You said you needed space, so I made myself smaller. Emptied myself out and gave you pieces of me, in hopes to make you stay. Cracked my ribs so you could have my lungs to help you breathe, but you only laughed. It was not enough, you asked for more. More room and less me. So I kept going until I was hollow, until my heartbeat was the only thing left to rattle my bones and shake my core. I gave it to you, I told you I loved you, and I promised to be smaller if only you stayed. But you held it, heavy in your hands and said you didn’t have room for two. And now I am empty, pieces of me scattered outside of my body. Starving with no way to feel full.

I know it’s not easy

I am anything but easy

And I cannot tell you if it’s worth it,

Chasing me,

I know it isn’t easy,

Chasing me,

I’m sorry

I have tried melatonin and ambien and counting sheep. Self care and self harm, self sabotage and self love. Anything to quiet the voices in my head and to let my mind sleep. And then there was you, with soft lips and eskimo kisses. You and the bedtime stories behind your eyes, fingertips laced with sleep as you run them through my hair. Who knew, all along, that you would be the answer to my insomnia?

You’re just calling to check if the sky that I see is as beautiful as the sky that you’re looking at. I laugh that we’re looking at the same sky, and I swear I can hear your eyes roll. I stand in the middle of the lot and spin fast, camera out, your voice ringing out on speaker phone. I send it to you, and you confirm that it’s just as beautiful as where you are. Only maybe more. Because I’m here. I sigh, your words washing over me. I sigh, the wind washing over your words, washing over me. I sigh, the sunset washing over the wind, washing over your words, washing over me.

I stay up late sometimes.

I stay up and cry.

I stay up and fight.

I stay up and stare at the black emptiness of my room

And wonder

why I painted it white

if it would still be dark through the night

why we use lights

if we just turn them off when the sun goes down

I stay up sometimes

I think of the blood rushing through my heart

the neurons firing in my brain

making me think

I think about my mother’s God

I think about the people that died that day

what they thought about before it happened

I think about the people in prison

What sorts of things they had to do to get there

Sometimes I stay up late

and I think about what what you’re thinking about

if it’s me

or someone else

I think about how surprised I would be if it was me

and how sad that is

I think about war

and hunger

and how utterly powerless I am

just thinking about it

I think about writing

sometimes I do it

Most of the time I don’t

I think about how sad that is

Sometimes I stay up

and sometimes I cry

sometimes I fight.

Most times, I just

stay

up.

#poetry #freeverse #truth

Eyes closed,

arms beating like the vulture’s wings.

And still you can’t escape her.

Still she fills you up.

Still she holds you down.

The most you can do

is hope that you don’t drown.

Before we

touched,

my bones could barely

get me out of bed.

But,

the moment you

rested

my thoughts

on your shoulder

I knew right then and there

you were strong enough to carry the rest of me.

I am in a dark room, eyes closed to focus on my feet and their hips and the music that’s shaking the floor beneath me. And I feel lost in a bar full of people, I feel wreckless and destructive. I see eyes as sad as mine and I want to drown in them, I want us to destroy each other. I am drawn to faces and mouths and hands on warm bodies, moving because we know if we stop, our sadness will engulf us. We are our own personal fires, designed to burn to death. My heart races with the tempo and then my anxiety is choking me and I see eyes searching for mine. I find myself searching back, and when we find each other, we are drawn to the chaos we could cause. We are drawn to the destruction, the madness, the end.