Loving you is the smell of the rain
Fresh. Life sustaining.
Sweet droplets dripping on petals
Blooming in spring.

Loving you is breath catching in my chest
Overwhelmed and afraid
Because it’s so good I fret
The concept of ever having to spend
A day of this life without you in it.

Loving you is the depth of
The sea
So vast that even its
Contemplation is greater than is
Humanly conceivable,
The feeling of warm salt water on
Tanned skin,
Sounds of
Crashing waves,
loving you is a perfect summer day.

Loving you is a rocket to outer space
Lost in the cosmos
I’m living amongst the constellations
Draped against
The Milky Way;
Loving you,
Being loved by you,
Looms larger than this world.

Loving you is the most
Beautiful terrifying expansive
Life-altering mind-blowing unimaginable
Gift
That I never would’ve dreamed of finding
Let alone deserving.

Loving you is absolute magic;
Because you are absolutely magical.

I wish I would’ve let you hold me just a little while longer.

I wish I would’ve let you kiss me a little more.

I wish I would’ve let you continue to touch my skin, run your hands through my hair, caress the features on my face; I wish I would’ve let you stay.

I knew I couldn’t. I knew it was time to say goodbye. I knew we were doing the right thing. I knew it, and yet

I wish it had gone any other way.

I wish that the feelings alone were enough to make us work.
I wish that loving you, being loved by you, I wish that was all it took.
I wish our timing was right.
I wish rights were just right and without any wrongs.
I wish we weren’t just a chapter.
I wish we were the epilogue.

I knew it was time to say goodbye.
But I still smell the space on my pillow where your curly hair rested against it as you looked at me that way you do.
I still feel the way it felt when you pulled me close as I cried, how you kissed the top of my head tenderly.
I still hear the reverberations of our laughter, the things we said in unison, the way we finished each other’s sentences and shared our deepest fears.

We said goodbye to this version of us.
We knew it was time.
We knew it was what we needed to do.
And one day soon, I hope my heart knows it too.

I distinctly remember the moment
When I realized I was in love with you.

I was lying beneath
The most incredible night sky,
Black blanket speckled with
An endless stretch of stars.
I had never seen a sky like that.
I had never seen anything so
Infinitely beautiful,
So breathtaking.
I felt the smallness of my existence
In the context of an infinite universe.

And it was then that I knew,
In the smallness of my existence,
In the vastness of this world,
Amidst all the chaos
And stillness
And uncertainty;
Somewhere between all the quiet
Moments and contemplations,
You had found a home in my heart.

In that moment,
I realized that there was nothing
That I wanted more
Than to lay next to you on the
Chilled ground,
And let our souls speak all the words
That we never needed to say out loud.

It was then that I knew,
That I loved you,
That I wanted to love you
As large as the universe,
As bountifully as the stars,
Until our spirits became celestial.

Will I ever be enough?
Or is it that I’m too much?
Either way, I’m always something,
Something that makes me
Unworthy of love
Or of loyalty
Or of sticking around.

Will I ever be accepted?
Or is it that I’m unacceptable?
I’ve got flaws,
But don’t we all?
Are my flaws all you see?
Is that the entirety of what makes me
Me?
Is that all I’m meant to be?

I never trust people
Because every time I flirt
With the idea,
I’m left here,
Asking myself again,
Am I too much and also
Somehow never enough?

People always leave,
And even when they stay,
They put conditions on the way
I’m supposed to be
In order to be worthy of that.

Does anyone see me?
Am I outwardly projecting,
Externally expressing
Who I am inside?
Can anyone hear me?
Am I talking to myself?
Is anyone listening?

Does anyone love me?
Can anyone love me
When I don’t even love myself?

And why don’t I?
If we’re all flawed,
Why are my flaws the only
Thing I see?
Why can’t I accept the totality
Of what it means to be me?
Where do I even begin?

My soul feels overwhelmed
With an intangible feeling
Of desperately wanting to love
And to be loved
And to make the world around me
Feel the way I feel.

It’s a love/hate thing that I have
With my interior;
I feel so inferior
Because I can’t control the constant
Stream.of.emotions;
I can’t be logical once my heart is involved.

I feel the 60% water that makes up
The human body;
Constantly drowning in a sea of
Feelings, my tide too strong
And ocean too deep.

I ask myself nearly every day
If there is anyway that I could just
Be someone else,
Just for a minute.
Couldn’t I just be someone who feels less,
Who is accepted more,
Who isn’t so alienated and complicated?
Can’t I just shrink away,
Lose a little bit of it,
Whatever it is?

I don’t know who I even want to be.
I just know,
Being me might be too much,
Even for me.

I can’t get your words out of my head
Syllable by syllable I’ve reread
Them a dozen times,
And now I contemplate why
And how I never knew
You felt how I do.

It’s 5:04 AM, as I lie awake going on hour number two.
I dreamt of you,
As I often do.

I always awake with a jolt,
The tangibility of your simulated self
Jarring,
My senses overstimulated as if we had touched for real.

When I ponder on you, on memories of us
In my conscious mind,
I have a difficult time stringing together
The details of you,
Years apart having left your image
Grainy and unfocused, although effervescent.

Yet when my eyes close,
You make your way clear into focus,
Every detail of your physical and spiritual form so vivid
As if I’m really experiencing you,
As if you’re dreaming of me too,
And we’ve actually escaped to another reality
Where nothing has changed or faded.

Is this where we now reside?
The current version of us is no longer compatible with the software of reality,
Our data kept in the cloud
Where dreams are stored.

It isn’t real in the realness of reality,
But it’s so vivid, more lucid than a lucid dream,
That I can’t shake the feeling that I’m experiencing the real you
In the only form I’m now able to download.

I must’ve known you in a past life
You feel so familiar
Even when I didn’t know that I knew you
I knew
There was something in the way
The warmth radiated from your skin
Caramel macchiato I drank you in
The baritone of your laugh
You were so familiar
Yet we had just met
Your silhouette
Was one I had seen before
But not in this lifetime
Were you mine in another one?
Slipping through my fingers like silk
Always one grasp away
But you’re never gone
The way you remain like the rain
Soaking grass in spring
And I’m thirsty for you
For endless nights talking in darkness
Till light came in again
And never running out of words
But even as we spoke it felt so deja vu
Don’t I already know you?
How do you know me so well?
Like your code is written into my cells,
I feel you on a molecular level
Your soul intertwined in mine
But never fully actualized in this timeline
Years and years come and go
But your “aww” and chuckle never fade,
I hear it like you smiled that way you do
Like it was yesterday
Time a construction that doesn’t function
In the realities in which I know you
I have known you
You’ve been mine and I yours
In lifetimes before
In present, eyes closed I manifest
My me’s and your you’s
Subconscious whispers traveling
Through time and space
Dimensions unknown
But I know
It’s you and you know
It’s me too.