he's my best friend. i won't lose that.

i called my friend yesterday. we talked for an hour. she asked how i was doing, and i said, i can't remember the last time i was this happy.

lately i've been reading old poems and looking at old pictures. i wonder when i stopped being happy. i wonder if i ever was. i built myself a beautiful cage, and then i threw away the key. i was scared to leave. i thought if i did, i would lose everything good in the world. the truth is i kept everything good in the world out.

i'm not saying she didn't love me. i'm not saying i didn't love her. just that we got so close to each other, we ended up on the other side. i thought: what is love, if not to need? the idea of being without her made me afraid. i didn't know what i would find in myself if i wasn't constantly trying to be what she wanted me to be.

here's what i've found: peace, easy and quiet. strength. beauty, in every part of me. a breath breathed out. a weight off the shoulders. i used those same words in a poem i wrote months ago. in a poem i wrote three years ago. how long did i know? when i read my old works, it seems like i always did. i was just waiting for the right moment.

the right moment never comes. eventually i had to show up for myself. eventually i had to open the door. and when i did, in came the sunlight, glowing and golden.

she writes to me sometimes. i miss you. it feels like there's a hole in my life without you in it. i don't know how to tell her that for me, that emptiness is a blessing. that i finally have so much space to fill with myself, so expansive and beautiful and strong.

i won't forget it this time | 03.01.2024

is this real? are you here with me?

just ask and i will give it to you

last night i dreamt that he didn't hurt me

i miss you

i sprained a muscle in my left arm, can't move it around like i used to. & i think my heart might be giving up: my chest never stops aching these days, bone deep & breaking, & the rain keeps coming, even when forecasts say sun.

i'm losing something, but i don't know what. it slips through my fingers like water. laughter doesn't come easily & my phone never rings.

i should have stayed quiet. i should have kept my head down. i should have been a girl full of glimmer, full of sun, full of the right kind of love.

i miss you. i miss everyone. can we all pile into the car again & drown out words with that loud music you like? i know i always said i hated it, but i think i would give anything to hear it one more time.

i miss you. can we sit on the sidewalk with our knees touching & pretend none of this ever happened? will you let me run backwards? before the alarm bells, before the river flooded, before your car swerved into the wrong lane.

i miss you. wish my phone would ring. wish it would be your voice on the line. wish you could tell me what i'm losing. i miss you. should have asked you the right questions. should have known you'd be gone before i could.

march 11th

we should go to the river if the rain stops and the smoke clears. we should make the long drive. i'll pay for gas if you bring lemonade, and i'll bring snacks this time, like i promised. if you turn to me like you used to, with the sun in your hair and that look on your face, i'd go anywhere.

no one ever shows the hard parts: the telling, the confrontation, the crying afterwards. it's all glitter and love production.

i'd like the instruction manual, please. a step by step plan: how to get a ride home. how to know where home is. how to tell my mother what i lost and how i can't get it back; how to meet her eyes after.

i'd like a lifetime's worth of forgiveness, a glow-in-the-dark kind of love. i'd like the return on my investment; bones that don't break and a house that stands up. but we don't get what we ask for. you told me that.

i don't know how to talk about the hard parts. i did once, and you never looked at me the same way again. i want to run backwards into a childhood that didn't exist: river water and sunshine and never being hungry. i want to put down the weight i'm carrying, but it's too heavy for anyone else.

thanks for going through the movements. thanks for the phone call, even if was a week too late. i'll listen to your voicemail and then fold the clothes. i'll make sure to notice all the empty spaces that your laughter took up. i'll think about calling you. i won't pick up the phone.

i went home today.

