i wish i told you
(that it's not your fault, it never was your fault in all the ways you told yourself to stay i know you thought about my happiness every single time)

i wish i knew better
(than to do what i did, than to take it out on you as if it wasn't my problem but yours, as if i was the victim and i did nothing wrong)

i wish i never held you back
(never tried to keep you to myself, but i realized too late when you left that i wasn't loving you the way i was supposed to, that i became the kind of lover i told myself i wouldn't become)

remind me of what i used to love
remind me that i still do
remind me that i always will
your fingerprints
forever on my ribs
residing in the place between
hurt and comfort

remind me that you don't
remind me that i'm no longer
part of you
remind me that i never was
that you were never ready
that i was never meant for the long run

(i am terrified of living in
your memories as someone
you learned to hate
that what you choose to keep
fuels the fire of why you left)

(could have, should have)
darling when will you realize
that you cannot own time
that you can set clocks but
you can't control the rate
at which the arms will move
that time is not of this earth
that time never listens to anybody
it is its own mistress
time
doesn't want anything to do
with us and yet it's the most
important thing we have
time
carved itself into the velvet
of the universe
and made a home for itself
time
always seems to morph
into someone you love -
there's always the right time
always not enough time
always time and time and time
again
(could have, should have)
my darling time
is the repetition of the seasons
how everything changes but is
still the same
how we seem to stretch into our bones
but still feel how we did
my darling
time
sinks its teeth into our
could haves and should haves
feeding off the things
we wish we did
the things we wish
we could do differently
time
becomes our enemy
until we realize
that although it
will never listen to us
it will let us in
if we just let it.

you're not doing well
with skin like bed sheets
ebbing tides in your forehead
and the malady that keeps your mind guessing,

these next six nights
of not having to feel
so alone will make you
fall back into sleep
to grow roots.

i'll cut holes in the ozone
to put your heartache in

i'll walk you to the hospital,
i'll wait in a white room,
place your sad eyes in my drawers
until my hand breaks

the universe is twice as big as we think it is
and 'you are so important to me'
is easier to digest than
skipping heart beats

i miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye,
or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47,
and
i've fallen in love

you're the only one that made that idea
less devastating.

the bible says faith
is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen.
how strange and yet
magical it is for us
to believe and remember
in things we do not know
the way the three kings
believed the star would
bring them to the child Jesus
the way people used to believe
that the phases of the moon
meant life, death, and rebirth
symbolizing the way a woman's
womb would swell once they
bear a child
the way we hold onto history
as if we are witnesses of
every horror and heartbreak
remembering the lost souls
using what we had to find out
what we will have
faith is total trust
and surrender
knowing that the world
began with adam and eve
but not knowing how it
will end
for the moon
the stars
our history
can only tell us so much
and our faith
is the honey found in heaven
the conviction that someday it
will be all we taste

i believe
i believe
i believe