Depression wrote me a love letter
His handwriting looks just like Death’s

•

See,
our love is a secret and it is an instant escape.
He can take me anywhere
but I have to be alone first,
I have to be asleep first.
It has to be just us.

He said he loves me and he has to,
he has to protect me from everyone else -everyone but him.
If I want I can be with him forever, but

It’s just for me, somewhere only I can go.

No, the promise land isn’t Heaven
but if I could be rid of this Earthly existence then perhaps even Hell could be paradise.

My path emerges: clean cut
Cut deeper, cut longer, cut -
maybe God can’t hear me
maybe God can see me — see this

•

I don’t want to be in love with Depression
but he seduced me into a belief:
only he and I exist -
So how do I stop loving the only part of me that I can still see?

Tell me you can still see me, God.
Can you see all of me?

Am
      I
       still
              here?

Darling,
the world is on fire.

We are Jack and Rose
and the inevitable destruction of our world,
perhaps this, is our iceberg.

And it’s just like the scene in the movie,
(Oh love, you know the one)
Jack puts Rose on the life boat
because he wants to save her –
Rose leaps back onto a sinking ship
because she cannot be saved without him.

This is not a movie,
but there is a pit in my stomach
and whether I am to fight or fly
I do not know but,
I do know I want to be with you.
You jump, I jump.
You fall, I fall.
We are only safe as one.

Darling,
please
do not leave me in this world alone –

*Look,
it comes this way.

Dear Baby,
at this moment
I am 22 and you
are just an idea –
a twinkle in my eye.
But my dear twinkle,
even just as you are,
you must know this:
there are great things
that make this existence of ours
worth experiencing.
Poetry Beauty Romance
Love
Oh captain, my captain
These are what we stay alive for.

Now let me tell you a story, mi lunita
and may you be born with a mind filled with love
romance
beauty
poetry.

Once upon a time,
I met your papi for the first time
in a dream –
of this I am certain.
I stood in front of my friends and family
in a room of heavenly white.
I remember the curve of papi’s shoulder
in his nicest black suit. I remember
vows being whispered in my ear
and the way the light looked behind my eyelids.

I know this was your papi for two reasons:
1.) He is the only man I have loved
that would think to whisper marriage vows
– creating a secret, just for us.
Our love has always been just for us.
Private.
Sacred.
Why do they have to know everything?

2.). On our first date,
I opened the door
and in a burgundy shirt
red carnations in hand,
was your papi.
His lips were shaped like the Amen
to my whole life’s prayer
and I couldn’t stop myself from
embracing him.

So often, baby
your body remembers
what your soul has seen
but your mind has long forgotten.

Listen, my love
Find the quiet.
Feel your soul settled into you.
There is so much to remember.

Mi lunita,
*I remember you.

I kneel at your cathedral doors,
my kingdom of milk and honey.
This love is sweet - should I consume it
I will take a spoonful,
a mouthful and oh my,
it will be divine.

My darling, I curl around you when sleeping;
I crave not just you
but the entirety of the space in which you exist.

Kiss my lips, don’t you taste it?
Sugar.
Syrup.
Caramel.
*Sweet.

When I was 16
I thought love was a miracle.
Stars aligning and a lightning strike.
I just had to wait,
be in the right place -
a classroom, a gym class, a Target -
and my hair and my body and my acne and  and my teeth and my body and my body and my body,
wouldn't matter.
I would know what it felt like
to be happy.

When I was 18
I thought love was a cure.
I developed an aching.
A gnawing emptiness;
and I couldn't tell where I began anymore.
Like a moss on a rock,
sadness made my body a home and
my tears kept it growing.
Growing,
Growing-
gone.
I was tragedy
and love, of course Love,
would save me.

When I was 20
I thought love was a game.
I fell in love with a someone
who never wanted to love me.
The pain was...
excruciating -
and I had never felt more alive.
It was the thrill of strategy, you see.
Get a little skinnier,
buy a better bra,
send drunk texts that you
can blame on blacking out,
flirt with other men,
touch other men,
kiss other men,
lay with other men.
Lose yourself in other men.
Lose the game.
I learned that love was never meant
for playing.

When I met you
I thought love was fear.
Loving you was
like holding a butterfly
too tight - killing it
when you were only
trying to keep it safe.
You, you, you,
beautiful and honest and fierce,
you loved me like answering a prayer.
I loved you like a nightmare.
The fear was suffocating.
and we had to die
before I could wake.
Honey,
I am awake now.

Today I love you
and this love is
river water flowing,
even breathing.
Steady.
Love is trust.
(Don't mind my shaking hands, darling.
I'm not scared, this is just a reflex.)
You are the definition of risk and reward and I do love you so.
I love you determined, I love you brave, I love you happily.
You are the calm and the reality and the quiet observer andthe  hand to hold.
I am the hurricane and the optimist and the hand-shaker and the declaration of love.
We are not the same but
I am 22 and,
I think
I believe
I know,
we are love.

I miss you.

Another year
has passed me by
and you
are nowhere to be found.

I want to believe you
are out there.
Map and compass in hand,
on a ship,
stranded on an island,
wandering a city
on the other side of the country,
trying to find your way
back to me.

Because we've done this before.
In a hundred different lives,
we've found each other,
we've fallen in love,
and we've promised forever.
So someday,
you will find me
and it will feel like
remembering.

You'll know
you've never met
me but you'll be
certain you have
loved me.
I promise you that.

And if in this life
we do not meet,
please know,
I will spend
all of my days
missing you.

Something in your voice
makes me want to stay.
You feel like a first kiss,
and I don't know
if I will ever be able to
reach for you without
my hands shaking.