My joy
is built upon
seeing cardinals
and the smell of petrichor.

It's alright,
my friend.
I know I am broken.
I have been made aware
of just how much recently.
I am trying to build myself back up
because no matter how many times
you say it was all on you
I would have broken up with me, too.
I don't like me yet.
Maybe I will someday.

They say humans need
eight pos'tive touches a day.
Today I had none.

I apologize,
again.

I am so used to building my own pyre
I never thought
someone would want their own
instead of burning me.

I guess we both have wings of molten wax
we desperately need to fly.

I am so used to ripping myself apart
in service to others,
expecting
and receiving little in return,

that of course I am stuck
on the one person who said,
"I am selfish,
and cannot give you what you deserve.
I will not do this to you."

Of course I am stuck
on the one person
who realizes they will take and take
but will not give,
what I know I can survive,
and so they do as I would.

I would not do this to me,
and yet he has.

I am so gone.

To the Author

Get your life together, girl.

B R E A T H E

It may be
the last week of classes
and every deadline
is pressing down
meanwhile Stage Manager duties
kicked in earlier than you thought.

Doesn't matter.

You've survived worse
and will survive greater.
You can
(after all,
the Lord Almighty
is on your side).

Keep playing at being okay.
Dive into that role
with no hesitations.
Tell yourself
that lie
enough times
and it will become true.

You've done this before
and it has worked.
I believe in you,
and that it will work again.

A Drunk Poem to the man that was my "This One"

It's 2am,
and I want to text you.

I'm more than a little drunk-
on both champagne and friendship-
so inhibitions are lowered.

but i won't.

I won't tear from you
the time you need to
h e a l
from whatever
w o u n d s
I dealt.
Or maybe the only one who dealt them was
y o u.

that might be the gin talking,
so i apologize.

why aren't things right?
why do you have to be such a noble bastard
and deny me
the self-sacrificing ways to which I am accustomed?

I would make my pyre
out of
y o u
and not shed a tear
should flames lick my skin
as long as
y o u
had lit the fire.

i apologize.

I let myself be angry,
and last night
I finally let myself
be sad.

I finally cried for that loss,
and sisters handed me a welcome shot
to ease the passing of sorrow.

I will be sad,
for I know you are,
and it's okay for a time.
I will be alright
and you are strong enough to be as well.

Should you happen
to whisper an apology to me again,
know in that moment
you've been forgiven for a long time.

fuck you.
how dare you say that
i am amazing, that
you love spending time with me.

how dare you.

how dare you say these things
and do the very thing that
contradicts your words,
as if you hadn't been doing so already.

i wrote you words.
they are yours.

and you cannot manage the effort to care?

you are not as mature
as i thought earlier this year,
i suppose.

i want to be truly angry,
and rage,
but i believe too much
in being your friend
to destroy.

(there's still a little part of me
that thinks you'll come back.
i don't know if you want to,
but i know you were the only man
in four years
to make a move on me
while sober.
and now you took it back.)

Where do we stand?
I don't know.
I feel like I'm falling,
or ground is crumbling,
but you are the one
who ripped the rug out.

Am I yours?
You seemed to say no,
and then walk yourself back
from that precipice
I didn't know I was standing on.

I suppose,
it would be wisest
to warm an iron in the fire
and press it to my heart,
If I am wrong about your thoughts,
I can always discard that burned
but now un-wounded skin later.

Why am I left frustrated
day after day?
I don't know what the solution is,
only that it continues to escape.

I am back,
alive and happy.
The lethargy that suffocated
is gone,
and I long for time with you.
But where are you?
I thought you were back,
busy still like me,
but ready to spend time with me again
(not that we haven't seen each other
these past weeks,
but there's a difference between
being together in a group,
just us but working independently,
and just us together).

I thought you were back, too.
Instead,
I got more touches
from our personal Jack Harkness -
who does "ship" us -
and more conversation from my faraway friends.

(I will seduce you,
sooner or later,
and have you beneath me,
and when you reach to remove even a sock,
I will leave.
Because I am a bitch,
and if I had to wait in twists for your time
you will wait in frustration for my attentions.)

