Whisper her name,
Let it fly in the breeze
With the echoes of a million unspoken words
And the love letters I'll never send.

And it's like
The less you speak to me,
The harder it is
To get you off my mind.
Since you've made it clear that you don't care,
That I mean nothing,
(Or at least comparatively little),
You consume me.
In denying my attention,
You become an enigma,
And I love nothing more
Than a good mystery.

Regret tastes like salt,
But they wouldn't know.
He doesn't worry,
And she doesn't eat.
He holds her face in his hands,
And she looks right through him,
Wishing to be anywhere
But where she is.
He recites poetry over the phone,
And she has to mute the speaker
So he can't hear her laugh.
Only from his sadness does she gain any satisfaction,
And so she toys with his head,
For sick pleasure
Is better than none.

Footsteps and shadows
And shots in the dark.
Days in sunny fields
And nights in dark alleys.
Art and dreams and songs,
Drugs and illusions and lies.
Beauty, divinity, truth
In the eyes of drunken strangers.
A shot at salvation
Among the ranks of the condemned.

Darling, you’re fantastic.
I love you,
You know,
And I don’t say that lightly.
On the nights
(Like tonight)
Where sleep doesn’t find me,
I am consumed by you
In lieu of dreaming.

On the days
(Like today)
When I see you, hold you, kiss you,
I’m giddy, dizzy, happy,
And it’s all because of you.
My idiotic grin?
Entirely your fault,
You beautiful creature.

When I write poetry,
(Badly, sloppily,
Freely, openly)
It’s a window to a world
Populated by people
I’d mostly just like to forget.
(Or such is the norm,
But here, we find
The exception.)
But when I create,
When I sculpt, assemble, paint,
You are my muse,
My inspiration.

My cheesy, worn-out, affectionate clichés?
Those are your fault, too,
You marvelous ****.

And always the façade.
The constant lie,
The forced smile,
The empty laugh.
You deserve so much more
Than I can ever be.
I want to be happy for you,
Sane, normal,
Whole.
I want to make you smile;
I want you to look at me
With that unbridled adoration in your eyes
Forever.

But then forever seems like much too long a time
When I’m only seventeen
And I’m already done.

Your ******* voice,
Your stupid words,
Your sickening pet names.
The familiar cadence,
The rise,
The fall,
The simpering, whining,
Saccharine tone.
Is it really any wonder
I’m afraid to touch my voicemails?

His smell, his marks, his bruises,
The evidence of his passion,
His anger,
His destruction.
They faded away before
His body was cold,
Before I’d even had time
To begin to miss him.

But you, your words,
Your ******* voice.
The soft, frayed edges of
The things you meant but didn’t say,
The things you said
That meant nothing.
These insignificant things
Fill all the dusty, untouched
Corners of my life.

Today, I began the process
Of erasing you.
Your voicemails are gone.
Your power is fading.