The first time I saw you
I couldn’t look for more than a moment.
Now I always have to look at least twice,
and that’s still not enough.
We get lost at least three times whenever
we’re together, even if we spend the whole night
on the couch.
*(It took four days for me to gain the courage
to ask you if you would like to spend
an afternoon with me, even if it was not that day).
I need at least five seconds to find my footing
after looking into your eyes.
It took me six tries to come up with
something good for number five,
and I’m still not satisfied.
I skip the seventh step down (not counting the top one)
on my basement stairs because it’s the one
that creaks the loudest on yours.
We spent exactly $8.00 on the dessert we ate
fifteen minutes before Chili’s closed and $2.82
in late fees for the movie we returned that night.
Nine hours is a lot of time to spend
looking to my right, expecting you to
be in the passenger seat,
even though I know you aren’t.

You always use the back button
on your phone,
never the home button.
You’re scared of exiting something completely.
You’re scared of leaving things behind.
You’re scared that home will take you far away.
But home was never meant to be something
to run away from.
It isn’t the park down the street
where you played as a kid,
or the hardwood floor you collapse onto
when hours past midnight become
too much to handle.
It’s not the splintered wood and bent nails
that keep the four walls around you standing.
Home doesn’t have an address.
Home never had an address.
Home was always right here with you.
It’s always right here with you.
So when things become too much
and you feel too weak to push forward,
you will learn to push the home button,
and you will find me.
I will be home for you.
I will always be home for you.

I’ve gone color blind from staring
at the sun for too long,
or maybe at you for too long.
The leaves and sky seem to blend together.
Days start to blend together.
I hope the grass doesn’t bother you,
because my legs feel as if they’re made of it.
Always collapsing on each other,
even though I wish they’d collapse onto yours.
The worn out Oak that has spent today with us
is giving everything it has left,
but it fails to keep hints of sunlight from your face.
Sunlight always finds your face.
For as honest as we are,
you told me today that we are liars,
and I cannot disagree.
Because even though I say, “Nothing.”
when you ask what’s running through my mind,
I see oceans in your eyes
and constellations on your lips.

I’m falling desperately for pieces of you,
and all of you at the same time.
I know I’ve stumbled in so deep,
but there’s still more for me to find.
If you’d like you can call me a fool,
and I’ll be as foolish as they come,
but that still won’t explain how
your eyes make me go numb.
I’m keeping every little bit,
because I can’t bear
to let it go.
The subtle curve your soft lips make
when they hear me say your name,
and the freckle on your collarbone,
your right, my left.
I think of how I feel so much more than skin
when you simply brush against me.
Your hand in mine.
My left, your right.
This isn’t a poem,
it’s a 3 am conversation on your basement couch
and a quiet night spent on the bench next to the lake.
I can never write poems about you,
because it’s impossible to write a poem
about poetry itself.

Ernest Hemingway once said
"Write drunk; edit sober."
But to hell with that,
I'll give you my worst.
I'll give you all the pieces
when my heart decides it's too much
or too little
and my mind forgets the difference.
I swear I'll sink right through the floorboards
if you don't find someway to fill the spaces.
You are the sand clenched in my
scraped up palms,
sticking to the worst parts of me;
the ones that everyone else finds
too messy,
too broken,
too tired,
too empty.
You find someway to keep my broken limbs
moving forward, even when I have nothing left.
I have nothing left.
There is nothing left.
And I've checked this over a thousand times
to make sure every letter is in its proper place.
It must be perfect,
even if I'm not.
Because even if I give you my worst,
you always deserve more than my best.

There are things I think about doing with you,
like folding laundry with the windows open
and hearing the crickets chirp outside.
Like listening to the turning ceiling fan slowly
make its way around itself,
while we dance and make our way
around each other in the center of the room.
And you stumble slightly on the edge of the rug
that always rolled up a little bit,
but I am there to catch you.
I know you tried every day to fix that corner,
but you need not worry.
I will always be there to catch you.
I know you try every day to not crumble
and shatter into thousands of little pieces.
I know you’re scared,
but you need not worry.
I will always be there to catch you.

