Leave when the sky is loud but the sidewalk is quiet.
When the door clicks shut like it’s keeping a secret,
don’t flinch.
Let your hands hang heavy,
the silence has its own grip.

Take only what fits in your chest,
you’ll be shocked what doesn’t.
Use only what won’t puncture your lungs.
(Even breath can betray you.)

Don’t check the mirror.
It lies loudest when you’re quiet.

If you must cry, do it in motion.
Stillness makes grief cocky,
then it hands you a mirror labeled “proof”
and waits.

Let the memory bruise.
Don’t label it.
Names are spells.

Closure’s a mirage
that waves from the distance
and never once turns around.

When the day feels unbearable,
bear it.
Not because you’re strong—
because you’re stubborn
and still here.

By month three,
his name will taste like static.
By month six,
you’ll forget the exact color of his laugh.
And by month twelve—
you’ll mistake the whole thing for a metaphor.

You’ll almost be right.
But even metaphors
break skin.
Memory crusts,
but it never closes.

She only smokes when she’s spiraling or performing.
Usually both.
Says she loves a dramatic flourish—
exhales like a closing line,
laughs like a scratched record.

You’ll meet her at a party that’s already ending.
She'll kiss you like she’s trying to delete her own mouth,
like you’re just the eraser.
She'll leave before sunrise
because she hates how the light arrives slowly,
and can’t stand watching the world wake up
and not call her back.

If you ask what she’s looking for,
she’ll point at the exit sign and say,
“Something with the same glow.”
You’ll think she’s flirting,
but she’s actually just listening hard
for the next excuse to leave.

If you ask for her number,
she’ll give you a poem,
one with no punctuation
and a key taped to the back.
Not to her place.
To your undoing.

She tells stories like she’s double-daring
the past to contradict her.
Someone once told her
she seems like the kind of girl
who disappears mid-sentence.
She said,
“Only when the sentence forgets I started it.”

She collects promises like matchbooks:
already scorched,
still reeking of places
that almost got her to stay.

At dinner parties,
she compliments your cutlery
then slices the conversation open.
Asks what you hate most about your mother
before the bread hits the table.

You’ll want to know her real name.
She’ll say something like,
“It’s carved into a tree somewhere,”
before you realize
you’ve already said it in your sleep.

And when you find the poem she gave you
weeks later,
crumpled in your coat pocket,
you’ll swear you hear her laugh
when you read the last line out loud:
“Don’t follow. I haunt better when I’m alone.”

She’s the reason
someone, somewhere,
is learning the difference
between being worshipped
and being watched.

And when she finally leaves—
because she always does—
you’ll swear you still smell
ozone, orange blossom,
and the beginning of a very pretty ruin.

She leaves you rearranged—
not broken,
just fluent in a dead dialect
that only speaks in warning signs.

You’ll start writing things
you don’t remember feeling
and calling it healing.
But it’s just possession.
The poem wasn’t for you.
It was the door.

She doesn’t burn bridges.
She just convinces them to jump.

She never really leaves.
She just sets the room on fire
and watches who runs toward the smoke.

(And if she ever comes back—
and she will—
don’t blink.
She’s made of edits,
and she notices cuts.)

I want to escape,
To leave this cloudy place,
Where the rain freezes over,
Leaving a layer of ice,
Wrapped tight around our hands.

I want to leave,
Will you come with me?
The north is bitter,
Rich men plaster their homes with soulless things,
Leaving the poor man's mouth frothing.

I am leaving this place,
Please come with me,
The trail is cold,
Your embrace is warm.
If you say no,
I will stay.

