the conclusive history of the biggest mistake i ever loved.

1.
badly lit cvs stores
have always made my dreams
come true.

sometimes they are nightmares,
but i'll take that chance.

4.
his car breaks down at the bottom of the hill
and we have to push it up every time
but i can't help but laugh and laugh
even when it starts to roll back down.

7.
i love it when he grins;
his eyes look less like ice
and more like the foam on the ocean waves,
crashing into the shore.

15.
tonight he took me to a field
right off the highway
and we climbed the fence
and ran into the darkness
and he told me that right here,
right now,
was where he wanted to be forever.

i felt like i was floating.

21.
we went to the beach
and walked fully-clothed into the ocean,
even though it still felt like icy needles
poking into my skin.

my jeans were heavy, saturated
but i still raced him back.

i lost and he danced on the shore.

26.
at first,
i was scared,
but the more and more
we play hollywood,
the more i like it.

i am afraid
that someday i will end up
in jail.

33.
tonight he called me his girl.

when i got home,
i danced in my room
like a lunatic.

my mom yelled at me to make less noise
and i laughed for twenty minutes straight.

40.
he calls me his mermaid princess
because i like to sit on the rock
just a few yards into the surf
and stay there,
surrounded by a wall of water
that nobody can penetrate.

43.
tonight he was in a bad mood,
one i've never seen before.

i hope it never happens again.

49.
he yelled at me last night
and i can't remember what else happened,
but i hurt all over
and there were roses hidden behind the flowerpot
on my doorstep.

54.
tonight he sang funk music
for miles down the highway
and it seemed like everything was okay.

then he looked at me and
there was something inhuman
in his eyes.

the speedometer hit 120
and i wondered if i would die.

62.
this summer is smoky,
filled with beachside bonfires.

my lungs are black
like the clothes i've started wearing
when i need to blend into the night.

74.
sometimes i regret
that there are so many chapters to this story
because i can't remember all of them
and that scares me.

79.
i do not enjoy
the sound of beer bottles crunching
beneath my feet
because it means that he threw one
and missed
but i am still walking back.

86.
when it rains,
some of the color comes out of his hair
and streams down his face,
staining his skin.

sometimes my clothes are stained the next morning
and i don't know why,
but then he steals another box of hair dye
and i remember.

94.
this morning
i woke up on a bench alone.

all i can remember from last night
is the ground beneath my feet
and shadows that looked like
monsters.

i took a cab home
but i had no money to pay him with.

he flipped me off as he drove away
and i went inside and cried for hours.

103.
i have three vases
filled with red roses,
all at different stages of death.

they're all whispering i'm sorry
but does it still count
after they're black and withered?

109.
today they took away his little sisters
and threw his mom in rehab.

he came to me crying
and for the first time in weeks,
i can remember why i love him.

120.
things aren't so easy
anymore.

he doesn't talk much
and his eyes are cold,
even when he smiles.

he hasn't sung me a song
in a long time.

125.
tonight when he tossed pebbles at my window,
he threw too hard
and now there is a crack there.

i touched it
and now i have a shard of glass
stuck in my finger.

i hope my parents
do not notice.

129.
yesterday,
he drank a handle of vodka
and told me that love didn't exist
and that i was not there
anymore.

i tried to protest
but he pushed me across the room.

136.
i haven't seen him in a week
and yesterday afternoon,
i walked the ten miles to his house
but nobody was there.

his friends say he skipped town
a few days ago
and that he probably
will never be back.

part of me is relieved,
but the rest of me has spent
the last day crying.

i hope i am okay
someday.