Pieces of Me: Everything Reminds Me of You

There's a piece of me I left in your bed along with the dirty socks and bare skin.
A piece I exfoliated in the shower. The skin in the razor. Blood stains on your jeans. A piece chopped off along with my red hair.
(You liked my long hair.)
An innocence I left at the beach along with simple sandcastles and salty eyes.
A piece left in Key West along with my favorite pair of flip flops. (We could never sustain a relationship for long. We're too different. You like dry heat.)
You can find pieces of me in the purple sidewalk chalk.
Purple was my favorite color before black became so damn alluring. (You're so damn alluring.)
Sore arms and sunburnt shoulders.
Baby fat lost along the boulevard of broken dreams.

You write me letters. You tell me they're letters to a girl you love. You tell me you thought of me every day since last summer. You tell me you're happy that we lost it together. Only to tell me that you don't think of me as anything more than a friend. You tell me we should just be friends. So I don't get hurt. So I'm not sad you lead on other girls. So I'm not sad.

Well shit I'm already sad.

There's a piece of me I lost the first time we kissed in your grandma's basement. I tried to get it back yesterday, but sitting on the same couch, I realized I am not the same person I was two years ago.

There's a piece of me that broke yesterday. You keep breaking pieces of me until there's nothing left untouched. And I don't care if you're reading this. And I don't care if you feel guilty. You break me. You snap my bones as easily as toothpicks. As if you like hearing me curse you under my breath as proof of the pain. You're a goddamned sadist.

I've liked you since sophomore year. And I don't care if "like" is a stupid verb. While "like" is stupid, "love" is scary.

There's a piece of me that faded with my first hickey.
In the pen drawings my mom could never scrub off the backseat.
A piece that left along with my hearing as a side effect of the loud music we used to medicate our thoughts.
In the first time I stole my parents' car.

The years in between the first time I skipped lunch and the first time I ate it at school. Sophomore year, I ate it with you. I wanted to seem "normal." So I bought the sandwich but I never finished it.

In the first lie I ever told.
The time I took two stickers instead of one at the end of class. The accompanying guilt. Returned the second sticker to the teacher the next day.
The first time I heard the word "suicide."
The first time I contemplated suicide at twelve years old. (It was before I met you.)

There's a lost piece when I left in the middle of third period today because I couldn't take the noise any longer. (And you sucked at comforting me and that's a fact.)

A piece with the first boy that called me fat in third grade.
My first stretch mark. My first stretch mark in weight restoration.
The first boy that called me beautiful and meant it.

(When's the last time you called me pretty instead of other girls ugly? When's the last time you called me attractive while you complimented all these other girls instead?)

There's a piece that broke when you cheated on me with my old best friend.
(I was never good at these on-again, off-again relationships. I just crave some fucking consistency.)

The first time I was diagnosed with depression.
The first time I was medicated.
The first time I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
My first migraine.
The first time I purged. My friend taught me.
My first
My first
My first.

Are there any pieces of me left?

This isn't a love story. Not really.

This is a fucking rant.

Him.

And you're the one who blew up the balloons in one breath just to show me how long you could hold your breath, even though it was your heart I was after, you innocent little fool. I knew you were cheating on me with oxygen and you planned to breathe her until the day I died, but I hoped you would forget her and breathe me instead. And so with your balloon, you tied the knot. With effort, you tied that balloon to a string and that string to a chair, and you told me your breath could carry me over the oceans.

And looking back, you shouldn't have left me over the ocean all alone. If I had it my way, you would have dreamt me up a pair of wings to slip from my broken mind, but I would have flown too close to the sun in my haste to taste the salt on my lips and try an entree of freedom at the nearest cafe. I was too curious and too nonsensical. I always wondered if clouds danced when we were too busy practicing arithmetic and cursive. You should have kissed me with your lips that made me feel closer to flying than I feel waiting in security in the airport. And your lips were always too soft. And your hands always held me too loosely. As if handed a five dollar bill, your grip would have given way in search of something more solid.

Either way I would have fallen. Not in spite of you but because of you.

There's lots missing in this world. The memory of God pushing us into the pool to teach us how to swim. A good recipe for apple pie. The sound of a jar breaking as the waves break. But neither "sink" or "swim" are five letter words and I'm more scared of evens than I am of odds. I never was a mathematician but I think I'm better suited to be a Playgirl, who has to know 69 and 70 but never has to count them.

