You become a memory
Grounded in the past
Banned from the future

You become a scar
A painful echo
Forever embedded in their skin

You become a ghost
Haunted by their words
You are what once was

You become a stranger
Because the world is ever-changing
And time separates us.

You caused a dive-bomb reaction in the pit of my stomach.
10 days until you're gone.
In ten days you could fall in love
if you try hard enough
in ten days you could get addicted to something
like nicotine or your hands on my waist
in ten days you could learn a new language
and whisper it on the crook of my neck
like every night when you told me
me pareció mi hogar en ti
which roughly translates to
i've found my home in you
i am constantly trying to convince myself
that you can't make a home out of a human being,
but when i'm lying in my own bed
i can't help but catch myself saying
"i want to go home"
there are still nights that i lie awake and wish you were next to me
although the love you had for me died
as soon as you found Rachel.
I have always felt like a girl,
but around you i felt like a woman.
you made love to the curves on my hips
without ever having to remove clothing
and i had no idea that fingertips could cause liberation
until you kissed mine.
As soon as your lips touched my skin
i knew i would dream about you for as long as i live.
You always had what i needed,
drugs, alcohol, love, emotion, friendship.
Every day for years i would make my way to your house
and you would have a the drugs waiting for me
and as soon as i felt i could fly through the clouds
i ended up swimming in your body
unable to force myself to stay above surface level
because you always drowned.
The screaming matches that were produced
about you wanting to die
scared the living hell out of me because
i realized i was not enough for you.
you told me nothing was sacred,
that no spine was too straight to snap into submission,
that every layer of skin could be clawed off,
and that's why you feared the scars on my body.
Your first stare was a look of horror,
but then it was a look of love and you knelt down next to me
and kissed every inch of my body and i thank my body
for learning how to thank yours.

In ten days you will be gone,
and you can never love someone as much as you can miss them.

My bathroom reeks of cigarettes,
My sink is filled with wine,
My kitchen table, a stack of bills
And overdue book fines.
This isolation is my poison,
This quiet is my hell.
I thrive on dreams of suicide
And other habits I can't tell.
The life of an artist, you see,
Is a life of sacrifice.
And though we did not choose this fate,
We still must pay the price.
People think we simply see
Hidden beauty in the world.
But we also see the demons at night
Seducing young boys and girls.
They're tempted by money and other things
The world tries to force in our minds.
And all the artist can do is sit, watch
And hope they come out alive.
For an artist already knows how it is
To live in a world where you choke
On poison and blood and *** and wine
And in the end, they still come out broke.
Yet we still live with a foolish hope
That one day when we're dead and gone,
Perhaps our art and perhaps our words
Will somehow carry on.
We believe once we're immortal
Everything will somehow be alright.
And I plan to be there someday--
If I can make it through the night.

The people on here all ****
and i just dont give a ****
your poems are all bad
you all should be sad
here... let me run you over with a truck.

It was the time of summer where every kid had silently realized that it was ending,
No longer halfway through, no longer half full
Leaking and spilling out,
like the gas in my twenty two year old car
We couldn’t stop it,
And the moments of high school summertime
The moments that supposedly turn into stories we tell forever
Hadn’t seemed to have happened.

Both of us on the swing lazily swung
Dizzily from side to side.
Climbing forward, falling in reverse
Our combined bodyweight shifting back and forth
Tanned legs kicking up in an attempt at unison on every backwards glide.
Gravity hung us there,
Pulling the swing toward the ground no matter the rotation.

I sat on top.
I wore bleached shorts and bleached hair.
I worried that gravity or more so my value to it
would crush him.


At the same time, I felt unbelievably small.


The air pressed in on me from all angles,
it touched my bare legs
it easily waffled my shirt.

“Mel, if you were squishing me, I would let you know”,
he assured with a cocky tone of his very own that somehow made me feel special.
I couldn’t help but think he was only trying to be tough
Attempting to let sheer willpower overweigh my well earned quads,
My six foot frame.
The awkward body I never quite grew into
Never knew how to masterfully control
Never knew how to fill.
Though I secretly (wanted to) truly believe him

On this humid night I felt like the ball was in my court,
Like I could do anything and everything.
That nothing could go wrong
That the boy that I was sitting on was genuine
And that I could simply drive off to wherever.

(I had a full tank of gas and enough money to get me to Alabama).

I felt small in this,
in this infinity of possibility all around me.
Like a weight was pushing into me
Putting on pressure that couldn’t be ignored
That shrunk me just enough.
I felt powerless to fate
Powerless to this planet
To this grand, glorified hunk of earth which was so much greater than me
(and surely my insignificant weight anxieties).

I felt like the gas was leaking out faster than I could use it.
I felt like my infinity was disappearing as I swung within it.


Just like that, I let the ball drop and the gas leak out.
We just kept swinging.
Laughing,
Wasting,
Talking,

Dying.

I miss hearing you excitedly explain your dreams about Bill Murray saving your life
I miss hearing you explain why you never take Advil
I miss hearing your voice slur "what" and "hmm" together in a way only you could,

asking a question and simultaneously thinking about it too.

I miss telling you about why my mom takes the scissors out of my room.
I miss telling you "sorry i called last night" when i got drunk and you
weren't around,

(even though that never really stopped)

I miss my heart forgetting how to work every time we were together,
like morse code through my body pounding the scaredest possible "wow"

I miss you telling me "You're the worst" with a cocky smile.
I miss lying under the stars with you,
just looking while our friends made out beside us,
my neck uncomfortably on your arm because i was too shy to lie on your chest.

I miss sitting on your lap and worrying I would crush you,
and you reassuring me out of pride that I wouldn't,
that I couldn't.

I miss that day when we were drunk in you're best friends bed,
I was too scarred to kiss you so I just giggled,
and too drunk to remember how it eventually happened

I miss you making me feel small and beautiful and wanted.
I miss you making me feel big in a different way than my height ever could.

I used to regret
my actions, now I regret
the person I was.