Good Advice for Bad People

Swear to yourself you will not
write another poem for that person,
the one who made you feel dry like ash,
and then open another document
and start writing.
This is what you will be left with
at the end of the day: a pair of
someone else's boots and a tired mouth.
I want to promise you
that it will feel fresher after dawn
breaks, but my promises don't stick
very well these days.

So have a little hope and then bury it.
Hold yourself down to the bed
and pretend you are not alone.
(You have to close your eyes very
tightly for that one.)

Just trust me: these are the ways
to cope when your fingers
are bruised, and you still
have a few sewing projects left.
Take the things you love, the things
you substitute for air,
and set them on fire. Watch them burn
down to nothing.
And the parts of you that still hurt
will burn with those things,
and there will be plenty
of oxygen left. Only this air
will be free of obligation.

Remember that there are no happy
endings for people like us,
only gray areas
and stomachs that growl in the middle
of the night. Give up on trying
to make sense of your reflection.
Let go of the notion
that you are a sweetheart. You
are not. You are a lion.

Be brave and stop
giving a fuck about the bridges
you burn. Embrace the fact
that your tears
are acid rain. Even your sadness
can hurt people.

Get sunburned.
Peel it off.
Become a hundred different people
with a hundred different sets of skin
by the time the summer ends.
Forget where you started.
And I want to promise you
that it will feel
fresher when dawn breaks, but
my promises don't stick
too well these days.

What I will say is this:
you are beautiful in your destruction.
Try your hardest not to be afraid
to raise hell.