you will be happy again.
you will have dry eyes for months on end,
walk the beach in the evening,
laugh until you ache.
it gets better. you know that. you hear that every day.
but you're sitting there losing your hair,
slicing your hips with a shard of glass
blaming yourself.
girl, you know lows but there are highs you don't know exist.

and one day, you will breathe in deep and fill yourself
full of good food and the company of people that are meaningful and real,
again. you're going to crawl out of that gaping hole, take a shower,
pay your bills, and realize you aren't as small as you feel right now, today,
this week, this month, this year.
and even though you'll also watch dear ones fall into ditches that cave in on themselves,
skinning knees and breaking your heart to pieces,
you'll also watch them live better than they ever had before and that,
that option, that light in their eyes and strength in their soul
makes it worth it. and you'll have it too.
and one day you'll look in the mirror and stop hating yourself,
stop caring if he calls or he doesn't
stop shattering to pieces the moment you step into a solitary space.

and even though maybe tomorrow you'll wake up and
have to stay in bed for another week
swaddling yourself in that familiar black carpet
you will be happy again because just like it is impossible to
stay happy forever,
just like it is impossible to ever fill that crack in your foundation,
just like you are sad now and have been sad before,
I swear, I promise,
it is just as impossible to stay miserable forever
and you will be happy again.

I watched the city disappear, then
watched it re-emerge from the night sky,
dabs of watercolor on a surface gathering pigment
I hummed and watched myself shudder and stumble and balk because,
(and I want to sit you down and tell you this
somber eyes, twisted fingertips)
I loved deeply, completely, and I crawled down the steps
of letting anything and everything go;
I moved on, I moved away, but I lacked the strength to disintegrate
the questions pooling in the bottom of my gall bladder
"well what if
would you..."

I was different then, I fell so delightedly!
but things did so hurt, time stole the breath from my throat
and I soaked my pillows so thoroughly I drowned.
I want you to know that,
I want you to know that I have had my heart broken violently
and softly (and perhaps that was worse)
I have loved and I have ****** and I have watched a boy like you fade into the sunset.

pacing through the motions:
feeling bright, content
things are new and better but
I'm capturing unextraordinary in all the traps I set for bliss,
like a maze I'm losing where all the dead ends say
unremarkable
and screaming at the walls
"start feeling, you ****!"
because I have sweet and loving and caring but I find myself craving
the instances I hated when he would spit fire
and I would burn bright, because I am a purveyor of highs and lows and I
just feel flat.

when did I wake up okay?
when did the sun stop hurting my eyes
when did I start being able to get out of bed everyday
no problem,
when did I roll over and get out of bed and dress myself in clothes I liked,
walk the streets with clicking heels and bright eyes,
when did I start knowing how to spot a pothole a mile away and avoid it
or hop out of it the minute I felt myself slipping,

when did I start ordering coffee and
enjoying the stillness of a night or a day,
able to look in the mirror and be content,
even pleased,
with softness and curves and things I can't change,
when did I become happier than the women that look in the mirror at their tight ***** and hate themselves?

when did I start saying take me or leave me and then
doing the leaving myself,
confident in my ability to start over;
when
did I wake up strong?

the world feels lighter,
a shade of grey, floating, airy;
in december I swear the world was deep maroon, people were falling off the edges of a flat piece of paper
and now, spherical,
self-saving, breathing, alive.

we trudged through sorrow, fragmented bodies,
we huddled together in the wind and waited for something,
anything,
someone.

the feeling of sliding tthrough a crack and miraculously appearing in a cavern of gold
and blue skies for miles,
curving over the horizon,
just so.

I have been bright, hovering for weeks with the edges of ovals I so narrowly believed to be bicycle wheels,
discovering good friends in places right under the windowsill, freshening up the roses
in the pots I'd forgotten about on the back porch.

and there's you, a dream perhaps,
a sliver of pecan pie left over from the holidays but increasingly fresh
I'd like to twinge the tremors in your body that make you hum
and satiate pulsing bodies in flat, parallel lines of desire and decisiveness
I'd like to be the twisting ivy on the brimming edges of tentative youth,
to scale your walls and snuggle in the safety of wonderment and lack of knowing,
any better.

I'd like to make the bluebirds sing with throats of slim-cut rubies,
to have contentment and a battle born, hand held, period of time in which
I can enjoy a piece of dessert, well deserved

I was magnificent.
I sat there in the dark, alone, and I clutched christmas lights to my chest.
whispering, "here,"
I have wept for my broken hearts, I have meandered down paths that led me slowly here
I am content. I reach backwards with my left, to
those I see stumble,
to catch them if they fall, to see-saw them to the
right there ahead, glinting with age 25
and the sunshine on newly tinted hair.

I haven't caught all the hands or all of the tears,
but I can grasp the holes they left behind with a strength anew

the sinking sun keeps calling
poetic bones and walgreens; three am
flinging glass, nightmares, explicit
circles of the wind

singing into daybreak
shutters slamming shut; flickering eyelashes
and flopping into pillows fluffing up
shifting clouds of how you smelled

porch swings, heartbreaks
capturing breezes soaking skulls
red wine and "oh-take-mine"
tracing outlines imprinted
swaying grass lays flat

where you were,
but the summer sun keeps calling