Our fingers bumped
As we connected miles
Between Florida and Vermont with our hands
On the map above your bed

Our fingers bumped
Like we did  
Connecting and kissing beneath the sheets
The most intimate part of you
Meeting mine

Filling the spaces where I felt
Would always be empty

I know you
How your skin feels
Brushing against mine
I know the curve of your lips
Every knuckle in your spine

I drown in your eyes
Deep shades of brown
I lose myself in those irises
Miss you painfully
When you're not around

We drew an imaginary line
Between states
One at a time

Somewhere in the middle
Your hand caught mine
And I didn't want to let go

Not any place
Or anytime

In March I fell asleep
And dreamt of a ribcage
Like the branches of trees
When I was 16
I counted calories
Like a clerk at the bank

A week later I lost 5 lbs
And you told me i was beautiful
But I knew it was a lie
When I lost 10 lbs
My mom told me I looked good

In April I daydreamed of bones
And ate carrot sticks for dinner
When I lost 20 lbs
And fell asleep on your couch
You held me together in your arms
When I lost 25 lbs
My mom said I looked tired

In May I had a nightmare
About birds stuck in a cage
I woke up with sore ribs
Pictures of models
Lined my bedroom walls
But I didn't stay long

In June I moved to another bed
A different room
My ribcage extended like branches
But the birds stopped singing

You came to visit me
But were afraid to hold my hand
You thought my bones would break
My mom stopped telling me how I looked
She just dabbed her eyes

That night I dreamt about floating
In a river so wide
There were no branches
To remind me of bones
You cried and told me not to go
My mom begged me to stay
But the light was so bright
I couldn't look away

The walls harbor my secrets
Pink wall paper
Tucks them away as I sleep
Ballerinas dance in my head
I want to be like them
Graceful, thin, light
My secret scrapes at a dinner plate
Longing for more
But begging for less
I want to be her
The girl in my dreams
Who has perfect pirouettes
But when I wake
My knees meet
Bathroom tiles
Bile spills into
A porcelain bowl
I'm not a ballerina  
I'm a bulimic

I hope she kisses you
With closed lids
Because when you leave
She’ll find you
In others’ lips

I look for you
For your freckled face
In every crowded place

I search for you
For your butterfly kiss
In others drunken lips

I try to find you
Find your tenderness
In all of life’s madness

I try to face you
Face your decision
With ears that refuse to listen

I search for you
For your meaning
For the answer to your leaving.

It’s September
And I miss him
Like my brain misses oxygen

It’s September
And I’m waiting for him
Like layers wait for the cold bite
Of December

It’s September
And I wish he was here
Because I have long stretches of time
And there’s nothing that I want more
Than time with him

It’s September
And I find myself
Wishing for February
So that he can
Be mine

I imagine
That we would build moments
Between our fingertips

I see our lips connecting
Colliding, fumbling
Beneath my eyelashes

In the stillness
Our hearts would race

Beating heavy and constant
In the space between us

I imagine that maybe
Our elbows would bump

Or our knees would knock
Your world colliding with mine

Maybe lying next to you
Is only poetry

Hold the line
Please hold the line
It ended that night

My battery’s low
I need some juice
A reboot

Recharge my heart
It’s wasted
Placid

My lungs fill
With smoke
But there’s no fire

Ignite a spark
In my bones
They’re tired

Recharge my heart
It’s wasted
Placid

My battery’s low
I need some juice
A reboot

Hold the line
Please hold the line
Give me another line
This one’s dead

I drew lines between us
When I chose to draw lines
Across my skin*

But what I can’t say out loud

The words that are stuck,
Pitted in my chest
Which sometimes make it hard to breathe

What I’ve been desperate to tell you
Is:

*I’d rather see cracks in my skin
Than feel holes in my heart.

