I saw you tonight, twice So close And we didn't say a word Didn't look in each other's eyes Didn't acknowledge much of each other's existence other than avoiding it So strange, and foreign This way of relating to you But it is becoming the usual The knee-jerk reaction, the on sight cue of how to behave I don't feel that pain that I used to anymore I don't feel the want to touch your arm and kiss your face, no, it's not like that any longer What have we become? No longer lovers, no longer friends Not strangers but somewhere in between it all There are parts of me that you do not know, and I know this because they are new to me too Each day I meet myself again, I say: you are good, you are what you want, you are what you need Never before have I been loved so thoroughly, cared for so well For when I was with you, I was begging for scraps, the remnants of something that no longer remained The crumbs underneath the table And all the stories you pushed down I was there too In the middle of it all, blindfolded beside lies Now, I know exactly what I am feeling when I sense it, exactly what is erupting underneath Now, I feel a warmth A flit of a flame Smoke winding, heaven-bound I feel this light Coming into and out of me And I am happy I am happy, That it has nothing to do with you

9/19/15

I sit in the morning mist, humidity kissing my cheeks and pen smudges dotting my palm. The planets are spiraling in figure eights, spinning out so far that everything is a little off. I had a dream I was with him again. We were close and then we were closer, and we were happy and then we were happier. I knew where we were heading, I was anticipating what was to come. When I woke up I was calm, but haunted. I thought of it throughout the day, my heart beating faster each recollection. I would have called it a nightmare but by the time I was trembling, I had been awake for hours. I'm his and I am haunted by it, he burrowed somewhere deep and dark and warm, and I feel it. Eighteen is a good age for your first heartbreak they say, better off now than when it really matters; before commitment, before a child. We tried to be so grown up before we realized we were just kids. Sixteen is an age of mistakes, and I fell in love with you in the middle of one. You were just a child. Fifteen and you'd had drugs in your veins, casual sex on your tongue and alcohol on your breath; but to me you were pure. Pure in spirit and intentions, eager to be better, eager to improve. I was a breath of fresh air for tired lungs, and your chest was full to bursting. Two falls later and where are we now? Where have we been? You were with a girl with pink hair this time two years ago, and I was with the freckled baseball star. Chokers and loud music and you were in love; football games and flowers, and so was I. Time told us what we already knew, and when the time came it just as quickly went, and we fell out of love as fast as we had fallen in. You and I weren't supposed to meet. Different lives in every way, the only thing in common were friends of friends of friends. I'm glad we accidentally encountered each other's existences. I'm glad that the rest of it was purposeful. Where will we be in two more years? When winter has come and gone and returned again? Whose hearts will we have opened, whose hands will we hold? Whose bodies will we tangle with, new anatomy to define? When my hand lingers beneath my abdomen, when my fingers trace patterns on my inner thigh, I can only imagine your honey colored hands. My body warms at the thought. I've seen your body grow. Your jaw be angled, your shoulders broaden. You've felt my flesh and learned every inch of my being. I could swear you could look at me and see a map of how to make me melt into something pliable, easy to sway. I was at your mercy when you kissed me, I was yours any moment that you wanted me. I couldn't resist or refrain, and I could not even try to want to. Maybe in two years that will fade. Maybe my insides won't ache at the sight of your face, maybe we'll be better off being apart, and maybe that will be okay. These months are getting longer, and the sun fades quicker as winter makes its way in. My skin is speckled with goose bumps, my hair stands on edge and I shiver, and every part of you was warmth. I want it so badly, I want to feel you like the sun on me, but I know I will only be left colder. They said to run, to go before it's too late; but I said that eighteen is a good age for your first heartbreak. Better off now, than when it really matters.

