I am nothing.
Full of empty hope, stolen kisses, unfulfilled dreams
Full of starlight and sunshine
But really, full of last night's ***** and wasted promise.
I am nothing. Pouring tears, wastoid of God's creation
Covered in bruises and scars and tattoos and sweat and contempt from onlookers
I am nothing. Nothingness in its truest form, the lack of soul, the lack of feeling.
Call me Robot.
Call me Wasteling
Call me Loser
Call me Ugly.
Just ******* call me.
For I am nothing,
        Without you.

Walk all over people and one day someone will fight back

                           Teeth bared

And all you'll have is scars on your heels.

I am constantly falling in love with strangers.
With words written in notebooks stashed away and forgotten about.
With the way the light hits the trees in the morning as the sun rises, the way the sky is light pink and orange before blue.
I fall in love with curves of lips as boys talk to girls on the streets.
With the way people walk, as if gliding over linoleum in the oddly bright supermarket.
With hands that gesticulate as tongues, mouths, and brains tell stories too wildly unimaginable for the layfolk.
But I will not let myself fall in love with you.

I'm so sorry for that.

Occasionally I just have a day of
"I really can't do this anymore."
And my heart breaks over and over because the only thing I want
Is so unattainable.
I've worked so **** hard, but my body is tired of working.
I'm so tired of fighting.
I'm just ****** tired.
So I look through our old pictures and I feel so empty and so full at the same time.
Shaken up.
Nothing will ever go back, will it?

1) when you tell him you love him and he says "thank you"
Says "I know"
Says absolutely nothing
Pretend like the cavity where your heart used to be isn't endlessly throbbing. Pretend like you don't crave the words, pretend like it doesn't hurt, pretend like you're not empty.
2) imagine, remember hearing him say the words back. Imagine, remember the way his lips feel pressed against yours. Imagine, remember the sound of his heart beating against your ear when he says your name. Imagine, remember the smell of him on your skin and clothes
3) when you see his family out in the town you can't leave, say hi. Smile, ask them about themselves. Hug his little sister. After 4 years, 3 months, 9 days (who's counting right) you've earned the right to be civil to them. You've earned the right to be friends with them.
4) after 4 years 3 months and 9 days, when you tell him you love him and he doesn't say anything... don't stop telling him you love him. Even though your heart belongs to him, even though the empty spaces in your chest hurt, tell him you love him again. Because maybe one day, he'll say it back.

I inhale poison on a daily basis
The taste never quite dissipates, always reaching for more even when I've had my fill
Expenses are no worry for me, I can make do on little, make do with less
Do more for me
I am needy, I need you
****, do I need you
Now more than ever, inhale, exhale
It's as natural as breathing
This intoxicating *******
What is love but another addiction
Another high amongst the lows

I wonder what is truly worse for me
Cigarettes, or you

I am spending far too much time thinking of her body on yours.
Thinking of the way she'll say your name when she's half asleep.
Thinking of how you'll grab her hips and how she'll bite your lips and...
I'm spending too much time thinking about all that I wasn't prepared to lose.
Thinking of the gamble I didn't take.
Thinking of how I'm a mess and she's undressed and you're...
I am spending far too much time thinking.

My heart is breaking.


               I pretend that I don't care.

Day two and you tell me you love me. And I crave the words so bad that for a second I let them wash over me like it's reality.
But actually, you're just some tool.
But actually, you're not.

Where people use words like alcoholic and *******, I use words like healing and hurt. Too curious about a world that keeps burning you when you reach out the touch it.

I don't see this scary person that you warned me away from. But I see someone I relate to, someone I can easily speak my mind to. Someone who may just be in as much pain as I am but unable to admit it without metaphor.

I've never seen someone write that beautifully and hurt someone else.

I looked at my wrists today and where my veins used to be were dotted lines
"Cut here" they said.
And I tasted salt on my lips
For a second I thought it was French fries that I consumed earlier
But I realized it was tears
And as I fall to a sack of blood and puddle of tears on the floor
All I can think is another year
Another year without you and I will go crazy
And I will not have you
Because there are girls prettier than me
Because there are girls that are worth more
That think better of themselves
That aren't sick in the ******* head
There are girls out there who you deserve
And not just the one you got stuck with.