You were my words;
When I wanted to write a million

You were a race,
And **** I never seemed to win

You were the stars,
How we both drank them up
Like lightning
We fell so fast

You were my breath
Which ended when we did

You were the spring
That fell out of each step

You were a light in my eyes,
Now mine flicker occasionally

You were my smile,
Which can’t help but falter

You are my mistake
The best one I’ve ever made

I’m tired
So tired
Of feeling like
I’ve been chopped off
At the knees

In a haze of dreams
I see memories of us
Past recollections

Eat baby, please
It’s killing me to watch
While you wither away to nothing
It’s killing me
But you need to know
It’s also killing you
I know the way that full plate
Heaves its weight onto your shoulders
I remember the way you looked down at it
As if you would fall in
And drown in the numbers
I know that you pretend
You’re stomach doesn’t pinch
Or stab you with the hunger
But I see the way
You sit hunched over
Trying to shrink into yourself
Forever trying to make yourself smaller
As if the hunger isn’t
Enough
I know you long for bones
To be the only things
Distending from your skin
But darling
You’re forgetting
That your worth,
Your value
Does not rest in a number
Whether it’s on the back of a box
Or a creaky bathroom scale
You’re forgetting that
Bones are brittle
They break, love
They break
How will I hold you
When my touch could splinter you
When I could snap you in half
How will I shelter you
When that voice festers inside your head
And it rots your thoughts
Your innocent thoughts
Sweetheart, you’re forgetting,
Pushing food around a plate
Won’t give you dignity
And that voice
That voice inside your head
Does not define you
Do you see your eyes, love
When you look in the mirror
Can’t you see the light is gone
From those beautiful eyes of yours
Or do you only see
Failure and flesh
Clinging to your body
Holding on for dear life
As you try so urgently
To shed it from your skin
Please,
Let me remind you
That it’s okay darling
Go ahead,
Pick up that fork
It’s okay
I promise
Trust me when I say
I know
I know it’s hard
I know it hurts
I know it’s not just chewing
That causes you misery
I know that it feels like cotton
Whenever you try to swallow
I know that it’s like a rock, that food
Stubborn as it sits in your stomach
I know it hurts
I know
Just let me remind you
Let me remind you
That its okay, love
To feel
Full

If I wrote it all down
Would that make it easier
To rewrite our own history

Or would the tidal
Waves keep crashing
Against the shore
Erasing our handprints
From the sand

Images skirt my mind
Spiraling around
Adrenaline pumps through my veins
And a night run
Doesn’t sound like a bad anecdote

Miles burn holes
In the souls of my shoes
And my muscles tense
Under the traction
Of the hard concrete

I imagine cool air
Burning my lungs
Sharp inhales
And deep exhales

But what no one knows
Is that I keep secrets
Hidden beneath long sleeves

Because miles
Aren’t good enough
For the scale
And retching into a toilet
Wouldn’t illuminate
My bones

Metal and blood
Won’t re-stitch  
Too tight skin

Feeling like the five year old girl
That glimpses back at me
With wide bright eyes
And a vast imagination
I remember

Horses spinning around
Lights blinking colliding clashing
Candy painted lips
The smell of cotton candy
And how she loved
Carousels

They stripped your name
It’s meaning got lost
In the obscurity of it all

They drained me of your colors
Extracting every memory
With lab coats and microscopes

Black and white pictures
Induced by pills
And encouraging smiles

A candle I held close
Went out

My recollection was suffocated  
They quieted my heart
Now I try not to say your name out loud

We don’t think
Before we speak
But our words
Only take seconds to sink
Into someone elses heart
We seem to have no problem
Destroying what’s not ours


Words mean everything
From people who used to mean something

Hospital walls get tired
And colors
They become dry
After a while
The memories fade
But sometimes they crash and fall
Like tidal waves
Striking my heart
As if one blow
Wasn’t enough to impede
My hearts beating
Again and again
They hammer
Their words
Down my throat
And a girl can only swallow
So much
Before she breaks

In the cold
We seek comfort
Beneath layers of clothing
Soaking wet

We stumble inside
And you bump into
The corner of my mother’s
Kitchen table

A laugh escapes your lips
The type of laughter
I can see in your eyes

You always squint your eyes
When you laugh

I got lost in those eyes
Those fields of
Emerald green
Or were they pools
Of blue
It would be easy
To just forget them

But it makes me smile
When I remember

The way the sleeves
Of my flannel shirt
Always slid past your wrists
Concealing your fingers

