i am in a haze today. it is cloudy and beautiful outside. it is also pressing down on my chest and i struggle for air. i wore your shirt to bed last night and it helped steady my oxygen supply. i wish you were here to say my name and speak to me in my native tongue to remind who i am and where i've come from. i'm forgetting everything, slowly. recreating yourself is only good when you haven't done it five thousand times over. i just want to be me now. but how do i become me if there is no you? pick me up from the library and walk me to class. hold my hand and tell me that you will stay with me no matter how grey the sky is or how cold my fingers feel.

"But what if we're wrong?"
It was silent
But her thoughts echoed around in my head as we laid on top of her pickup truck
I swatted at the eighteenth mosquito chewing on my leg
I don't want this to be love

We were tangled up in the acoustic music they play on the radio on Sunday mornings
She was trying to dream up something clever to write about
And I was pretending I could learn to play guitar through osmosis,
As if blending myself in with the harmonies, finding her in every lyric, and sheer willpower would give me wings or at least magic guitar hands

She set the alarm, checked it over and over
She was not going to be late for her first day
I told her I'd be asleep when she got home, she told me she knew
I told her to wake me up

I wasn't looking for perfect
Perfect really only applies in first year physics courses
After that, we learn to fall in love with "rough around the edges" or "unique" or "unfinished"
As if their life is a puzzle that we need to complete
Just so you know, it isn't

She bought me breakfast and dropped me off
She used to tell me she loved me, but I know she didn't
She does now, so she doesn't have to say it anymore
When I said, "love," before, I didn't really mean it
Not like I mean loving the garden on the balcony of her apartment or thunderstorms in May
Even if I was a puzzle that she completed (and I'm not saying that I am), we didn't need any glue to fit perfectly

Boys
Ask me
Why I can’t cook
And keep a house
And I tell them
My mother
Spent my childhood
Teaching me
What it meant
To be a bigger
Man than
Even they
Learned to be

Mama told me
Beauty laps at my skin
And youth is wasted
By my ingratitude

But I was too tired to see it
I was 23
Now I'm 25
And I've died a thousand times
Over
By this point.

That night
I blew the candles
Like I was supposed to
Greeted the guests
Shared cake with them
Under a sky so
Swollen with stars
So burgeoning with promise

Then I walked them to their cars
Gave hugs and thanks
Like I was taught.

But mama never taught me
That niceties are only
Skin-deep
That happiness
Is as cosmetic as my cover girl concealer
And I can apply it to
My skin to
Cover the blemishes of
My pain
Carved between my
Freckles
Scars that
Hang under my eyes like
Eternal exhaustion.

Yes,
I was alright that night.
Alright, being relative
Which just
Meant that I was suffering
A little less.

A term that meant
That a Pabst and some
Hard lemonade and
My birthday champagne
Would ease.

It meant that my inhibitions
Would soften my
Anguish
And my sharp edges
Would rounded
Into lovely
Curves
Soft enough for a man
To touch.

And I did.
I let that man touch me
On my happy day.

For so long I have
Trivialized my own
Pain, pretending it
Didn’t exist
Burying it into
My darkest recesses
Hiding it in my mattress
And under my pillows.

You see,
I have built walls
Even too high for me
To climb.
So I sat there
On my birthday
With the candles
And the lights
All turning, turning
Red cups luring
Us into a suspended
Stupor.
All bellies bloated with
Good company.

Ah, how nice it was.

That night
I watched
My life through
The window
Outside
Like I could see
Happiness
Painted on my
Face
While inquietude
Sat in my
Chest
Strangling my
Progress
The sadness
Plaguing the
Recesses of my
Mind

I grieved:
“I’ve made it so
Far,
So please
Don’t go back now.”

I inhaled
Deeply
And allowed myself
To be drowned by my own
Breath,
And I blew.
And I said
Happy birthday to me.

going back to
the person who
made your life
toxic is like
re-watching your favorite movie
in hope of a different
ending each time

home is where the heart is,
pulsing dark and ****** on the counter.
you should probably clean that up.

i wish i could be more like you.

more outgoing,

less terrified of every small thing.


more self confident,

less unstable.


we're too different,
                                                          i dont know if this,
                                                          if we,
                                                                        will work out.