from gasoline-soaked memories.

****, I was eighteen and had nothing left,
But you lit me on fire. You took more of me
Than I had to give, then left me alone
To create someone new out of my ashes.
Little did you know, I'd fill my cracks with gold,
Forge a new heart, then let the old one melt.
Babe, if love feeds on pain, devour someone else.

I thought I saw you on the bus today,
He had brown hair, like yours
Or was it black?
His eyes blue, but
Not as blue as yours.
Were your eyes blue?
I can't remember
How many times you'd stir your drink before taking a sip,
The hand you used when running your fingers through your hair,
Or which cheek dimpled when your mouth widened into its crooked smile.
The boy on the bus,
He knew. He was more of you
Than you ever were.

I'm so tired of where I am,
But I'm terrified that leaving would be to rip my heart out
And still beg for it to beat.
I can't find a better way to love myself
Than to hate someone else,
And I'm so scared that I will never bleed any color other than red—
That I'll never breathe deeply enough
To fill the empty spaces you left in my lungs.
I may be running away,
But running means you still care, and
**** it, I do.
I may not know where I'm going,
But I know what I've lost,
And I refuse to believe that the light that burned so brightly in my eyes
Will forever be smoke.
Why can't I be happy?
Please, just let me be happy.

They told me to open up,

So I ripped my heart out

and sewed it to my sleeve
,
Only to be told that

it was ugly.

I rearranged the valves and the arteries;

Changed its beat,

Until someone told me it was beautiful 
and stole it from me.

I searched for years at every street corner,

In every alley way and 
‘I love you,’

But I couldn’t recognize it. 

I met a man

Prepared to exchange my heart for his,
 but I had none to give.

I stumbled across it one day,
 alone and sitting in a gutter.

It was bare, cheated, broken—

It felt right at home.

He cries, tells her it's the last time.
Cherry lips and violet eyes,
She lies because she's so broken
She can't remember how it felt to be whole.
A boy too small to fight,
Though that doesn't stop him from trying;
A little girl who will never know that love doesn't include bruises and broken bones.
She could leave,
But she knows he'd find her as he has so many times,
Wandering the highway somewhere between the 5th and 9th time
She ponders whether it hurts worse to live or die.
Her baby in her arms and one trailing behind,
A shotgun aimed between her eyes,
She'll climb inside his old blue pickup truck,
Which is somehow colder than the October night.

She hears the whispers—
Illegal. Dependent. Brainless.
Can they not see their own reflection in her tired eyes
And realize that if the stars aligned differently,
They could have been the one wearing sweaters in the summer
And sunglasses in the grocery store?
As she pushes the shopping cart home,
She says a silent prayer that he'll be gone,
But he never is.
When her nose bleeds on the tile
She no longer cries,
Just syncs the pounding in her head with her heartbeat, screaming,
It's over. It's over. It's over. It's—