fingers- i landed my boat here, when i first met you. your fingers twirled together absentmindedly and they still do and i'm still get lost whenever i wander onto the dark beaches.
hands- i discovered these peninsulas when you pulled me along on your adventures after I landed on the beaches and they were so rough yet so wonderful and i honestly want to get lost here more often.
wrists- i found these a bit more on the mainland, still flanked by water and they were so narrow that i was afraid i would fall off into the water and i wonder how those thick colorful bracelets stay on.
cheeks- one day i wanted to go on a hike so i decided to climb up these steep mountains and whenever something beautiful sailed by you these beautiful red begonias popped up and i'm a little upset that i didn't make them pop up but i'm glad they didn't bloom around me because i got to see the natural red hills and i got to love them.

but i made a mistake because i never went south and maybe i would have gotten lost somewhere else more beautiful but if i went south, i wouldn't have found the beautiful pools that some call your eyes and that would've been the real loss.

you held galaxies in your hands.
blades cut on your thigh and you bled stars.
the beating of your heart sounded a lot like the birth of planets.
and you kissed the world goodbye, giving me only the moon to remember you by.

you were the fabric of time and I swear when she left I could feel you ripple.
the tips of your fingers felt as hot as the sun.
the stares were as blinding as a solar eclipse.
and you kissed the world goodbye, giving me only the moon to remember you by.

I still remember the moon.

I guess you could call it poetic how by the age of 12 I had no recollection of what happiness tasted like on my tongue. Some would say it was tragically beautiful.
But it was not poetic, nor was it beautiful,  but it was tragic. It was so very, very sad, and that sadness is only doubled now that people see sorrow as glorious.  It is not glorious. It is not strength. It is a lump of iron in your chest and stomach and it eats you from the inside, out and you have no right to think that blood stained wrists are anything other than tragic. So very,  very tragic.

She loses him every night.
He kisses her good-
Night and walks out into
-Then out of- the streetlight
And into the Out, and
She knows
It's to
Write.

There is an inexplicable sadness reserved for
the melancholy moments when we accept that the
one we love does not love us back.

There is an inexplicable feeling we get when
all we are forced to drown in are the pools of
sorry's that are thrown at our ears, mercilessly.

There is an irrevocable pain we feel in the pit
of our stomachs, things we never thought we could
feel, worse than any physical pain, worse than the laps
we have ran around endless fields of thought in
our mind, when we hear the words whispered quietly
and under held breath, uttering
"You deserve better than this."

I do not. I do not want better than this. I deserve you
and everything you have to offer and everything you have
to give.

But resignation to the inevitable is something we all
must learn to do, just as the flowers learn how to bloom
even after the harsh winter storms.

Maybe I will be okay, I just need some time to bloom
into something beautiful once again.

Liz Taylor once said:

"Pour yourself a drink,
put on some lipstick and
pull yourself together."

I stopped believing in the positive power of alcohol
when I saw the struggle in my
70 year old great uncles bloodshot eyes
the time I caught him at 2 am
reaching for the whiskey in the top shelf of the cabinet

I apply lipstick every day
all crimson scarlet blood pooling on my breath
all dripping cherry popsicle
all lip stains on your neck and pillowcase
all red on red on red

I can't ever seem able to pull myself back together
Like stitches coming undone on a wound
Like egg shells cracking on hardwood floor
I stopped trying after 3 years of puzzle pieces
These days I make sure I never fall together so I never fall apart