Say it.

I wanted to write this guy a love poem a thousand fucking times, so I kept trying and trying until it hurt me on the inside.

And then after I tried, dozens of times for weeks and weeks, he broke up with me, saying he was saving me from falling in love too hard too young too fast and his mother had never met me and she would never get the chance and that was because of who I was and what I was that I would never be the right girl for him but that it wasn’t my fault.

And then a few days later, he tried to call me. He called himself an idiot, and said I had every right to hate him.

I’m glad I never wrote you a fucking love poem, and I’m glad you broke up with me before things hollowed and grew and I’m glad that I have destroyed the image of you now because you don’t deserve anything, you don’t deserve my acknowledgement, and you don’t deserve a love poem.

One time, I wanted to write this other guy a love poem, and I cut my skin and bled on to the paper so as to make it curl and so as to put me  on the inside so maybe I could put me in to him and so as to summon antiquity and solace and then I realized afterwards, I had no words to write.

And then after I kept trying to extract words from my slowly rotting but still barely living body, he turned and tried to clench me tighter and tighter and I felt myself slipping not because of who he was but of who I was and so my hair kept falling out and while I turned to run he grabbed my locks and yanked hard and burned a hole right through to my independence and I feared.

And then a few days later, I broke up with him. He called me an idiot, and said he had every right to hate me.

I’m glad I never wrote you a love poem, Sir. I am so sorry that I had to turn and pierce your eyes in order to rip away but I lost myself, I needed myself  I didn’t know myself and I am so sorry that I had to step on your bare, trusting soles with my metallic heels, but I am glad that I broke up with you before things blossomed and grew and I’m glad that I have erased most of the image of you now because you don’t deserve parts of me, you don’t deserve an entitlement, and you don’t deserve my love poem.

Another time I wanted to write this third boy a love poem, and I felt my skin drying and tearing because we were so parched, but I wanted so desperately to make it work and to be better and keep my sloshing sadness in a little woven basket but I never accounted for the water slipping through the cracks and once I lost all those beads, now soaked into the pavement. I realized, without my inspiration, what was there left to say?

And then after I tried to scratch at the concrete and ripped each fingernail in the process, stumps bloodied and raw no nails in sight, he came over and kept kissing each nail, kissing each stump where the nail used to be in an attempt to comfort me and hold me and caress me and damn it did it make everything worse, I couldn’t bare his touch it burned a hole through my shirt a cigarette burn on  my skin it was the devil, it was worse.

And then  a few days later, I broke up with him. I called myself an idiot, and said he had every right to hate me.

I wish I would have written him a love poem. I wish I would have written him a love poem while I was still in love so I could thread my fingers through the strands of my hair and yank on each fibre, and pull out the hair so as to see the root, to see the root of us and remember and understand what that love felt like because there is nothing in me that remembers, nothing in the sting of my finger stumps that reminds me.  My eyes are so moist, I am lost in ten dozens hazes, and I don’t know.  I am glad that I broke up with you before things rooted and stuck and I’m glad that your name is what I feel when I put my palm over my heart because I feel like with every beat I am still with you, but without the pain that I caused you, the great pain I seem to have caused every boy I tried to write a love poem for, because things are better over a strong distance, and because they all deserved a commitment, I deserved more understanding, and maybe you and I in particular are better off without any sort of love poem to call our own.

I am not allowed to say that I miss you
I am not allowed to be sad you moved on

I do,
And I am.

“You couldn’t write a happy poem even if you tried.”

So I tried, and I failed, and I said fuck that: it’s okay.

