good things

i went to hold and i went to be held

i want the earth beneath us to hold us too

i want your hands searching for mine

your arm always empty for me to grab onto

“why didn’t you?” you ask me, plain as day

“i didn’t know you wanted me to,” i say

i’m spinning out underneath a cloudy sky

phasing through every willow tree we pass by

an ache like a call down a long hallway

and it echos and it echos and it echos

“do you think we know each other yet?” you ask me,

“i think i know things about you,” i say,

being so careful, trying so hard not to spill

and you know i am a glass full to the brim.

i’m opening up and you’re looking in

and i’m so afraid because if this happens

if this happens—

turning over the stones on my heart,

holding them in your hands to keep them warm,

then i cant help but think of the taste of salt

and the familiar rhythm: the crash, the pull, the rise

as i wait for you to come back to shore.

i watch you as you watch me

but not for too long, it can’t be for too long.

i’m afraid of the withdrawal and the visceral heat

i’m afraid of the potential and the anxiety

i’m afraid you’re going to leave before i even get a chance to show you everything i want to show you

i just want to come back to earth

and i just want you to hold me in your arms

im yearning, i know, im a cavern of desire

but youve got me daydreaming

and you’ve got me daydreaming

and you’ve got me

all i’m saying is—

i love you, as i always have

you, and you, and you

all of the people i have ever loved, i still do.

i wish i could be singing with G as we drive pointlessly around our city, i wish i could be sitting quietly next to D as we marvel at the thousands of trees in the distance, i wish i could be making another long breakfast for another slow morning with J. it has started to feel

heavy, in a way

that everything reminds me of someone else

the jarring lapse of time

of lives that converge then diverge, drastically

so that i could shout as loud as the universe

but it would still never reach them.

i meet someone and our connection feels distinctly familiar,

but it wasn’t our time, maybe it never was

but meeting him, meeting them, meeting you, meeting everyone i have ever met

my heart grows then disintegrates then melts then regrows then falls silent again

it is just so quiet again

i look for my friends, i look for the blanket of my soul, i look for the love that i never question, the love that confidently rolls on and on, unfalteringly, unceasingly

i stay within that. i circle around it like a cat, i curl up within it.

i know if i do, i’ll never need another thing.

i—

how do i begin?

how am i back to the beginning again?

i circle back around into my little heart.

i lock the door and curl up in bed.

i think about how it would feel, your arms around mine.

my hands searching for yours, once you said

that you loved how i reach for you, even half asleep

but then we started sleeping facing away from each other

and was that the end? or was it the unwashed dishes,

or was it the jokes that had to have been true,

or was it the unresponsiveness,

i knew i could have you forever but you wouldn’t have changed,

and i would’ve stayed horizontal on your couch,

legs hanging over the edge, waiting for your game to end.

waiting for your laundry to be done.

waiting for you to love me, even though i don’t think you knew how.

i’ll never know, my eyes blinking up to the full moon

wondering where you are, wondering if you’re thinking

of the end or of the beginning

how we kissed and i was still unsure—

at least at the end i was certain.

i feel i am watching my own life through a curtain

peeling it back feels hard so im simply

breathing through the gauze

time passes slowly and fast

the sun breaking through the clouds all at once.

rain dripping down from metal and wood roofing,

an open faucet, the rush of the wind.

i feel folded over and when it lifts i can see it

the soaring, brilliant blue of the sky

and then it settles back down and i am

heavy again, heavy with the fear and the worry and the distance, the disconnect saying leave

the disconnect saying i need

the disconnect saying more

watermarked with slamming doors and needing to be alone

emblazoned, stamped and crusted over

on the inside of my thigh, dozens of dirty handprints

on his duvet i curl up like a fist,

pretending to be asleep.

how do i explain that i am waiting for the shoe to drop?

how do i explain that i am deathly afraid of the day

that i wake up and i am too old

and the fear of losing time will be unequivocally, real

every weekend, empty hours, thinning light of day

if this is a game i feel as if i am losing

my eyes feel like they’ve sunken to the back of my skull.

Do You Want Me Here, i ask again,

looking for an answer but i can’t read the corner of his eye

every alarm in my body telling me to peel away,

disengage,

disregard,

so that you don’t get sick of me

because i am just so sick of myself

then, when, before, now

every day is hard and i can’t feel my feet when i get out of bed.

today i write—

if i can’t keep you, then who am i?

they look at me, knowingly, knowing.