I feel so much like you don't care
And I've lost myself deep somewhere
Between whispered lies and whispered truths
I guess ours was the love of youth

But to get you back is all I need
And if you'd give me a clue, give me a lead
I'd wander along, barefoot on broken glass
Just to feed you the questions I need to ask

You are what I want, what I most miss
So feed me your lies along with a kiss

This place, with its cold white walls and it's sterile gray speckled floors.
The nurses take my mouth that cusses far too often as a sign I'm on some kind of drugs, I guess. When I answer the question about what kind of medicine I take they look at me with questions in their eyes when I say "none."
I know that the bruises on my body look bad. I'm malnourished, okay. I don't have time to eat. Need more potassium. I don't shoot up ****** or snort pills. I just take ibuprofen like a normal person.
My head is spinning. But not like normal. Like it's taking me twenty minutes to write this ******* poem. I feel like passing out.
And the doctor will see you now, at the cost of 1,000 dollars to sit in this dumb bed.
I hate our healthcare system.
Why do hospitals feel so much like your trapped in their walls? And so little like they're actually out to help you.

Four Marines lost their lives to what is being called domestic terrorism.
Some sicko with a gun shoots these guys. One of the dead is just 19 years old.
I did not cry because I was sad that four American men lost their lives to violence.
I cried because for the first time, I'm so glad that you're in Japan, so glad that you're so far away.
I'm so glad you're alive.

One of my co-workers has scars on her wrists, covered by tattoos that do no good to hide them.
Not if you know what to look for.
I know what to look for.
I wonder her past, the ghosts hiding under the beautiful face, the blonde hair with the pink strips, the smile.
I wonder if she had an abusive upbringing like I did. If, as a teenager, she hid against her door bringing a razor blade to ****** skin until the ghosts bled out.
I know what that's like.
I would never glorify selfharm, never wish upon anyone the hell of feeling the need to release your mental pain in a physical manifestation.
But the relief it gives me to know that I am not the only one hiding scars under tattooed skin and long pants...
The relief is enough to make me hug her at night.
Tell her I'm glad that I work with her.
She is 36, 15 years older than me.
But our souls seek each other out, the broken souls know other broken souls so well.
I am glad she survived her demons.
I'm glad I'm surviving mine.

I don't need drugs. My brain is drugs.

Maybe it's a side effect of a mother that dropped acid for the first trimester of pregnancy and then some.

Maybe it's a side effect of the abusive step father that told me I would never amount to anything and that I am *******.

My brain processes things at about a hundred miles per hour. In conversations I am always three steps ahead of what ever was said last. I make connections in things that are unconnected.

They tell me this is adult ADHD. They tell me I should be proscribed a pill to help my brain focus.

But focus isn't what I want. Nor is the drowsiness that comes with Lorazepam, the fog that goes with Prozac. I have been separately proscribed these things without ever filling the bottles.

But I fear that if I fix all my chemical imbalances, my medical maladies, that I will disappear into a fog.

Who am I without my OCD, without my brain over processing, over loving, over caring. Without the pain in my chest from another panic, my bouncing off the walls and singing to myself.

Maybe I am unwell.

But who am I without my unwellness?

Your love is my drug, my vice, my obsession
And I am in prison for possession
But from behind these bars, the chains of restriction
Your eyes still look like the ocean

Scars
     Reminders not of my suffering
     But of my survival

I am lovable yet crazy
     The stigma there is overwhelming.
          Like, you have to pardon her for her panic attacks, she's still lovable underneath this
          Like, she's worth it I swear, but the nightmares that keep her up at night have left circles under her eyes.
          Like, she might be a little rough around the edges but she's cool for the most part.

I am not crazy.

I have been broken before. Bent past recognition.
       Who is this apparition in the mirror?
I am working so hard to be whole again, not just a shadow of who I used to be.
But putting myself back together with duct taped words is not the glue I need.
I want nothing more than to watch you glue me back together, to stitch my wounds with careful kisses.
I want nothing more than to come alive in your arms, to resurrect the human I once was in your love.
        Who is this apparition in the mirror?
My wounds are too deep to heal on their own, too long drawn out to stop bleeding. I need you to set my heart on fire, cauterize the holes that were left

I am honestly terrified to start over with someone new

I was once just a girl who thought I loved you.
Now I'm a woman who knows the difference between love and convenience.
     Between high school and the real world

Today, I drove through a town filled with our ghosts.
I can almost see us flying over the tracks on 99 where you raced a train once, I can almost hear us screaming our heads off to Blink 182 lyrics. I can almost see us on the street late at night while you ran and I biked back to your house from my work.
I can almost see us walking around the mall, hand in hand. Making out in the back of the movie theater when you were supposed to be at school.
I can almost feel you beside me, laying on the couch with me. I can almost hear "I love you" in my ear.
The moon reflects all of the ghosts. The ones of you and me. The ghosts of what was and what could have been and what could be.
I can almost hear you now saying "don't get ahead of yourself." But this is how I process. And these ghosts need to be put to rest already.

Is "I love you"
      Not enough
          To make you stay?

