wooden boxes and broken shovels

i held your heart in my hand
like a gutted fish
and he prayed like a street beggar
all he wanted was a cigarette and a porno
but i opened my chest and put him right back in his place
choked with blood
bars on the windows

and i was proud

i think i have a middle school crush?

your skin tastes like broken fences and cigarettes
your bitten fingernails are too honest
and i can't decide whose hair is longer

clean out my cuts with a knife
fill my silverware drawer with dead batteries
and let's bury the car keys in the backyard
so you'll have an excuse to stay home from work

let's run away to alaska
so everyday will be sweater weather
and we will cancel sundays in favor of two saturdays per week

i'm not ready to let you eat my heart just yet
i won't let you break my bones until you've heard them
memorized the way my hands stutter when the walls are quiet
but you can have my busted jaw
an old scale
and my favorite color

you're not mine
and i'm not yours
but if you help me find my mind
i will help you find yours
and i have a feeling they are swimming together at the bottom of a cold lake

i know the fingernail polish is chipping
and september is a fresh coat
and there's only one point we share along our lines
i know you love her and the bad news is
she's beautiful
but we are both broken killing ourselves paper and tooth growing
and we kissed on the hood of their car
and we both hated the movie
even though we saw it two weeks apart
you laugh at my jokes
you tried on my blazer
and we agreed on swedish fish and reese's

and this seems important

i know i'm only eighteen
and i drink starbuck's
and you don't know who won the french open
and even though i'm begging someone to bleed like me
we bleed differently
but our blood is the same color

and i try not to touch you as often as i'd like to
because i can tell you don't like it
but occasionally i punch you on the shoulder
like the answer to an inside joke
because i don't want to forget how to reach for you

and i know i like to talk about death and mortgages too much
but i promise not to wiretap your room
we can watch some more comedies
if you think that would push the crows off our shoulders

i'd only tell you after a sleepless night
because rejection is the monster under my bed
and sometimes i want to be your lover instead of your friend
but you're a middle school crush
we're dandelions
and mid-twenties are the birds of paradise
orchids
daffodils
carnations
hydrangeas

i guess what i'm saying is
don't run away until i know your middle name
because i want to drink in your moonshine shoulders
and breathe in your corruption
and kiss all ten of your nervous fingers
and i want to hear you play the guitar
even if you're singing about somebody else

and i'm sorry if you wrote out our love story
you couldn't write about my hair
or my legs
or my hands
but say something about my eyes

they're my best feature

my left leg

my left leg believes in god
reads the bible every Sunday
and has a favorite color

my left leg prays
cries herself to sleep at night
and doesn't drink coffee

my left leg is skeptical
a "glass half empty" kind of girl
she hates when i wear a swimsuit

my left leg is all i have left of who i was.

don't ask my legs to love you

here's another shot of vodka to forgetting your name
and there's another clean slate that was your girlfriend
one more to forget i'm not her
and another three to kill the words "i shouldn't be drinking"

and you were never sorry
you were just bloodstained
you were just broken
and you thought that was the same thing
but it wasn't

it doesn't matter if the smoke of broken promises
overpowers the salt in our soup
i always preferred the smoked beef jerky over original
when mama took us on road trips
and i couldn't pluck "finding nemo" out of my eyebrows
and daddy stayed home to work his nine to five job

all i'm saying is it hurts we aren't on speaking terms
because the last time we weren't
our lips were too preoccupied with each other's
to say much anyway

i'm lightheaded
and there's nothing romantic about it
i'm lightheaded
because this is what an eating disorder looks like
you tell me he's currently unemployed
but you haven't looked up his record recently
i don't have to look emaciated
skeletal
a Holocaust victim
in order to prove that i'm walking dead

and you don't think you're asking a lot
when you ask my legs to love you
but you don't know my legs walked miles to the beat of yesterday
because they were in love with my ears
and my ears were in love with you

you don't know how many nights they stayed up
and shook for your phone calls
because even my heart had gotten attached by that point
but my legs
my legs were the only ones who weren't convinced

my ears were in love with you
my skin was in love with you
my heart was drowning in your blood instead of pumping mine
and you

you liked to fuck
you liked to fuck me up and fuck me over
but i didn't care
because at least you were hitting my skin
at least you were shaming me
screaming, "nothing but a whore"
"you are nothing"
but you were bruising me in honest lighting

my ears were mailed to your doorstep
and you got off on my blood on the knife
i will file your fingernails with a cheese grater
and bury your skull in the backyard next to my dead hamster
i will skin you and wear you
damn i always thought we'd suffocate together

