MY MIND IS ON THE BRINK.

You ruined me with poison flowers. Bright colors and enders that gave off precious light. Encapsulated me in your fabricated vision; neon audacity. How could I be so blind? I hurt and I hurt and I hurt, then let others in expecting a different result. Do I have a sign across my heart that reads "destroy at all costs"? Am I begging for maleficent outcomes? An open soul that stands as a perfect breeding ground for all things heavy. Funny how I am not disappointed in you for breaking me, only myself for failing to notice until it was too late.

you left me broken. you didn’t care to see the pieces; you had your own needs, and maybe some ulterior motives, because you left me. stranded in the ocean, stole the life boat we built together, watched me floating endlessly. out at sea, you left with no regard for me or my sanity, no thought to what your evaporation might foresee. the salt burned my wounds, scarred my pride, healed my skin over fear that now stays stuck buried deep inside. I want to run, I want to hide, but this all-consuming hurt reigns like a dark veil over my mind. hopeless here in my remains, looking in the mirror, wondering if I’ll ever be the same. if you tarnished me past the point of attachment to my own name. cause when I see this figure, it isn’t me, it’s a beautiful, loving heart that now knows pain. and I thought this separation, this amputation, might bring me peace to some degree, but you've still got your hold, somehow still in control. and with just the memory of you in my mind, I've never felt less free.

I'm infatuated with your scent. I've never had a smell that infiltrates my mind at all hours completely, both day and night, but yours is my favorite. Peppermint is safety. Cinnamon is strength. Lavender is vulnerability. And you are love, love, love. I just can't get enough.

desolate thoughts made me blank for you. an untouched canvas for you to wreak havoc on, but you didn't. i've got heart-shaped grass stains all over this starkly paved wonderland and things are growing green. color is pretty and it's as if i haven't seen it before; everything feels anew. there's a light that's been turned on where i didn't know one was missing. there's a vision that paints me in a new form, one that accentuates a gravity i didn't realize i had. and i'm not saying it's all because of you, because that would be quite bleak, i think. and quite generous. but, i want you to know you warped me, distorted me in just the way to veer my attention a little more north, a little less south. angle is everything, apparently, and i've grown to look up because there's just more to see. and no matter what's out there, finding more can only dilute the bad and bring opportunity to the good. so, thank you. thank you for doing that to me, even if i walk away from this empty-handed because i'm still shifted. things change even when they don't crash or come together. and perfection leaves very little room for possibility.

the essence of me is all around. i see myself in the trees, in the way flowers dance across frost-bitten air tugging at shadows. i catch glimpses of myself in shop windows, surrounded by treasurous knick-knacks and obscure backdrops. i feel so connected to everything that surrounds, but i am a nomad at heart. i latch onto things as i see them, eager to collect, and take in, and move on. i let myself roam free, free of attachment, free of judgement. feeling things as they come and releasing them as they go. vulnerability is a scary word, but all it really means is being open. and all that means is: i trust that what i need will find me, by way of simply allowing it to.

that night washes over me like a nightmare, counting sheep so I could numb the pain till you got there, and I still regret the things that we don't share, we deserved so much better, darling, it's not fair

I'm one step closer to healing. Or so I keep telling myself. I talk circles around my mentality. I force myself to keep up appearances, to shy away from strong feelings that have no place taking up space in this impressionable head of mine. I still think about you nine times a day. Eight, if I'm lucky; ten, if I'm not. But, all of our old spots are quickly becoming new again. I forgot your birthday, or at least I pretended to, and it only hurt a little when I reminded myself. I don't want to wipe my slate clean of you even though I know nothing good can come of your remnants. Because as much as I should hate you, I can't get over how good it was while it lasted. Screw me and my romantic mind, giving you credit where none is due. I tell myself over and over again that it was pointless, but even I'm not delusional enough to believe it. Somehow I keep letting you get away with it. Letting you hurt me and still be the hero of this fairytale that you don't want any part in. It's sickening, what I do to myself. Why would anyone put themselves through so much pain? Through all the heartache of buying into your bullshit. But, maybe there was more to it than I'll let myself believe. Maybe projecting the bad onto you is the only way for me to find some good out here. Not idealizing, just coming to terms with the fact that it's over and things are better that way. I want things to be better that way.

