aimlessarticulation

[aimlessarticulation]

I didn't fall in love with you

No

That would've been too easy

No, the way I came to love you was messy and painful.

I barreled into it going a hundred and eighty miles an hour down a windy road

You were coming up

And we were each in our driver's seats, laughing, giggling, enjoying the way our tires squealed around each hairpin turn.

And at last second

We met in the middle

Far too quick for either of us to stop

Like our first kiss, messy, and dramatic. Full of tears, and clashing teeth, like something out of a bad romance film.

We crashed together.

Yes.

I didn't fall for you.

I crashed into you.

Our love is a car wreck, in the best way possible.

[aimlessarticulation]

Thank you

For teaching me how I'm supposed to be loved

For making me feel things I only thought were metaphor, or exaggeration

I thought all my life "no, there's no way. People don't love like that. People hate with burning fire, yes, but they don't love like that."

But you?

You set all of me ablaze, my heart, my soul, my lungs burn when we share breaths as we kiss, screaming for more, more, and more.

It's settled into something warm and cozy now.

But when I try on my new dress-

And you look me up and down-

Like a starving animal

And when that wild, hungry look settles into something softer, and the corners of your lips twitch in a small smile

I burn allover again.

[aimlessarticulation]

You wanted to be among the stars

that's why you did your drugs

and now that I don't know your fate

where you're at, if you're warm, if you're fed

if you're fed as well as I fed you

I hope that whoever killed you had the kindness

to wrap you in a warm blanket

and lay you gently in the soft earth

with all the plants, and mushrooms you adore

and I hope your soul

has found its way to the stars

I hope you landed

right next to the moon

[aimlessarticulation]

I miss you

I miss the way you gave me butterflies when I heard you speak

How you lit up my world like golden rays

I miss telling you I love you

I miss you telling me to go to bed when I was up far too late

I miss daydreaming of the life we'd have

And talking about how we'd have kids one day

I miss yearning to wake up next to you instead of just yearning to talk to you

And God how I wish you'd see me, we'd meet again, and you'd kiss me like you were starving.

But I know that's yet another daydream.

I know that won't happen.

[aimlessarticulation]

I brew a pot of coffee

I turn westerns on on the tv

I sit on my porch too early in the morning

dressed for the day

and I'm seven again

a shock of blonde hair, and missing teeth, and muddy feet

ready to see what you'll teach me about tending for a garden today

[aimlessarticulation]

I brew a pot of coffee

I turn westerns on on the tv

I sit on my porch too early in the morning

dressed for the day

and I'm seven again

a shock of blonde hair, and missing teeth, and muddy feet

ready to see what you'll teach me about tending for a garden today

[aimlessarticulation]

I get your pennies.

I get your quarters, nickels, and dimes.

I get them on heads, on tails, and on their sides wedged in the cracks of my home long forgotten.

And I get your messages.

Loud and clear,

yet you never utter a word.

I understand them to a fault because when you love someone as much as I loved you, and you loved me, words don't have to be spoken.

We just understand.

And I miss that.

Being understood, even though right now, you wouldn't understand why I fill my lungs with the very same smoke that killed you, why I drown my sorrows on the weekends, taking chances with my drinks at this one seedy bar I've grown to love, like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun, hoping that my first drink tonight's not fucking roofied for a third god damn time.

I know right now you won't understand why I wish the worst on myself, why I think the worst of myself, why I put myself in the worst situations I can, chasing the sort of high only adrenaline and regret can bring, the same sort of comforting agony I've known all my life, but this time-

you're not there to be my shelter.

Not there to tell me no.

To tell me "stop it.

This isn't you."

You're not there anymore,

Except in the pennies I find on the street.

[aimlessarticulation]

getting drugged at a gay bar during pride month is worse than any hate crime I've ever experienced before

[aimlessarticulation]

I wish you well

I wish you healing and growth

I wish you better days and more patience

and I wish our paths never cross again

[aimlessarticulation]

I wanna ask you how you're doing, hear you lie that you're doing fine

but you won't even grace my inbox with the ghost of a reply

and I lie awake at night dreaming about the life we could've had

but you're quick to get down and out, and I can't stick around for that

So I'll send you well wishes, throw pennies into fountains

hope that you find your peace, and your someone who moves mountains just for you

[aimlessarticulation]

My patience used to be such a plump, round, and delightful little thing.

Nurtured by the hands of my grandfather who taught me how to tend a garden, and wait until the produce was perfect before enjoying the fruits from the vines, still warm from the sun.

Here recently she has not been fed by these warm things. She's been starved.

Her bones jut out in knobbly angles, and her ribs threaten to break free from her taught skin at any moment.

They have before.

And what lies underneath the skin of Patience is Wrath.

A fury like no other, and I fear the day she returns.

[aimlessarticulation]

I'd like you to suffocate me in more ways than one.

Smother me with your hands, your touch, your kisses, your thighs.

Deprive my senses of knowing anything but you, and drown out the thrumming of my heart, and shock of my nerves with my name.

Hold me tight, beg me to be closer, beg me to be loved, and rip the doubts straight from my lungs.

Drown me in you.

[aimlessarticulation]

She says I have a kind face, and I scoff

I'm always told to smile, that I look too mean.

My brows furrowed together, and I smiled nonetheless.

"No, really," she said, her face beaming like the sun.

She said I'm nice to look at.

I rolled my eyes, and made a comment about her needing her eyes checked.

But really, deep down inside? I was grateful she saw through my bravado and posturing.

It terrifies me.

[aimlessarticulation]

Cast aside

you left me adrift in a raging storm

high, mountainous waves

and you've let me drown

[aimlessarticulation]

You only listen when I'm violent

When I snarl, and howl, and bite

When I rip through everything in our home until all that stands is the skeleton of what it once was

Only when I'm standing in the wreckage, chest heaving and face red

do you say

"If only you'd just ask more nicely"

and all I can do

is howl

and cradle my grief to my chest

[aimlessarticulation]

I sat quietly for years

Pulling my punches until the fighting stopped completely

Softening my words so that what I said didn't break the silence

Didn't disturb the peace

I became a model child for narcissistic parents who wanted to create themselves over again

I thought I let go of my rage. Thought I buried her years ago. Now she's clawed her way out of her coffin—

And she's coming for me.

[aimlessarticulation]

"Why?"

A word I whispered as a small child when I wanted to understand something in the world.

Always said to my mother and father, loving as they were.

They always had the answers. And if they didn't they found it.

"Why?"

Asked again as I got older, as an act of defiance, questioning the reasoning for the word no. I'm plenty old enough, I'd think to myself. I can make decisions. I mean—I do pay the bills.

It was always met with a resounding no.

"Why?"

I scream and beg in my twenties to any God that will listen, why? Why? Why?Why?

Why don't they love me anymore?