sometimes i wonder why we can't even agree on a mixtape
or the color of the sky just before it softens into rain
and then i think god was trying to tell me something
before we got so far as to pick out baby names

i'm just a girl
i'm just a girl who makes promises to both god and the devil she can't keep
i'm just a girl
but i will pull my eyes out of their sockets so you'll remember their stain of blue
i should have mailed you my red hair in the sink
because pictures are worth a thousand words, but may be a broken thousand
i am biting off my lips
and i'm drunk on my blood as it tumbles down my throat
i am ripping off my tits

i'm yours
i'm yours
i always have been

cut me open with your pocketknife
my lungs forgot how to breathe any name but yours
just bury me in your garden beneath the roses
so at least i can see arizona realistically

and if you have any doubts
remember every part of me loved you but my left leg

blood sister

we bang music because two door cinema club fills the empty space
and the two years between us
better than my hollow apologies ever could

her heart hurts more than most but i wouldn't call her sensitive
not out loud anyway
because skin is for the healed
and shells are for the nervous
have you ever seen a clam, man
because casts are for the hesitating bones
because she reads what i write and likes it even if i say the "f word"

she listens even if sometimes it's only so she can top my stories with her own
of finding mom's lingerie drawer and walking in on the parents while stoned
she's a breath of fresh air but her exhalations are mass-produced in perfume bottles
she has a glass face but you have to look past the daisy dukes
the middle fingers
and listen to what she's tucking behind the laughs
the blues she pulls into bed at night
and the stars she plucks from the sky so she can save her wishes

she's a little high-strung and i think that's why sleep lies to her
and some may call them progressive because their marriage is anything but old-fashioned
but it's built on a bed of betrayal and empty pockets
her eyes are bloodshot in the morning
and their relationship is complicated on facebook

i want to tell her to love no matter how bad it hurts
but my heart should shut up and let my head do the talking
there's chalk on the wall screaming "write the poems"
but the blood and dead secrets are weighing her down
and she's too scared to pen anything more than her name

i used to yell when she used my razor
but now she knows i use hers
and she doesn't say anything
i don't know whether it's funny or sad but it's another crease in the napkin

i'm damaged goods
and our blood runs like the creek we used to play in
so she tapes each of my notes on the wall
as if to envelope her aching ashes up there
as if she can't handle all these hearts on her sleeve
and she's cutting them with butter knives one by one

she's taller than me
and her fingers are longer than mine
her fingers are thinner
her arms are thinner
her legs are thinner
she wears a size smaller than me
and i used to resent her for that
because ed told me i should hate everyone with whom i compared myself
and turned out the loser
because i was never supposed to be the fat girl

i used to hate her because she scored clothes with mom
because mom said "you shouldn't have thrown your clothes away"
it doesn't matter they didn't fit me anymore
it didn't matter i was trying to drown twins inside of me
it didn't matter ana and mia were only nicknames
and my old clothes reminded me of the girl in old photographs
who always tricks me into thinking i was happier then

sydney didn't like when she went to girls' camp
and the bitches would rather fit three in a bed than share with her
she didn't like it when there was a picture of her on snapchat
with the caption "slut"
even though she's kissed two boys

but she laughed it off
she laughed it off
she laughed it off

i bet those kids didn't know that she attempted suicide in grade seven

it doesn't matter she can wear bikinis and i can't
it doesn't matter mom likes her hair better
lets her wear shorter shorts
or buys her skimpier underwear
because none of those have to interfere with my loving her
or our coffee runs
cafe rio rendevous
barnes and noble dinners
facebook research
salt lake day trips
kissing lessons
4:20 screenshots
and our matching tattoos we're getting someday just for the hell of it

because it's okay for her to be herself
it's okay to wear a Vans logo shell if that's what it takes her to absorb the aftershock
turtles always took out the rabbits in the race anyway

don't make $ make sense

one time i dragged your lips along the atlantic
so you could remind my bruises
who their father was
but it still wasn't enough
to make up for the drunken aftertaste

and even though the alcohol spilled onto my sister's shirt
i never blamed you
because the beat was a ghost i wanted to haunt me
and i was so damn tired of doing the stalking

and lady i've been shopping in the boy's section
just to prove a shirt can't define gender roles
i spend all this time wondering why i'm not more like them
but maybe i should be wondering why they aren't more like me

cut your hair
bite your nails
tear out your hair
rip off your nails
manicures were for the haves, not the have-nots
the girls too good for drive-throughs
the broken-hearted with a magazine in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other

my hands were wrapped around his throat
and i heard his heart beating louder than the distance
i squeezed harder and harder
but i'm not a killer
because even with blood burning the back of my throat
the ashes of your cigarette on my teeth
and my heart telling me "yes yes yes"
i let go

don't let me go.