1933.15 kelvin.
The melting point of titanium,
and the temperature I'm sure
your eyes surpass,
because my heart is sinking
through the floorboards
and I'm melting in your hands.
Liquid metal should be a contradiction
because that is what I am around you.
A turbulent sea.
A placid puddle.
I only hope that I pool
in the nooks inside your chest,
and you find some way
to make me solid again.
Only you can make me solid
again.

Some say 3 hours isn’t enough sleep to get by,
but I’m more concerned about getting by
with less hours of you.
I didn’t open my umbrella today,
it has too many broken pieces anyways.
The rain felt cold,
but still gentle.
Always gentle.
You’re always gentle.
I couldn’t use my travel cup today,
I didn’t have enough time to clean it.
Maybe some mornings are supposed
to be spent without something to wake me up.
Maybe I’ll drink honesty in the largest mug
I can find.
One sugar,
not two,
a little bit of milk.
Maybe I’ll carry love around in buckets
until the handles cut through my palms
and leave reminders of why you are worth it.
You can clean them if you’d like,
it will burn but that’s okay.
Just know that you’re worth it.
You are worth it.

Some nights these thoughts
are all I have.
Some nights they are thoughts
I hope you have yourself.
Like early mornings with oversized sweaters
and coffee a bit too warm,
with a slight fog
and gentle rain outside.
Like mid evening spent on a soft grassy hill
with a calming breeze
and wispy clouds.
Like battling 4 am as it tries
to sink our drooping eyelids,
holding on only by
anchoring our eyes to one another.
Some nights they are words.
Some nights they are what keeps me company
when I drift into six hours
of softened slumber.
Some nights they are hopes.
Other nights they are needs.
Every night they are about you.

Every piece I find
draws me deeper into you,
and my shaking hands refuse
to know exactly what to do.

The tides are like your eyes,
always moving but never leaving,
and my head’s below the surface
but somehow I still keep breathing.

You are not like the sea.
It will never be deep enough,
nor calm enough,
nor lovely enough
to ever hold your substance.
You have engulfed all of it;
every salty drop now sits in lungs
that hold the air I need to survive.
And I will dive as deep as I must
to find the caverns that keep it.
Tides cascade through brimming veins
and currents surge through swelling limbs.
One deep breath is all it takes
to force the sea into your eyes.
And you will hold it there forever;
the tranquil green pools
like puddles forming from
the deepest ocean floors.
You are not like the sea.
You will never be like the sea.
The sea is like you.

"Your future holds endless opportunities."
But what does a bent piece of paper
inside a crooked cookie know about
all that you are.
You are sunlight
and morning dawn
and cloudy skies
and gentle rain
and the perfect distance
that my feet must swing
in order to not step
on the cracks in the sidewalk.
Don’t act like you haven’t tried it either.
We both have;
tried to keep your feet moving at just the right time,
when you want them to, where you want them to
and not any time or place before.
But maybe I’m okay with not knowing
where they’ll take us now.
After all, sidewalks are already paved,
we just need to walk them.
Maybe that slip of paper was right.
Your future holds endless opportunities.

I found you.
Amidst distant humming grasshoppers
and humid evening air,
I found you.
Or maybe you found me.
Maybe you’re finding me.
2 am came early last night;
our words far too honest,
our eyes far too tired.
Maybe our bones too.
Ignoring time’s mandates you
ripped my heart straight from my chest
with bare hands
(living)
(pulsing)
(messy)
and laid it on the table next to yours.
I’m still not sure how to put it back,
so I’ll carry it around with both hands
until you’re there to examine it again.
And I’ll spend all the time apart wondering
why it feels better
outside of my ribcage.