You’ve had me confined to your gravitational pull for so long, like many others that have fallen prisoner to this graveyard of failed unison. I know you can’t help the hold you have over me, for the earth does not choose to tie us to its atmosphere for its own sick pleasure. Some forces are just more powerful than others. But, if I ignore the impact of your significance, if I release the bounty of yearning—that I have been carrying with me for so long—just a little more each day, I may finally find the strength to free myself from your airtight allure. I may let myself stray a little out of your orbit and discover that there’s a whole universe out there. And, yes, my darling, you may be the world, but I’ve so longed to find you’re not the only one.

I want to write about something good. Something beautiful. Something that doesn't make me feel sad or make me think of you. I'm sick of romanticizing the heartache. I'm sick of feeling stuck in this rut. I'm sick of writing about you, thinking about you, wondering about you. You've taken everything from me. You infiltrated my life, my mind, and I miss who I was before it all went sour. I miss feeling broken because no one had ever loved me. Because, now someone has. And I'm still broken. And I think that says a lot.

Cold nights chill harder after you've known warmth. I'm still chasing away thoughts of you with a broom, begging for silence in this accompanied mind. It's not that I miss it. The quiet often held more truth than I cared to delve into. Cumbersome reflection about what it all really meant, if anything. There are times where I wonder if I was just another body for you to hold, another weight to occupy you so you didn't float away. It's less painful than some of my other theories, like the one where you never cared about me at all. Break-ups are one-sided. Someone is always left with the bigger half of the broken heart. It's almost poetic in a way. And maybe people would feel sorry for the other half, the half that might never really get the chance to fully love someone. But, I know better. I know the darkness that haunts me in the face of every past mistake, the fear that lingers in the presence of every new opportunity. Wrong turns aren't so scary until you flinch at each beginning, until you break at every end, no matter the outcome, in spite of the cost.

The wind blows circles through my abandoned terrace. The sky is gray, forgettable to most, but I take it like a dagger to the heart. There is a drizzle in the distance, a dark cloud growing nearer with each passing second. What more could this day stand to take from me? I am waging a heavy war. The sky has chosen the stance of intimidation, reigning supremely over my likeness. I wake each morning, rising to the challenge. There is a chipped mug of lukewarm coffee in the palm of my hand, surrounded by the loose grip of my fingertips. There is the same chill in the air, the same stoic coldness in my gaze as I pointedly rest my forearms atop the balcony ledge. My elbows hang over the side a little further than they did yesterday, not as far as they will tomorrow. The porch light flickers vengefully, its electric buzz humming a tune that pricks in retaliation against the back of my neck. I stare endlessly forward, fighting for space in the thoughts of the inanimate, demanding notice from anything that could possibly exist up above. My vendetta against the world around me is long-standing. My vendetta against the world around me has only just begun.

i. my heart loves beautifully so. ii. why must i feel so down on myself when it cracks, as if it is a burden to be genuinely stricken with someone. iii. as if it is a burden to feel deeply and dream of things that blossom always, regardless of spring, and even in winter. iv. my mind plants seeds that grow flowers around my lovers, shielding them from the cold of this world. v. and though they leave, they are still protected, beautifully grown from where i have applied my light. vi. but, when they are picked and swept off to far away places, i am left with the thorns. vii. i am stuck bleeding and broken and wishing i did not invest so much in my heavenly garden. viii. it is not a burden to apply love and send radiantly wonderful things off into the world. ix. in fact, it is something to be proud of, but with each great big thorn stuck in my side, i am finding it harder and harder to do so. x. and for that, my heart falters.  xi. and for that, my unsent valentine stays in the drafts.

love is a chemical. it poisons, it burns. maybe that's why my feelings for you were routine, mechanical in their process. wake up, give everything i am, back to sleep. i'm rusted over, growing weary. albeit your inspiration, the toxin of love is my own. there is no one to blame but myself.

