On my birthday eve, I stayed up alone with a six-pack of Saint Arnold’s Christmas Ale. Oversized t-shirt, no bra, black lace hip-hugging panties, and my favorite fuzzy socks. I waited for midnight to come. I sat in the middle of my bed, put a single candle into a huge scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream and blew it out.

I have a head full of stormy nights and black clouds. I am so alone. I have a heart that is far too heavy to carry. I still fantasize about single-edge razor blades. I have debt. I have strained relationships with my family. I don’t believe in much, but since I was a little girl, I liked to play pretend that in wishes there is magic. Four and a half beers in. I could’ve wished for anything to bring peace to my chaotic world, but there I sat, closing my eyes, seeing the neon lights that are yours, blowing and wishing for only you.

I don’t want to write this, and what I mean by that is that I don’t want a chunk of my heart in your hands.

You sly beautiful thief, but there you are, holding it captive.

Tell me how it feels in that sexy palm of yours. Yes, I said sexy, everything about you is, from that crease between your eyebrows to every single hair you grow on your beard. The way you look makes me lose my train of my thought. Where was I?

Oh, yes, tell me how that part of my vital muscle feels.

Does it flutter when you finally think enough of me to bother to call? Is it enough to let you in on the things your voice does to other parts of my body? Is it cold to the touch and weighted on the days you disappear? Has it told you how I ache for you? I’ll hunt you down to burn it if it’s told you that I have cried actual tears because of you.

I lay awake at night cursing you because there’d be no getting it back even with hostage negotiations.

I knew the moment I saw you waiting for me at that hotel bar that you’d be an addiction. Now here I am, shaking, cold sweats, biting my nails down to stubs because it’s been too long since I kissed you.

That night, I had never wanted anything more than for you to put hands on me. I didn’t give a fuck that it felt like you could be the death of me. I questioned my sanity, I called myself crazy because I felt it in my bones that nobody was ever meant for me as much as you were. It made me want to delete your number, run far away from your reach and never see you again. It made me want to run towards you and collide into you. Like, fuck it if I crashed into your ocean, tiny little pieces of shipwreck left to float to shore or left to sink. Fuck it if it meant I was getting lost and drowning in your mouth.

I remember feeling like I was burning white hot from the inside out. I had to keep on taking sips of my iced water. It wasn’t the wasabi. It wasn’t the sake. It was you.

It’s still you.

Can’t you see the fire? Can’t you smell the smoke?

Don’t you see me setting off flares for you to come and find me?

Look at what you started.

You said you felt something real and that you knew I felt it too. Well, where the fuck are you?

I think I’ve gone completely mental. I think maybe I made you up.

I touch myself and try to think of anyone else, but I can’t. It’s you making me wet, it’s your fingers and your tongue I think about when I masturbate. Saturday night I danced, let some stranger come up behind me and grind on me. For a couple of songs, I imagined you were him. I pushed him when I turned around because I wasn’t being greeted by your smile or your eyes. What I’m saying is that I’ve come to realize I don’t want anybody that isn’t you.

I dream about you.

I dream about going away alone with you. I have this thing for hotel rooms. You lay me down in the middle of a bed in one, tie my wrists together above my head and gnaw on my neck. You kiss me and suck on my skin like it was a sugar cube. Even in my dreams, I beg you to tear into me. I beg you to consume me down to the bone. I feel every supernova in every galaxy inside me watching you lick your lips clean.

I dream about you painting my back in shades of red and in shades of pink. I wake up panting. My hair on the back of my neck sticky and sweaty. Some nights I wake up calling out your name.

Would it be too forward to tell you I want to hold it in my mouth forever?

I dream about a house. I dream about a kitchen with an island counter where I leave you little love notes each morning. The wine rack is always full. The wine glasses are always overflowing. There’s always tea in the pantry. It always smells like something is baking and like espresso. I dream about a nightstand where I leave you poems. I’m always leaving books on the coffee table but you never mind. On Saturday mornings, the music is always on low. I sing while I make you breakfast, still feeling the things you made me feel years ago. When you wake up, the first thing you always say is “hi beautiful.”

I can’t keep dreaming about you.

I can’t keep thinking about you like this.

I don’t want to.

You make me feel so special one day then leave me to wonder who I am to you. Sometimes it feels like the answer is nobody. Nothing has stung like this in a long time.

I’m stuck somewhere between wanting to block your number and wanting to pick up the phone to call you. I’m stuck somewhere between wanting to fuck you until your head goes numb and wanting to slap you. I’m stuck somewhere between wanting to break you to pieces and wanting to give you all the parts of me I am barely keeping glued together.

I am feeling way too much for you and I’m afraid of it.

It takes all the strength I have to admit this, but I think I fell for you. Undoing this should’ve been my only wish.

I have fallen for you and I kind of hate you for it.