Fuck that because my life’s not happy, my life is death and sickness and divorce and a broken heart. My life is revolutions and breast cancer and killing and Parkinson’s. My life is failure and financial problems and both my parents losing their jobs, and moving. My life is crisis and sexual assault and a rape and cutting and suicide attempts. My life is scars, my life is bruises, my life is a cracked mirror with words smudged on it, words I wrote a while ago, and tick marks counting every day that I wanted to, but I was stronger than that. My life is a place where I didn’t love and a major I didn’t choose. My life is words written on so many brittle pages with black, red, blue ink, pencil, charcoal, some markers and crayons when I felt like it, and I write the same thing over and over until I run out of ways to say it. My life was shame because I was embarrassed. My life was shame because of my country. My life was shame for the way I looked, My life is hatred for my body shape, flab fat bumps pimples, stretch marks, discoloration, cellulite. My life was long and hurtful and I don’t know how I am here My life is I don’t know where I am going but- I like that. My life is a little hope because of spontaneity and slices but then I am better, or something- My life is better, and better, and then a little more better, and my life tastes good because sometimes I don’t feel heavy or weighed down, and there’s some sugar to combat the lime. My life is so many particular crafted mistakes, my life is “I don’t regret any of the mistakes I have made, I just wish there were different outcomes.” My life is the same Christian guy I see on campus everywhere, and I overhear him talking about religion and his heart and his girlfriend, and his bible. My life is ugly coincidences that could be pretty miracles, if I keep staring. My life is how soft my lips are and they color they look after being properly kissed. My life is my sexuality and sexual actions and how its no ones business but my own. My life is men, My life is women, My life is me. My life is this boy next to me with thick matted hair, who has fallen asleep on the couch, with no shoes on. He is sprawled out and looks so comfortable, and it’s okay, because people are so gorgeous. My life is the grease and the fat, and the salt of your eyes. My life is better because I left you, My life is better because he left me. My life is better because I fell for a guy, and all he wanted was a quick fuck: but I said no. My life is okay, because I am heartbroken over him, but at least I’m not numb. My life is- a memory, a here, and a push to the future- a something, but my life is now, and my life is something I could never be on my own- the speckles on an egg and the freckles on your nose.

My life is pretty unhappy, my life is pretty, my life is: What? My life.

I’m sorry. You’ve become a hostile angry man via the writing you put out. You play a double face, with the messages you send and how you act- here. Stop it. Okay. Fucking tell your friends I’m some bitch and fucking dance around and be all happy for your fucking self and fucking have one of your friends ask me to dance for- what? To trick me and then somehow make a fool out of me? Stop it. Okay. Fucking don’t be my friend and ignore me when you see me every single damn time because that’s exactly what I wanted- No. Fucking hate me and call me a bitch and tell everyone you know and then miss me in private- but please, please hate me in public— because I broke up with you. A crime. And be like the other exes, fucking decide I must be a whore now, because before when I was like this like this like that it was good it was nice you liked it you liked it but now that it isn’t yours you hate it— I must be a whore now. Thank you beloved, because it’s not like it was you who I saw less than a week after we parted with an arm around some girl. Was that me? Is your mind tricking you so? And so you hate me. And now, three months later I am the villain. And you say this guy wants to fuck me and this guy wants to- does it matter? Did it ever matter? You must have closed your eyes and held your breath when I spoke, because it seems you don’t know a damn thing about me. And above it all, you tell them I’m a bitch. Scowl but similarly stare in my direction. Glance over at me while in the midst of a smile with friends to show me how great you’re doing, how great you are now, that you’re doing just great. Great. Do you think I don’t want you to be? And no, don’t tell your friends that i must have danced with a guy to make you feel bad. Because how unheard of, who dances at a bar? Who dances? because you fucking bopping around hopping around with your friends— who know the lies— it’s so great isn’t it. what chances ruined? what chances gone? Honey, you must not know me. Honey, you must have never. Honey, go right ahead: Beak me. That’s what you wanted.
You aren’t entitled to me at all anymore- damn, no one ever was.I don’t live here anymore. Fucking walk away, or stop and say hi.
Stop it. Fuck it. Or fuck me I guess. I’m the bitch, I’m the whore.
You’ve become a hostile angry man via the writing you put out:
You’re nothing more than someone with double hands, a double face, and a rage so hot he has forgotten his compassion.
Tell all your friends I’m a bitch, I’m a whore. That’s what each of my exes does anyway.
You want to really get to know someone?
Break up with them.

Did you wanna little taste of a fine grained peach
Did you wanna lick a melon under hot scorched beach
Do you think you owe me something other than love thick and raw
Do you wanna preach on corners and hide bibles in our bras ?
Out the moment we could reach this out the moment I could know
Snows not risen neither falling and he wants a suck and blow
And if only grandma saw me underneath him scared and cold
Maybe we could preach together what it feels like getting old.