Sometimes I take the long way home.
I hope you don’t mind.
It’s just in hopes of spending a few more
minutes with you.
And I take every chance to switch
into the right lane, just to steal
a few extra glances when you’re not looking.
I hope you don’t mind.
I’ve cracked open my ribcage and laid
every piece of what’s left on the table,
even if it’s not much.
I don’t need you to put me back together,
I just need you to be okay with
broken pieces,
fragmented statements,
incoherent whispers.
We don’t need to be fixed.
We just need to grow.
And how can we grow if there are not
cracks in our minds and gaping holes
in our hearts?
I think your pieces are beautiful.
I would like to hold on to them for a while.
I hope you don’t mind.

Can you handle me on sleepless nights
after midnight when past regrets
turn into future fears?
Will you be able to calm that sea?
Because my teeth feel loose inside my mouth
and some days I worry too much.
Some days my clothes are a tad bit too big
or too small,
and my glasses don’t sit right.
I guess they still keep you in focus.
I wonder what you’d think
if you saw all the thoughts I had.
What if I’m not enough?
You’d think it’d be a question
but some days it just becomes a statement
that I bury underneath fearful eyes.
I guess I forget that it can be answered.
But what if?
What if I’m not enough.

My third grade teacher called me a word miser,
I suppose not much has changed.
Maybe I’ve just become selective,
or maybe you force words to
stay lodged inside my throat.
But maybe words really don’t say that much.
Because I see more letters in those
forest eyes than all the books I’ve buried myself in,
and your lips could write pages with
all the softness that they hold.
So we live in emptiness together
like we never want to leave.
They will have to drag us out,
if they can find us first.
I know you won’t ever let them find us,
because you grasp time within your fingers
and hold stillness in your bones.
It’s okay if you’re scared.
I’m sure it’s for the same reason I am,
and for the same reason you
place a napkin on your lap when you eat:
you don’t trust yourself.
But that’s okay,
you only need to trust me.

I woke up with a headache this morning,
I think I drank too much of you last night;
even if most of it was in silence.
But silence is what you make it,
and there’s no need for words
when I can hear your heart beating
from across the table
and your pupils are larger than the lids of
the two unfinished coffees that sit in my car.
I desperately search for something to grasp,
so I must avoid your eyes
because they’re far too much to handle.
So I find the freckle just above
the end of your right eyebrow,
and the extra hole in your ear
that you did not fill with jewelry tonight.
I pretend that every day I will see you,
and today you are the deep blue sky
filled with wispy clouds;
an ocean of reminders that
there’s so much more to find
inside of you.

I thought I would run out of words
when soft beams of light peaked past the horizon,
like the letters would sink down with the moon.
Because for years I’ve made the stars my ink
and the night sky my canvas.
I guess the sunlight just feels strange
when you’ve spent so much time in darkness.
But now it warms my frosted fingers,
pulsing liquid lava through my veins.
Sleepless nights becoming tired mornings.
But they are new.
And so am I.
I can write about hope,
even if I have so little left.
I can write about truth,
even though I lie right through my teeth.
I can write about peace,
even though I see none of it in me.
And I can write about love,
even though I haven’t the faintest clue
of what it could be.

I will never tell you that you look beautiful.
I will never tell you that (you) look lovely.
Because those statements hinge on sundresses
and too much time looking in the mirror.
After all, it is just a piece of glass.
And you (are) too,
because I see right through the beaming
reflections on your skin.
And you are deeper than the ocean,
calmer than it too.
As sweet as dripping honey,
and as (soft) as morning dew.
You’re that feel(i)ng at 2 (am), when the Sun
is asleep and somehow I still don’t feel alone.
And you are every gentle raindrop landing
on (quiet) rooftops in late July.
Your roots sink further than lofty White Oaks,
and your reach extends far beyond their branches.
You keep every beam of sunlight,
your eyes like glowing coals,
and every morning the horizon must borrow
from all the splendor that you hold.
They fill books with all your essence,
and it’s still never enough.
So I will call you what you are.
You are lovely.
You are beautiful.