And the way
You looked at me across the table
Over your empty cup
Of tea

I remember those December nights
When life became frigid
And our future looked bleak
We used each other for body heat

I remember those mornings
You know the ones
4am conversations about pills
And dying

I remember all your quirks
That you drank tea, never coffee
I know that those scrapes on your knuckles weren’t mistakes

I remember thinking it was love
The way your words were woven
But the promise you made
Wasn’t a promise at all

I remember you kissing her
And I lost my appetite

I remember January 1st
When you bled a little too much
And I tightened the noose

I remember that you went to the hospital
And I just stayed home with a bruise
I guess you were the gun
And I was the trigger

Sometimes
When I think
Of you
I picture you
At your place

I think of
July 4th
Cautiously turning
Over milestones

Carefully climbing
Every rung
On that ladder
My hands shook
But I would
Never tell

Fumbling through
The dark
Grasping your hand
And gripping it
Like a vice

Fireworks went off
For us
As your place
Slowly became

Our place.

My heart beats
Wildly
Like a stallion
Fresh out of the gates

Bets are off
When it comes to
My unstable heart

My head
Is a strong
Mare

But my heart says
Place all your money
On the black
Stallion

On the first of June
I met a boy with
Blue eyes
And rough hands
He was never part of the plan

That night I kissed him
Under all the arcade lights

I would’ve counted
Every star with him
And as nights blurred into days
His smile never seemed to fade

Over time
My smile, for once
Was real
And I wore it for him
Every day

We laughed between the stacks
Even after
We were told to “hush!”
His eyes lit up when he laughed

The minute our lips separated
I was thirsty all over again
And hours watching clouds with him
Were never long enough

But my blue-eyed boy knew
That in August
He would have to watch me
Pack my life away

I was going to
Avoid eye contact
While I watched him
Help my Dad
Load suitcase after suitcase
Into the truck



And lumps would form in my throat
Because goodbye would be
Farthest from what I wanted to say


It's still June
But I don’t want time
To take my sunshine away

There’s an empty space
Where you left
But the doctors
Ripped out the alarm
In my chest
All I can do
Is stumble around
And speculate.

Does the red wire
Connect to the blue one?
Or will
Electric shock
Revive
The memories
That the medicine
Erased
From my brain

I wonder
If you see me
In all of the twinkly lights  
Or
If you try to
Restart your heart
By connecting
The green wire
To the yellow wire
Or maybe it’s the red one
I’m never sure

Because I didn’t stick around
Long enough
To ask

In my empty room
I stared at the ceiling
I heard my heartbeat
And saw a billion stars

I thought that if I closed my eyes
I’d forget about it
I’d forget about you

But there they were
Stories of us
Written on the walls
Pulsing through my veins

Your lips against mine
A distant memory
Something too far away to reach

But **** did I want it
I wanted your lips
Pressed against mine
The way a harmony builds
And becomes a bridge

I wanted flowers to bloom for us
I wanted the waves to meet sand for us
I wanted rain to hit the windshield for us
I wanted it to come pouring down

Because I felt like a hurricane
And I wanted you to weather the storm

Vivid memories
Dance in my head
Change in an old mans jacket
And calling your name
White walls
And clocks
That never seem
To run out of time
Warm beds
Unmade
Reaching for your hand
In the darkness
Of a crowded room
Running through the maze
Of green lights
And stop signs
Thinking that I could
Somehow
Find my way back
To you

They say that the truth will set you free.
So here it is.
The truth is
That no
I’m not afraid of
Falling in love with you
I’m afraid
Terrified
To love
Myself
But you make it
So easy
To take down
All of the walls
I have built up
To protect my heart
The truth is
That I was broken
From the beginning
Always have been
And I wish
You didn’t have to
Uncover
All the *****
Skeletons
In my closet
Because I have
Too many to count
And uncovering them
Myself
Is suffocating
You have my heart
Because it’s better protected
In your hands
Than in mine
Please
Keep it safe.

They touched my wrist
They all did

It seemed that
That’s all they cared
About

Whether or not
The flesh was healing
Properly

What they didn’t seem
To see
Was a girl

With dry eyes
Just trying to feel

Alive