“he wasn’t your forever,” they say, as i start to cry again.

i nod because i know, i cry because it still hurts.

that seems so long ago now, now they are moving away, and i have someone new who holds me in a way that feels like he is touching my entire being. and i see his name again, tonight, his face built up by all these little pixels on my phone. my heart startles for a moment, i take another gulp of wine. and then i press unfollow because there really is nothing left, there, nothing i would ever want again.

and that is okay, too.

i fold into his chest like a book shutting closed. he murmurs that it will be okay, pushes the hair back from my wet cheeks, stays soft and warm as i shudder and heave and, quite frankly, fall apart. something about the tone of his voice, the soft questions he asks to guide me back to my feelings, and the gentle, confident care he holds out to me, i see so plainly the love and the trust and the belief in my worth. in the throes of my own mind, where i have been tossed back and forth on an angry sea of self-hatred and doubt of everyone around me, he gives me this gift and i feel seen, and assured, and loved, despite what feels like a mountain of all of my flaws. and it feels like relief. it feels like i can be a person again, one who exists in a world that is my own again.

they probably aren’t this in pain as you are, he says gently, and i smile as tears pool in the corners of my eyes. don’t you see how much pain you’re in?

i sigh, tired, tired of it all—the crying, the worry, but most of all, the exhausting weight of carrying all of this deep-seated hatred towards myself. i just want to let it go.

later, we are falling asleep in the afternoon sun and i catch him watching me, eyelashes mostly lowered, as if making sure i fall asleep first. watching my face relax from furrowed brows to a quiet kind of peace. he puts his hand on my cheek because once i told him it makes me feel very close to him. so now whenever i feel like i am lost, or far, or both, his hand brings me back to where i need to be.

he looks at me and i know he believes i am good.

and so i think i can let it go.

do you ever feel far?

i’m floating, connected to myself only by what feels like

sheer will

or maybe the thinnest of strings

i think about him a lot, the one who left

how there was nothing i could see inside his eyes

how he was closing his, to get away from me

how quickly he got away from me

did he cry, on his drive home?

or was that it, as i watched his car pull away

searing it into my brain, of all the times i saw it

that that would be the very last time

so what do i do now? i putter through the roads

i’ve paved myself, as i always have

but now i am so scared, my hands shaking

my heart shattered across the floor

everyone around me disappearing before i even

get a chance to say goodbye

or tell them i am sorry, or

make it all good again

my chest my stomach my head hurting so loudly

that i can hardly hear the things i’ve taught myself to hear

how is it that i am falling apart even harder now?

how is it that i can hardly even tell?

i notice the sparkles on the inside of her eyelids,

i notice the moon looks like a black and white cookie,

i notice i am not listening to the story i am being told,

i notice i cannot hold eye contact,

i just want to be okay, i just want to be told i am okay

but i’m here instead wondering

how long it takes to unwind the voices in my head

it’s my biggest fear

that it was true all along

without me even knowing

even when i try,

all of the time.

the stifling, the perfectionism,

shut eyes tight shirts nothing to say

and i’m tight-lipped smiling back

before i even realize i do not agree.

i am only free when i am gone.

this is the longest time i have gone

without going.

so i’m gorging on fear

so im just running circles behind my eyelids

thinking of everything i could have done wrong

everything i could have fucked up, surely

so that it becomes true

that i have been terrible all this time

just as she said

as each person leaves me

it is as she said

a prophecy that she birthed into existence

how do i be good enough for everyone?

how do i be good enough at all?

i’m convincing myself that you’re going to leave

i’m a walking self fulfilling prophecy, i’m

feeling the bile of fear rise and fall, im

trying so hard to protect you from me,

and yet,

you say that you want to see.

of course it means so much to me, as i swallow my words

the beginnings of consonants tapering off,

air becomes a boomerang and it nails me straight in the heart.

a friend told me once i had to love myself before anything else,

but i want you to love me so i can love myself,

a terrible place to be.

so, what do i do? i tell you that i am afraid.

you walk me through the night.

you are soft and you are there.

