Missing Pages

It’s hard to stay in the exact moment 

you were inspired to write a poem.

You want to wallow where it hurts—

You want to feel every second of the ache

because you want people to understand it.

You’ll probably end up with a mess

of scribbled-over words and torn pages.

It's hard to write poetry when I want to most—

I never can keep up with my thoughts.

And my pencil’s even slower.

I try to draw it out of me,

A loose thread on an old tee.

But then the ache is lifted

and the words are history.

I can’t describe to you the ache

because it’s standing on my throat—

its claws are digging into my esophagus.

By the time I realized my first love wasn’t

just trying to squeeze it out, it was gone again. 

Will I ever breathe again 

the way I did before I woke?

Before I learned to love,

and before I learned to choke

down my heart before it broke.

I can’t tell if I imagine it in there, 

or if this is all just a long dream. 

Sometimes it stomps around on my rib cage—

With my back pressed against the 

cool, damp floor, I try to pull it out of me.

When I thought I’d lost everything, 

I tried to cut it from my flesh out of vanity.

I couldn’t bare it itching under my skin— 

Just far enough out of reach 

to disguise itself as sanity.

Where does this pressure come from?

Where does it go when it leaves me?

This attachment to mortality 

stroked into my brow as a baby—warm and malleable 

in my parent’s arms.

It tracks me down like a shark

to a drop of blood. Millions of thoughts 

swimming around in my head—a school of fish

evading a cold, predatorial brain, 

hungry for horror. 

My brain is drowning.

You can hear the ocean in my eyes—

I keep my mouth shut when I’m suffering,

so the debris doesn’t pollute 

everything around me.

I have grown up too quickly—

I have given up too late.

The more I think about the past,

the deeper I lose myself.

Couldn’t I just go back to sleep?

I’m tired of pretending that my ears aren’t bleeding

from shoving my fingers so deep 

that I can’t hear myself think.

I’m haunted by memories I can’t see,

and I’m drowning myself in this drink.

I scroll through old pictures of myself,

and I’m jealous of her.

What memories did she steal from me?

Am I better off in this blur?

Trying to write poetry in the middle of this ache 

is my desperate attempt to hold onto her. 

I am her,

she is me.

But I am better off without her.

Those empty spaces in my memory 

are meant to hold something special.

Hand-crafted moments—handle with care.

He can siphon the sea from me with a smile,

and that’s worth a million missing memories.