the parts of my heart

i. you made me rubber

mostly I try not to remind myself that you still live in my room. your DNA strands reside on my bookshelf, between my sheets, in my clothes. when I can’t breathe, I bury my face in sunshine searching for your scent; trying to revive your memory in my veins and shake away anything unpleasant with the promises that I know (knew) were always lies. you told me once that you saw light when you looked at my fissured frame, that my eyes had gold in them and shined just like heaven when morning hit them just right, that I smelled like beauty and felt like silk and I wonder if you ever realized that I was just as fragile.

if this were a perfect world, you and I would fit together, but you told me I was from a jigsaw and you were from a 24-piece and, even though we are birds with same colored feathers, we are different and can’t flock together. still, you keep me from something untimely, keep me exhaling and force oxygen back into my aperture lungs, compel me to fight even if it has to be you;

“you’re going to be ok. you know why?”

“why?”

“because you’re strong and you’re worth it.”






ii. you chose this

it’s all about denial I suppose. my heart is in little particles similar to dust and I’m not sure if I can let you close enough to respire them in, fearing that it’s not healthy for you; I’m not healthy for you. when I fall asleep, I look at the dark wall and wonder why it’s the opposite for me; why they don’t expand, but get closer and constrict my lungs until blackness takes me, shelters me beneath a ceiling fan halo. I try not to think about anything good. I try not to look at the box in the corner that I refuse to move to the closet because it would mean you’re not ever coming back. hope for me has always been a fickle thing.

the sensation of implosion likes to ricochet between my ribs and thump against my sternum and I only wonder why I haven’t broken completely from the riot.  I’m listening to songs that make me feel like my writing, living in the pages of my favorite books, imagining happiness because remembering it makes my eyes burn and ooze acid; I call it that because I’m only good at lying to myself.

“it’s the right thing at the wrong time.”

“if I’m right now, I’ll be right later?”

“I don’t know.”






iii. you became a monster

you’re in every grain of sand I see. eyes like jade fire and tree bark that I never got the chance to look into, you used to talk about forever like you held it in your hands; it being a small child and you the guiding elder. your name was four letters and equated to ever lasting love (lust) and your voice shook with need when the miles seemed like decades. I promised you months and you promised me packaged closeness that I waited for, but it never came. nothing you ever promised came true but you knew how to keep my hope alive better than anyone.

on days when I’m particularly hollow, it seems that your memory is there to serve me as a reminder that letting go is never easy, but not impossible. that people change with time and it’s not always stunning. sometimes its asphalt and sodium, cancer and bitterness.

“don’t be scared of failing.”

“why shouldn’t I be?”

“because if anyone can do it, it’s you.”






iv. you took the first shot

I prayed for you when I flew away. tears stained the windshield as I left you behind, hoping you’d find a way to love yourself more than you ever loved me. you died in the arms of a syringe, froze yourself in amber fluid and powder white like new fallen snow; I hear that few escape the winter. I remember how I pumped my liver full of foul liquor and inhaled the bottom of the gateway because I needed to keep you. and knee deep in your vices, my eyes glazed and bloodshot just like yours, you matched my smile. these were the only times you ever looked proud of me.

you’re faded as the only picture that I have of you, bent like the card I’ve kept since the day I turned fifteen. I wish we had a family and that you would have been there when I was naïve. all I ever wanted was to be smiles and simplicity but you felt you needed to be repulsive and lofty.

“everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you.”

“that’s impossible. I’ve been dead for years.”