i know you're probably wondering why i try my hardest not to cross paths with you anymore

and i know that you've noticed the distant look in my eyes whenever our paths do accidentally cross

i know i'm confusing, and i know that you're confused too, but you have to understand that i cannot continue to climb this ladder that seems to lead nowhere

and i cannot continue to linger onto the false hope that one day you'll look at me and have your breath taken away

it hurts too badly, you see
because nothing stings more than shyly believing you love me,
only to realize
**you don't

i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.

- m.f.

and I didn't realize it until I had stared out my bedroom window until the storm had blown over, watching countless raindrops begin and end their journey

I noticed the way something so gloomy had its own beauty

and I noticed that just because everything has been painted in melancholy blues and grays, doesn't mean it can't be breathtakingly beautiful

even though those same blues have been painted in my heart, I am still a work of art

and I know that I am just a storm waiting to
blow
over

i have suffocated all the butterflies that you put in my stomach with cigarette smoke and drowned the color of your eyes from my brain with alcohol

i have bled you out of my bloodstream and exhaled you from my lungs

the sound of your voice no longer pumps within the veins inside my fleeting heart, but they sounded more like broken sentence fragments anyway

"you are destroying yourself, not him"

but I'd rather have corrupted lungs than a broken heart
because even if you broke every bone in my entire body,
it still would not be as painful as the way it felt when you left me
alone

you've got those eyes that consume me whole like a river swallowing and drowning my body, extracting the air from my lungs

oh god they're like an everlasting jungle that I have gotten lost in countless times and can't remember how to find my way out of, and I don't know if I want to return home out of this jungle, because it is exhilarating and impeccable, and I've become infatuated with the atmosphere

but sadly I am not the only visitor in your jungle and it isn't only me who has been picked up by your breathtaking waves, she feels the same as I do

your rivers make an ocean and her trees are a part of your jungle, you are one

now the jungle in your eyes is burning down and I'm trapped, I cannot get out, and I am going to die in here because it's not me who has been lighting a fire in your eyes

there are tidal waves crashing out from the oceans in my eyes, but they aren't beautiful, like yours.

I hate loving you so much because it's like grasping onto a hot coal without ever releasing it and I see the way you look into her eyes as if she's the only lovely thing you've seen in your entire life so I just keep burning my palms with this stone because I can not let it go and keep the flaming sensation to myself
  I think the worst part about loving you is the fact that I swear to god you've seen the open-flesh wounds from the burns but you choose not to see it and return to loving her
  no, the worst part about loving you is that you will never, ever love me too
please try to notice the way my knees tremble and my body becomes weak every time you walk towards me
please