I want you to be unsure of
the words you want to say,
because I know I sure as hell am.
I’d rather live half way in the past
than lose something I never had.
And don’t you dare call me a coward
just because I’m scared to write these words.
You can’t love me.
You’re not allowed to love me.
I won’t let you.
Because you deserve the ocean
and I can only offer droplets.
Slipping sand right through my fingers,
crumbling rock beneath my feet.
Every glowing star goes dim
when your eyes reflect their light.
And I can’t stomach hopeful answers
from even more hopeful lips, but I will try.
I will try.
I will try to grow new gardens
from ancient soil in my heart.
Perhaps this time it’s ready,
perhaps it will spread through every limb.
And you might say I’ve jumped
right into the deep end,
but it’s the only way I know how to swim.

To say I’ve lost control is to assume
I had some to begin with.
But you were the turbulent rushing tide
and I’m just the shore you leave and then return to.
I’ve taken a lot of things that weren’t mine
and been given a lot of things I don’t deserve.
You happened to be both.
And I might never be happy,
but at least I’m getting by.
I wish you would do the same.

Tonight I let go.
I let go.
Oh God, I let go.
I just never knew I could.
But I won’t let it haunt me any longer.
You’ve spent enough time inside this head.
I refuse to be brought down
by what you expected me to be.
And I refuse to let the man I’ve been
hold back the man I’m supposed to be.
I’m not collecting any pieces,
and I’m not filling any holes,
because I’ve been here all along
and now I’ve been set free.
Now I see what it’s like
to let love burst past all the dams,
and how it feels to flood my veins
instead of all the fear I had.
Tonight I let go,
so that these aching hands can grasp
and this surging heart can love.
I let go
to make space for so much more.

I don’t know how to stomach those words.
They don’t fit anywhere in the cupboard
I made for the things people have told me to be.
It doesn’t feel okay.
But it feels okay.
And you say trying isn’t enough,
so as stubborn as I am, I will try harder.
Because even though my biggest pieces
are left in the past,
there is still enough of me here now.
I can write about other people besides her.
I can find new people to fill this hollow heart.
I will no longer apologize for the things I feel
and do not feel.
I will build something new
even though so much is still missing.

Some nights these words aren’t enough.
I want more than just memories of you.
Because no combination of letters
can resemble how soft your skin was
and how deep your eyes went
every night we tried to capture stars
in our drifting hearts.
Because open fields weren’t enough
to contain all the love you had to give
and no ocean could ever calm the
restlessness of our bones.
Late nights left us both in ruin,
I just hope you can forget now.
Sometimes these words just aren’t enough.
No matter how hard I try.

I know you said to not let it destroy me,
but you were far too late.
I don’t want to get better.
I don’t want to get better.
I don’t want to get better.
But I can.
I know I can.
Because I can choose.
I can choose to love when it hurts,
when it stings,
when it kills me.
I can choose to feel it all,
even though I’ve buried it beneath
the dirt of muddy memories
and worn out regrets.
I can choose to change the words
that try to claw their way out of holes
I’ve dug for the people I’ve hurt.
I can’t choose that it was you,
I could never choose that it was you.
But I can choose to be okay,
even though I’m not.

Deep breath in.
Wait.
Listen to the floorboards moving gently in their slumber.
Focus on the slowly spinning ceiling fan,
as it matches the hum of the insects outside.
I know your hands are shaking for reasons
other than the cold room you’re in.
Concentrate on them.
Each finger counts the things that are
beautiful in you, and you are a radiant polydactyl.
No matter how it feels right now,
I promise you that you’re not alone.
Even the sun sent moonlight to grace you while it’s sleeping.
You will be okay.
Please wait.
I know how far you’ve come, and how far you have left to go.
You will get there. Tonight will not break you.
Because you are enough.
You are the abandoned lot outside my house,
with vegetation bursting through rusted fences.
Pushing up flowers through cracks in concrete,
reaching for vibrant sunlight.
You might be easily overlooked sometimes
but you sustain life even in the darkest places.
You are enough.
I don’t have things all figured out, and I know you don’t either.
That’s okay.
Just repeat after me:
“I am enough."
Deep breath out.

