then you were gone)

                                        and all of a sudden
i felt my bones turn to dust
&i; became nothing more than the
distance between two dirt roads
that led to a dream i could never quite reach.

i became nothing, which scared the me that
used to be something, until something was nothing
but a memory.  but

nothing could see all of the universe
at the height of the swing set and
one single-cell world underneath something's
fignernail.

i am still nothing,
and nothing is okay with that.

but even though i can hold all of space
within the palm of my nothing hand
i still can't learn how to breathe at night
when all my lungs can find is an undisturbed silence
and my last remaining memories of you.

we could have fallen in love.

under different circumstances
(if i were there or
you were here)
we would have been something
                                           beautiful,
because you're the boy
who writes me poetry that
makes me feel
not so alone,
and i'm the only girl who's ever felt
so sure about a boy like
you.

it's a shame distance is the only line
i don't know how to cross.

when i was a child
i was told tales of
mosquitoes' songs and
car crash children;
i covered my ears
as tightly as i could,
but it is common knowledge
that nightmares always
prevail, and i was haunted
        night after night
with the reality of
what our world has
come to.

tell me, when you were young
did you dream of
drinking with the
'grown ups'?
    --i did--
     then i met a razor blade
     who told me
     i have an addictive
     personality,
     and i fell in love with
     a boy with an
     alcoholic father
(things changed after that
and i learned that
naivety is a gift
i gave away a long time ago.)

some things don't change:
there will always be three hundred
and sixty five days
in a year,
( except for when there is
threehundredsixtysix. )
there are times when i
wished i was a constant too,
but then i realized
i'd be stuck in my past
and that was a very
scary place to be-
now i am thankful for
the constant flow
of in and out, the constant
change of the tides.
although i cry at change
i w e l c o m e i t.

one of these days
my mind will no longer be sharp
and i won't remember
my children's names
and my sister will be gone
and i will be
                    alone.
i would like to think
that i'll be happy
just to know ( silence )
but in reality, i will probably
spend my time wishing
i had treated my mother better
and had not let the
alcoholic's son free.
(i will be plagued by
nightmares once again,
the same ones of my
childhood.)

all i ever want to do
is stay up all night
and play guitar with you.

i am done cutting off parts of myself
to give to you,
only to watch you rearrange me
to look more like her.

i'm haunted by my past,
but i don't want to be
someone else's ghost.

it'll be easy to forget you
                                   (he said)
i would have preferred a simple
                  ********
            instead.

sometimes i like to pretend
that if you had bound books
in some life before this,
i was the story
you (again and again)
continued to stitch.

and when i was finished,
you would brush my spine softly
then unravel me,
just to piece me
back together again.

i don't have the capacity
to love as you do.

jesse only smiles when he means it.

nowadays, it takes a needle
to get the boys and girl
around the streetcorner high,
but all jesse needs
is an average girl with a pretty mind.

his timid mouth and crooked teeth
is the prettiest treasure a person could find.

you told me to stop chasing,
but you didn't say to give up.
since then i have stopped
clawing my way through the galaxies
to get to you--

instead, i hooked myself to the last star
you painted your name on
(and i will never stop waiting there
for you to return).