Amanda’s bio can be found here.
(1)
This is the first time you said hello and the time I ignored you on the elevator because I did not know yet that I loved you. These are the sheets that went untouched the first night you kissed me — you did not want more. This is the moment we romanticized my unshaved, prickly personality and made it something that could break.
Here it is –
All the moments you picked apart when you said goodbye,
strewn across the bathroom floor.
I ate your words like breath mints,
Tried to savor them, make them last forever,
so I never had to forget how you tasted,
but they burned a hole in my tongue.
explosive words are not meant to be consumed.
love was never meant to be toxic.
I have written three hundred and sixty-seven poems
about our departure and my readers
tell me that I am unoriginal now.
I am still writing to heal my ache.
I am still writing to get it right.
if I am being honest, we tried too hard in the end.
I knew you were leaving when you put the toilet seat
back down and you did the laundry.
you cleaned the whole house and I knew you were
scrubbing every inch of yourself out of our home.
Whether this was for me or for you, I do not know.
I stare at these words you left me – these moments
we used to love.
I set them on fire
and wonder if I’ll catch, too.
— Departure
(2)
I filled the bathwater
up to the brim of the tub
and lay there silently-
immovable-
mountainous
in that milky water for
an hour and thirteen minutes
wondering
if the light reflecting off of my eyelids would
ever be considered art
if someone would ever want to put his
lips to mine
and quilt a lifetime of love
“I haven’t shaved in 6 months,”
I always tell the guys who look directly
into my eyes…
I look to see if they flinch.
I try to show them the monsters
under my bed and
reveal myself instead.
Are you afraid now?
I’ve packed your things for you.
goodbye now.
do not worry about me,
i’ll be fine being the girl in your stories.
i’ll be fine
by myself.
I sink under the bath water
until I can no longer hold my breath.
“I like to live on the brink
of death. if I am always gasping
for the life I almost lost,
love doesn’t matter as much,”
I always tell the men that graze my arm
as they walk by.
I try to show them the ghosts
dancing in my closet,
but I am the only one they find when
they open the door.
I don’t know if
i’m looking for a dance partner
or a savior
I drain the bath water
and stare at myself in the
mirror
until I dry off.
— Milky Bath Water
(3)
If you drilled a hole straight through the earth
and jumped in,
it would take approximately forty-two minutes and twelve seconds
to get to the other side.
If you leave me,
it will take years for me to wash you out of my sheets,
and even then, I am not sure I would want to.
There are reasons we do not drill through the Earth
and there are reasons I do not want to imagine you leaving,
both are too complicated to get into over breakfast this morning.
— Conversations Over Breakfast
(4)
I opened his No One Will Ever Love You and out fell his esophagus.
I opened up his esophagus and found an electric barbed wire gate.
I opened up the electric barbed wire gate and found a call box outside of it.
I opened the call box and called within and heard a scratchy, soft voice.
I opened the scratchy, soft voice and found a garden.
I opened the garden and found rotting, forgotten plants.
I opened the rotting, forgotten plants and found a funeral.
I opened the funeral and found a small, shaking boy.
I opened the small, shaking boy and found a cemetery.
I opened the cemetery and found a tombstone.
I opened the tombstone and found the small, shaking boy’s best friend.
I opened up the best friend and found a motorcycle accident.
I opened up the accident and found the small, shaking boy waving to his friend as he left the party.
I opened up the party and found six shots too many.
I opened up the six shots and found an unforgiving mother.
I opened up the unforgiving mother and found an abusive father.
I opened up the abusive father and found a No One Will Ever Love You.
— No One Will Ever Love You
(5)
Do you ever regret becoming a poet?
Do you ever regret discovering the words that were so deeply buried inside of your chest?
Do you ever regret the way you dug them up and how you gripped the shovel so tightly that your hands started bleeding?
Do you ever wish to forget what it felt like holding your heart in your hand for the very first time,
how it kept beating, though it was separated from the one thing it wanted to keep alive?
Do you ever wish you could be smooth again and forget the way rough endings, personifying monsters, and choppy metaphors feel against your skin?
If you could beg the universe to make you feel less, to make you forget the memories that are lodged inside of your brain, to take away your fingers, to make you forget
that love was something worth writing your organs outside of your body for – would you?
Would you take it all back and walk through life as if the world did not beg to be written about?
— Do You Ever Regret Becoming a Poet?
as·so·nance (n.) 