Remember when you told yourself you’d write yourself love poems?

Can you write them now,
when rising looks less like before the sun
and more like after 10 am
a body
weening itself off of Nyquil
a mind
no longer knowing if it’s the remnants of a fever
or laziness
can you love yourself either way?

Love yourself 11 am full of nothing done
full of banana pancakes
count how
this is day three of pancakes
grab a banana that is not your own
write a mental IOU
can you love you empty fridge
love I’ll fill it tomorrow.

Love yourself then
nothing to do
see it as loving someone unconditionally
even if that someone is you.

Especially
if that someone is you.

Remember when you said you’d write yourself love poems?

Can you write them eight days into a new year
even when all of this shit already feels old.
As you watch yourself break last year’s promises
made this year’s promises...

Today I write myself love poems.

Woman
don’t be ashamed for loving someone
through betrayal
applaud yourself for
being so strong
so capable
for loving passed lies
for loving hidden eyes.

Darling
your heart grew so large
before breaking
now
cover it
in nothing.

Wear it with a sense of pride
show the world how large you can become
let them consume you
and don’t be sorry
for all of your apologies
how beautiful
to show strength in such surrender
screaming where you went wrong
it will come back to you
this cleanliness.

You my dear
have spent countless days
crying on a floor that catches your washed soul
this is loving yourself enough
to let yourself go.

How strong to say,
“I see it now,”
to say,
“I’m sorry,”
to still leave
to still give space
both yours and his.

You are the woman
he will search for in the others
my dear
how you leave impressions
so allow...

That woman
has a backbone
the strength to tell you
all the ways she withheld her love.

How you grasped for her spine
as you held her one last time
whispered, “fuck,” as you came.

See
how she always let you in
spread her legs for you
took you into a place she never let the others enter
how she took you inside
grasped your sheets
as you fucked her into pain
that spine
how you will always see her back
when you try to fuck another
how you wish you could tear it out of her
work it into them
vertebrae by vertebrae
you’ll try to build her back.

Stack pieces of her
as you pretend you weren’t the storm that tore her apart
pretend how you’ll love her whole again
fuse all of those memories into them
but watch
as they stand crooked
as they collapse quicker than her foundation ever shook
how deep she sunk her heals into
your earth.

That woman
has a backbone
strong enough to...

I know how to miss someone
better than I know how to love someone.
Know how to
say goodbye
and I really thought this was it this time
and I’m sorry.

I can create love in absence
can create love in lonely.
Know how to create love in past
how to create love in future
how to make sure they never collide
so I never create love in
now.

Know how to say no
better than yes.
And how to say
I’m sorry.

I can miss someone
so much
I imagine they’re still here
loving me
but their apparation
I love more than I ever loved
their
flesh.

Until I see them in their flesh
and am reminded
how I really know
how to miss someone.

He asks me
if the only reason I want to stick around
is so I don’t have to do something I know how to do so well?
I think
yes
and he doesn’t understand that
maybe this means
love.
Maybe this means
moving on.
Maybe this means
I know how to say goodbye...

I told him
we can only get as undone
as the zippers we pull on.

This jacket
keeping us warm
I asked that we
pull up the neckline.

The breeze will only
freeze us
when our hearts
grow cold
so please
let us not let
our hearts grow cold.

I worry
I told him
about the weather taking
him away.
About how slow breathing
and frozen heartbeats
happen to the best of them.

About how accidents
happen to the best of them.

We can never be
cautious enough
when driving in the rain.

He told me
how careful he was
I’m almost upset
this eased me.

I guess I feel better
that he checks his mirrors
when he switches lanes,
but you know
the mirrors are never big enough,
it can still disappear under you
blood still stains streets
despite all of the air bags.

Sometimes they come out of
nowhere.

I remember how she loved him
and would never take that back
but how she would
ne...

I’m trying to write like nobody is watching. Truth of the matter is, that no one IS watching, except me (unfortunately I’m a huge critic of every word that stares back from this screen). But shucks, here we go.

I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. All about creativity, heavily focused on writing (which I love dearly), though I tried to morph everything as if she was talking to me about Choice. She wasn’t. But let’s pretend.

Instead of talking about the he, said, she said (let’s be straight she said it, and someone likely said it before her), let’s just talk about it. The thing that was said, those multiple things. Fucking anything to get me to transform my relationship with Choice. ANYTHING.

The amount of times I said it’s my baby, and the amount of times other people said, it’s your baby, are innumerable. Then this concept visited me, from a book that I read…...

You’ve wrapped yourself around my mind. I look back at the things I wrote, confidence in letting you go because, I knew, I knew, that I couldn’t keep moving forward. So you walked me to my car, bags in our hands, and my pillow that held your head for weeks. My tears and heaving breaths, my uncertainty. That oh shit moment, did I fuck up? “No,” you said, “You did nothing wrong.”

So is this what right feels like?

I think about you when I close my eyes in a cold bed, with ice feet. I think about you rolling over and holding onto me. Your oven of a body warming my extremities. Breathing on my neck. How I hated that, how I miss that now.

Last night I remembered that phone call in Thailand. We were so fresh. My anxiety was so high. I couldn’t believe that I traveled halfway across the world for a week. You told me if you were me you would extend it, even though a part of you...

This is my apology letter
to a body
that always knew better.

I’m sorry.

I rarely heard you cries
for help
for rest
for warm-ups
or for stretches.

I’m sorry.

We both know I heard you then
but my mind
has always contained the
louder voice.

Funny isn’t it?

I learned to
quite both down.

To keep my mind
within
a skull
to keep my words
behind sealed lips.
I took it to the pavement
see I didn’t know better
I didn’t know
that trauma could build-up
in my runner’s hips.

I’m sorry.

I heard your screams
long before
I took the time to listen.

Athlete’s mentality
paired with
a stubborn personality
it wasn’t until I could barely walk
not until steps out of bed
brought excruciating pain
that I decided it was time
that we talk.

There may have been a sigh of relief
on your end
but it was muffled by sobs
Xrays
and MRIs
telling me
I could no longer pretend.

...

I have begun apologizing
to my body.
I owe my body more apologies
than my friends.
I have
a lot of friends
and only this one
body.

I have begun apologizing
to my body
and I think it’s
starting to believe me.

Believe I am sorry for the damage
I caused.

I’ve recently began
thanking my body.
I’ve begun to thank it
even when I’m mad
thank it
despite wishing we could do more together.
“My body,”
I say
“thank you for letting me march
for letting me stand
I remember the lower back pain
but thank you
for there only being
lower back pain.”

Today I wanted my body
to go up a mountain
but my body says,
“No.”

I have begun to listen
to my body.

I took it yesterday
and my body began to talk to me.
I’m proud I pulled over to listen.
I stretched my body
and began again
my body talked again
I stretched my body
and I began again.

We might not be able
to travel today
but...

My knee cracked today
as I moved from laying
to, still laying.
I decided to make it mean,
“I love you.”

I decided it wasn’t a reminder
of the pain I caused
but of it’s
unconditional existence
for carrying me
passed its own limits
for loving me
passed my anxious rides
my
brutal climbs
for descents
for hanging around for both.

My knee whisptered
“I love you,” in the silence.
You know
I’ve heard it for years
but never got the message.

It asked me to listen
to her sister
who takes more weight
than she was born to bear.

I haven’t said it back yet
I’m waiting until I hear it again
see if I feel the same
without obligation
without saying it
because she said it first.