Manic Pixie Poetry

Sleeping alone again is like teaching a tired old dog to fetch - he just doesn't want to move. I don't want to drown my loneliness in blankets and stuffed bunnies. I want arms around me. The empty space beside me, the sheets tangled between my legs instead of on you... reminding of how really gone we are. I don't wanna deal with this, learning to live alone. I say no, stay stay please. Until I get  better. But I don't think better means clinging to others... i'm still so damn scared of the dark though.

I could call you my courage. But from the same frame you are my fear. I found myself falling between each biting insult and each enveloping  hug. Maybe meeting me was to you what the moon is to the tide. Desire draws us in, a lunar pull that neither of us understand. Tear the tether, only for it to come back again, over and over. We would wonder, best friends forever? But you'd constantly sever that with your anger. Sorry and sympathy you'd exude trying to turn  it all around. Give me, give us the honeymoon phase of whatever the hell  our interaction was. Then I'd fall in love all over, again and again. The way you walked, talked, looked. It all seemed so, so, so  alluring in those moments when we were something good. But the wolf always howls at the moon. I guess you liked to bite instead. And yet here we are, back to each other again, me, praying not to lose myself again. you, suicidal and self-loathing, again. Me, trying tediously to save you, again. You, lashing out with language like a knife, again. We are eternally tethered.

She's the girl my mother never wanted around. She's the girl who they say everyone hates. She's the girl  who demands too high of devotion. She's the girl who's craziness caused hopelessness. But, she is... small, I say. Harmless. She is trouble, they tell me. She is pain, for you! They say. She is...  Oh, she is, everything they said. She is the monster of misunderstood, moody teenager, the master of my misery, and yes... she does haunt me. Her heart and mine, were once so intertwined we felt, found knives when the other cried. But, I thought that part of me died, when we were younger, when I decided to do the right thing, and leave her, leave my everything. They said the truth - you were trouble, tried and true. But trouble comes from troubled souls, and all I wanted was yours to hold. Could I care enough? Love you enough? Be there enough... to change who you would become, when angry? It took me three damn years to realize that I couldn't change the monster inside your mind. I knew it fed you lies, and that's the only reason why you were the Monster in my life.

Nostalgic nicotene running through these veins and all I can think of  is how you still smell the same. The same as 9th grade when all I wanted was to kiss you. Back then, you were the fire in these very same veins, the ice that burned the outside, while the heat of you kept warm the inside. You were my hellfire but heavensent. You mesmirized me, and made me fall in love. I always wondered what could have become of us. If I had entrusted you with the truth, I'm assuming there would have been more abuse,  more terror always comes with more truth. But, beyond all that, brings a little bit of wonder brought on by  a conversation in a car ... five years later. I told you jokingly, a little half-heartedly that I had been in love with you, and you got all serious, I could still smell your same, sensual perfume... as you said, "I wanted to kiss you, too.... but I didn't if you'd have been cool with that." We both took another drag away from the conversation in a cloud of chemicals and nicotiene. I don't remember saying anything  after that because all I could think  in my head, Had she ever wanted to kiss me again? Like... right now, by some weird chance.

They always tell you that sometimes love is like a drug they forget to mention how worthless the withdrawal feels, how years spent yearning for someone leads to lonely nights spent lighting  yourself on fire for someone else. The fairytales failed to tell me that I'd ride my bike and not look across the street if only I could see you standing on your feet. The movies never mentioned how smelling your scent, that same perfume you wore back then took me back to all those nights that I wanted to hold your hand. The books never bothered to warn me that when you told me years later, you had wanted to kiss me... I long for what could've been. They never told me that the cravings never cease, even when there's so little peace between who we are and who we used to be.

Tell me this isn't true that the twisted tornado of darkness did not really take you. I wonder if you ever knew... how many of us would have cared, would have been there, if we ourselves only knew. This washes over me in waves greiving is never easy, and this is like a cloud over me. I thought I'd see you again, this side of heaven. I thought we'd catch up, years down the road even if it was just "Hey, how are you?" But now we'll never see you again... in the living. It hasn't hit me yet. That a girl I met, a girl I could chat, a girl I graduated with is no longer part of this Earth. I wonder if it would be different, if I told you how much you meant, to me. You never did know that you inspired so many,  to pursue their dreams, and to be honest about who they were. You helped me not to hate myself,  just by being who you were. Unapologetic, and unashamed, you loved who you loved, and always had a smile on your face. If you had known, would you still have choosen to leave this life behind? It's my regret. I'll miss you, friend.  I guess this is for now, the end goodbye.

Explain to me, explain to me why it's been eight years, and I still wonder if I'll make it alive to twenty five. Explain to me why I spend my nights lonely and lying to myself, that I'm alright. Explain to me why it's been almost a year, and I  still want to rip open my skin. Explain to me why it's been over six months  and I still cry over what we were once... Explain to me why it's been over a year, and I'm still terrified of seeing him around here. Explain to me why I still see my dead dog in the road, even though I've never seen the accident. Explain to me why I can't believe in myself, and sabotage the self every time. Explain to me why I can't be normal, why I can't function like an adult, why I can't 'behave' and do well. Explain to me why I can't get better, even when I try. Explain to me, why I still believe the razor's lie that it'll feel better, and help me survive. Explain to me, why I can't handle anything that ever happens to me.

