there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice. i should have asked you who taught you to
lace up your shoes in an instinct
that feels just like a memory,
your luggage is always packed.
you love out of a suitcase, always
ready to pick up and move. your hands are stained with their last
names you have boarding flights tattooed
on your palms because you're so used to
leaving, there is never a good-bye it is
always departure gates and terminals, and i'm writing this in on connecting flight over the ocean because close to nowhere is
the closest we've been in months
just to tell your passport that i understand
how you cannot love me. i could
taste it in your gas-station coffee breath i could
feel it in the hesitance of your fingertips
you are always close to the highway you are always waiting to hitch a ride with a new girl who will write poetry about how badly you feel like permanence and i
am always trying to unpack you, begging
you to stay one more night.
i understand how you cannot love me, i stay on the ground and you buy plane tickets with spare cash, with a turbulence that makes me
want to fasten my seatbelt.
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice and i whisper to the sheets
"i thought i could've made you stay."
your face is always towards the
humming of the window and
i like to imagine you can hear
me if you can hear me, you can leave all you
want. you can travel across the world and exchange your
heart for currency, you can walk through
security and stuff your belongings into the closets of cheap
hotels. i understand how you cannot stay because you're always too busy leaving,
but there will always be a place for you to
unpack in my chest.
there is a home that remains unoccupied.
there is a bed that
you haven't slept in twice, i keep it unmade in case you
ever feel like coming back.

the rumble of autos on our town's biggest thoroughfare
will never come close to the static roar that emanates
from those few centimeters between your ears

i can't hear your thoughts but their volume is deafening
and the evidence of their shouts shows in the strain in
your eyes

i've never really found washed-out irises beautiful before
but in their emptiness i see the fossils of a voice

it repeats in my head like a
mantra or a desperate prayer,
hands clasped tight over a
crucifix necklace. but i cant envision
myself praying just to god, i am so
desperate at this point i am yelling
my invocations to any force that will
listen and my eyes are shut tight like
a little girl wishing for time to
slow down, reciting
"please dont get sick of me please
dont get sick of me
please dont get sick of me" and i
am never sure of what happens when
i open my eyes and i am terrified to
unfold my palms as if someone will
catch me by my wrists and hit my hands
with a ruler and assume i have ever wanted
anything this bad before in my whole life

Depression is - locking yourself in the bathroom at work for as long as you can get away with, and laying on the floor. Praying to fall asleep and wake up anywhere else.

used to burn red like hot amber
couldn't put me in a body bag
i'd set it alight.
threw bricks and dolls.
scratched my skin raw
needed to get it off
wanted to shed skin like a snake
instead
grew grey
with time I couldn't read.
couldn't pick up a toothbrush
emptiness is my weapon
called it the void.

i have learned to breathe under holy water -
grew gills so strong they are
lined with celestial gold.

the ocean is a puddle to me now.

and i ***** pearls of pain,
lick them clean with my acetylene
tongue.

my acids will heal what the world cannot.

pills and love potions  
can't take away
my virginity.

i am clean, so clean.

the devil watches me and
cringes at my radioactive light.

for i am dead and alive all at once.
poison, poison.

the radium drips from my lips like
babyspit and i am too pure
for god himself

so i offer my golden blood
to a higher power

that would take the pureness of it all
and make it an ounce
of what i could have been

You cannot break the broken, you can't live in the past, throw that memory away, you cannot let it stay, oh I wish I had the power to change every wasted hour, to knock down this growing tower under which I fearfully cower, in my ball of self regret.

             
                    I can remember:

                Tears that I have shed.

                 Lies that I have said.

                 Pain I have inflicted.

              Oh how I feel conflicted.


But know now this, for it is true, for all the things I can't undo, I'd never regret loving you.