#9

The thing with broken clocks is
that you can tell
exactly when they stop ticking
with people, its not so easy
and sometimes,
you cant even tell if they're broken.

#

I think when you’re 16 you don’t expect it to hurt as much as it does
but what the fuck would you know about love till it slams into your chest and knocks the wind out of your lungs 
so you fall in love 
and he leaves
 and you stop washing your hair
 and your skin is bruised with the creases in your sheets 
and your dad wants to yell at you but your blank stare just makes his eyes tear up and you’re not supposed to see your dad cry
and you’ll probably try destroying yourself because that’s what you do 
so you’ll pull apart razors and hide them someplace your dad can find them but they never do
 and you’ll start smoking even though it makes you cough so hard you throw up and you can’t stand the burning in your throat
and you’ll run away without ever leaving your bedroom 
and maybe you’ll kiss too many boys who mean nothing but mean all too much and they will all look a little like him or nothing at all 
and you leave him drunk voice mails and you haven’t stopped crying in 23 days and you promise you will never love anything again because it hurts more than they warned, 
no one told you that this was love
 and maybe it’s not love
 maybe it’s more 
maybe it’s something from another world
 maybe it’s just your bones breaking again
 either way it fucking burns
 and now you’re older
 and you expect to come out the other side missing a few pieces of yourself
 but sometimes you get caught up and you forgot that it’s supposed to hurt 
because it’s not supposed to fucking hurt
 and you blink and you’re bleeding again
 and it’s like you’re 16 all over again
 trying to rip yourself to shreds while you try to pick up all the pieces of yourself, 
everyone thinks you’re mysterious because your mouth is sewn shut with the sudden death of past loves but you’re just so fucking quiet because they’ve taken so much out of you, you can hardly open your eyes, forget about your mouth,
and I guess the worst part about love dying out is that you don’t die with it,
you just attend the funeral and visit the grave every time you’re drunk. You’re always so goddamn drunk.

Survive

I became so addicted to the feeling of nothing
that when I started to feel you
I went through withdrawals.
I wanted so desperately to forget about
the nice feelings that ran through my mind
when I thought of you,
because I became so intimate with being alone
that leaving the vast isolation of myself behind
felt like I was killing the part of me
that taught me how to survive.

We try to love what cannot be tamed. Wild horses,

vodka in shapely bottles, angry men and the things
they carry. We have done what we could. They say
anything they can to justify leaving. That we are
always sad. That we have let our hearts burn out
for petty things. That we are too fragile. That we are to selfless.

That we are too dependent.

They accuse us of being too sad to love. 

We’re not sure where we’ve learned
this, to want the things we know we can’t have. 

Chances are,
we are all the same, riding high on velvet blue nights.
Our weaknesses have names and phone numbers,
addresses we can send letters to,
describing our love and poetry. We are praying for sixteen again,
for clear skin and boys
who asked for permission before holding our hands. They say
they can find us by our cheekbones, that they are
small, miraculous sources of light. 

Sometimes we’re safe
but usually we’re not. 

The crime scene tape
should have been our first clue.

16 hours

my heart is beating quicker than it’s supposed to 
and I don’t think I can stay in the same room as
 you without falling from my skin
 and I’m falling 
and my heart just hit the ground and the rest of me 
is spilling out
 and this was supposed to be a poem about love
 and the way you make me feel like I’m wrapped in
outer space, warm under a blanket of stars, like 
I’m safe 
but I’m burning alive and stars aren’t as pretty 
when they’re hot in your throat 
and you loved me you loved me last night but that 
was 16 hours ago and 16 hours doesn’t seem like 
enough time to fall out of love
but it is
and 16 hours doesn’t seem like enough time to 
fix yourself 
because it’s not 
so I think I’ll stay here in the dark for awhile 
because the sky is pitch-black without the stars 
and we fell asleep in love
 and I’m the only one who woke up
 and I’ve been shaking you 
and you won’t hold my hand like I need you to 
and I miss you 
I miss you 
and I bet that you won’t call your 
father back 
like I do
 I fucking do 
and I see the entire world in you 
and all you see in me is a black hole
 and you used to like the way I laughed
and the way I tuck my hair behind my 
ear when I’m nervous
but that was 16 hours ago
and apparently 16 hours is enough time
to fall out of love