You're my little saltwater beauty but you're too sound to play with the waves
and the wind picks you up like you're a plastic bag.
You compete with the ocean because she wants you to sway with the seaweed
and you sink like a rock.
But the wind takes you because you breathe to her your secrets.
But even she recognizes that's not a halo and you don't have wings.

I never loved you because you were perfect.

You told me you like limes but you wont eat them without sugar. You told me you like girls but I never wanted to test if you would fuck them without makeup. You tell me you like your life plain and simple, but you don't even use plain cream cheese on your blueberry bagel. You didn't like your girls plain. And I was scared I was too plain and at the same time too complicated. You tell me you want to settle down in Norway and live overseas. Why can't you be content with catching fish one day at a time? Why couldn't you be content with our lost summer? With our space camp? Mornings in Alpine, nights in Montana. When the world was no bigger than your room and forever lasted only as long as curfew. Your car has more paint than rust and I forgave you for that because you've been on more roadtrips than flights.

You pushed and pushed and pushed me away and I kept giving and giving until there was nothing left to give.

I'm a lobster in boiling water and they're slowly turning up the heat but I'm too busy admiring the view from your hot tub. I'm aware my insides are cooking. I just want one last look at the trees.

He didn't want me but he didn't want me to forget him.

I'm falling all over again and he's reopening the cuts that were just beginning to heal over so nicely. The kind of scars you trace over gently with your fingertips when you're not aware of it.

But when your knife cuts, it's a beautiful, dizzying pain. Like getting sick from riding a roller coaster. I feel the cold metal pressing against my wrist. It's the anticipation of the pain I like.

You knew you couldn't contain me on a lawn chair floating over the ocean. You knew I was reckless and senseless and I was going to jump. You know I like the sensation of falling, but I don't like being dropped. The emptiness where your arms once were. Sleepless nights and memories rehashed, cycling through my head like the same repetitive load of laundry. I know you're going to drop me, but the highs are worth it. And I'm so addicted to your highs.

Just kiss me already.

Dead Flowers

I like dead flowers. I have one vase in my room from the hospital and two from my birthday and one from my grandma and another from a lady in my ward, along with a pile of letters that only mean something when I read them aloud.

The little prince told me there was nothing sad about empty shells, about lonely husks. He was wrong, but I can't find Asteroid B-612 to tell him so.

There's something sad about

• imaginary friends that moved to Idaho.
• old yearbooks.
• deleting phone numbers of people you no longer talk to.
• the music on iTunes you listened to in gradeschool.
• loose change.
• the packed up toys in my basement.
• reflecting.

The flowers probably find it offensive. I don't bury them and I certainly don't mark their graves. I don't even throw them away so they can be reunited with their sisters at the landfill and I do not leave them in peace. I stare at their corpses. Are they screaming at me to respect the dead? Or are they flattered I find them enchanting, even when their looks have faded? No matter how hard I strain my ears, the silence is too loud and I can't hear their voices. It's a little morbid and a little poetic and something my parents don't understand.

Throw away the deflated balloons.

Throw away the candy wrappers. 

The old post-it notes.

The reminders.

The price tags. 

The receipts. 

The regrets.

Let it go. You're getting nothing out of reciting the same poem to yourself over and over again if you aren't hearing the words. 

But I'm a record that's scratched and repeats the same three notes over and over again.

I'm a pet mouse, stuck in its cage, spinning in its wheel at night trying to find its way to Paris.

I'm trying to write a novel out of blog posts.

I'm trying to bury my heart in the clouds and my brain beneath a peach tree so I can better hear my bones.

I'm trying to boil some water in a tea pot that no longer sings.

I'm trying to kiss some toads in the process of finding my prince and I'm scared of contracting herpes from all these warts.

I tell my teachers I can't get to school on time because of the nightmares and I told Beckstrand that I don't want to come to class because we're talking about abuse.

And here we go again. "I, I, I..."

And my friend says, "You're so brave..."

But I'm still running on this treadmill headed nowhere and I'm using Monopoly money to buy my gas.

And the man at the register gave me one sad look and took it.

And I don't know what reality is anymore or if Tuesday is the 4th or 16th because I'm reliving my birthday this morning. "Congratulations. You can legally make porn."

And I'm frying something plastic because taste doesn't mean a thing to me anymore.

And I prayed to God for the first time in months because I was scared of driving home by myself and I realize again how selfish selfish selfish I am.

Because I picked the flowers knowing they would die on my desk. And I did it anyway.

Disclaimer: I did not write this poem.

(I didn't feel like I could find a picture to top this.)

