soft
the doctors told you that the blues
in the whites of my eyes
made my bones soft
and my body more willing
to break

now i have metal in my arm that
becomes stiff when the night is too jagged
resting permanently under the biggest scar
given to me by someone else

losing you pt. 5
i showed you the sky today
it was a mixture of pink and blue
and nothing could stop me
from yelling, “i cant feel dead anymore”
to a neighborhood i knew wasn't
listening

its 7:26am
and i’ve convinced myself
that you still talk to me
in the form of sylvia plath quotes
left in places you know i’ll see

i haven’t slept
but when i close my eyes
we still talk a lot

home
it felt as though i had woken from a dream
one where i’d realized that i’ve been aching to touch you
since the last time i’ve had you

i want to explore your body all over again
like it was something new and familiar at the same time

i bet you feel familiar
i bet when you wrap yourself around me
it’ll feel like home

human, 2014
i’m a part of a species so beautiful
that we build little homes out of nature
to shield us from the natural world
and walls that we hide behind
and think about fucking each other
before falling asleep

6:50am
i want to go to sleep with the confidence
that there’s nothing more beautiful than a still morning
or being in the presence of a world that feels
new again

february
i wish we spoke more
so i could tell you
that i cried in the shower again
but this time i wasn’t afraid
this time it was beautiful
and slow moving
like the world was when
i was getting to know you

three months
i kept the windows open
for three months
to fill my room with a smell
that isn’t you

normal
i used to stay up
and argue with you
until my insides burned
for three days after
and for those three days
i’d tell myself that it would
all be worth it
if we could just sit on your couch
with our hands laced
like it was normal

2:18 am
at 2:18 in the morning
i had the confidence to ask you
if you’ve been fucked recently
in an attempt to hurt myself
more than you’ve hurt me
as if the answer would fix me
and i could let go of a feeling
in my chest, heavier than
the weight of your body
spread across the fabric
of a bed that isn’t mine

heat death
i want to love you
until the sun
destroys every bit of
our universe
until you’re sure
that our ultimate fate
was to keep trying
and you’re convinced
of the existence of a god
that modeled your freckles
in the sky’s image
creating little universes
on your body that
i would want to explore
infinitely

light
i used to want to be sunlight
and shine myself onto anyone
willing to be touched
to exist only far away from you
and show you how warm i can be
when my rain clouds are gone

but lately i can’t stop thinking
of how nice it must feel
to be the orange glow
escaping from the old lamp
in your bedroom

the tiniest room
we used to shower together
trapped in the tiniest room
where one of us always felt cold
while the other felt warm
and we’d share water
and barely talk
but sometimes you’d sing

and we used to sleep together
on a bed that never felt big enough
so when you left for work
i’d stretch my whole body
across the empty mattress
in celebration of those
fifteen minutes
never realizing just how
uncomfortable it would feel
sleeping that way every night
with my body across the bed
and arms stretched out
like i’m looking for something

i guess you went to sleep
i saw a movie tonight
that reminded me of you
something about writers
and being afraid of love
and uncertainty
and waiting

then i did more CBT and ate
lots of chocolate
dark chocolate
i ate so much that it
made my head feel funny
like caffeine does
it made me want to walk
really far without my cell phone
until everything i knew was a tiny speck
and i felt safe in the distance
like i used to

lovebirds
you asked if anxiety
had anything to do with depression
and i was too afraid to tell you
that they walked hand in hand
like lovebirds making their way
through an innocent world
and fingers laced so tightly
that i would never dream
of tearing them apart

a town that pushes against the storm
i opened the door to the freezer and just stood there
staring in at all of the food until it began to thaw
and with the cold air billowing out into a warm room
i thought about calling out into an empty house
to ask if you wanted to do something easy for dinner

if i’ve learned anything it’s that you
don’t always need the courage to move forward
just the resistance to turn back
and the composure to remain still
even when the air is cold

i want to stand like a monolith at the center of
a town that pushes against the storm
or anything that distracts me from the fact
that there’s still food in my freezer
that belongs to you

but i don’t think i want it to change
i want it to continue to exist as
the preservation of an era
the remnants of a life
that we used to live
anything to remind me
that it happened
and that it was good

2016 took so much from the world
i’m sorry that we too
got swept away in its tide

mahogany
my therapist taught me
to hold my chest and focus
the second the world becomes
too loud

and i’m just beginning to learn
the difference between fists
against drywall
screaming, “let me out”

and sore knuckles on mahogany
saying, “let me in”.