It’s been thirteen months and I’ve forgotten your scent. I don’t remember the way it feels for your fingertips to brush against my bare skin. I can’t recall the spark that would reignite every time our lips came in contact. I can’t remember the way your tongue would taste in the early hours of the day. I don’t even remember what your voice sounded like whispering through the phone at 5am. But it’s been thirteen months, and I won’t dare forget the way it felt to watch you walk out of my life just as quickly and unexpectedly as you walked into it.

We were the mystery
We were the shaking of heads
We were the whispers in the bathroom at 11 am

We were the smoke in the hallways

We were the leaves catching on air currents
like "I don't care how or why but I'm going somewhere"

We were balled up bills in the crook of
someone's sweaty Xanax palm

We were the lamps at night burning
We were the lasers on the ceiling
We were the lines of chemicals waiting on the counter

We were nothing good
nothing but mud and regrets on our feet

The teachers shook their heads
wondered to themselves how we ever got to sleep

I'm sorry I took so long to get this stuff back to you.
I don't want to come back into your life now.
You seem happier than when I knew you.
I think my cons always outweighed my pros.
I'm sorry if I hurt you.
I tried so hard not to, I swear.
Things just fall apart.
This isn't meant to be sad.
**** it.
Alright, positive stuff.
I hope you're okay.
I hope you know things will always be okay.
I'm sorry we don't talk anymore.
I think we're both getting better without each other.
I think you're getting better.
It's hard to tell.
Please get better.
Godspeed.

You called me selfish.
For a long time I felt guilty,
until I turned you from a victim
into a villain.

As the anger has faded
from the lights of an ambulance
into the dull, neon red glow of an
emergency exit sign,
I have begun to realize that

you saw me as the bad guy, too.
You probably still do,
and maybe I am selfish,
and maybe I want to apologize,

but what if they're all right
and you were just trying to
get me to say sorry?
What if you're just dying to
see me come crawling back to you?
I don't want you to think
I need you,
because I don't,

but I'm not selfish,
and I don't want you to think so.

When it has been five days since
anyone told you they loved you
and no one has held your
hand in four months
and you cannot remember the
last time you felt wanted,
remember this.

People aren't meant to say I love you.
Those three words mean
so many things but somehow
they mean nothing and eight
letters thrown together into
a combination of
lines and spaces is not an
accurate representation of feelings.

They say I love you
in the way they smile when
you laugh at their jokes and they
say it in the way they shake their head
when you make a bad pun and
they say it with every
text message in all-caps at
two twenty-four in the morning
because something incredible
just happened and they had to let you know
and they say it with every
hug and high-five and punch in the arm
and with the way your name
bounces off their tongue
like a child making poor judgement calls
on a trampoline and

they will not tell you happy birthday this year
and they will take four hours to
text you back because
they got distracted and they
will call you an *******
(because you are one, sometimes)
and eat all your lunch
without saying please or thank you
and they will
forget to tell you they love you
when they say good night,

because people are not meant to say *I love you.

It’s 6:08 AM
and 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
My window sweats on the inside and
a truck motor runs on the street for ten minutes
working to defrost its inner cargo.
The frosty hills are still dark as hell.
Somewhere hours away you’re waking up
choking for coffee and running off
moved by the efficient early metro buses,
the graying slush,
and the misty chandelier of streetlamps.
Maybe next winter you’ll be here
to coax me to put down the books
before the too-long awaited dawn.

Until then,
Good morning.
Goodnight.