Another morning that I wake up depressed,                                                       ­         
                                                                ­                                                        
it's painful to see that you're not home yet                                                              ­  
                                                              ­                                                        
As my heart beats hard inside my chest,                                                                                                                         ­                                                      
     it breaks from your constant disrespect
                                                                 ­                                           
                                                                ­                                                  
Leaving my mind to play the blame game,                                        
                                                                ­                                                     
    what did I do, what is this one's
   name?                                                          
 ­                                                                 ­                                              
You've broken every vow you've ever made                                                             ­   
                                                                ­                                                     
 and every time you did, I   always
  forgave                                                       ­     
                                                                ­                                              
  When & if you ever decide to
arrive                                                           ­     
                                                                ­                                                  
  still drunk from the night & probably
high                                                  
          ­                                                                 ­                                   
You'll tell me all my nagging caused
this,                                                          
 ­                                                                 ­                                            
point your finger & call me a
*****                                                            ­  
                                                                ­                                                    
   I'll bottle all that pain up deep
inside                                                           ­   
                                                                ­                                                  
  but my tears are harder for me to
hide                                                      
      ­                                                                 ­                                           
   My heart can't take another
hit                                                              ­      
                                                                ­                                                      
   I know I deserve better than
this                                                             ­                   
                                             ­                                                                 ­      
   As you sleep soundly till five or
six,                                                             ­   
                                                             ­                                                           
  I'll pack up myself & then the
kids                                                             ­ 
                                                                ­                                                  
  You have nothing that I want to receive,                                                         ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                 
tomorrow it will be you waiting for me

The person you are trying to reach.
Is unavailable.

As in emotionally distant.
As in you can't get through.

There's no use in leaving.
A voice message.

As it wouldn't get through.
So you'll try again in an hour.

Please leave a message.
Please leave a message.
Please leave a message.

Yet there was never a message.
That was left just for you.

As you're left wondering.
What on earth to do.

Surely even god answers a prayer or two.

You packed in yesterday
And all that you left
Is your touch on my hair
And only your breath.

You packed in yesterday
Just leaving behind
Kisses of your lips
And your cool "Unwind".

Maybe you want that
I'll entrust wholly
All my desires
To this night truly?

Just say me that!
And no other cue!
Nothing else matter
But being with you!

You packed in yesterday,
Leaving me memory
And this dead night,
Without you, but me.

There are paths you don’t choose
but find yourself on,
waking one day to realize
you’ve left the voice that once
called you home.

There are people—
beautiful, bruised,
who touched the hem of healing

and stepped back

as if love would demand too much.

And I wonder how God handles
the slow disaster
of the almost-return.
The ones who knew,
who felt,
who started to lean in—
but didn’t.

Does He grieve
like a father who watches
his child walk past the open door,
too ashamed to knock?

Or does He simply wait—
unmoving,
unchanged,
burning with a stillness
only eternity understands?


Because I still ache
in the temporary.
I still hold their names
in my prayers
like broken glass
pressed into palms
that would have held them whole.

Everyone is still

asleep when I leave, the woods --


blur me step by step.

It’s one in the morning.
I zoomed into Lisa’s room
and threw myself on the bed where she lay reading
in a near virtuoso, Fosbury flop.
She bounced, jostled by my mechanical bed wave.
“I hate goodbyes,” I said, indignantly.
“You’re not strong on hellos” she said, not looking up.
“They’re so bone-marrow deep,” I went on, “they steal hope away.”
“Did that sound pretentious?” I asked her silence, a minute later, somewhat self-consciously.
Lisa took the yellow, #2-pencil out of her mouth—just long enough to answer.
When she studies, she chews on them, seemingly eating them like french fries.
“Yeah,” she says, “but I get cha.”
“I know,” I said, smiling at the ceiling, because in a rooted and real way, she always has.
I’d be a different person if we’d never met.
I feel very grateful for that.
“Your boy’s flown?” She asked, using her pencil to hold her page and finally looking up.
It was an ironic, near-rhetorical question, she knows he’s gone and she knows I know she knows he’s gone.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
.
.
Songs for this:
4am by girl in red
Don't Stop The Music by Rihanna
blushing! by BETWEEN FRIENDS