I used to hate my middle name,
until the first time I heard you say it.
It slipped out from behind your lips
like a leaf caught in a gentle Fall breeze.
It seemed to fit perfectly right between
my first name and three other words
I’ll never say to you again.
It lived inside your mouth,
(I guess I did too)
and it (I) never felt safer anywhere else.
And when I lost you I hated it for a while.
I hated when I heard people say it,
because those parts of me only belonged to you
for such a long time.
But now I’m okay.
Because it’s a part of me,
and I think you always will be too,
even though my names not yours to keep
anymore.

These words aren’t about you.
They’re about the person I let rent space
inside my heart.
They’re about the times I wished I could go back
and say to them, “No it’s okay, you can stay longer
I don’t care if your payment is late."
Because having you there was enough.
But these words aren’t about you.
They’re for the person still hiding behind these drained eyes.
These shaking fingers.
These weak limbs.
And I’m still not sure which is better;
to feel everything at once or nothing at all.
Because sometimes it is both,
and you are the gushing waters drowning my lungs.
And sometimes it is neither,
and you are the words I wish I could take back.
We always left so many of them unsaid,
letting our bodies do the talking.
But now I wonder how many conversations
we’ve had with each other when we
thought we were asleep.

I’m scared.
I’m scared that one day I’ll be numb,
that quiet fields at 3 am
will no longer remind me of you,
that I won’t notice worn cracks in the sidewalk,
that this smile I wear might actually be real.
I’m scared this heart is empty,
because you took everything when you left it.
I’m scared because you saw every corner of it
and you didn’t run.
I’m scared to love,
because I know how it feels when I’ve lost it.
I’m scared because the words don’t come easy anymore.
Because I can write a poem for each one of the trees
outside my window,
but I can never find the words for you.
They wait patiently in the distance between us,
so I guess these simple ones will have to do.
I’m sorry.
I’m scared that one day the ink inside these veins will dry up,
and the letters won’t arrange themselves the way I want.
But maybe that’s already happened,
because this is how it feels to have all the things to say
and no way to say them.
I’m scared.
I’m scared because these words are all that I have left,
and you’re not here to read them.

I think the gaps in my heart
are slowly shrinking.
I think the wounds are healing.
I think the old man at the back of the bus
will be happy again one day.
The memories will fade where you once were.
The ghosts in my head will go away.
My hollow bones will one day be filled.
I’m not afraid to make mistakes anymore.
You didn’t matter that much to me.
It was easy to let you go.
I don’t miss you anymore.

I measured time in heartbeats and length
by how far your fingers traced on my skin.
Time passed like sultry summer nights
and length was as far as the night stars
that kept us company.
Every second was one I tried to keep safe
instead of cherish.
I wish you’d still wrap your hands around mine
as tight as you do your morning tea.
Because you are my pulmonary veins,
carrying all the broken parts I give and
returning them alive.
Reviving blood as dense as lead,
warming it like the sunrise I used to feel you in.
But now I can only battle eyelids that drop
like anchors near shallow shores;
trying to find the footing your eyes once gave
(still give).
And you might call me a liar,
but it felt like forever to me.
I still measure time in heartbeats
but length by how far
you feel from me.
And right now time moves
as quick as early mornings,
and length is farther than I’d like.

I swear things will get better.
Even skinned knees and scraped palms
take some time to heal.
And you are chiseled marble,
sculpted into something lovely.
Stronger than diamonds,
and more beautiful too.
Your eyes reflect hardened obsidian,
birthed from flowing fire itself.
You might still be in pieces,
but you will be rebuilt.
And I will help.
So please, let me handle your scars.
I want to know them inside and out.
I promise I’ll be gentle, I know how tender they can be.
I am well trained in unsettled regrets after midnight,
and fluent in the language of comforting silence.
I know each jagged ridge holds so much you’ve lost
or tried to gain.
I know how much they mean to you.
I promise I’ll be gentle.

