Heartbreak

Ode to my Best Friend

Sometimes I miss you

Sometimes I think I knew you

Sometimes I’m not sure

I know I held a piece of you once

And I know that was beautiful

Even though I am still bleeding

There was a softness to loving you

In every hurricane

There is a moment of stillness--

The calm before the storm

The smell before it rains-

You were the most beautiful

And harmful thing I ever held

Love-- the flower patch

How the clouds parted

And the stars came out for us

Etched the words

The meaning of life

In my notebook

Painted a sunset and called it coming home

Heartbreak-

Cutting flowers mid bloom

And placing them on a casket

Even when you cut off my buds

I still have roots

Bury me and by spring

I will reach the surface

I will keep growing here

A Backpack Full of Poison

It’s 4 am in Los Angeles

And my Uber driver tells me

There are 7 of the world’s deadliest snakes in Australia,

5 of which one man had in his backpack

In the back seat

Covered with duct tape,

Removed from the glass cages

They were squeezed into

In the airport;

They don’t belong here.

Why do I always seek

the poison--

How I let him smoke the cigarette in the car

How you told me to drink more

How somehow the antidote

For rape

Is silence

How you told me to hate you

How I should have

How I never will

Even now my tears stain the blanket— we spent the day on.

You are too tired now.

So I hold the poison in my veins

As I leave.

I think of how it is raining here

And at home it is snowing,

How the snakes do not belong

Here or there,

How duct tape can only hold so much.

When You Say Goodbye

I’m tired of endings

The seed was already planted

I am mid bloom in winter

You are the frost

The whisper of a snowstorm

In late February

Stopping me mid sentence

“It isn’t time yet”

The Basement Where the Dryer Broke

Dirty towels--

I remember flooding the basement.

It was the day you told me you smoked cigarettes

On the elevator downstairs

Where broken chairs are piled on concrete,

Metal bars sticking out of crevices,

Memories amongst chipped wood

Once stepping stools--

I guess basements are for digging up the dead.

Three years later,

I once again let a boy slice me open-

Make a throne on a bottle

Of bleach--

You and the broken dryer

--we sit

Heartbreak is like a lily pad

After spring--

I can still remember the softness

But no longer know how to swim

We are at work

But my eyes are too red

To make friendly conversation

So we lock ourselves in the laundry room

As you tell me, once again, you are in love and

whisper in my ear,

For the last time,

“I didn’t think it would hurt you.”

Vape Juice

I still cry about you everyday

No longer have the withdrawals

Just the taste in my mouth

What it feels like to be home.

You smelled like fake grape juice

From your vape

You used to hit while we were in bed.

I don’t know your real scent

Just the mens’ shampoo I used as soap

And the artificial sweeteners on your breath-

We become our vices---

how my coworker smelled

Like cigarettes,

Secondhand smoke,

My freshman year of college:

A bench outside,

The dorms with the walls falling

in on themselves

Where a kid was dropped

From a 3rd story window,

Fist prints and ghosts in the basement

I used to inhale the smoke

To talk to her.

A year later

I would still find her

outside with her cigarette and

The boy with long hair

And a guitar

Who I would three years later

Meet at a bonfire,

Shake hands like a stranger.

I've always liked the smell of old books

Maybe that is to say I like broken things,

I like chaos and old age

Like the smell before it rains,

The first spark,

The aftermath of the storm--

A moment of ecstasy

Becomes a jail cell we create for ourselves.

Risk pain for pleasure---

Every hit another mantra

“We will stop someday”

“We will stop someday”

Low tide

There comes a time when the covers don’t feel like home anymore

But the place where sadness lives

When we finally make our way outside

Walk over roots

Dip our feet in the mud

Where the puddles used to be

It is low tide

And I did not drown this morning

For the first time in a week

You are no longer in my bones

Just a passing ghost

You buried your own grave

Don’t give me the shovel

And expect me to dig

Home vs Destination

The day I moved

I typed in your address,

20 minutes at 4 in the morning;

Does distance define what home is?

Like I am 3 hours from my old school

My apartment--

I remember the route to your house

More than I remember you now.

