kaylieraeb

Daddy told me that I’ll know I found you when your fingers can conduct an orchestra in my heart and your lips will taste like ocean water and autumn leaves, he said I won’t bite my tongue anymore and the ashes under my skin will be replaced with things like New York snow and even glitter. He said when I can taste my laugh as it ripples out my throat, when my socks are filled with love letters and little scented candles, that’s when I’ll know I found you. He said to picture a circular object in the sky and if I look at it and it becomes the sun instead of the moon then, yeah, I’ve found you.

They used to ask me what I missed and like how do you answer something like that? What am I supposed to say? Do I tell them that you were my home or that you had these unearthly cappuccino irises that held galaxies Do I tell them that you were my shed when the sun got too hot on my skin Do I mention that you had the kind of smile that could make flowers grow or do I say the truth? Do I tell them that suddenly my house is not a home anymore and that I feel homeless because wherever I go you’re not there.

They told me just to eat it like it’s nothing more than playing a game of cards but do they know how hard this is? do they know what it’s like to hate yourself this much? My brain has become a twisted place where the only satisfaction I can get comes from sticking my fingers to the back of my throat and it’s sick, I know, but this is real. This is my life.

I swallowed the whole damn universe last night and it did not taste good. It crackled down my throat like pop rocks and it sunk into me like it was sewing itself into my gut but let me tell you, when you swallow the entire universe it is not like locking lips with a lover, it is not holding hands with an infant, it feels like knives and needles it tastes like acid and it bubbles in your gut like the only way it can satisfy itself is if it can tear you apart and I'm not generally this breakable so when I fell apart, I made damn sure the universe knew what it did to me.

I don't get it how someone like you could love someone like me I mean I'm so boring, I like to read poetry at 2 AM and write inside my journal on Friday nights after declining a party invite. I soak inside art and I like to count stars because they're never ending, they don't stop but somehow you still like to trace the lines inside my palms and feel my love on you. You like to sashay me around like I'm some grand prize. Why, Why, Why, Why??? You can't love someone like me when you're the kinda person who can create universes with your laugh, but maybe if you get close enough, you'll find I'm not as good as you might've thought.

She fell in love with the way his lips tasted: Ocean water, cigarette smoke. She fell in love with the way he spat words at her like he was trying to poison her spirit and even if he did, she didn't care. She still smells burning rubber when she presses her face into her pillow and she only does this because her bed still reeks of him and it's addictive the way the entirety of him wraps around her heart. Mama says she's crazy, that she could find a man who could pay the bills, a man who could keep things together rather than letting them fall apart. Mama doesn't know, Mama doesn't understand that she craves ocean water, cigarettes, poison and

You told me to find something I want, not something that was convenient for the nights when I was lonely. It struck me hard because I never thought of you as convenient, I just always thought of you and how you made me feel. Never once did I use your chapped lips to fill an empty void in my heart. You told me to go find something that I love and baby, all I see is you.

The last time I saw you I felt like my bones were broken. I see your grey eyes once and suddenly, it's like I'm choking on sawdust. I figured that it was a little bit dramatic how my skin felt tight when your finger tips pressed along the crevices of my spine. You told me to stop writing poetry about you, that maybe I should start writing about something that was actually worth my words I wondered if he knew that as long as he exists, I will continue to write poetry about him.

I said, it's okay when she said she's broken Said, "Where do you go When you lose yourself? Been staring out this window by myself" So I said, Things are prettier when they're torn up, broken I know it's hard to lie here hopin' For a break For a chance to take But it's okay and I'll be your place to stay I'll be your place to stay, place to stay Your eyes, are beautiful when you let me see them I don't know why, things fell apart this time But I know that I, will see you through And when you're lost and don't know what to do Just look for me 'cause I know you Things are prettier when they're torn up, broken I know it's hard to lie here hop

You dug graves into my collarbones and planted monuments along my ribcage. You stripped me of everything I was, peeled back my skin until it was shrivelling and pruned. Roots grew in my bones, you twisted until you cracked me. The stem of a wallflower growing abnormally. You broke me and the thumping of my heart being the only thing that reminds me that I am still alive. You tore me until there was no damn material left.