Sometimes, when I blink fast, all of the lights blur out and I can remember the taste of stardust on your lips. There is passion lingering in the air and we can’t exist in any way other than how we do. I have crossed mountains and fields of fireworks that set off one by one with the boom of each heavy footstep. I have felt whispers against the back of my neck in your voice and the wind’s, both calling on me with the intention of holding me captive and sedentary in one particular moment. I can describe fire and ice and the world as it stands, but only because it is never still. I’m stuck spinning so fast that I can’t tell my ups from my downs, but you are the brightest spot in a dizzying life that has always lacked clarity. I can pin you down, but you not me, and I think that’s what did us in in the end. You were taught that steady exists in one way, in one place and I was taught to always look for balance in chaos. Lucky for me, the motionless have always proved easiest to pick out of a crowd. Unlucky for me, I am so permanently stuck on you now and all I really want is to let go.

I’ve been to the bottom and it hurts like anything does, temporarily, all at once, breath knocked out of you, foot on the brakes. Nightmare melancholy because at least those are confined to lights off, guard down. Creeping pleasures bleeding us awake, tempting us asleep. I follow the wind that brushes against my back, beckoning me onward, severing me blind. I’m not like the rest, you see. Weights reason me down, guide me south, but I don’t believe in instruction. I never learn, maybe I’m lost in that way, but understanding has never served me sufficient. Television static inside heavy limbs that fail to listen, restlessly useless, afraid by nature. They move automatically, of course, by way of me choosing so and logic be damned. How do I exist? Still, under such uncertainty, so many trials that present themselves as clouds turn into wind chimes turn into smog. Have I bludgeoned every challenge in my path? No. And I do not intend to. But, I keep going on by way of giving up by way of not caring what is here to hinder. I merely get through it, refuse to dwell, and keep my eyes peeled for clearer waters. Wherever they are, whatever it might entail when I get there, even if that something is nothing at all. And, rest assured, it always is. Even when something is nagging you otherwise.

everything that you see here is everything that you made, this filthy mess of a mind and, you, unscathed. open wound, paper-cut doom, heart monsooned. how long did you think you could hide behind your wildfire mind? how long did you intend to lead me on, pawn me off, muffle me gone? before you left me with nowhere to go, salty-teared, broken stilettos, choking to death on your god damn cologne. i wish every disaster upon you, fire-starter, heart beats harder, but not even a cracked earth could heal this hurt, unbury this dirt. watching on as watercolor tears ricochet across what used to be a blank canvas, now tie-dyed in heart-shaped grass stains. i never asked for this, but you lured me in; so cool, so suave, effortless safety pin. promises you swore to keep, but never did. death is usually thought to be one soul, rarely two. but, when i close my eyes, have no control over my mind, i still dream of you, i always do. in a place with no say in what burns or gleams, reckless schemes, unconscious stream, you're still in control, and you're the brightest damn thing.

It's hard to fight for the unattainable. Like when I'm so caught up in you and you're so caught up in everything. Mental mindfuck and stargazed love-drunk and stirring the pot just to get your attention. I miss the days when your eyes used to automatically target mine. Like magnets in a room full of organized chaos, we were. Laser focus on my every emotion because you know they're always written across my face. Secret smiles stood as a testament to this love and that's all I used to need. But, folding pages to mark favorite parts of chapter-books won't change the ending. I'm so sick of vying for your attention, fighting for time in our ticking relationship. I'm so sick of waiting to be swept up when I know it comes easy to you, begging to be sworn-in to something I've spent months believing was already mine. I'm surrounded by raccoon foragers fighting for leftover pieces of your used and abused heart and it doesn't sit right with me that I've somehow been reduced to the rest. Somewhere along the line, you took my pedestal without warning. And you let me keep the title, yes, but queens are hard to spot when not wearing their crowns. Maybe you’ve gotten used to the feeling of my hand in yours, the sound of my footsteps echoing along behind you. Maybe you were so caught up in the security of my love that you deemed it to be a part of yourself; so caught up in the security of my love that you haven’t noticed I’m already gone.