we left memories here to die, but i still remember the night you told me about your mother, about your birthday last year, about the day your dog died. the violence had already started when you opened your mouth. every wound was just as fresh as the day i died. but you— you were so human to me in those moments you acted as a nuisance. and maybe your mom was right, because you haven’t done anything new since.

nothing lasts forever and i hope that’s true. i was so young when you grew, but when i close my eyes i can almost see the top of your head. when i close my eyes, here i am. you’ve found me. in the bathroom that night you stood taller than me (even with my eyes closed, i saw you looking down.)

there i sat, with my head in my hands on the cold tile, and the chill of you looming over me. i was human then, too, if you didn’t notice.

i didn’t hear him say “i’m sorry” until my dad died. funny how death can claw the sorry out of someone’s arteries and scrape it onto their tongue like a soggy spit-up fur ball.

with a certain kind of man, an apology lingers in the room for months, suckling air like a frantic newborn. time goes on and women forget. dishes pile up and laundry bins folding.

until one dark, thursday night all the air has been suckled out. the tension breaks. the dishes fall. and of course, death has her way with foreplay.

i brought him his favorite wine that night from my parents fridge. i paid for his dinner, i cradled the brittle bite of a sobbing man

and i went home with a fur ball in my pocket as a souvenir.

farewell, my almost lover.

you told me: “i once watched you sleeping naked in my bed, curled up and limp, and i knew that everything else was bullshit.”

i told you: “it’s so hard to stay alive these days or sane, so let me sleep while you guard me from it all.”

you told me, shaken and irritated: “being in love with you is agonizing, ‘cause one day you’ll stop breathing, and i already think you’re dying when you lie there so soundly—

but then you smile (thank fuck)”

and you whisper: “what are you dreaming about, baby? tell me if the word ‘soul’ still means anything.”

i slept because i didn’t have an answer for you, nor will i ever. that’s when i learned that silence is a priceless gift.

every day seems the same— except that one. our last good day.

we made pancakes at 4 a.m and used cinnamon in order to drown the bitterness. you let me pretend to be a cook and i let you pretend to be in love with me. the pancakes are burnt but neither of us mentions it.

i clean the plates as you roll a joint. you put my sweater back on the cold skin that you took it off of, and note the late september air.

by november, you take my sweater and tell me i can burn your t-shirts if it’ll make me feel better.

(i wear them to sleep until new years instead.)

we stare at the stars and i tell you i don’t feel it yet. you ask me, again, if i’ve tried it before. my “no” sounds like an apology. you sigh and wonder aloud if you’re doing something immoral.

we quietly assemble a puzzle until all the pieces look the same. we fall asleep entangled and by the time i close my eyes,

i finally feel it— today is different.

i opened my eyes and all i could see was you. a version of you that only exists in my head, but it was still you. (and i think that’s the only way i want you now)

and by that i mean, in my head, you stay a bit longer. in my head, you want all of me. and not just what you get in a photo that i spent hours perfecting.

i mean in my head where the bath water doesn’t get cold, we don’t prune as easily, and you hold me just a little longer.

in my head, you don’t mean what you say. or i give you the lines to say and you mean every single word. in my head, you don’t keep me waiting. you keep me well fed.

what i really mean is that you are the same with my eyes opened or closed. but i look at you, and i basically invented you.

you don’t hold me, you want half of me (sometimes even less), the bath runs cold and you keep me hungry.

i can’t live off of your breadcrumbs anymore.

where were you when the world ended?

                    it was but a fraction of the end.
                 all because i met you, i’m afraid.

always so afraid, you. why?

                   because you stood at the very
                               edge of a cliff,
             heels offered to the wrath of it all.
                         raging sea reaching out, 
                      tides thirsting for your skin,
                     and you were looking away-
                                  looking at me.
                      you had blood in your hair 
                                and tired, tired eyes.
                          i feared you to be the devil.

i didn’t know you to be afraid of the devil.

                           i am not afraid of the devil.
                              i am afraid of the way 
               i started walking towards that cliff-
                             walking towards you.
                because the second i saw your
                                 bloody, tired eyes,
                                  i could not stand 
                          being away from them.
                              i am afraid of the fact
                             that when you jumped,
                           i didn’t hesitate to follow.
                             i am afraid of the cold 
                          that gripped my stomach 
                                      at the idea 
                       that the sea could have you
                                     before me.

is this a love confession?

                                      isn’t it always?

the room is cold. the room is perfect. my cat is asleep next to my feet. the cardinal has stopped knocking on my window. there are no bed bugs. i swear i’ve never been more tired.

and yet i’m awake. thinking about real, genuine apologies. how do you forgive for something that put holes in your heart? how do you forgive for something that has taken one thousand days from you? how do you forgive someone who isn’t sorry?

nothing is more humiliating than the thought of intervention, and yet i wished for it. for someone to walk in one of the first dozen times. for someone to walk in when i was crying against linoleum. for someone to walk in and ask if i’m tired yet.

the room is quiet. the room is perfect. the past has been written and done over since it happened. i don’t have to worry about what i’d say if you apologized and meant it. there are no bed bugs.

and yet the past bites, anyway.

when it comes down to it we’re just two high schoolers- one with a penance for misery and one for jealousy.

here, we have the start of a bad joke: a boy and a girl walk into a bar but neither are old enough to drink. here, we have the start of a year long avalanche. they make eye contact across a cold room and when the year is up, i die here.

you have the truth so bitter you will spit it out, and so bitter that i will swallow it whole.

i watch you with this heavy ache in my lungs, knowing that my love for you is overdue. even when it’s on the tip of our tongues.

i pick at the ground knowing it’s frozen, knowing i shouldn’t dig for something that can’t be found. i resent you for being the one i’ve chosen.

and i do love you, but i guess you’re the only one that knew.

poetry isn’t for everyone, i get that. it certainly wasn’t for me, either. rhyming words to mean nothing or anything. a series of words i knew but never conveyed. they were just that, words.

poetry isn’t for everyone, but look at you! you’re still reading this. you’re 11 lines in- 12! look at you, i must have gotten you somewhere along the way. and this poem will end soon, i’ll give you that hint. you won’t have to stay here any longer.

but listen to this, this is what poetry can do: imagine yourself and the end of the world- a cliff. you step off, grinning, wide-eyed. you outsmarted the end of this poem.

“how does it feel?” it asks. it asks how it feels to fly.