A love story in three parts.

Falling
The falling was the easiest part. And, really, it was more like sinking. It was like walking into the ocean’s arms until all that existed was salt water and the ache of breathless lungs. But what an exquisite ache.

The beginning is always easiest. There are no quarrels, no silences stretching into the darkness, no empty words or broken promises. There are passionate kisses in the rain, frenetic love making. There are soft kisses too, evenings spent cuddled together. There are cups of hot cocoa or lemonade.

If you had asked her the moment she fell in love, it would be when he breathed her name against the paper of her skin. The way he said it like a promise.

If you had asked him the moment he fell in love, it would be when she walked out of the bathroom wearing his shirt from the night before. He knew he wanted to wake up next to her every morning for the rest of his life.

Swimming
The middling is richer than the beginning. It has more depth and is full of sweetness. It is a settling; a melding. It is a slow blending of two into one.

She loved making love during these times more than in the beginning. Those were hurried, sometimes awkward. These were slow and delicious, full of the mutual feelings and shared passion.

He loved talking during these times. They had passed the superfluous “getting to know you” chatter and could get to the meat of shared interests and philosophical topics. They sat, entwined, talking for hours about everything.

Swimming along, they resurface from the falling, riding waves as they come. They take their time, enjoying the feelings without the breathless ache and rushing need. Swimming, they sometimes dive deeper than they ever have, touching milestones to guide them back to surface.

Drowning
The end is defined in the moments they can’t take back. These moments are sometimes clearly etched into memory and sometimes forgettable.

The end came without fanfare. There was no straw to break the camel’s back; no warning bells. They simply let go of each other’s hands in the dark, took one last lungful of air and dove too deep to resurface.

She said it had started ending the day they ran out of things to say. The flow of conversation, their never-ending dialogue, became a trickle and then a drip, until it finally stopped altogether. 

He said it was the day they made love and the distance between their fingers seemed to grow shadows and their bodies took up space outside of each other. Separating like lips for a kiss, but never following through. They had blossomed and, just as quickly, they had wilted. No hard feelings, just the memory of oceans.

Step-Father.

You.

When I was small, I wanted you to be impressed by me.
I wanted you to love me, fear me, protect me, believe in me.
A myriad of things come to mind when I think about you.

Most of it is abuse.

Some of it is good.

When I was a teenager, I didn't want anything to do with you.
I had already figured out what the child hadn't.
You didn't love me the way a father loves his child.

Some of that was abuse.

Most of it was really bad.

As an adult,  you abandoned me. I was nineteen and running scared.
It took two years to admit what I had been running from.
It took damn near ten years to get to this poem.

Most of it is pointless by now.

Some of it is worthwhile because I feel the need.

I'm not going to say I've forgiven  you, because I probably never will.
It took almost ten years to realize that I don't have to forgive you.
That I can forget you without forgiving. It's not like you asked for it anyway.

Some of that could be called childish.

Most of it is for my own protection.

If it was just me, I could've forgotten you a long time ago.
But it isn't just me, is it? There are my other halves too.
Your daughter, my sister. My brother, your enemy.

Most of this is pointless. It's not like you'll read it. It's not like you'd care anyway.

Some of it hurts more than I'd willingly admit to you.

I wish it had been just me. That you weren't a constant reminder.
A lingering memory I can't shake, attached to gray matter I can't pick at.
I'll sit with the memories though, remember and then let you go.

Eating Disorder

One day you eat lemons, because the internet says
lemons help detox. And your thighs could use all the 
detoxing they can get.

The next day you eat cake because you think skinny
could never taste as wonderful as this slice of
ultra moist chocolate layered heaven.

You obsessively weigh yourself, counting down to the
ounce just how much your belly fat jiggles over your
jeans and how much that piece of cake cost you.

You eat nothing. You don't deserve it, you miserable
waste of human flesh and space. Even the air you breathe
is too calorie dense for you and you practice holding
your breath to make yourself look smaller.

Cake, lemons (no fear of scurvy here), air, measuring
tapes, work out videos, sweat and tears of frustration.
You just want to grab a little slice of happiness,
swallow the sun in bite sized pieces until you glow from
the inside out.

You drink nothing but water, you eat nothing but lemons,
wracking your body down by a pound. Need to run faster,
eat better, swallow the diet pills, measure your food
in eighths of a cup for one meal.

Then one day, the person you so obsessively abused,
forgets how to be and simply vanishes into your punished
body. There is nothing left of you, except you. And
you don't even love you.

Heart break

My heart beats slightly off-kilter now. It doesn't run anymore,
It jogs.
It jumps, pauses, sprints and then walks.

Up and down my staircase ribs, it stumbles, it slips.
It skips, it rattles, it creaks.