The Madness Vase

Andrea Gibson

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables,
said if I could get down thirteen turnips each day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness lives.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight,
said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty and she said, “Stop worrying, darling,
you will find a good man soon.”

The first psycho-therapist said I should spend three hours a day
sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed and my ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth, 
said focus on the out breath,
said everyone finds happiness
if they can care more about what they can give
than what they get.

The pharmacist said Klonopin, Lamictal, Lithium, Xanax.

The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget
what the trauma said.

The trauma said, “Don’t write this poem.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.”

But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River
convinced he was entirely alone.”

My bones said, “Write the poems.”

Reasons for jealousy

• The title.
• The images the words paint in your head.
• The format.
• Straightforwardness. Honesty. Genuineness.
• The concept of bones talking.
• The relatability factor (and yes I made up that term)  #breakthrough
• It talks about real issues.
• It's both depressing and inspiring.
• The line about how gay she felt sitting in a closet. Lol.
• It talks about dark issues without making you feel hopeless.
• The first paragraph. 
• The last line here (it's not really the end of the poem).

Journal Entry Swag

150 calories per page.

It started with a story: "You can say many things without using a word."

Jump

It's time to take your medicine.

#don'tdodrugs

Pictures on their Skin

A hat can be a good dancing partner. It never gets tired and it never trips.

Who decided on the definition of nature?

When I hear about the hamsters that eat their babies, and then my mom threatens to kick me out... It all makes sense. And black widows eat their partners after sex... How many girls feed their exes to the rumors? Who says the flowers aren't talking or we're not listening?

Who decided that nature was something lonely in the mountains and not the amount of cuss words it took until you were satisfied? Who decided that nature was defined by interactions between all wild animals... except the way you scream at your mom and she screams back? Who decided that nature was hitting rocks together to make fire instead of using a lighter and gasoline? Why can't we go back to the cavemen days when nature called hairy legs sexy regardless of the gender?

Is it human nature to remember or human nature to forget?

To bite fingernails when anxiety creeps in? Singing along to the radio? Getting high? Popping knuckles? Wishing on stars? Candles? Clocks? Praying to God?

I think about falling in love like God's limiting your oxygen intake bit by bit and then you find an oxygen mask. Like you're drowning so slowly you weren't even aware of it until he pulled you out of the water, and love was your lifesaver. You held onto love as it pulled you to shore, but love let go and allowed you to flail in the water just long enough to teach you to swim on your own. But you crave love because your legs and arms are so damn tired of treading water. Love is a strange thing.

And humans loved each other even if she liked her coffee too sweet and the lamplight was too dim when they were counting their imperfections.

I hear about how the moon resents the American flag sticking out of her skin.

The birds and bees resent being linked together and whoever the idiot was that linked the two of them to sex. It's not symbolic.

And the cat resents whoever stole her pajamas.

Here's to the rain that never forms the shape of cats and dogs, but tries her little heart out. Here's to the crickets that try to break the silence, but only serve to enhance the awkwardness. Here's to the little birds who are forever trying to tell us something. Here's to the cats still in their bags.

I hear about how humans tend to fall in love. And humans tend to misinterpret lust as love. Because hair can be nice if it's on a chest or a face but not if that chest or face happens to belong to a girl. And goats have rectangular pupils if you look close enough.

And we're redefining nature. Because nature is an ingrown toenail. Indigestion. Popping pills. Sidewalk chalk. Rollie pollie ollies and their scientific name. Solubility. Americans who have tried more diets than sex partners. Stubbing your toe. First kisses. The exercise bike in your extra room upstairs. Counting calories and slowing your heart rate. And I said we're redefining nature. Because we might have been looking close before, but now we're looking closer. Nature is looking close enough.

The Pond

No white trash please.
And no black trash either.

Thank you God for the whites. For his pearly whites. For the hollow white of disappointment. For the expectant white. For the white of a letter sealed with spit and a postage stamp.

The bathroom stalls here are all too familiar. Tips for the future: Arrange a hookup in the men's bathroom instead of the women's. I have a strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy. And no, it isn't because I disagree with Obama or I agree with Clinton or I wouldn't wrestle a boy. It's because I'm standing on a tightrope and two words will push me off, and I'm afraid of what side I'll land on.

There's a dead fish floating on the surface of the pond. But this isn't an open casket viewing. Onlookers slow the rhythm of their footsteps, but not one stops. Throw food at me, but not coins, cuz I could preach and preach, but I couldn't move one of them to place flowers on the grave.