You kissed me
and I caught a virus
called lust.
You ran through my
Fever aching head
causing a seizure
I awoke and you were dead.

I coughed up dust
and your power disappeared,
I panicked, I feared.
It was over, I knew.
I sneezed
and out
blew you.

The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that love is inescapable.

Love will find you. Find you naked, shaking in your darkest caverns clinging to heartbreak and faded polaroids with trembling hands. Find you locked up in towers fortified with fear. Find you upside-down. Find you alone once again walking the streets at one in the morning praying for street lights to fade behind you. Find you standing before tombstones or ice cream trucks or a preacher man. Find you hiding from your mother or God or both. Love will find you.

Love will take you. Take you to the place you parked your car that night and noticed for the first time the way their skin in the moonlight had the unspoken power to shatter your own. Take you through the annals and ventricles of your heart and peel away at the scars like super-glued band-aids. Take you to the hills and home again. Love will take you.

Love will bind you. Bind you to your family like the pages in the cookbook your mother used to prepare your favorite meal. Bind you to the girl who makes you shake when she's cold or the boy with eyes warm and clear blue like hot springs. Bind you to yourself. Love will bind you.

Love will break you. Break you down to jigsaw puzzle pieces your grandparents attempt on Friday nights, hands shaking with arthritis, and leave you incomplete. Break you away from your callused convictions and shove a blunt fist into your softest spots and leave you covered in scratches. Break you the way earthquakes break buildings or alcohol breaks families and bones; unforgivably, irreparably. Love will break you.

Love, desperate and strong, simple and tenacious, fiery and fierce.
Love will find you, take you, bind you, and break you.

And you will not escape.

she's tired
I saw here cry today
she cried on the phone over nothing

she's exhausted
her skin is pale
her face is gaunt

she's wilting
the makeup dripped down her face
tears pulling the fragments of black goop mascara down her face

your eyes used to remind me of how the sun bounces off of the lake when it was just about to set and it seemed like a kaleidoscope of blues was everywhere around me, engulfing me and making me feel calm, even in my darkest hour. your voice used to remind me of how when I look up at the night sky I can see a pattern in the stars that no one else around me could see so they said I was special and that I'll achieve things that nobody else could.
but now it's 4 am and I can't sleep because I can't erase the memory from my mind of your beautiful blue eyes turning into the color of your soul and your voice echoing that you lied about everything you've ever said especially the part of being in love with me.

I should've kissed you longer.
Then maybe you would've stayed.
Every time I'm next to you, my heart breaks all over again.

I should've kissed you longer.
But I didn't know it was our last.
Every time I see you talking about her, I physically feel the hurt on the inside.

I should've kissed you longer.
And maybe you'd still be mine.
Every time I think of you, I can't help but miss you more and more.

Come back to me.
I love you.

i.
hearing your name still fills me with a certain intoxicating sweetness.

ii.
i hate you. god, i hate you so much. but i love you. please come back.

iii.
i'm sorry that it had to end up like this. i don't think you care, though.

iv.
it's okay if you've lost your innocence. i've lost mine, too. life will do that to people.

v.
i was often happiest when you said my name like maybe i meant something to you.

vi.
i am stuck between wanting to forget you and wanting to crawl back to you.

vii.
most of my poems are still about you, even now.

viii.
i hope you're doing okay.

ix.
please don't forget me.

x.**
thank you.