It’d be easier if I didn’t want you
More than even that
Enjoy you
It’d be easier

Easier not to care
But we don’t get to choose
Those kinds of things
And it’d be easier
To turn it off but
I can’t quite control myself with you
It’d just be easier

Because things like this
Don’t really happen to me
I’m not really the type
To be swept and caught up
Thinking the way I am now
Wondering the way I am now
Wishing even

Yeah
It’d be easier not to wish
But I can’t really help it
Seeing you
Talking to you
Laughing with you
****

You’re so deep inside my head
It’s impossible to stop it
Impossible to not think of you
To not need you in every way
How did you do that?

It’d be easier not to feel that way
More so now that I know
I was never an option in the first place
It’d be easier if that thought didn’t bother me
But **** it

I want you
In a stupid
I don’t give a **** about anything
Kind of way
More than just your touch
I want your soul
Want those eyes
And your thoughts
And every other
Stupidly perfect ******* thing about you
I want you
Your words
Your stories
Your kindness
I want your good and bad days
Your mistakes
Your successes
I want so much of this dumb **** with you
I can’t even remember why I avoided it
And that’s why it’d really
Be ******* easier if I didn’t

Because for the first time in years
Everything just seemed to click instantly
And it’s so ******* hard to ignore
Because you’re you
And ****….
You?
You’re everything.

It’s a little like a whisper
At the back of my mind
Feather light breaths
Against my cheek
As natural as anything could be
But God it shouldn’t have been

Why am I still smiling
I don’t think I can help it
With your presence at my side
Immovable and solid
Tell me why
I can’t seem to remember my anger

I can’t control it
I don’t think I ever could
Though I thought I might
It’s funny
How wrong you can be
And maybe I wasn’t at fault
But that doesn’t erase the guilt
Of a traitorous heart

So what happens then
With laid bare hopes
Pressed between pages and
Shared under street lamps and stars
How do I begin
To unravel the trouble I’ve woven

It’s a bit funny
Because I can’t quite seem
To get it right
And it isn’t your fault
Just a matter of circumstance
Because I met you
And for a moment
It seemed the universe was sighing

How comfortable I became so quickly
The surety of my gaze
How easy it was to be there
Moments born of cosmic mystery
No
Darling it wasn’t your fault at all
Just the wrong time
To choose the right kind of person

And there’s a romance
In my memory of it
A cadence to the way it went
One I can’t help but listen to
Eyes closed
Head tilted back
Bathing in the sweetness
Of those moments
So when you ask me
The answer is no
I was never angry
Because you reminded me
That I have a heart wholly capable
Of learning to love again

I realized I couldn’t become you.
Today, after years of fear
Burning at the back of my throat like fire,
I realized,
If I had the ability
To become like you at all,
The tears in her eyes
Wouldn’t have put tears in mine

Hi
I’m in love with you
And I know that we’re strangers now
And we didn’t get our happy ending
But
I love you
Because I still remember loving you
And the way you smiled
And the sound of your laugh
Spending every waking second together
Because we couldn’t get enough of it
I remember how you looked at me
Every time I spoke
It was like I was breathing life into you
Your eyes lit like stars at every word
And I remember dancing
Holding your hands any chance I could
I remember you pressing my frozen fingers
Firm against your skin
And kissing my forehead
You kept telling me then that it was alright
That I was safe
I fell in love with you
When you kissed me in the rain
Just because I wanted to be kissed then
When you held me through my tears
And bared your soul to me
I fell in love with you when you were patient
When you knew me better than I knew myself
And you loved me as fiercely as I loved you
I loved the way you kissed me
The way you stole moments with me
Every single opportunity feeling like the last
I loved the way you needed me
The way you let me need you
The way you brought me into your home
And you made it seem like it was so obvious
That I belonged there
Almost like I always had
Like I was your destiny
I loved that my voice mattered to you
My heart and soul mattered
That when you loved me
You loved all of me
Deeply and unconditionally and truly
And I think that’s why it hurt so bad
In the years after you left me
I knew what I had lost was real
That it was
A once in a lifetime thing
That for as powerful and consuming
As we were together
There would never be another love
That could echo that one
And I think that’s why I said it so often
In the months after I knew
You were well and truly gone
I kept telling anyone who would listen
That I would never love that way again
That I must’ve missed my chance
Or that maybe my karma in a past life
Was claiming me in this one
So that I might never reunite
With my other half
I’ve made peace with that lately
Looked at your photos
And smiled at your new successes
In the years that have passed
I’ve grown wiser and even fonder
Of the memories between us
And I’ve learned to keep my eyes present
Even as my heart lingers in the past
I’ve learned to see our story
In the mountains and waters and skies
To speak my truth
So that others who love like we did
May never have to grieve that kind of loss
And I’ve accepted my heart as it is
Still wholly loving you
No matter how much time has passed
And so there’s my final truth
The one that will die only when I am laid to rest
And it is that I love you
That I always have loved you
That I will never begin to stop loving you
And that even in the next life
My soul may aim to find you
Because yours was the love I’d read about
The one I longed and dreamed for
You were the one from the moment we met
And I know now that this truth will never change

