my heart isn't mended, i don't know how to. i meet new people, i think of you. i stay home alone away from people, i think of you. i try to hide and forget my sadness by sleeping with anyone i feel like, i think of you. why can't you just leave me alone? i don't enjoy anything anymore because i think about how much better it would be with you.

hand holding, subway kissing, park walking, dream talking. our love, its parts, divided. i miss you so much it hurts. i don't know how to fill the you-shaped void. i'm so ready to.

it's been a long time since you broke my heart, so long that i've had enough time to find another 'you' and let him break my heart too, do hearts break easier once they've already been broken? so does that mean it will never really heal, just temporarily mend itself? well then logic would tell me to keep away from everyone, protect my heart from shattering again but the rush of someone putting back the pieces for me is too much to keep me away.

you touch me so gently sometimes i want to scream and remind you i'm not as fragile as you think but then the next second your hands are squeezing, rough and tight around my neck as you push open my legs to make room for you and i feel more at home, more at ease, this is how i live my every day, not knowing how i can take my next breath or if i even really want to try. i wake up early in the morning and you're as far from me as you can be without falling into that space between the bed and the wall. i feel dirty and used but then i remember it's me that's using you. right? i spoon you from behind and drift back to sleep, i've given up again.

i'm drowning my ever-present heartache with dick, cigarettes and hard alcohol. i'm declaring myself celibate, not from sex, but from emotions and feelings. fucking without attachment is so liberating. i'll never need another soul again.

i replay that day over in my head, all the time, still today, your smile though, is fading. you talk of closure, i think of open wounds forever, i wonder how long forever is. today is your birthday. "i have all i want for my birthday, you." how will i ever trust again if you broke mine so easily, will anyone deserve it? i am alone, i do not know for how long, i do not know if i care anymore.

love is nothing if it is not reciprocated. time moves on. time slows and it quickens. love slows and it quickens. love moves on.

i've stopped writing because i've stopped feeling. and it's not just because of that boy i gave my heart to. that was such a long time ago i've gotten further and further from him each day. he still has and will probably always have part of my heart. i kind of still want it back but i don't know if that is the way it works. i feel so numb because. if i had the answer i think i would not be in this predicament. this one where i close myself off to everyone and anyone and all i want is to let someone in but there's something there blocking them. maybe i'll try again tomorrow.

i want to scream from my rooftop that i want someone to love me. need someone to love me. i want and need and crave and ache for love again. but my rooftop...my little rooftop with its rusting barbecue grill and purple stains in the corner from when we spray painted those shelves that hot summer afternoon is in this loud and bustling city and this loud and bustling city is too loud and bustling to hear me. and so are the people in this silly city and so no one would hear or care. "take me home take me home and leave me there think i'm going to cry, i don't know why think i'm going to sing myself a lullaby feel free to listen feel free to stare"

i remember when i thought you were adorable and i guess i still do but i'd never admit it outside of this world wide web. it's lonely here.

today i thought of something funny that i think at one point you would have laughed at also and if it were those days where we couldn't go an hour without talking i would have called you in a heartbeat and shared what i thought of and why it reminded me of you and you would have chuckled that deep chuckle and i would have imagined that twinkle in your eye that i couldn't stop staring at when we were together in person and i would have felt so warm and complete and full. i'd say i had to go find the cat or check the water boiling on the stove or study for lectures and you would say "but do you have to go now, right now?" and i would smile because that's what you'd say anytime i had to get off the phone or climb out of bed or say goodbye on my front porch and we'd battle back and forth for a few minutes until we'd end the conversation sending each other our love, counting the hours until we'd get to spend time together that weekend and i'd hang up the phone wondering how i was so lucky.

i've been coming undone for so long, one memory or thought at a time, it's effortless now. to: build myself anew is harder than sitting still and so, here, i sit. forget your smile lines is to forget how to laugh and so here, i sit. carry on each day is more painful than the last tomorrow i stand.

