I said

I’d tattoo

every inch of skin

with a story

that no laser can erase

from your memory

 

I’d croon the words into

your skin

piercing right into

your soul

 

Can you still hear me,

my love?

 

even though I’ve left?

over

You have nothing left to say

I guess this is how you know

when it’s over

You talk about me to others

More than you talk to me

I’ve become background noise

And every day

you know me less and less

 

But somehow

I’ve got you figured out

 

I guess I just take

more work

 

I guess I’m just not worth it

to you.

I never wanted to be the girl who wrote poems about love

and heartbreak

but here we are

 

broken again

here we are

 

soul-searching for answers

that can only be found outside of us

in all the little and big ways

we never learned

to fit

 

and now we’re both gone

 

after having said goodbye

 

I didn’t think it would be me

 

I didn’t think forever would last

only a short while

 

I can’t remember which of us broke

our promises first

 

I can’t remember which of us broke

the other’s heart first

 

I only know

we’re both hurting

 

and here we are

now as strangers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

these days

I didn’t know the shadows behind your eyes were real,

I’m sorry I thought

You were ever faking

 

You breathe into every day and I don’t know

How you manage

 

There’s courage in you that you don’t even know

There’s a love in you

 

That you can let out if you just trust in us

 

I won’t hurt you, dad

 

You’ve been hurting for too long

 

I forgive you for what I am responsible for forgiving

 

I can’t save you from the anger of others

You’ve wronged over the years

 

Your intentions misguided though sometimes achingly

Pure

 

When I hear your voice now

I sense a different man has emerged

 

You are still in so much pain

But now you’re trying so hard

To stop trying to numb it

Enough to realize you’ve been relying on all the wrong

Vices

To save you

 

We’ve been here all along

 

And we won’t give up on you now.

I promise.

not enough love

I thought I could live inside your smiles

that I could absorb your happiness

 

and use it to warm

my tepid heart

 

I hollowed myself out

transformed into a shell

 

to love you the way

you needed to be loved

 

I emptied

 

until there wasn’t enough

 

love left over

for me

 

missing you

I miss you, and I’m filling those empty places you usually inhabit

inside of me
beside me

with wine and conversations
with people who look over my shoulder when they talk to me

friends who are suddenly too busy
too far to give me a moment
for despair

they don’t want to hear
how I’ve been gutted by your absence

and how the bloody tracks I leave behind in the bathtub don’t
quite appease my pain

Instead I’m told: chin up
and smile so
I’m shrugging off the feeling of wrong that keeps echoing
off the walls
in all the places
in which you aren’t
but I have to be

my sharp angles brittle and unwelcoming, and the softness giving way to the wasting

the wasting away
of a me
without you

I don’t like myself this way

and if you saw

you wouldn’t like me either

Stain

back then we

we were glory days

and sake pub nights

photo booth adventures reflected in our

gaunt, exaggerated faces

because we’d forgotten how to sleep

and were too defiant

to admit needing rest

you were the closest I felt to loving a girl

you were best friend shivering with me

in full costume and make up heading into

the empty street

with leaves and garbage crunching under our cheap, fake leather boots

we were anarchists

my hair was blue, yours white

and we used to shout fuck you to people

who looked at us funny

and we probably deserved funny looks

because there you were

so beautiful

and there was I, raggedy-Ann, plain-Jane androgyny/

butch girl so out of place, out of touch

with the world

I think I dyed myself color

just to be seen

I think I was your opposite

because otherwise, I knew I’d fade

out, your ever-sidekick novelty

out, damned spot

but then I moved away

and we weren’t us anymore

you stopped caring about

what I had to say

and I learned to look in the mirror

without cringing

I learned that I might just be

beautiful too

you stopped caring

about me

and you weren’t overtly unkind

just thoughtless and that hurt more

because you faded me out

out, damned spot, out

liar liar liar

how many do you think you can tell

before I stop you right there

before I recognize the disease living in the whites

of your lying eyes

 

your gaze is deliberately aimless

and emphatically sincere

 

a cheap imitation of flawless performance

for a fool who couldn’t afford

to lose her imagination

and wake up then

 

you think

I should have no reason for suspecting

you but

you’ve always thought

me as innocent, guileless

woman-child

for you:

 

I am petals pressed in between

your pages

preserved too well

and as unsullied

as the day you met me

 

but as you’ve lived your life

I’ve been living mine

 

and along the curve of your carefree grins I’ve seen

that nervous twitch at the corners

the bead of sweat that trickles from your upper lip

down your throat

where a telltale inhale of just not right

unreality lives

 

I know now

when you laugh it’s

strange and hollow

you throw your head back and make a display

of yourself

 

but not for me

 

and to keep me from walking

you’ve held my hands tight

forced me to face the illness that is you

with your lips pressed against my brow

crooning words like

baby and please

and I would never

 

you are an act

meant to convince

 

– well it doesn’t convince me anymore –

 

but baby

does it still work

on you?

Dear half brother

Dear half brother,
boy who wears my face
boy whose presence
lingers

you are shadow now

you are some ghost

I can’t shake off

 

because my heart

won’t let you go

 

and I can’t apologize

for what I said, and

for what our father is not

even if it hurts

to not see you

 

but I’m sorry

our truth is not kind

 

And I’m left to wonder if

the depths of your mirror
see me
the way I always see you

or you ever feel
like you own
a phantom limb
because of me?

because the missing
pieces that are you
do disappear
me

and make me

hate myself

for letting you walk away

just like that

 

Before it got really bad

Before it got really bad

Dad used to be

chewing gum

visceral spearmint

in memory

 

he used to be pockets

of shiny quarters

a jacket sleeve

proffered to little hands

when crossing

the street

 

he used to be

feeding ducks

bits of bread

in the park

 

Dad was

a cheeky Puck’s grin

the ever-prankster

 

But when it got really bad

he was whiskey

Crown Royal bottles

lining the far kitchen

wall

 

he was a shadow

formed first

in the furrow of his brows

 

he was the dining table

upturned,

cracked flower trimmed

plates

and unrelenting

storm

 

a pocket

Of bruised fists

matching

mom’s bruised eyes

 

Dad was his head

in his hands

 

Dad was a wide back

turned

away

 

But if it gets better

I hope he can

be how he was

 

when I loved him

best