Our first date involved you shoving your tongue down my throat and i don’t know if it’s because you couldn’t get enough of me or you couldn't get rid of the taste of her.

I read your favorite poem today.
It sounded like the first time you read it to me.
The words on the page flew into my mind;
I watched us slow dance together.

We swayed and spun from line to line,
And as I reached the end, I saw your face.
I looked into your eyes and realized
I miss you more than I thought.

It’s a different feeling nowadays
Than when I stood still and watched you drive away,
But that empty feeling still taps me on the shoulder
As I read the first line again.

It isn't fair
You've gone and done it again
Made me love you
With reckless abandon
No thought of consequences or heartache
Just like last time

Did you know you were pulling me back in
Just when I thought I'd gotten out, gotten away
Were you aware
That with every text, every laugh, every touch
I was falling deeper in love with you
Until every poem I wrote was about you

Last time you weren't ready for this, for us, for a relationship
I waited as long as I could, but I couldn't wait forever
This time I made the same mistake,
Thinking you might finally be ready

And you might have been
Except that soon you'll be
Thousands
Of miles
Away

And I'll be here
Waiting
And hoping
And praying
That one day you might love me enough to come home

i’m typing this
as i’m waiting for you to get back
from the bathroom.
in the starbucks
cozy acoustic music is playing
and your mocha frappucino
half empty
is on the table in front of me.
your lips have touched the lid
and i don’t want to be
that person
but i wonder.
i wonder how it feels
does it know that it’s lucky.
can it tell me its secrets
how does it do that?
get you to open up
and let inside the warmth?
i’m not jealous.
just curious.

you should be back any second now.
you might walk out
back to our cliche little table
and ask me
what i’m doing
what i’m typing so furiously
what i’m so passionate about.
i will want to say you.
i love you
right here right now right time right place
i won’t though

maybe i’ll say
“i forgot to finish this paper
that’s due at 11:59 tonight”
or maybe i’ll say
“i just got an urgent email
about my political science class tomorrow”
or maybe i’ll say
“an old elementary school friend
just sent me a Facebook message
and i need to reply”

or.
or maybe i’ll say
“nothing.
nothing more important than our coffee.”
maybe i’ll just close my laptop
mid-sentence
because it’s true.

nothing is more importa

I want something that I cannot have. I cannot have it because I don't truly know what it is. I've seen it polished and propped as if it were on display and I've heard the stories of how much time and effort it took to make it look as such. But I want it. I want love. I want the idea of it at least.
I want the fights brought about by events simpler and less important than the time we wasted to have them. I want to be pained by the sight of her pain and know that the feeling of knives piercing my chest when I see her cry is there because I would literally drive them there myself, if only to prevent her tears.
I want our laughs to intertwine over the smallest things and our conversations to stretch our minds over the biggest. I want to see you sleep at night and I'll smile because I know that you're finally at peace. And I want you to smile when you wake up because you know that I'm fighting to make your reality better than your dreams.
I want love. I want romantic love, I want crazy love. I want passion. I want to pick you up in my arms and in that brief present get lost in your presence. I want to be in you when I am in you and have you wish that I would stay forever. I want to be in your heart and mind, and I want our love to be torturous and blind.
I just want love. I want the idea of it at least.

love is the ups and downs
of natural geography,
the only two feelings
when standing in the shadow of a mountain:  

1. your iris is the northern lights to me;
​
2. my freckles are grains of sand to you.

let's be realistic,
dear.

I guess we were never
in the same place
after all.