i could plan a vacation in the crook of your neck. in the curve of your hand. in the softness of your lips. i’d never need to rent out a home again. never have to sit still in a car. i’d move when you’d move. i’d inhale at your exhale. bury my heart in yours. you’d become a book to me... another way to travel without leaving.

your name is a trigger
for being wanted,
but not loved all the way through.
for being mirror that only reflects the good in you when you feel bad, sad or lonely.
your face triggers seeing myself walking on eggshells
and keeping one foot out the door in love.
your hands are a trigger for being held not tight enough and not nearly long enough.
your existence is a trigger of unrequited love that won’t stop
or fall apart like it should.

it’s taken me a very long time to realize
you were never what I wanted,
but you looked like it.
you smelled like home,
you felt like peace.
I kept mistaking you for calm
when you were just an empty room when I entered.
...and if this is what love is,
I want no parts of it.
I take away my own joy too much
to allow you to leave me wanting
and waiting too.
I’m so tired of not lying next to love at night and I don’t want to fight for love alone anymore.

today love looks like
closing out a chapter
and starting brand new.
love looks like dancing into happy
and taking the necessary
deep breaths to get there,
like leaving you beautiful,
but knowing there is more than that
waiting for me.
knowing that I am more than that and I am waiting for me.
love today looks like legs for days
gracing this earth.
vocals for miles hitting all the wrong notes in the worst beautiful way.
but nothing is more freeing than dancing in t-shirt and *******
singing songs with words both made for feeling high and simply feeling.
i’m singing through this chapter and i won’t come back to wait for you.

love today looks like morning.
the sun rises and so do i.
rising to breathe
and let go,
let go enough to give back to her,
let go enough to give back him.
making peace with being enough
for me in this present moment,
but not being what you wanted.
i am not what you want
and that is okay.
i wish you'd hold onto that
instead of repeatedly dropping
my heart or letting it come apart in your hands.

today love looks like falling water
like honey too hot to touch or hold anywhere
like snow too minor to sheet white on the ground
like ice cream too big on a sweaty summer day
like wounds continuously splitting open just before the healing
like me continuously splitting open just before the healing

today love looks like
a full body scrub.
lips
and face included.
all traces of anything not alive being removed.
all traces of anything not meant to be here gone.
feeling softer,
more free,
but no closer to ridding this body of you.
these lips
of you,
these legs
of you.
I’d clean this heart of you
if there were something made for messes there.