I have a tendency to only write the sad things down. I guess it’s a little harder to make the happy things sound poetic.

I used to take people here. Show them the way this city can spin if you hold on tight enough. But I’m here alone, now, staring at lights that might as well be on the moon.

You really can hear everything if you listen hard enough.

Someone is having a pretty good time somewhere behind me. They seem awfully unfamiliar to me.

I should go home now. Or, at least, find my bed before tomorrow.
Good night.

I’ve been telling stories with the veins you keep hidden on your wrists, in your turned down palms, the crevice of your folded arms. I tried whispering secrets into your neck, once. Where it curves into your shoulder, you know the spot. But you couldn’t hear a word over all that sarcasm dripping from your lips. Oh boy, if you could mouth words the way you wrinkle bed sheets I’d hook myself to your belt loops. Hang on every syllable until your tongue runs dry because the truth is sweetie, you may taste awfully good but you never feel quite right.

you came knocking on my rib cage when we were still freshly cut grass. you wrapped your hands around my wrists and the blood still hasn’t returned to my fingertips. my veins have been stretching up to meet yours ever since. searching for them, begging for them. you used to whisper secrets onto my shoulder blades like you were gasping for air and i was young enough to believe i had breathed the life back into your lungs. i didn’t know then how black they were from all the beating organs you sucked in like candy-flavored smoke. i hope mine tasted better than the spine you lent me every time i put my mouth to yours. and did you hear all the stories i exhaled into your subconscious or did you only ever pay attention to the words my hips spelled out in sign language? you told me once that the freckles trailing from my thighs to my knees were the shooting stars we watched from lawn chairs the night we said good bye. i told you there was no such thing as good bye with you and me. your toes claimed disbelief then. do they believe me now?

I’m still whispering fragments and run-ons to you from a million miles away. You crept into my sleep last night, crawled in through the air ducts and under my sheets.
You kissed the backs of my eye lids good night like you had never left.

I would love to write harsh words tonight but I can’t seem to stop stuttering, stumbling over silly songs sung so long ago. It’s all so silly.

i’ve been a lot of things lately. ‘been nostalgic and quiet, in silence and asleep for too long. in moving cars that don’t go anywhere. in anger, in wonder, in frustration. ‘been falling for quite a ways but not in love. i keep filling up with smoke: my buttons, my sleeves, my sheets, my fingernails. can’t find enough soap to wash the taste away. can’t find enough of anything to wash you away. i’ve been a lot of things lately. but mostly just been feeling incomplete.   

I woke up a little early today. Maybe it’s because I’ve been sleeping for days or maybe it’s because someone told me once you can’t love a person more than you can miss them. It’s still dark in here. I’ve got a red sheet over my window to keep the sunlight out, to keep the clouds out and to keep all those times you didn’t call out. I wasted so many nights waiting to hear your voice. I’ve wasted months to hear it again. But it’s mornings like these, waking up cold and anxious for your shoulders next to mine, that I wonder why I’m still waiting at all. 

Oh darling, I’m awfully tired of missing you. 

I’ve been dreaming for five days straight. What else is there to do after you’ve wrapped me up in things that weren’t so funny? After we’ve laughed anyways? I’ve been cowering in corners for years and you think I’m braver than you? That’s the real joke, hunny. I cracked my palms open too long ago, saw the lines stretching down my wrists. Saw the veins a little too clearly. Saw the scars on my arm from trees and paper cuts, things I don’t remember getting. Saw the freckles on my shoulder drawing the constellations of that one summer my fragility spent a little too long in the sun. I decided it was all too ugly to share with boys like you so I shut my palms and clasped my fingers tight. Death grip I think someone called it once. 

I’ll make you a deal: you can kiss my shoulders that way when you can pry open the hands I’ve choked a million with. Will you risk it? 

I’m mostly hiding under blankets, in clouds of smoke, at bottoms of bottles that are never really empty. I can’t feel something I can’t touch but I won’t touch anything at all. You whispered questions into my ear about that one morning I probably shouldn’t have kissed you. I was just thanking the universe you weren’t asking about the night before when I was hiding in parked cars after one two many, three four five many, six seven ain’t never gonna let her go but I’m sure glad you won’t many. Keep crying on my shoulder so I don’t have to. Keep talking out of my car window so I don’t have to. Keep shouting so I don’t have to, hear myself. Can you hear me? I’ll keep hiding in your melancholy as long as it’s safer than mine.

Untie me, please?

and maybe i’m the kind of person who never capitalizes “god” and maybe you’re the kind of person who prays for help but my dear do i miss you when you leave.