Remember when it did that the first time?
You and I had stayed up all night, talking, discovering.
You made me feel like the moon would never give way to the sun.
I thought you were a prince in disguise, fairy tale perfect.

I didn't know that a loving heart could trip into breaking.
I never expected it to feel like falling in love when we were falling out.

But looking at you,
thinking the things I do,
my heart pauses it's marathon, memorizing your face.

Tomorrow I'll wake up somewhere else, will you even miss me?

Anxiety

"Oh, hello," I say.
It seems you have come to pay
a visit and I am woefully
unprepared for your company.
My anxiety is like a frightened child,
crawling into my bed, inviting me to share
all of it's nightmares so that sleep seems
terribly far away.
It causes my mind to chuckle at
itself. I know this is silly and foolish,
there is no reason, but that is all the
reason I need to want to fight or fly.
My anxiety is sometimes ever present,
sometimes hardly here, sometimes
creeping along the southern walls of
whichever brain's hemisphere, I do not know.
It drops in, uninvited, at the
most random moments.
Whispering nonsense that makes
only sense to my fears.
It wrinkles the blankets,
races my heart up and down my ribs,
like a ladder to some heaven or hell,
knowing very well there is neither.
It wrings its hands against
imagined slights and old debts.
It trembles at phone calls and
knocks upon the door.
It forgets that we must eat,
forgets we must drink,
forgets all but the encompassing
fears.
My anxiety, it is a friend I do not
want to speak with anymore, but
somehow I can't seem to show it the
door.
Only, opening my arms, pretending
I am fine. I am satisfied with this
shell of a life, hugged by a butcher
with a skillful knife.
My anxiety, it kisses me to sleep,
rolls itself into my waking dreams,
shapeshifts into things I think I can't trust,
then back again.
My anxiety is a living, breathing, being.
A guest that refuses to leave.
A child that wants only to share its dreams.
And I am alone with it.

State of Rampant Regret & Superfluous Earthquaking Shivers

You unnerve me.
You make me question myself.
You make me feel like I'm on a roller coaster,
            careening into the Grand Canyon,
            about to fall off of the tracks.

I am over-analyzing your words;
actions, phrasing, tone.

Its not that I miss the 'us' that we were once,
its not that I miss your kiss,
its not that I want you back in my life.
            The hell am I doing?
            The fuck are you doing to me?

Now we are strangers.
And I over-think you.

I remember when you were all I dreamed about.
A vampire that I brought to stunning life,
a whisper in the shadows of my fucked up mind.
            I loved you, for some reason.
            Reasons I try not to remember, or can't remember.

La Douleur Exquise

I shouldn't let you break my heart.

Looking through old pictures, my heart always skips a beat.
It does a funny little flop in my chest,
like a fish out of water,
like a bird hitting a window,
like all those silly cliches we play with in school.

I shouldn't let myself feel this way about you.

What I tell my heart and what I feel are two different things.
It has always been this way,
I fall for you,
You let me fall,
I hit the ground with a sickening thud; bone crunch.

I shouldn't hold on to you, when its clear what you feel.

Have to laugh sometimes, or else I'd cry.
All I have are memories,
Long forgotten "I love you,"
Teenaged wishes,
A few glasses of gin and tonic in Seattle.

In the end, I'm a stupid girl for chasing dreams.

What a stupid heart, to keep longing for you like it does.
I should've let you go quietly,
drift into the memory landscape,
fade into distant dreaming,
instead you're lingering around the edges, a ghost without being dead.

I know what I should do, doesn't mean I can convince myself to do it.

Aren't you tired of me always falling for you?
Is there any way to break me of your habit?
If I keep breaking my heart on your skin,
If I keep drifting on your oceans,
If I keep dreaming of your lullaby heart beating?

Help me. Put me out of my misery.

Give me something to cut my teeth on.
Maybe if I taste your bittersweet, I'll let you go.
We both know I have no self-control.
I have no shame, except when I do.
I have no belief, except when I dream.
Fuck. Can't you remove yourself in a way that will heal?

1985-2015

I'm going through my Polaroid memories,
sorting through snapshots and old feelings.

I was 12 when I told your father I would marry you.
I always wondered if you'd ever notice me.

I thought about you so much last year;
thought about how I'd like to talk to you again,
bring up old times and start new friendships.

There are no second chances with the scythe.
I watch the reels of tape spinning,
this is such a final, bitter, end.

Isn't it funny? I told your father I would marry you,
and Wednesday I'll watch you return to the earth.

These memories I have are too few, too little,
to make up a proper farewell.

Lingering

You linger around the edges of my brain. I am forever chasing you down rabbit holes, around the sun and up mountains. Will you ever find me?

Would you want me to?

