(This is best read on desktop if you want to experience the proper line breaks.)
i am haunted by the beautiful ghosts that lurk
on the other side of the door. ever since i was fifteen,
they’ve never given me a moment of peace.
that’s when i’d wake up in the middle of the night,
drowning in the lakes of midnight rain,
and i’d pray to a false god that one day i’d escape
the labyrinth, the haunting of the black dog, maybe even florida!!!
and i almost do. every night. i almost do. but that’s the hoax.
so i tolerate it until i’ve become a mad woman,
battling the great war within myself.
i can’t would’ve could’ve should’ve my way out
of the narrative, i can’t rewrite the manuscript,
because i am being suffocated by my own end game.
but i can do it with a broken heart
while the monsters in my head push me into a getaway car,
forcing me to run headfirst into maroon red self-destruction.
“this is all your fault,” the voices yell, until i’m drowning
deep in the bad blood. the bolter gets his comeuppance, so they say.
“this is karma,” they repeat, until the castles crumbling around me echo
with loneliness. i am left to preside over the tortured poets department,
a chairman who could never be the man, only a picture to burn.
“this is why we can’t have nice things,” they whisper, until i cut out
my own heart. so long, london, i know this is what you came for.
and i watch the sparks fly as i light myself on fire,
until i am nothing,
until all the mean words that ever crossed my tongue come back…like a last kiss.
i have convinced myself i’m the anti-hero,
the 1 who doesn’t deserve happiness.
i did something bad, i broke a perfectly good heart
and i am not innocent even if i wish i was.
”but daddy, i love him!” no. you only think you do.
i am the mastermind of my own imprisonment,
the jailor who sees “now that we don’t talk” as a failure.
i have become the smallest man who ever lived,
but am i truly guilty as sin? maybe
this is me trying not to rot away in exile.
maybe the message in a bottle i’m sending you
is just empty words.
long
story
short,
i wish
i was
a better man.
but there’s no point waiting for sweet nothing from someone
who will never let you be jeweled.
if i have to be delicate with my words when i speak
now, don’t blame me for my vigilante shit.
who’s afraid of little old me when i know your finger’s on the trigger?
death by a thousand cuts is no better than revenge if we’re both taking shots,
so stop making champagne problems when i’m standing up for myself.
“is it over now?” why are you so obsessed with the question…?
even though everything has changed, there will always be
a blank space shaped like you, the albatross in my story, the loml,
but since i still have you all over me, i have to forgive myself
for the way i loved you. a mirrorball only reflects the light that feeds it,
and my tears ricochet off your cruel summer,
the alchemy that drove clara bow to madness.
you turned me into the archer, like my selfishness was nothing new,
but i don’t wanna live forever drowning in guilt and shame
when all i wanted was paper rings and more than a fortnight with you.
if this was a movie you’d be here, and you’d say don’t
go but you’d mean it. we wouldn’t need closure
because you’d tell me why you’re sorry.
but you’re not sorry. and you treat me like the cardigan you buried
on the floor of your closet. the invisible string between us was cut
long ago, there is no afterglow in the aftermath.
so all i can do is make my own place in this world just for me,
a broken heart fresh out the slammer, too lost to care.
and here is the timeless truth i buried:
“you are not the foolish one
for acting like a renegade
while dancing
with your hands tied.”
it’s nice to have a friend who understands you
after all of the girls you loved before left you on the side of the road.
surely if you keep your eyes open, this time will be different.
surely this person is the epiphany you’ve been waiting for.
and so you pray they won’t let you down. bad
enough to think true love is a glitch,
bad enough to learn to trust someone.
but it gets worse when “i can fix him” turns into “no really i can.”
there is a version of me that will never grow up
because this love shrank her and put her in a cage.
i wish you would have listened to her screams, her pleas, her dreams,
but you smothered her in a lavender haze until she couldn’t see,
and whispered, “you belong with me and me alone.”
oh my my my, don’t you wish things were different?
do you wish my starlight was yours?
my electric touch is more than you can handle,
and i’m not ashamed now to say that you’re on your own kid
because the path you chose was too treacherous to follow you down.
i used to be tied together with a smile, wishing
in my wildest dreams, hoping for some way to get clean,
to find my way back to the daylight.
but i refuse to stay stay stay on the sidelines
just for you to believe you’re the lucky one.
if my boy breaks his favorite toys, are all the dominos destined to fall?
yes, we were happy, but we’re not happy anymore
so i decided it’s time to go. i will not be stuck
right where you left me in the clutches of my darkest night.
even wonderland will turn to dust
and the best rides on coney island rust.
and when your demons became bigger than the whole sky,
our illicit affairs swallowed me whole
until i couldn’t stand to be your girl
at home, trapped in a forever winter hell.
the moment i knew i had to leave felt like new year’s day
and i ran until i could finally breathe.
look what you made me do, you made me hate you,
even though i swore on our state of grace
that no matter what could come in with the rain, we’d weather the storm.
but i cannot be your holy ground in this cold as you universe.
whatever inheritance was ours is squandered now,
a torn-up dress, a broken love story, a dying birch.
we went out of style a long time ago,
and only the young hold on to dead wishes.
i love you babe, but so it goes…
no one has the right to stop me from being my own superman
because this story is mine and i have spent too long being invisible.
the king of my heart is me myself and i, forever
& always, no matter what. i will love myself
the way no one else could, my own lover,
until the story of us fades away
and i have made it out of the woods where i can begin again.
you’re losing me,
but it doesn’t have to be sad.
beautiful tragic stories
can be enchanted
just like snow on the beach.
i watch you cry for the last time,
tears dripping like ivy down your face, a wilted willow tree,
and i remind myself that if all you had to do was stay,
then it wouldn’t matter what happened in august
and i wouldn’t be praying i forgot that you existed.
but one of us has to change before we do something untouchable.
so i will keep you on the outside of my life hoping
i can see you again someday.
Omg I love this
I’m a little proud that I noticed so quickly what you did there