You are fire and earth
You are life and breath
You are desert storms
And nebula dust
Scattered across galaxies
You are rebirth
And song
And mountains
Under blankets of moss
And willows
You are sky
And light
And the heat of the sun
You are spring and summer
An endless moon
You’re ivy blooming on lattice
You are beauty
And intensity
And oceans
And waves
You’re sweetness
And softness
And light
You’re the feather soft
Kisses of morning
The cool fresh bite
Of crisp fall air
The ache of laughter
The sighs of contentment
My god
You
Are everything
You are ink on pages
The smell of books on shelves in corners
The window seat
The ocean view
The train over borders and crossing worlds
You are wind and snow
Rock and river
You’re a map of lakes
And vines
And roots
And unmarked paths
Where barefoot prints
Mark the soft soil surface
You are a sanctuary
A vessel for worship
A harvester of love
And intention
And honesty
And you are home
A home so familiar and warm
That I must remind myself
It is real
That it is true
That you are before me
And that somehow
The universe has deemed me
Worthy to know you
It’s a fate I didn’t expect
But one I longed for
And god if it’s a dream
Do not wake me

To love tastes like sweetness
Fresh strawberries
And few drops on skin
It feels like grassy green hills
Starry night skies
And murmured words
Carried across state lines
Letters bundled in brown string
Lavender stems
And wax buttons
To love looks like her eyes
Mountains and earth and life
It looks like sunflowers
And bonfires
And nervous car rides
Sometimes I close my eyes
And her voice is there
At the back of my mind
Her laughter playing over and over
And I think to myself
This
This is what it feels like
But tongues these days
Were made to be held
And I’ve made it a hobby
To keep to myself
And the moments I steal
Between thought and dreaming
I spend realizing that many could do
So much better than this
But love looks a lot
Like who she is to me
Whether it’s not the right time
Or it may never be
And despite my desire
To face the world on my own
The sound of her voice
Never leaves me alone
And I find myself in bed
Lying awake through the night
Smiling at her humor
And thinking she might
Think of me too
And I don’t know why it happened
Why I can’t erase her from my mind
But I find I don’t want to
That I couldn’t if I tried
That every second of her presence
Every moment in time
I spend craving more of her
Always more of her

To think of it now,
I think that
We would’ve been happy.
To think of it now,
I think that
If we’d stayed as we were
And if we’d allowed ourselves
To keep loving
That tonight
I’d lie in the circle of your arms
Telling you the story of how we met again.
It used to be your favorite.
I’d tell you
All about how I fell in love with you
And how each day that love
Only grew stronger.
Further, I think.
I think that if you were here
Despite the distance
That has stretched between us since then
I would tell you
How I never stopped loving you
How I never even dared
I would tell you how I missed you
And how I found my lips
Curving upward at the mention of your name
And how I remembered you
So much of you, always
How I always felt a piece of me missing
In all of the days spent without you
I would tell you
The way I told so many when my heart was broken
Of your eyes
Your laugh
Your arms when you held me
The way you breathed life into me
The way you loved me.
To tell that story now,
Well
You should hear it.
You should’ve heard it that night.
How I cried and asked my mother
How
How is it that you can love someone
So completely after so many years
How is it possible
For that pain to live on so long?
She had no answer,
But I did.
It was in all of my memories of you.
The way I wrote everything down
From the moment we met
I wrote it all down.
Every glance and touch
Every joke and heartbeat
I wrote everything
Because I never wanted to forget
To lose those moments
So I wrote it all
And I spent my days thinking of you
Spent my nights dreaming of you
Spent every day wanting you
And chasing you
I loved you
From the second I met you
I was in love with you.
I was in love with your eyes the first day
When I looked up at you finally and paused
When I said
Why are you looking at me that way
And you couldn’t answer
I loved you when you grabbed my hands
And pulled me to dance with you
No one else was around
And I didn’t think jeans were all that beautiful
But I didn’t mind it with you
I loved you
When you looked at me like you couldn’t get enough
When you held me like you wanted to absorb me into your skin
When you held my hands against you
And looked into my eyes and promised me
Forever
Forever was how long you’d love me
Forever was how long you’d need me
Forever was the amount of time you’d spend
Endlessly chasing my soul
Into the darkest of nights
Forever
Was the promise I held onto
Like stardust in my fists
And I loved you
I loved you when you cried in my arms
When you needed my insight
When you were upset with me or confused
I loved you when forever was too big of a promise
When you were uncertain
Or when I was blinded by my own hurt
I still loved you
I loved you when I told you I didn’t
I loved you when I told you I did
I loved you when you breathed into me again
Only for a moment but that moment gave me hope
And purpose
And a fire struck within me at your words
And I swore to myself
Swore to the universe and whatever god lives
That I would love you for an eternity
That I would love you whether you ever returned or not
That I would love you until the sun died
The earth grew cold
And my limbs grew grey and cracked
I would love you beyond time
Beyond life
I would love you several lives over
Because loving you was not a fleeting thing
But a permanent one.
A heavy hitting
One in a million
Soul gripping
Heart shattering
Exquisite thing
It was alive and breathing
And vibrant
Loving you was color
And even my brokenness without you
Was beautiful
See
I loved you
For all of the times that were sweet
And innocent and pure and magic
But I also loved you
When everything hurt
When all was dark and pain
When I wished I didn’t
I loved you.
And I love you now.
Those moments of pain
Both trivial and monumental
I look back on them now
With fondness in my heart
Because we were so young
The two of us so overwhelmed by the love we felt
We were so young and naive then
But my god
Did I love you
And how I wish
I’d met you later
How I wish I’d known you
After knowing myself
How I wish you’d have come
After I’d discovered how to love myself first
After I realized my own worth
If only I’d known you
Later
Maybe
I would have gotten the chance
To love you
Longer