I remembered how to handle your moods
When you didn’t remember my middle name

the crescent brown that rests in his blue eyes,
holds a special kind of light;
This knowledge he holds,
from the struggles he has overcome,
he sees all the darkness the light has to offer,
The possibility that love can cut you open,
yet sees the good every time
those blue eyes have a darkness, specks,
you can hardly notice
only if you are able to look close enough;
The brown around your iris,
I will always admire,
Always and forever proud to call you mine

I tried to figure out your poems for so long
I was becoming one;
Line by line
I absorbed the ink,
Dissolved into the paper,
Tumbled into random commas.  
Only to emerge when it was complete

What was complete?
                                    
                           ­        “Exactly.”

Wrong place, wrong time,
It didn’t matter what he meant
These words were written in stone,
Before they ever were said.

It was easy for you to say I love you
Almost as easy as it was for you to leave
Maybe I should of tried harder
Or maybe played hard to get
I always played sad music just to cry a little
When the words you said hurt
Because you had numbed me to the point where pain somehow felt good
It’s always been easy for them to leave me
Walking away like they never needed me
I thought you understood
Maybe I’m the toxic one,
Or just the one that got away
All I know is maybe I need to be the one to leave
Instead of wishing they had stayed

I’m so used to being burned
Your cold shoulder made me feel loved.

It comes in waves,
        deeper than the ocean goes.
                           •••

the same we all are,
underneath the shallow surface
this knife will ****,
anything with a purpose.

Clouded vision by these things that haunt me,
Still waking up from yesterday’s fog
While stressing over tomorrows possibilities.

I realized I had grown up
When I looked around for familiar faces
And I had found none.

cry alone,
for no one understands the tears that make their flowers grow

I wrote every last word that had settled onto my mind,
listened to every podcast with the word “depression” in its title,
“These thoughts cannot haunt me”
I whispered dauntingly into my pillow.

through the pain I had self inflicted,
to the trauma I have always written
at the end of the day,
the only person left standing was in the mirror

Like double exposure film,
I flipped through these photos of my life
Mirrored images of the same person
Minutes apart
in three years time

Begging the tears to wash away the shame
the grappling of his touch has always seemed to bring
This picture book is full of unspeakable words
one I can never really to tell
Currently wrecking this connection I have desperately tried to build

Meanwhile when it’s dark and alone I lay
The features of his face play puppet shadow games
And ironically enough, while the darkness makes me weary, because that’s when he’s always with me
I just wish he had turned off the lights

it doesn’t hurt that you left,
It hurts that you did it in the name of love