She's dressed all in black and
fifty shades of gray
ripped tights and a
jaded look on her face
but her eyes tell something deeper
there's a fire burning bright
some have tried to cheat her
bur she was born to fight.

She feels forgotten now
lying on her bedroom floor
so small inside her head
but her heart feels so much more
it's dark outside, and silent
hours from the sunrise
her thoughts are waxing violent
slaying fears, tearless brown eyes

It's been the longest week
every minute lasts an hour
she throws her hair up carelessly
and stops to pick a flower
she tucks it up behind her ear
and smiles at a stranger
she's welcome and accepted here
the sunshine entertains her

She inhales peace and
exhales weight and lets the world spin slower
a haze of smoke and memories
she knows that nothing owns her
life is a gift and just like her
it's short and tough and lovely
she whispers, "nothing's as it seems"
her dreams so far above me

She's deep, contemplative
complicated, funny, smart
she lives like shes a paintbrush, effortlessly making art
leaving a trail of beauty through the boring and mundane
she'll captivate you gently
and you'll never be the same.

I hate not knowing things about you like
the way your chest moves when you breathe in your sleep
the heat that rises off your skin or
the scent of your hair after
showering
not showering
coming home at 6am from the gym
I want to know what kind of sound emits from your lips as you
wake from a nightmare
haunted by a memory and
the way your stubble feels against the back of my neck when
you sneak up behind me while I cook your breakfast and
I want to know the taste of your skin around your belly button and
the texture of your hipbones against my tongue and
I want to see the look in your eyes as you
release inside of me and
lose yourself for a few moments and
our souls unite in a sweaty tangle of imperfect passion and
you draw away but I stay with you
you carry me in your pores and in your thoughts and your
oh so hidden feelings
and at least
I know what no one else knows
about you
I know I am the oxygen in your lungs
I know I am the star of your deepest fantasies and
I know your safe place is in my chest where you can hear the rhythm of my heartbeat screaming your name.

You’ll be hot and hard and slow and sweet.
I’ll let you take out all your frustations on me
for hours
or days
or weeks
Whatever it takes til you’ve spent all your
energy.

I want to drain you.
I want to
absorb
all your anger
and hurt
and sadness
and rejection
all the
abuse
and neglect
and imagination
and thoughts
and concerns
and torment
and loneliness.

Etch it into my back with your fingernails
press it into my hipbones with your hands
whisper it into my mouth with your tongue and
leave it for me to swallow
let your body tell my body those tales and secrets
that your mind dreads allowing your voice to utter
and spill the fear of yourself inside me
or leave it splatted across my bed and body
I’ll clean up the mess
You’ll stumble away from me
bruised
and breathless
and
begging for more.

And baby,
if it takes a lifetime to correct
a lifetime of mistakes
I’m the one you want
I’ll kiss you awake
from your slumber of sadness and
I’ll lead you away
and we can lose ourselves
screams, tears, and sweat
we can find each other and
we can finally forget
to whom we’ve belonged and
where we’ve been
you’re you
I’m me

Free.

I want to
see the world
live in airports
pick up a few words in foreign languages
because I’m moving around too much to learn more than that.
I want to make enough money
just enough
to buy a new pair of shoes now and then
and jeans when the pair I have rips
and to have a dog.
Maybe two dogs.
And a tiny apartment to myself
with a fireplace and a chaise lounge
that orange one
that I’d say I wanted
when we got married but now
I just want it for the nights I’m alone
or the rainy days off
to curl in a ball and
read an entire book
or listen to five new albums I downloaded obessively
because I heard one song by that band that I liked
and I needed the whole collection
And I’ll curl up by myself
and I’ll listen til I fall asleep
and I’ll lie comatose for four hours
because I haven’t slept in weeks
and I’ll wake up with pain all down my spine
and realize I forgot to blow out the candles
and it will be okay
I’ll be okay.
And at some point
the nightmares will stop
I’ll stop seeing you
seeing you with her
with me
I’ll just stop seeing you
I’ll forget the light in your eyes
and the lilt of your laughter
and the stubble that grew so lightly when you forgot to shave that morning and
how it tickled my neck when you would whisper into me
3:45am when I rolled over
with a nightmare, seeking comfort
in the days before I knew you were a worse nightmare
before I learned to hold myself because
no one else will always be there.
And I’ll stop daydreaming about
carving out
pieces of my flesh like
some kind of goddamn sacrifice to you
spilling my blood like it will draw you back
and I’ll breathe
and I’ll be whole
and I’ll be okay
and I’ll wait for the next someone
who steals my breath
who makes me forget that
I can survive loneliness and
the world is bigger than my bedroom.
Or just someone who
makes me forget the scent of your skin
after the third time we made love and
broke promises for the first of many times.
Either way
I’ll wait
I’ll wait
and I’ll go on surviving and remembering
how to forget.

