I am not in love with you anymore.
It took me four years to not be in love with you anymore.
But it's been five years since you left me,
A year and a half since you last messaged me,
Three years since I last saw you,
And I still love you.

These small towns remind me of you.
Of how I dreamed of living in one with you.
Of how I met your friends, like I now have met my current boy friend's.
Of how you wished I'd have stayed with you,
How did you not know you were the only one I would stay in one place for?
I miss you.
Team Eternity, Gerry.
I will love you forevermore.

July. Evening sun beating down across my shoulders, clawing hot talons into my back. I listen to the waves, gently lolling against the beach as if asleep.
Rolling back and forth, breath. In. Out. I wonder what the ocean dreams about. Does it also wish to escape? Does it also dream of those who once swam within its waters?

Maybe water is the only thing to really know my secret.
What it's like to always be flowing, unable to hold onto one shape
(Or one person, without drowning them).

There isn't a cloud in the sky. It's almost... pale yellow, I think. Across the horizon. Pale like fresh-squeezed lemon juice, bleeding out into the sea.
There isn't a soul on this beach. Not unless you count the *****, bruised-peach shells skittering across the rocks,
And I have no place to be.

Please. Leave the light on.
I didn't mean to be gone so long.
I didn't even know what it meant to leave a light on,
Until I saw the porch light through the fog and trees.
So please.
One more time, for me,
Leave it on, to guide me back to where I need to be.

Wish I could tell you I remember more than that bouncy house, our last fourth of July. Wish I could tell you more than just goodbye.
Wish I could even tell you goodbye.... Wish I could call you,
Tell you... what my life is about, now.
Tell you what I wish, how....
Nine years. Nine years, now.
Funny what you remember year-to-year, funny what you miss.
Funny how I can still wish this,
That you'd come out to the park with me, and we'd put off fireworks,
See, then I'd feel more clarity, like my head isn't below water,
Like we will always be
father and daughter.

Bathwater turns cold,
On a scorched July eve
I'm dreaming of another night,
Wading into the sea
Of planting daffodils and pulling weeds,
And wondering if you ever missed me

Tears splatter, fall, splash up from,
Contact on, concrete, a little pale square on a street,
Littered with them, squares of pink stars, petrichor
From all the tears, candle-lit, cameras stopped rolling-
About an hour ago. Before the roses, before the ipod left
To play the songs writ by the dead, mind stalled, music dead
As dead as the artist mirror-touching that star, as if
They can touch and sense the memories we left
As if the camera crews had any idea of the intent-
Of the connection with him, what we left there
On a cold street in Hollywood.

I do not want to talk to him.
I do not want to talk to anyone who's abandoned me,
Ever again.