It isn't fair. It never was, your little life. You survive a tornado, only to get hit by a car. You'd think they'd have learned, the last time this happend but no, "It's not anyone's fault," they say, "you were a runner, anyway." Would they say that if you were their child, instead of their pet? Probably not, but, they aren't the best parents, either. I feel so bad for you, I can hardly cry, - a stronghold defense I built years ago- I can't get in my car, without seeing you in the road,  picturing the accident I never saw. I am numb. Never going to see your  champagne colored coat again, or that underbite that made you look kinda silly, but super cute. You're not here, not anymore. And I don't think I'll ever stop blaming them, for him, for you. You two were too good for their neglect. You were too sweet for their "I just want a new pet, - to replace the one that go hit, we don't really have to take that much care of it." You didn't deserve any of this, and I'm sorry and I hope your better off now, but it sure isn't easy to let you go. I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry, this happened. I should've been there to protect you.

It's a habit now, checking old photos searching quickly and quietly for a glimpse into the young me. It doesn't take long, but I find... That in some pictures, long sleeves and layered clothes make it easy for me to know what I'm hiding underneath. But in this one, the one the news ran, the one that talked about the therapy, and the camp that quite possibly saved me, is where my wrist waves freely, no clothes to hide me. And there, ever so faintly are marks, made in   self-loathing, and self-pity. I thought the cuts and scars had never been captured, but here they were. I feel tears in my eyes... a memory of misery. In a way, I want to go back there, feel that relief, that razor-sharp  escape, but just in that photograph I see the pain underneath, and the ever so slight attempt to hide my arm so that the wounds were  not caught by the camera. It was in vain, of course. But I don't want to go back to the shame, to the secrets to the explaining every damn scratch, as something from the cat, a dog, a fall because once I do go back, it will never be just once, but over and over and over again.

I want to be done. Done staring into space, listless, lifeless every time I hear your name. I want to be finished, finished with the words replaying in my head consistently and constantly. I want it to truly be over, like we said it was in May but it's almost October and my heart still skips a beat each time I see your face. How can it be over when I remember every detail of when we were together? I want it to be done. I want to forget we were ever 'one' I want to cancel out the 'cuteness' we once showed, the 'futures' we once had planned, the love we once had. I want to be done.

Just because she said yes once... doesn't mean you're entitled to a yes every time.

Here's to the times I spent crying - knees to my chest... Terrified or maybe just the toxicity of my home life holding me hostage. Here's to the times I wondered if my mother cared about her children or if it all just looked like love. Here's to to the times I wrote in woven journals and white-washed paper  to try to temper the  feelings inside. Here's to the times those feelings were written off as less then, they told me  "I was fine" that there wasn't anything to stress out a child. Here's to the times I hid hid in my room, hid the scars hid the wounds, hid from the family that was supposed to protect me. Here's to the times I wondered if women were supposed to make me feel warm or if I should be ashamed, how I hide the love I held inside for fear of my father's retaliation. Here's to the times  I tried to reason with myself not abusive, not too abrasive, there's no way... Here's to the times, I found myself forgotten by the family  who was supposed to be the foundation of my reality. Here's to the times when I longed for an apology a key to forgiving them that wronged me, but it never occurred that when it finally came... It would all feel like a twisted game that I never wanted to play... a fire with a flame that I shouldn't have fanned... Because maybe, it all truly was in my head.

Thank you <3

I've stopped checking your Zodiac, stopped ordering your favorite, stopped this, stopped that, stopped seeing you in everything. But I lied. I still looked for you in the music, in the sounds of the summer the children's laughter, and the sweet serenade of him speaking. I tried to find you, in the cracks I held in my consciousness, the carcinogens in my next cigarette... but I told myself to push the pain away, save you for another day. Then, I found you, but you were not... who I remembered. Your eyes looked different,  and I wonder if you still smell the same. It's foreign, the way it feels when I say your name. Like we were also not.

I look at your name in my phone -it still screams home.- I hit okay, and start a new message, then I remember that you’ve changed your number. I bite my lip, -hard, hoping it will take away the hurt inside. A single tear falls from my eye  as I look at the Texas sky, I’ve seen your Facebook status twice tonight, you’re lonely again maybe in need of a friend - I guess we didn't realize how much we talked to each other- I just want to run to you when the world falls apart, you still seem to hold the broken bits of my beaten-up heart. When I want to cry, I want your arms  -not his- I want your words  -not theirs- I want to pour my soul out to you  like sprinkler water in the summer, I want you to know when I'm happy and celebrate with me. I miss you more than I'll admit and no amount of telling myself that  'I'm not smoking any cigarettes, and 'I'm seeing someone new now'  will make this missing  go away, it's here to stay, even if I pretend  that us being over is perfectly okay.