They are sticky and oozing and they taste just like me—like sweat and sweetness and a guilty conscience. You were out looking for berries and sliced your tongue along the inside of burnt honeysuckle. Sit in my lap and show me your teeth, do you still have the seeds? No, but my memory continues to flow down your throat. Swallow again, harder this time, and wash me down. You feel so warm against the back of my hand.

I talk to you all the time but I can never speak to you again. I don't ever wanna say out loud the final straw that broke me. There was a jolt, a cosmic rebellion, and we were kind to each other. Weren’t we? I’m sorry for immortalizing the part of you that killed us. I had to, just like you had to. My liver shrivelled up like a rotten apple, and my lungs have become second-hand embarrassed by the excuses I continue to make for you. Do you remember how I made you feel? Do you wish you could feel me still? I cried for four whole days and my basement flooded. I am halfway to forgiving you, knowing that somewhere out there, I already have.

This winter is excruciating and yet another lesson that will someday be good for me. I set my phone down in October and haven’t touched it since. I’m not a singer, I’m not a poet, most days I hardly feel human. But God, do I feel. These moments of stillness could kill, so I drink my tea (I keep it down), I fall asleep to Spanish movies with a headache and I wait—I wait for the revelation, for relief. I wish I had good news, and once I find it, I will share. But today I went outside, I took my vitamins, and I haven’t cried since 3pm (yesterday). I stitch the accomplishment into a gold star and hot glue it to my chest. I’m doing better because I have to.

My dad sent a picture of baby shoes. He wrote, “I can't remember the last time I wore them, but I know my mama was the last person to tie these laces and make this knot.” I’m overtaken by fear of growing up until I’m reminded that none of us ever do. I spend a lot of time quietly observing my surroundings, and I’ve noticed that most things in this world, we have fabricated as a tool of self-torment. Sadistic in nature, romantic in symptom. I wish I could give my dad a hug as a six-year-old boy, then I remember I can.

The truth is, I will never know the truth, and the aching weight of wanting to know why will flatten me between the dog-eared pages of your book. Revisit me when curiosity strikes and my existence will startle you. Yes, I am still here. Did you not read the prophecy? Skip to page 315. I loved you like a bloodhound, and all my best bad habits die howling. Will what I crave so desperately be the fissure that obliterates me? Will I forever be entombed in this liminal space that pulls me in both directions? What will my lover do when my arms are ripped from my torso and she is forced to bear witness to the contents that spill out? I am deeply in love with being ugly. I’ve had so much practice loving the worst in everybody.

You were a choice that I still stand by. But the carnival is closing, there is cotton candy stuck to the bottom of my shoe. What goes up, must come down. I lick the sole and I find you. I talk to you all the time and I'm scared I'm schizophrenic. I’m scared of you, and you’re scared of me, as we sit knee to knee, comparing teeth and it’s all I can do but scream at you to sink yourself into me. To my lungs relief, I clamp my mouth shut- I’ve learned the good lesson. As if my body is not my own, I turn my head to the sound of sirens, and I wince. (Yes, it haunts me). I’m staring at the carcass, and I finally know better. I grieve the rest.

you can have it all, baby.