who took the bullet for you?
all i know is i pulled the trigger and you're still here
listen that's your heart pounding louder than mine ever did
i can't kill the you that never existed

winter hands and summer eyes
distrust is something i can't deny

there was blood blood blood on the sidewalk
not enough toilet paper in the bathroom closet to dry my tears
but your face was empty

it doesn't matter how many times i tell myself
because you always seem to tell me more

my lips are impossible
your lips are impossible
our lips are impossible

i see you everywhere i go

why isn't the first thing i write a post about graduation
a nod to "we made it"
an anthem to the last-minute term papers and the night-before cramming

why isn't the first thing i write a letter to summer
because i personify everything and haven't gotten around to the seasons
because i want to tell her i was waiting at the bus terminal
but i picked up the call from my ex-husband winter
and i left to pick up his dry cleaning
even though we hadn't talked in lifetimes

but maybe i don't want to tell her
because i missed the phone call
but i heard the voice mail
informing me her sister spring had ran a red light
in her haste to pick her up
because where the hell was i
and spring's life had been cut short at the age of twenty six

but this isn't a letter to summer
because even at commencement i waited for you to cross the stage
i waited for your name to be called
i waited to see if you'd pull a gang sign or pump your fist
i waited to hear the laughter
i waited

because the first day i slept in until four, i saw you and i woke up
because you were so beautiful
and no this ain't no metaphor
this ain't no ballad of the broken-hearted
i don't pretend to know the definition of teenage love
this ain't gonna be a book or even a chapter
this is no tribute to the dying
this is not gonna feed the homeless
maybe it gets twelve page views or less
ain't no retweets on twitter
no likes on instagram
it doesn't even belong on facebook for your estranged uncle
or your aunt who likes cats

but it's a letter to you from my heart
and the sentences may run on and the days too
and you're gonna move to arizona
but i'm not gonna forget

listen i saw you at every ride at lagoon
even though we aren't on speaking terms
i walked past you twenty times at the "all-night party"
even though we couldn't look each other in the eye
all this seeing and we couldn't wave
couldn't form the words

i see you everywhere i go
i see you everywhere

and it's easy to say i'm following you but if i am
why did you get on the same bus as me
why are you behind me in line
why do you foot the same roads knowing you'll see me along the way

maybe you're following me
but if you are
why do i always see you first

you'd rather fuck than face attachment
but it scares you to fuck someone with a brain in their head
with a heart in their chest
with eyes that remember

you decided you're going on a mission
and maybe i'm a threat
because i just remembered i believe in god

listen we are bad for each other
we are bad bad bad

all i want to do is hear you talk
but i'm tired of forcing the words
and i'm talking talking talking to fill the silence
and you don't know how to react when i talk about tragedy

when my soul is scared you think kissing is the answer
but with this anxiety eating up my chest
how could my lips ever have the solution
you can't slap a band-aid on my lungs and tell them to breathe

my lips will make you grateful if you're brave enough to sing them
but we don't even kiss anymore

because when you tell me death is easy
when you tell me death is a cheap hooker
death is unbuttoning your pants
she's led you on with her lap dance
i tell you life is worth the money
but when i tell you death is whispering in my ear touching my chest just right
you nod

like you understand
but i don't want someone to fucking understand
i found enough of them in rehab

i want someone to tell me they'd go to my funeral and they'd hear every word
they'd stay up wondering about me and regrets would fill their head like song lyrics
they'd cry a little
especially at night
and they'd tell me death is easy but life is worth the wait

i miss you
i miss you
and you are good
and i am good
but we are bad

everytime i dial your number from memory
i convince myself not to press the green button
because we are bad bad bad

and it doesn't matter how much i want you
how much i think about my head on your shoulder
how many times my heart's gone into the ER asking for morphine to dull the pain
how many times i read and reread and reread
because it isn't love
it's attachment and the inability to say no
it's memories burned into the back of my eyelids

but how could it ever be love
if we are too scared to walk the tightrope and run away to the circus
if we choose sloppy hookups instead of each other
if all this bathwater is coursing through my veins
with the image of your face on the frontline
and i'm shaking my head to clear the memories
if all our backseat sins involved me begging you to hurt me
how is this love

and you sell a lot of things at that junction
maybe you give me some short-lived seventh heaven
you had a recipe book for distraction in aisle six
i even saw you set a coupon on the counter
for another sexual encounter

but bliss never came in a bottle
and when did you ever sell me peace