Everything is well.
I can feel myself rising,
times mending.

You are with me.
You are spending time,
that you initiated,
and I am happy to spend
even distracted time with you.

I'll go with you to however many parties you wish,
though I'll stand on the edges,
a wallflower to the end,
if it means smiling at you from across a crowded room,
just you.

Everything will be alright.
I know it.

Our crashes did not coincide.
No,
one fell,
and while you rose
I have tumbled far.

I'm at my worst,
trapped here,
trying to claw my way out
without damaging you.
I'm trying not to be
pathetic and needy
and someone you should run far away from.

But how can I?
When I am rewarded for crisis?
I lost your attention,
any sense of your affection,
but now as I spiral ever downwards
there you stand,
confused,
at the edge.

I can keep you there,
throwing just enough clues
that I am helping you
through my pain.
I show just enough distress
over your ignorance
that you will fall over your feet
in a rush to fix it.

Why should I let you?
Why?
When you disappear
even the two of us are well.
Now I have power.

The rational side,
the side of me that takes each wound
with grace
and the growth of what makes it Beautiful,
wishes to share
in calm tones
how this isn't all related to you.
How I feel a failure with or without papers due.
How I feel worthless with or without
neglect.
The good side
offered you tea,
a shoulder or meal,
never thinking of the return,
only your improved state
as you blankly accepted
as all your focus was on crushing deadlines.

The screaming part of me,
that clutches each wound as if it were mortal,
allowing the stinging pain to radiate through,
does not Love.
It counts the debt
and longs to lash out
that you aren't taking random stabs at comfort
as I did,
I who only pretend to know what to do
when friends are distressed.

As the conflict grows,
reason is strangled into silence
and the claws turned inward.

Maybe I should just cut you loose.
Why should I tie you close
when I fully expect
that any day now
I shall tumble from a cliff,
a bloodied mess of thorns
and melted, waxen wings.

I am trying to feel nothing,
to keep a tidal wave down.
A knot grows,
creases in the fabric,
so all I need
is the image of a red hot iron
pressing
into what is now a smoldering mess
but at least it's unfeeling.

Unpainted Canvas

Unpainted Canvas

He loved me first,
Loved me when I was whole-
No, I was whole long before I met him
and remain so.
Loved me when I was unbroken-
No, I have always been a little cracked,
and broke the year before he met me.
Loved me when I was untested.

Yes.

He loved a girl.
i think i loved a boy.-
I have become a woman.
I went into the woods
and learned who I was
in the moments it counts.
And I would choose a friend
over an intangible word.
against his words i think i would have lost

He loved an unpainted canvas
but that now carries colors
another holds dear.

Be banished,
regret.

You don't stop loving someone,
Not usually.
Usually you just forget to.
They fall out of your life
and you go weeks
without a thought of them.

Then a memory roars back
and you feel that pang
That says, "you're not quite done."

But they left you.
Without a proper goodbye.
So you sent them one,
and it felt like
setting that friendship on fire
while shoving it off in boat
to be immolated
while it sails across a sea you'll never cross,
and standing at the shore staring unfeeling
at the fading light the dying ship gives off.

(the goodbye also felt like
a whisper,
drawing the curtains closed on an empty house,
or pulling the shroud over unseeing eyes
after the last breath
sighed
out of this sad remnant of camaraderie
without anyone noticing.)

I do not burn things.
I am not a phoenix,
and neither were we.
I am a snake;
I shed my skin when I grow to big to be contained,
Leaving it behind to show where I once was.

Scattered along the path of my past
are mementos too small to contain me.

I will not forget the lessons I learned.
There are no bleeding wounds to forgive,
Only a ghost that grows weaker each time I forget the teacher.

Lift up your eyes.
Hope has come.
Your battle may not be over,
but the war was won before you started to fight.
therefore,
have no fear.
You have heard the victory cry,
and Death is overthrown.
Take joy with you each day,
and remember.
Laugh in evil's face,
for the Lord your God is Alive.