waist deep in words

he comes to you in waves. the way you have his eyes. the way he smiled. he sits on the tip of your tongue in every conversation. he is the flickering lights in your basement now. he is the silence in your bedroom at 3am. his old apartment burns down and you burn with it. you are sitting in a pool of grief and he is the water. the ocean. the day after he dies is the first time you see a shooting star. you convince yourself it is a sign. you convince yourself that he is a star now. flickering. burning away. there is nothing left of him but you.

We are not whole. We are not in love like we used to be and that’s just the sad truth. We speak in code. “I love you,” does not hold the same meaning anymore. We are nothing but magnets who stick to each other because that’s all we know how to do. We are breaking just like the window you broke last week, and as we sat there picking up the shattered pieces of glass, you said “I love you,” when you really meant “I’m sorry for breaking your heart, I’m sorry for falling apart,” but I promised myself I would never write our break-up poem, so next week when you break another dish, or slam your fist into the wall, just know that I love you.

What do you do when your body is the crime scene? When they pry you apart in search of proof of forced entry, and hand you pills to reduce the swelling. Yet he still swears you’re crazy; he swears that his mother taught him better. What do you do when your body is a battlefield? When his hands find their way around your neck and he says, “Baby, i love you.” His words serenade you every night, you can’t close your eyes without seeing hate spewing from his lips as he says, “But baby, i love you.” What do you do when your body is no longer a temple? Rather a shell in which you live in, because no mater how hard you scrub the dirt he left is forever engraved in your skin. And as he pushed himself against you, 200 pounds of hate leaving landmines in your skin, he said, “I love you,”

1. You are going to get sad sometimes, do not wait until the sadness is seeping from your skin to tell someone. 2. You are more then just a picky eater when even 80 pounds seems to weigh you down, skipping meals will not make you worthy. 3. When the boy with blue eyes tells you he thinks you’re beautiful, thank him. Do not go home with him. Do not think that he can save you. 4. When the boy with blue eyes buys you roses and then expects you to sleep with him, leave him. 5. When the boy with blue eyes eventually cheats on you, leave him. 6. Cigarettes and Jack Daniels will not cure your heartache, neither will sending drunken messages to the girl he presumably slept with. Do not blame her, it is not her fault. Do not tell him you are going to kill yourself, hang up the phone and put away the razors. 7. When you end up in the hospital because you drank too much and cut too deep, do not use your nausea as an excuse to skip dinner. 8. When the boy with blue eyes begs for you back, hang up the phone. 9. When you eventually decide to sleep with this boy, do not drink, do not do drugs, this is not romantic and you will regret it later. Acid is not magic, it will morph your body into something more desirable. Know that your body is desirable just the way it is. Know that you deserve rose petals and candles. Know that you are worth more then this. 10. When he tells you he loves you, ask him why. 11. I know that when he hit you, it felt like a kiss on the cheek, but do not be fooled. Next time he hits you, hit him back. 12. When you find yourself on his bathroom floor and he towers over you like a giant, do not say you’re sorry. When he pushes himself against you, do not tell yourself that maybe there is a part of him that still loves you. 13. When you finally leave him, do not look back, do not regret it.

The first and last time we took acid we were staring at the stars, you stole a line from our favorite book; you said that maybe the world is actually a glass dome, and the stars are just holes leading to heaven. In that moment, I think I believed you. In that moment it felt like I could reach up and touch a star, and as my shaking hand traced your cheek I swear to god it felt like stardust. For you, I would reach up and rip that dome apart, I would shed light on every inch of your broken body. I would give you heaven if I could but I’ve since realized that I cannot fix broken people. I know that you deserve more then acid and stardust, you deserve more then cocaine and endless nights tangled in your demons, I wish on the stars every night that you could see that.

It is strange how some moments can effect our lives forever, when I was 15 I fell in love with a boy almost over night. He had piercing blue eyes and the first time he kissed me I swear, I was three feet off the pavement walking home. He reminded me every day that I was beautiful, and soon I think I began to believe him. These moments, the moments I spent wrapped in his arms were the best moments I had ever experienced in my short 15 years of existence. When I was 18, I fell out of love. I fell out of love with him in a matter of seconds, that day in august his eyes were like storm clouds, and his skin was as hard as the wall he pinned me to. That day in august I couldn’t find him anywhere. This moment, the moment he took my no for a yes, was the moment the ground slipped away from beneath me. This moment caused an earthquake. It shattered every inch of my existence. The moments that followed are moments that are etched in my mind, I try to push them back until unbidden, they come pouring out. The moment I stepped foot in the hospital, my body spent, used. The moment the cop told me he was sorry. The moment the doctor gave me a pill to ease the pain from the bruises on my thighs. The moment the world slipped away at four in the morning as I entered my house, like i was entering a new world. Nothing looked the same. The moment I told my parents and all they could do was cry, and all I could say was I am sorry I let you down. I am sorry for falling in love. I am sorry. I am sorry. The moment I burned his sweater and cut up the jeans I was wearing that day, because those jeans would be forever dirty. The moment I tried so hard to scrub the dirt off my skin. But some moments, helped me breathe again. Since that day I had been holding my breath but the moment the cop called me and told me he would be behind bars for a while, was the moment I let out a sigh of relief. It was the moment I started searching for all the shattered pieces. When the lawyer called months later, to tell me he plead guilty, was the moment I found one of the last pieces. The moment my heart thawed, the moment my skin started glowing with love again, though it was love from someone else. Someone who is patient and kind and understands how hard it is for me to pry apart my rib cage and let the butterflies free. This, I think, was the moment my heart found peace.