there was that time, this past summer, when the city enveloped me on all sides to the point i could no longer breathe and the only thing i could do is get in my car and so i did; i drove until it was open all around me. the stars comforted me that night; they've always been a source of comfort for me. the dark of the night, the glow of the moon. last night. i was on that intersection, that one we'd meet at to walk to the cinema, the shop, the park together. images of our first kiss, our first lovemaking, our first dance crowded together in my mind. i gave up on the city again last night. it's taking over me, somehow. i drove until i could breathe again and i got out and i cried and i yelled and then i got back in my car. i got back in my car and i drove home to the city we called home together, and i resolved that this is the last time. i'm taking over this city from now on, goddammit.

i remember one time we walked to the ice cream shop a few blocks over. you kept a half step ahead of me that day, a difference so small i'm sure no one that we passed on the sidewalk even noticed. you let my hand in yours dangle, by the fingertips. a touch that may still look like one of affection to others but it was strange to me since i was used to walking with our fingers interlocked, snug and close to you as we walked in unison. the realizations were fleeting and i brushed them off, pushed them to the back of my mind with the others. the thoughts i've compartmentalized are pushing back through, even these months and months after you left me. to be frank, it hurts but it's also a bit therapeutic i suppose.

i'm a manipulative person. i've never used that word before when thinking or speaking of how i am, but it's true. i think of past actions and it's true. i convince others to stick around longer than they want; i trick people into caring for me and about me and i trick them into doing what i want them to do. it is interesting, mind blowing really, the things you can tell yourself if you really listen.

this snow reminds me of you, the sunshine that reflects and blinds reminds me of you, walking to lecture with my head down against the wind reminds me of you. the way a classmate pronounces his long a's reminds me of you. i still can't believe i let you become my everything because there was nothing i could do but sit and watch you walk away and take all my somethings along with you. i keep trying, you keep pushing, i stop trying, you start pulling. i can't.

it really ruins the rest of my day when i unwillingly break down on the freeway during morning rush hour traffic and i can't hide my sobbing from cars stopped next to me. the looks i get are condoling, shocked, sympathetic, curious. i try to calm down, or at least hide that i'm crying uncontrollably, but i just couldn't stop. and so even when i'm resenting you, i'm wondering if you'd be happy to know you brought me to this or if you'd finally feel sorry. please don't tell me it doesn't matter either way.

last night i drank too many cocktails with friends and thought too much about my life a year ago and my fingers got a mind of their own and decided to tell you these things and i drunkenly spilled my heart out to you via text messages and all i got in return was "i'm too busy to think about last year, you should do the same." and so i felt my heart breaking all over again. before you, i didn't know a heart could break so many times from one person. like double jeopardy, i thought after you broke it the first time you couldn't be to blame for it again. it's not even that i want you back in my life or that i want things to be like they were a year ago. i realize neither of those are happening and i know that someday i will be better off for it. but all i want is for my feelings to be legitimate to you and i guess i want you to have at least similar ones. or someone just needs to sit me down and explain to me, step by step, how a person goes from loving someone to wanting nothing to do with them, after no provocation.

i feel like my story ends here, but i'm not ready for it to be over yet. what i want and what i do are so opposite of each other, anyone on the outside must think i'm crazy. i say i'm becoming numb but i cried myself to sleep the past three nights. i say i'm ready to be alone but it scares me more than anything. i say i can't give out any more of my heart but i feel it stretching and growing still, waiting for the next boy that tries to court it.

i'm getting good at this alone thing, this 'i'm too good for you thing,' this thing where i laugh at anyone who tries to start a conversation with me. i'm obviously getting too good. it started out because i needed to distance myself and remove some feelings from some situations, from some people. and now i fear i may have gone too far, i feel so numb to people that it's hard to talk because i am always telling myself that i shouldn't get too close. because who knows what could happen? i want to blame you for this but i know that's not right.