I won't cry.
I keep saying I'll stop.
Maybe I scare you.
Maybe I'm too much.

I blame myself.
Its always my fault...
when I am left.
How foolish to think you'd be different.

They all leave in the end.
Its inevitable.
And I'm always the dust,
settling into the cracks.

I'm different. I admit that.
Was my difference the final
nail?
I won't apologize for that.

I can't help that I love
too passionately. That I'm
crazy. That I long for stars
too far from the earth of my body.

Was it my love that sent
you running? Was it the Cheshire
Cat of my personality?
I can't apologize for who I am.

Would you want me to?

Concrete Shoes

Concrete shoes
sinking further,
falling to the bottom
of your ocean.

The weigh isn't all
      You...
Some of the concrete is
      Mine too...

But what am I to do,
drowning under you,
feet weighted down in
concrete shoes?

Reality

Am I real?

Or is it just the way your hands feel on my skin?
Is it the way our palms touch when you are looking into my eyes?
Or is it the way your lips whisper haiku against the paper of my breasts?

You leave me breathlessly questioning if I exist or if I am merely a figment of your imagination.

Can your mind paint the sky such a heavenly blue?
Can you bind me to the earth as reality?
Are you a God that you can breathe life into my empty lungs?

Am I real?

You say I am only as real as I believe I am.
If that is true than I am nothing more than your will.
I am of simple design, easy tastes and childish whims.

Will I bleed if you prick me?

There are days I don't believe in myself.
Almost mythical, not quite beautiful, a dream wishing to be born.
Will you give me birth?

I am Woman, Phenomenally.

Maybe I'm just a little girl in a big world full of monsters.
Maybe I can't stop even a fraction of them.

But in the end, I'm standing there brandishing my sword,
screaming the battle cry that is pounding in my blood.

I have big dreams; a big voice inside my head calling me
to something greater than all this.

The monsters may come. Let them. I may die,
but I'll die fighting. No one can say I didn't try my hardest.

Isn't that what courage is? Running towards the monster,
rather than away from it?

Maybe I'm a speck in the endless seas of humanity,
drifting in and out on a tide of relentless insanity.

A ragdoll, tossed into the fray of the screaming waves.
Another pair of breasts in the wriggling masses.

But I was born to be Joan of Arc; the heart of a lioness,
consort to scarecrow princes and ready for battle.

Let the Jabberwockys come, let them do their worst.
I am still standing, a giantess with my soul painfully alive.

There is more to me, a little girl in a big world,
than could ever be imagined by the seething oceans.

In the words of Maya Angelou, "Phenomenal woman, that's me."

Shoes

They are black.
Cloth with a sliver of sole, but full of soul.
They cover, but barely conceal, my toes in a gentle rounding.
The inside is leopard print to remind me that there is more to me than meets any eye and, no matter how down I am, seeing that print makes me smile.
They do not restrict me, rather they hold me and let me go with no hassle or tears.

Relationships.

At the beginning it was sex and candy,
whiling away all of our hours on Marcy's playground.
We dreamed in disco flavoured lemonades,
pouring all of ourselves into the world.

In the middle we were a year full of ninths,
building crescendos and falling notes.
The ticking clocks became symphonic, symbolic,
dipping down and screaming back up.

At the end the life we built in Eden had changed,
I painted pictures you couldn't see.
You said the angels had shifted their faces,
you'd forgotten the chorus to our melodies.

Seasons

Summer
Silver smells like Fish.
Slick, shiny, scales shimmering at the bottom of a plastic bucket.

Green smells like the Earth after it Rains.
Great, gray, giants encircling the sky like lovers entwined.

Autumn
Red tastes like Her skin.
Ripe, rich, every touch like satin through my fingers.

Orange sounds like crackling Fire.
Ocherous, over-arching, flames dancing with shadows.

Winter
Blue tastes like Snowflakes.
Basking, bundled, in the snowy sunlight.

Brown tastes like Hot Chocolate.
Brushing, burning, fingers across her face.

Spring
Pink sounds like Her giggles.
Prancing, pleasantly, from her plump lips and perfuming the air.

Yellow feels like Sunshine.
Yawning, young, daffodils stretching out their arms to the sun.

Anchored.

You kept me anchored.
But the time has come to let me fly.
Love me still, please, just know its time.
I can't stay here forever, waiting for the world to let my wings be tried.
You have to let me go.

The Hospital Room.

The scent of the hospital room clings to my skin like saran wrap to a plate.
Its not too cold or too warm, it is tepid and smells faintly of chloraseptic.
You are lying in the too big bed, your limbs purpled from the needles,
bruises stamped across your flesh like a child's sticker-book.

