• you are the words i cannot write, the ones
    that stick stubbornly in my otherwise empty mind
    and even though you make it so unbelievably hard
    to think, it's better that way because
    it's much more pleasant than the memories and other
    disjointed forms of garbage that usually float
    to the surface. some day i desperately hope
    you'll at least help me speak them.

    you are the scab that i keep picking just to
    re-sharpen the pain and watch the blood flow again,
    the blood that reminds me so nostalgically of
    both knives and kites. i can't bear the thought of healing--
    it'd be like losing a friend to the vicious cycle of time,
    so don't even think of whispering the word 'band-aid.'

    you are the first thing i wrote in my list
    of 'reasons to live', the one that i eventually renamed
    'reasons not to die.' i wrote the the measly
    amount of other things that've had the misfortune of having
    my affections thrust upon them like the world on
    atlas's shoulders, only less favorable and twice as heavy. then
    i wrote your name again, because you are both the first and
    last thing i have to live for.

    you are the skin of the proverbial teeth that i
    so pathetically cling to, as a spider to a web
    in a tornado of despair and misspelled words.

    you are hope i always believed was false, and
    i never loved being wrong more.