borderline heartbreak

when i was fifteen, nobody told me you could disintegrate

because you love someone

and that isn't a metaphor because i turned to ash with your lack of words

with the vegas love you found

in the girl standing next to me.

and yes that was a metaphor because science will say that i've got a condition

a mental disease and you're expected to understand

but saying, "i suffer from borderline personality disorder"

will never describe the shadows lurking beneath my skin

or the loss of a sixteen year old girl

all because she said "i love you" for the first time and meant it

while he whispered beautiful poetry to the girl next to her

and said all of it was real

and maybe it was.

maybe he fell in love with her best friend

and maybe those pastel 'you are loved' sticky notes were hung with true purpose of saving another life

and maybe they never grasped the consequences but they'll never understand because i gave him my heart and it wasn't even worth an paper, cookie cutter apology.

and i dated his best friend who said "i love you"

and i broke up with him the next week

because my heart is a bomb shelter,

warped with steel and closed up so tightly that even my mind doesn't know how to get in.

that's why i could never love you

because my heart is a bomb shelter.

my heart is a bomb shelter and i'm afraid to kiss you because a kiss is a silent 'i love you'

and i lied to my ex far too many times. 

lies come easy to me now because he filled me with smoke and dust that spills

every time i open my mouth

and every time i'm alone.

and now,

when i hear, "i love you"

i think of paper teenagers making glass promises

i taste iron and blood

and i hear a massacre.

when i was sixteen, i died

and they called it heartbreak

and i still can't figure out how to write about it.