You 9/4/15

I thought I knew love before you. Handwritten notes and my favorite candy being hand delivered out of the blue, sharing hoodies and good morning texts. I was 16 then, so I wasn’t so far off for that age. Love seemed to fall apart pretty fast back then, two months and I wasn’t the most beautiful girl he had ever seen anymore and Taylor Swift’s lyrics were passages from a teenage bible all my friends had already read through before and there I was starting chapter one. Then there was you. I knew that the cutesie, childish, makes-me-blush feeling that I got was not love, but I loved getting it. This was somehow even better than before, what I thought I knew had been erased and banished from my head, and the space left behind was filled with You You You You You In all your glory The curly headed boy that fascinated me with all his own-ness, his self-ness, his this-is-me-and-I-want-you-ness Others I’d admired loved football games--school spirit emanating from their pores, and color coordinated Nike socks and shoes But this one, he liked good music He laughed at my jokes and dear god, he played guitar He liked me Really, really liked me Was this love? Was this the real thing? Not yet, I said Not yet, not now Every time you think you’ve got it down it slips out of your fingers and you rethink what is and isn’t running throughout your head constantly every single second, every single moment of every single day But it was all You Seventeen now and I was finally able to hold your hand in public, that first September was a good one Goosebumps as your hand grazed my upper thigh and heart beats speeding up as the spiral of tongues and teeth collided with one another, over and over until I was sighing into your smile I’ve always felt things through my body, felt my sadness in my stomach, my confusion in my chest, my pain in the back of my throat, preparing my tongue to spit out some expletive But I felt love in every part of me with you Through my trembling fingertips interlaced with yours, into my shoulder, up my neck I left bare, clean and open to destroy But you didn’t You’d leave your mouth on me for short periods of time, make your way to my face Where we’d look each other in the eye And proclaim This Is Love And it was For a very long time Until it wasn’t And you were finding happiness in the body of someone else While I tried to figure out what was so wrong with me That my everything Was not enough June was full of strong gusts and even stronger changes, my compass spinning as freely as the wind, the rooftop roosters twirling so high up there, going and going and going. July was sneaky, creeping by with no intention of being noticed. I was trying to let go of you while knowingly keeping a clenched fistful of us hidden behind my back. I was yelling “fuck you” and laughing with others at your expense, while deteriorating every moment that was spent not being yours It was already the first day of September, somehow. Summer had passed me by and only left me with a few things to keep safe and to warm me as the days would grow colder. The mark of the sun on my hip bones, the tan kiss covering my thighs. Full circle and I am experiencing a new touch on my shoulders, a new mouth to my cheek. When I am with him I am entertained I feel no pressure to be any which way I am serving myself through his company, saving myself from the sadness that seeps out in dark pools when I am alone I almost wanted to pretend, to let the familiar feeling of being held bring me back to when we would lie in your bed and watch cartoons But I was afraid I would say your name So I turned away And I closed my eyes And thought of You You You You, in all your goddamn glory You

it takes time to heal and figure things out and decide how to relate to someone who knew every inch of your being, someone you loved with every part of it be patient, give it time, give me a grace period to gather myself, however long that may be picking petals and pieces from the garden where my roots were strewn surreptitiously severed in a moment of selfishness let me make my own decisions in dealing with my memories, the mementos of these moments that have lost authenticity, normalcy isn’t natural when you’re plagued by an absence so strong that you feel it in the spaces between your bones between the cracks and crevices of your creativity songs and poems spilling out trying to make sense of the slow movement inside me that waxes and wanes like a melancholy moon orbiting something i knew like the back of my hand that i now can’t seem to stop picking at

I'm not angry anymore I'm not pounding at the walls of sanity Telling myself it's not true Telling myself it is Spiraling rage swirling around me What I know and what I want held in the air Weightless For a moment And I know it's over with And gone And done I'm not angry anymore I'm not aching at the thought of her Or flinching at the mention of your name Telling myself you never loved me Telling myself you do Speaking tongues to myself in the middle of the night Asking favors of something I don't believe in That what I know and what I want will go back to being the same fucking thing For a moment But I know it's over with And gone And done

I want to empty my stomach of everything Rid my body of anything familiar Shed this skin I have Wash off all the places you've touched me, All the times you made me feel like I was your own while you were not mine I wish I could burn myself clean, black to the bone Die And be born again Without any inkling of want or reason to know you

an old poem i never posted

I love him harder than I’ve loved anyone else It is the easiest thing I have ever done I feel like myself Like I’ve awoken Like I know who I am what I want and who I want to be with Yet at the very same time there is this other side that has no idea Feels lost, feels trapped, wants out, wants to run Wants to kick and scream at every thing holding me back At a time, he felt like a freedom But the part of me that can’t stand to be contained is making him into a cage