I know I cried so many times on my way home

I know I would never take it back.

The boys I’ve loved

Felt like thorns when I held them,

Made me realize the beauty of flowers in spring time,

How I bloom,

How these thorns protect me.

If my life was a graveyard,

You would be scattered beneath the surface,

Flowers blooming on coffins

Your anger is ash now,

But I am not your ashtray.

I figured you’d watched enough nature documentaries by now to realize new life--

sprouts from death;

I am still standing.

You told me you were afraid of the communal movement

Of the love that surpasses the body,

Moments shared without words,

I told you I loved you

The day it ended

Not because I needed the seeds to be buried

Before I bloomed

But because I wanted you to know

Somewhere you will always sprout buds

Like a tree in spring.

You can end it

But it can’t stop what grew here

And just because these moments don’t last

It doesn’t mean they aren't beautiful

I built a home in you

Maybe it has a new owner now

Maybe it’s in upstate New York

Or Colorado

Maybe there are new colors on your bedroom wall

But the key still jingles at night

Like a phantom pocket

Your ghost suspended in time

You are purple and lilac skies

My camera lens

And the empty bed

The art museum

And the concert we never went to

The frozen lake and

The fisherman digging holes in the ice--

I will always remember how winter broke In the wake of you

Sunday Mornings and Depression

You feel too old to talk about the demons under your bed--

The ghosts on Sunday mornings

Music drowning out the silence

Your kitchen counters are empty

Your mom leaves you donuts-

Me a small apple

She thinks I’ll come back

Even though you don’t answer her these days

Or me

So I just come by

Cry beneath your covers

As you paint mountains

Lay my feet on the heater to rest--

Your window has been broken since I met you

Eve eats the poison apple

God tells her what depression is--

My open arms

How you became tired of reaching for something

You could never hold--

To have everything

But still feel empty

You don’t eat the donuts

Just coffee for breakfast

And the empty cabinet for lunch

It’s a slow Sunday

Trees still frozen over

Branches like lace

Bones melting

Chest opening to midday sun--

You tell me how many pills you swallowed

Awoke empty

A hospital bed

Your mother

Pleading

In the dead air-

the woman that you loved

But you never let in

Thrifting, Boyfriend Sweaters and the Grave You Dug

You said you didn’t want to date me

But you still bought me flowers

Asked me to be your valentine

Thanked me for choosing you

Held my hand the whole way back from the restaurant

Until it got sweaty and then I found a Home

In your shoulder

Arched my neck to fit your branches

You started playing love songs

For the first time

I thought spring came early

You say,

“Why does this town always stir up the romance?”

You want an excuse

Don’t want to say

I’m falling

Refuse to show your fear

Until the end

So you blame it on

the dark empty farmhouses

The Salvation Army

One of the coldest days of the year

The oversized boyfriend sweater

I thought I’d get from you

But instead I bought from 5 dollars at the

Thrift store

On Valentine’s Day

3 weeks later

It is covered in vomit

The nurse tells me

“You’ll have to throw it out”

It’ll just look like death to you now

But instead I wash it

Dig up the grave

Refuse to bury you again

Choke up the memories

Think they’ll be sweet to taste

But they come up like the ocean—

I rode the waves once

They took hold of my body—

Left my head

buried into sand

Like I wanted the earth to birth me again

Like I wanted to bleed for something

It’s been a month now

Ive long reached the shore

But I am still digging up the bones

Swallow rocks when the tide comes—

every time another person leaves

I dig deeper

Grow spikes to drive them away

When you said goodbye

Told me I couldn’t sleep over anymore

It felt like my childhood home

The one my mom just sold

You giving me back the key—

“This isn’t your home anymore

And you can’t come back”

Why I Stayed

All the boys who broke my heart

Once cried into my lap

Or over the phone

Or in the car on the way home

I guess that’s why I stayed for so long

We both wanted to build something

That was never given to us

You can build a house

But it doesn’t mean there is love there

I say hello to the man

Because I know what it’s like to feel like a ghost

Love is the most beautiful and terrifying thing in the world

It breaks it builds

There is a house inside my bones

I wanted to make a home for you

I wanted us to live there