Still looking
For something beautiful in life
To make my heart sing
Like you did

i don't get so sad anymore, you know.
and sometimes i wish i could go back and do things better,
do things right,
but something in me knows it was supposed to end when it did.

you've changed, anyway.

i don't want to say that you're not the person i once knew,
because i'm sure that deep down, somewhere in there, you are,
but i'm a tired person,
and i lack the energy required
to dig down so deep through skin and bone
trying to find the worn out shards of a memory;
the last pieces of the first person to make me feel so terribly alive.

//

i hope you're happy.
i have always hoped that you would be happy.

but i don't get so sad anymore,
and i don't want to linger on the past.

(still i write poems about you, simply for the sake of writing).

//

every now and again,
i'll think about you,
you and everything and everyone else who shaped me.

and it's hard to believe it's been two years.

and it's hard to believe that i have grown,
but i have,
and the truth is that i don't need you anymore.

//

i don't get so sad anymore, you know.
things have gotten better.
you're gone and you don't care and i sometimes wonder if you ever did, but i'm telling you anyway that things have gotten better because i want to prove to myself that it was right to let you go,
that i needed to let you go to finally be free.

you made me feel alive in a way that tugged at my heart with a surprising aggression,
but i deserve better than that.

(a.m.)

for a moment i couldn’t remember your last name.
for a moment it started with a different letter,
was spoken in a different tongue.
for a moment i had forgotten it — that is, if i ever knew it at all.

you used to be so clear to me.
you were, at a time, tangible —
so much more than a memory.
i loved you then and i could say that i love you now but
you cannot love a memory.
not in the same way, no.
you cannot talk to a memory,
nor laugh with a memory,
nor live with a memory.

and so i keep you
frozen in time,
a fragment of the past.

like ashes in an urn i put you on the shelf,
never to be disturbed,
only to be put on display.
i thought you’d be safe there.
i thought that the ashes in an urn don’t disappear because
what more can ash crumble down to?

but today,
for just a moment,
i couldn’t remember your last name.
today,
for just a moment,
you slipped away.

and now i wonder if i ever had you at all.

(a.m.)

i.
hearing your name still fills me with a certain intoxicating sweetness.

ii.
i hate you. god, i hate you so much. but i love you. please come back.

iii.
i'm sorry that it had to end up like this. i don't think you care, though.

iv.
it's okay if you've lost your innocence. i've lost mine, too. life will do that to people.

v.
i was often happiest when you said my name like maybe i meant something to you.

vi.
i am stuck between wanting to forget you and wanting to crawl back to you.

vii.
most of my poems are still about you, even now.

viii.
i hope you're doing okay.

ix.
please don't forget me.

x.**
thank you.

Suddenly you transformed
Into a broken mirror.
All of the ugly, fragmented shards
Of my soul
Staring right back at me.

six years and counting
my words forever inside a screen
and it means a lot when someone reads my past
a person I used to know
I've changed, I'm not the same
even so
my heart sparkles when I see her
I'll try and meet her someday, somewhere
just to say- you did well

You became
A distant memory,
Nothing left of you
But a story for the moon