I go out to dinner with a near stranger
we sit on the same side of the booth and
I think about how you're the only one who
knows how much I hate that

I drink a drink with ***** and lime and
***** and it almost makes me feel like
I know who I am when I'm with someone else

I don't think of you often but last night I did
I remembered how your arms are the
only place where I am not self-conscious

I lie next to him on my balcony and
there are a lot of stars above us but
I'm the only one who notices

he is thinking about what I look like naked and
I'm counting how many hours of sleep
I will get if he leaves before 2

there is not an absence of feeling,
just a different kind than I'm used to
he touches my hand and I smile in
a way that doesn't feel forced

I spend a day with a near stranger and realize
there is so much he does not know about me,
so much he doesn't care to

like how I got my nose pierced at 14 or
the amount of time I spend in the mirror each morning
picking myself into something I can carry only semi-confidently

he only learns I can't ride a bike when he asks if I want to
he has no idea that my blonde is shielding a deep brown or
when I got the freckle above my lip or
the inch long scar underneath my chin

he doesn't care and that's okay
when he leaves we say I miss you but
in a different way than I'm used to

it is not a pain swelling to be morphined
nor is it a pulling from the gut but instead
it is the ever temporary desire to fill the excess lonely

we say I miss you and still mean it but
it is not the missing that a body feels for
a phantom limb

I am with him now and probably will be again but
moving on doesn't mean I don't miss you
it only means I'm trying not to

just because I'm all right doesn't mean
I don't wonder how you are
I can still be happy with the existence of a quiet ache

but yes I do
miss you,
I will until the day I can sleep without having to count sheep
I will miss you even if there are no stars in the sky to remind me

I don't think of you but last night I did
the moon was too bright and
I was the only one
who noticed

I arrived with a smile running down - trying to escape my pale face
Eyes were heavy and excited, how did I manage to stay away
For so long, I had forgotten how
What the warmth seemed to scream and shout,
"It's alright; you're ok!
You're finally safe and sound - you're Home, now!"

I unpacked, and relaxed, ironed out wrinkles from the previous year
Each pressed in line, showed how much time, made it so obviously clear
That no matter what I expressed with my tongue
It's clear, it's here - this Home -  I belong
"It's alright; you'll be ok.
Just don't over stay your Welcome."

It wasn't long at all, before not a single thought, wasn't of how I over-stayed
But now I live alone, this house is not a Home, I only have myself to blame
Come Christmas time, the needles of the pine, will be the only presents under the tree
Since my return, I relearned, released the monster within me
"It's alright, you're fine...
Just as long as you never leave."

Boy, is it good to be Home.

People who fight
their battles alone
either lose the battle
or lose themselves.

I knew she was like water, she'd probably wish to be compared to a sea but she was more like a lake. Still, calm, never moving without an outside force.

But still I loved her. Her calming waters soothed my wounds and her reflective surface forced me to see myself the way I am. But still she never moved. I could ripple her surface, make her waters splash upon new sides of her shores, but in doing so I watched in somber wonder as she washed the people in her shallows up upon her banks, sore and bruised down to their hearts, and neither would reach for the other, trapped in the curse of stillness.

She assured me she loved me, she assured me I'd always stay in the deepest depth of her heart. And yet slowly, what was once a depth so warm and vast, I found my toes grazing the bottom, and every time I did I tried to swim back, back to where the water was endless, bottomless, yet never could I stay there long. Other people were causing wakes, and fighting against them was becoming difficult, for I am not the strongest swimmer.

I began to wonder whether I was still welcome, for her silences were getting longer, her ripples I could cause we're so much smaller, and in my self doubt those wakes moved me ever closer to the shore, and with each step I could take full footed along the bottom I began to sob.

I tried curling myself into a ball in those shallows, tried to allow the water to cover my head and tell myself I still mattered. But the water here was so frigid, my lips began to turn blue and my lungs burned. I'd return to the surface and take long breaths and use them to scream silently.

From where I stood, the water only knee deep I saw the figure of a man at her center, and as he raised his arms my scream became caught in my throat, and as his arms slammed upon her surface I saw the wave come rushing toward me, the longer it moved the more it grew and I said silently to myself "this is the end."

In those surreal seconds I remembered the others, and was reminded of her stillness, and in those horrible moments I knew I was nothing anymore, just another piece of useless trash to be lying upon her shore.

you're like bolt lightning in an old bottle
irrational and far too difficult to control
but then again no different to a shouting father
screaming wildly at his helpless child
that has taken to lying through his teeth
about the demons hiding beneath the surface
of his pallid skin.

as if shouting would ever make the world
stop spinning quite as fast, or make the
sun stop glaring at the faces of the forgotten
ones who reside mainly in their houses trying
oh so hard not to break themselves in half
while attempting not to let life take them
when it's so early in the year.