“Do you know how many artists died with a white lighter on them?”

There’s weight buried here. And now every time my thumb drags across a metal wheel, begging to ignite a flame, I dig it back up. I think of your mouth. Toxic-drip of alcohol fumes. Of the way your fingers kept tugging at my waist. The white plastic, an SOS in the thicket of the night. How you thought you’d save me. The way you were just slightly too disoriented to grab the bad omen from my hand. I feel the way your thumb sat at the crook of my thigh. And how when I hid my hand behind my back your other arm slipped around me to grasp on air. Too short to steal the lighter from my clenched fist. How the second your finger tips closed on the palm of your own hand the empty air between us felt more like water clinging to my throat. Something denser than the smoky way you had been laying heavy in my chest all night. Your hand stealing at empty space. And your eyes stealing at my face. Catching at the mouth. Becoming lost as they crawled their way up to my eyes. My closed fist, a missed opportunity, sending yours to burrow into the small of my back. Kneading its way up my spine. Pressing me into something close to the shape that I was meant to be. And I remember thinking that this was it. Pressure-shift, inevitable. But then you pulled me too close. And in my surprise you tore the lighter from me. Tossed it out the window. One fluid moment. Your albatross, my beacon of hope. My mouth was disappointment-dripping. And you misread that ache. Your face pinched. The back of your hand brushing away any traces of me-disheveled. You slipped me off your lap and stumbled out of the car into the street-lamp glow. And that lighter didn’t steal my life like you thought it might. But it stole your mouth on mine. So when you held it out to me, I threw it back out into the night, thanklessly. I held my tongue between my teeth to keep from screaming. But the cheap plastic didn’t care. Your skin kept drifting farther from mine. But the cheap plastic didn’t care. Maybe when they find me wasted, rotting, that lighter will be there after all. Cheap, white plastic. Plastic-you and flameless-me. Without a care.

All I ever wanted,

Was your approval.

All I ever wanted,

Was to belong.

All I ever wanted,

Was for you to like me.

All I ever wanted,

Was to fit in.

All I ever wanted,

Was your friendship.

In the end though,

Your rejection of me broke my heart.

We used to be happy.

The lets walk around and just see what happens happy.

The I decided to call you for fun happy.

The you make me smile unconsciously happy.

The I’m in love happy.

And then something happened. If you asked me, I couldn’t exactly tell you what it was. Maybe it was me, or him, or just us together, but we never quite felt the same.

We broke the meaning of together. We didn’t quite breakup and there was nothing official originally, but together no longer had a meaning.

We could be in the same room but not speak to each other. Act as if the other person was invisible.

We could be walking in the hall a step away from each other but neither was willing to speed up nor slow down. We acted like strangers when I knew he only took his coffee black and loved the fifth Harry Potter book. And he knew I liked sunrises more than sunsets and couldn’t stand groups of people who take up all the sidewalk.

It was like we were playing an elaborate game of chess where we didn’t want to lose quite yet, but no one was willing to openly pursue victory. No one was willing to show that type of commitment. He didn’t want to lose his queen, and I wasn’t going to give up my king.

I’m not sure what changed the game. But something invisible and indescribable happened. Something that shifted “us”. We were still in the same position that we had been in and we weren’t separated, we just weren’t “us” or “together”. It was more “you and “me” or “him” and “I”.

That’s why, I can’t say we are happy.

“We” isn’t meaningful anymore.

I can maybe say “him” and “I” are happy, but that’s almost worse.

That’s why I have to say that we were.

We used to be happy.

I lived in a bubble.

and that bubble was popped

by the shards of glass

sticking like teeth out of concrete

to keep the gangs out.

by the ring of tin

as the children who lived within

played on the dirt floors.

By starved faces and emaciated bodies

hidden by dirt and smiles.

by the silver painted faces

younger than me

working by the light

of the traffic.

By the girls

who hands were dirty and callused

instead of clean and soft like my own

because as I worked math problems,

they worked tortilla dough to survive.

I could see

their pain,

but I didn’t do anything to help.

was I better off in that illusive bubble?

It snapped into two.

Right in front of you.

You didn’t care.

You didn’t hear.

It was silenced..

By the silence

Of your

Endless arguments.

Yet when it weeps

Blood red tears.

Did you ever see

The overflowing fears?

Without a bandage

Without nursing

It is enduring

Endless cursing.

When you said,“No”,

It was a very big “NO”.

I just said a

..A very small,” Oh!” .

When you helped yourself

With my closed up mind..

When you told me every minute

“FIGHT AND FIGHT”.

Against the tides

And against the storm.

I’ve fought every time

And lost... And came home.

Your non- chalantness

At my frequent mood swings

Your unrealistic wishes

On my ‘real’ fragile wings.

Your words were a slap

To my actions all the time.

Piercing through my heart

Your words weren’t sublime.

Tearing the flesh,

And scalding my veins,

Burning my arteries,

Your word always reigns.

This is what breaks me..

And breaks my heart.

When you stare at me,

And shout,“START ”.

This is not ‘Me’

I am not ‘Me’

For I’m being someone

What you thought me to be.

This is what breaks me..

And breaks my heart..

When every night

YOU DEEPEN THE CUT.

Grandma, is that you?

I heard your voice.

Why have you gone?

We'll go to Saint Anthony

to find the keys and glasses

in the lost past.

I can't sleep in an empty house.

It is so dark here.

Loneliness drowns out thoughts.

I'm afraid of the noise of silence.

Tara doesn't want to go

squealing with grief.

I'll take the grid,

make the tea,

find the keys

only come back.

Without you I'm lost

in the clutter of life.

The past

The future

Memories

Dreams

These break

My heart

The gift?

The present

Just be

Just me

All else

Breaks

You tore it apart

You say you're sorry

You say you meant it

but you wish it didn't hurt me.

I think it's true

everything you said

but it still hurts.

it still makes me cry and sob

it still makes me clutch my chest

it still knocks the air out of me

even if it is true.

truth hurts even if we all know it's true.

you still broke my heart

and I wish you wouldn't say you're sorry

when i know you're just going to do it again.

You say you're sorry

You say you mean it

I say I'm sorry

I wish it meant what I want it to mean

I'm sorry I broke your heart

I know you're sorry you broke mine.

Broken pieces

Of my heart

Pulling light out

the dark

Where’s the spark

That we once had

Feels so bad to be this sad

I tried again ...

you know that thing

I said I wouldn’t do

Yea that’s right I came back to you

Now I’m broken

Into pieces

Shattered glass

can’t compare

Full of sadness

and despair

You don’t care

You’re unaware

I wish this pain

was something we could share