I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry

by Halsey

I have found a home here amongst the chaos. The constant.

I so badly want to be liked. Scratch that. I want to be loved. I want her to love me.

But she sparkles the way only a beautiful woman can.

I can’t carry all this weight, so I must put it somewhere and somewhere is with you. You will take good care of it?

Let my skin sink into the armchair and lose its shape. Lose its form. Collapse into a sigh.

I see all things in this world as more beautiful than I, and I spin the details of their atoms in every paragraph and brushstroke. I wish I had 11 hands with 55 fingers so I could paint and write and fuck and feed and grab grab grab everything. I. Want. It. All.

It’s sitting in your own filth for days, staring at the shower across the room while minutes become hours.

It is not a desire. It is a clenched jaw and an aching back and a disposition to spite everything around you. To find the world not worthy of your words, and to find yourself unworthy of the world.

It is a terrible self-loathing that sends your teeth sinking into your lips.

a sneaking suspicion that everything you see is altered through your gaze.

You ask for kindness that is never returned. You wish to burn alive in the flame of a love unrequited. It’s simple. Write.

been watering all these plants made of plastic and you think they’ll grow.

shiny new things but they’re all for show.

My mother used to warn me if I swallowed a seed it would get stuck in my belly and grow a watermelon plant.

I spent a spring and summer eating the fruit from the flesh of your lips. The bounty of two round mounds, hard like pink sugar. Your grip on my cheeks with a firm hand holding my mouth open.

To spit a virus in my throat that grew into a giant “you” plant.

make me say things I don’t mean.

Echoes that bounce up between my teeth. And remind my tongue there is no more watermelon. Just empty space.

I am angry because of my father.

I am angry because of my father. I can hold a grudge like it’s a hand.

Thank you for the freckles on your nose that keep me star-crossed, starry-eyed,

when I’m lying underneath you and I look up at your darling face. You’re made of everything good in this world.

Girls who weren’t sad and tired. Girls better than me. Who had learned to turn their trauma into adventures for him to stumble blindly through. Instead of wallowing in their brokenness and breaking everything in their path as penance.

My mother told me pick your battles wisely but you made me angry at the world so I chose them all.

I could fall asleep here. Crawl inside the sleeping bags under your eyes. But I stay awake to memorize.

I remember how the sky looked. Your lips made my mouth numb. Your face grew closer to her neck. It’s easy to play dumb.

I remember all the chaos. The frantic, nervous sounds. I don’t remember much, though, once I hit the ground.

You tell me, “Winners never lose.”

I hope every single day you put your socks on backward

I don’t hope that you’d die; just live to 75 And you spend every waking moment Wishing you felt alive.

Used to live up the street from you but since then I moved. My new house is clean and the sky’s always blue. I sing in the shower and I walk around naked. I love my whole body though you once made me hate it. I eat lots of pancakes and drown them in honey. I’ve made lots of handshakes and made lots of money.

Earth is bleaker in the dark.

I’d really like to find The place between your eyes Where I kiss you on the forehead And make you smile every time

It kills me that you’ll leave Off in a jet over the sea But I hope the air in California Will forever taste of me.

my hair standing on every end when you appear and breathe down my neck (so tell me, how the fuck I’m supposed to keep my cool)

Waking up and staying in bed for a couple extra hours so I can see what color your eyes are in that special light we only see at 6 a.m.

you’re pulling fibers of tissue from my lips and I wonder, If I bleed, will you like the taste?

my tongue feels like it doesn’t fit in my mouth the same without you in it.

you’re putting your own personal filter over the lens of my life so that I see it in your colors. And my hands shake and I swallow hard when I realize how much nicer life looks in your saturation.

I sweat hollowed we wed I’ve gone cross-eyed and tongue-tied at the prospect of your lips.

I’d melt like a mint in the heat of your mouth. like a hurricane in a dress shirt

I was drowning.

I was choking. I tried to kick, but the man was standing on my legs. His weight was too much to bear And I feared that shovel would dismount onto my head And split my skull if I provoked him any more. I tried to yank the fish out again but it struggled. It attached its jaws to the opening of my throat and it would not budge. I yanked. And I screamed. And my mother came rushing into the room, tripping over her feet.

I wanted to cry but feared I’d fill the pond again.

He loves to bring me watermelon. Spits in my mouth, seeds. To grow inside my stomach like A thing that begs to feed

I’m dripping like a watermelon, Soaking through my seat. I bite my lip and suckle on The words between my teeth.

He fills my mouth with watermelon. No one hears me scream. To overdose on sugar is more Painful than it seems.

He can be so mean. But smiles like a gentleman And licks my body clean.

And when there is no watermelon, Only vicious weeds, He puts his fingers in his mouth To taste the way I bleed. Now all I crave is watermelon, Every time I leave.

You said you’d always love me from my head to my toes And then All at once you loved me to a little death.