Your lids are half open, heavy from drugs you would never have taken,
if you were willing. All of you sags into the bed, hidden in folds of too
white blankets and a gown that does nothing to flatter your body.
You look wilted, like a flower in a too sunny window with no water.

Most of what you say comes out in mumbles and indistinguishable
gasps. You are shrinking, but expanding at the same moment. You
look like Death has come to visit you, but has not yet come to claim
you as his. Your eyes speak of fear that he will return.

And I am afraid too. Afraid of the languid look of lost strength in your eyes.
I am afraid of your bony hands, a pale pin-cushion for needles and IV's.
I hold on to you, because you are all the strength I have left inside me.
I hold on, because I am afraid to let you go when you are so calm.

The fight fades from your eyes too fast. The last bit of light fading before
the sun rises. And you are gone far from me before I even have so much
as a moment to say goodbye. Standing in an empty hospital room, your
clothes folded neatly on a too big bed. The smell still clings to me.

The Meaning of being the Fat Girl

Fat Girl means Easy.
Like cookies left on the counter.
Like chips with a Fourth of July hamburger.
Like "There are starving kids in Africa, clean your plate."

Fat Girl means Low Self Esteem.
Like lower than pond scum.
Like lower than the molten core of the Earth.
Like so low I've discovered new fossils.

Fat Girl means Voracious.
Like I'll gobble your dick up like a hot dog.
Like I'll do whatever kinky shit you want if you promise to love me.
Like please love me.

Fat Girl means Easy.
Like I'll never find it anywhere else so what does it matter if you care?
Like "You're gagging for it, aren't you whore?"
Like "Sex Equals Love."

Fat Girl means Food.
Like Hell Yeah, I know how to cook!
Like I'll have another serving of dessert, please.
Like I'll have what he's having and double it.

Fat Girl means Eating Disorders.
Like I haven't eaten in two days because I can't stand myself.
Like I have thrown up three times for one plate of food.
Like I am binge eating because I am starved.

Fat Girl means Disability.
Like I can't even leave my house because of the anxiety.
Like I can't keep the razor from my skin because I loathe this body.
Like every day feels like an affront to God because I've created a new definition of "imperfect."

Fat Girl means Shame.
Like "You should be ashamed to be seen in public like that."
Like "That's never going to fit you."
Like "You'd be so pretty if you lost weight."

Fat Girl means Choices.
Like I choose food as a weapon and a comfort.
Like "If I stay this way then I'll be safe from being raped."
Like "If I stay this way I'll never find someone to love me."

Fat Girl means Horror.
Like being raped because you are "Easy."
Like being humiliated every time you try to look pretty.
Like so much disgust aimed at me I can hardly breathe.

Fat Girl means Self-Loathing.
Like looking at your reflection and wishing you could just cut it all off.
Like looking at your reflection and wanting to slit your own throat.
Like telling yourself that you couldn't possibly be worth anything.

Fat Girl means Back-handed Compliments.
Like "If only you'd lose weight, you could be so gorgeous."
Like "How much weight have you lost?"
Like "I think this would look good on you, even though you are bigger."

Fat Girl means Easy.
Like I must be dying for the attention.
Like I must be too stupid to realize you'll never love me.
Like I must be easy because who would actually WANT me?

Fat Girl means Pity.
Like who wants to be the fat girl?
Like who could ever possibly want her?
Like "Wow, I feel sorry for her."

Fat Girl means Nothing Fits.
Like being told "We don't have that in your size."
Like being forced to wait in Victoria's Secret because the cashier thinks you're too fat for that thong you're purchasing.
Like everything looks like it was made for a woman thirty years older than me.

Fat Girl means Never Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin.
Like no compliments are ever sincere.
Like no matter how pretty you feel today, you're not.
Like you will never be pretty.

Love's Own Madness

If all be, but madness, let me stay where I am, painting the roses red and wishing on stars that never seem to come unhinged. Trusting in one's own madness is the fruit of strange dreams and I, alone, have to believe they are true.
If you but spare a breath for love, I'll gladly run the maze. I'll hap'ly drown, just bid me try. Say one word, tell me true or tell me false, I'll believe whatever you say. Do you love me? Or am I just imagining this poison is sweet?
I am hang'd on your every word, wriggling like a worm on a damn hook. Could you tell me, plainly? Or must I falter on, bewildered and bespeckled with questions? If madness is all that is left me, I shall dress in Juno's gowns and dance about Poseidon's floor.
By Jove, do you have no feelings in your breast for me? Swear on your sword, or swear by my heart that you do not love me and I shall let it all go. I shall burn all the words that have touched my tongue; clench my teeth 'til they forget they knew how to part. Please, I beg you, end the agony you are putting me through.
If all be, but madness, let me stay where I am. I'll gladly paint roses red and wish on stars that are never to fall.