It feels like a betrayal of myself to even address this to him. I hate writing as if to myself and not a seperate party, yet that’s what he has reduced me to. I don’t know how to crawl out of that.
I was just beginning to heal, a thin veneer of new skin growing over my wounds. He appeared out of nowhere and tore them open with his bare hands. I collapsed, bleeding and weak, and he laughed as he walked away. He thinks it makes him strong, not caring, but it only reveals his fragile self-perception to me. I have been the strong one. I have been the one capable of remaining single, capable of expressing and processing my thoughts, feelings and doubts as they come. I think he wants that. I think he at least doesn’t want me to have it. He wants to strip me of my stability. He wants me to feel inadequate and exposed. And I do. His fear tactics worked. He is making me question things I never used to question. He has made me want to slay my own hopes.
Yet deep inside, there is a little spark whispering to me, “what he tries to make you feel is what he feels about himself. Hold your hands open. Breathe. Exhale. Stretch. Lift your heart. This will pass. The bleeding will stop. You will heal. You will heal. You will heal. You are stronger than him.”

I fling my window open wide so I can feel the rain
Like giving myself away too quick, trading safety for pain
The cold blows in so quietly, it reminds me of your voice
I trusted you to save me, you made me regret my choice
Like vision before sleeping, I’m fading away, slow
Your memories of me slip away. I turn into a ghost
Before you I was colorful, impetuous and young
After you I’ve grown old and worn. I’m cautious. I am numb.

I thought (you were) the answer

to (my life) questions

and (I was) the series

of remedies (for your pain)

(we were) so easy,

pressing on each others’ (bleeding) hearts. 

It only numbed the hurt

(thinking) we were healers

and now we’re infected (crawling)

through (shards of)
our former selves

trying to find (meaning)

(in) our mutual (destruction.)

(Your broken) promises 
still spilling from my wrists 
and (chest)

I can feel new flesh

growing (over my) bones.

(Hope) I helped you

while you made sure I

could (never) write about us becoming

(each others’) 
heroes.

Read entirely, then inside the brackets, then outside the brackets.

Part 2

You’re trapped inside my ribs

like a butterfly

ramming against my insides

crushing your own wings

to get out. 

You become transparent and

your colors settle on my soul like dust

and it’s ironic how,

the feeling of you being inside me

used to set me free

but now

I’m a prison to us both

and you’ve swallowed the key.

- Is there a way my words can cut deep enough to release us both?

I need to write you out
I feel it in my bones
the way I used to feel you 
move inside me
sighing into 
my moans
but words are stuck
inside my pen
& dying to get out
like a butterfly
they’re trapped inside
my ribcage, 
wings crushed
ramming against 
walls of
my goddamn
self-preservation
& self-doubt.
color falls
off the wings
transparent
& settles on my soul 
like a blanket
you gave my hurt
a place to cling
but when it grew 
too heavy
you took my wings
& without you
I’m trapped inside
this prison I call
my mind
funny how your flesh
set me free
by invading mine
& you being gone
has also somehow
taken me from me
& I think
I think
I think
I’ll never fly again
I always 
gave you release
but I’m my own prison
& you’ve swallowed 
the key
can I use my words
to cut you open
as deep as you cut me?
to unlock my emotion
& find recovery?
you’re just a ghost
so good at haunting
quick to disappear
until I’m left  
clinging onto nothing
filled up with your color
trembling fingers
trembling lips
I can’t be emptied, 
filled, or healed
the simple memory 
of your hips
is now my only lullaby
I rock myself to sleep
sweating
singing

goodbye
goodbye.

March 16

I stood in line behind someone today. I am normally inside my own head. In my own little world. Unobservant. But I noticed him. He wasn’t interesting or eccentric or attractive.

He was just wearing your cologne.

It soaked into my bloodstream almost instantly. It made my head swim. It intoxicated me and flooded my heart with memories of you.

My eyes welled up. Because nobody has ever hurt me the way you did.

I wanted to cry. But I didn’t cry. You aren’t worth it. You’ve already stolen too much of my life away and you won’t steal anymore of that precious saltwater mixture from my body. I would rather waste sweat on strangers than tears on such an old but familiar hurt.

I hate you. Is that strange? I have forgiven you, (for my own sake, not for your benefit on any level). But I hate you. I always, always wish you nothing but the worst.