I shaved her just last night but I feel hair is growing in and the taste and feel of stubble I take candy from his chin his arms soar and run up/down me and for a second it’s all too tight
Then I’m broken quick and crack-Ed and I forget what else to write: but it ain’t right the glue between our legs that wants us to combine and I didn’t ask for cherries poppin and a thick roped vine to squeeze past no and maybe and ok and take what’s not yours to take but mine:
Listen to me when I fucking say: your poems don’t need to rhyme.
Your knee don’t need to bleed and She doesn’t need to too
And if my arms weren’t wrapped so tight behind, I would have ripped at you
Slapped your face: in losing this, I give up- I thought my eyes were brown-
He wants to pray to something: Asshole, love me upside down.

Harboring _____ in my stomach juices: come home. 

of broken bottles bootlegged liquor days and years of week old smiles. You aren’t something I ever even wanted but you still managed to show up, and make me cry.

My Jesus he’s peeling he’s wheeling free-falling: the baby inside me is already bawling.

Some baby: this baby, born from hate dark and shame, a baby I couldn’t hold in my arms- a baby with no name.

Scorn my poor baby who’s Daddy accidentally came- I was not old enough to be able to hold you in a womb full of rain. He said,

“Drown him,” poor baby, Daddy didn’t want you to hear-Daddy didn’t want you to feel this pain-Daddy didn’t want you too near

because broken limbs or a fumbled mind are things him and I could have fixed- but born to broken hearts and homes, no one to claim you [daggers] jagged rocks that hurt bones, and sticks

Striking tender poor baby flesh raw, bottom burning from a backhanded slap-

You were my unborn baby swimming aimlessly ten hundred and one long laps

And when you finally swam from veins to heart but only to breathe a little bit of fresh air,

Daddy shut the lid on you, let something sit on you, all to get rid of you, so when we searched three days later-

With grief-

You weren’t there.

i hope your minds empty and heart breaks when you see my name

i hope your soul flies and mouth fumbles when you hear my name

i hope your lips purse and your eyes drain when you touch my name

i hope you know i sleep alone, curves caressed only by a thin t-shirt:

salmon, soft to the touch, a little too long-

the only thing that touches me now.

Horde music’s like a song some words I mentioned to your mom a few years back when we were young- now, listen:

I think you are the one, no listen I’ve never been this strong this in to some one i- just met- now, listen, it takes me months, forever to know for sure in general I have been sick for yearn- a cure- and you take away my cough your blue soaked eyes through some things sure- hold up now.

You are older and - done, looking, I can tell, I am chasing: Do i stop?

I got it I got it I got- it’s worthless. Can not feel it Put a place on it Give a taste to it What is it- stay.

I hate singers singing he likes you I hate beauties who tell me he bites you and the matchsticks and gumdrops that spite you.

I hate the half naked blonde girl in my bed waiting for me to come out of the shower.

I want to take a bath with you in the warmest caramel of your voice and I want hazelnuts for eyes and I want sex and syrup, sticky, in my hair. Which is HUGE right now let me tell you about humidity. Let me tell you about my hands. I am searching inside me for the somberest man. If you have touched me, let me know.

If there’s another girl, let me know.

If you want a heart stitched with lace and pineapple, and a competition with what I want and who I am, let me know.

If you meet a boy who wants me bad, let me know.

If you see Adam and he’s peeling, let me know.

If you’ve got a dime and half an hour and your wife will be gone for the weekend, let me know. Because my skin, literally crawling because where is your touch, it’s aching:

Give us 21 days to fall in love.

There’s this destroyed part of me that’s loose and rumpled and hanging, She doesn’t speak to me anymore, She’s crumpled because of someone or something or him or him or him, and I really guess I jumped into this a little quick, because you are not at all the splint I needed, you’re not at all the crutch I was ready to throw myself onto. Damn these wings and their weight, and wait, that no one wants to bear this weight. There’s this destroyed part of me and She’s the reason I thought your comment about my eyes meant something or someone but it really didn’t mean much of anything to anyone, did it, at all. I’m not even enough to shoot a text to, I’m not even enough to want to see, soon. Well. Sorry. -Moving on.