Walk slow down Hear the way The green leaves Sway It was not long Since we came here That one summer And we laid in the grass Sweet baby I can see you Cutting through The sun Those cement stones Near the ivy overgrown Funeral home Where we held our breath Because we didn't feel Alone It was not long Since we gathered here Let you disappear And we laid you in the ground Sweet baby I can feel you Cutting through All I ever knew

bad habit blues

It's summer and the grass is yellow Like the dress that is barely covering the middle of my freckled thighs The band is playing loud and the air is full of laughter This blanket is too big for me Even when I lie on my back, breathing in the sunkissed air Criss cross applesauce and admiring the grey-haired woman dancing in the front, I see you walking towards me Your hair has grown since that last winter And just like everything else, it seems to have fallen just in place A "hello" and a kiss on the cheek as you sit next to me and I'm feeling good

I look at you with an ever present magnifying glass What did you mean by this or that What is on your horizon I am looking too deep In the depths of your being For what I need to satisfy me Where I search for your reasoning, In the crevices of your head Where your thoughts run thick and freely I find only veins Where I search for purpose, The mechanics of your meaning I find only gears and cogs And shoulder shrugs And "I do not know"'s Where I search for importance, In the things that make up your days Like antidepressant drugs and particular coffee mugs I find only routine You are exactly who I think you are And I think I am afraid

I am a dreamer I am a wisher I believe that wishes made at 12:34 Are more potent than those made at 11:11 My father died when I was thirteen I saw him last in a sunbathed moment And five hours later he was dead The shaky voice of my mother confirmed it And the cries of my sisters shook me I wished it had been a dream I dreamt that he was alive But awoke to his absence When my mother calls me downstairs with urgency in her throat, I think someone is dead When messages remain unanswered, I worry they are in fatal trouble I am afraid of who will leave me I see the ones I love In flaming car wrecks, burnt down houses Tangled in hospital beds Fate gripping them with bloody claws And ripping them from my arms I met a boy Who makes me feel the sun At any given moment I met a boy who laughs like my father And has a warmth that I don't want to let go And the fact that I love him Feels like a fatal curse upon his head I beg, Buckle your seatbelt Look both ways Brush your teeth Don't smoke cigarettes I have been wounded by surprise And bruised by bewilderment But he will not hurt me He swears, he swears I am a dreamer and he is the wish

these days have not been as easy these days have not been as sweet as last march's afternoons the tall grass and marching bands perfuming the air with the smell of the coming summer and over-rehearsed melodies these days have been dreary and those there to lean on have been bent too far crooked and out of shape, which misshapen edge did i create with my own malformities these days are waxing and waning fluctuating like lukewarm waves, stretching towards the pull of the moon, back to the wet earth below but these days are a' changing and these days are changing for good

lackadaisical lover

you make me cry but i still want to hold hands (which makes me wonder who has the worse problem)

the friction comes and goes like waves

crashing between my ears,

spilling out onto my face and dripping down into my mouth

my tongue is salty and sore, 

bitten to keep from being cruel

restlessness and reluctancy

what is to be done when your solace

becomes sorrow

mother dear

she says i am to blame for all the hurt she says i caused my own pain when she tells me i look trashy or lowly or fake it is, naturally, my fault for taking it that way

it is my fault by asking “why are you the only one that says this?” the reasoning is clear, she spits no one else will say it aloud i only ever speak the truth, she says because i love you

i must ask for forgiveness (though i do not deserve it) i must take back what i said because she could never hurt me, and saying otherwise would make her a liar

inconsistency of realities, we will never get along take two steps back for every mistake and look at what i have done wrong

her biting words are favors, my anguish an error in how i see it is time to learn that i only hurt because she loves me

Walked around the field and house, taking pictures of spots that caught my eye. The morning was misty and a little cold, but only enough so that my hands were a little red. The ends of my pajama pants were dampened by the dewdrop peppered grass. My loose t-shirt hung off my body, the chill air kissing my ribcage. I looked around at the land, what was not mine but I claimed for myself. What would keep living and growing even when I stopped, the ground that would keep reaping and sowing new life even when I was six feet underground it. Standing in the midst of the misty morning meadow, the chill air kissed my face and I kissed it right back.