madeleine van dam

Leave me the way that I left you. Stay with me the way I stayed when you were drunk and drifting. Hold my hand again, if you'd like, if you want to. Take me home tonight, ask if I'd like to see what your nightstand looks like because I have forgotten.  Everyone's hair changes with the seasons and I have a heart like a dam breaking, constantly overflowing. This is springtime, this is growing. This is wanting to try again, and knowing that our atoms do not know each other anymore and still wanting to try.  I want to get lost inside of your oceans. I am a piece of driftwood- beat me senseless with your mouth until I am red, until I am jagged and wanting more. Leave me the way I left you.

I want to bring you pitchers of lemonade when you're sad, a mason jar full of pennies when you need a reason to keep wishing. I will give you my shoulders when you feel lonely. I will steal rocks from riverbeds and make sure you keep them with you, the earth is here for you, the earth hears you. I will climb the side of the moon to steal your favorite star— I will bring it to you and tuck it inside your shirt pocket. See that ridge in the distance? I have planted a grove of orange trees so our mouths will always be sweet. Over there I have sowed acres of hydrangeas so I can always bring you flowers. Here, here are my hands, they are yours.

crawling home on a friday, perpetual heartbreak follows me, of no one's fault but my own.  the rips in my jeans are forcing my thighs to freeze. i come home to unpack myself- stripping of layers, glasses, hair up in a bun; until i am naked under the sheets, until i am honest.

if, if, if, if if i was ever going to fly, it would be on a tuesday. it would be partly cloudy and i would be on my roof, high, listening to the 1975's song, 'please be naked' with headphones in.  i would just lift off the ground, like i had been born to fly, like i had always flown, like it was just muscle memory. how grand i'll be.

I have whiskey and weed and flowers and notebooks. I have good sweaters. I have my 8am alarms and mason jars filled with water. I have a few potted plants. I have a hairbrush that I don't like to use. What I'm trying to say is, you are not welcome here. You and your blackberry stained lips, your soft hands. I have roots going far deeper than just alcoholism and abandonment issues. My own scars scare me, but I am doing just fine. Do not think you are special because I compare your likeness to the moon. Menthols will still taste like menthols when you leave. There will be mirrors to smash after you go, and there were mirrors to smash before you even showed up at my doorstep- windblown and rosy. What I'm trying to say is, turn the lights off when you leave. I already have an exit plan, a flight map. An itinerary of all the places I'll visit alone. I don't need you or your hips. I have an ocean inside of me and I will drown your ass with a force that is nothing short of spectacular.  I am whole, I am whole.

Baby, please, come over. I'll roll you a honey joint- sweet and sticky. I'll make you tea. Leave the world at the door. The wind has nothing on your smile. Storms cannot compare to your fingers in mine. The weather means nothing to me anymore. Baby, please, let me love you. I want to know your edges. I want to scream with you in my car, windows down like a pop song; like a goddamn lesbian indie flick. Baby, please, pour yourself on to me. Spill yourself on to my red sheets. I won't complain about the mess because I'll spill too. Our definition of entropy will be humble, chaotic, ground-breaking crystalline, rapture-inducing, holy, and most of all, it will be freeing. Baby, please, have faith. I'll let you pick the curtains. I'll hold you when you cry, and I won't judge if you don't want to go to class for the sixteenth day in a row. I promise to try. I'll bring you pizza in bed and hold your hair after I pressure you into taking that last shot. I'll blow smoke into your lungs, if you want me to; if you let me. Baby, please, hold me. Sometimes, not all the time. I can be a mess of bloody knuckles and crooked glasses. When I get really nervous, I kiss with my eyes open. I pretend to be more grownup than I really am. I feel small inside my skin. My mouth is always wet with longing. I've always been a hard sell, and this is no different.

Each time I think of you, I blush a little on the inside of my palms, and I can feel the heat spreading to the back of my neck. And I have to be honest, you scare the shit out of me- but you're the only girl that I've ever wanted to bring peaches to on a Tuesday night at 2:56am. Have I mentioned that I want to run away with you? Have I mentioned that I need you? I cried underneath a waterfall while a bunch of high schoolers watched me lay my soul into the water. One of them offered me a root beer and said, "I get it, my girlfriend broke up with me 3 months ago, I still haven't learned to be okay." And I wanted to yell she's not my girlfriend, but instead I just smiled and told him that your lips tasted like the best wine I've ever had and I was afraid that if I stayed with you any longer I'd learn to like wine, I'd learn to love sweet. You are my favorite shade of blue, and sometimes when I think of drowning I think about you. And I can't seem to write down exactly how I feel, because it is somewhere between a summer breeze and a hurricane, somewhere between a pine tree and a piece of driftwood- please let me wash up on your shore. My stomach is in knots and I've had six whiskey shots but the only thing I can think about is driving to your house and falling asleep on your stairs. How can this be fair. How is this growing. This feels like entropy, slowing decaying into different sheets and hearts, always making the wrong decisions. I've slipped into old habits and my hands are raw from breaking mirrors and trying to convince the world that I'm a good person. Or I was a good person. The roof is the only place that feels safe anymore.

I could lay here forever on your floor, listening to you sigh, listening to the rain. And I know forever seems to be an exaggeration but I don't want to know anything besides for the feeling of your hand in mine. I keep building bridges just to set fire to them in the morning light, and I think all these accusations of 'alcoholic' are making me itch for a really strong drink, or six, but you'll always be my favorite feeling of tipsy. My favorite feeling of unbalanced- I can't keep my footing when I'm around you. God help me if you blush, because I'll tumble head first down my wooden staircase. My words always fall first, tripping over themselves, getting caught on my tongue. And I keep telling you, "No, I don't drink too much," but even I don't believe myself. And I keep telling you, "No, I shouldn't be with you," but even I don't believe myself. I'm not addicted to whiskey, and I'm not addicted to you, but fuck, do I love the way you both taste.