The first sip of wine,
The first and last
Sentence
Of a book.

The ending and beginning note of a song.
Last words,
First words,
Gravestones and last meals,
Vows meant to last forever,
And whatever song
Is running through your mind
At two AM.

And your smile,
When you feel listened to.

When I drive,
And you get excited
About what you see out side,
Because you can let your mind wander.

When you put your fingers
Inside
The rips
In my predistressed jeans.

When you show me
A movie,
And watch me
With hopeful anticipation,
To see if I like it.

When you get all dressed up
In your favorite
Hawaiian shirt
Or flannel.
And that spring in your step
When you wear your black converse.

When you start falling asleep,
And your body twitches.
Then when you bury your face into my shoulder.

Hell,
You’re so cute,
I feel it in my gut.
It’s been a little while,
And you’re so precious to me.

I read pages and pages
Of my life from years ago,
And the realization
That was so alone
Was so loud.

Two years later,
Some things have changed...
But tonight,
Hell...
Tonight I shouldn’t have been alone,
But I am again.

The sky is a beautiful blue
Above this field of dandelions
Gone to seed.
I laid down in them,
And the soft puffy seeds flew around me,
I breathed them in
And they filled my lungs.
Now I can’t breathe
I’m suffocating,
And it’s so beautiful.

I built the dam holding back my crazy
With the only thing I could find at the time.
There’s a wall of twigs holding back the storming ocean inside me,
And they’re snapping in two.

***, when I wanted to wait.
SNAP.

“How can you eat that?”
SNAP.

“I cut you off because you don’t always have the best views, and I didn’t want you giving him the wrong idea...”
SNAP.

“Well the problem is black people...”
SNAP. SNAP. SNAP.

“It’ll be good for us to be apart more.”
SNAP.

“That’s you, shouting at the world because no one is listening.”
SNAP.

“I don’t know how you two are supposed to have kids when neither of you can accomplish more than one thing in a day.”
SNAP.

“I rearranged your bathroom counter.”
SNAP.

“Well I don’t want you to think this is okay when we’re married someday...”
SNAP.

I’m barely holding on.

I’ve become too used to you.
You can’t be my life,
You’re only a person.

My life is my own,
It’s not made of your love.

I must somehow face being alone
And be okay with it.
I have to embrace the nights that you aren’t here.

I have to remember
That when I cry on the bathroom floor
Until I make myself sick
No
One
Is coming.
No
One
Can
Hear
Me.

You told me once,
It was in the middle of winter
And we were driving home
In the truck that belonged to your grandfather
He had just died...
You told me that I was your resting place.
I told you that you are mine.

I don’t know exactly what I’ve become lately,
But it isn’t a resting place any longer.
I take up too much space.

I’ve been terrified of that
since I was a child.
Never having enough space to take up,
Being too much,
Or too little...
I can’t really find an in between.

You can’t be my life,
It isn’t fair.
I have to learn how to be alone again.
How to love my time by myself so much
I don’t want to leave again.

But I tasted what it was to not be lonely.
And I crave it.

That dark thought is always
In my head.
Like an air bag ready to go off,
A “just in case.”

It’s the words that function
As padding in a cell
I’ve trapped myself in.

“If it gets too hard, I don’t have to be here.”