Let's talk about consent for a minute
                    When I said no
                        I meant no

I did not mean
               Give me a few more drinks
                                  Or
                    Wait until I'm drunk

And I definitely did not mean
                                Yes

Let's talk about this for a minute
              Drunk does not mean yes
                   Only yes means yes
                            I said no

I am the world's best liar.
I'm not saying this because I forthrightly lie, no. Not to the people around me.

I lie to myself. I lie because I have to. Because how else am I supposed to get myself out of bed? How else do I live half alive and stuck in my mind?

   I tell myself I'm fine.

            That's the best lie I can think of

I have finally found
    
                          exactly what I am looking for

I can't sleep anymore
      If only everything
               was the same.

You, my muse, my love
My beating heart won't still now
Give me one last chance

Classic me, hiding along the edges for just enough time to give you the space you need before popping back in.

Classic you, using song lyrics and sweet words to make it feel like no time has passed at all.

I'm still in love with you.
Except, I don't know how to be.
Or how not to be.
I think a stupid part of me will always love you.
I think a stupid part of me will always be yours no matter how many times I've asked for it back.
I can lie to everyone, lie to myself, until I'm here in bed alone asking myself why I can't be alone without you in my brain.
Every part of me misses you.
It's my ***** little secret, I suppose, but
You were my soul mate.
You were supposed to be my happily ever after.
My dork in tinfoil with eyes like the ocean.
The eyes that held me behind bars for so long, terrified to move.
I want so badly to be a part of your life again,
I want so badly to be everything to you again.
I want so badly for you to miss me like I miss you,
But I guess it was all in my head.
The four years that we spent together an endless nightmare of the wait for the end.
And you ended it.
I so badly want for the words "I can't do this anymore" to be erased from your memory like a daydream you lost track of.
I want you to love me.
I want "I love you" whispered in my ears again.
I want you to be sick over the fact you lost me.
I don't think you're sick over the fact you lost me.
Our love was a sick game of loving too much and having too little.
I love you so much.

Your eyes like the ocean, like the waves, like the sky, like a nice blue sports car. Things that are beautiful in passing, but are dangerous up close.

Danger. Loving you was danger.

You set me on fire, burning my body, burning through my brain. Passionate fire, then hot fire, then ******* I'm actually hurt fire. I still have the scars.

What I'm left with is dark and empty, unable to love another. Whispers on wind of what we used to be, secrets. I wasn't made to be a ***** little secret. I'm not your ***** little secret.

I loved you. All consuming love. Love like only a 17 year old knows. Love like only an 18 year old can hold. Love like only a 19 year old can endure. Love like only a 20 year old can let go.

I used to be sick over it. I used to wait for it. And now I've let go of it. Rain from the gray skies that are so like your eyes in the dark. Rain washes away everything I've remembered.

(M)aybe this doesn't come easy to me
(Y)es, I know I've done this before

(M)aybe there is more to see
(I)n all, I can give you more
(R)ead into this what you will
(A)sk me for my heart
(C)alm it though, keep it still
(L)ay in wait for your part
(E)verything comes down to a kiss

His voice is where I find solace. With no arms to hold me I find peace in words. In "you make me happy." In "I'll be home soon."

And he will be home soon. And I am scared that the damaged parts of me will be too damaged.

I find comfort in knowing that a face I've needed to see will be within kissing distance. But will he want to kiss me? Up close and personal for the first time in months, both with fresh scars from fresh heartbreak.

He wears his scars behind a uniform, and mine are as clear as day on my face.
My heart is his if he wants it, and I am afraid that he won't. But I'm easily in love, easily ready to admit it to myself, but I won't admit it to him. There's too much damage there, too fresh of wounds to break open.

But hey, I love him. I love him. I'm not hiding behind it anymore. I'll admit it right now.

We are a collection of our own experiences. A destruction of our own making, we undo ourselves with what we've learned, unlove ourselves with what we've learned.

I have looked in the mirror to a stranger too many times for my liking. The girl that I became mirrored back in agony to the girl she wanted to be. She wanted to be a poet, she wanted to be a portrait. She wanted to be stronger.

My experiences have become me. But I don't want to be defined by broken hearted and tormented by my dreams. I don't want to be defined by the dark circles under my eyes, the heart beat in my ears. I wanted to be stronger.

I have looked in the mirror too many times and seen stranger, seen liar, seen a girl who kept too much bottled up and my demons creep behind me like the horror movies I'm so akin to watching. They wave hello like they belong and I have to break my stare.

The poet in me says this is another experience, another lifeline, another tether to the earth that I love so much. An earth that I love so much that it broke me.

The poet in me says this experience will make me stronger.