You must taste good

Because you're bad for me

And I didn't swallow you down,

Put you in my mouth,

But I obsess over you

As if I did

And I wonder which is worse:

Wanting you

Or not having you, but

Thinking about you all the time

#poetry

#love

#sex

#candy

#passion

#flavor

#ididntwriteaboutaboutdeaththistime

Your altar there

Gray stone

Carved into shapes of saints

Holds your body

(What's left of you)

My legs here

Prop up my shaking form

Paper thin and a fountain

Of eyes

(What's left of me)

I know I should go on

As I know you do

But your last breath

Took mine too

#poetry

#death

#grief

#toosoon

#still

I'm curiously unstable

For such a pretty little thing

I'm deliciously insecure

And I have the key to unlock the door

On my own unhappiness

But I'm too terrified

To even look at

The key hole

#poetry

#wonderland

#lookingglass

Your soul has bolted me here for too long, my love

My grief has shrouded me in guilt and consumed me

Clouded me and my thoughts

Thickened and spread

Vapors swirling behind my eyes

Always watching

Always waiting

For the sign of Death and its black carriage and clammy hands to take me

But that all-seeing, blind bastard won't,

Won't ever take me

Because I beg to go first

I've forged an escape route

And Death either whispers or cries, "No fair!"

Leaves me to my ravages

Then I sullenly

Wait

#poetry

#death

#grief

#imstillhere

#pleasefindme

I wear red lipstick and it looks swell on me

Sometimes I kiss the mirror and go

And sometimes I wait until at least fifteen friends tell me I'm beautiful

From the other side of the screen

I like it better when I wake up with eyeliner on from last night

And my lips are tinted like I've eaten a cherry Tootsie Pop

Not overdone, but more vibrant than a regular person waking up on a typical morning

Reach over, read one Dickinson poem

Then take a white shirt off of a hanger

Arms first and then my head poking out like a turtle

And don't you DARE get leftover makeup on this shirt

Because it'll show like a billboard

My New Years Resolution dictates I should wear a skirt and pumps to look classy or that I've tried

But I haven't, so jeans it is

And sneakers with an inch lift carefully sewn in

Because I'm short and otherwise I can't reach the Pepsi at 7-Eleven.

On any given last night I was at a concert and fell asleep checking my online profiles

Nothing happens and I always go home alone

Dolled up and my face killing all the spoken-for bags of meat with foot-stomping partners

Today though, I was pumping gas and a crooked old man twisted with age told me I looked beautiful and I should keep my chin up because things would get better.

I wondered how he knew

That was the day I started noticing the sky and buying books in bookstores with broken spines

I don't look at my feet as much

And I write twice as often

I want more

Give me more

Just a little bit

Please

The painting of God and Adam that you really liked

Showed them reaching toward one another but still

Apart

I hate that painting and I told you that

It looks like God let go of someone he

Loved

And to me it didn't look like he

Was trying to get him

Back

God looks mean and has a lot of friends who don't pay attention

Adam has helplessness in his

Eyes

I stare at that painting for hours, identifying with it

Adam and I, we're both reaching for someone who is already

Gone

They didn't read Scripture at your funeral

They said it wasn't appropriate because of how things

Ended

And I wanted God there because

You went to church even though I did not

Always

You said God forgives and includes, always

Your church said some exclusions apply, like

You

I only know what I believe, and I believe that

God was in your smile, not in church, like they

Swore

I tried going a few Sundays

Look and ye shall always find him there! they

Sang

But I never found him there. Just judgement.

I found him when I was with

You

And I think that

What we had was a

Masterpiece

Which is something that God

Wants all of us to

Have

You are not here

You are gone

Still

You are not coming back

And I won't accept that yet

Can't

You took the better part of me with you

When you left

Me

And now that I'm all alone

There's no escaping

None

I pretend that I'm still here-

That I can breathe, dance, talk

Think

But I can't, not really, so I

Replace all of my thoughts with something

Numb

Until I'm only running on adrenaline and instinct

Feelings, conflicts, buried so deep that I'm a

Shell

Reason and drive have left me in

The maze that is grief, I'm

Lost

I can't go back the way I came

So I sluggishly put one foot in front of the other

Forward

The pain of losing you, you my greatest love

This is what I'll do, I'll forget to

Feel

Fairy tales are beginning to anger me

They always conclude with "Happily Ever After"

As if it's a guarantee

A sealed deal

Certified with a wax stamp

And a tight and binding promise

But that doesn't happen

After

That first kiss fades

And he walks away

To his door or work or elsewhere

Marbles of thick doubt

Pit themselves in your stomach

Anchor there

And clog your guts

So you're heavy and stuck

In nightmares

When that's not what it

Should be about

At all

Anyway

Fairy tales are really starting to piss me off

They teach you that love survives death

Prevents it

Surpasses it

And brings a severed soul back to you,

Back to life

Full of juice and promise and light and spirit

When no one survives death

It's such a happy lie

That I believed it for years

Since it was told to me when I was very small

And couldn't think for myself

Or didn't have a choice

No one comes back

Ever

But they don't bother to tell you

That the body you once had pressed against you

Steamy and vibrant

Is cold as marble-

A stone that sinks

To the bottom of an empty pond

I've been writing with an empty quill for too long

All of my blank pages filled with sentences

Little valleys indicate the ghost of words once written

But never brought to life

I need to plunge my pen into the inkwell

And purge the feelings that brim inside of me

To a place that will remember

What I so desperately want to forget