Dear Daddy, I am 8 years old, There are monsters invading my dreams, I cannot sleep, I knock on your door; the clock says it is three in the morning. You tell me not to be afraid, you say that whenever monsters haunt dreams Just to think of you You say you will always be there to chase the demons away, You spend the entire next weekend building me a tree house on the tallest tree in our backyard You say that up there, among the leaves, So far away from this earth, no monsters will ever be able to find me. Dear Daddy, I am 10 years old, You tell me we need to move to a strange city, Dear Daddy, I don’t understand. Dear Daddy, I am 11 years old, We live in the city now, I like it here, I have friends Except there are more buildings than trees and I cant find a tree house anywhere and You’ve stopped looking at mommy like you used to. You teach me a new word, divorce. Dear Daddy, what does this mean? I thought love was everlasting All I know is I only see mommy on the weekends now Dear daddy, I am 12 years old, And now it is mommy to teach me a new word, this word is called schizophrenia. Dear Daddy, what happened? You are in a strange looking hospital with bars on the windows, where were you when I had a nightmare last night? Dear Dad I am 14 and I live with mom now, I have long since stopped calling you daddy Ever since you started finding comfort in tall amber bottles Dear Dad, what happened to you, I cant find you anywhere. Dear dad I am 15, and the doctors tell me I’m sad I didn’t know being sad could be a sickness But now they have me locked inside the same hospital you once were with bars on the windows, These people know the words scitzophrenia and alcoholism all too well. So do I. Dear dad, I am 17, and you are paralyzed on the entire left side of your body The doctors don’t think you’re going to make it. You did it, you have officially drank yourself into oblivion. You promise if you live, you will never touch a bottle of beer again, But dear dad, if there is one thing you’ve taught me it is not to make promises. Dear dad, I am 18 and by some miracle you made it, And you went to rehab just like you promised. You were sober for all of a month. Dear dad, I guess some monsters are bigger than others. Dear Daddy, I am 19 now, and you are still fighting your monsters every day. So, I think what I’m going to do is find the tallest tree in this city, And I’m going to build you a tree house, That way up there, among the leaves, You will be too far away from this earth for your monsters to be able to find you.

It is almost April again and I remember how happy we were last April You had your first apartment and we thought we would last forever. I am writing to tell you that I forgive you. I do not forgive you for what you did, but I forgive you for where you came from. I know you may not know why you pushed me away but I think I do. My grandmother told me months ago to write about you until my fingers bleed and I think they have bled enough. I think you have bled enough, too. Consider this a goodbye poem. You were beautiful for awhile, I hope you know that. We were beautiful, we were young and we were in love; I tried to warn you. Love is a big word. I forgive you for not being able to fill the spaces in between those four letters. I will never forgive the violence, but I will forgive you for who you are. I hope you know that before things got bad, I did love you. I loved you as much as I could. I hope you know I am okay. My body doesn’t burn like it used to. I can shower again. My voice doesn’t crack when I speak your name anymore. Wherever you may be, I hope yours doesn’t either. I hope for you, that one day you will learn how to fill in the spaces between those four letters. I hope that you learn how to love. Love is a big word, and I think I may have found it within myself. I hope you do, too.

1. It’s been 8 years and to this day I still sometimes wonder if you have discovered what a toothbrush is. 2. We were only 13, but I think we were in love for those few months. We were young but I was the ocean and you were the moon and I always tried to pull my self towards you, I think this is why I had to leave. 3. Your brother tasted better. 4. You stomped on my tiny heart, your lips were made of venom. 5. I am sorry, I don’t think I can kiss girls. 6. Maybe I can kiss girls when they taste like you, you tasted like cherrys and your hair was like silk on my cheeks. 7. I wasted nearly 3 years kissing you. I used an entire bottle of mouth wash to get your taste off my tounge. I am glad I never have to kiss you again. 8. We spent a summer beneath the stars, with beer infused kisses and loud punk music and a love so hard I spent months sweating you out. I’ll never forget when you told me I was too broken for you. 9. We were drunk and I could practically feel your boyfriends eyes on us from across the dance floor. I guess he finally knows your not completley straight. 10. You kissed me for the first time in the fall; my favorite season. Soon you became my favorite season. You were fire against my icy heart and I guess you were scared I’d melt completley, I keep telling myself that this is why you left. 11. You were my first kiss of the new year, will you please stay long enough to be my last?