Do Not Think This is A Love Poem

I try to remember you as you were. Stretch my fingers and reacch into the cortexes of my mind for memories I so long for, and my right-brain fingerpaints your lips, eyes, collarbones, breasts, lanky limbs, and crooked smile every shade of beautiful across my hopeful eyelids.

I can still picture you bounding down the sidewalk with the pep of a five year old in your step, crunching through small amounts of late January snow, calling me after you like a puppy (was what we had just pupy love?) and I'd quicken my pace to oblige. I picture you with your flushed cheeks and disheveled hair. The curve of your spine arching like a masterpiece, where my hand always seemed to fit perfectly.

I can still hear your baby Bluebird voice humming to me and in that moment I had so wished I could craddle myself in your vocal chords, within your smooth, sweet, honey tune. We would sing harmonies of New Slang by The Shins and if you'd took to me like I had taken to you maybe our story could have ended up differently, but then I didn't know left from right and the soundtrack of my heart was following you into any dark; Your smile was the only North Star I needed. I was starstruck, lovestruck, and stuck, held steady between your breasts like your hourglass heart in your ribcage prison. No matter how hard I tried I could not get in to flip it over and reset the time.

I can still feel your tiny fingers drowning in my own; Too long for the palms they were held by. Your hipbones jabbing into my side like it was their profession I remember how your kisses tasted like spearmint, and how your lips, soft as egyptian cotton, pressed to mine urgently, as if every kiss was going to be our last. How your poorly circulated extremities would trace my arms, legs, shoulderblades, and my own would travel across your breasts, stomache, and cheekbones. How your breath, like the constant ocean tide, would blow, retreat, and always return.

I try to remember you as you were, because right now you are nothing but a quickly dulling memory.

Shallow cuts and long sleeves.

Depression has become a slippery slope for me. The terrential rains come and send my firmly planted feet flying out from under me. I'm sliding down this mud caked hill and I can barely hold on. And when I finally gain my balance the quicksand takes me.

The knife takes me. The pain and the escape it gives me envelopes me. It is my bliss and my salvation and I am thankful for every drop that spills from my chaffed wrists. It gives me something else to think about besides the hole in my chest. The empty space that can never seem to be filled because it is a blackhole and they are never satisfied.

I'm in control. There is power that comes with gripping something so tight it becomes a part of you and for an instant I become God. Millimeter of flesh and vein and tendon and blood seperate me from life and death. Not too rough or sudden now. Just enough pressure there. Oh that ones still fresh let it be. Always across the street and not down the road. Safety first.

It sounds really bad and I'm sure I'll regret writing this down but sometimes in the back of my mind I hear a little voice praying I'll slip up. Just a little. Then I can finally find real salvation.

Games of pretend and makebelieve have to end sooner or later.

It's over. Whatever we were. Whatever this was, is done. Not because you or I decided, but simply that our time has run out. Like the expiration date on milk that you don't notice until you've poured yourself a nice glass.

I'm not ready to move on, but the scary fact is I have no choice in the matter. The sight of you makes me physically ill. Bringing the bitter taste of bile into my throat. Poison.

I don't want you out of my life. In fact, I don't think I could handle it. But I can't pretend I'm okay anymore. It's breaking me. It broke us. Now's not the time for makebelieve. Whatever we were/are/were becoming is over. I'm done.

Just give me something.

Give me intimacy. Not necissarily skin on skin but something that makes what we have unique. One of those glances over the top of your book. Smile at me with one corner of your mouth. Melt me with those eyes.

Give me a word. Soft and sweet. Filled with tenderness and devotion. Sing me your favourite song. Speak my name as if it's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard. Laugh true and bestow on me a small piece of your happiness.

Give me a touch. Let your fingers write poetry on my skin like pen to paper. Let our lips do what they should. Hold my hand like you're afraid to let go. Pull me into your warm embrace as if it'll be out last.

Give me everything. Give me anything. Anything of you. Anything from you to hold on to.

Sometimes "I love you" just isn't enough.

Walking along the edge of those wooden steps. Teetering back and forth on the guardless death traps I secretly hoped would take me. Arms spread wide like an airplane ready to take flight.

I wasn't your average case of "lost without a cause". Still concerned with my image on the 6 o'clock evening news. "Young girl's reamains found splattered across the pavement behind her highschool." No. A classier death would provide the proper escape. Now you see me, now you don't.

I considered killing myself aritsically. Putting on my prettiest dress or romper and taking a fist full of pills. Laying myself out in the middle of ECP. I dreamt of a dramatic suicide. Noose draped hastily around my neck with a goodbye letter tacked ironically to my "Bonjour" shirt just out of extra spite.

It was actually quite amusing until I rememebered the reason the thoughts had polluted my mind in the first place. Would I be missed? I hoped. Was I loved? I knew. I would be cried over and talked about fora couple of weeks maybe even months but like all lost things I would be forgotten. Thoughts of me would be put away and I would be replaced.

You said you loved me, and I believed you, I did. I could see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. Kissed my cheek and said goodbye. Spoke it once more to make sure I hadn't forgotten. Yes, I believed you, but I love you isn't always enough.

I wrote a thousand love songs and sang them from my heart, but when I said they were all for you, you laughed and laughed and laughed.

I feigned hatred and disgust and anything else I could to keep you away from me. Not because I didn't want you, but because I wanted you too much. More than anything.

I'm afraid that I'll pour my heart out and instead of kisses I'll be hit hard with the harsh reality of rejection. I'm afraid that you'll love me too. I'm afraid that I'll hand you all of me and you'll see that I am broken. Damaged. I'm afraid you'll hand me all of you and I'll mess it up. I'm afraid you'll hurt me. I'm afraid I'll hurt you.

That's why I can't take us seriously. As soon as this gets serious, feels real even a little, you'll have all of me and I can't risk that. I couldn't take having my heart broken by you. It would destroy me. I can feel you trying so hard to get close to me, and I won't let you. Every night I go home and beat myself up, but I never change it. Never change me.

Instead of telling you this (like the brave person I pretend to be) I sit and think of you and I cry and cry and cry.

I Died Only to Find I was Never Living.

Death is a funny thing. Sad and tragic, but hilarious in a sense. To think that I've worked this whole life, the only one I'm given, to in the end give my body back to the earth, is a pretty ridiculous notion.

Thirteen fucking years of my life. For what? To get an official looking piece of paper that says I've accomplished something. I've accomplished nothing but heartache and headaches. No amount of math or history or science will teach me how to love or feel. And what's after? 8 years of college for a hug a pat on the back and a career I never really wanted? 

We spend so much time planning how we want to spend our lives and never actually do it. I convince myself that I'm going to be different. Live my life the way I want to even if it upsets everyone else.

But then I remember the way my parents looked at me with big doe eyes and said "we're counting on you."