spring

i'm ready to let go now. i still remember how it felt that night a few winters ago, the snow and the stars spinning around us, my knees on the ground, your hands hot on my neck. last spring you called me and there was a long silence. i didn't know what to say to make you laugh anymore, and once i could do that anywhere. i never want to feel that way again. i guess this is the hard part. i guess this is what falling out of love feels like. i thought it would hurt more but it's just empty. i can't remember the last time we talked. sometimes i really miss you, or i miss the way you made me feel. i wish i could go backwards, stop us from making whatever decision brought us here. i wish i could make my heart warm again. i miss your laughter and the way you knew me. no one has ever known me like that before and i don't know if anyone will again. i'm leaving because the silences grew too long. i'm leaving because i want more answers and i can't find them in you. i'm leaving because i checked my heart and the ache was finally gone, so i should be, too. i'm sorry i didn't tell you sooner, i was scared and you haven't called. did you know i'm finally doing okay again? i trust myself to make the right decisions now. i let my body take up space. i make the bed in the mornings and brew cups of tea once darkness falls. sometimes i don't think of you at all, not even once. days go by without you stepping into my thoughts. i remember when the love i carried felt like a punishment. do you? i remember when i made myself smaller and smaller, hoping that if i did, you'd finally want me. you did want me, and i'm sorry i couldn't see it when it mattered. i'm sorry you never told me.

black friday

you got what you wanted out of all this. i realize again and again: it's always you. do i even enter your equation? or is it just yourself mirrored back, a fragment you cling onto because it shows a part of yourself you'd thought you lost forever? i don't know the answer to that and i'm tired of asking. i'm tired of 5am nights and screaming at the steering wheel. i've written more than a hundred poems about you by now and i'm adding another one to the list. i wish i was free from you. i was, for a moment, and then you pulled me back down into the blackness. don't you get it? every night for the last three years has been haunted. i gave everything and got nothing back. i escaped for a few seconds and in that empty freedom, i found peace. it was lonely but it was mine. now i'm all yours again and it makes me sick. right back at it. the mirror in the bathroom and my face flushed furious and red. tripping over my words and my feet. sleepless and sordid, one moment sugary sweet and the next desperate and destructive. why couldn't you let me go? didn't i give you enough? didn't i try my best for more than three years? i have loved you for a lifetime. don't i deserve to rest now, to tend my heart's garden? maybe it won't grow anything as colorful and bright as you were, but sometimes it's not about the glitter. sometimes it's about the quiet hours when my house grows dark and my lover cooks me dinner in the kitchen. you never did that for me. you never wrote me a poem. eventually i stopped wishing for it and that was the beginning of the end. what i wanted more than anything in the world was for you to love me. truly and irrevocably. i think you did but you never told me. i was forced to search for it in your flickering glances and the way your hands brushed my body. i got tired. i'm sorry. our game couldn't last forever and i was the first one to fold. it took a long time but i stopped measuring myself against your invisible presence. i stopped measuring myself at all. my days became amber and sunlit. laughter came easily. i want to return to that place but you won't let me.

flames. fury. my fingers scabbed and scarred. black oil. sinew and flesh. coming undone. shame spilling out of my heart, thick and amber. it's over now. teeth pulled out one by one. blood in my mouth, blood on the floor, blood smeared across the concrete. words like weapons, words like wounds, words like apologies no one ever said. please let me take it back. sick feeling in my stomach. bile in my throat. my shoelaces untied, curling around my ankles, pulling me back down. struggling. thrashing. never once have i seen a body that didn't look like punishment. taking up space. drowning. water dark as night. a white sky, a blizzard, a secret. please let me take it back.

why do i keep ending up here? my body, once beautiful, now a punishment. i take up too much space. i become reckless, undone, shameful and scared. look at me. alone and angry, again. don't look at me. i don't want to think about it anymore. his hands on me, slick and scarlet. thinking about it anyway. always thinking about it anyway. his mouth on me, all other thoughts abandoned. how much i wanted him in that moment. how much i want him now. how obvious it feels, glowing in the dark. after all this time, i still can't convince myself he loves me. i'm still always waiting for him to leave. i turn against him, sabotaged and aching. i wait for a sign, and it never comes. i don't know what i'm looking for, or maybe i'm just telling myself that. here's the deepest truth: my body is toxic. my body is contagious. i pray for a cure. to become a wisp, and then nothing at all. i try to contain it, using every weapon i can find. i hide it away, hoping no one will notice. here's the deepest truth: why would he love me? i don't. here's the deepest truth: why would i love myself? he doesn't. i take the truth and twist it up. he would be upset if he read this. the darkness overflows, spilling onto the paper. the darkness floats off the page. here is my anger, barbed and acerbic, aimed at my own heart. here is my grief, gray and whimpering, never quiet. here is my love for him, so heavy and so excruciating and so impossible.