But in that moment, my body trembling with remembrance of you, I felt something far more powerful than hate. I missed you. I missed you so much. You stole my dignity, my confidence, my pride, my trust. But sometimes, sometimes I needed to be held and your arms were the only ones who would hold me.

That was a lonely time in my life. You isolated me. But you were there. You were always, always there.

You’re still there. In the corners of my mind. In the shadows of my nightmare.

I’ll never forget your scent.

It is the vomit of my memories.

I keep trying to write about you and it’s all coming out shit

but I guess that’s pretty accurate 

no matter our intentions we always end up like this

a godforesaken, broken mess

but it doesn’t stop me from crying out in my sleep 

I miss you 

I miss you 

come back to me please.

It started with imperfection, and ended with an explosion. We were sitting in the parking lot at a grocery store eating ice cream. Too broke for a real date. It was Christmas Eve. Too cold for ice cream. But we were eating and I was talking and you were watching, your eyes wide and mesmerized by me. I always felt almost too powerful around you. Worshipped. It was what I needed, for once in my life, I suppose; to feel appreciated. I was the goddess of your existence. Sometimes I wonder if i was just bad at that job and that's why you left. But that's the story of the end. Not the beginning.
The beginning goes like this: we ate ice cream (Ben & Jerry's. Now Phish Food will always taste like you) and we talked and you stared and suddenly I lay my head in your lap. You asked if you could kiss me. My heart raced. I said no. Then I kissed you. I couldn't stop. I climbed into your lap. I laid your seat down. You put your hands in mine. I always dreamed of someone doing that.
I tasted your tongue, your lips, your anxiety and your excitement, and all of it tasted like chocolate (with marshmallow and caramel swirls) and then it ended, as suddenly as it began. And maybe that should have been my first indication: we can only be the gods and goddesses of our own worlds. The first kiss will never linger as long as the taste of ice cream drying in the cracks of our lips does. Our love for each other never stood a chance under the circumstances. But it tasted sweet enough for me to move forward without regret.
Just between you and me, I hope the next one's a little bitter. I'm weary of your flavor and I need someone to look at me with something deeper than worship. The thought of sweetness exhausts me. I need to be taken like medicine or a shot of vodka. I need to go straight to the head and swim through his blood. I need to make him forgive himself. The awareness of my own existence is reviving me already. I can feel myself being poured out. It's dry and painfully refreshing. He and I will console one another until we both heal. Until we forget the taste of the past.

The clock ticks away the seconds and they melt into days
The snow slowly subsides beneath the sunshine’s rays
It trickles down the sidewalks, into city drains
Revealing death beneath the place, for months, the ice has lain
And slowly, all too slowly, as it swirls around my feet
I lose my hope for your return. I feel my heart’s defeat
At first you were so fresh and pure, a dusting on my soul
You whispered of a future that made my life feel whole
But though I’m in your bloodstream, she’s still within your brain
Your empty shell lies in her arms while I run through your veins
It isn’t quite enough right now, I have to let you go 
I loosen my grip on your heart, away you melt, like snow
I’m not sure how I’ll make it through a day without your voice
But given what you’ve put me through, I have no other choice
I’ll learn to breathe without your love, but still I’ll see your eyes
In every dream, in every wish, it’s you I fantasize
So in our story I’ll wish that this be nothing but a chapter
A rough but worthy detour in our happy ever after.

Another frantic. Empty. Dark. Awakening. 
So tired of being asleep whenever I find happiness 
So tired of being asleep at all
Because when I wake you slip away again
And every dream of you I used to cherish is turning to a nightmare
Your lips, the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted
Albeit in a fantasy
Are dripping with poison; lies and false hope
And I don’t know if that’s reality or dreaming 
All I know is I want to wake up
And find your eyes 
Shining a promise of truth and safety
In this place next to me
But it’s never never never you
It’s just pillows and darkness and a tangled mess of sweaty sheets. 
I sit up and pull my hair off my neck 
(The place you kissed so passionately in my nightmare)
I dangle my feet in front of my fan
I feel myself. My whole self. Returning to reality
And I hate it I hate it I hate it
As the last part of my subconscious slips from your ethereal grasp into my pitch black room
4am. 
I ponder how I’ve been told
If you die in your sleep you die in reality.
And I hope in my next subconscious fantasy 
You’re a murderer; a burglar, drunk driver -
Anything but what you are
So my death might be quick 
'Cause you’re stealing my life regardless
But you aren’t that merciful, and
I’m not that smart
I leave the door to my soul unlocked every night
Praying you sneak in
And that’s just our kind of romance.