i’ll dance with the demons then unspool early haze

with my nose kissing in between your shoulder blades

waiting, breath bated, for you to turn

to bring me into the softness of your chest

so that i can bring you into mine.

so reel me in, cursed and flaccid cod

you live within the days and i’m playing catchup

is it that you care less but i care too much?

time is a constant so you stay and i run,

i never really fell back in love with myself,

i see the arc back into my own arms,

and i’ve got horrible aim but i think you’ve got steady hands,

and i’m squinting but i think you’re looking out for me,

i wish i could tell my friend that i’m making it, i am,

a boomerang that fits right into my heart.

if there was ever anything i could try to explain to you

the things that i covet, the things that i crave

it begins with me stretching out on a rug, playing dead

looking into your eyes trying to find some kind of meaning

looking into the sky trying to find some kind of meaning

i think i’m constantly disappointed by myself

thinking about what love should be

so i watch, and i yearn, and i desire

and i wonder if anything in my hands is anything i’d ever want

but i think about you and it feels different this time

not in any ridiculous kind of way, maybe something like

a honeyed kind of warmth

i think im trying to find a lack in you that must explain the lack in me

i think i’m trying to ruin everything that i seek

I’ve been waking up

Feeling like I’m nothing

Like I’m stretched thin, holes gaping in between my limbs,

My skin transparent when I hold it to the light

I feel it when I’m walking behind my friends who are so in love

And they’re holding each other in the red of a traffic light

I feel it when people are talking about their stories

And I’m quiet, chopsticks hovering

My eyeballs sinking to the bottom of my throat

It’s all a story, and I don’t quite know what I need 

The skies are gray and I feel like I am alone 

I know it’s all a story, but to be loved

To be understood

I see him staying, but I find myself wondering what it is he is staying for

Because it couldn’t possibly be me, my heart says

It’s because he just wants something easy, my heart says

So I can’t be hard, my heart says

I can only be easy, 

Because otherwise he will go where they all go

Back into the whispery currents of my head

Where I keep all the people I have ever loved

Who exist, who do not exist, who exist, who do not exist

I am proud of me, of who I am, of what I’ve become 

But I wake up feeling like I am nothing 

And it’s a feeling that will shake, but oh god, does it make me so sad

To know she exists inside of me

A girl who thinks she does not even deserve to be alive 

In a space that people covet and praise 

In a role that I feel I have to downgrade to seem relatable

My god, who is she?

My god, who am I?

I wake up in a cold sweat and I am all alone

My god, my god, my god

everyone is something to someone

i am writing letters and the sun has dropped down

i haven’t been sleeping much at all and i

seem to be looking for you where you are not

looking for me.

the dust rises, settles,

i feel like i’m moving with the wind, but you’ve already

blown past

how do i sit still?

as you are sitting still, already.

you are doing all the right things, aren’t you?

i’m sitting here drawing you,

and even then, you aren’t quite looking at me.

sometimes i feel like i could just lift off the ground

where no one can find me

it feels so much easier, to be

absolutely nobody to everybody

so i could be someone to you

but once you’re someone to me, oh,

i’d rather take off, dizzy in the distance

before you do, before you do, before you do

i wasn’t looking, i suppose,

it was dark

and i was tired, my eyes glazing over

looking at the street and not, at the same time

a pedestrian, a cyclist, a car appearing where they were not

at the same time

it comes out of nowhere and then i feel myself release

and a swelling ache at the bottom of my jaw

and the crunch of metal on metal

and the music’s stopped, now, the tune’s all gone

just the night

my body and tail light pulsing

birds flying overhead

a voice at the back of my head, kissing the base of my neck

asking,

is it hard to rest?

you listen to me very tenderly, you hold me very gently, you watch me as my eyes glaze over and also when you make them roll back. i am unsure of how fast or how slow to go, a river seems to be taking us along and i want to enjoy the ride but i also am so afraid of being the one to drown us both

you tell me in the car that you feel very lucky, that you almost cant believe it, sometimes you feel like an imposter, i feel it when your eyes fall on me then fall away, i feel it when you put your hand on the small of my back in a crowded room, i feel it when you grab my hand as if it’s the last time.

i feel special with you. you feel special to me. you make me feel like i am full of a million shiny things and i hope i make you feel the same.