You are an unrelenting hurricane,
vaporizing everything in your path.
You are as fluent and necessary as water,
and as viscous as honey at room temperature,
always taking the path of most resistance.
But once you are warm you flow as freely as the sea,
and just as violent too.
And that is why you require a broadened cliff
for your unbridled waves to beat against,
a sturdy bomb shelter for your B-52 flybys;
an eye at the center of your storm,
perfectly peaceful and okay with all that you are.
Because you are the current within veins,
sending action potentials down axons and dendrites,
flooding presynaptic terminals with pieces of yourself.
And you will be someone else’s,
because you deserve all of this and more,
and these are all the things
I could never be for you.

I am empty.
You have taken every last word,
every phrase,
every letter,
every whisper.
They all belong to you now,
locked behind your weary eyes.
I can only hope that you keep them safe.
Because they are the last parts
of me that are still alive.
They are all that I have left.
And now they keep you alive too.
They are the warm mug of tea
on the mornings you feel weak,
and they’re the words that leave your mouth
when you feel too scared to speak.
You’ve ruined me.
Every last bit.
And this cavernous heart refuses
to drink deeply, for it knows the blood that
filters through it no longer has your touch.
You’ve ruined me, and I am empty.
But you are filled.
I am empty,
but I will be okay.

These words are for your lips
because I know how much you hate them.
I will use my own to lay these letters on them,
and I promise I will be as soft as the words
you spoke to me before the sun woke up.
I will sink my teeth into every crack and gaping crater,
and I will fill them with everything I have left.
My fingers will trace each newly opened scar,
and I will mend each one with suture made from steel.
And as you slowly chip away, I will
keep all of your pieces together,
because you do not need to be whole to be complete.
You do not need to be whole to be complete.

I was once told,
“We write what we know best",
and they say I know you deepest.
But like the fail points of a bridge,
you know exactly where
I’m weakest.
And if the oceans still so vast,
your thoughts stretch further
than its shores;
while the outline of your ghost
still sleeps upon
my bedroom floor.

I’m letting go of all of it.
Or maybe it’s just seeping out.
Melting through my fingers,
dripping into letters,
pouring into words.
I’m losing parts of me,
but it’s the only way
to lose parts of you as well.
Because you still
live inside these hollow bones,
you still haunt these pulsing veins.
And when I think that you’re all gone,
I still feel you in the rain.

Tonight our bones will never fracture,
even with the weight upon our shoulders.
Our battered arms can lift steel bars,
and weary legs can run for miles.
Tonight our hurting hearts will heal,
and every word will be the suture
in the stitches of our wounds.
Tonight I will be the anchor
that still floats, the anchor
that cannot sink;
but you will be the weight
wrapped around all that I am.
You will be the weight
that keeps me grounded.

I know you’re still a mess,
and sometimes you wish I’d speak less.
I’m sorry I’m not silent,
my best words are birthed in weakness.

Today we start again,
because 2 am does not define us.
Because sore hearts and even sorer eyes
will not shape our hurting souls.
And for every night we spent alone
the sun still rose each morning.
So today we start again.
As reluctant,
as scared,
as weak as you may be,
today we start again.

Maybe I messed things up.
Maybe that humid, cloudy day
wasn’t supposed to be
the last time I would see you.
Maybe it was.
Maybe distance wasn’t the problem.
Because 1,002 miles can keep
a lot of things apart, except for words.
And maybe I just didn’t have any left,
or maybe I just ran out.
Maybe I was scared.
Maybe it was for the better.

I’m still trying to forget you,
it might seem strange to some;
your voice still haunts my dreams
and every time I still go numb.

"Hold this for a second?" you said
as you handed me your heart.
And I still keep it safe,
even though it fell apart.

If your heart engulfs the ocean,
and your hands become the shore,
then I’ll rest upon the grains
until I become no more.

I’m looking for it again.
I’m looking for the place that feels
as right as 2 am in the middle of the street,
underneath the soft glow of the street light,
right beside the drooping willow
and calming dark forest.
I’m searching for it again.
Because the breeze against my face
reflects the spot along your chest
where my head and your heart became one.
Where all that was left of me came undone.